The Red Sox have had a sad start to the offseason, even by the standards of baseball’s recent payroll doomsaying. While some teams have intimated that they won’t increase payroll, the Sox have gone further; owner John Henry announced that they plan on dropping below the luxury tax threshold for 2020, setting the tone for a strange winter where cutting salary might matter more than the eventual product on the field.

Viewed through that lens, it’s somehow a bad development when one of the best hitters in baseball chooses to stay on your team. J.D. Martinez was the 16th-best qualified hitter by wRC+ last year, and that was a down year. He elected not to opt out of his current contract, and is slated to make $23.75 million next season — a steal if he hits his Steamer projection, and a useful piece for a team with no other DH options. And yet, when you set artificial salary constraints on yourself, things tend to snowball.

With Martinez in the fold, things took an even weirder turn. The offseason rumor mill seems increasingly convinced that the Sox will offload Mookie Betts to save the last year of his salary and avoid an appropriately costly extension, reaping some prospects in return and cutting payroll in the bargain. I’ll attempt to quantify what this might do to the team, but let me say upfront: this seems like an obviously bad choice to me. Dan Shaughnessy hit pieces aside, Betts is probably the best non-Trout player in baseball. You don’t trade someone like that and take a step forward.

But okay, fine, let’s go through the math of trading Betts. We’ll do the grim calculus of turning player contracts into cash amounts first: if you value a win on the free market at $8 million, Betts’ 6.6 WAR projection is worth $52.8 million. If Betts earns his projected arbitration salary of $27.7 million, that works out to $25 million in surplus value. That sounds reductive, and it is. Mookie Betts isn’t an asset worth $25 million to the Red Sox; he’s one of the best players in baseball, and also a great bowler in his spare time. But if we’re doing the math, that’s the starting point. Read the rest of this entry »

Voting for baseball’s various awards is a small part of BBWAA membership, but it’s an undeniably cool part of it, one of the things you dream of doing when you’re a kid. As a member of one of the BBWAA’s smallest city-chapters, I’ve been fortunate to be asked to vote in most of the years I’ve been in the BBWAA, and it’s a responsibility I take quite seriously. I loved baseball for decades before I was employed in the game’s orbit, so it’s important to me to get my microscopic contribution to its history right.

This year, my vote was for the National League Rookie of the Year award. While you only submit three names on your official ballot and I was reasonably sure of who those names would be, my rough draft contained 10 players. I make ballots that are longer than necessary for the express purpose of making sure I’m exercising proper due diligence. Going into my ballot for the 2017 National League Cy Young award, I did not expect Gio Gonzalez to rank fifth (he was eighth in WAR in the NL), but I felt — and still do — that it should be more than a FIP ranking. There’s a philosophical quandary when it comes to BABIP-type measures, after all, and it’s hard to entirely chuck out success that actually occurred simply because that success isn’t necessarily predictive.

Here’s my final 10-player ballot for National League Rookie of the Year. (Naturally, I only submitted three names, as that’s all the form has space for, and because I didn’t want to leave the BBWAA’s secretary-treasurer, Jack O’Connell, questioning my functional literacy.)

10. Kevin Newman (.308/.353/.446, 110 wRC+, 2.4 WAR)

Several other players could have taken the final spot on my imaginary ballot. Some readers will probably object to me leaving off Sandy Alcantara and his 2.4 WAR, but his worse xFIP (5.17) than FIP (4.55) meshes with something that ZiPS saw in Alcantara’s 2019. The system is exceptionally skeptical of Alcantara’s low HR/9, and while I don’t dismiss performance that isn’t predictive outright, there were a lot of excellent back-ballot candidates, and it was enough for him to miss the ballot. You can even shave another couple of runs off from his -0.2 WAR as a hitter.

Merrill Kelly lost -0.6 WAR as a hitter, enough to demote the reliable-if-unexciting innings-eater. Dakota Hudson‘s FIP-ERA difference was simply too large for me to overlook. Adrian Houser got too much of his value from low-leverage situations. Christian Walker’s numbers weren’t thrilling for a first baseman. Some of these objections are quibbles, but this was a very close decision. In the end, I went with Kevin Newman, who hit as well as Walker did while playing three infield positions. Given how volatile defensive numbers are, I didn’t want to be overly reliant on one year’s worth of data at short, which is what I’d have ended up doing in a straight WAR ranking.

9. Mike Yastrzemski (.272/.334/.518, 121 wRC+, 2.2 WAR)

Of the players on the ballot, Li’l Yaz is the one of whose future performance I’m most skeptical. Teams have been wrong about minor league veterans many times in the past, but I’m still not sure they were completely wrong about Yastrzemski. A .251/.342/.442 career line in Triple-A doesn’t scream starting major league corner outfielder, but I can’t deny that his performance actually happened. He also put up his 2.2 WAR in relatively few plate appearances. And it’s worth noting that ZiPS has always liked his defense in the corners, and there’s a real chance that his true ability may be closer to his DRS (+8) than his UZR (+0.8), adding a few runs of value. Read the rest of this entry »

“Unhappiness lies in that gap between our talents and our expectations.” – Sebastian Horsley

If you had any questions about where in their rebuilding cycle the Phillies saw themselves as being, the signing of Bryce Harper and the trade for J.T. Realmuto should have been big clues. Philadelphia planned to build on 2018, a surprisingly competitive season that ended in an even more surprising total collapse and residual, Fortnite-related stress. Instead, the Phils ended up winning just one more game than last year, a failure that ended manager Gabe Kapler’s brief reign.

The Setup

The Phillies had every reason to look forward to the offseason after 2018. The year may have ended on a sour note due to a late collapse, but there were plenty of optimism. Unlike the team’s luck-infused 71-91 record in 2016, its surge to an 80-82 record had some real force behind it. With the exception of Carlos Santana, the entire starting lineup was still in their 20s, Aaron Nola had stepped into Cy Young contender territory, and the team’s young bullpen arms were beginning to work out.

And most importantly, the Phillies had “stupid money.” These aren’t even my snarky words, but a direct quote from ownership. In an offseason when most teams were looking to refinance their mortgages, the Phillies planned to build a fancy new casino. No free agent was out of reach, and while it took them until nearly March to close the deal, the team landed Harper on a 13-year, $330 million contract.

But the Phillies weren’t aggressive in the market otherwise. Andrew McCutchen was brought in for three years and $50 million, and David Robertson was scooped up for two years to make the front end of the team’s bullpen look a bit scarier. But one thing was missing in free agency: another starting pitcher to join Nola. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s early in the offseason, but the Cubs look to be in pretty good shape for next year. Our Depth Charts currently have the team set to produce 41 WAR next season, which translates to around 85-90 wins. Even better for the Cubs, they are about six wins ahead of last year’s division-winning Cardinals and seven wins ahead of the Wild Card-winning Brewers. On paper, the Cubs have the best team in the division. That’s a pretty good spot to be in; the problem comes in trying to improve and win with the greatest core of players the franchise has produced in decades.

Over at The Athletic, Shahadev Sharma has a comprehensive look at the Cubs’ plans for the winter. The title gives a little away: “Cubs seem ready to make big moves, but don’t count on them spending big money.” Todd Ricketts’ comments on local radio station 670, The Score provides further insight:

But ultimately, now I think we can stop talking about windows. We should be consistent, and we should be looking toward building a division-winning team every year.

Theo Epstein sort of agrees. From Sharma’s piece:

“Next year is a priority,” Epstein said, before quickly looking ahead. “We have to balance it with the future. That’s probably more important now than it was even a year ago, because we’re now just two years away from a lot of our best players reaching their end of their period of club control with the Cubs. I think the goal is to do everything we can to win the World Series next year, but we also have to pay attention to the long term. Maximize this window while also putting in a lot of good work to open a new one as well.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Any day week month now, Zack Wheeler is going to sign a contract that compensates him like a very good pitcher, and he’ll deserve it. He’s been consistently above average the past two years, the kind of guy you’d love to have as a No. 2 starter and one who can fake it as a No. 1. In short, he’s been what the Mets hoped for when he was a highly regarded prospect, after a brief detour into arm-injury-land.

But I think there’s still more there. Zack Wheeler, as currently constituted, does everything a bit better than average. He strikes out a few more batters than average, walks a few less, and suppresses hard contact just a smidge. That makes for an above-average pitcher, of course. But it doesn’t make for a world-devouring ace, the kind who opposing batters fear and hometown fans assume will never lose.

In 2019, Wheeler struck out 23.6% of the batters he faced, which placed him 45th among pitchers who threw at least 100 innings last year. That’s high enough to be effective, especially considering his excellent walk rate — Zack Greinke, Hyun-Jin Ryu, and José Berríos all posted lower K% and were All-Stars — but it’s a rate with plenty of room for improvement.

It’s also a surprising number in light of Wheeler’s arsenal. His fastball sits around 97 mph, and he’s topped out above 100 mph in each of the past two years. He throws it with more horizontal break than your average four-seamer (it has three more inches of horizontal break and one less of vertical break than Jacob deGrom’s four-seamer), but gets excellent movement nonetheless. Read the rest of this entry »

When J.D. Martinez signed his five-year, $110 million contract with the Boston Red Sox two years ago, it included multiple opt-outs, the first of which came this offseason. Martinez could continue with his current deal, which will pay $62.5 million over the next three seasons, or take a $2.5 million buyout and become a free agent, likely with a qualifying offer attached. Martinez has elected to stay with the Red Sox under his current contract, as first reported by Jeff Passan and Jon Heyman.

Martinez has certainly lived up to his end of the bargain in its first two years. In 2018, he put up a six-win season thanks to 43 homers and a 170 wRC+ as the Red Sox won the World Series. While Martinez didn’t come close to matching those numbers in 2019, a 139 wRC+ and 3.2 WAR still made him one of the better hitters in the game. As he heads toward his age-32 season, Martinez seems to have found the comfort of a $62.5 million guarantee more inviting than what might have awaited him on the open market. The move is a bit surprising, but with the Red Sox unlikely to pursue him should he have opted out and the Yankees perhaps out of the mix with their focus on pitching, the number of suitors in the American League in need of a designated hitter, even one as good as Martinez, might not have been as great as needed to significantly improve his current contract.

Of next year’s potential contenders, consider that the Astros, Indians, Twins, A’s, and Angels already have designated hitters pretty much locked in. Which teams remain that might have made big bids on Martinez? The Rangers or the White Sox perhaps, though the former would have had to cut bait with Shin-Soo Choo while the latter’s decision to extend Jose Abreu a qualifying offer probably would have made Martinez a less good fit. The Royals and Tigers, as well as the non-Yankees and Red Sox teams in the AL East, are either ultra-frugal (the Rays) or unlikely to be competitive next season (the Orioles and Blue Jays). The Mariners didn’t seem like a great fit for the same reason as that AL East duo, and the National League was likely off limits given Martinez’s defensive issues. The risk of the market drying up was reasonably high, and with another opt-out after next season, a good 2020 would position Martinez to only have to beat two years and just under $40 million.

In our Top 50 Free Agents list, where Martinez ranked fifth assuming that he would opt out, Kiley McDaniel predicted the DH would garner three years and $77 million as a free agent, while the crowd predicted about $10 million more. Those are reasonable forecasts, but the upside seems to have ended up being worth less than the potential downside. This what Kiley had to say:

I prefer Grandal as a player since he’s younger and has a much greater margin for error, but am projecting Martinez for a bit more money since he would be opting out of three years and $62.5 million to hit free agency. With another opt out after 2020, he could also effectively opt in for a one year and $23.75 million before hitting the market again. He’ll only opt out if he had very good reason to believe that there was at least $70 million out there for him.

The decision shows Martinez’s confidence level. Meanwhile, Jay Jaffe, in his free agent blurb for Martinez, raised concerns about his level of play:

Not only did he not hit the ball quite as hard in 2019 — his exit velocity dipped from 93.0 to 91.3, while his xwOBA dropped from .421 to .401 — he did far less damage against four-seam fastballs 95 mph or higher; over the past three seasons, his xwOBA against such pitches has dropped from .505 to .473 to .351, while his xwOBA against all four-seamers has fallen from .535 to .476 to .419. Between the suggestion that his bat is slowing down as he moves into his mid-30s and his defensive liabilities (-15.1 UZR and -17 DRS over the past three seasons), he could find the market less hospitable than his last time around.

While rumors swirl about the future of Mookie Betts, Alex Speier notes that the Red Sox could try to see what the market holds for Martinez.

While Martinez is a good bet to over-perform the value of his contract, the downward trend noted by Jay, plus the potential dearth of suitors as noted above, could make finding a trading partner difficult. If the Red Sox are only interested in dumping the salary, they shouldn’t have to try too hard to find a taker, but if they are looking to add talent in the deal as well, it could prove difficult. (Why the Red Sox feel the need to cut salary and move talent when they have a contending team in a tough division is a reasonable question.)

With Martinez back in the fold, the Red Sox have a luxury tax payroll of roughly $236 million. Taxes will add another $15 million to Boston’s spend if they make no moves. Trading Martinez would save his $23 million salary, plus another $12 million in taxes. Meanwhile, trimming three wins from the roster without an increase elsewhere will reduce Boston’s chances of making the playoffs. The club will have to decide where its priorities lie.

J.D. Martinez is a good hitter who earned his $110 million contract and all the provisions that came with it. He’s elected not to exercise his opt-out this winter and, at least for now, will stay with the Red Sox under the terms of that deal. It’s proved beneficial to both parties, though so some self-imposed budgetary constraints might end up putting Boston in a difficult spot this offseason.

Last year, I wrote a post-length intro for our marathon Top 50 Free Agent list, which Carson Cistulli demanded I spin off into its own piece of scorching hot free agency takes. Like last year, I still have extra buzz that didn’t fit into today’s Top 50 post, and while Meg Rowley is less insistent on brevity than Carson was before her, she made the same request, so here it comes, at the molten lava temperatures that you prefer.

First, some bullet-pointed thoughts on specific teams likely to be active, as well as various player markets:

• There’s some buzz that the White Sox will be active for veteran help, particularly on short-term deals with lower guarantees. After getting under the luxury tax, the Dodgers seem poised to spend, with multiple sources tying them to Rendon, while the two top pitchers on the market (Cole, Strasburg) are SoCal natives. The Yankees had the third-best record and third-best run differential in baseball, but seem a player or two short and weren’t able to stay under the luxury tax to reset the penalties; they seem likely to spend in this area again. Philadelphia seems primed to spend again this offseason to help get past Washington and Atlanta. Speaking of which, Atlanta has a stable of young players to fill in the back of the roster, but needs a couple frontline types from the top 10 of the list to raise their upside. Cincinnati, San Diego, and the Mets all seem to be focused on a playoff run in 2020, which could result in them making moves more aggressively this winter than other teams with similar talent.
• Last year, Dallas Keuchel, Craig Kimbrel, and Mike Moustakas were among the free agents most-squeezed in terms of the deal they eventually got vs. the deal they wanted/deserved. Keuchel and Moustakas are back on the market and I rounded down a bit on their projected deals in the Top 50 since they’re still the same players, but a year older, though Keuchel has now rid himself of a qualifying offer and its accompanying draft pick compensation. Players over 30 who seem unlikely to post 3 WAR or more simply aren’t what most clubs are looking for on a multi-year deal, especially when the most successful clubs seem to be finding two-win players between the couch cushions, or in the second and third tier of their prospect lists.
• Teams want impact, durability, and youth when paying premium prices over a long term, and in this market, only Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rendon clearly possess all three attributes. The two profiles next-closest to that are guys who ended up moving up the board a bit throughout the process: Yasmani Grandal and Marcell Ozuna. They are entering their age-30 and age-29 seasons, respectively, with Grandal offering outstanding performance at a premium position, while Ozuna has youth, tools, and upside along with a pretty solid track record. I’d expect both to get four-year deals, which are increasingly rare below $100 million.

Read the rest of this entry »

Do you think the end of the baseball season results in a nice vacation for front offices? Poppycock! Horsefeathers! Archaic 19th Century Declaration of Shock! Hundreds of players will be able to offer their services on the open market after the post-postseason quiet period ends in a few days. With those free agency entrants comes a significant decision for teams: whether to extend qualifying offers to their departing free agents. And unlike paying your water, electric, or taco bill, it’s an actual choice that has to be made.

For those who don’t have the qualifying offer rules committed to memory, a refresher is in order. If a free agent spent the entire season on one team’s roster and has never before received a qualifying offer, his team can choose to extend to him a qualifying offer in order to receive draft pick compensation should he elect to sign with another team.

If a team makes a free agent a qualifying offer and received revenue sharing, they get a pick after the first round of the draft if the player is guaranteed at least $50 million by his new team. If they did not receive revenue sharing, their comp picks comes after the second round. If the team did not receive revenue sharing and did not exceed the luxury tax, they get a post-round two pick no matter the free agent’s new contract. The increasingly rare number of teams that exceed the soft salary cap luxury tax threshold pick after round four.

The qualifying offer is a one-year deal equivalent to the average of the salary of the top 125 highest-paid players in baseball. For the first time ever, the qualifying offer went down this year as owners realize that not paying for stuff is a lot more fun than paying for stuff, even if it doesn’t always result in winning baseball games.

The decision to make a free agent a qualifying offer has real consequences for players and teams, sometimes disastrous ones. The Cleveland Indians let Michael Brantley walk scot-free after the 2018 season, unwilling to risk “having to” sign a player coming off a 3.5 WAR season to a reasonably priced one-year contract. Brantley was worth 4.2 WAR in 2019; the Indians were patching holes in their outfield the entire season. Cleveland finished three games behind the Wild Card road team, the Tampa Bay Rays, so you can do the math there. Read the rest of this entry »

Gerardo Parra reached base only one time in the World Series, a walk against Josh James in Game 4. It wasn’t a key moment in the series — the Nationals were down 4-0, and while Parra scored, the Nats lost 8-1. When he reached first base, he was downright businesslike:

But businesslike isn’t normally a good description of Parra’s time on the Nationals. He’s widely regarded as a great clubhouse guy, ambushing Stephen Strasburg with hugs and keeping things light over the long grind of a season. He also, you may have heard, uses “Baby Shark” as his walkup music, a song that Nationals fans and players alike have rallied around.

If you’re curious, here’s a handy guide of the hand signals the Nationals make after hits:

Read the rest of this entry »

Just as we all predicted in the run-up to the World Series, relief pitching had a hand in determining the outcome. Though starting pitchers contributed admirably to relief efforts (two-thirds of a scoreless inning for the Astros, six scoreless for the Nationals), real relievers had to take the stage occasionally. And after you strip out those innings by starters, a trend emerges.

The Nationals bullpen was bad. That’s no shock — they were bad all year, and they were facing one of the best hitting teams of all time. Strip out Patrick Corbin’s four innings of lights-out relief, and Joe Ross’ two scoreless innings earlier in the series, and the balance of the bullpen recorded a 5.51 ERA, with as many walks as strikeouts. They allowed four home runs in only 16 and a third innings. Fernando Rodney’s line looks like a work of comedy — two innings, no strikeouts, six walks. It was more or less what every Nationals fan feared going into the series.

But if the Nationals bullpen was bad, the Astros bullpen was a full-fledged disaster. When the Astros needed relief innings, one of the best bullpens of the regular season simply wasn’t up to the task. Over 21 and a third innings, they recorded a 5.91 ERA and a 5.37 FIP. They kept their heads above water on the non-contact front, with 24 strikeouts and only 13 walks, but also gave up four home runs. Eight Houston relievers appeared in the series, and seven of them allowed runs.

But even that grim statistical record undersells things. Houston’s bullpen also allowed three unearned runs, while Washington’s pen allowed none. That leaves the Astros with a 7.17 RA/9 out of the bullpen, a number that almost doesn’t look like a baseball statistic. The Astros bullpen put together a 3.75 ERA in the regular season, and a 4.24 FIP. As recently as the ALCS, they’d looked like a cohesive unit, with a 4.12 ERA and 4.80 FIP — not great, but enough to get by against the fearsome Yankee offense. In the World Series, it all crumbled. Read the rest of this entry »