People in and around baseball used to call international amateur free agency “the Wild West” because in an effort to acquire as much talent as possible, teams bent or broke any number of rules as part of their search for loopholes in the signing rules. MLB has changed its approach in recent years, seemingly tackling issues as soon as they can after those issues arise, rather than trying to anticipate them. Some are actual issues, and some are “issues” — few in baseball thought hard-capping international bonus pools would curb abuses in the market, and instead viewed it as another way of limiting team expenditures.

Right now, the most significant issue in the international market is teams making multi-million dollar verbal agreements with players who often are as young as 14 years old. This has long been a problem; clubs work hard to extract marginal value from every avenue of talent acquisition, and this is especially true when their spending has a hard cap. A young prospect and his trainer will value the security of having a $2 million deal in hand early. Meanwhile, teams trust their scouts and cross their fingers that the player will grow into a $3 million-$5 million talent in the time between when the deal is agreed upon and when the kid actually signs. Read the rest of this entry »

With the 2019 NCAA Baseball season set to begin on Friday, we have updated our draft prospect rankings for this year, as well as the two drafts that follow. Each class can be found via this link to THE BOARD.

So what has changed since we last updated our rankings in the fall? There were more high school showcases throughout the autumn months, and college teams held fall practices and scrimmages, during which it was clear that some players had changed since the end of the previous season. Some January high school tournaments took place in warmer locales, and the junior college season began several weeks ago. We expect all of these rankings to change as the draft approaches, though our focus will be on the 2019 class for obvious reasons. The 2021 class rankings are mostly comprised of unsigned high school players from the 2018 draft, as well as a handful of high school players who have been identified early.

Does the 2019 class have any overarching themes, and how does it compare to other recent drafts?
It’s hard not to note the lack of exciting college pitching, though it’s also worth remembering that at this time last year, soon-to-be No. 1 overall pick Casey Mize was nowhere near the runaway, best-in-class arm he’d eventually become. We expect to have higher opinions of several college arms come June, but the list of guys who we’d bet on rising up our board is also just shorter than usual.

That’s not to say the entire class is bad. It currently appears well-stocked with college hitters (arguably the most widely-desired demographic by major league clubs), particularly college hitters who have a chance to stay up the middle.

Just how good is Adley Rutschman?
Rutschman, the Oregon State catcher, is currently our top prospect for the 2019 draft. At this point in the process, it’s natural for readers to ask if there’s a generational talent in this class, or if this year’s top prospect is better than past top picks. He’s better right now, for us and the scouts we talk to, than 2018 Georgia Tech catcher/Giants second overall pick Joey Bart, who is obviously an easier direct comparison than Mize, despite Mize going first overall last year. We have Rutschman as the only 55 FV player in this draft class; Bart was a 50 FV on our 2018 draft rankings, with the main difference being Rutschman’s superior hit tool. The rest of the tools are about the same. As you’ll see on our overall rankings later this week, Mize is at the lower end of the 55 FV tier, and we’d have Rutschman slightly above him, but sandwiched between the top catching prospect in the minor leagues (the Dodgers’ Keibert Ruiz) and the second one (Bart), which would slot Rutschman in the 21-40 overall range of a top 100, were he eligible.

Also, because the draft order is totally set, we can officially lay to rest the #PlayBadlyForAdley hashtag.

Will we have another Kyler Murray/Jordyn Adams situation?
It may not be as dramatic as the Murray soap opera has turned out to be, but there’s a good chance that we have two two-sport athletes with signability questions. High schoolers Maurice Hampton (No. 19 overall on THE BOARD, and a 4-star LSU WR recruit) and Jerrion Ealy (No. 38 for us, and a 5-star Ole Miss RB commit) are both premium two-sport talents whose signability major league teams will need to properly gauge and feel comfortable with if they’re going to take them, the way the Angels did with Adams last year and Oakland seemingly did not do with Murray.

Ealy’s narrative has already been quite dramatic, as he was once an Ole Miss commit before de-committing to consider other schools, including Alabama and Clemson. It was thought throughout the industry that if Ealy ended up in Clemson or Tuscaloosa, baseball would have no shot at him. He re-committed to Ole Miss last week; both he and Hampton are considered signable in the first round, at least.

What about two-way players?
Two of the names we find most intriguing as two-way possibilities are SoCal high school LHP/1B Spencer Jones and Houston-area MIF/CF/RHP Sanson Faltine III, also known as Trey Faltine. They’re both plus athletes with terrific breaking balls and presently fringy velocity (lots of 88-92), but they’re different hitters. Jones is a power projection bat while Faltine is more compact and speedy.

What about the next two classes?
2020 looks solid, led by two pitchers from the Georgia Bulldogs (right-handers Cole Wilcox and Emerson Hancock), and we’ve already identified about half of the top tier of talent (50 or better FV) that’s standard for a draft class. This class is also pretty balanced, with a solid mix of hitting and pitching, and prep and college talent, though the college talent leans heavily toward players from the SEC, ACC, and this summer’s collegiate Team USA. It seemed unusual this summer that there were so many 2020, and one 2021, prep pitchers getting into the mid-90s, but perhaps 15- and 16-year-olds hitting 95 mph is just normal now. 2021 is obviously leaning toward college talent at the moment, as many of the high school prospects are 15 years old today, so just a handful have emerged as elite talents (Brady House, Luke Leto, Nick Bitsko, Roc Riggio (!), Braylon Bishop, and Blaze Jordan).

Who has risen since the last rankings?
Missouri center fielder Kameron Misner was in the 90 to 100 area for us in the early fall, as he was a known tools type with injury issues who didn’t play over the summer, then started rising with a loud fall. San Jacinto JC (TX) right-hander Jackson Rutledge transferred from Arkansas and was in the mid-90s, touching 97 in the pen for the Razorbacks, but took a step forward at San Jac. He was solidly in the top 100 for us weeks ago until his season debut, when scouts told us it was a Nate Pearson starter kit, into the high-90s once again with two plus breaking balls and some starter traits, cementing his position further. TCU lefty Nick Lodolo finally had the velo bump in the fall we’ve been waiting years for. Florida righty Tyler Dyson started showing first round stuff in the fall as his rollercoaster is headed back up. Elon righty George Kirby is showing two pluses at times with some starter traits, and Campbell righty Seth Johnson is also in that general area, at another smaller North Carolina college.

On the prep side, Jacksonville-area third baseman Tyler Callihan slimmed down in the fall and got a little more athletic while also not looking bad in a short stint as a catcher, so his power bat is now in day one contention. Pennsylvania prep player, and younger brother of Reds center fielder Mike Siani, Sammy Siani also went from a solid follow to a real prospect with a loud showing in Jupiter in October.

How about all these Diamondbacks picks?
Because the Dbacks did not sign Matt McLain last year, got picks for losing Patrick Corbin and A.J. Pollock, and received a pick back from St. Louis in the Paul Goldschmidt deal, they’ll pick 16th, 26th, 33rd, 34th, 57th, 75th, 78th, and 94th in the upcoming draft. Not only does this mean Arizona will likely add eight 40 or better FV prospects to their farm system, it also means they have a ton of financial flexibility because their bonus pool size will be so large. Except for perhaps Atlanta, which also picks twice (at nine because they failed to sign Carter Stewart, and 21 as their normal pick), it could prove virtually impossible for teams to try to move over-slot high schoolers back to their second round picks, because the Dbacks will just be able to take them and meet their asking price if they want.

Will the current labor climate have any impact on the draft?
Amateur players get hosed by CBA negotiations because they don’t have a seat at the bargaining table, and the MLBPA (made up of players who have already been drafted and won’t ever have to be again) has continuously traded amateur players’ rights for its members’ own benefits, albeit insufficient ones. The lack of current free agent movement may begin to impact the decisions of high school athletes choosing between entering pro baseball now or waiting through three years of D-I college baseball before they re-enter the draft. If a college player is drafted at age 21 or 22 and takes two to three years to reach the Majors, their six-year service time clock will start when they’re 23-25 and they’ll hit the open market when they’re 29-31. The current state of free agency signals that those players may never have a big payday.

Mets first baseman Peter Alonso is a great example. He has done nothing but mash since he was a teen, but is the sort of prospect who doesn’t get paid out of high school, with clubs preferring to see less athletic corner types perform in college rather than take their prep versions in the first few rounds. Alonso kept hitting and now will be a 31-year-old R/R first baseman when he becomes a free agent. If 26-year-old superstars are struggling to get a fair shake in free agency, what kind of market can Alonso expect to have? We don’t know if this will impact the decision-making process of elite high school prospects, and perhaps a new CBA will soon make this a moot point. But it’s something we think players might start to consider.

Who could move up this spring?
We both picked a few guys we think will move up. Good luck to all the teams and players this spring.
Eric: J.J. Goss, Faltine, Gunnar Henderson, Kyren Paris, Tanner Morris
Kiley: Jackson Rutledge, Hunter Barco, Jack Kochanowicz, Kirby, Seth Johnson

Fans of prog rock are well familiar with Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s “Karn Evil 9.” The song, which is on the seminal 1973 album Brain Salad Surgery, includes the line, “Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends.” Nearly 30 minutes long, Karn Evil 9 has been described, thematically speaking, as a battle between humans and computers.

Which brings us to the first major league free agent signed by the Orioles new-and-geeky front office regime. On Thursday, Mike Elias, Sig Mejdal and Co. welcomed Nate Karns back to The Show, inking him to a reported $800,000, one-year deal.

Karns has been a good pitcher when healthy. He hasn’t been healthy very often. The righty had labrum surgery back in 2010, and more recently he’s had thoracic outlet surgery and elbow issues. He didn’t pitch at all in 2018, and in 2017 he was limited to just 45-and-a-third innings. In the two years preceding the more recent of those, ahem, evil injuries, he showed plenty of promise. Pitching with Tampa Bay and Seattle, he went 13-7 with a 4.25 ERA and a 4.17 FIP.

My colleague Rain Watt will have more on Karns’s comeback tomorrow, so I’ll keep the rest of this look contained to the 31-year-old’s curveball. It’s his primary secondary, and a pitch he refined while going through a shoulder program after having his labrum repaired. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Toronto Blue Jays. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a new feature at the site that offers sortable scouting information for every organization. That can be found here.

Other Prospects of Note

Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.

Corner Bats
Ryan Noda, 1B
Chad Spanberger, 1B
Mc Gregory Contreras, RF
Josh Palacios, RF
Demi Orimoloye, RF

Noda is extremely selective and has walked in over 20% of his plate appearances as a pro, but he’s a stiff, below-average athlete and needs to keep performing like this for the industry to view him as more than a statistical curiosity. Spanberger has 70 raw power and went nuts at hitter-friendly Asheville against pitching worse than what he saw in college before he was traded to Toronto. He cooled in the FSL afterward. Contreras has plus bat speed and power projection, a typical, high-risk right field profile, though he’s not a good defender yet. Palacios is also a corner guy with feel to hit but needs to find a way to tap into more power. Orimoloye was born in Nigeria and moved to Canada as a toddler. He was acquired from Milwaukee for Curtis Granderson just before the waiver deadline. Demi has plus raw but lacks feel to hit.

Polished Depth Arms
Thomas Pannone, LHP
Julian Merryweather, RHP
Josh Winckowski, RHP
Sean Wymer, RHP
Justin Maese, RHP
Zach Logue, LHP
Zach Jackson, RHP
Jackson McClelland, RHP
Jon Harris, RHP

Pannone has excellent changeup command but his limited velo and curveball likely cap his ceiling in the sixth starter area. Then with Cleveland, Merryweather was striking out a batter per inning at Double- and Triple-A in 2017 before he blew out late in the year and missed all of 2018. He’ll likely be back this year and could be a four-pitch reliever who relies heavily on velo. Winckowski may end up in a middle relief role. He sits 90-94 and has an above-average slider. Wymer was the club’s 2018 fourth rounder out of TCU. His stuff plays better out of the bullpen, where he’s 92-93 with command of a 55 curveball. Maese was a popup high schooler in tough-to-scout El Paso whose stuff has plateaued in the 45/50 area. Logue has 60 control of 45 stuff. Jackson has one of the more bizarre deliveries in baseball, and both he and McLelland have the stuff to be 40 FV relievers, but both are also very wild. Harris’ spin rates are strong but his fastball velocity has backed up since college.

Bench Types
Logan Warmoth, SS
Addison Barger, 3B
Forrest Wall, LF
Riley Adams, C
Max Pentecost, C/1B

After Warmoth’s pre-draft reports were divisive in 2017, when he was Toronto’s first rounder, they were consistently down throughout 2018. He may end up with an average bat and fringe power but he’s not likely to stay at short based on pro looks. He’s clearly been passed by several shortstops in the system. Barger has a plus-plus arm and played all over the infield last year but may only end up with 40 hit and power. We were too high on Wall last year. He can still run but maybe not well enough to play center field, which means he’s a contact-only left fielder. Adams is a physical beast with a plus arm and big raw power, but he swings and misses a lot due to lever length and his ceiling is that of a toolsy backup. Pentecost, like Wall, has never been quite the same since surgery and he’s a contact-only bat at a position that demands more.

System Overview

It’s hard to talk about this system and franchise without spending a good bit of time on Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. The previous regime not only landed a generational talent but one with ties to Canada, especially notable because of MLB’s clear marketing shortcomings. Vlad Jr. developed better than anyone expected and is one of the best prospects of recent memory.

The organization has hoarded players we consider 45s and 50s who couldn’t crack quality rosters in an attempt to prime the big league club with role players for the arrival of young stars like Vlad, Bichette, and Jansen. Not all of them will work out, but the list of players like this that the Blue Jays have acquired (Brandon Drury, Teoscar Hernandez, Trent Thornton, Randall Grichuk, David Paulino, Billy McKinney) is so long that enough of them should, enabling Toronto to build a competitive club around this wave of young talent.

This is almost the inverse of how most competitive sports teams are built, as franchise players are often the first ones in place and pieces are fit in around them. There still needs to be more pitching, though. Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez both had down years and this farm system isn’t exactly packed with arms. They can improve in free agency but competitive staffs almost always need a lot of depth to fight through injuries, so we still expect Toronto to be in asset collection mode for another year or two before they feel comfortable pushing their chips in.

Everyone is waiting for the Phillies to sign one of Bryce Harper and Manny Machado. It seems almost inevitable that the Phillies will sign one of Bryce Harper and Manny Machado. There’s some chance it even happens today! Who knows? But while the world has waited for the Phillies to signal that they’re going for it, they’ve already added a new everyday outfielder in Andrew McCutchen. They’ve already added a new everyday shortstop in Jean Segura. They’ve already added a new late-inning reliever in David Robertson. And now they’ve added a new regular catcher.

Phillies get:

• J.T. Realmuto

Marlins get:

• Sixto Sanchez
• Jorge Alfaro
• Will Stewart
• $250,000 international bonus-pool money

And so ends the drawn-out, months-long Realmuto sweepstakes, that saw him connected to a couple handfuls of teams. Just last week, I thought Realmuto was going to be traded to the Reds. The Phillies came almost out of nowhere. But, like the Reds, they’ve spent the offseason acting aggressively, and I can’t imagine they’re finished. The NL Central is going to be a hell of a division. And, the NL East is going to be a hell of a division. The Marlins are going to get beat up on the regular as a consequence, but then, they knew what they were getting into.

Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for more than half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Oakland Athletics.

Batters

From the projections, one can see why the A’s let Jed Lowrie go so easily, despite his legitimate star-level performance in 2017 and ’18. Five Oakland infielders — the starters plus Franklin Barreto — project to be league-average or better. Now, none of them project to reach the level of Lowrie’s 4.9 WAR in 2018, but then again, neither does Lowrie, and mid-30s middle infielders tend to have pretty steep aging curves. And really, if anyone thought Lowrie was going to perform at an All-Star level again in 2019, he likely would have done better than two years and $20 million. Jurickson Profar projects to be a worthy replacement for Lowrie, and his return from literally years of injury and then underperformance is one of my favorite stories in baseball.

Except for catcher and the four-headed chimera in left field — at least, as our depth charts have it figured so far — the A’s project to be average or better, and sometimes significantly so, at every position. Perhaps ZiPS is trying to do penance for missing on the A’s by something like 20 wins in 2018.

Don’t get too excited about the Matt Olson comp; this version is from when Ortiz was still in the “Wait, is that the same guy as David Arias?” portion of his career, before he became Big Papi.

Pitchers

Ok, the highs are not very high. That’s due in large part to the fact that ZiPS is projecting fairly low innings totals for Oakland’s pitchers across the board. The system is aware of the injuries to Sean Manaea and Andrew Triggs in very general terms, so these aren’t theoretical “healthy” projections. As such, Manaea’s projection isn’t unexpected, but Triggs’s was a legitimate surprise to me. But again, I’m going to de-wind your sails a little bit by noting that ZiPS sees the Triggs injury as a generic “shoulder” ailment because I don’t have the data on thoracic outlet syndrome recoveries that I do with those from Tommy John. Regardless, this is an injury that you really don’t want.

The rotation’s highs may not be very high, but ZiPS sees the group as incredibly deep. 18 pitchers project to be worth at least one WAR if playing in the majors, and though a few of them are relievers (Blake Treinen, Lou Trivino, and Joakim Soria) and Brett Anderson is a free agent, that’s still a lot of options.

Bench and Prospects

I hope that someday I can love somebody or something the way ZiPS loves Jesus Luzardo. No, the computer isn’t projecting him to actually have Steve Carlton’s career, but who wouldn’t take that as a top comp? ZiPS already sees Luzardo as the team’s best starting pitcher, a pretty shocking projection for a guy who started the season in A-ball and whose parent club isn’t, say, the Baltimore Orioles.

It also interests me that ZiPS pegs Sean Murphy as the team’s best catching option. I’m definitely interested to see where he falls on the McDongenhagen prospect list; he ranked sixth last year, but after a .285/.361/.489 year and a finish at Triple-A, I would imagine he’s moved up. Conversely, Oakland cooled on Dustin Fowler and now largely sees him as a fourth outfielder. Overall, ZiPS sees a lot more of interest in the minor league pitchers than the hitters.

One pedantic note for 2019: for the WAR graphic, I’m using FanGraphs’ depth chart playing time, not the playing time ZiPS spits out, so there will be occasional differences in WAR totals.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here at site.

Disclaimer: ZiPS projections are computer-based projections of performance. Performances have not been allocated to predicted playing time in the majors — many of the players listed above are unlikely to play in the majors at all in 2019. ZiPS is projecting equivalent production — a .240 ZiPS projection may end up being .280 in AAA or .300 in AA, for example. Whether or not a player will play is one of many non-statistical factors one has to take into account when predicting the future.

Players are listed with their most recent teams, unless I have made a mistake. This is very possible, as a lot of minor-league signings go generally unreported in the offseason.

ZiPS’ projections are based on the American League having a 4.29 ERA and the National League having a 4.15 ERA.

Players who are expected to be out due to injury are still projected. More information is always better than less information, and a computer isn’t the tool that should project the injury status of, for example, a pitcher who has had Tommy John surgery.

Both hitters and pitchers are ranked by projected zWAR — which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those which appear in full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.

Ross Atkins was hired as Toronto’s Executive VP of Baseball Operations and General Manager in December 2015, shortly after Mark Shapiro was officially named the team’s President and CEO. Both came to the Blue Jays from Cleveland, where they’d worked together with the Indians for the past 15 years. A formidable pairing atop Toronto’s front office hierarchy, they are — as Atkins is quick to point out — nonetheless just two pieces of a much larger puzzle.

The Blue Jays have undergone organizational change in recent seasons, but the past six months stand out. John Gibbons was formally dismissed as manager in late September, and several members of his coaching staff followed him out the door. The roster has also undergone change. Troy Tulowitzki has departed, as have Russell Martin, Josh Donaldson, Curtis Granderson, Marco Estrada, and JA Happ. Notably, all of these player are 33 years old or older.

Fifty-three-year-old Charlie Montoyo is the biggest incoming name. The bench coach in Tampa Bay last year, Montoyo has replaced Gibbons in the manager’s chair. Four of his coaches are imports from other organizations, while two others were promoted from Toronto’s minor league system. Pete Walker and Luis Rivera are the only holdovers.

As is common within the industry, there have also been hirings, promotions, and the shifting of responsibilities throughout Toronto’s various departments. How do Atkins and Shapiro go about making such moves — not just in the front office, but across the board? Atkins addressed that question in a wide-ranging interview late last week. Read the rest of this entry »

Nolan Arenado has ranked among the game’s elite third basemen for the past four seasons, and he’s already made headlines this winter. Last week, he and the Rockies averted an arbitration hearing when he agreed to a $26 million salary for 2019, a record for an arbitration-eligible player. Now, there’s optimism in Denver that the team could reach a longer-term deal that would keep Arenado in purple. It’s a move that not only would be in character for a franchise that has made a concerted attempt to keep its iconic players, but could also impact this winter’s frigid free agent market.

Arenado, who will turn 28 on April 16, is coming off a .297/.374/.561 showing with 38 homers, a 132 wRC+, and 5.7 WAR in 2018. He led the NL in home runs for the third year out of the past four, and while that feat owes much to Coors Field (he has an 87-71 home/road home run split in that span), improved plate discipline has helped him increase both his wRC+ and WAR every year since his 2013 rookie season. Last year’s incremental steps forward owe much to Arenado’s career-best 10.8% walk rate, more than double his 2013-15 mark (5.0%); that increase has keyed a 52-point rise in on-base percentage from his first three years (.318) to his last three (.370).

And then there’s the leather. Arenado has won a Gold Glove in each of his six seasons, and has won the Platinum Glove as the NL’s top overall defender, in each of the past two years; he also took home the Fielding Bible Award as the majors’ top third baseman annually from 2015-17. While UZR doesn’t value his defense nearly as highly as DRS (career totals of 37.6 and 109, respectively), the two marks converged last year (5.8 and 5, respectively). Beyond the numbers, his highlight clips are appointment viewing. Here is the MLB Network compilation of his dives, spins, barehanded grabs, and seemingly impossible throws that accompanied Arenado’s 2018 award wins:

And here’s perhaps his most famous play, his April 14, 2015 over-the-shoulder-and-over-the-tarp-roll catch of a foul ball:

This is an excellent, entertaining player, a franchise cornerstone who has helped take the Rockies to back-to-back playoff appearances for the first time in club history.

After making $17.75 million last year as part of a two-year, $29.5 million extension signed in January 2017, Arenado sought $30 million in arbitration, with the Rockies countering at $24 million. Even if he’d lost a hearing, he would have surpassed Josh Donaldson’s $23 million salary from last year with the highest one-year salary for an arbitration-eligible player. According to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, Arenado and the Rockies settled at $26 million after a face-to-face meeting:

Since then, Monfort has publicly expressed hope for the possibility of a long-term deal. On Monday, he told the Denver Post’s Patrick Saunders, “I’m optimistic that we are close enough that something will come about. It’s in Nolan’s hands, but my last impression with him is that this is something he wants to do.” While stressing that there was no timetable to complete a longer deal, Monfort added, “[W]hat I took out of [the meeting] was a good, sincere [attitude] of, ‘Let’s get this behind us, then let’s go on to the next step and see if we can work something out there.'”

Per to Saunders, Arenado recently said, “I think the future is much brighter in Colorado than it’s been in the past. That excites me and makes me very aware of what’s going on here.” Indeed, an impressive nucleus of young, affordable starting pitching (Kyle Freeland, Jon Gray, German Marquez, Tyler Anderson, and Antonio Senzatela) and the development of shortstop Trevor Story have been key elements of the Rockies’ recent success; that core is under club control through 2021 and ’22. What’s more, the team’s TV revenue situation is better than has been previously reported; the Rockies are making $40 million per year now, not $20 million, which was tied for last among the 29 US teams in Craig Edwards’ 2016 roundup. The team’s current deal runs through 2020, and negotiations for a new one are expected to get underway this summer.

With such a revenue stream, Monfort seems to feel that the Rockies can support a payroll that includes a major commitment to Arenado on a long-term deal. While Cot’s Contracts projects the team to set a franchise record with an Opening Day payroll just over $143 million — up from around $137 million in 2018 (14th in the majors) and $127.8 million in 2017 (15th) — the Rockies have only $40 million committed for 2021, and $23 million for ’22, though of course, the salary increases of their many arb-eligible players will increase those figures.

In marked contrast to the White Sox, whose history under Jerry Reinsdorf I examined on Monday, the Rockies haven’t shied away from sizable long-term commitments. Granted, Monfort and his brother Charlie were merely minority partners until December 2005, when they bought out Jerry McMorris, the team’s principal owner since 1993 (before that, oy, there’s a story). During the McMorris era, the Rockies signed free agents Larry Walker (six years, $75 million in April 1995), Mike Hampton (eight years, $121 million in December 2000), and Denny Neagle (five years, $51 million, also in December 2000) — of which only the first deal went well, the last two disastrously — and extended franchise icon Todd Helton (nine years, $141.5 million, covering 2003-11). The Monforts were the principal owners when the Rockies extended Troy Tulowitzki (10 years, $157.75 million deal in 2010), as well as Charlie Blackmon (six years, $108 million last April), and when they added free agents Ian Desmond (five years, $70 million in December 2016) and Wade Davis (three years, $52 million in December 2017). In terms of guaranteed money, all of those deals besides those of Neagle and Davis exceed the largest guaranteed contract ever signed by the White Sox, Jose Abreu’s six-year, $68 million pact from October 2013.

Whether on the watch of McMorris or the Monforts, not all of the Rockies’ big contracts have unfolded for the better. Some of that has to do with the particularities of playing at altitude — pitches don’t break as much, and athletes’ bodies don’t hold up as well — and some of it has to do with flawed evaluations of the players in question. At a time when so many teams are wringing their hands about spending money, it’s still noteworthy that the Rockies have stepped up to keep their top players. Extending Arenado, and assuming the risks that come with it, would be more in keeping with their style than (to return to my previous example) the White Sox signing Bryce Harper or Manny Machado.

Of course, Arenado has to agree to a deal for this all to come to fruition, and it’s a bit ominous to think of how the relatively grim landscapes of the past two winters might be helping to fulfill the vision that the owners colluded in the mid-1980s to make happen: star players staying with their teams instead of testing the market and creating bidding wars. Still, free agency isn’t an obligation that every star has to fulfill; the combination of comfort and a record-setting salary in a competitive situation isn’t something to be taken lightly.

On that note, if an Arenado extension is completed before Machado signs, it would likely set a new baseline for third basemen (by topping Alex Rodriguez‘s $27.5 million average annual value) and perhaps for all position players (by topping Miguel Cabrera’s $31 million AAV). That, as Rosenthal pointed out, will make it harder for any team in pursuit of Harper or Machado to argue that those younger, higher-profile players should be paid less money.

After the past two winters of slow (or even negative) growth, it’s difficult to put too much faith in long-term estimates, but using the FanGraphs Contract estimation tool with very conservative parameters — $8.0 million per WAR, and just 3% average annual inflation, as opposed to $9 million or more and 5% — suggests a valuation approach $300 million:

Dialing the inflation back even further, to 1%, yields a $279.7 million valuation, and cutting the dollars per WAR figure to a retrograde $7.0 million with that minimal inflation in place still yields $244.7 million. In other words, even using extremely modest assumptions, an eight-year deal for Arenado (presumably incorporating this year’s salary) should bypass Cabrera’s eight-year, $248 million extension.

Another byproduct of an Arenado extension might be a change in the Yankees’ current approach. Circa late November, Rosenthal suggested that their lukewarm pursuits of Harper and Machado — due to a logjam of outfielders in the former case and the infamous “Johnny Hustle” comments in the latter — was because they were more interested in pursuing Arenado (who’s about 18 months older than Harper and 15 months older than Machado) once he reached free agency. In January, SNY.tv’s Andy Martino wrote that Yankees might be working on an even more immediate timeline, “[P]eople briefed on the Yankees thinking say that GM Brian Cashman — who did not respond to a request for comment — has internally discussed the possibility of trying to trade for Arenado either now or during the season. One source said that the teams have likely talked already, but neither Cashman nor Rockies GM Jeff Bridich have confirmed this.”

In theory, if Arenado does cement his desire to stay in Denver long-term, the Yankees could circle back to Machado, whose list of suitors for a long-term deal appear to consist of the White Sox, Padres, Phillies, and a conspicuous lack of other teams. Then again, if Cashman and company have shied away this long, one expects they’ll concoct some other rationale for bypassing Machado and Harper. And it is worth noting that the possibility of signing Harper and Machado was offered as a potential rationale for not signing free agents last winter. While his resume is certainly impressive, it will be interesting to see if Arenado can avoid a similar fate. There’s always another young buck coming, after all, and Mike Trout is only under club control through 2020.

On the other hand, if Arenado and the Rockies don’t get a deal done, it will be very interesting to see how the summer plays out. With the Giants and Diamondbacks both rebuilding, and the Padres possibly looking to spend their way to an earlier competitive window by signing one of the big two free agents, the NL West probably won’t be the three-team race of yesteryear. A Rockies team that’s out of the playoff hunt could conceivably trade Arenado at the July 31 deadline — or even in August, given his huge salary — if he suggests he plans to move on next winter anyway. A Rockies team that’s still in the race for a Wild Card spot or even the NL West flag (something the Rockies have yet to win) as Arenado eyes the horizon would face quite a quandary.

In all of this, we have yet to hear Arenado definitively say that he wants to stick around, but that’s not uncommon. There’s no reason for him to surrender leverage until he’s secured what he wants, and besides, his real talking on that score will be done with a pen and a contract. Until then, this is all just cloud talk, though amid so much cynicism, it’s quaintly refreshing to hear a star and a team at least thinking aloud about sticking together.

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for more than half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Los Angeles Angels, allegedly of Anaheim.

Batters

You may have heard of Mike Trout; he’s pretty good. I’m amazed that Andrelton Simmons still seems to be underrated by the media and fans. When was the last time a shortstop with a crazily hyped glove was underrated? You’d almost think that he was Adam Everett or Mark Belanger or Omar Vizquel when in fact he’d have been worth just under eight WAR over the last two seasons if he were a league-average defensive shortstop. Simmons has already snuck into the Top 50 all-time by my colleague Jay Jaffe’s JAWS metric, just a season from catching Dave Concepcion, Rafael Furcal, Vizquel, and the fringe Hall of Famer Rabbit Maranville. ZiPS projects Simmons to finish his career as the No. 14 shortstop by JAWS, just behind Derek Jeter and Barry Larkin, and just ahead of Bobby Wallace and Lou Boudreau. Andrelton is a superstar.

Albert Pujols is no longer a major league-caliber baseball player. He’s collected his 3000th hit and his 600th home run, but pretending that Pujols, at his best one of the greatest hitters of our generation, deserves a spot on the roster, let alone significant playing time, is becoming increasingly untenable. At some point, the Angels have to approach him with a plan to make as graceful and quick an exit from his playing career as they can manage, because in a world where the team was serious about fielding the best possible roster, they would be contemplating Pujols’ unconditional release. Even the creators of AfterMASH only needed two seasons to figure out they could only taint M*A*S*H’s legacy. The Angels have let three hitters go overseas this winter who project as more useful than Pujols (Jefry Marte, Jabari Blash, and the much-maligned Jose Miguel Fernandez).

I wouldn’t be quick to think of Shohei Ohtani’s offensive performance as fluky; in some ways, it’s just a natural power improvement from his previous year in Japan. ZiPS translated Ohtani’s final two seasons in Japan at .289/.356/.485, which looks a lot like his .285/.361/.564 with the Angels, with the power growth you hope to see from a talented young player with relatively few professional at-bats (he’s only at 1536 total now). ZiPS thinks he’ll have a lower average than in 2018, but he’s a real major league hitter.

Pitchers

If the Angels could keep all five of their starting pitchers healthy, the rotation would at least be acceptable. Problem is, essentially the entire rotation has an injury history, and many of its members have an extensive one. What’s frustrating about the Angels is that they have such highs in certain areas, but also several holes they’ve barely made a meaningful effort to go about fixing. ZiPS doesn’t see very high ceilings for any of the pitchers actually on the roster. If any team needed to go after Jake Arrieta last year or Dallas Keuchel this year, it’s the Angels. It would only take a few injuries for the Angels to have to turn to Dillon Peters or JC Ramirez (after he returns), which no contending team should be excited about.

Bench and Prospects

And here is why the Angels will fall short of the ZiPS seasonal simulation of the win total on their depth chart: the team’s plan B’s are absolutely atrocious around the field. The exceptions in the short-term are Jose Suarez and Griffin Canning, though I expect the Angels to give both a consolidation year at Triple-A (Suarez is still very young and Canning still has relatively little professional experience). Let’s put it this way: NRI Jarrett Parker is projected as the team’s fourth-best outfielder.

Things will get better. Jo Adell’s long-term projections are bananas, and the upside projections for Jahmai Jones and Brandon Marsh are at least…an apple? With a Brennon, two Brandons, and a Brendon in the projections, the Angels might as well sign Brennan Boesch to complete the set. The farm system has been steadily improving, but if the Angels want to stop wasting the prime of the best player they have ever had, and possibly will ever have, they really need to do better than dip a toe into free agency while they wait for the prospects to save them.

One pedantic note for 2019: for the WAR graphic, I’m using FanGraphs’ depth chart playing time, not the playing time ZiPS spits out, so there will be occasional differences in WAR totals.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here at site.