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It was just a little while ago that Kansas City Royals general manager Dayton Moore stubbornly refused to throw in the towel and concede defeat. To the media, at least. Though Moore acknowledged his team was below .500 this season, he said he thought they still had a run in them — that the team hadn’t yet settled into a groove. The Royals, he said, weren’t going to be sellers. If anything, Kansas City was going to be buyer. Based on Moore’s words, the Royals were going to keep going for it, and we criticized that here. And lots of people criticized it in lots of places.

There might be a lesson here, about judging general managers by their words instead of by their actions. Sometimes, you have to say one thing while you try to do another, to keep up appearances. And while the Royals have played fine baseball since Moore delivered his message to the press, there are reports  Moore’s position isn’t exactly what he suggested. From Wednesday: Read the rest of this entry »

It was on Feb. 16, 2004, that the Yankees thought they had their questions answered. That day, they added a 28-year-old Alex Rodriguez from the Rangers — along with cash — and what it cost them was Alfonso Soriano and, eventually, Joaquin Arias. It was a deal thought to be lopsided at the time, and Rodriguez, for awhile, performed like a superstar. Rodriguez today resembles Rodriguez then, but only really in terms of genetics; there’s some chance he might never play another game. Which is one reason why the Yankees are rumored to be pursuing Soriano, who now is in Chicago. Rodriguez’s arrival was directly connected to Soriano’s departure. Rodriguez’s potential departure might be directly connected to Soriano’s potential arrival.

Here’s another reason why the Yankees are looking at the ex-Yankee. Soriano bats right-handed, and for a while, he’s produced. Right-handed batters for the Yankees, this season, have racked up more strikeouts than hits. Granted, it turns out that’s hardly unprecedented, so it’s not as impactful as it sounds. But Yankee righties have a .589 OPS. Next-worse is the Marlins, at .622. Yankee righties play in Yankee Stadium. The Yankees are thirsty for a right-handed bat that doesn’t suck, and it just so happens that Soriano’s an outfielder, like Vernon Wells.

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Last week, in rating Dustin Pedroia 25th on the trade value list, I noted that he was “an elite player making a relative pittance for the next two seasons.” That is still true, but his relative pittance is going to grow substantially starting in 2015, as the Red Sox have agreed to sign Pedroia to a long term contract that will keep him in Boston through 2021.

As Rob Bradford notes in his message, the contract is a seven year deal for approximately $100 million that begins in 2015, so it could also be seen as a six year extension given that the Sox already had a team option for that year. No matter how you want to phrase it, Pedroia has gone from being under team control for the next two years to the next eight years.

Given that he was going to be paid $11 million in 2015 without the extension, and that the new deal pays him “around $100 million”, we can note that those extra six years cost the Red Sox something in the range of $90 million in new money. And, given the rising prices of high performing players, this a smart move for Boston, especially given what his asking price might have been if he signed after Robinson Cano.

Over the winter, we saw Felix Hernandez and Justin Verlander — both two years from free agency — sign extensions that added five years of team control for $135 million and $140 million respectively. Elvis Andrus, also two years from free agency, signed an eight year, $120 million extension. While Pedroia isn’t a perfect comparison to any of these players, getting him for less than $100 million over six years seems like a pretty nice little discount.

Maybe the best comparison overall for this deal is the Ian Kinsler extension from last year. The Rangers owned his rights for two more seasons when they gave him a $75 million extension over five years, so the AAV on that deal and this one seem quite similar, with Pedroia getting one extra guaranteed season. Interestingly, if you look at Kinsler and Pedroia from their three years leading up to the extension, they look pretty darn similar.

Kinsler hit for more power, Pedroia had a higher BABIP, but in the end, it added up to a pretty similar overall package. The defensive reports on Pedroia are a lot stronger than on Kinsler, who began his career as a pretty brutal second baseman, so perhaps you want to give Pedroia a little bit of a boost for defensive value if you don’t trust UZR equating their value in the field. Either way, though, they’re going to end up in the same ballpark, which was probably a point of evidence used by the Red Sox in negotiations, I’d imagine.

That comparison is both good for the Sox (since Kinsler’s extension was a lot cheaper than others we’ve seen) and maybe a little scary for the Sox, since Kinsler immediately posted the worst offensive season of his career after signing the deal, and it’s not entirely clear that Kinsler would get that same $75 million this winter had the Rangers not locked him up last spring, but he’s still a valuable piece and the deal hardly looks like an albatross. And Pedroia has a stronger track record than Kinsler, especially on defense.

But, there remains skepticism about the aging curves of second baseman in general. There’s a conventional wisdom that says that the position takes a physical toll on players that other spots on the field do not, and people point to guys like Roberto Alomar who just lost all his skills earlier than expected. However, I don’t actually see a lot of evidence that we should be too scared of how second baseman age relative to how everyone else ages, anyway.

A couple of years ago, I wrote about this while discussing Chase Utley’s aging curve. Utley has obviously had some injury problems over the last few years, but has remained a highly productive player when he’s on the field, and as I noted in that article, most second baseman who had been as good as he had in his twenties continued to be productive in their thirties. I also looked at the issue in March, when discussing Robinson Cano’s next contract, and didn’t see any compelling data that suggested offensive oriented second baseman just stopped hitting after turning 30.

There are second baseman who have gotten old in a hurry, just like there are players at every position. If second baseman are more prone to premature aging, I haven’t yet seen evidence to support that idea.

In Pedroia, the Sox have one of the games premier players. He might not be tall, and he might not produce in the way that a lot of other players produce, but he’s one of the most valuable baseball players on the planet. Pedroia likely won’t be as good from 32-38 as he was earlier in his career, but at the price Boston is paying, he doesn’t have to be. With the going rate of inflation in baseball, $15 million per year could easily be the market price for an average player by the middle of this contract.

The last couple of years of this deal probably aren’t going to look so great, as Pedroia is unlikely to still be a good starting second baseman in his late thirties. However, the price for the first few years is so low that the overall deal should be a net positive for the Red Sox. Pedroia’s a star who has never been paid like one, and with this deal, he never will be. But he’s going to spend the rest of his career in Boston, most likely, and that is probably more important than maximizing his earnings.

The Matt Garza sweepstakes finally ended on Monday, with the Texas Rangers emerging victorious in their long pursuit of the Chicago Cubs veteran hurler. In return for the 29-year-old right-hander, Chicago obtained three young players — third baseman Mike Olt, as well as pitchers Justin Grimm and C.J. Edwards — and one or two players to be named later (depending on who the first PTBNL is).

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UPDATE: Matt Garza has officially been traded from the Cubs to the Rangers, reportedly in exchange for Mike Olt, C.J. Edwards, Justin Grimm, and a player to be named later. This post was originally published on Friday, July 19.

Matt Garza hasn’t been traded, yet, so Matt Garza hasn’t been traded to the Rangers, yet. In fact, a report circulated late Thursday night that the Rangers were examining their other options, backing away from the Garza pursuit. The price, they say, is a high one. But, Friday’s reports have made a Cubs/Rangers trade appear imminent, and as a matter of fact one could go down while I’m in the process of writing this post. That would be annoying for me but delightful for you. It’s a virtual certainty that the Cubs will deal Garza very soon, and the Rangers seem like far and away the most likely destination.

Joe Davidson says the Rangers and Cubs are reviewing the various medicals. If true, that implies this is at the later stages, and what’s unknown is what the Rangers would be giving up. It stands to reason Mike Olt would probably be involved, along with others, but I’ll leave prospect coverage to prospect coverers. Most important, here, is Garza — the free-agent-to-be — going to Texas, and what such a transaction might tell us about the way the Rangers view themselves.

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Last week, I went through the 50 best assets in baseball, as rated by overall trade value based on their performance, age, and contract status. Today, we finish up the Trade Value series with the five players farthest from making the list. This is the Anti-Trade Value list; the guys who would be nearly impossible to trade because of their outsized contracts and undersized performances.

The take home notion: Beware the aging slugger.

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Early on, every team and every game in baseball is interesting. For the first few weeks of the season, things feel so fresh, and things are so unpredictable, that you’re thirsty for any kind of action. As things progress, teams fall off the radar of interest. Fans start to focus more on the teams that might make the playoffs, and teams in basements continue to play largely un-discussed, save for the event of trade rumors. Few, then, would’ve been paying attention to the Mariners and Astros over the weekend, given their respective identities, but what the teams managed to accomplish on Saturday was unprecedented. And for all the talk about trades and the playoffs, it’s important to recognize that any kind of baseball can be interesting, and we shouldn’t forget it. You never know which games you might find remarkable.

A big part of the appeal of perfect games, or, I don’t know, cycles, is rarity. People love seeing things in baseball they don’t see very often. But rarity isn’t enough alone to make something worth talking about. Never before, in the recorded history of baseball, has a starting pitcher gone 4.2 innings, with four walks, two hits, and a strikeout. Not once. So many thousands of games. But if that happened tomorrow, no one would care, just like no one cares about a weird leaf on the ground. That leaf is unique, but really, it’s just another leaf. There needs to be some blend of rarity + achievement, and I think the Mariners/Astros game qualifies.

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Honorable Mentions
#50 to #46
#45 to #41
#40 to #36
#35 to #31
#30 to #26
#25 to #21
#20 to #16
#15 to #11

And now we come to the best of the best. These guys are both the present and the future of the sport. They’re great now, they’re going to be great for a while, and they’re the kinds of players that we’ll be telling our grandkids about.

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Honorable Mentions
#50 to #46
#45 to #41
#40 to #36
#35 to #31
#30 to #26
#25 to #21
#20 to #16

And herein lie the best players in the game. Okay, not all of them, but a good handful of them. These guys are absolutely fantastic players, in the primes of their careers, and signed to deals that are discounts even if they’re not exactly cheap. This is the land of superstars, and the guys who might just lead the league in present value. Their long term value isn’t quite as strong, keeping them out of the top 10, but if you want to win right now, you want one of these five on your team.

#15 Clayton Kershaw (P)

Under Team Control Through 2014: Arbitration

Even last summer, I would have never considered ranking a player with 1+ year of team control this high.  Even as good as Kershaw is, you can only produce so much value in 300 innings.  However, with some coaxing from friends within the game, I have become convinced that the a number of clubs place a real value on exclusive negotiating rights to a player who is not set on reaching free agency.  And indications are that Kershaw, while looking for a monster extension, is willing to sign a long term deal before testing the market.  

Any team trading for Clayton Kershaw wouldn’t be trading for him for just one year. It would be a Johan Santana trade-and-sign situation, and the Dodgers would be compensated in prospects for the buyer’s ability to get Kershaw signed before anyone else could. Essentially, for this kind of player, I have become convinced that the market for their services is not in free agency, but is in the rush to own the rights to extend them, and in Kershaw’s case, the price to acquire those rights would be absurd.  

He’s 25, and he’s like a hybrid of Felix Hernandez’s peripherals with Matt Cain’s ability to confound the norms of BABIP and HR/FB rate. There are other excellent pitchers in baseball, but Kershaw has claimed the title of the game’s best pitcher, and he doesn’t look like he’s going to give it up any time soon.  If the Dodgers decide not to make him the first $200 million pitcher, you can bet that teams like the Yankees would gladly do so, and there would be enough interest in being the team to pay Kershaw a record contract that the Dodgers would reap the benefits of a serious bidding war.  

More likely, though, is that the Dodgers just pay up, because if you’re going to spend $250 million to acquire the core of a disappointing failure, you should probably not then balk at spending $200 million to sign the best pitcher in the sport.

#14 Stephen Strasburg (P)

Under Team Control Through 2016: Arbitration

I’ve alluded many times to the risks of expecting too much long term value from pitchers, even the very best pitchers, and Stephen Strasburg is a prime example of why.  He was maybe the best pitching prospect anyone has ever seen.  In his rookie season, he posted an xFIP- of 51, which is a Pedro-in-his-prime kind of silly number. 

Three years and one surgery later, his xFIP- is 92.  He’s still an excellent pitcher, but it’s been awhile since he looked like the best pitcher on the planet.  He might not ever look like that again.  Pitcher aging curves are probably not curves, but instead, diagonal lines that point downwards.  It is likely that Stephen Strasburg peaked in 2010, as a rookie.

All that negativity aside, teams would still be lining up out the door if the Nationals made him available.  He’s got three years of team control left at arbitration prices, and the low innings totals and lack of sexy win numbers this year will keep his price reasonable.  He still throws 95, gets strikeouts and ground balls, and has an ERA of 2.99.  He might be worse, but worse than historically amazing isn’t so bad. 

Strasburg is both terrific and kind of disappointing at the same time.  Pitchers.  Don’t build your franchises around them.

#13 Troy Tulowitzki (SS)

Under Team Control Through 2021: $16M, $20M, $20M, $20M, $20M, $20M, $14M, $15M option

Let’s just get this out of the way; Troy Tulowitzki is injury prone.  The guy spends time on the disabled list every year.  This probably isn’t going to change as he gets older and his body starts wearing down even more.  But, even with the injuries, Troy Tulowitzki is a tremendous player.  Assuming he can rack up a meager +1.5 WAR over the rest of the season, he’ll have posted his fourth +5 WAR season in five years, and he’s in the midst of his best season yet.  

Even accounting for Colorado, Tulowitzki is just on another level for offense from the shortstop position, and he can actually play defense too.  In terms of pure impact when he’s in the line-up, Tulowitzki is up there with anyone else in the game.  The quantity of his playing time is occasionally a problem, but the quality dwarfs those issues.  

And the remainder of his contract adds up to $145 million over eight years, assuming they exercise the team in 2021.  Think about what Tulo would get as a free agent coming off a 160 wRC+ as a 28-year-old shortstop.  We can point to his durability all we want, but we have to remember that Josh Hamilton — not exactly the Iron Horse himself — just got 5/125, and he had a bunch of other red flags too.  And he was significantly older.  And not a shortstop.  And not this good of a hitter.

It might be hard to recalibrate our opinions to see 8/$145 as a massive discount, but in this case, it is.  Tulowitzki is that good.

#12 Miguel Cabrera (1B/3B)

Under Team Control Through 2015: $22M, $22M

It would actually be a fascinating experiment to put Cabrera in free agency right now, then limit teams to two year maximum offers, just to see what they kind of value they’d put on that production.  I think he might $50 million per year, given the fact that there would be no long term commitment required.  Miguel Cabrera is simultaneously one of the highest paid and most underpaid players in the game.  

You don’t need me to tell you how ridiculous Cabrera’s numbers are.  He’s followed up his MVP season by making last year look like a slump.  His teammates might not be living up to the hype, but Cabrera is putting the finishing touches on a Hall of Fame peak by having one of the best offensive seasons of all time.  

Cabrera is a monster, and he’s the driving force behind the Tigers chances to win the World Series.  They’re not trading him now, and they’re probably not ever trading him.  I don’t even know how one would go about trying to make an offer without getting laughed at.  Even with a shorter term contract at fairly high prices, Cabrera is still absurdly valuable and one of the closest things MLB has to an untouchable player.

#11 Yadier Molina (C)

Under Team Control Through 2017: $15M, $15M, $14M, $14M, $15M mutual option

Depending on how much you buy into The Molina Effect on STL’s pitching staff, there’s a case to be made that the Cardinals catcher might just be the best player in baseball.  Even with our rudimentary defensive evaluations for backstops, ZIPS and Steamer project him as something like a +6 WAR player over a full season, and that gives him no credit for the non-throwing/blocking parts of his defense.  If there’s a player in baseball that is underrated by WAR, it’s Yadier Molina, and WAR thinks Yadier Molina is awesome.

What looked like a shockingly high salary for a defensive specialist now looks like a hilarious underpay for the leading NL MVP candidate.  If he’s not the best defensive player, he’s close, and he happens to be putting up a 145 wRC+ this year, which is higher than Mike Piazza’s career wRC+ of 140.  I don’t know how long he can keep this up, but Molina is currently in the midst of one of the great stretches of catcher performance in baseball history.  

That said, he is 30, and he’s carried an extremely heavy workload throughout his career, and his knees are already starting to hurt.  The final four years of his contract take him through his age-34 season, and at some point, his body is going to say enough already.  Molina probably won’t be an MVP candidate when this deal ends.  

But the present value is just so high that it doesn’t matter much.  Every team in baseball — except San Francisco — would tie themselves in knots in order to get him behind the plate, and the Giants might just do it for the fun of having the two best catchers in the game at the same time.  Molina is a legitimate difference maker at a position that has few of them.

It was last offseason that the Royals picked up James Shields from the Rays in a controversial blockbuster. The Royals wanted to improve their pitching staff and take big steps toward the playoffs. The Rays were looking to reload with young cost controlled talent, as always, and they saw an offer they couldn’t pass up. Sure enough, the Royals are on pace to be improved by a few games. The Rays, too, are on pace for the same, as they haven’t missed Shields that much. FanGraphs was opposed to the Royals’ side of things, arguing they weren’t good enough to go for broke, and that in order to get better they also subtracted. The Royals, today, are 43-49. This is going to work as our background and setting.

With the trade deadline approaching, teams are having to self-identify as buyers or sellers. At either end, it’s all pretty apparent, but it gets more blurry in the middle, especially what with the still-new extra wild-card slot. Some teams might neither buy nor sell. Some teams might attempt both. You look at the Royals and you’d think they should shed, but talk to Dayton Moore and he’ll tell you you’re wrong. Moore hasn’t thrown in the towel on 2013, and he seems to suggest he’s most interested in adding, adding pieces of immediate value. So, buying. Dayton Moore seems to identify the Royals as a potential buyer.

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