The Giants made two acquisitions Tuesday evening, signing pitcher Kevin Gausman to a one-year contract and acquiring infielders Zack Cozart and Will Wilson from the Los Angeles Angels for future considerations.

These moves aren’t quite as earth-shattering as the Gerrit Cole signing, but both have short term upside for the Giants, which is consistent with the team’s goal of not completely gutting the roster while rebuilding.

Kevin Gausman is a long-term favorite of mine, and the $9 million the Giants will pay him in 2020 strikes me as a reasonable risk to take given the upside he represents. His stint with the Braves in 2019 is one he’d be happy to forget thanks to the 3-7, 6.19 ERA line he put up in 16 starts. It’s very easy to lose sight of the fact that his 4.20 FIP was nearly two runs better than his actual ERA, which was inflated by a .344 BABIP. Gausman’s strikeout rate had faded in recent years, dipping to a lackluster 7.3 K/9 in 2018, so his 9.6 K/9 in Atlanta was roughly a 30% improvement, which generally portends pleasant results rather than what actually happened.

When looking at Gausman’s 2019 hit data, the ZiPS projection system expects a BABIP of .309 rather than his actual .334. That’s still on the high side, but is enough to drop his batting average against in Atlanta from .290 to .252. Batters actually had the lowest exit velocity against Gausman since 2015 at 86.9 mph, which partially explains why even a struggling Gausman didn’t see his homer rate tick up. Read the rest of this entry »

Last winter, as Manny Machado and Bryce Harper became the first free agents to reach the $300 million plateau, the Yankees kept their powder dry, deciding both that they had enough depth at those players’ respective positions and enough money spent beyond the Competitive Balance Tax threshold. Despite a considerably more glaring need in their rotation, they bypassed the market’s top free agent pitcher, Patrick Corbin, as well, unwilling to go to a sixth year to secure his services, which ended up selling for $140 million to the Nationals. On Tuesday, the Yankees spent the money they had been squirreling away, agreeing to a nine-year, $324 million contract with 29-year-old righty Gerrit Cole.

The Yankees reportedly outbid the Dodgers, Angels, and multiple mystery teams (possibly the Astros and Giants) for Cole, a pitcher whom they have coveted since selecting him in the first round of the 2008 draft (28th overall), only to lose out to his commitment to attend UCLA. Three year later, he was the first overall pick by the Pirates, for whom he pitched from 2013-17 and helped to two Wild Card berths, before being traded to the Astros for four players in January 2018, just two and a half months after Houston had won its first World Series.

In Houston, Cole reconfigured his arsenal, scrapping his sinker and relying more upon his four-seamer and breaking balls, and ascending into elite territory. Over the past two seasons, only Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer have outdone his 13.4 WAR and his 2.67 FIP, while only deGrom and Justin Verlander have bettered his 2.68 ERA; no starter in that span has outdone his 37.3% strikeout rate. In 2019, Cole set a record for an ERA qualifier by striking out 39.9% of all hitters while also leading the AL with 326 strikeouts, a 2.50 ERA, a 2.64 FIP, and 7.4 WAR. Not only was he poised to hit the market at the apex of his value to date, he was positioned to hit a trifecta unseen since the winter of 1974-75, when Cy Young winner Catfish Hunter of the three-time defending world champion A’s was suddenly declared a free agent after owner Charlie Finley failed to make deferred annuity payments in a timely fashion as stipulated by his contract. Read the rest of this entry »

As first reported by Jon Heyman of MLB Network, the New York Yankees have signed Gerrit Cole to a nine-year, $324 million contract. That’s $36 million per season, making it both the most money and the highest average annual value a pitcher has ever earned, eclipsing the $35 million AAV contract Stephen Strasburg inked yesterday.

Cole’s deal fits a pattern we’ve seen this offseason where free agents — particularly big ticket signees — have earned more money than we anticipated at the outset of the winter. As has been the case for most contracts signed by players on our Top 50 Free Agents list, Cole signed for both more years and more money than we projected. Kiley McDaniel forecast that he’d sign a seven-year deal for $242 million ($34.5 million AAV), while our crowdsourcing effort estimated seven years and $224 million ($32 million AAV).

If any pitcher could command that kind of deal, it’s Cole, who is the consensus best pitcher in baseball. Though he narrowly lost out on the Cy Young to former teammate Justin Verlander, the 29-year-old’s dominant performance down the stretch and in October established him as a unique force to be reckoned with throughout the playoffs, and ensured he’d be the top free agent on the market this winter. Read the rest of this entry »

The Phillies tightened up their 2020 infield on Tuesday afternoon, coming to an agreement with shortstop Didi Gregorius on one-year contract worth $14 million, as reported by Joel Sherman. Gregorius, who will be 30 years old on Opening Day, struggled through his worst season as a Yankee in 2019, hitting .238/.276/.441 with 0.9 WAR in 82 games after returning from offseason Tommy John surgery. After injuring his arm against the Red Sox in the 2018 ALDS, Gregorius hit for power after rejoining the team, but his plate discipline and low batting average were enough for the Yankees to not risk making a qualifying offer.

While I think there was a reasonable argument for the Yankees extending a qualifying offer to Gregorius, DJ LeMahieu’s star season gave the Yankees more middle-infield flexibility with Gleyber Torres, and the team had bigger fish to fry in free agency. It’s good news for Didi, of course, as the loss of a draft pick could have seriously impacted his chances of getting a favorable one-year deal that would enable to him to re-establish his value for next offseason.

Nobody’s ever really had well-timed Tommy John surgery, but it was especially unfortunate for Gregorius, who was coming off his best season in 2018 and was a year away from free agency. ZiPS projected a .274/.324/.459, 22 HR, 3.0 WAR line for him entering 2019 before his injury. With a full normal offseason of rest, he likely has the most upside of any shortstop available to sign this winter. Read the rest of this entry »

Stephen Strasburg entered the Nationals organization in 2009 as a 21-year-old super-prospect, an essentially finished product ready to pitch in the majors. A decade later, he has more than lived up to the hype, averaging four wins per season even after missing nearly all of the 2011 season due to Tommy John surgery. The decade culminated with Strasburg’s best season, 36.1 brilliant postseason innings, and a World Series championship. After opting out of the final four seasons and $100 million owed to him under his previous contract, the Nationals made Strasburg’s return their top priority, with the team and player agreed to a record $245 million deal covering the next seven seasons as first reported by Jon Heyman. Ken Rosenthal reports that Strasburg also receives a no-trade clause with multiple award incentives with annual salaries of $35 million with $80 million in deferrals spread out equally over the contract to be paid with interest. Joel Sherman has indicated the deferrals will be paid in the first three years after the contract’s end.

In his post earlier this afternoon, Dan Szymborksi posted Strasburg’s ZiPS projections for the duration of the deal. Those projections gave Strasburg an impressive 27.5 WAR for his age-31 through age-37 seasons. According to Szymborksi’s projection, the $245 million figure is essentially a fair one. But the deal is still surprising for its magnitude. When FanGraphs crowdsourced free agent contracts for the Top 50 Free Agents post, the median contract estimate for Strasburg came out to $140 million with an average of about $154 million; Kiley McDaniel’s prediction came in at $150 million. With Strasburg and Gerrit Cole the only bonafide aces available, and multiple teams willing to dole out large sums of money for those aces, the market for Strasburg was evidently robust. As Scott Boras looks set to pit the Yankees and Angels against each other for Cole, Strasburg sat waiting as a potential backup option. Rather than run the risk of losing Strasburg to the Cole runner-up, Washington opted to jump the market and paid to avoid a potential bidding war.

There are certainly risks involved with signing a pitcher into his mid-to-late 30s. Strasburg has a Tommy John surgery in his past. From 2015 through 2018, he averaged under 150 innings, but innings totals can be a double-edged sword when looking at longevity. Strasburg’s low innings totals in the past can be held against him, just as the 245.1 innings he threw in 2019 can be held against him due to the extra mileage it put on his arm. Ultimately, the Nationals are paying Strasburg for what they expect him to do in the future. As noted above, Strasburg’s projections are good. To get a slightly better sense of how pitchers like Strasburg have performed, I looked for players within two wins of Strasburg’s 18 WAR from age 27 through 30 years old. I took out any player with more than 200 innings than Strasburg’s 662 during that time and looked at players within two wins of Strasburg’s 5.7 WAR total in 2019. I was left with eight players:

Strasburg comes up a bit short in his innings total, though his 50.1 postseason innings aren’t included above. It’s also worth mentioning that the two players closest to Strasburg in terms of innings were Curt Schilling and Roy Halladay. Four of the eight players above are already Hall of Famers. Kevin Brown and Schilling both have good cases for induction as well. Here’s how those eight players performed over their next three seasons:

There isn’t a bust in the group, and the players above actually got better in their early 30s, averaging five wins per season. The worst comp during those years is Bert Blyleven, who still managed to pitch close to 400 innings and average more than three wins per season. It’s possible that showing Strasburg’s near-term future as a largely positive one doesn’t say much that we don’t already know. What about the out years of the contract, when Strasburg’s deal might become a liability? Here’s how those same eight pitchers fared from age-34 through age-37, in what will be the last four years of Strasburg’s contract:

Out of all of Strasburg’s comps, only one pitcher, Shane Reynolds, aged poorly. Roy Halladay’s injuries prevented him from pitching longer, but he still managed 10.5 WAR after his age-33 season. While Randy Johnson’s incredible career is doing a decent amount of work above, the pitchers averaged four wins per year in their mid-to-late-30s. Even looking at the median gives us 3.7 WAR per season during that time. We don’t know for sure how Strasburg will age, and injuries could certainly derail the latter half of his career, but pitchers who have pitched like Strasburg have aged incredibly well. The average WAR totals for these pitchers from age-31 through age-37 was 32.1 WAR with a 28.7 WAR median, even beating the ZiPS projections.

The Nationals are taking a risk with Strasburg, but it’s possible their bigger risk isn’t in signing Strasburg, but in what that signing might mean for the team’s pursuit of Anthony Rendon. Mark Lerner recently indicated the club would not be able to sign both Strasburg and Rendon, though as I noted at the time, even if both were given contracts for $30 million per year, it would represent only $6 million more than they made with the Nationals in 2019. Earlier today, I posed a question to our readers asking who they think the Nationals would be better off pursuing between the two free agents. In the hours that followed, more than 1,000 readers weighed in; by nearly a 2-1 margin preferred Rendon to Strasburg. Tilting the scales even more given what we know now, the expected contract in the poll for Strasburg was $100 million less than what he’s actually set to receive, while Rendon’s contract came in at $210 million. The Nationals probably won’t regret signing Stephen Strasburg, but it’s possible they might regret letting Rendon go, if that’s what transpires.

Even with Strasburg’s $35 million salary (with some deferrals with interest), the Nationals payroll still comes to just $165 million, well below the $200 million-plus payrolls they’ve been carrying the last few years. If the team doesn’t keep Rendon, perhaps they will sign Josh Donaldson, but it certainly looks like the team has payroll room. Outside of Rendon and Donaldson, there aren’t any other impact position players available. The team is roughly one good player away from making themselves favorites in the National League East. Bringing back Strasburg is a positive move for next season and beyond, but they still have a little more work to do if they want to get back to the playoffs next season.

As first reported by Jon Heyman of MLB Network, Stephen Strasburg has agreed on Monday afternoon to re-sign with the Washington Nationals. Strasburg’s new seven-year deal will net him $245 million, or a cool $35 million per season. The fancy new contract at least temporarily stands as the largest guaranteed payday in baseball history for a pitcher, eclipsing the $217 million the Red Sox inked with David Price after the 2015 season.

Strasburg and Anthony Rendon are players on the level that any team would have been hard-pressed to replace their production. To not sign at least one of the pair would likely be a strong enough hit to give the World Champion Nats a fairly difficult road to returning to the playoffs in 2020. Making it up in lesser deals for lesser lights has become even more difficult with players like Zack Wheeler, Mike Moustakas, and Yasmani Grandal, all players that could have conceivably helped a post-Rendonburg Nats, already signed.

At $35 million a year, unless the Nats were bluffing about only being able to sign one of their free agents, this likely closes the book on Rendon’s time in Washington. With the team about $32 million from the first luxury tax threshold, Rendon might just barely sneak in. His number would have to be a little less than $30 million, as player benefits also count towards the luxury tax payroll. Unless the team clears payroll elsewhere, they’d have to get extremely creative in order to significantly improve first base, the bullpen, and possibly add another starter at the back of the rotation. It could very likely make them barrel through the $228 million threshold, something they may want to avoid with Adam Eaton, Sean Doolittle, and Max Scherzer nearing free agency and Juan Soto hitting arbitration soon. If the team could truly only sign one of the players, I think Strasburg is the right choice.

Carter Kieboom is unlikely to replace Rendon’s production in 2020 or 2021, but he’s a significant prospect who could become a legitimate plus at the hot corner fairly quickly. I don’t think the upside of whoever would have replaced Strasburg without an additional signing (Austin Voth or Joe Ross) matches what the Nats have in Kieboom. Read the rest of this entry »

The three pitching lines below all belong to Jordan Lyles, who just signed with the Texas Rangers for two years and $16 million:

Now, maybe you’re not surprised that Lyles, 29, signed for $8 million a year. In our Top 50 Free Agents post, where we ranked Lyles 45th, you predicted two years and $12 million for the righty. $12 million isn’t $16 million, to be sure, but it’s in the ballpark. So perhaps you’re not surprised at this deal. I’m a little surprised, though. That’s because I think Lyles’ 2018-19 performance is far more likely to be indicative of his 2020-21 performance than his excellent run for the Brewers at then end of last season, and thought most teams would agree and offer him an accordingly modest deal this winter. The Texas Rangers, apparently, had other plans. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a fast offseason for mid-tier pitchers, and that trajectory continued on Thursday with Michael Pineda signing a two-year contract to return to Minnesota. The actual value of the deal will come out to $17.6 million after pro-rating down the 2020 salary due to his suspension:

The first year of Michael Pineda's deal — which is pending a physical — is a prorated $10m. With a 39-game suspension to serve, that means #MNTwins will pay roughly $7.6m in the 1st year of the deal. In reality, it's more like a 2-year, $17.6-million deal for Pineda.

— DanHayesMLB (@DanHayesMLB) December 6, 2019

The weirdness of signing a suspended player and pro-rating salary aside, this looks like a contender for the most team-friendly contract so far this offseason. Cole Hamels, who Kiley listed exactly one slot ahead of Pineda, is going to make more in 2020 than Pineda will over the next two years, and he was arguably worse than Pineda in 2019.

It’s almost beside the point to explain why this signing makes sense for the Twins, but let’s go through the motions quickly. The team’s winning recipe in 2019 was a combination of home runs at the plate and steady starters on the mound. José Berríos and Jake Odorizzi both had standout years, but the rotation was solid 1 through 5: Read the rest of this entry »

Howie Kendrick can hit. Since joining the Nationals in the middle of the 2017 season, Kendrick has put up a .322/.367/.529 batting line with a 130 wRC+ that trails only Anthony Rendon, Juan Soto and Bryce Harper among Nationals with at least 500 plate appearances during that time. Kendrick put on a good show in the postseason as well, winning the NLCS MVP and then hitting a two-run homer in Game 7 of the World Series that gave the Nationals a lead they would not surrender. There appears to be a mutual interest in hoping for a repeat performance, as Kendrick and the Nationals have agreed to a one-year deal for a guaranteed $6.25 million with a mutual option, with Jesse Dougherty reporting the deal first and Bob Nightengale offering the terms.

Heading into the offseason, Kendrick was rated the 26th-best free agent on our Top 50 Free Agent List. Kiley McDaniel thought he’d get a two-year deal for roughly the same amount Kendrick is signing for, while the median crowd estimate nailed the contract with the average a little bit higher. Here’s some of what I wrote in the capsule for Kendrick at the time: Read the rest of this entry »

The indefatigable Ken “Robothal” Rosenthal reported Wednesday afternoon that Zack Wheeler had agreed with the Philadelphia Phillies on a five-year contract. Reportedly worth $118 million in guaranteed salary, Wheeler will remain in Philadelphia through the end of the 2024 season, barring a trade.

In my Elegy for ’19 article talking about the Phillies, when discussing the future, my hope was that the team would continue pushing forward financially. While it would seem unlikely that Philadelphia would suddenly become overly thrifty, the club would be far from the first contender to suddenly get nervous about nearing the luxury tax threshold.

Wheeler was always expected to be a top starter. A first-round pick for the Giants in 2009, he was traded to the Mets at the 2011 trade deadline straight-up for Carlos Beltran. Wheeler had little trouble adjusting to the majors, putting up FIPs of 4.17 and 3.55 in 2013 and ’14 over 49 starts for the Mets. Doesn’t it feel a bit odd that a 3.55 FIP was just a little better than league-average as recently as 2014?

During spring training in 2015, Wheeler was diagnosed with a torn UCL, resulting in Tommy John surgery that cost him the entire season. Arm soreness during his rehab in 2016 delayed Wheeler’s comeback with the Mets until the next year. It wasn’t until 2018 that Wheeler really appeared to be picking up where he left off, throwing 182.1 innings with a 3.31 ERA/3.25 FIP, enough for 4.2 WAR. Last year featured much of the same good stuff, with Wheeler’s .311 BABIP likely being partially the fault of an unimpressive Mets defense. Perhaps most importantly, 2019 put Wheeler’s 2 1/2 lost years more comfortably in the rear-view mirror, something important for a team making a significant contract commitment. Read the rest of this entry »