Could Scott Boras do for Eric Hosmer what he’s done for Prince Fielder and Matt Wieters in the past? (Photo: Cathy T)
Because of the nature of inactivity this offseason, we’ve explored, among other things, whether MLB teams have learned how to wait on free agents and how agents and players may need to adapt. These are trying times for a baseball scribe. We could use some transactions!
One agent who has tried to adapt, who is arguably the game’s greatest at his chosen profession, is Scott Boras.
In recent offseasons, when only a tepid market has developed for his clients, Boras has on occasion attempted to circumvent front offices — which are increasingly operating with less emotion and more reason — and appeal directly to owners. It worked with Prince Fielder in early 2012 in Detroit, for example.
Wrote FanGraphs alumnus Jonah Keri of that deal when it happened:
In short, Dave Dombrowski knows his stuff.
Which is exactly why Scott Boras wanted no part of him.
Mike Ilitch’s role in the nine-year, $214 million contract the Tigers gave to Prince Fielder has been well documented. … If you’re an agent representing a big-ticket client, do you negotiate with a GM who has 10 baseball ops guys at his disposal breaking down player projections to the smallest decimal point? Or do you approach the octogenarian owner who’s far more likely to make decisions from the heart, far more likely to say, “Eff it, I don’t care what happens in 2018, I want to win now”?
Boras perhaps didn’t pioneer this end-around approach in this age of data-drenched, free-agency-averse front offices. Rather, it might have been Dan Lozano, who appealed directly to Angels owner Arte Moreno while attempting to find a home for Albert Pujols.
I noticed an underlying theme in both pieces I’ve written since coming back, along with many others written this offseason at FanGraphs. If you are a fan of a small- or medium-market team that will never spend to the luxury-tax line and thus always be at a disadvantage, do you want your team to try to always be .500 or better, or do you want them push all the chips in the middle for a smaller competitive window? In my stats vs. scouting article I referenced a progressive vs. traditional divide, which was broadly defined by design, but there are often noticeable differences in team-building strategies from the two overarching philosophies, which I will again illustrate broadly to show the two contrasting viewpoints.
The traditional clubs tend favor prospects with pedigree (bonus or draft position, mostly), with big tools/upside and the process of team-building is often to not push the chips into the middle (spending in free agency, trading prospects) until the core talents (best prospects and young MLB assets) have arrived in the big leagues and have established themselves. When that window opens, you do whatever you can afford to do within reason to make those 3-5 years the best you can and, in practice, it’s usually 2-3 years of a peak, often followed directly by a tear-down rebuild. The Royals appear to have just passed the peak stage of this plan, the Braves hope their core is established in 2019 and the Padres may be just behind the Braves (you could also argue the old-school Marlins have done this multiple times and are about to try again now).
On the progressive side, you have a more conservative, corporate approach where the club’s goal is to almost always have a 78-92 win team entering Spring Training, with a chance to make the playoffs every year, never with a bottom-ten ranked farm system, so they are flexible and can go where the breaks lead them. The valuation techniques emphasize the analytic more often, which can sometimes seem superior and sometimes seem foolish, depending on the execution. When a rare group of talent and a potential World Series contender emerges, the progressive team will push some chips in depending on how big the payroll is. The Rays have a bottom-five payroll and can only cash in some chips without mortgaging multiple future years, whereas the Indians and Astros are higher up the food chain and can do a little more when the time comes, and have done just that.
What we just saw in Pittsburgh (and may see soon in Tampa Bay) is what happens when a very low-payroll team sees a dip coming (controllable talent becoming uncontrolled soon) and doesn’t think there’s a World Series contender core, so they slide down toward the bottom end of that win range so that in a couple years they can have a sustainable core with a chance to slide near the top of it, rather than just tread water. Ideally, you can slash payroll in the down years, then reinvest it in the competing years (the Rays has done this in the past) to match the competitive cycle and not waste free-agent money on veterans in years when they are less needed. You could argue many teams are in this bucket, with varying payroll/margin for error: the D’Backs, Brewers, Phillies, A’s and Twins, along with the aforementioned Rays, Pirates, Indians and Astros.
Eleven clubs were over $175 million in payroll for the 2017 season (Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Tigers, Giants, Nationals, Rangers, Orioles, Cubs, Angels), so let’s toss those teams out and ask fans of the other 19 clubs: if forced to pick one or the other, which of these overarching philosophies would you prefer to root for?
Manny Margot had a breakout within a breakout last year. After accounting for his offensive and defensive contributions, the Padres’ rookie center fielder was worth roughly two wins in slightly less than a full season’s worth of plate appearances. Even for a player who was highly touted as a prospect, producing league-average work at 22 years old represents, in itself, a kind of breakout.
Hidden within that strong end-of-year line was a drastic change in the second half, though. Margot started hitting the ball in the air. That’s a change that has powered many other breakouts. But before we book the skinny center fielder for all of the homers next year, we have to ask: what’s happened with launch-angle surgers in the past?
I wrote my first post for FanGraphs on April 14th, 2008. It was about Gabe Kapler’s return from managing to be a productive big leaguer. It referenced WPA/LI as our version of a modern statistic and talked unironically about how Kapler was keeping up with Casey Kotchman. It wasn’t great.
Since then, I’ve published 3,501 other posts (or chats). Hopefully, most of them were better than that first one. In these last 10 years, the site has changed a lot. In 2010, I went from a freelancer to the company’s first full-time employee, then was joined by a host of absurdly talented coworkers, many of whom now also get to do this for a living. FanGraphs went from a niche site into the mainstream, and along the way, I’ve seen our little corner of the baseball world help change the language of baseball fans.
It’s been a remarkable run. But for me, it comes to an end today. This will be my last post at FanGraphs.
Olivares is the prospect centerpiece of the deal. He had a fairly significant breakout in 2017 after he barely played affiliated ball in 2016 due to injury. He was hurt after just 15 games at Bluefield in 2016 and, aside from those organizations that had extended spring-training coverage in Florida, many clubs didn’t see him until last year. In 2017, he went to Low-A and hit .277/.330/.500 with 17 homers and 18 steals in 101 games. He was promoted to Dunedin in mid-August and struggled there for the final three weeks of the season.
Olivares has an exciting, but volatile, skillset. He’s a free swinger with mediocre breaking-ball recognition and a pull-heavy approach to contact. He takes his share of ugly, unbalanced hacks at pitches that aren’t anywhere near the strike zone. So while he struck out in just 17% of his Low-A plate appearances last year, scouts are concerned about how undercooked Olivares’s feel to hit is right no, and worry that it could become an issue against more advanced pro pitching.
Eric Hosmer has waited some time for a market to come together for his services. Part of the reason for the delay is that large-market clubs like the Dodgers and Yankees are not in need of a first baseman and are trying to remain below the luxury-tax threshold. Part of it is that teams are learning to better wait out free agents. (By Jan. 3 of last winter, nine of FanGraphs’ top-10 free agents had signed. This year? Three.) Hosmer’s agent Scott Boras famously said that there should be no concern for a free agent if he’s “the steak,” making the analogy to the main course of a fine dinner. There is some debate, however, as to whether Hosmer is a steak or a lesser cut.
Dick Enberg died on Thursday, at the age 82, in La Jolla, California. His roots were in Michigan. Born in Mount Clemens, Enberg lived on a farm in Amada and attended college in Mount Pleasant. He went on to cultivate an inimitable broadcast style and become known to sports fans everywhere.
To say that Enberg reached the pinnacle of the profession would be an understatement. He called some of the biggest games in college basketball history, several Super Bowls, and more than two dozen Wimbledons. As the voice of the California Angels, and later the San Diego Padres, he was behind the microphone for nine no-hitters. Two years ago, the Baseball Hall of Fame honored him with the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting excellence.
Enberg was reportedly as good of a person as he was a broadcaster and based on my brief interactions with him that’s certainly true. When I first met Enberg, we spoke of our shared Finnish heritage and small town Michigan upbringings. He couldn’t have been more congenial. I recall walking away impressed that a legend could be so humble.
It is by no means hyperbolic to call Enberg a legend. Here is what two of the best broadcasters in the business had to say when I asked them about his passing.
Len Kasper, Chicago Cubs: “I was very saddened to see the news. Dick was one of the first big time national sportscasters I remember hearing as a kid. I took a special interest in his work because he went to Central Michigan University, just a few miles from where I grew up. I was fortunate to get to know him a little bit when he joined the Padres TV booth and we had several great conversations. The word iconic gets thrown around lazily in our business, but if Dick Enberg wasn’t an iconic broadcaster, I don’t know who was. I will throw out one other thing. His tennis work was totally underrated. I watched a ton of it in the ‘80s and ‘90s and he was the #1 voice of THAT sport too! He did everything! Versatile, knowledgeable, understated, he had everything you’d want in a national broadcaster.” Read the rest of this entry »
On Monday, the Red Sox agreed to terms with first baseman Mitch Moreland. It was meaningful news, for two reasons. One, this is the Red Sox we’re talking about, and it seems like everything the Red Sox do is always big news. But then, additionally, Moreland electing to re-sign would appear to take the Red Sox out of the running for free agent Eric Hosmer. And while I’m certainly not Hosmer’s agent, the market for his services apparently isn’t large.
It could get larger. Scott Boras will work hard to make it larger. It’s possible to see a team like, say, the Mets throwing their hat in the ring. Yet the Red Sox move increases the chances that Hosmer will stay in Kansas City. It also increases the chances that Hosmer will go to San Diego. The Padres, so far, have been the most closely-linked suitor. They seem deeply motivated to turn Hosmer into a part of their core. The Padres haven’t won more than 77 games since 2011.
Kirsten Karbach grew up listening to Andy Freed and Dave Wills call Tampa Bay Rays games on the radio. Now she’s following in their footsteps. At age 27, Karbach is the voice of Philadelphia’s high-A affiliate, the Clearwater Threshers. She’s been with the Florida State League club since 2013.
According to Ben Gellman, Karbach got her job by “knocking our socks off” in an interview.
“When I was with the Threshers, my boss told me I could hire a No. 2 broadcaster to intern and help me out,” explained Gellman, who now does play-by-play for the Salem Red Sox. “He suggested a guy from the University of South Florida, whose tape was pretty good, but I’d heard a couple of innings of Kirsten on tape and was blown away by the quality of her call. I told my boss, ‘We have got to bring her in for an interview.’
“We brought her on board and she was a terrific partner, consistently pointing out nuances of the game and enhancing the broadcast. When she took over the lead job in 2014, I knew she’d do a fantastic job and I’m so happy to see her continued success in a corner of our industry that badly needs more women and people of color — and other people who aren’t straight, white males — to give us a diverse perspective that better reflects our fans.”
Karbach obviously feels the same way, and while she’s currently the only female play-by-play broadcaster in affiliated baseball she doesn’t expect that to be the case for much longer. Read the rest of this entry »
The competitive-balance tax isn’t a salary cap, not in the hard and fast sense, but sometimes it acts in the exact same way. As a consequence, you can have big-budget teams in the business of cutting payroll, which can lead to situations like Tuesday’s, where the Padres have come to the aid of the Yankees. The Yankees are trying to stay below the threshold, even after acquiring Giancarlo Stanton, and that almost fully explains this morning’s exchange.
This is a trade involving three major-league players. And even though I’m not at all convinced Blash lasts the winter on the Yankees’ 40-man roster, there are things about him to like. Ultimately, though, this is really quite simple to understand — the Padres are taking Headley’s $13-million final year, and they’re getting Mitchell for the trouble. The Yankees drop their payroll, and the Padres get a project.
