Free agent signings come in several flavors. There are the big splashy ones – ooh, Kris Bryant and Freddie Freeman are in the NL West now! There are good-fit signings – Mark Canha on the Mets and Yusei Kikuchi on the Blue Jays fill necessary roles on exciting clubs. There are even feel-good reunions, like Zack Greinke returning to the Royals.

There are also reliever signings. So, so many reliever signings. Not every team can sign a star first baseman, but everyone needs a flock of middle-inning arms. There are nine innings every game, and starters don’t pitch as many frames as they used to, and – well, you get the idea, there are a ton of reasons to go out and find some innings, even if you’re not planning on winning 257 games like the Dodgers or overthrowing the established order of things like the Blue Jays.

To that end, the Cubs signed three relievers yesterday, and the Angels signed two of their own. Chicago gave Daniel Norris one year and $1.75 million plus incentives, David Robertson one year and $3.5 million plus incentives, and Mychal Givens one year and $5 million plus incentives. For their part, the Angels signed Archie Bradley for one year and $3.75 million, but also went up-market and signed MVP vote-getter Ryan Tepera to a two-year, $14 million deal. Read the rest of this entry »

Zack Greinke is coming full circle. On Wednesday, the 38-year-old righthander agreed to a one-year contract with the Royals, the team that drafted him in 2002 and stayed with him through low points and high over the course of seven big-league seasons (2004–10), the pinnacle of which was his AL Cy Young award win in ’09. The Greinke deal headlined a busy day for the Royals, who additionally swapped lefties with the Reds, sending 34-year-old starter Mike Minor and cash to Cincinnati in exchange for 29-year-old reliever Amir Garrett.

Via the New York Post’s Joel Sherman, Greinke’s deal guarantees him $13 million, with an additional $2 million in potential bonuses based on innings pitched. Despite the Royals coming off a 74-win season and not looking much stronger for 2022 (though our Playoff Odds give them a 10.7% chance of joining the expanded party), Greinke had this destination in mind. Via MLB.com’s Anne Rogers:

Greinke on the #Royals: "This was a team I singled out that I wanted to play for. It was my No. 1 choice. The only thing that would have made it a little tough is if pitchers were still allowed to hit. That would have opened up a lot of teams I would want to play for in the NL."

— Anne Rogers (@anne__rogers) March 17, 2022

Though he helped the Astros reach the World Series for the second time in less than three full seasons in Houston, Greinke had an uneven 2021 campaign. Prior to landing on the COVID-19 injured list in early September, he led the AL in innings pitched, though he struggled upon returning; his ERA went up more than half a run, and he wound up finishing 11th with 179 innings. His overall 4.16 ERA was his highest mark since 2016, his first year with the Diamondbacks after signing a six-year, $206.5 million deal, but more jarring was his 4.71 FIP, the worst mark of his career.

While Greinke was typically stingy with walks, posting the AL’s second-lowest rate among qualifiers (5.2%), his 1.58 homers per nine allowed was the AL’s second-highest mark and the highest of his career since his 2004 rookie season. Meanwhile, his 17.2% strikeout rate and 12.1% strikeout-walk differential were his worst marks since 2005 (I’m throwing out his three-appearance 2006 for all of these comparisons). Read the rest of this entry »

Seiya Suzuki is rightfully the headline grabber, but the Cubs stayed in the news on Thursday by agreeing to terms with infielder Jonathan Villar on a one-year deal worth $6 million. Villar spent the 2021 season with the Mets, hitting .249/.322/.416 in 142 games for 2.1 WAR and playing second base, third base, and shortstop for the injury-riddled franchise. That 2021 season represented a colossal comeback from his poor showing in 2020, when his power disappeared and he finished with a lackluster .232/.301/.292 line.

Versatility is one of those things that’s hard to put a precise figure on, but having a player such as Villar on your roster is basically like giving yourself a 27- or 28-man roster. He won’t remind anyone of Ozzie Smith at short, but that’s hardly the point with a player with his skillset. Whatever infielder you lose to a pulled hammy or a sprained elbow, Villar represents a 20/20-capable player who can man the position. He’s played much less often in the outfield, but there’s no particular reason to think he’d be a problem out there; he’s certainly fast enough to play even center field, and he stole 40 bases as recently as 2019. Being versatile isn’t one of the parameters that ZiPS looks for when making comps, but it still warms my heart to see Tony Phillips, the Platonic ideal of a super-sub, showing up high in Villar’s comp list at 15th. If he is 80% of Phillips, the retooling Cubs ought to be overjoyed with how their $6 million was spent. Read the rest of this entry »

The Giants continued to fly under the radar Wednesday night, signing outfielder Joc Pederson and pitcher Matthew Boyd to one-year deals. Boyd will receive $5.2 million in 2022, and Pederson will snag $6 million of his own. Neither of these deals makes the impressive splash that acquiring one of the Oakland Matts or Freddie Freeman (now starring for the division-rival Dodgers) does, but they both incrementally improve San Francisco’s roster without spending a princely sum or requiring a long-term commitment.

Pederson made enough of a splash in 2021 to make the term “Joctober” a thing, but the larger problem in recent years has been his Jocpril to Joctember performance. Through 2019, his age-27 season, his career line was at a healthy .233/.339/.474, respectable for a corner outfielder who can fake center field a bit, though with the caveat that he needed to be protected against left-handed pitching. But he’s struggled since the start of 2020, hitting .238/.310/.422 over 180 games, well off his career numbers up to that point. If Pederson had hit free agency after the 2019 season, ZiPS projected that he would have received a four-year deal worth $74 million, so his decline has been sharper and at a younger age than typical.

As a role player who can carefully be used in a platoon, the Giants are a good home for him. Manager Gabe Kapler has shown an admirable ability to mix and match situation players to get the most value of their performance. Earl Weaver’s Orioles lineups were full of players like this, such as Terry Crowley, John Lowenstein, Jim Dwyer, Pat Kelly, and Gary Roenicke, none of whom you wanted to see play 150 games a year on their own most years, but all of whom had some standout skill that could be used to leverage runs. The Giants overall had an average outfield with a combined wRC+ of 101, impressive for a team that only really had one real starter in Mike Yastrzemski. In the end, the Giants were one of the best teams in baseball at getting the platoon advantages with their offense. Read the rest of this entry »

Freddie Freeman went out on top in 2021, riding in a parade through Atlanta as the unquestioned leader of a franchise he’d taken to World Series glory. He’s coming into 2022 on top, but in a different way. This time, he’s headed to Los Angeles as the newest member of a team he beat in the playoffs last year. But more importantly, he’s doing it with $162 million:

BREAKING: Freddie Freeman has agreed to terms with the Dodgers on a six-year, $162 million deal according to @JeffPassan and me.

— Kiley McDaniel (@kileymcd) March 17, 2022

With this signing, the Dodgers are taking another crack at what they briefly built midway through last season: an offense with an All-Star at every position, the kind of team that doesn’t just have depth but also enviable breadth. Cody Bellinger? He’ll likely bat eighth. Will Smith? He’ll be the most overqualified six hole hitter in the game.

It feels like too much. It feels like overkill. But that’s because we’ve all become accustomed to a style of team-building focused on risk mitigation. Have the best team in baseball? Recent orthodoxy would tell you to consolidate your gains and focus on signing one of your stars to an extension, or fortify your minor league system to help develop the next crop of stars. It’s a popular method because it works; no less a team than the Dodgers showed the benefits of this strategy as they built a powerhouse throughout the middle of the last decade. Read the rest of this entry »

Historically speaking, things have rarely worked out well for the Rockies when they’ve written large checks. Just limiting the timeframe to the past 12 years, the free agent signings of Ian Desmond and Wade Davis were disasters, and they bailed on homegrown stars Troy Tulowitzki and Nolan Arenado well before reaching the halfway point of their long-term deals, having suddenly decided they couldn’t afford to build around them. Yet even with those unhappy examples in mind, it’s tough to comprehend their signing of Kris Bryant to a seven-year, $182 million contract, a deal that was announced on Wednesday.

Even with the signing of Freddie Freeman, the news of which broke later on Wednesday night, the Bryant deal is the offseason’s second-largest thus far, after Corey Seager‘s 10-year, $325 million contract with the Rangers, and it’s forth in average annual value, behind Max Scherzer’s $43.3 million, Seager’s $32.5 million, and Freeman’s $27 million. It’s the second-largest contract in Rockies history, after their eight-year, $260 million extension for Arenado. We’ll get to him.

Bryant has an impressive resumé that includes an NL Rookie of the Year award in 2015, an NL MVP award and a World Series ring a year later, and All-Star appearances in both of those years plus ’19 and ’21. From 2015-17, he ranked among the top position players in the game, batting .288/.388/.527; his slugging percentage and 94 homers both ranked 16th in the majors, while his 144 wRC+ ranked 12th, and his 20.6 WAR third behind only Mike Trout (25.8) and Josh Donaldson (21.8). Yet his career over the four seasons since has been uneven, with injury-marred campaigns alternating with good-but-not-great ones. For that latter period, he’s hit .268/.364/.479 with 73 homers, a 124 wRC+ (tied for 44th), and 11.1 WAR, maxing out at 4.7 in 2019. He’s been a very good player, with power, patience, and defensive versatility. In 2021 alone, he made 47 starts at third base, 35 in left field, 33 in right field, 13 in center field, and 10 at first base.

Still, that latter stretch does not eyeball as the credentials of a player in line for a seven-year, $182 million commitment starting at age 30, not even from a free-spending owner like the Mets’ Steve Cohen. And yet it’s come from the Rockies, who just over 13 months ago traded Arenado — whom the team had signed to that franchise-record extension in February 2019 — to the Cardinals along with $51 million dollars (!) in exchange for five players, four of them prospects. Arenado and the Rockies had been at odds since late 2019, near the end of a 91-loss season that he said “feels like a rebuild,” offending the delicate sensibilities of owner Dick Monfort and then-general manager Jeff Bridich. Their subsequent failure to sign even one major league free agent the following winter only exacerbated tensions, making a parting of the ways necessary.

While an analysis of the Bryant signing shouldn’t be about Arenado, or Trevor Story, the two-time All-Star shortstop whom the team refused to trade last summer before letting him walk away as a free agent, one can’t help but feel as though this is Monfort overcompensating. The Rockies are overpaying a free agent with money that would have been better spent on retaining at least one of those players. Both had six-win seasons as recently as 2019 (versus ’17 for Bryant). Both are within a year of Bryant’s age, Arenado older by nine months, Story younger by 10. And both were homegrown — retaining them would have provided welcome continuity. Bryant may be a better hitter than either of them; even limiting the scope to the past three seasons, his 123 wRC+ outdistances Arenado’s 116 and Story’s 113, and his projection for 2022 is higher. Yet he’s been the least valuable of the three over the past three years because he’s not a top-flight defender at a premium position; his 8.7 WAR for that stretch is a distant third behind Arenado’s 11.1 and Story’s 12.0, and he projects to fall even further behind.

And when I say overpaying… we’ll get to that, but first, Bryant’s 2021 season. After battling nagging injuries — back stiffness, left elbow, left wrist, and more — through a dismal 2020, during which he managed just a 75 wRC+ (.206/.293/.351), he was much better last year, though his power fell off notably after a July 30 trade to the Giants amid the Cubs’ ongoing fire sale. He hit .267/.358/.503 (129 wRC+) before the deal, and .262/.344/.444 (113 wRC+) after. While he posted his best barrel rate (10.3%) and average exit velocity (88.2 mph) since 2016, those aren’t exactly remarkable numbers, with the former ranking in the 67th percentile, the latter in just the 29th.

As for the size of his contract, in our Top 50 Free Agents roundup, Ben Clemens predicted Bryant would receive an eight-year, $200 million deal, while the median crowdsource had him at six years and $150 million. Outside the FanGraphs fold, MLB Trade Rumors had him at $160 million over six years. In a lockout-fevered exercise connecting free agent hitters to teams, however, Dan Szymborski noted that his ZiPS-driven valuation — his multiyear projection times a dollars per win estimate — was for just $67 million over four years, though he himself predicted it would take more to sign him, coming in at $90 million over four years. While the AAVs from Ben, Dan (not ZiPS), and our crowdsource aren’t really that far apart, ranging from $22.5 million to $25 million, the ratio of the amounts at the extremes was larger than two to one.

I’ll admit I had forgotten about all of those numbers when the news of Bryant’s deal came down, particularly when Dan handed off his seven-year projection:

This is for Bryant as a left fielder, since the Rockies have reason to be happy with Ryan McMahon’s stellar defense at third base last year. Projecting Bryant at third doesn’t change much, with an extra 0.2 WAR in three of the first four seasons but some of that coming off the back end. The valuations for the two projections: $67 million for the left field version and $70 million for the third base one, both more than $100 million shy of the investment the Rockies just made. Sweet fancy Moses.

I asked Dan if he could recall similar instances of projected valuations that far below the actual deals, and he cited the $200-million-plus pacts of Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, and Alex Rodriguez (post-opt-out), particularly recalling Pujols’ valuation coming in at $131 million for his 10-year, $240 million deal. On Ryan Howard’s five-year, $125 million extension, ZiPS was “only” $75 million under. What those contracts all had in common was that they hailed from an era before analytics had permeated front offices. The only recent contract Dan could recall that overshot ZiPS by such a wide margin was that of Eric Hosmer; with Dan valuing Hosmer’s opt-out at $17 million, his estimate came in at $81 million for what he treated as a $161 million deal (instead of $144 million). None of those contracts, even the contemporary one, aged well. In that light, if Bryant’s deal is that far above projections, yikes.

But maybe it’s not as bad as it looks. Bryant did put up 3.6 WAR last year, and 4.7 in 2019; that’s 8.3 WAR over two seasons separated by a 34-game struggle while the player and the rest of the world were an utter mess. Maybe ZiPS is putting too much stock in that, and maybe he starts this deal with two or three seasons in the four-win range before tapering off as he moves down the defensive spectrum.

It’s worth noting that according to Statcast, Bryant has outslugged expectations; last year, he outdid his .449 xSLG by 32 points, and in 2019, he outdid his .457 xSLG by 64 points. In those two years, he added a combined 11 homers beyond expectations (six last year, five in 2019). While one could look at that and believe that the 2016 edition of Bryant, with the .554 slugging percentage and .566 xSLG, isn’t coming back, perhaps the increased carry for fly balls at high altitude will pay off for a player with a career groundball/fly ball ratio of just 0.81. Sure, maybe my rose-colored glasses are smarter than Dan’s machine. As evidenced by those other estimates I cited, it’s not like the entire industry views him as ZiPS does — some intelligent people really do see him as a player worth investing $150 million or more.

Setting the valuation aside, one can be happy that Bryant, whose free agency was delayed by a year due to the Cubs’ service-time manipulation, is getting his big payday. He’s a very entertaining player who will hit some towering home runs and give Rockies fans a star to cheer for following the departures of Arenado and Story. Undoubtedly, in the short-term he makes the Rockies better and more watchable. This is a team that lost 87 games last year, one whose outfielders combined for a major league-worst 81 wRC+, and just 3.8 WAR. Left fielder Raimel Tapia may have blazing speed, but he hit for a 76 wRC+ and produced 0.3 WAR. Center fielder Garrett Hampson was a worse hitter (65 wRC+) but ever so slightly more valuable due to defense (0.5 WAR), and right fielder Charlie Blackmon was a long way from his All-Star days (94 wRC+, 1.5 WAR). Plug Bryant in for any of them and it’s an upgrade of at least a couple of wins.

The problem is that still won’t be nearly enough to catch the Dodgers, Giants, and Padres (oh my!). Even with a rotation that has three reasonably solid starters (Kyle Freeland, Antonio Senzatela, and Austin Gomber) behind staff ace Germán Márquez, that unit projects as the majors’ eighth-worst, and they’re several roster additions away from being a team that can contend. Assuming Blackmon slides into the DH role, they need two good outfielders, a shortstop to replace Story (they’re not winning anything with late-stage José Iglesias there, sorry), and a much better bullpen than the one that currently projects as the very worst in the majors.

So the real question is where do the Rockies go from here? Will Monfort continue to spend money to build around that rotation, which has Márquez under control through 2024, Freeland through ’23, and Senzatela through ’27? Can a front office that experienced a regime change last year (Bridich resigned in late April, replaced by long-time vice president of scouting Bill Schmidt) and recently fired its head of analytics, Scott Van Lenten, after just seven months, point them in the right direction? Or will Monfort and company decide in 2024 or ’25 that it’s just too tough to build around another aging and expensive star and make another trade that sets the franchise back (though as with Arenado, they’ll need Bryant’s buy-in, as his deal features a full no-trade clause)?

Those questions are unanswerable at the moment. What we know is that Bryant has found a home via a big contract, and that the Rockies have gotten a substantial upgrade via a very good player. How that will all pay off is anyone’s guess.

The Braves re-signed one of the key members of their championship squad, inking Eddie Rosario to a two-year, $18 million deal with a club option for 2024. Acquired by the Braves on July 30, Rosario didn’t get into a game for his new club until August 28, but from that point on, he slashed .274/.333/.579 (135 wRC+) to help Atlanta win its fourth straight NL East title. He found an even higher gear once the calendar turned over to October, slashing .383/.456/.617 (182 wRC+) in the playoffs; he carried close to the entire offensive load in the NLCS against the Dodgers, earning MVP honors during that series. The Braves made two additional smaller moves on Wednesday, signing left-handed outfielder Alex Dickerson and right-handed reliever Tyler Thornburg to non-guaranteed contracts worth $1 million and $900,000, respectively.

Rosario probably won’t be able to replicate his late-season heroics over a full season in Atlanta, but he’s been a solid contributor throughout his career. In six seasons with the Twins, he posted a 106 wRC+ and 11.4 WAR, then signed a one-year deal with Cleveland after Minnesota non-tendered him early in the offseason. He struggled to a 86 wRC+ to start the year before being sidelined with an abdominal strain, then was traded to Atlanta in a clear salary dump right before the trade deadline.

Due to an aggressive approach at the plate, Rosario has always been prone to hot streaks and cold spells, but he did make some slight tweaks to curb his over-aggressiveness at the plate last season and also improve his contact quality:

Unsurprisingly, Rosario’s batted ball data was fantastic, but it’s reassuring to see that the changes he made to his plate discipline metrics carried over from his time in Cleveland. Overall, he was a little less swing-happy and managed to make better decisions when he did offer at a pitch. His strikeout rate sat right in line with his established norms over the past few years, but his walk rate hit the second-highest mark of his career. With an offensive profile that’s BABIP-dependent, these slight changes to his approach should help improve his floor when he does hit one of those cold streaks. Read the rest of this entry »

When we released our Top 100 Prospects list last month, one of the questions we heard most frequently was, “Where is Seiya Suzuki?” It was the subject of considerable internal debate, but the larger discussion revolved around whether or not the Japanese superstar even belonged on a prospect list.

While in terms of service time and rookie eligibility, Suzuki is technically a prospect, it just doesn’t feel right to rank him amongst unfinished products. He is not a player who requires development, or one where we’re talking about the gap between who he is now and what he can become. At 27, Suzuki is a player in his prime, with an impressive track record of performance at Japan’s highest level since his teens. This is not a prospect; this is an established talent who just hasn’t played in Major League Baseball yet.

That’s about to change. After a flurry of inaccurate Twitter reporting on Tuesday, Suzuki ended all speculation about his future on Wednesday morning by signing with the Cubs on a five-year, $85 million deal (when combined with his posting fee, Chicago will spend nearly $100 million for his services), where he’ll step right into the middle of the lineup as the everyday right fielder.

Suzuki’s performances in Japan have been nothing short of outstanding, with an OPS north of 1.000 in each of the last four seasons, including a career high of 1.073 with Hiroshima in 2021, when he hit .317/.443/.639 in 132 games with 38 home runs. Still, statistical projections for him can be challenging, as is the case with any player who has never been in the big leagues; there are skills, tools and traits that may lead to success elsewhere yet not translate at the game’s highest level. Still, Dan Szymborski gave it his best shot and in the end nearly hit a bullseye with a contract projection of five years and $83 million.

Scouts are just as optimistic as Dan as to Suzuki’s ability to produce in the big leagues. He’s a well-rounded player, but the beginning of any discussion about his potential begins with what he can do with a bat in his hands, and luckily for the Cubs and their fans, there’s a lot to like. He features the much desired combination of excellent swing decisions with a very good contact rate and rarely chases outside the zone, which you can reasonably expect will continue with the Cubs; breaking balls in Japan, while rarely matching the velocity he will see in the majors, do move just as much, if not more. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday, the A’s made the biggest trade of the year when they sent Matt Olson to the Braves. This morning, they kept the momentum going and made the second-biggest trade of the year. Matt Chapman is headed to Canada in exchange for a four-prospect return:

Blue Jays deal for Matt Chapman is done. Kevin Smith, Gunnar Hoglund, Zach Logue and Kirby Snead are headed to Athletics, per source.

— Shi Davidi (@ShiDavidi) March 16, 2022

Oakland doesn’t do anything by half measures, and with Olson and Chris Bassitt out the door, the team was in competitive limbo. Toronto was in search of a new infielder after Marcus Semien left in free agency. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize the potential fit here, and the two teams were linked in trade rumors for much of the locked-out offseason.

From the Jays’ perspective, this trade gets them exactly what they wanted. After losing two of their top starting pitchers in free agency, they signed Kevin Gausman and Yusei Kikuchi to fill holes in the rotation. That still left them with a diminished offensive group, and there weren’t any obvious free agent fits to spruce things up. It may have been a coincidence, but as the Jays pursued Freddie Freeman and Kyle Schwarber, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was spotted doing third base drills, a sign of how intent the Jays were on shoehorning another hitter into their lineup, positional fit notwithstanding. Read the rest of this entry »

Fifteen months ago, the Cubs non-tendered Kyle Schwarber following a subpar season, because they didn’t think he would be worth paying something in the neighborhood of $10 million. He landed on his feet with the Nationals, went on an epic home run binge in June, made his first All-Star team, and, after being traded to the Red Sox at the deadline, helped Boston make a run to the ALCS. On Wednesday, the 29-year-old slugger parlayed that big season into an agreement on a four-year, $79 million deal with the Phillies.

Schwarber set career bests across the board with a .266/.374/.554 (145 wRC+) line for the Nationals and Red Sox in 2021, thumping 32 homers en route to 3.1 WAR. He packed that production into just 471 plate appearances; among players with at least 400 PA in both leagues, he ranked 10th in slugging percentage and 11th in wRC+. He fell short of qualifying for the batting title because he lost six weeks to a right hamstring strain and was still on the injured list when he was sent to the Red Sox for pitching prospect Aldo Ramirez on July 29.

Schwarber’s season was actually a bit more uneven than those robust numbers suggest. Coming off a subpar .188/.308/.393 (89 wRC+) campaign with the Cubs in the pandemic-shortened 2020, he signed a one-year, $10 million deal with the Nationals but hit for just a 103 wRC+ with nine homers in April and May. He didn’t add his 10th homer until June 12, but from that point to the end of the month, he pounded 16 in just 83 plate appearances, a run that included four two-homer games and a three-homer game (his six multi-homer games overall tied Joey Gallo, Aaron Judge, and Salvador Perez for the major league lead). On June 19 and 20 against the Mets, he tied the major league record with five homers in two games, homering twice and driving in four runs in the seven-inning nightcap of a doubleheader, and then hitting three homers and driving in four runs the next day. From June 19 to 29, he mashed 12 taters in 10 games, tying Albert Belle for the major league record.

Unfortunately, just three days later, Schwarber strained his right hamstring and landed on the injured list, which put a damper on his first All-Star selection, announced just two days later. The Nationals, who went 19–9 in June to nose above .500 (40–38), sank to 8–18 in July and cleaned house at the end of the month, trading eight players off the major league roster, including franchise cornerstones Max Scherzer and Trea Turner. Flipping Schwarber as part of that housecleaning was a no-brainer. Read the rest of this entry »