Craig Kimbrel Is No Longer a Free Agent
Eight months ago, Craig Kimbrel declared for free agency. A lot has happened since then. There were rumors in November that Kimbrel wanted a six year deal. We don’t know what happened to Kimbrel’s demands or when. We don’t know what offers were made and then rejected, or not made because of those perceived demands. We don’t know if draft pick compensation was a legitimate concern or simply an excuse for teams to hide behind. What we do know is that Craig Kimbrel is no longer a free agent. Ken Rosenthal first reported that Kimbrel had agreed to a deal with the Chicago Cubs for three years and roughly $45 million, with Jeff Passan reporting Kimbrel will make $10 million this season and $16 million in each of the following two years with a $1 million buyout on a team option for 2022.
Every team could use Craig Kimbrel. The Red Sox — whose current saves leader, Ryan Brasier, has a 5.30 FIP and ERA over four as the team has struggled to stay above .500 — wasn’t interested in bringing Kimbrel back and paying the 75% tax on his salary. The Atlanta Braves — who are in a fight for first place with a below replacement level bullpen performance that is worse than every teams outside of Miami and Baltimore and payroll flexibility coming off a division title and new taxpayer-funded stadium — opted not to get involved. The Nationals — with an MLB-worst 6.66 bullpen ERA as they try to get back into playoff contention — chose to try and stay below the competitive balance tax. The Brewers — who watched Corey Knebel go down with a season-ending injury and watched their 2018 strength turn into a liability outside of Josh Hader — sat and watched Kimbrel go to their rival.
Other teams opted to fill their bullpen needs more frugally. The Cardinals signed Andrew Miller to a contract guaranteeing $25 million and have received below replacement-level production. The Phillies brought in David Robertson for $23 million and have watched him pitch poorly in just seven games due to injury. The Mets traded away top prospect Jared Kelenic and took on the bulk of Robinson Cano’s contract for Edwin Diaz, who has pitched well, but then spent $30 million on Jeurys Familia, who has not. For a guaranteed $25 million, Joe Kelly has an ERA near eight as the Dodgers tried to stay under the competitive tax again after averaging over $250 million from 2013-2017. The Yankees likely don’t have complaints about the $66 million they spent on Adam Ottavino or Zack Britton, though they seem the exception rather than the rule.
Of course, maybe the last few paragraphs don’t make the point they seem to be making. Nearly every team that has passed on Kimbrel has needed bullpen help. Those who have done nothing have paid for it, thus far. Those that have done something, but something not as likely to succeed as Craig Kimbrel, have seemingly paid for it as well. The real point might not be that teams should have been much more eager to sign Craig Kimbrel because they need good relievers. The point might be that relievers, even the best ones, are incredibly volatile and investing a bunch of money in them is a fool’s errand. It’s a very good theoretical argument to make, one I’ve made, and it might make sense in a different universe. Not this one, though.
In a baseball universe where teams gladly pay eight-figure salaries to relievers who are not as good as Craig Kimbrel, not getting Kimbrel at a slightly higher price doesn’t make as much sense. If a team is going to commit prospects and dollars for a reliever, Craig Kimbrel made more sense entering this offseason than any other pitcher, except for perhaps Ottavino. Two years ago, the Dodgers and Yankees spent around $80 million each for slightly better, younger versions of Kimbrel. Our readers expected a contract to match that perception, at around $64 million over four years. If Craig Kimbrel was offered four years and $64 million, then this delay and $20 million less in contract is on him and his agent. If teams pursuing discounted options never made that type of offer, then their weak bullpens through the early part of June are a mess of their own making.
Even the Cubs, the team that signed Kimbrel, is not without some very curious decision-making. Chicago entered the winter with an oft-injured closer who hadn’t pitched since July and decided their most reliable reliever down the stretch wasn’t worth eight million dollars over two seasons. In April, the bullpen was a disaster, but in June they decide to commit $43 million to a reliever who hasn’t pitched a competitive game in eight months because they wanted to keep the 64th pick in the draft and $500,000 in international money, when their combined value is a little bit more than Daniel Descalso-money? The Cubs should be getting the reliever they’ve been missing all season, arguably since last July, and $14 million per season plus another $5 million or so in taxes depending on Ben Zobrist’s ultimate status isn’t exactly cheap. The Cubs could have avoided this situation with better offseason planning, but given their bullpen now, signing Kimbrel seems like the easiest, best option for a team fighting for ground in a tight division as their World Series win grows slightly smaller in the rear-view mirror.
There are certainly reasons to be concerned about Craig Kimbrel even before this long layoff without a spring training. He was very good instead of great last season. He had a rough October. He’s over 30 years old. He’s a reliever. That this deal hadn’t happened before now makes it seem as if his demands were too high, because at this price, given other reliever contracts and performance, surely Kimbrel would have received better offers than the one he just signed for. In order to think that, though, we’d have to give teams the benefit of the doubt, a benefit they haven’t exactly earned after they’ve cut salaries two years in a row in the face of record revenues and digital windfalls. This contract is probably good for Kimbrel. It might be good for the Cubs. It isn’t good for baseball. The game is better when the best players are playing and for the last half dozen years, Craig Kimbrel has been one of its very best relievers. Some problems have easier solutions than others. If the issue here is draft pick compensation, then that issue needs to be fixed. If it’s a competitive balance tax that is too burdensome or provides too convenient an excuse not to pay free agents, then that needs to be addressed. If the issue is unreasonable expectations from players and agents, that’s something to work on, too.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
Seems like Craig wants to grind an axe about why 2 31-year old players didn’t get $80M+ deals over the winter more than he wants to discuss how Kimbrel fits into the Cubs’ bullpen. I’m not a Cubs fan, but I’d guess Kimbrel will take a couple weeks of “spring training” in the minors and then assume the role of Closer with Cishek, Kintzler, and Strop as setup men and Chatwood and CJ Edwards as long men. I think the Cubs will still be in the trade market to add one more reliever at the ASB.
I think Craig does bring up a point about giving relievers multi-year contracts in Free Agency, only to see most of them turn out badly. (White Sox’ Kelvin Herrera has been another bad one.) It’s probably better for contenders to go with home-grown 4A types in April & May and maybe absorb a few losses and then trade prospects for proven “hot” arms at the ASB. It seems like most contenders are going to do that anyway since their expensive FA relievers have failed.
No way will CJ be a long man. They’ll put him in some higher leverage situations . He has pitched two innings only once since the start of last year, and he never went farther than that.
What I most dont understand the fangraphs staffs fascination with player salaries is due to the fact that players themselves willingly and happily agreed to these set of rules. They consistently sold out their successors over the years in CBA negotiations, ensuring that teams pay minor leaguers and incoming prospects almost no money with the thought that those money would go to them instead.
Whatever issues with player salaries will get resolved in the next CBA agreement, however it may be. Until then, I’d much rather watch, read, and talk about what’s on the field instead.
To be fair to Dan and the erstwhile Jeff, it’s not the whole staff, just the less analytically-inclined ones
I think the cubs were the only realistic option. Most of the other teams have very tight payroll margins.
It’s insane that the cubs’ pitching staff is way more expensive than the Brewers’ entire roster.
I’m not a fan of either team but it sure makes you want to root for the Brewers going up against the evil empire trying to buy championships. The cubs are going to end up spending $100-$150M more than the Brewers this year! Insane it’s even close in the standings, but it is!
Why is a GM a hero if he can outspend everybody else, but the GM besting THAT GM with half the payroll gets no attention?
Not a brewers fan….wink wink nudge nudge
Likely a Cards fan
There is no team in MLB that is operating on a tight budget. There’s a ridiculous amount of money in the league, and owners are choosing to pocket it.
This. I don’t root for teams just because they have employees making less money than others. It’s like rooting for wal-mart to keep making those sweet, sweet profits without having to pay those exorbitant $15/hr wages.
(Side note: the cubs ownership is accurately described as evil, but definitely not because they spend money on payroll)
Are these “underpaid” empoyees slaves? If not, it is THEIR choice. Try to respect right to choose.
If you honestly think that Walmart employees have any real choice that’s just laughable. The choice between a shit job and no job is not a choice.
It’s not Walmart that’s limiting entry-level employees’ choices. It’s their skill set that limits them to entry-level jobs. That should be obvious: improve your skills either through education or proven success in an entry-level job and your choice-set and wage expands.
That’s the problem with using words like “evil” to describe employers who are paying market wages especially in low-price retail where profit margins are minuscule and they make money on volume. In fact, Walmart’s recent success has been in moving more sales online to counter the “Amazon effect” that has decimated other retailers. I think Walmart has also copied Starbucks in providing tuition reimbursement to its employees. And minimum wage laws actually help big companies like Walmart since they raise the barriers-to-entry for smaller competitors.
Your comment is laughably ignorant. There are millions of job openings in America better than Walmart.
So why people do take job at Walmart? Who are you to tell them what is good for these people?
So they are slaves? Really?
When it comes to human resources, MLB is not a free market, nor is Walmart in many locales where they have near hegemonic market power in terms of hiring (often with state sanctioning and corporate welfare benefits).
This doesn’t make any sense. If Walmart was the only or major employer in a town, why would they open a 100,000 sqft store there? The population doesn’t support it. Unless you’re saying that in some locales, Walmart has a near monopolistic position in purchasing entry-level labor. Again, workers can grow their skills and get out of the entry-level labor pool.
IBM, Facebook, and Google don’t need RF’s or Loogy’s unfortunately, but the 30 best teams in the world do bid on RF’s. It’s not a perfectly free market, but that’s because of parity concerns so that smaller market teams could afford better players and also to concerns to player attachment by fans. I’m not sure having the best players churn to NY or LA every year would be good for MLB.
I don’t think there’s any real comparison between Walmart and a major league baseball team for a number of reasons, but Walmart is a pretty terrible employer because the human capital acquired at the job is very specific to Walmart, and, of course, because the pay and benefits are abysmal.
This is actually true for a lot of employers these days, since internal labor markets are pretty much dead, and because so many of the entry level jobs in the service industry are low skilled. You actually might have more of an internal labor market at Walmart than at a lot of other places simply because it’s so big but since it’s a terrible employer it’s not all that helpful.
The question of which lousy jobs provide for economic mobility is currently pretty hotly debated, since it’s really tricky to separate out the fact that many of the least-skilled workers get jobs at lousy jobs, who then are given no improvements to their job while they’re there. But Walmart definitely sucks on a whole bunch of levels.
I think your view of Walmart is dated and the ad hominem against the company unbecoming. Who offers better pay and benefits for entry-level labor in low-price retail than Walmart?
I think I can’t believe you got baited into a huge debate about WalMart based on my silly comment about rooting for cheap baseball teams being like rooting for WalMart.
Eh, I thought it was time for a lesson in labor market economics for Fangraphs readers. Especially with you throwing around words like “evil” to describe Cubs ownership. Keep discourse civil, please.
The cubs owners are evil because they claim that Muslims are “our enemies” and because they contribute huge sums to wanna-be fascists who make life worse for anyone who isn’t white, male, cis and straight. They will be relegated to the dustbin of history (like Cap Anson!) for reasons unrelated to your uninteresting economic lessons. Kindly go kick rocks.
Entry-level labor in low-price retail is bad pretty much everywhere except Costco.
It does seem like they’ve raised the wages a bit since 2014–up to $11 an hour now, minimum. So has Target, actually. Tight labor market means it is harder to race to the bottom. It’s still pretty bad.
Costco
If Walmart is the only job, which probably isn’t true anyway then there are other options like moving to where jobs are like millions of other Americans over the last several centuries.
Your side note made me sad, because it is true…
This isn’t true unless other information has come up in recent weeks that I missed. Because all indications point to the players receiving just about the same percentage of revenue they have for the last decade, which is in line with other pro sports.
Uhh total payroll has gone down or remained even the past two years. Revenues have increased. It’s a simple ratio.
Quotes from both Tony Clark and Manfred have been posted in these comment sections on multiple occasions disproving what you are saying. Please provide evidence or stop spreading misinformation. It’s that simple.
Those are unbiased sources, too, who both do not have an incentive to assert that they’re doing right by the players.
(I have no idea the veracity of their statements, but those aren’t the greatest sources to cite unless they are providing copies of financial statements is what I’m saying)
Rosenthal reported that the Twins offered 2/32 and the Rays offered 2/31 or 3/40. So, while the Cubs paid quite a big more than either, they obviously aren’t the only team with money to spend (plus if you’ve followed their team you’d know they only had money to spend at all because of Zobrist’s issues).
I think that those that follow the sport closely know how good of a job David Stearns has done for Milwaukee
How come every team doesn’t have a $240M payroll then? Since all the owners are so rich, how come they all don’t outlay 3/4 of a billion dollars to buy a World Series and then try to sustain it? The cubs aren’t evil, they just don’t have to play by the rules about 25 other teams have to.
If you think the NL Central is fair, you are out of your mind. The rich kid gets a Ferrari from his dad (Lester, Bryant) crashes it (Heyward) and gets a second one (Darvish), runs over a guy jogging while drunk (Morrow, Chatwood), but then his daddy bails him out and buys off the judge (Kimbrel). All while you’re stuck taking out a 12% interest loan on a used 2004 Camry (The Brewers and the rest of the league).
Bryant is still on his rookie deal…
Because they’re not sheikh mansour? I mean, that guy sucks but at least he wants to win ffs
“If the issue here is draft pick compensation, then that issue needs to be fixed. If it’s a competitive balance tax that is too burdensome or provides too convenient an excuse not to pay free agents, then that needs to be addressed. If the issue is unreasonable expectations from players and agents, that’s something to work on, too.”
So true on all counts. I think players and owners would agree
So if indeed “the issue is unreasonable expectatins from players agents”, just how in the Sam Hill is that supposed to be worked on??
Adjust expectations, obviously? In the situation of Kimbrel, he should have recognized that waiting for half a year was NOT likely to significantly increase his value and (in his case, might have hurt his HoF chances as well) signed for something like $64M/4 years. Or at the least, he could have taken a bumper deal like Grandal. He was banking on Alex Cobb situation to arise but it never did. I’m pretty sure when the offseason began, $42M/3 year offer would have been a non-starter from Kimbrel’s perspective.
If it’s obvious, then why didn’t he do it? And how can MLB/MLBPA prevent a player from having an overestimation of his value?
People get in bubbles and can’t see the forest for the trees.
Good analysis, and I think the most likely explanation for Kimbrel’s situation was all of the above. He asked for too much for too long. Teams didn’t want to forfeit a pick, or used it as justification to not bid on him. And the CBT really aims not at the absolutely top-tier FAs, who somehow get their money, but at the incremental dollar for middle class and upper middle class FA. But all this being true, I’d add one thing which should have been clear from Craig’s analysis. Relievers are erratic. Very very few are in the HOF and for a very good reason–because very very few can sustain excellence over an extended period of time. It’s what makes Rivera a freak of nature. After his first season, never an ERA+ of less than 144 and 13 of over 200. Over a long career, Trevor Hoffman and Lee Smith are a bit below but still excellent. But guys like Papelbon basically faded away. So, why not find some 23 year old who throws 99 or a busted starter and ride him for MLB minimum for a few years?
Seems like teams are better off, financially at least, playing the “depth first” game in the pitching staff, and keeping a major-league-ready stable of relievers in AAA, a la the Cardinals. As for Kimbrel, I wonder if he and his agents bought into the “draft picks are holding down his salary” argument, and waited for someone desperate to blow the doors off their last good offer. The draft pick value is less than $10 million for all but the least competitive (and hence, poorest) teams, however. So I suspect draft picks are more of an excuse for the fans than a core consideration when a rich, successful team is determining whether to offer a 30-something reliever a 4+ year, $60+ million deal, as Kimbrel’s team was hoping.
If I were a reliever, I would be looking for escalator clauses (e.g. bonuses for every appearance over 50 per season, trades trigger a $5 million bonus, vesting options, etc), so that a team can’t sign me to a shorter deal, ride me until my arm gives out, and/or trade me the minute I’m more valuable than my contract. Agents need to get more creative.
My opinion means nothing, of course, but in my opinion, this is an excellent comment, and it’s too bad it’s buried down here under all the same tired old tropes–in the article and in the comments–about the owners being greedy or front offices being somehow irrational and negligent when they failed to enter into a bidding war for Kimbrel’s services.
I don’t really know why Craig is so bent on claiming that something is wrong with the draft pick compensation system, when up until about May 1st teams either (a) would have had to pay him $100M or (b) likely wanted to see if they actually needed him and didn’t want to pay a guy a lot of money who had missed spring training (we’ve all seen how that turned out in prior years).
Where it most likely hurt Kimbrel’s (and Keuchel’s) market was in that month where teams knew they had a problem but figured they would just wait so they didn’t have to give up a draft pick. I’m pretty sure that someone either did offer something like $60M, or would have if they thought Kimbrel would have accepted it (teams often don’t make offers when it’s that far off of the demands).
Frankly, the draft pick compensation system (and the competitive balance tax system, for that matter) is probably the least problematic aspect of the whole process of allocating salaries to players. The revenue sharing system sucks, which is only masked by the fact that the most productive players are either pre-arb, arb, or signed team friendly extensions because they had no leverage because they were under team control. The minimum salary is far too low. Minor league salaries are an embarrassment and probably counterproductive to player development. Service time manipulation is still happening. Free agency itself is a huge minefield, where teams routinely make massive errors in judgment and agents regularly cost their players millions of dollars by seriously misreading the market.
He wanted too much money. And by March, it was clear that teams would wait until June. Until they fix the CBA, players have to be smarter about their ask. Or this is what will happen.
Kimbrel’s name and a lot of team names are mentioned. Who is Craig Kimbrel’s agent?
Found it – Dave Meter
Literally the same guy who advised Ozzie Albies and his horrible contract extension. It’s remarkable that the same guy had two clients who had such terrible outcomes in such a short period of time, and are terrible in such different ways.
Ozzie’s contract was objectively horseshit. I keep wondering if Kimbrel’s outcome horrible here, though? I mean, it’s basically like 2.5 years for $43m, so about $17m per. That seems kinda ok in terms of AAV, reported high asking price notwithstanding, right?
I guess it really depends whether you think that this would have happened no matter what price Kimbrel/his agent started with. If he set his price at $80M instead of $100M at the beginning of the offseason, so comparable to Kenley Jansen, would he have wound up at $43 million anyway? What if Kimbrel/his agent started dropping the price once he saw what others were getting? Maybe Jansen’s contract was always out of reach, but I think he could have gotten Melancon/Davis money.
Unless Kimbrel really hates playing baseball or he can go back in time to April and May, using the AAV for 2.5 seasons is probably not the right way to look at it.
For comparison, Britton received $39M/3 years despite being mediocre for the past two seasons.
I doubt Kimbrel would have seriously entertained $43M/3 year offer until the season began.
Yeah, he ended up with a much better deal than I expected. His early demands were ridiculous and you’re right that the agent should have been fired for misreading the market so badly. However, I was shocked to find that he got an AAV that’s very close to the Chapman and Jansen deals under these circumstances not to mention two more years and an option for a 31 year old.
As we watch good relievers like Familia, Robertson and Miller either suck or get hurt, it’s weird that we’re just going to take for granted that Kimbrel would have been a great pitcher this year. Familia has been as good as (or better than) Kimbrel in 3 of the last 4 seasons. Between him, Miller and Kimbrel, they all had very similar pre-season projections. It’s not quite fair to act like the Mets and Cardinals made a big mistake by going the cheap route, when Kimbrel cost about 50% more despite similar projections.
Maybe another thing contributed to the lack of interest. With so many teams not really competing and the extra WC, there are only so many teams that would be interested in spending $16mil+ on 65 innings per year and possible making your team a win or two better. It makes more sense to wait until now to show interest – when he is more likely to sign and your playoff chances and your bullpen options are more clear than in the winter. So as mentioned above, there are a lot of teams who can use Kimbrel, but how many teams is he going to put “over the top” and or help win a WS? I think the answer is probably 3 (Cubs, Braves and Brewers).
You don’t think Cardinals and Red Sox are on that list, at least?
I think the Red Sox decided long ago they were not going to spend on Kimbrel. The Cardinals spent on Miller (who has actually been fine the past month+) and they seem to be digging in with Hicks, Gant, Miller, Gallegos and Brebbia (and CMart?). And maybe a little “once bitten” considering what happened with Holland last season.
What’s the point of this article? Alot of good points are alluded to but none are explored.
Sad.
Aroldis Chapman has an opt out after this season. He could opt out of two years at 17.2 million per season. He’s having a great season, but I wonder if he will opt out. I think it was very unlikely to happen anyway, but now seeing how bad free agency/luxury tax/draft pick compensation affected Kimbrel, I think he should be happy that he got 17.2 million a season when he did
Definitely a case to keep an eye on.
The Yankees are on the rise and have a deep pen so they have no reason to overuse him. Would Cashman refuse him a couple more years at $18-19 per? Would anybody offer him $100/5 at age 32, good season or not?
We’ll have to tune in come november, same bat-time, same bat-channel.
He could pretty definitely do better than 2yr/35m. I’d guess they negotiate an extension before the opt out date.
I don’t see why this contract reflects a problem in baseball. It turns out teams were valuing Kimbrel lower to begin with, and not tied to the draft pick necessarily. Is that bad for baseball? The article starts out listing the higher paid relievers, and how they have failed. Why then, should we assume Kimbrel fairly deserves more money?
I also don’t understand why there’s a perception that owners are pocketing all the money–just because the money isn’t going to expensive contracts for players for past performance. I think the Yankees, among some of the other top teams, are showing that OTHER players can be valuable if you identify them, and then develop them. And someone is getting paid to do that development and identification. So maybe more money is going to other jobs, like analysts, scouts, coaches, trainers, etc. And players as well, including the ones that are now being identified and developed to be quality MLB players. And less money is going to providing singular players with generational wealth. Is that a bad thing?
You can’t really blame MLB clubs for not paying free agent veterans more than they’re worth. Are they supposed to overpay them out of kindness?
If you wanted to say many of the younger players are comically underpaid, I’d agree wholeheartedly. But let’s not pretend teams should have to pay veterans more (for less production) to make up the difference.
Well now. As sen above, there are a lot of questions to be asked. Is the QO a lead weight? Is the age of 30 a guaranteed peak? Did last post-season matter? Why weren’t (say) the Phillies (“we’re insane, us!”) in, or Atlanta (“‘Scuse us while we build a retail mall in Cobb County”).
All valid questions.
But I think Craig E. has it wrong with this: “[Boston] wasn’t interested in bringing Kimbrel back and paying the 75% tax on his salary. ”
I mean, logically, if you offer the QO, which was $17.6 million or something like that, then you were indeed interested in taking the hit. There’s no guarantee that the QO player, as advised by his agent, wouldn’t take it for a year,
Interestingly, when you look at the Red Sox performance so far this year, they lucked out when Craig didn’t sign on for another year. The Sox BP might be a little bit mediocre, but it’s hardly their biggest flaw this year so far. Signing Kimbrel would have brought us maybe 1 WAR more, maybe 2 more games over .500, maybe only trailing the Yanks by 6 and the Rays by 3?
Inconsistency is probably the thing. I’d pay 75% of $18 million to get the other 24 to perform consistently.
But then, that’s just me.
“I mean, logically, if you offer the QO, which was $17.6 million or something like that, then you were indeed interested in taking the hit.”
They were willing to take the hit on the (like 3-10%?) chance he accepted, when it came with what appeared to be an ~85-95% chance that they’d get some compensation. IMO there is a pretty big difference between that and the near-100% chance that they have to pay the extra luxury tax.
And further, a difference between that for 2019 only and possibly multiple years beyond that.
And one more thing — maybe if Kimbrel had accepted, they would have made different choices in the rest of their off-season? Possible that if Kimbrel accepted, they would have let Eovaldi and/or Pearce walk (and with some 20/20 hindsight, that probably would have been just fine) and/or looked into some salary dump trades?
It’s mind boggling the NATS weren’t throwing bags of money at this guy.