Get Comfortable, Kendrys Morales

By now, the “Kendrys Morales is this year’s Kyle Lohse” jokes are already stale, but the point remains: Just as we saw with Lohse last year, a decent-yet-hardly-elite player is going to get weighed down by the anchor of the qualifying offer placed upon him. Not only does the offer drop the cost of a draft pick on Morales, but it sets the baseline of a $14.1 million salary, and while there’s nothing that says he can’t ultimately accept less than that, the fact that he’s a Scott Boras client makes it incredibly unlikely.

As you’d expect, the proclamations for his future are getting dire, especially now that the Mariners — the only team who wouldn’t need to surrender a pick for him, of course — went out and added Corey Hart and Logan Morrison to a roster that already had Justin Smoak (and, somewhere, Jesus Montero). One unnamed GM told Peter Gammons that he “can’t see Morales signing until after the [June] draft,” when the compensation pick would disappear, which seems a bit drastic, but Buster Olney’s suggestion of “February or March” looks absolutely reasonable.

Boras eventually found Lohse a home in Milwaukee days before the 2013 started, and he’ll do the same here eventually. So let’s play along: Where can Morales land in 2014?

First and foremost, we have to figure out what Morales is, and that’s surprisingly easy. In the two full seasons he’s had since returning from that broken ankle that cost him all of 2011, he’s put up wRC+ of 118 (Angels, 2012) and 116 (Mariners, 2013). His career average is — wait for it — 117. Steamer thinks he’s going to be at 120 next year; Oliver, 118. There’s really not a whole lot of variance there, and while he won’t keep up that pace forever, one’s age-31 season isn’t usually when a sudden breakdown occurs.

Let’s consider him primarily a DH for the moment, and realize that there’s actually some value here. A wRC+ of 117 is somewhat above average, yet doesn’t seem all that special, especially for a player who adds no value on the basepaths or on defense. Then again, do remember how many American League teams struggled to even make it to that level out of the position:

2013	wRC+	Primary DH
Red Sox	152	Ortiz
Blue Jays	139	Encarnacion / Lind
Indians	120	Santana / Giambi
Mariners	116	Morales
Royals	115	Butler
Twins	114	Doumit / Willingham
Tigers	111	Martinez
Angels	107	Pujols / Hamilton
Rays	106	Scott
Athletics	103	Smith
Astros	98	Carter / Pena
White Sox	94	Dunn / Konerko
Rangers	91	Berkman
Orioles	87	Valencia / Reimold
Yankees	87	Hafner

There’s really only three teams where Morales wouldn’t have been some level of improvement last year, which I’m guessing is fewer than you might have guessed, and all three of those teams will return their primary designated hitters. In theory, that means that 11 other teams (excluding the Mariners here) should have some level of interest. In practice, Kansas City is set at 1B/DH with Eric Hosmer and Billy Butler, while Detroit has Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez and the White Sox just added Jose Abreu to their Paul Konerko / Adam Dunn combo.

Absent the existence of the qualifying offer, you could argue that eight teams should have interest, but now we’re in to the part of the market where the qualifying offer continues to be nothing but a tax on players — and not all players, just a very specific subset of players who weren’t traded and might have made eight digits annually in the market. (There’s a reason why not a single player has accepted the offer in the two years of its existence.) While a wRC+ in the 115-120 range is hardly star-level — Morales tied for 69th last year with guys like Billy Butler, Juan Uribe, and Ian Desmond — it’s still above-average, and you can see a number of those teams willing to add Morales at the right price.

But then, who is going to surrender a first-round pick for a player like this? Of the AL teams we haven’t yet eliminated, only the Astros, Twins, and Yankees either have a protected first-round pick or have already lost it via other signings.

Looking at those others, do the Rays strike you as a team likely to give up a first rounder, especially after giving James Loney three years? Not really. Nor do the A’s, who have more than enough moving parts to staff DH after trading Seth Smith and rarely go after guys like Morales anyway. While the Angels could probably use someone to share first and DH with Albert Pujols, you’d hope they’d have learned their lesson about what happens when you endlessly dump first round picks by now.

The other two, Baltimore and Texas, have better arguments to make. Baltimore’s DH group, led by Danny Valencia, was atrocious last year and still ranks as last among AL teams in our current positional projections, though some reports indicate they’re not interested; Texas may want to improve on Mitch Moreland as a Prince Fielder complement, but isn’t likely to make a move unless they lose a pick for signing Shin-Soo Choo first.

Back to the three teams with protected picks, the Twins probably should be all over this, because a Ryan Doumit / Chris Colabello / whomever else compilation at DH seems dreadful, and they seem to have some interest in competing in 2014 after signing Ricky Nolasco, Phil Hughes, and Mike Pelfrey. But it’s uncertain how much they have left to spend after that trio, and there’s been almost nothing linking them with Morales so far anyway. Houston could conceivably see Morales as a decent trade chip for mid-season, but is more likely to just use Chris Carter at DH.

And then there’s the Yankees, who are in the odd position of not having a productive DH while also potentially not having space for Morales. Considering their never-ending collection of elderly ballplayers who can’t be in the field seven days a week — with Brian Roberts joining Derek Jeter, Carlos Beltran, Alfonso Soriano, Vernon Wells, Ichiro Suzuki, and (maybe) Alex Rodriguez — one would think that they have more than enough names to circulate through the DH spot. Then again, draft picks are of no consideration to them at this point, they had the worst DH production in the game last year, and Mark Teixeira is hardly bulletproof at first base, either.

We’ll hear NL teams getting into the mix from time to time, but Morales simply can’t be in a place where he needs to wear a glove more than once a week, and while there’s certainly options here — Baltimore, Texas, and the Yankees probably ranking the most highly — there’s no perfect solution. That puts Morales in a very uncomfortable position, since not only is he likely to be unemployed for weeks or months to come, his best bet might be the same way that Boras got Fielder his mega-deal with Detroit: an unfortunately timed winter or early spring injury causing desperation. (Or otherwise having the remaining qualifying offer guys like Choo, Ervin Santana, Nelson Cruz, and Ubaldo Jimenez falling in such a way that a particular team no longer cares about losing another draft pick.)

That’s unfortunate for Morales, a reasonably valuable player who could provide one to two wins in the right situation, yet one who now finds himself unable to get his true market value thanks to the oddities of the qualifying offer.