Nationals Get Another Ace in Monster Deal with Patrick Corbin
No offense to Josh Donaldson, Steve Pearce, and Kurt Suzuki, but it appears the first big domino has fallen in this winter’s free agent class. Patrick Corbin is reportedly set to sign a six-year contract with the Nationals, per Chelsea Janes. Jon Heyman has reported the deal is for $140 million and, as most Nationals contracts do, it includes deferrals, per Ken Rosenthal, which lower somewhat the actual value of the contract. The Diamondbacks will get a draft pick after the first round for their troubles.
This might not quite qualify as mystery team material, but the industry consensus seemed to be that Corbin was likely to sign with the Phillies or the Yankees, making the Nationals moving in a bit of a surprise. Now, it would be appropriate to say the Nationals didn’t need pitching given that they already have Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg at the top of the rotation. But it would probably be even more appropriate to say every team needs pitching, and signing a pitcher of Patrick Corbin’s quality does a lot to help the Nationals as they try to recapture the division after a disappointing season and the seemingly likely departure of Bryce Harper.
As for how Corbin will perform, our own Dan Szymborksi was kind enough to pass along the following ZiPS projections:
| Year | W | L | ERA | G | GS | IP | H | ER | HR | BB | SO | ERA+ | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 12 | 8 | 3.63 | 32 | 31 | 181.0 | 171 | 73 | 21 | 50 | 195 | 117 | 3.4 |
| 2020 | 11 | 7 | 3.63 | 31 | 29 | 173.7 | 163 | 70 | 20 | 47 | 185 | 117 | 3.3 |
| 2021 | 10 | 7 | 3.68 | 30 | 28 | 168.7 | 159 | 69 | 20 | 45 | 178 | 115 | 3.1 |
| 2022 | 9 | 7 | 3.71 | 27 | 26 | 153.0 | 145 | 63 | 18 | 41 | 161 | 115 | 2.8 |
| 2023 | 9 | 6 | 3.77 | 25 | 24 | 143.3 | 137 | 60 | 17 | 39 | 152 | 113 | 2.5 |
| 2024 | 8 | 6 | 3.82 | 24 | 23 | 134.3 | 129 | 57 | 17 | 38 | 143 | 111 | 2.3 |
These projections also line up with Steamer, which projected Corbin for 3.6 WAR next year. In his ranking of free agents, Kiley McDaniel placed Corbin third behind only Manny Machado and Bryce Harper. That status as the best pitcher available likely helped Corbin to a contract that exceed’s McDaniel’s five years and $90 million, as well as the Crowd’s five years and $100 million. Szymborski did the write-up in the free agent list and said the following:
With 6.3 WAR and 11 strikeouts per game, both marks representing career highs, Corbin would have been a strong Cy Young contender in a year during which Jacob deGrom didn’t brutalize the league. Of qualifying pitchers in baseball, Corbin’s contact rate of 66.8% was behind only deGrom’s, as well. Corbin and his filthy slider enter a free-agent market in which he’s no worse than the second-best pitcher available and, in my estimation, a more alluring signing for a team than Dallas Keuchel is.
With James Paxton already traded, Cleveland no doubt asking for a considerable haul for any of their starters, and the same likely true for Noah Syndergaard, there weren’t any available pitchers who had pitched like an ace in the last few years or looked to be able to do so next season. We often hear about a crowded market for certain positions, like second base or perhaps an innings-eating starter, but unless a team wanted to give up prospects, Patrick Corbin represented a market of one for many teams in the hunt.
If Corbin hits those projections above and amasses 17 wins over six seasons, this deal is going to end up looking pretty good even if it doesn’t look quite as linear as the projection shows. A couple of seasons of five wins, maybe a year missed due to injury, and a few average years would still represent a positive outcome. Corbin will turn 35 year old just as his contract is ending, and like any long term pitching contract, that comes with considerable risk. Corbin missed all of 2014 and much of 2015 recovering from Tommy John surgery, and he pitched poorly in his first full season back just a couple years ago. He was decent in 2017, and then he came into 2018 and started throwing his slider all of time. As Jeff Sullivan wrote at the beginning of the season:
Corbin used to throw more fastballs, but his fastballs aren’t great. And Corbin used to throw more changeups, but his changeups kept getting hit around. And so we’ve gotten to here, with Corbin attempting something new: different versions of the slider, to help one play off of the next. Corbin’s best pitch has always been his slider, so why not fold in an offspeed variety? The changeup just wasn’t going to work. The slider very well might.
For the season, Corbin ended up throwing his slider and slow slider/curve 50% of the time. The increased usage did nothing to hamper the pitch’s effectiveness, as 29% of the pitches were swinging strikes and 54% of plate appearances that ended on a slider were strikeouts. The change in usage turned Corbin from mid-rotation pitcher into an ace, and if he can keep this up, he’ll be well worth the money for the Nationals.
We should say, it isn’t just the prior Tommy John that is concerning long-term. Even last season, his fastball velocity was inconsistent, as the graph below shows.
The optimist says he got his velocity back at the end of the season and even without it, he was a very good pitcher. The pessimist wonders what happens if his velocity ticks down again and eventually affects his slider. That lost velocity coincided with a lower strikeout rate and more walks. It’s hard not to see the significant risks in signing a pitcher like Corbin for six years. He’s had arm trouble in the past, velocity trouble just this last season, and he’s only had one really good year since debuting in 2012. But the deal can pay off if Corbin just has a couple more years like this last one. In a division where Atlanta and Philadelphia are trying to add to their young cores, the Nationals were already stealth favorites due to their talent on hand. This deal should cement that position.
With Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg in the rotation, and Anthony Rendon, Trea Turner, Juan Soto in the lineup along with the potential addition of Victor Robles, the Nationals are likely to be the most talented team in the division even if the Phillies sign Bryce Harper. With Rendon a free agent after next season and Scherzer likely to start to feel his age at some point, it makes sense for the Nationals to try and capitalize on this competitive window even without Harper. And taking Corbin away from potentially signing with the Phillies increases their odds of getting back to the playoffs this year, too.
As for the Yankees, their failure to offer a sixth year will probably look smart in 2024, but if James Paxton can’t stay healthy and Luis Severino’s second half problems carry over, their decision might not look so good next summer. There is some upside above the projections for Corbin, and the Nationals decided to pay for it.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
Craig is absolutely right. This is the best arm on the FA market this past year. If you wanted a guy with ace potential, this is the only guy who looked like he would fit the bill. But he’s also not a guy who looked like an actual ace, like Greinke, Price, or Scherzer. And there’s no way we should write off the Nats now, not with that rotation.
So this landed right about where we would have guessed based on past market norms–at Yu Darvish money. When you take into account that there are no opt-outs, no-trade provisions, and deferred money, it’s actually probably less valuable than Darvish’s contract was. I don’t know whether it was smart or not, but I don’t think the Nationals got taken here and I don’t think Corbin left anything on the table. At the minimum from the team’s perspective, I like it way better than Arrieta’s deal last year for the Phillies.
They would’ve been far better off without him. His fastball speed is down, he has no track record of success, he’s not even projected to be an ace going forward by Craig’s own article.
No, if you want that, there are only about 4-7 guys in the league who fit that description, and the Nats already have one. They’re buying the potential for an ace. I get why the projection systems are down on him, since he lost a whole year and wasn’t back to his old self for two more years after that. Also, because he’s a pitcher, and pitchers break. But if you want a guy who has turned in an ace-level season recently, he was the only guy you could sign on the FA market. If he was projected for 5 wins he would be getting a Scherzer/Price/Greinke deal, not the Cueto/Darvish/Zimmermann deal.
Of course, it is fair to note that it has a decent change being a bad deal merely because most free agent contracts wind up being bad deals in hindsight. This one, however, doesn’t strike me as being a particularly bad one among the numerous bad contracts in free agency.
They don’t need him to be an Ace. The just need him to be the best #3 in the league. That’s a low bar.
Your narrative is bad. His FB velo bottomed out in May and steadily climbed the rest of the season, with September matching his April velo… and very similar to his 2016 and 2017 FB velos.
And the Nats seem to want to work with injury risk. It was also going to be an ugly look when Bryce signed elsewhere, but with two good catchers and a new mid rotation pitcher, with pitches that are different than scherzer and straps, fans like me are excited about this team.
Horrible contract that they will regret next year.
Funny enough I actually said the exact same thing when they signed Scherzer
Going solely on FG Depth Charts projections:
Gio Gonzalez -> Patrick Corbin = +2.8 WAR
Bryce Harper -> Victor Robles = -2.7 WAR
At a price difference of something like $200M
Yes please.
What about Zack Greinke –> Patrick Corbin +0.1 Steamer WAR in 2019? At a price difference of something like $37M. Was Greinke really going to cost anything great in talent to acquire? Probably not any more than the value of the draft picks. Unless you place a high value on Corbin’s 2022-2024 years, this makes no sense to me.
I can see not signing Harper, but it’s disingenuous to compare him to Robles. The worst OF option on the team with Harper is Eaton. Robles is the CF with or without Harper. I see almost no way that paying Harper until he’s 35 at market rates is worse than paying Corbin until he’s 35 for this.
In a world where Arrieta gets 3/$75M, Greinke’s contract isn’t so bad. It’s expensive enough that the contract has negative value but unlike Arrieta, Greinke is still good. Trading for the products of free agent exuberance a couple years down the road can sometimes yield fruit.
The decision is not just Harper until age 35 or Corbin until age 35. The decision is Harper until 35 or Corbin until 35 and $200m+
But even if we use Eaton instead of Robles…
Gonzalez -> Corbin = +2.8 WAR
Harper -> Eaton = -2.4 WAR
the equation works out even better!
Why would you sink $300-400m in a position of absolutely no need? Because Soto, Robles and Eaton are locked down for mid-long term, Harper is less valuable to the Nats than basically every other team in MLB. The Nats have the same incentive to sign Harper as do the Yankees or Red Sox. Yes, he’d improve their outfield but not at the price of $300-400m.
While I’d love Harper to remain a National, doing so would be a very bad business decision. Just swapping Harper for Corbin, as has been pointed out above, already becomes a net positive for the Nats. But it also is at least $200m cheaper. If they invest that $200m in other holes (the bullpen, extending Rendon, a 5th SP), there’s almost no scenario where paying Harper $350m or so is the better decision.
Six years? Until he’s 35? Wow.
Let’s all hope that Corbin doesn’t turn into the Nats’ version of Greinke.
He’s Rich Hilling so he’ll be good until he’s 39
“The Nats’ version of Greinke” meaning a highly productive player making close to retail?
I think every fan and front office would be thrilled if all their big contracts ended up like Grienke’s. Sure, you’d rather have a Scherzer/Verlarnder/Beltre type of freak who refuses to age in their 30s. But yeah, Grienke outcomes is still like in the second tier of that didn’t blow up on us free agent mega contract.
Cano actually seems like he might fall into that group too. Overpaid but still productive in the mid-30s.
I would absolutely LOVE if Corbin turned into Greinke!
age 30: 4.3 WAR
age 31: 5.8 WAR
age 32: 2.2 WAR
age 33: 5.1 WAR
age 34: 3.5 WAR
age 35: TBD
That’s 20.9 WAR for the first five year, or $9m*20.9=$188.1m value with a bonus age 35 season!
That $9mm/WAR number is suspect. Remember that it is calculated based on FA’s and their past accumulated WAR along with crazy FO’s doing extraordinarily stupid signings (i.e. Jacoby Ellsbury, Albert Pujols). I suspect that $9mm/WAR is highly inflated and the true value, eliminating the outliers and looking at projected future WAR, is closer to $4mm.
The above is just a hunch though and would require some research to confirm.
You’re very likely correct that it is inflated. And to verify that, all you have to do is go to the Top 50 free agents page and take a look at the projected WAR and salaries. Kiley and team are supposedly going to get contracts way below $9M per year, almost across the board. The exception is relievers.
There may be other reasons why the $9M/win is iffy, but the most obvious reason is that it looks at how free agent contracts actually turned out. So Albert Pujols, because he busted so badly, is actually increasing $/win because he had a lot of “$” and no “win”. You might expect that Pujols would serve as a cautionary tale and thus drive $/win down, but in this calculation the reverse is true. In this way, the standard $/win calculation gets causality completely backwards: Rather than front offices paying for expected value, it measures the return on investment. Based on this calculation, we would say that the San Diego front office expected to get zero wins out of Eric Hosmer for their $20M. No one actually believes this is true.
Two years ago, Joe Joe (a commenter here) tracked every FA signing and its Steamer projection, and came up with $7.5M/win. I don’t have anything better to go off of these days, but it certainly seems more intuitive (and lines up far better with the projections on the Fangraphs Top 50 FA list). What I think we really need to do is once the dust settles on the free agents (basically, when Harper and the other Boras holdouts sign, or Spring Training happens, whichever comes first) and the ZiPs projections are out, is to run this against the Depth Charts projections. Assuming that the free agent leaderboard data is in nice, easy to download excel formats like other stuff here, I don’t think that would be too hard. Just a simple multiple regression model with a projection by age interaction would probably do it.
It’s probably simpler than that. The cost of average is less than the cost of good since there’s more of those guys. Maybe it’s 4 or 5m per the first 1.5 – 2 WAR, so you see a Sabathia-type deal for those guys depending on the club’s valuation. Then the premium paid above average might be that 8 or 10m for each win, so the 3-4 WAR guys will get 15-25 per year and a true ace over 30m.
It’s early yet but I ran a simple regression in R on FA’s who have signed so far (including Eovaldi). Using projected WAR for 2019 and a rough aging adjustment, I estimated total WAR over the contract. Using this approximation, I got $7.7mm per win. Take out Corbin and it’s $6.3mm.
I’ll redo the analysis in Spring Training but I’m inclined to think it’ll end somewhere between $6-7mm per win.
One thing to note is that $/WAR looks to have a non-linear trend to it as mockarr suspects in this thread. Will be interesting to look at it after the dust settles this winter.
Thanks for doing this. This would be good once we have the Depth Chart projections (which are probably closer to what teams “expect” than just Steamer…they might even use something more like ZiPs. Steamer is just so conservative).
I am not sure whether it’s going to go down–on one hand there are going to be guys like McCutchen who might get squeezed (like Moustakas did last year). On the other hand, I suspect that there is higher $/win for relievers (I wonder if the higher $/win figures are as much about people paying insane gobs of money to closers for 1-2 wins per year).
Greinke is 15th among all pitchers in WAR since he signed with Arizona. If he hasn’t been an ace, he’s been the next best thing.
Nationals eh? I didn’t even know Scott Boras represented Patrick Corbin.
Yes! No body I wanted more!
Stras/Scherzer/Corbin for something in the neighborhood of $100M/year for the next several years.
Thats seems like a lot for a SP in his mid 30s, a SP with an injury history, and a SP with a FIP of 4.84, 4.04, and 2.47 over the last 3 years.
No, it’s not even close to $100m.
If we set aside all the wonky deferments and other features of each of their contracts that actually make the annual outlay significantly less over the next several years, and just look at a rough average, you get $78m/year
Corbin: 6/$140= $23.3/year
Scherzer: 7/$210= $30m
Strasburg: 7/$175= $25m
But again, it’s actually substantially less than that, as Scherzer’s salary is deferred until 2028, and Strasburg’s is deferred until 2030.
The Nats will actually pay Scherzer $15m (plus some of his signing bonus) in 2019, Strasburg $15m, and Corbin’s is probably $20m at most, or $50m in total.
Just because they deferred the payment doesn’t mean that they aren’t actually paying them that amount
Whatever way you want to calculate it they’re not paying the trio “in the neighborhood of $100M/year for the next several years.” It’s $50m or $78m/year, depending on how you prefer to account for the deferred money, as I already spelled out above.
The 78 million I agree with. I’m pointing out that the deferment of payment isn’t actually relevant to OP’s point, which was that it’s a substantial investment for the three pitchers.
1. You don’t now how big my neighborhood is (jk)
2. I didn’t factor in Scherzer’s deferrment. I just took the yearly salaries from B-R, so thank you for explaining that.
2019:
Scherzer $42M (I believe this is actually $15M now that I’ve been corrected))
Corbin $23M
Strasburg $38M
2020
Scherzer $42M
Corbin $23M
Strasburg $25M
2021
Scherzer $42M
Corbin $23M
Strasburg $15M
Which would be an average of $90M. I was trying to estimate based on the next 3 years.
Even at $78M, one of: Scherzer decline, Corbin regression, Strasburg injury/pitches under 150 innings, is likely in a given year. If two of those happen in a year, then it’s pretty catastrophic.
I certainly wouldn’t pay this price for a non-true ace with one really high level year of performance. But, it isn’t unreasonable give what others will get and perhaps the Corbin of last year really is the one you will get (with expected aging).
the nats’ very existence and success is going to kill all my spirit
What success?
Nationals stepped up. Any details on what the Phillies and Yankees offered? Does the deferral backend the contract significantly? I assume Corbin did the MLBPA a favor by strengthening the pitchers market.
Supposedly, neither the Phillies nor the Yankees would go to 6 years.
Yankees, according to NY papers, offered straight line 5/$100M. Comes out to about $89 million at a 4% discount rate.
I’m always happy to see the Lerners spend money, but I have a feeling that they could have just signed J.A. Happ and Charlie Morton for the next couple years and gotten basically the same level of production for half the cost
I agree. Perhaps some of the think is you really want 3 top level pitchers for a playoff series so that has more value than 2 solid pitchers. If you really believe in Corbin than that may make sense.
Clearly the Nats buy into Corbin as an ace because the projections see all three as basically the same pitcher next season. If Corbin is a true-talent 5-6 win pitcher then this deal makes sense, if he’s a true-talent 3-4 win pitcher then this might turn into a substantial overpay.
I think people will be surprised how much money Happ gets.
Great piece Craig, particularly on short notice.
That said, it feels like there’s a bit of a disconnect. You appear to praise this deal as a good one for the Nationals as you mention that even with injuries and a few really good years “would still represent a positive outcome”. And yet, this contract is also +$40M and +1 year more than what the crowd and FanGraphs estimated.
So something has to be out of whack, right? Either we’re collectively undervaluing Corbin or the Nationals are overvaluing him.
Wanted to keep my own theory in a separate post, but my hunch is that valuing players’ WAR linearly doesn’t make sense.
If a 1 WAR player = $5M (hypothetical), then a 7 WAR player != $35M. It probably increases at even greater multiplier (and that the 1 WAR player is actually a lot lower in value).
The reason for that is that you only get to play a certain number of players so being able to concentrate WAR within a few really talented folks is more valuable. Or put it this way… Having a 6 WAR & 0 WAR player is far preferable to having two 3 WAR players, because the first scenario can easily be improved. There’s greater upside. In that sense, teams should be willing to pay a higher $ per WAR for players as their WAR increases.
Definitely agree. Makes intuitive sense, because there are few 7 WAR players, and few of the prospects on a prospect list at any given point in time turn into 7 WAR players. Demand is going to be highest for the players that swing team strength most and are hardest to develop or acquire. This is the same pool of players.
Dave Cameron’s standard response to this was that if you have two 3-WAR players, you spread your injury risk–takes two health disasters to make that chunk of money dead, not just one.
Not sure how to phrase this question, but it’d be interesting to look at “how few X (say 5?) WAR players can you field and still make the playoffs” or similar.
Caveat is sometimes 3 WAR players either grow into 5+ WAR players, or at least put up a season or two like it at peak, so you can’t take it too far. Plus, yeah, if you’ve got $30m tied up in someone and they get hurt, it’s going to sting.
The Cardinals tested this hypothesis last season. Turns out you need more than one 5-win player to make the playoffs.
Do you mean you want to work out a theory for non linear valuation? I’d love to work on that with you if you’d like
This argument is true for teams without severe budget constraints. Paying a premium for a star when it takes 30% of your payroll doesn’t work though.
Yeah, the 6 win player is more valuable, but he usually receives that value by getting a 6-10 year deal, while the 3 WAR player gets a 2 year deal.
Average salary per year seems to work pretty well as linear.
Doesn’t evidence actually suggest the opposite — that the WAR/win diminishes as a player’s WAR goes up? Eg Mike Trout would not get a $50M contract in the scenario you laid out above.
And using more accurate WAR values of something like $8-9M a win — it’s pretty clear that Machado, a 5/6-win player, is not going to receive >$40M a year
I thought that prediction was a little odd at the time. There were just too many teams with lots of money looking for a top starter. They were particularly conservative on two players: Corbin (5/$90M) and Kikuchi (4/$40M). And what do they have in common? They’re notably younger than the typical free agent.
I suspect that the people putting together that list saw last year’s market as a trend against free agents in general, but it’s more likely it was primarily a trend against older players–it’s just that with the exception of Hosmer, they were basically all older players last year. So I would guess that the prediction for Keuchel (4/$84M) is probably going to be a whole lot closer to the actual value, but also that as we start to see more players hit free agency in their 20s, you’re going to see contracts rise a bit in value.
(The other one that really surprised me and I disagreed with was Grandal. $3/39M? When there are that many contenders who need catchers? No way.)
Against older players and mediocre players (except Hosmer). This is the first great piece of evidence that supports the argument that Fangraphs and the crowd overcorrected last year’s results. We’ll see if that continues. I think it will. Grandal is getting so, so much more than $39 million.
Should be quite a season on the east coast in both leagues.
A few random thoughts:
1) The Yankees reportedly would not go above $100M/5 which is just shocking to me. They’ll end up paying Happ nearly as much per year until he is 39, while they could have had the far superior pitcher until he was only 34 or 35.
2) I’m skeptical of the strikeout rate regression in all of the projections. Hard to see it dropping by a full 2 strikeouts per 9. In his worst month he struck out nearly 10 per 9 IP. Clearly he became a different pitcher with his slider usage; it seems to me that the projection systems are putting too much weight on the pre-2018 years.
3) Likewise with WAR. How many pitchers each year are forecast for half the WAR they had in the previous season? Seems overly pessimistic to me.
4) To those saying he’s not an “ace” – it’s fair to say you’d want to see it for more than one season. I’m curious how many pitchers finished in the top 3 in FIP one year, and never finished in the top 20 again.
5) All that said, since he was so reliant on his slider last year, is he really just a one-trick pony and will the league figure him out?
2) Don’t forget his walk rate has been strong throughout his entire minor league and MLB track record. The only samples where he eclipsed 3 walks per nine were his 2017 MLB season, and all the way back during his 2010 hi A season. He can still pitch well, well above average if the K/9 ticks back down.
5a) pitches: Corbin’s slider usage was also very high in 2017 (38%, 41.5% in 2018). His slider was more than twice as effective in 2018 by pitch info, but he also was 6.5 runs above average with his FB despite the variance on his velo. Corbin had been negative 19 runs on the FB in both 2016 and 2017.
5b) sequencing: Corbin threw 8.7% fewer pitches in the zone in 2018, but also ran an excellent 2.16 BB/9. So, this was deliberate, presumably. He dropped contact rate on pitches both in and out of the zone by several points each, and opposing hitters swung at more than 6% more pitches out of the zone while swinging at fewer pitches in the zone than in previous seasons. His swinging strike rate increased for a second consecutive year to 15.6%, the second highest mark in MLB behind new teammate Scherzer.
I don’t know, I think there’s a pretty good case that he figured out how to optimize his arsenal in 2017, and he figured out how to optimize his sequencing in 2018. He might really be this good. If the lower avg FB velo and variance in FB velo game-to-game is a problem, why was he so consistent throughout the year, and why did he finally get above average results from the FB?
i’d throw the projections out of the window. they don’t use the right information with his improved repertoire.
I watched Corbin pitch a lot this year, and he was truly awesome. I was rather surprised that the FA predictions were so low for him, and I wondered if many of them were from east coast fans who hadn’t really watched him pitch much. This contract comes in a little under the 5×26 or 6×25 or 7×23 I had predicted for him. I’m sorry for D’backs fans that he’s gone, and I’m disappointed that SFG didn’t get him. The Nats now have an intimidating 1-3.
Estimates were done by about 25% Red Sox fans, so definite East Coast bias.
Nats fans know by now, and the rest of MLB should begin to recognize, that Mike Rizzo and the Lerner family always work under the radar. Rarely are the Nats identified with their major FA signings prior to doing so.
I’m surprised that the comments are so positive regarding this move. The projections certainly make it look justifiable, but compare those projections with Corbin’s actual history. His performance has been all over the place, with FIPs of 4.00, 3.43, 3.35, 4.84, 4.08, and 2.47. And we’re talking about a guy with a spectacularly bad fastball, ranking by far the worst in the league over the 2016 and 2017 seasons. Patrick Corbin in 2018 was dominant and if you could guarantee that he would produce at even a similar level in the next couple of years then he would be worthy of this financial commitment, but I don’t know why anyone would feel even remotely confident of that being true given that his 2018 performance is so far above anything he produced before and that he’s so dependent upon one pitch. To me, this is one of those contracts that people will look back on in two years and wonder why in the world the Nationals signed it.
If you could guarantee he’d produce at a similar level, he’d be worthy of *double* the financial commitment. Based on how good last year was, this has the potential to be a steal for Washington, even with some serious (~30%?) regression.
As a Mets fan this is a reminder that this division is STACKED. For some reason I equated no Harper = Nats aren’t competing. Nope they’re still here and still good.
So far Kiley has whiffed pretty badly on his FA predictions. I would suggest sticking to the MLBTR predictions. They seem to have a much better grasp of what contract values will be.
Kiley uses his “I think this MLB player would make XX dollars as a FA” when discusses surplus value as it relates to trades, and I think we’ve seen whatever methodology he uses to come up with those values is pretty far off.