Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan discuss all the implications of the Angels’ Shohei Ohtani signing, including its impact on the franchise’s short- and long-term outlook, the Ohtani-Trout tag team, the Albert Pujols conundrum at DH, and where Ohtani’s trade value ranks. Then they assess the suffering of the finalists that lost out on Ohtani and banter about Giancarlo Stanton’s trade rejections, the Mariners’ trade for Dee Gordon, the Cubs’ signing of Tyler Chatwood, Brian Cashman’s extension, and more.

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Shohei Ohtani has decided to sign with the Angels. I don’t think many people were expecting an Ohtani announcement on Friday. And I don’t think many people were expecting Ohtani to go where he’s going. There’s a lesson in here, perhaps, the lesson that you should never assume another person’s motives. Yet that lesson also isn’t very helpful. The Ohtani sweepstakes were essentially unprecedented. We’re not going to see many cases like this in the future. By and large, we know how baseball decisions get made. We knew hardly anything about this one. Even though the Angels were there as one of the seven finalists, they were mostly written off, right up until they won.

The Yankees were seen as a favorite. Endorsement opportunities, and everything. They were eliminated early. The Mariners were seen as a favorite. History of Japanese players having success. No dice. The Giants were in there, having recently won a bunch. The Dodgers and Cubs were in there, being presently very good. The Rangers and Padres were in there, with Ohtani pursuits dating back several years. I don’t know what it was that might’ve allowed the Angels to stand out. Ohtani has indicated only that he felt the closest bond with them. That made the difference. You might want to think it was Mike Trout, but, according to Ohtani, it was the team connection.

There’s nothing there to analyze, I don’t think. Not in any meaningful way. Ohtani didn’t go for the most money. He went for what felt right in his heart. That’s the very definition of personal, and what matters most to Ohtani might not matter much to other people. In this case, it doesn’t matter what matters to other people. Something about the Angels spoke to Ohtani’s desire. That’s the whole story. We all have our own things we feel connected to. Those connections might not always seem outwardly to make the most sense.

Now the Angels have a talented young pitcher, who is also a talented young hitter. You’ve been hearing about Ohtani for years, so I don’t need to give you the summary. You know what he’s about. He’ll have to be managed carefully, and there’s certainly some amount of risk, but had Ohtani been an unrestricted free agent, he would’ve signed for something like $200 million. He’s about to earn, instead, the league minimum. Right now, Ohtani is probably one of the 10 or 15 most valuable players in the league. The Angels just…got him. They picked him up and put him on the roster. For all 30 teams, this was a one-time opportunity. It’s the Angels who now get to look a whole hell of a lot better.

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After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Oakland A’s. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Batters
It’s inaccurate to say that ZiPS is “pessimistic” about the Oakland A’s. It’s inaccurate not because the ZiPS projections for Oakland are particularly good, but rather because ZiPS is incapable of of pessimism. It’s the unfeeling product of a proprietary algorithm applied to historical data, not a sentient being.

It would be entirely reasonable, on the other hand, to declare that a human person is pessimistic about the Oakland A’s after examining the ZiPS projections. Indeed, a brief inspection of the numbers here suggests that it’s one of the few logical conclusions to be drawn.

The depth-chart image below reveals five positions — catcher, second base, left field, center field, and right field — at which Oakland receives a rounded WAR projection of 1.0. Of course, the precise arrangement of certain players is subject to change. While Matt Joyce (431 PA, 0.6 zWAR) is more or less established in right field, for example, the roles of Mark Canha (489, 0.5), Dustin Fowler (460, 0.7), and Chad Pinder (463, 0.3) are all somewhat mutable. However they’re deployed, though, none of them appear particularly well suited to more than a bench role for now.

In a more promising development, two of the organization’s top young players from 2017, Matt Chapman (521, 2.8) and Matt Olson (565, 2.3), receive promising forecasts. The might very well represent a core around which the club can build.

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In the simulation baseball game called Hardball Dynasty in which Carson and I participate alongside other BBWAA writers (whose names have been redacted for privacy), international-free-agency dollars are a prized commodity.

International free agency, unlike the amateur draft, represents a market in which teams have access to elite talent regardless of their place in the standings. Carson and I and our 30 leaguemates are always waiting for the fake, digital Shohei Ohtani to be made available for our fake, digital dollars. Of course, there’s also a point at which international market budgets can become too greatly inflated, allowing for an opportunity to invest elsewhere.

Back in the real world — where there are real teams, real players, and real decisions being made — I applaud the Twins for what they did on Wednesday by trading in some of their international dollars for other prospect talent. It occurs at a time when international dollars should, theoretically, never be more valued.

When the Twins learned they were not one of the seven finalists for Ohtani despite possessing the most dollars available, they went searching for opportunity. After all, at that point, their $3.5 million in international pool money was more valuable to the seven finalists. Even though money appears not to be the primary motivator for Ohtani and even though the signing bonus he’s permitted to receive under the terms of the current CBA will be paltry relative to the endorsement opportunities he’s offered, bonus dollars have to rank somewhere on Ohtani’s priority list. At the very least, those pool dollars could be a sort of tiebreaker.

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With the likely winner of the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes becoming a bit more clear, 23 teams now find themselves in an interesting situation. Before Ohtani had narrowed his list, many of those clubs had hoarded their international bonus money for the big moment. Following the announcement of Ohtani’s seven finalists, however, they were left with the capacity to offer free-agent bonuses, but few actual players in whom to invest that money.

Fortunately for them, a fresh set of prospects emerged thanks to the Braves’ indiscretions on the international market. Some teams — including the Angels, Phillies, and Royals — pounced quickly, using funds from the 2018-2019 pool to sign some of the top ex-Braves. Other teams will assuredly put their remaining bonuses to use in this way, taking a chance that these players will thrive in a new system.

There is, of course, one other way in which teams can put their bonus dollars to work, and it’s one that seems to have increased in popularity during this year — namely, by trading the bonus money. The rules for this have changed a few times. Under the terms of the most recent CBA, however, a team can trade away its entire international bonus pool or acquire additional funds up to 75% of their initial pool through trades.

Some teams have taken advantage of this rule to trade substantial portions of their bonus pools, to varying levels of public approval. The last few days, specifically, have seen the remaining teams in the Ohtani sweepstakes make trades to augment their pools.

Is this a smart strategy? Before we disparage or praise teams for using their bonus pools in this fashion, it’s worthwhile to look at what teams are getting with this particular kind of asset.

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Yesterday, Tyler Chatwood signed with the Cubs for $38 million over three years. Given his velocity and run prevention at altitude, there’s a reasonable case to be made that Chatwood comes with enough upside to make this a very intriguing bet by the Cubs.

But while Chatwood remains interesting, one thing he can’t be described as is durable. He’s had Tommy John surgery twice (once in high school), missed nearly all of the 2014 and 2015 seasons, and has never thrown more than 158 innings in a season. The history of guys who have already had Tommy John revision surgeries is not very good, and quite simply, Chatwood’s health is a legitimate question mark. While the Cubs bought some real upside here, there is also a non-zero chance that they just spent $38 million to watch Chatwood spend most of the next three years rehabbing his elbow.

So, if we were plotting all pitchers on a risk/reward graph, Chatwood would be about as far from the middle of the graph as a point gets. Interestingly, though, the market also recently decided that the guy at the very opposite end of this spectrum is also worth $38 million over three years.

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