Yeah, I’m writing about opt-outs again. I know, I’ve already written about them a couple of times this winter, so I’m running the risk of beating a dead horse even further, but opt-outs continue to be a source of some controversy, especially since they’ve been handed out so commonly this winter. Last week, Rob Manfred weighed in briefly, stating that he didn’t see the value in opt-outs from the team perspective.

“The logic of opt-out clauses for the club escapes me,” Manfred told FOX Sports on Thursday night. “You make an eight-year agreement with a player. He plays well, and he opts out after three. You either pay the player again or you lose him.

“Conversely, if the player performs poorly, he doesn’t opt out and gets the benefit of the eight-year agreement. That doesn’t strike me as a very good deal. Personally, I don’t see the logic of it. But clubs do what they do.”

I didn’t write about Manfred’s comments when they were published because of the fear of the dead-horse phenomenon, and because all I’d have to add to those comments is that the logic teams are seeing is a chance to save money on long-term commitments by including opt-outs in order to reduce the total amount of guaranteed money they’re including in their offers. But Manfred knows that; he just can’t say it publicly. As commissioner, he’s limited in what he can say about player compensation, especially with a CBA negotiation upcoming, and so I figured I’d just let the comment be.

But then today, Rob Neyer wrote about Manfred’s comments, and added a few of his own. And since his point about opt-outs is the one that I most stridently disagree with, I figure it’s worth bringing this issue up one more time. First, though, Rob’s take on opt-outs.

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Back in November, the Kansas City Royals were crowned champions of the baseball world, and rightfully so; they won all the necessary games! The Royals are the champions, and they’ll continue to be the champions until a new team is crowned champions in the upcoming October. Could be that the new champions are just a different Royals team, but that seems unlikely. Mostly, it seems unlikely because it’s really hard to repeat World Series titles. That hasn’t happened in 15 years. But also, it seems unlikely for another reason.

See, we’ve got player and team projections here on the site, and when looking toward the future, it’s usually better to rely on the projections than to rely on whatever subjective beliefs we can quickly work up in our own heads. The projections, by and large, are pretty darn good, and those pretty darn good projections thinks the Royals roster, as currently constructed, is the opposite of pretty darn good. Right now, at this very second, the Royals, the world champion Royals, are being given MLB’s sixth-worst team projection, a little worse than the Twins and Orioles and a little better than the Padres and the Rockies.

I know, I know. The projections didn’t much like the Royals in 2014, either, and they were one game away from being the champions. The projections didn’t much like the Royals in 2015, either, and now they are the champions. The projections have a two-year history of whiffing on the Royals, and plenty of Kansas City fans have scoffed at the forecasted 2016 numbers listed here on this site.

But this Royals roster, at this very second, is quite a bit different than the roster that won the World Series. The roster that won the World Series had a Johnny Cueto in the rotation, but this one doesn’t. The roster that won the World Series had an Alex Gordon and a Ben Zobrist in the lineup and the field, but this one doesn’t. The roster that won the World Series had a right fielder with more than 86 career games played, but this one doesn’t. The Royals have lost a lot — Cueto, Gordon and Zobrist were worth about nine wins last year (not all to the Royals, of course) — yet they’ve gained very little.

Of course, they’re going to gain some, but they’re not getting Cueto or Zobrist back, and it sure doesn’t look like they’re getting Gordon back. Looks like Omar Infante might again be the Opening Day second baseman, and the best starting pitcher they could hope to land looks like Scott Kazmir right now. Plenty of big-name outfielders are still out there, but the Royals don’t figure to be players for them. More than likely, the Royals pick up a veteran, mid-tier outfielder for one corner, and run a platoon in the other.

While the Royals seem likely to add some projected wins through the end of the offseason, it doesn’t figure to be many. Even if they were to pick up, say, five projected wins through the rest of their offseason moves, a figure that feels high, their team projection would still fall below league average, pitting them between the Rangers and the White Sox.

Point is: no matter what happens, the 2016 Royals aren’t going to project well, by the numbers we currently have, and that’s fascinating. More likely than not, the World Champions will project as something like a .500 team, at best, on Opening Day, and people aren’t sure how to feel about that, especially given the last couple years. Rightfully so. I’m not sure how to feel about it either, which brings us to the second half of this post.

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In a rather surprising move, the Texas Rangers signed 29-year-old relief pitcher Matt Bush to a minor league contract last week. Yes, the same Matt Bush who the Padres took first overall in the 2004 amateur draft. Bush had previously spent 34 months in prison for DUI charges stemming from a hit-and-run incident that took place in March of 2012.

The recent history of first overall picks is largely a history of successes. Justin Upton (2005), David Price (2007), Stephen Strasburg (2009), Bryce Harper (2010) and Gerrit Cole (2011) all blossomed into some of the best players in the game, and Carlos Correa (2012) appears to be on a similar trajectory. Even the busts — like Delmon Young (2003), Luke Hochevar (2006) and Tim Beckham (2008) — often turn into big league players who have their moments in the sun.

Bush, on the other hand, is the exact opposite of a success story. He was originally drafted as a shortstop, but hit a paltry .219/.294/.276 in parts of four seasons in the low minors before the Padres pulled the plug on him. From there, he caught on with the Blue Jays, and then the Rays, who tried him out as a relief pitcher. He pitched pretty well in 65 minor-league innings over two years, but not well enough to get any big league consideration.

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In light of the tremendous success of last week’s edition of Let’s Find a Home — for which we took about 20 minutes to send Johnny Cueto eagerly off to San Francisco — I thought it would be right neighborly to take on a different, lonely, sad free agent this holiday season. So, people, won’t you help me find a new happy home for Chris Davis? He’s tall, he hits homers, and he is completely potty trained! Adoption fees start at $150 million.

There’s an alternate reality somewhere out beyond our galaxy (yes, I saw Star Wars a few days ago) where Chris Davis is taking one year “rebuild his value” offers from a few teams after another unsuccessful season. In that galaxy, Chris Davis is Mike Napoli, and when he signs, it doesn’t merit a press conference, only a few lines from his new manager amidst discussion of other business. That’s where things were headed for Davis after 2014. He was worth not quite a full win that season, batting below .200, just reaching a .300 on-base percentage, and slugging a hearty (for a middle infielder) .404. This came following a seven win season. Seven! Wins! Chris Davis posted a seven win season then wasn’t worth a single win the next season. Ahhhh baseball!

Then last season, Davis was worth 5.6 wins. Ahhhh baseball reprise! Chris Davis is your friend who insists on driving but doesn’t understand the subtlety required by brake and acceleration pedals. His car lurches forward off the line then, as soon as he sees anyone slowing in front of him, he slams on the breaks. Can you pay that guy like he’s a champion race-car driver?

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After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Baltimore Orioles. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Atlanta / Cincinnati / Kansas City / New York AL / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / Texas / Toronto.

Batters
If there’s one thing that irks Dan Szymborski, it’s when people cast aspersions against great Polish-American war hero Casimir Pulaski. If there’s a second thing that irks him, however, it’s when people calculate the sum of the WAR figures displayed in the depth charts of these ZiPS posts, add those totals to 47.7 (i.e. the win total of a hypothetical replacement-level club), and then regard the result as Szymborski’s unambigious win projection for the team in question. Bad form, is what Szymborski has to say about that maneuver.

That caveat having been made, what one finds upon revisiting last year’s ZiPS post for Baltimore is that the club’s depth-chart projections accounted for roughly 34 WAR — which figure, added to 47.7, equals 81.7. Meanwhile, here’s the Orioles’ final record from 2015: 81-81. And their BaseRuns record, also: 79-83. What appears to have happened, at the most basic level, is that Szymborski’s computer regarded Baltimore as almost a perfectly average team and then Baltimore performed like almost a perfectly average team.

This is bad news for the current iteration of the club, which accounts for only about 27 WAR (i.e. seven fewer wins than last year) on the depth chart below. Among the position players, there’s a great deal of uncertainty after Adam Jones and Manny Machado. Indeed, right field and designated hitter actually receive negative-win projections. So, not ideal. That said, there’s some positive uncertainty, as well — particularly in left fielder Hyeon-soo Kim, whose combination of contact ability and power invite comparisons to the best version of Nick Markakis.

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Ben and Sam talk to Ryan Thibodaux about what he’s learned from his effort to track Hall of Fame ballots.

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A plethora of under-the-radar transactions take place every offseason. One you might have missed happened last week when Stephen Fife signed with the Chicago Cubs. The 29-year-old right-hander, fully recovered from Tommy John surgery, was inked to a minor-league deal that includes a spring training invite to big-league camp.

If you’re not a Dodgers diehard, you probably aren’t aware that Fife was one of six Los Angeles pitchers to start 10-or-more games for the 2013 NL West champions. He finished that year 4-4 with a 3.86 ERA, but was unceremoniously left off the postseason roster. Come playoff time, he was told he wasn’t welcome in the dugout, although he could come to the games and watch from the stands.

Originally in the Red Sox organization, Fife came to LA as part of a three-team trade in July 2011. According to Fife, he turned a corner the following season with the help of Josh Bard. The newly-named Dodgers bullpen coach was one of the club’s catchers that season, and he told Fife that adjustments were in order. Read the rest of this entry »

Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
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Generally, the bigger and longer the deal, the riskier. It doesn’t follow, of course, that the opposite makes the shortest, smallest deal the best, but it does make it less risky. And, when it comes to a guy like Nate Jones, who the White Sox just signed to an interesting deal, risk is the key word. The particulars of the deal, though, reduced the risk to the team, while also adding reward.

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