I’m going to start today by telling you something very obvious: the new hot trend in contracts this offseason is extremely long deals. You know it. I know it. Ken Rosenthal says it, so it must be true. Living legend Jayson Stark laid it out as only he can: we’ve seen three free-agent deals of 11 or more years in the last two weeks, as compared to one in the entire previous history of baseball.

What factors are behind this hot new contract structure? Did a financial consultant walk through the Winter Meetings whispering “long contracts are in, pass it on” to team employees? I truly wish that were the case. It could be my big break in starting up Ben Clemens Investigates, and I’ve always wanted to wear a Sherlock Holmes hat. Bad news, though: to the best of my knowledge, that didn’t happen. It didn’t have to happen. The incentives to offer long-term deals are mathematically based, and I’m frankly pretty annoyed that I didn’t see this coming in predicting contracts this offseason. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Francisco Rodríguez was the October Surprise. As the Angels went on their 2002 postseason run, they introduced a secret weapon out of their bullpen, a 20-year-old Venezuelan righty with an unholy fastball-slider combination and the poise of a grizzled veteran despite him having all of 5.2 major league innings under his belt. Often throwing multiple innings and quickly graduating into a setup role in front of closer Troy Percival, Rodríguez set a number of records, including one for the most strikeouts by a reliever in a single postseason (28) while helping the Angels to their first (and to date only) championship in franchise history.

Though he endured some growing pains at the major league level, by 2004 Rodríguez was an All-Star, and from ’05-08 he led the American League in saves three times, setting a still-standing single-season record with 62 in the last of those campaigns. His mid-90s fastball and mid-80s slider befuddled hitters, while his demonstrative antics — “a melange of pirouettes, fist pumps and primordial screams,” as one writer put it — sometimes got under their skin.

Rodríguez cashed in via free agency, signing a three-year, $37 million deal with the Mets, but he was rarely the same pitcher he’d been in Anaheim. He made three more All-Star teams, but was arrested twice, once for assaulting his girlfriend’s father (and tearing ligaments in his thumb in the process) and once for domestic abuse. He pled guilty to the former and attended anger management classes, while the charges for the latter were dropped when the woman left to return to Venezuela. Both incidents likely would have interrupted his career to an even greater degree had they occurred after Major League Baseball and the Players Association adopted its domestic violence policy in 2015. Read the rest of this entry »

Continuing our week of updating the International Players tab over on The Board, today we’ve added the need-to-know pros from Nippon Professional Baseball, the top league in baseball-obsessed Japan. If you missed yesterday’s post surrounding Korea Baseball Organization players, you’re going to want to check that out, as lots of what is outlined there is also relevant for this batch of reports.

NPB is made up of 12 total teams split between two leagues, the Central and Pacific Leagues, with roughly half the teams concentrated in the area of the country surrounding Tokyo Bay. Now just over 70 years old, NPB essentially has one level of affiliated minor leagues (also split in two, they’re called the Eastern and Western Leagues), but allows its franchises to vary in the number of affiliates they control, which creates vast disparities in the number of minor league prospects or developmental players teams employ. The Giants and Hawks are Branch Rickey-ing this space while other teams are not.

MLB personnel tend to consider Japan at least on par with Triple-A ball in the U.S., and some (including your author) think it fits somewhere in the yawning chasm between the level of play at Triple-A and in the majors. Evidence that the latter is true: the Quad-A hitters who leave the U.S. for opportunities in Japan don’t tend to dominate the leaderboards; the best NPB players are usually Japanese. There are historical exceptions to this, but no foreign-born player has cracked the single-season top 10 of NPB position player WAR since Hector Luna in 2014. Read the rest of this entry »

Will Warren has quietly, and quickly, emerged as one of the top pitching prospects in the New York Yankees organization. An eighth-round pick in the 2020 draft out of Southwestern Louisiana University, the 22-year-old right-hander made his professional debut this year, and by June he was pitching with Double-A Somerset. On the season, he had a 3.91 ERA and a 3.74 FIP with 125 strikeouts and 119 hits allowed in 129 innings.

His best two pitches have been added to his arsenal since college. Warren’s sweeper, which spins as high as 3,000 rpm, replaced the pedestrian slider he’d thrown as an amateur; his low-to-mid 90s sinker, which helped produce a 53% ground ball rate, was developed just this past season. His physique has transformed, as well. The 6-foot-2 hurler now packs close to 200 pounds on his once-lean frame, giving him a more-projectable starter’s build.

Warren discussed his developmental strides late in the 2022 season.

———

David Laurila: Let’s start with your M.O. on the mound. How do you get guys out?

Will Warren: “Basically attacking the zone, knowing that the guys behind me are going to make plays. As a sinkerball guy, I’m probably going to get a lot more ground balls than strikeouts, so I rely a lot on my defense to get people out.”

Laurila: I understand that you also have a pretty good slider.

Warren: “Yes. Analytics makes it easier to look at a pitch and say, ‘Oh, I can do this, I can manipulate it this way.’ When I got drafted by the Yankees, we [developed] the slider. We tinkered with some grips, and it ended up being what it is now.”

Laurila: Is it the Yankees whirly?

Warren: “It’s the sweeper, yes. Off the top of my head, I’m going say I get like 16–18 inches of sweep. I can get it bigger, but I think that’s what it is on average. The velocity is 84–87 [mph].” Read the rest of this entry »

The Giants made a giant splash on Tuesday night, signing the top free agent remaining, Carlos Correa, to a 13-year contract worth $350 million. One of the biggest free agents last year as well, he took a three-year deal with the Twins worth $105.3 million, but with an opt-out clause that allowed him to hit the open market if a second crack at it seemed like a good idea. After a .291/.366/.467, 140 wRC+, 4.4 WAR season in Minnesota, and an offseason with more owners more willing to make it rain than any year in recent memory, Correa took his shot. It was a well-aimed one.

BREAKING: Shortstop Carlos Correa and the San Francisco Giants are in agreement on a 13-year, $350 million contract, a source familiar with the deal tells ESPN.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 14, 2022

After Trea Turner got an 11-year, $300 million deal with the Phillies, and Xander Bogaerts landed $280 million from the Padres, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to see Correa comfortably clear the $300 million mark. While he didn’t have the best season of these three shortstops, he’s two years younger than Bogaerts and has a longer track record of success than the remaining elite shortstop, Dansby Swanson (and is a tiny bit younger). As I feel with the Turner or Bogaerts signing, this isn’t really a 13-year deal in a meaningful sense, and while the Giants will undoubtedly be overjoyed if Correa is still a star in 2035, that’s a long time from now. Spreading it out over 13 seasons allows his pre-benefit luxury tax number to be just under $27 million a year, something which seems like an unbelievable bargain right now. It’s technically a 25% pay cut from 2022!

Over 13 years, ZiPS actually guessed slightly less on this one, a departure from the big contracts signed this fall. ZiPS has seen enough in recent years to move to a piecewise function, valuing the first win at $5.26 million and subsequent wins at $9.33 million and a 3% yearly boost in both of those numbers. The percentage boost may seem miserly, but MLB’s salary growth has been short of inflation for a while and certainly way behind revenue growth, and helped by COVID, the average salary increased by only $70,000 between 2017 and 2021. MLB’s competitive tax threshold will remain a significant pain point, as will each number that puts a team into the next “tax bracket.” That first threshold barely budges over the life of the new CBA, only increasing 1.5% a year, from $230 million to $244 million.

In all, ZiPS projected a $382 million deal for Correa with the Giants, with $350 million getting you almost through the end of the 10th season of the contract (2032). The Twins apparently offered him a 10-year, $285 million agreement prior to his signing with the Giants; if Correa had an impeccable sense of timing, they displayed a rather poor one. Essentially, Minnesota was fighting the last war rather than the current one, offering a 2022 contract in 2023. Entering the 2022 season, the ZiPS projection for Correa with the Twins for 2023–32 amounted to $278.7 million.

How big a deal is Correa entering free agency at 28 rather than 30? A pretty big one. Below are the ZiPS projections for if I change his 2023 age.

Yes, Correa hit the market a year older, but he also entered it with an additional essentially healthy season added to his résumé. During his age 22–24 seasons, a series of injuries resulted in him only being able to play in 294 out of a possible 486 games. For a player that young, it was an extremely concerning development. But he played in almost every game in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and 148 games in 2021. He missed a handful more games in 2022, but these maladies were more of the freak variety: an injured finger from a ball hitting his hand twice in a May game against the Orioles, and a stay on the COVID-19 list.

The cumulative missed time had an obvious effect on his long-term projections, and after ranking second in projected rest-of-career WAR in ZiPS before 2017, he slipped out of the top 20 before the 2020 season. Correa now has a mean projection of 42.4 career WAR remaining. With it looking increasingly likely that Fernando Tatis Jr.’s days a shortstop are mostly over, that’s enough to give him a projection of the best eventual career WAR of any active shortstop, slightly edging out the Mets’ Francisco Lindor.

The Giants have been active in free agency this winter, signing Mitch Haniger, Sean Manaea, Joc Pederson, and Ross Stripling already. However, while all of these players can contribute a lot in an NL West race, none can reasonably claim the mantle of a star, let alone that of a franchise-leading talent. San Francisco previously tried to burn down the NL West with an Aaron Judge signing, but the Yankees swept in to keep their franchise slugger. Truth be told, I think Correa’s a better fit for the Giants. They arguably need a shortstop more than a star corner outfielder, and Oracle Park is noted for its cruelty to power hitters of all stripes. While Correa hits for power, too, he’s more of the gap-to-gap type than pure loft. I’m slightly bearish on the projected home run totals for Correa, but I think he’ll hit more doubles and triples into Triples Alley in deep right-center than ZiPS envisions.

There’s unlikely to be any position controversy, even with Brandon Crawford signed for another season. While I wouldn’t anoint Crawford the best shortstop in Giants history — that plaudit better fits Travis Jackson or George Davis — he’s almost certainly the most valuable one for the franchise since Horace Stoneham hired the moving trucks in 1958. But Crawdaddy turns 36 next month and came back down to Earth after a fantastic 2021 season. Even more importantly, he’s in a contract year, and when Correa finishes his time in San Francisco, Crawford will probably have been retired for a decade. He’s still a fine defensive shortstop and ought to be a compelling replacement at third base over Evan Longoria and Wilmer Flores.

Losing Correa no doubt has to be disappointing for the Twins, but if they were willing to spend $285 million on him, there are other players out there. $285 million might land you Swanson and Carlos Rodón, and if not, at least the vast majority of their salaries. The AL Central is up for grabs, and that kind of investment may make a bigger difference there than any other division in baseball. It would be a shame if the Twins simply put that cash back in their pockets.

After seeing 36 wins evaporate from 2021 to 2022 and with the Dodgers and Padres looking like first-tier contenders, the Giants had a choice either to go big or to accept their lot as NL West underdogs. They went big, giving out the largest payday, by far, in team history. While the Giants have given out big extensions before, they only signed a single free agent to a $100 million dollar contract between Barry Zito and now (Johnny Cueto). The NL West just got a lot more exciting.

What’s your dream car? Probably something fast and attention-grabbing, like a Ferrari. Or maybe you want some unusual but beautiful Italian or Japanese classic, so people know you know your stuff. Or maybe a Rolls-Royce, so you can drive around in isolated opulence like the god of luxury millionaires pray to.

Of course, you don’t actually want any of those cars in real life. You couldn’t afford to maintain them. You’d be too nervous to drive them in traffic or park them at the supermarket, lest the paint get damaged. To borrow a line from The Love Bug — which in addition to being one of the great sports films, is a classic San Francisco film — what you want is “cheap, honest transportation.”

The Giants know this. They’ve chased the odd Ferrari, and after losing out on Aaron Judge they’ve finally caught one in Carlos Correa. But their pursuit of pitchers has been more practical. They’ve watched Carlos Rodón walk away (at least for the time being). Instead, they’ve assembled a garage of useful starting pitchers, first by signing Sean Manaea on Sunday, then two days later inking right-hander Ross Stripling to the same contract: two years, $25 million, with an opt-out after this season. Read the rest of this entry »

For the 18th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and next up is the Oakland Athletics.

Batters

Are the A’s the most boring organization in baseball? There are other teams that are in the basement, but the Rockies do outright nuttier things, the Pirates always have a highly interesting player or two, the Tigers bring in the occasional big-name free agent, and the Reds have a few compelling pitchers. Looking around the diamond, the A’s are safely above replacement level nearly everywhere, but outside of a few players, such as Esteury Ruiz, it doesn’t feel like there’s any upside scenario compelling enough to cancel out all of the bland, featureless gray. Not to pick on Jace Peterson, but he feels like a pickup emblematic of this team: he’s cheap and he’s been useful at times, but no matter what happens, he’s likely to just be the Jace Peterson we know. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley discuss the two teams at the top and bottom, respectively, of the MLB payroll hierarchy, the New York Mets and Oakland Athletics, touching on the Mets’ signings of Brandon Nimmo, Kodai Senga, and David Robertson, the A’s trading away Sean Murphy, and what a vast disparity in spending does and doesn’t signify for MLB’s competitive balance. They also banter about the other teams’ ends of that three-team trade, the state of the NL East, the Giants’ starting-pitcher signings, a reported Padres offer, the Blue Jays’ and Twins’ latest additions, Munetaka Murakami news, and more, plus a Past Blast from 1941.

Audio intro: Billy Joel, “Last of the Big Time Spenders”
Audio outro: Sex Bob-Omb, “Threshold”

Link to Patrick Dubuque on Cohen
Link to Longenhagen on Senga
Link to Baumann on Mets spending
Link to Rosenthal on owners
Link to Rosenthal on Murphy
Link to Baumann on Murphy
Link to Law on Murphy
Link to Petriello on Murphy
Link to FG payroll page
Link to team catcher WAR
Link to SP depth charts
Link to 2005 team payrolls
Link to FG post on Manaea
Link to FG post on Bassitt
Link to FG on Vázquez/Zunino
Link to Marlins article
Link to Padres report
Link to Kovalchuk article
Link to Murakami news
Link to Ben’s SNL oral history
Link to 1941 story source
Link to Lefty Grove bio
Link to Jacob Pomrenke’s website
Link to Jacob Pomrenke on Twitter
Link to Secret Santa sign-up sheet
Link to Secret Santa FB thread
Link to share of team Ks sheet

 Sponsor Us on Patreon
 Facebook Group
 Twitter Account
 EW Subreddit
 Effectively Wild Wiki
 iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!)
 Get Our Merch!
 Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Catching is the most taxing position in baseball. Day in and day out, it grinds on the players who attempt it. Catchers almost never play a full season, because it’s just plain harder to catch two days in a row than play the field on those days. Mathematically, that means fewer stars, because catchers have fewer plate appearances to excel in. That warps the market for free-agent catchers; in a given year, there might be only one or two full-time starters available at the position.

If you’re a team looking for a catcher, that puts you in a bind. This year’s market is a great example; I can name plenty of teams that “needed a catcher” coming into this offseason, but there were only two at the top of the market, and that’s if you count Sean Murphy, whom the A’s traded to Atlanta on Monday. Short of that, Willson Contreras was at the top by himself, and the Cardinals signed him earlier this month. That means the other teams who “needed a catcher” had to look a tier down. Speaking of which: the Twins signed Christian Vázquez to a three-year deal worth $30 million. Not long after, the Guardians signed Mike Zunino to a one-year deal for $6 million. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2019 election, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

As much as Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, and Bernie Williams, Andy Pettitte was a pillar of the Joe Torre-era Yankees dynasty. The tall Texan lefty played such a vital role on 13 pinstriped playoff teams and seven pennant winners — plus another trip to the World Series during his three-year run with Houston — that he holds several major postseason records. In fact, no pitcher ever started more potential series clinchers, both in the World Series and the postseason as a whole.

For as important as Pettitte was to the “Core Four” (Williams always gets the short end of the stick on that one) that anchored five championships from 1996 to 2009 — and to an Astros team that reached its first World Series in ’05 — he seldom made a case as one of the game’s top pitchers. High win totals driven by excellent offensive support helped him finish in the top five of his leagues’ Cy Young voting four times, but only three times did he place among the top 10 in ERA or WAR, and he never ranked higher than sixth in strikeouts. He made just three All-Star teams.

Indeed, Pettitte was more plow horse than racehorse. A sinker- and cutter-driven groundballer whose pickoff move was legendary, he was a championship-level innings-eater, a grinder rather than a dominator, a pitcher whose strong work ethic, mental preparation, and focus — visually exemplified by his peering in for the sign from the catcher with eyes barely visible underneath the brim of his cap — compensated for his lack of dazzling stuff. Ten times he made at least 32 starts, a mark that’s tied for seventh in the post-1994 strike era. Within that span, his total of 10 200-inning seasons is tied for third, and his 13 seasons of qualifying for the ERA title with an ERA+ of 100 or better is tied for first with two other lefties, Mark Buehrle (also on this ballot) and CC Sabathia. He had his ups and downs in the postseason, but only once during his 18-year career (2004, when he underwent season-ending elbow surgery) was he unavailable to pitch once his team made the playoffs. Read the rest of this entry »