The clever introductions to early free-agent signings have all been used up. It’s November 30, and more than a third of the top 25 players on the market have already signed. That’s an unprecedented pace, one that ran me out of headlines sooner than expected. So, uh: Kevin Gausman is going to the Blue Jays, and that’s really neat! The deal is for five years and over $100 million:

BREAKING: Right-hander Kevin Gausman and the Toronto Blue Jays are in agreement on a five-year, $110 million contract, sources familiar with the deal tell ESPN.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) November 29, 2021

I was wildly low on my prediction for Gausman’s contract when I previewed the top 50 free agents earlier this month. Why, then, would you want to read what I think of this deal? I’ll give you two reasons. First, you love reading about baseball; you’re browsing FanGraphs on November 30, like we covered up above. Second, I think that the solid market for Gausman says something about both him as a pitcher and the market as a whole, and who doesn’t like big sweeping pronouncements mixed with micro re-assessments? It’s a party for everyone. Read the rest of this entry »

Few people probably anticipated the kind of spending frenzy we’ve seen this offseason leading up to a likely lockout. Nobody assumed the Rangers would be leading the way. They’ve now committed over $500 million in salary in the last 48 hours, with the biggest chunk of that coming on Monday afternoon in the form of a 10-year, $325 million deal for shortstop Corey Seager, who finished second in our top 50 free agent rankings. The deal includes a $5 million bonus and no opt-outs.

(A quick note before we move on: When you get into these numbers, state taxes make a difference. Playing in Texas and the AL West, Seager will play nearly two-thirds of his games in tax-free states. The Dodgers, who play nearly two-thirds of their games in the state with the highest tax rate in the country, could have offered $350 million and still not matched the Rangers in overall money.)

In Seager, the Rangers get a face-of-the-franchise–level talent — when he’s healthy, which has been depressingly rare of late. He missed more than a third of the 2021 season due to an errant pitch breaking a bone in his hand, lost nearly three weeks of the ’19 season to a hamstring strain, and was absent for the majority of of the ’18 season due to Tommy John and hip surgeries.

That said, the healthy version of Seager (and to be far, the broken hand was an accident) has shown that he’s capable of seasons worthy of MVP votes and is the best offensive shortstop on the market, and yes, that includes Carlos Correa, No. 1 in our top 50. Seager’s power is a seemingly underrated aspect of his game that every bit matches Correa’s in terms of exit velocities, and the former’s pure hit tool exceeds the latter’s, who is ultimately the better overall player thanks to his incredible defensive prowess. Read the rest of this entry »

Cross another top starting pitcher off the list, as the Mariners agreed on Monday to a five-year deal with the reigning AL Cy Young winner, Robbie Ray, formerly of the Blue Jays. The contract, worth $115 million, also includes a no-trade clause for the first two seasons and an opt-out that Ray can exercise after the 2024 season.

Reigning AL Cy Young winner Robbie Ray and the Seattle Mariners are finalizing a five-year, $115 million contract with an opt-out after the third season, sources familiar with the deal tell ESPN.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) November 29, 2021

It’s quite the reversal of fortunate for the lefty, who was coming off an unforgettable 2020 campaign; anybody would have a hard time wiping their memory of a season in which they walked eight batters per nine innings. The Jays will be sad to lose him, but in signing him last year for all of $8 million, they scored one of the top starters in baseball plus earned an extra draft pick as a chaser — and Ray’s replacement, Kevin Gausman, who was signed over the weekend, is a pretty good pitcher himself.

It’s hard to say that Ray emerging once more as a solid contributor in 2021 was a complete shock — ZiPS projected an ERA of 4.15, and I believe Steamer was in the same neighborhood — but few saw him returning to the pitcher he was in 2017. And while some regression toward the mean is likely, given the simple fact that his FIP was a run worse than his ERA, there are few danger signs lurking in the shadows. His fastball was as hard velocity-wise as it’s ever been, and it’s rare for a large improvement in walk rate to be a mirage. He was as hard to make contact as he usually is, but this time, batters couldn’t simply wait for him to throw a couple fastballs in the dirt.

Like most of the big signings, the contractual terms seem to align with the reasonable expectations and the risk. Just like the Rangers aren’t paying Marcus Semien as if he’ll finish in third place in the AL MVP race again, Seattle isn’t paying Ray as if the baseline expectation is a Cy Young repeat. At $7.3 million per ZiPS WAR and 3% yearly salary growth, which I’ve been going with this over this offseason (though this is obviously a guessing game), ZiPS projects a five-year offer at $109 million, just under what he actually got. It’s a good price, and I think given where the Mariners are in the AL West right now, they could have justified spending quite a bit more if they had to in order to land him.
Read the rest of this entry »

For all of the sound and fury coming from Steve Cohen last week upon being spurned by Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz, the Mets’ owner has put his money where his mouth is since then. After signing a trio of midmarket position players — outfielders Starling Marte and Mark Canha, plus infielder Eduardo Escobar — over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, New York landed a marquee hurler on Monday, agreeing to terms with Max Scherzer on a three-year, $130 million deal.

The contract will pay Scherzer $43.33 million annually for his age 37–39 seasons, marking this as quite a high-risk move. The deal, which includes an opt-out after 2023 as well as a full no-trade clause, is a record-setter, with an average annual value 20% higher than the $36 million per year won by the Yankees’ Gerrit Cole, the previous standard-bearer. And — in a bit that’s sure to be schadenfreude-licious for a certain segment of the Mets’ fan base — while Scherzer is pulling down that massive salary, he’ll also be receiving the first three of seven $15 million deferred payments from the Nationals during the span of his contract with the Mets.

The move comes as something of a surprise given that Scherzer refused to consider waiving his 10-and-5 rights for a potential deal to the Mets in July. On top of that, the Dodgers, to whom he was ultimately dealt, were presumed to have the inside track on retaining the 37-year-old righty given their status as contenders, their seemingly limitless resources, and a sense of unfinished business after coming up short in their quest to defend their 2020 title. But whether it was because Los Angeles wouldn’t go beyond two years or because Scherzer, who purchased a mansion in Jupiter, Florida in 2020, preferred a return to the East Coast, New York was able to close a deal ahead of the December 1 expiration of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement and the lockout that’s likely to follow.

In the final year of his seven-year, $210 million contract with the Nationals — perhaps the most fully realized free-agent mega-deal to date, featuring two Cy Young awards, two no-hitters, a championship, 39.7 WAR, and probably a curly W on the cap of his Hall of Fame plaque — Scherzer pitched like a man in search of more hardware. In his first nine starts after being dealt to the Dodgers, he posted astounding numbers (0.78 ERA, 1.36 FIP, 36.6% strikeout rate), and on September 12, during that run, he became the 19th pitcher in history to collect 3,000 career strikeouts, doing so while taking a perfect game into the eighth inning. Even after a couple of bumpy starts at the end of the regular season, he finished second in the NL in ERA (2.46), strikeouts (236), strikeout rate (34.1%) and K-BB% (28.8%), third in WAR (5.4), and fourth in FIP (2.96) in 179.1 innings. In the year’s Cy Young voting, he placed third behind Corbin Burnes and Zack Wheeler, receiving six first-place votes.

Even so, those bumpy starts turned out to be an ominous portent of things to come. Scherzer failed to complete five innings in two of his three postseason starts, including the NL Wild Card Game. After closing out the Giants in the ninth inning of Game 5 of the Division Series, he admitted that he was battling arm fatigue, and was able to make only one NLCS start; he could only watch as a similarly gassed Walker Buehler struggled on three days of rest in Game 6 against the Braves. Still, Scherzer’s problem was believed to be nothing more than arm fatigue — understandable given his 128.2-inning workload increase relative to 2020.
Read the rest of this entry »

Like many Americans last weekend, the Mets took out their credit cards once the Thanksgiving turkey was digested, coming to terms with three free agents on multi-year contracts. Starling Marte, coming off the best season of his career, received the most lucrative package, a four-year deal worth $78 million. New York also clarified its third base situation considerably with the addition of Eduardo Escobar on a two-year, $20 million contract. And the team’s revamped outfield may have been completed with the final of the three signings, a two-year, $26.5 million pact with former Athletic Mark Canha. Neither Marte nor Escobar was eligible for a qualifying offer, and Canha did not receive one from Oakland, so the Mets have clear sailing in terms of draft pick compensation.

The Mets were busy, but then again, they kind of needed to be, given their losses in free agency. Coming off a disappointing 2021 season, a collective 11 WAR-worth of players walked off into the sunset of the open market, resulting in a lot of needs to address this winter. All three of these signings fill holes on the roster, and along with the obvious interest in Steven Matz given some very angry words, they indicate that the Mets are focused on adding as many pieces as they can (with Max Scherzer set to join the rotation as well; more on that to come).

A centerfielder entering his age-33 season isn’t typically the most likely candidate for a long-term contract, but like Lorenzo Cain when he signed with the Brewers, Marte starts from a high enough perch to give him plenty of room to decline before he’s a drag on the team. He never had that crazy breakout year that seemed possible in his early days with the Pirates, but he’s also never truly had a bad season; he was only below 2 WAR in 2017 due to a suspension stemming from a positive test for Nandrolone, and he was well above a two-win pace in the shortened 2020 season. His power has faded from his peak, but he’s compensated with improvements as a more selective hitter making more contact. Most veteran players aren’t quick enough to “unwind” launch angle gains and reap a benefit from hitting more high-BABIP grounders, but Marte is still very quick, finishing just out of the 80th percentile in sprint speed and above the 90th-percentile cutoff for speed to first base. Before he and Whit Merrifield did it in 2021, the last player 32 or older to steal 40 bases in a season was Alex Rios back in 2013.

ZiPS projects decline from Marte, but the contract’s terms reflect that of a player in decline. At $7.3 million per win with 3% annual growth (which I’m assuming for other contracts in this article as well), ZiPS projects a $77.7 million deal over four years, basically indistinguishable from what he got. Brandon Nimmo had surprisingly good defensive stats in center for a change in 2021, but even if you think he’s now underrated defensively there, he’ll be excellent in right, and hopefully less injury-prone at a lower-impact position.
Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of a series concerning the 2022 Early Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering managers and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon on December 5. For an introduction to the ballot, see here, and for an introduction to JAWS, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Bill Dahlen

The lone holdover from the 2016 Pre-Integration Era Committee ballot, Bill Dahlen was one of the best players of the late-19th and early-20th century. A shortstop for four teams from 1891-1911, he was renowned for his fielding, his ferocious temper — he earned the nickname “Bad Bill,” and was ejected from a total of 70 games as a player and manager — and his carousing, though he was also a very good hitter for his position, especially in his 20s. His 42-game hitting streak from 1894 still stands as the fourth-longest in major league history, and thanks to his prowess on both sides of the ball he ranks 11th in JAWS among shortstops. Dahlen helped the Brooklyn Superbas and New York Giants to two pennants apiece during a six-year span from 1899-1905, but he’s somehow slipped through the cracks historically, to the point that he was SABR’s 2012 Overlooked 19th Century Baseball Legend. Read the rest of this entry »

For years, 2022 has loomed large in the Minnesota Twins’ long-term planning. Their two franchise cornerstones, Byron Buxton and José Berríos, were both due to hit free agency after the 2022 season, which meant the team constructed many of its long-term plans with that year as a pivot point. Even when they traded Berríos for prospects at the 2021 deadline, next year still looked like a potential last hurrah with the current core before turning the team over to new blood.

Forget that idea. On Sunday, the Twins and Buxton agreed to a seven-year, $100 million contract extension that will keep him in Minnesota through the 2028 season; it also includes a full no-trade clause. The gem of Minnesota’s last rebuild will now be the face of the franchise throughout the peak of his career.

2021 was a microcosm of Buxton’s career to date. He was electric when he played, batting .306/.358/.647 with 19 home runs in only 254 plate appearances. He clubbed 19 doubles, stole nine bases (against just a single time getting caught), and channeled his aggression on pitches in the zone without flailing wildly. In the field, he was as good as ever, which is pretty darn good. Buxton is perennially one of the best center fielders in baseball, and this year was no exception. Every defensive metric agreed he was one of the best per-game defenders in the majors. Combine that with his offense, and he was worth 4.2 WAR in only 61 games. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »