The Curious Bidding War for Eric Hosmer
Eric Hosmer has waited some time for a market to come together for his services. Part of the reason for the delay is that large-market clubs like the Dodgers and Yankees are not in need of a first baseman and are trying to remain below the luxury-tax threshold. Part of it is that teams are learning to better wait out free agents. (By Jan. 3 of last winter, nine of FanGraphs’ top-10 free agents had signed. This year? Three.) Hosmer’s agent Scott Boras famously said that there should be no concern for a free agent if he’s “the steak,” making the analogy to the main course of a fine dinner. There is some debate, however, as to whether Hosmer is a steak or a lesser cut.
By now, you are probably aware of the dilemma regarding Hosmer. He looks the part: an athletic, 6-foot-4, left-handed first baseman who is adept at vacuuming up short throws as a defender. He is also praised as a clubhouse leader. He’s a young free agent, entering just his age-28 season. But he’s remained wildly inconsistent in overall performance and seems determined to keep pounding balls into the turf while demonstrating little interest in evolving.
Over seven years in the majors, Hosmer has produced single-season WAR totals of 0.0 (2014), -0.1 (2016), and -1.7 (2012). He posted another GB/FB ratio north of 2.0 this past season, the third straight campaign in which he’s crossed that threshold. Hosmer’s average launch angle since 2015 (4.3 degrees) ranks 378th out of 399 hitters (minimum 300 balls in play), according to Baseball Savant data. Last season, Hosmer ranked 371st with a 3.8-degree launch angle.
Hosmer might become more consistent. He might even be able to change his swing and become a more productive offensive player. Maybe the defensive metrics that rate him as a poor defender are missing something. Still, a combination of the factors considered above and the uncertainty of what they for his future has certainly contributed to limiting his market.
Nevertheless, some teams seem to be ready to invest. Perhaps they believe a value price point has been reached.
Bob Nightengale reports that the Padres and Royals remain the top two contenders for Hosmer — and, apparently, the bidding has intensified.
Eric Hosmer, coveted all winter by the San Diego Padres, now has another surprising small-market team going head-to-head for his services.
Yes, his old team.
The Kansas City Royals have offered Hosmer a franchise-record seven-year, $147-million contract, persons close to Hosmer told USA TODAY Sports on the condition of anonymity since negotiations are still undergoing.
Hosmer also has a seven-year, $140 million offer from the Padres, people close to Hosmer say, which is $1 million less a year than the Royals’ deal.
This is a weird bidding war.
After a productive run that included a World Series title, the Royals are in trouble — sizable trouble — as Jeff noted earlier this offseason. The Padres and Royals, as presently constructed, are tied for the second-worst record in 2018 according to FanGraphs’ current projections. Those are teams for which Hosmer’s remaining age-20-something seasons are probably least likely to assist in a postseason run.
The Royals seem to be a long way from their next competitive team. The Padres have a much healthier farm system, but it seems they are at least a couple years away from contending for a playoff berth.
Maybe the clubs are buying into Hosmer’s intangibles, but Hosmer doesn’t seem to be a Daniel Murphy or Justin Turner in the clubhouse — that is, a player capable of exposing teammates to ways of optimizing performance.
Jon Morosi reports that the Cardinals are also interested, though St. Louis could pursue other options like Josh Donaldson, and it’s not clear of the Cardinals would consider such a contract.
Source: #STLCards remain involved in pursuit of Eric Hosmer, among other options to upgrade lineup. Cardinals also interested in third basemen, including Josh Donaldson in trade. Matt Carpenter’s versatility means Cardinals could add a 1B as easily as a 3B. @MLB @MLBNetwork
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) January 2, 2018
The curious part of these deals isn’t so much the annual average value. Something like $20 million per season for a 28-year-old who has produced 10 WAR over seven seasons, but is coming off a four-win season, is not a wild overpay with a win worth about $9 million on the open market.
It’s more the volume of years that is surprising and concerning.
There is a point at which Hosmer becomes a value play. But seven years is not much of discount from Boras’s original ask of eight. And seven years is a quite a commitment for a player who carries so much inconsistency and uncertainty. Hosmer would ideally become a value play for a club on a shorter-term deal. And there is an argument that Hosmer might do well for himself on a shorter contract to prove he has more upside and consistency. Then he could re-enter the market in a year or two.
While the asking price appears to have come down from Boras’s original $200 million number, while clubs should be in search of value, seven years and $140-$150 million still doesn’t constitute a favorable deal for a club.
Hosmer is not yet a value play.
A Cleveland native, FanGraphs writer Travis Sawchik is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Big Data Baseball. He also contributes to The Athletic Cleveland, and has written for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, among other outlets. Follow him on Twitter @Travis_Sawchik.
As much grief as has been given Hosmer, I get 139 million over 7 years using the Fangraphs Depth Chart WAR projection, Fangraphs standard aging curve, $9 million/WAR, and a 5% inflation rate. As bad contracts go, these reported offers at least aren’t guaranteed to be DOA.
If the Royals put the same intangible value on keeping the face of their franchise as the Twins did with Mauer, this should give them some comfort about the cost of that intangible. Mauer was 28 when he signed the extension, and has been worth about 16 WAR through the first 7 years of the deal. Not what the Twins were hoping for, but not a bad proxy for what Hosmer would produce.
If I were thinking about signing Hosmer to 7/$147M, it would not give me a lot of comfort that Joe Mauer sustained a serious injury that moved him off his position and still ended up being about as productive as a healthy Eric Hosmer is projected to be.
While both Hosmer and Mauer may have been valued for their clubhouse contributions, their value on the field is not remotely comparable.
The Twin extended Mauer after a little more than six full season in which he produced 31 fWAR; Hosmer has been at or below replacement value in three of his seven season and produce 9.9 fWAR in total.
Ellsbury has produced 9.7bWAR over the first four years of his seven year deal, and the contract is considered a complete albatross.
Seems like Travis’ criticism is mostly based on the years and the teams that are offering Hosmer. Plus, given his inconsistency, it’s hard to know what he’ll give you going forward. There’s a lot of risk involved, even in giving Hosmer a short term contract.
Beyond that Hosmer really ought to be platooned. Much was made of the Indians need to platoon Alonso when they signed him. Well, Hosmer’s numbers against lefties are only marginally better than Alonso’s. (87 wRC+ vs 84wRC+).
Risk is both on team and on Hosmer, though. There is a decent chance (I’d guess about 30%) as Travis puts it that Hosmer “has more upside and consistency”. I wouldn’t bet on it as I don’t like that type of risk for the teams rumored. That said, I was expecting a smaller number than 139 million before I ran numbers for 7 years based on the amount of Hosmer bashing.
See I’d put the chance at less than 30%, probably more like 10-20%.
That being said, Hosmer is definitely in a bad position, all things considered. He could sign a one year contract, and hope that he repeats what he did in 2017. But I seriously doubt that he wants to be part of next year’s FA class. A two year contract would put him back on the FA market around age 30. Again, he probably wants to avoid that. Not sure what other options he has.
Hosmer is in an amazing position, with two 7 year/$140M+ contract offers in hand. Why would one need more options than that? Let alone consider signing a one year contract.
Sigh. I don’t really understand why I need to explain this. I was clearly responding to Legeisc who wrote:
“Risk is both on team and on Hosmer, though. There is a decent chance (I’d guess about 30%) as Travis puts it that Hosmer “has more upside and consistency”.”
So yes, Hosmer has risk. He might sign a contract that is significantly under what his value will be going forward (it’s clearly under what Boras and/or Hosmer believe it already to be). But he doesn’t have options. I see no path that will lead him to more dollars than what are currently on the table.
Again, I hate to be snarky but I’m stunned that I’m getting downvoted and that I had to explain something so obvious.
There’s always some risk on both sides in any free agent deal, but for Hosmer at 7/$140M, the risk is very much weighted towards the club. I think you put the chances of Hosmer outperforming this deal at 10-20%. Those are really good odds from the player’s perspective. He’s got two of these offers, so he’s obviously in a really nice position. The fact that these offers are less that Boras’s opening bid is neither here nor there. It’s an opening bid, that’s how negotiations go.
1) It’s completely irrelevant what I think the risk is or what Legeisc thinks it is or what anyone else on here thinks it is. It only matters what Hosmer and Boras think the risk is.
2) You claim that Hosmer is in an “amazing position” because he has two 7 year, 140+ million contracts in hand. (though note that Boras has disputed that). I think most of us here would agree that those are fantastic offers for Hosmer. But Boras and Hosmer might disagree. They might believe that Hosmer deserves a lot more money. And all I did was consider some options that they could pursue if they weren’t happy with the contract offers and wanted to make more money. I then quite clearly rejected those options.
So sorry, but I’m completely 100% befuddled as to what the point of your comments is. Do you honestly believe that Hosmer/Boras are in a great negotiating position, if they decide that they want significantly more than 7 years/140+ million dollars?
Hilariously insane deals
That’s because $9 million/WAR is too high. It was taken from deals at the top of the market, not the middle. Can anyone give me more than one example of a 3-win player who got an AAV of $27 million+ or a 4-6-win player who got an AAV of $36-54 million+?
Saying “this is unlikely to be the worst FA deal of recent years” is really damning with faint praise.
Nobody is signing a guy who they think is going to give them 2-3 WAR a year for $20 million a year for the next seven years. That’s like the 6th best position player on a real playoff contender like the Red Sox or Yankees, or 5th on the Nationals. And that’s just the position players!
While part of roster construction is that your best players are often in arb/pre-arb, blowing 1/8th (give or take) of your team payroll on a position player to be your 8th or 9th best player is nuts. The Padres and Royals are likely weighting the intangibles very, very heavily, or they think he’s going to give more value than what we’re seeing here.
I love this comment with a fierce love. Well put.
I still can’t quite wrap my head around this valuation. In the first year of the deal, Hosmer is projected for 2.8 WAR, $25M in value against a $20M paycheck. Barely better than break-even. But somehow, he is supposed to hold his value for the next 6 years to the point that the 7/$140M contract is practically break-even as a whole. I don’t get it.
These things always seem weird at first, but it’s because he’s young — so doesn’t lose much value on the aging curve at first — and the $ cost of WAR keeps going up. So as he becomes worth less in value he also costs less in “real” (i.e. inflation-adjusted) terms, which prevents his $-adjusted value from going negative for awhile.
Of course this assumes that any reasonable team is fine with a 1 WAR first-baseman in 2024 just because inflation has meant that his $20mn salary is fairly close to the average $/WAR in the market. They wouldn’t, because of opportunity costs — there are always Adam Linds and Yonder Alonsos and Matt Adamses and Lucas Dudas and John Jasos and Mike Napolis out there who can be signed cheaply on a short-term basis and give you roughly league-average production in a sensible platoon. Better to sign those guys cheaply and save your big money for a substantial upgrade.
Which is why few teams are in on Hosmer in the first place, and the ones that are are bad teams. This also illustrates why $/WAR calculations are not always useful for the real-world task at hand, esp when projected that far out into the future.
I sincerely doubt that $/WAR is used to justify free agent signings in front offices like they are on Fangraphs. The cost of a win is a descriptive measure of how much people have paid in the past. Teams are looking to set the $/WAR figure based on their own internal projections, desire to make improvements, and budget…not respond to it. The details of how FO’s make their valuations could be a whole article series in and of itself, and a good complement to Swartz’s work on the cost of a win.
(If Fangraphs is looking for a topic to write on, I promise I’ll click on it)
I’m very much interested in what goes down with Hosmer. I am not a fan of his but would enjoy seeing what he may do if someone can get him away from being a worm killer.
Wasn’t he a total jerk to Eno? That has to play a factor in the total value of his contract.
Like increase it a lot?
You’re thinking of Cistulli.
Is there such thing as a conflict of interest when it comes to representing ballplayers?
It seems like Boras clients Hosmer and J.D. Martinez are competing for the identical job.
Conflicts of interest are somewhat easy to get around as long as they are disclosed and consented to.
It could be a conflict, but it can also work out to the players’ benefit to have the same agent.
The conflict would clearly be if one team is far and away the high bidder on both players but will only sign one of them.
OTOH, it’s useful market intelligence for both players for their agent to know what teams are offering for the other player. It removes, for example, the gambit of Dombrowski bluffing in negotiations by telling Hosmer’s agent “fine, if you don’t accept this offer we’ll just sign Martinez”, if in fact Martinez isn’t close to a mutually acceptable deal with the Red Sox. There’s also potential value for the players in having Boras synchronize the timelines of both of their marketing/negotiation processes, so they can more or less both sign contracts at the same time without losing the possible leverage of the Red Sox clearly dropping out of the market by signing the other one of the two.
Potentially, yes, by it it’s one that both players have knowledge of (and teams, too) and the players have the ability to change agents if they feel compromised by any conflict of interest.
I represent writers and actors in the entertainment industry.
I have 2 creepy looking dudes in their 40’s. They are almost never a conflict of interest with each other. One has a much larger resume and is much more well known, the other one less so.
I also have 3 smoking hot instagram models that have enough followers they make enough money that their job is literally posting pictures of themselves. They often just end up replacing each other as the others are not available.
What it comes down to is that every individual is different. Each of my actors brings something else to the table. Some people like my actors better than others, some like the other one. Same with baseball players. I would rather have Martinez on my team than Hosmer, so I would listen to Boras’ pitch for Hosmer less than I would for Martinez. Everyone has preferences, as well as different needs.
If conflict of interest issues like this were to be an issue, there would only be a handful of clients per each representative. And at the end of the day, it is the representative’s best interest to get every single one of his/her clients the best deal possible, because they get paid on % of earnings and not flat rates.
Now if the agent was representing the team and the player that would be the conflict.
If one of them is Michael Shannon can you please stop for the benefit of humanity?
If alpha309 reps Michael Shannon then he’s probably the best agent on the planet. I have no idea how he keeps getting roles.
Those quoted “sources near Hosmer” wouldn’t by any chance be Boras? Or his assistant-in-charge-of-rumormongering?
I’m assuming the latter. Also, that the Assistant Rumormonger translated Boras’s request of 7 years at $20 million+ per season through Serbian, Vietnamese and French, so it got reported that the teams were the ones offering the megadeals for Hosmer.
It’s the only explanation that makes sense.
I’m pretty dubious about this reported interest from the Cardinals. Feels to me like it’s just Boras leaking to try to build the idea of competition for Hosmer. Maybe Boras’ fig leaf of truth is that the Cardinals are in conversations about one of his other clients – I’d guess Greg Holland – and that Hosmer’s name also comes up.
It doesn’t make much sense to me for the Cardinals to think that moving Matt Carpenter to 3B to fit Hosmer, because that’s not just a 2018 move for 32 year old Carpenter. He’s under team control through 2020 (2020 is a team option for an incremental $16.5 million over the buyout amount).
I also don’t see that signing Hosmer to take playing time away from Gyorko, Jose Martinez, and maybe Wong (if Gyorko plays more 2B) actually projects as much if any of an upgrade for the Cardinals in 2018.
More generally, the Cardinals’ logical position player move, if any, is to consolidate value into a legitimate star player. Stanton would have done that, and Donaldson or Machado would do that. Ozuna may sort of do that (3.6 average fWAR projection for 2018 from Steamer and ZIPS). Hosmer’s 2.7 average fWAR projection for 2018 doesn’t really upgrade over the average to somewhat above average options that the Cardinals already have between Carpenter, Gyorko, Wong, and Jose Martinez. That projection also feels a bit aggressive for Hosmer considering that he’s averaged a bit under 2 fWAR over the past 4 seasons by alternating good years with replacement level years. I don’t understand, for example, why both Steamer and ZIPS project Hosmer to have a 2018 ISO that would be the highest season ISO of his career by 16 points.
Agree, and paying big bucks for Hosmer is precisely the kind of thing the Cardinals have refused to do with even their home grown guys in the past, and since it usually seems to work out for them, I can’t see why they’d change.
He was better than Anthony Rizzo in 2017, but people only consider one of them to be an elite player.
Hosmer out-WARed Rizzo by 0.1 in last year. 2017 represented Rizzo’s lowest WAR in the past 4 years, while it was Hosmer’s career-best.
Theyre basically the same player
They may actually be the same person.
Think about it, I for one have never seen them both in the same place, except when their teams play on T.V., and we all know what you can do with camera angles and editing.
Exactly the same, except one is good and one is Eric Hosmer.
One will make $7 million next season and the other will make about $21 million
Except that Hosmer’s 2017 value was entirely fueled by his unsustainable career high .351 BABIP, while Rizzo’s was .273. Give Hosmer a league average BABIP and he’ll be lucky to crack 2 wins, maybe even 1.
The years don’t matter if the total commitment is low enough. In fact, extra years could be seen as some sort of long-shot bonus and AAV stunt. You might rather have him at 8 years/$120 million than 5 years/$100 million. Yes, that extra $20 million could be for an almost worthless 3 years of aging Hosmer, but if he ages well, it isn’t worthless. And you can spread the AAV for tax purposes.
If I were the Royals I’d offer him a ten year contract! for the same $140M total dollars.
People would take that as a bigger commitment.
If I’m Hosmer I run to sign that Royals contract as soon as possible. The dude is already a legend there – he’ll never find a more sympathetic fanbase or organization who will cheer for and defend him as he declines and/or is average. $147 million to be a lifetime Royal and a Mount Rushmore face of a franchise? When I’ve already won a ring? Yeah, that sounds a lot better than being a Padre.
Yeah, if it’s a real offer it’s very hard to see what he’s still waiting on.
You make a good argument but come on, everything is better than being a Padre except being a Marlin.
Also this is pretty substantially higher given the close to 7% difference between Missouri and California income tax in the highest brackets. If these rumors are real it’s hard to see the Padres finding a competitive offer.
Welp, I’m officially scared of Dayton Moore begging to get this deal done.
HIs past inconsistency and pedestrian career numbers are being oversold in terms of barriers to a huge deal; teams in all sports pay for potential in young players and perceived ability to improve, and Hosmer checks those boxes as a former top 5 draft pick/prospect entering his prime. Given he has not joined the launch-angle revolution yet, the Padres maybe believe he has untapped power. Furthermore, while batting average and strikeout totals certainly have been appropriately de-valued, they’re not meaningless. High BA performers are particularly valuable in high-leverage situations, and a hit’s more valuable than a walk.
Chris Davis got 7 years and 161M and he similarly alternated good and bad years for 4 years like Hosmer. While his good years were better than Hosmer’s, he also was 2 years older and a much worse bet to last 7 years.
I’m not at all advocating for giving Hosmer a huge deal, but I think it was somewhat inevitable that someone was going to invest very heavily in him.
If you use Chris Davis as your defense for paying Hosmer $150M…you already lost the argument.
Yeah, hindsight is great bro, but we’re looking at what Davis was in 2016, not now, and he finished his walk year hitting 47 bombs w a .362 OBP, which was only his 2nd best seasonal HR total in the 3 years before FA.
And again, I didn’t advocate paying Hosmer that, I’m just pointing out what his market could be.
For the vast majority of MLB players that have been in MLB for 6+ years, they are either past their prime or firmly in their prime. The whole “age 27-28” thing is a rough average, and generally doesn’t apply to guys that got super early starts, like Hosmer.
Chris Davis was a terrible signing both ex ante and ex post.
More importantly, let’s look at their war 4 years prior to FA.
Chris Davis: 2.1, 7.0, 0.8, 5.7
Eric Hosmer: 0.0, 3.5, -0.1, 4.1
So yeah, an average difference of 2 WAR/season.
Not a fair comparison by any stretch of imagination.
(Admittedly, there is a little bit of cherry picking due to Davis not having a full-time season before on account of being terrible.)
People are not paying for past production; I don’t understand the obsession with past WAR averages. For players in the 27-28 category, some stabilization of performance may be accounted for. And Davis obviously is a terrible signing, but what’s with people using hindsight to evaluate the process of a decision made 2 years prior?
Hosmer also has significantly less long-term risk than Davis did, given the former’s vastly superior contact ability. Davis hit .197 the year prior and had massive contact/strikeout issues.
Given the fact they both had wildly fluctuating careers, I think there’s a comparison to be made in that teams are willing to gamble on stabilization of performance for players that are not on the other side of 30.
“Obsession with past WAR average” comes from the fact that they are the single most important data for predicting future WAR.
And no, we do not need hindsight to know that Chris Davis deal was bad ex ante, although it turned out to be even worse ex post.
Using Davis to justify big payday for Hosmer would be as dumb as using Leake’s contract as a baseline for Quintana’s value in FA market simply because they are both consistent.
I don’t doubt that there are reasons why Hosmer is going to get paid a ton of money. These are all just BAD reasons.
There is a tendency to overthink all of this. Simply put, if you spend $100+ million in a player you better get a ton of value out of him because moving him is going to be next to impossible.
If someone is at their peak right now (age 27-28) and has put up 10 fWAR ion 4000+ PAs that should tell you a lot right there. Sure, okay, there are reasons to bank that he might do better over the next seven years than the last seven years, but just as many reasons to think he might do worse.
Teams can and will tell themselves stories to justify their pre-existing impressions of Hosmer, to justify going after him or staying away. So will the yahoos in the comments section like us. But 10 fWAR in 4000+ PAs…the projections that we see on places like Fangraphs are not pessimistic at all.
At $140 million, the team is going to regret it unless they are printing money. That’s star money and he’s not at that level. He’ll have some good seasons at the beginning, but not good enough.
“teams in all sports pay for potential in young players and perceived ability to improve, and Hosmer checks those boxes”
In baseball terms, Hosmer is neither young nor expected to improve. He’s 28. Based on average aging curves, especially post-PED aging curves, the only real question in an average aging curve is whether Hosmer is expected already to be in decline or to continue producing at his current level for the next couple years before decline. https://www.fangraphs.com/library/the-beginners-guide-to-aging-curves/
I’m even more skeptical of any “improvement” argument for a player who not only is 28 but already has approximately 4,400 career major league PA’s.
At 28, Hosmer is likely past his prime already. I’ve studied this many ways:
— all post-War years, or just the last 6 years;
— all players with a given base of playing time, or just those who were good in that base period;
— all position players, or just 1B/LF.
All those studies show that the average player is less valuable at age 28 than at 27, and less valuable at 28-29 than at 26-27. And that’s true whether you compare actual totals or rates per game.
Hosmer’s production seems to be tightly linked to his BABIP. Obviously, a higher BABIP is more desirable than a lower one, but his entire offensive value seems to be buoyed by it.
For all 2017 qualified hitters, here’s the relationship between their WAR totals and their BABIP for the season. An R^2 of .20, so not an insignificant factor.
Eric Hosmer’s, though seems to be a lot more dependent upon it. R^2 of .88.
Obviously, it’s hard to put too much stock into a chart based on 7 data points, but I can’t get this chart out of my head. His other stats (ISO, K%/BB%, SB) have remained fairly steady throughout the past few years. It just looks to me like the team that signs Hosmer is going to be betting on BABIP.
As noted in the article, Hosmer is a ground ball machine likr few others in MLB. It should not be too surprising then that he is going to go as well as his BABIP does.
Of course he is dependent on babip,he hits everything on the ground so his production is tied to his batting average and on base percentage.
You can bet that any ‘single’ player will have a very high correlation to his babip, as you have shown, compared to the group correlation. A single player’s skillset is rather static between years, while the skillset (creating the war value for other players) is not as closely linked with their babips. Go ahead try it for a handful of other players.
Ran it for few other players earlier before I posted because I wanted to be sure it wasn’t an individual player vs league thing.
Mike Trout- .30
JD Martinez- .34
Derek Jeter (without his 17 game injury year)- .51
Mike Moustakas (without his injury shortened year) – .15~
I’m sure Hosmer isn’t unique, but he certainly looks pretty outlier-y.
*Applause*
Where is his bad defense coming from? He is good at scooping although we know that is only a small part of 1b defense. He occasionally makes errors but not a ton, he is like average in that regard.
Sure we all know metrics rate his range really low but he actually was 4th in 1b sprint speed last year. He is no burner but clearly faster than rizzo, goldy, votto and other good defenders.
So why does an athletic guy with a a decent glove have such bad range? Maybe his height hurts his agilty some so he has good straight line speed but not quick lateral movement?
I would love to know how many times in your lifetime you have watched a firstbaseman ever sprint to make a defensive play. There are 2 possible plays I can think of that sprint speed actually matters to the position. 1. The low foul popup between 1b and home that is kinda no mans land between the catcher and 1b. 2. The foul blooper just down the line that the 2B has a better angle on and catches more often than the first baseman does. Other than that, there are a total of 0 other plays I can think of where speed matters. That is the main reason the 1B is often the slowest guy on the team.
1B defense is tied up almost in reaction time. If you have good reaction, good footwork, and soft hands, there isn’t much else to really worry about.
As someone who has actually watched a large portion of Hosmer’s career I can say that he has never seemed to be as terrible as the metrics rate him.
I don’t doubt that he is nothing special defensively but if you just looked at the metrics you would think he was missing a leg or something.
You keep writing all this stuff, but I’m still waiting for you to explain why your 2016 MVP candidate Yasmani Grandal couldn’t make it on the field in the 2017 playoffs…and to a rookie?
That kinda disqualifies all the other stuff you write. I mean to be THAT far off from the way the actual team and manager felt…I really wouldn’t say someone is not value play with any confidence when you are talking out of your butt.
I’m sorry, AJ, but I fail to see how Travis’s completely reasonable support of Yasmani Grandal delegitimizes his analysis of Eric Hosmer as a potential overpay free agent. First off, Grandal had a pretty productive 2017, with a 2.5 WAR. Barnes did take over the majority of starts at the position come playoff time, but Barnes had an incredible offensive season. Moreover, Grandal’s framing numbers weren’t as stellar this year as they have been throughout his career, which lessened the defensive gap between the two players. But Grandal is still a very fine player and I don’t think Dave Roberts, Zardi or Friedman have indicated otherwise.
But you tell me: What does Travis’s long-established opinion of a solid major league catcher have to do with his take on Hosmer? It’s not like Travis is just throwing his opinion out there—he presented a fine argument with lots of evidence.
So who’s talking out of their rear end, hot shot?
I swear, I was thinking about changing my user name to Genco Olive Oil Importers just the other day.
Is there an offer I can make to change your name that you couldn’t refuse?
It’s my go-to screen name and fantasy team name. I don’t own a race horse and I’m not up for a big part in a new picture, so I don’t know of any offers that might interest me. You see, it doesn’t matter to me how a man makes his living. Well, my no is final, Senor Beer, and I wish you luck, so long as your interests don’t conflict with mine.
“That kinda disqualifies all the other stuff you write.”
That’s patently absurd, as well as insulting to Mr. Sawchik. But if you really feel he’s not qualified to write about baseball, an easy solution is to avoid his articles and spare the rest of us your negativity.
Hosmer is a bad player and I feel sorry for fans of whichever team winds up with him.
Kudos to Boras, though. He’s managed to get the Joe Panik of first basemen a monster contract just by announcing a laughable contract demand in public just to set an absurd starting point for negotiations. And it worked.
Let’s just be clear…Hosmer is a good player. He would be an upgrade for probably about 15 teams. Maybe more. But for that money that’s not enough.
I wonder if teams might think they can adjust his swing. Certainly soes not have the numbers you want for a 1Bman but he is at an age when players can break out power wise. I remember predicting Youlillis could hit 25-30 HR a year and being laughed at. I suspect Hosmer could top that in the right park and under the right influence.
It seems a lot of FA have no choice but to return to their old team at lower than expected salaries. We saw a bit of that in the 80’s. Jack Morris comes to mind. Back then MLB was caught and punished for collusion. Set up an information exchange where teams could see each others bids. I have a sense the boys are up to their old tricks. Teams are too comfortable the player on their radar is not about to sign elsewhere.
Im also curious about lack of of rumors. Agents used to do more of this. Maybe they realize its pointless if teams are sharing information. Just a theory
I would guess the repeater penalty is hitting the market more than anything else. You have both the Dodgers and Yankees making moves to shed payroll.
Hosmer is also a player who isn’t confusing anyone as one of the best players in baseball. His best so far is borderline all-star. Meanwhile the Royals and Padres are offering him a contract which would set a franchise record in about half teams.
“Teams are too comfortable the player on their radar is not about to sign elsewhere.”
Or maybe they just think Boras is an arrogant douchebag with a well-established history of dramatically over-selling his clients’ projections and are tired of it.
Regardless, if Hosmer is worth more than 11 WAR over the next 7 years, I’d be surprised.
There is no doubt that if Hosmer could elevate his damn hits he’d suddenly become a much more valuable player, and much better hitter, but he hasn’t shown any hint that he’s able to do that. Maybe a different hitting coach could get him to alter his swing enough to add some loft, but I wouldn’t want to bet $140M on it.
It’s the years that seem to give people headaches, justifiably. I am surprised by KCs reported offer (assuming it’s accurate). Especially since the Alex Gordon deal — the previous “face of the franchise” — doesnt appear to be doing so well. If that reported offer is true, my guess is he’ll end up back in KC. Any offer of more money per year (or more years) strikes me as a stretch considering the market for his services. Either way, he’s going to be picking up the dinner checks on most nights.
It’s definitely the money for me. I wouldn’t want to sign him for 1 year at $20M, nevermind $140M/7 years. Now if it was $100M/7 years, or basically any deal up to 10 years with an AAV of $15M or less, then I would actually be in favor of it. I just don’t see getting much more than 10-15 WAR out of Hosmer over the next decade. But who knows – maybe he puts up 3 straight years of 3-4fWAR and blows that number out of the water.
One more thing would concern me about giving Hosmer a 7-year deal: His totals are boosted by maximal playing time. For instance, he’s tied for 1st in games played over the last 3 years. Among the top 200 in games for that span, Hosmer is #66 in total bWAR, but #81 in bWAR per game. His rates are much less good than his durability.
Durability’s a fine trait, but it’s less predictive than you might think in terms of value retention. For example:
I took the top 200 in total games across age 25-27 from 2000-14 (average of 139 G/year), who also played in *each* of age 25-27.
— For age 28-30, they declined by 15% in games, 23% in total bWAR, and 8% in bWAR/game.
Then I split that pool by most games from age 25-27. The top half averaged 150 G/year, the bottom half 128 G/year. For age 28-30:
— Top half fell by 14% in games, 25% in total bWAR, 13% in bWAR/gm.
— Bottom half fell 17% in games, 18% in total bWAR, 2% in bWAR/gm.
This suggests that extreme durability in a base period has no positive correlation with value retention. (I’m leery of the apparent inverse correlation, but it’s enough to convince me there’s no positive.)
Absolutely perplexing. Two of the last four seasons, Hosmer wasn’t even replacement level (0.0 WAR in 2014, -0.1 in 2016), and he has been worth 10 WAR over six full seasons. The Carlos Santana deal looks better and better the more these Hosmer rumors continue.
There’s a pattern to his “inconsistency”. He alternates good/bad years, but his good years have gotten better, and his bad years have gotten better too. Using OPS+ instead of WAR, he’s gone from pretty-good/awful to very-good/league-average.
That’s an encouraging pattern, but it’s foolhardy to expect it to continue, much less bet $140M on it.