The Market for Offense Might Be Overcorrecting
For a few decades now, the easiest way to get paid in MLB was to hit a bunch of home runs. Given the way bat-first outfielders and first baseman got compensated in free agency, the catchphrase actually should have been “General Mangers Dig The Longball.” The trend in free agency for quite a while has been that offense is expensive and defense is cheap.
Except, that seems to be changing.
Jason Heyward got quite a bit more than Justin Upton last winter, when both were on the market at the same time, as the market preferred his glove and youth over Upton’s power. And this winter, basically every defensively challenged slugger has found themselves wondering where their suitors are. Edwin Encarnacion turned down $80 million from Toronto at the start of the winter, then had to settle for $60 million from Cleveland a couple of months later. Jose Bautista hasn’t generated any interest that we can tell. Mark Trumbo is still hanging around, waiting for a contract, looking for a team that wants to pay a guy who hit 47 home runs last year. Chris Carter, who hit 41 home runs in 2016, got non-tendered, because the Brewers didn’t even want to pay him his arbitration raise.
And over the last few days, we’ve seen the effects of the cratering of the market for bat-first players on even low-cost alternatives. From Ken Rosenthal’s piece on the Mariners re-making their roster to fit a speed-and-defense model.
The Mariners’ original plan was to clear Smith’s $7 million by trading him for a middling prospect, then redirect his money to say, free-agent righty Jason Hammel. But with left-handed hitters such as Michael Saunders and Brandon Moss still available in free agency, a Smith deal became problematic. Why would a club take on Smith’s $7 million when a Saunders or Moss is available for considerably less, and at no cost in talent?
I’ve heard the same thing; the Mariners would have given Smith away to anyone who wanted to take his salary, but couldn’t find someone to take the $7 million he was owed in 2017, so they pivoted to swapping him for a negative-value player in Gallardo instead. $7 million is now too rich for teams to take on a left-handed bat with a career 112 wRC+, who put up a 110 mark last year, and has been worth +5.2 WAR over the last three years.
But Rosenthal’s right; no real reason to trade for Smith when you’ve got free agents who will sign for even less. Like, say, Colby Rasmus, who signed with the Rays yesterday, taking just $5 million on a one year deal. Here’s the section we wrote about Rasmus back when we ranked him as the 38th best free agent in this class.
38. Colby Rasmus, OFContract Estimate
Type Years AAV Total Dave Cameron 1 $11.0 M $11.0 M Avg Crowdsource 2 $10.9 M $25.1 M Median Crowdsource 2 $10.0 M $20.0 M 2017 Steamer Forecast
Age PA BB% K% AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+ Off Def WAR 30 525 9.4% 29.7% .223 .299 .402 .304 87 -7.1 -1.3 0.9 At the end of April, Rasmus had a 164 wRC+. From that point on? 49. 49! 49? 49! A team building for the future can afford to give him 300 at-bats to see if there’s anything left, then trade him in July if there is, but I don’t know how a contender takes a shot on him at this point.
I projected that Rasmus would get $11 million for one year, while the crowd’s average guess put him at $25 million over two years; even the median crowdsourced projection was 2/$20M. Instead, he got 1/$5M, with incentives that could push it to 1/$7M. As the projection shows, Rasmus isn’t any kind of great player, with a +1 WAR forecast for 2017, but $5 million for a guy who you can play most days without having him crush your line-up is still kind of shocking.
And we probably haven’t seen the last of deals like this. If Rasmus can only get $5 million, and no one would take Seth Smith at $7 million, how does Brandon Moss ask for significantly more? What kind of offers are Carter and Pedro Alvarez going to get in a world where similar hitters with better defensive abilities are settling for cut-rate contracts just to land a job.
On the one hand, we could look at deals like this and think that perhaps the market has decided to pay less than the roughly $8 million per win rate for marginal starters, preferring to save their money for better players overall. But this downturn in spending on +1 WAR veterans only shows up when we look at bat-first 1B/OF/DH types.
Jon Jay, a different type of +1 WAR outfielder, got $8 million from the Cubs to share center field with Albert Almora. Part-time role players like Sean Rodriguez, Steve Pearce, and Matt Joyce got $12 million over two years, while old fifth starter types got between $8 million (R.A. Dickey) and $13 million (Bartolo Colon), with younger-but-frustrating Andrew Cashner landing right between them at $10 million. Relievers are still getting paid, with okay middle guys like Mike Dunn getting $19 million, Junichi Tazawa getting $12 million, and Daniel Hudson getting $11 million.
It isn’t that the market for platoon guys has crashed, or that teams aren’t paying for depth pieces to round out their roster anymore; they are specifically just not paying for 1B/OF types whose value is mostly tied up in their offensive performance.
Now, granted, some of this is just natural economics, as there happens to be a lot of supply of these kinds of players this winter. But the way you get a big supply of free agents or players available in trade at one spot is to have a lot of teams losing a player at that spot, so if the demand was there to replace the skillset, price shouldn’t be impacted all that heavily. But what we have now is supply without demand, as there just aren’t that many teams looking to add bat-first players to their rosters this winter, and teams like the Mariners actively looking to dump guys like Smith despite contracts that seem perfectly reasonable.
This is all good news for teams like the Blue Jays, who need two new corner outfielders, and are likely going to get bargains on whoever they bring in. And the rumors make it sound likely that the Phillies will sign one of these guys, using some of their available cash to upgrade their line-up. These guys won’t remain unemployed forever. Someone will eventually realize that Bautista is still a valuable player, and that Trumbo is probably worth giving up a draft pick for if he takes a two or three year deal and agrees to play first base only.
But there are plenty of teams out there who could really use a player of exactly this ilk, and they don’t seem to be all that interested in jumping into the market. Seth Smith would have been a perfect fit for the Nationals, for instance, who have aging, injury-prone right-handed hitters at both 1B and LF, and are in win-now mode. And when contenders are looking for this kind of useful part-time player to fill out their roster at the trade deadline, there won’t be this supply of discounted +1 WAR veterans just looking for jobs. For a team that thinks they’re likely going to be a buyer in July, there’s a good chance that ponying up a few million now could save them a real prospect this summer.
The market has long overpaid one-dimensional power hitters. This, though, feels like more than just a simple market correction. When perfectly useful players on one year deals for $7 million can’t get moved for even a non-prospect, it feels like the pendulum has swung too far the other way. It’s time to jump on this, contenders; these bargains won’t last forever.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
There were 63 OFs with more than 400 PA in 2016. Ranked by wOBA:
63. Jason Heyward (.281)
62. Colby Rasmus (.283)
The Nationals silence in this market has surprised me the most for the reasons you mentioned above. They actively need 1B/LF depth. Smith would’ve made sense, Moss and Carter make sense, etc.
Maybe teams are waiting for another one of these guys to sign, thus taking an option away from the players that are left and getting an even cheaper deal?
I like Moss for the Nats best because he can actually function in an OF corner. Saunders would do in theory, but backing up two injury prone players with a third seems like poor planning. Carter used to run around out in the OF a few years ago, to a bad result. Lind’s never even tried.
Actually, Lind came up as an LF. “To a bad result”, as some would say. I doubt his back would hold up for it these days regardless.
I’m guessing that players like Moss and Carter want to sign with a team where they are starters and not depth/platoon pieces. If those players have to settle for $7 million and a platoon job, then there is not a lot of upside in it for them. At least if they find a landing spot with a full time job they can hope to perform really well on a 1-year deal and then sign a multi-year contract next offseason.
Great stuff Dave.
Gotta think a team like the Red Sox or the Rockies would like a redo on signing their 1B/DH options.
The Rockies w/ Desmond – yes. Nobody but the Rockies will ever understand this deal.
The Red Sox giving Moreland 1yr/$5.5M? Maybe they could have held out and got him down to $4M? Even having $5M committed to Moreland shouldn’t preclude them from jumping on a Trumbo at 2/$24 if his market collapses that much.
Boston willingly paid a bit more to secure a player the front office apparently thinks the right kind of fit for the puzzle (feel free to debate whether he actually is that, but that is how the team feels). There is nothing wrong with paying a little extra (which, in relative terms, really isn’t all that much) to make sure you’ve secured an option you like.
The team did the same thing with the Kimbrel trade last offseason; it knew there were a small handful of worthy options that would fit the need for a safe bullpen upgrade, but the only way to secure Kimbrel early was to give up a bit more in trade value. Given how the RP market then exploded, there might have been a bit of hindsight in the team acting early.
I really think Trumbo on a cheap 2/3 year deal would be perfect for the A’s. They can slot him at 1B, and dump Alonso entirely.
Trumbo’s defense isn’t bad at 1B, so that’d make sense. He’s always been miscast as an OF.
Collusion?
Yes its collusion. How dare owners all decide to hire smarter front office personnel?
Dave, out of curiosity, did you have an offseason plan for the Mariners this year? I’m curious what you have done differently.
although at one level 1 run saved equals 1 run scored, is it not true, that generally it is much cheaper to replace + valued lost defence than + valued lost offence. Most teams have reasonably priced defensive replacements for most positions, the problem is finding defence with + offence attached. Maybe this is where the problem starts.
I really think the EE situation may have influenced the market tremendously in staging this. EE turns down 4/80, Toronto promptly signs Morales for 3/33–which everyone says is an overpay. Then none of the other dominos fall. Trumbo asked for 5/70 with a complete no trade clause. Bautista asked for the moon. Everyone is sitting out there, which makes EE’s subsequent signing as a radical remaking of value. You can now buy very cheap–so why trade? And you can get a high-priced vet in a trade for next to nothing, so why pay a draft pick plus multiple years? It may take a hybrid contract for a player with compensation attached–a one year with an affordable team option for the second (with a cheap buyout). I read somewhere that a GM said it’s like musical chairs, and some players will end up without seats and have to sign for very little. I think it’s musical chairs the other way as well–no GM wants to be the guy who overspent dramatically when so much merchandise was on sale.
That Morales signing by the Jays just keeps looking worse. He probably could have been picked up for 2/$16M had they waited, unless another team decided to jump on such a versatile player.
somebody in a comment on a different fangraphs article like a week ago pointed out the following constellation of facts:
1) the jays signed kendrys morales, in apparently pointless haste, for way more money than anyone expected or understood
2) the next day, the jays signed lourdes gourriel jr for quite a bit less money than most people expected
3) morales and lourdes have the same agents
lourdes had of course recently aged out of the big penalties so i’m not sure exactly what the point of some kind of backroom deal would be, but i’ve decided to buy into this conspiracy theory wholesale anyway just because everything makes more sense that way
Clubhouse leader for Dave’s annual Worst Transactions list?
Morales has the 6th best “hard-hit rate” last year. The guys ahead of him David Ortiz, Freddie Freeman, Matt Carpenter, Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera.
Somewhere Jack Z is salivating at the roster he could build from all of these options….
Is Rasmus really a bat-first player? He’s graded out ok in CF and pretty good in LF, is a good baserunner, and as pointed out hit terribly last year.
2017 Steamer wRC+ projections:
Bautista : 128
Trumbo : 110
Rasmus: 90
Smith : 113
Alvarez : 114
Moss : 102
Bautista has had unreasonable contract demands from the outset and the rest of these guys are a little more offensive decline away from replacement level if they aren’t there already. Are we really shocked that these guys are unsigned? Most clubs probably have a AAAA player already on the 40-man who projects for slightly less than league average offense with some more defensive versatility that makes the league minimum.
And Carter at 112.
This is the real explanation IMO. Players are MLB ready at younger ages now, you can platoon two 23 year olds and get 1.5 WAR for $1.1m. Far fewer teams have needs where it makes sense to pay WAY more than that for not much more production, and possibly none.
In this context, how bad does the Dan Vogelbach for Mike Montgomery trade look for Seattle right now?
I don’t know. Montgomery put up 4.8 BB/9 after his trade to the Cubs, while Vogelbach raked in AAA (PCL asterisk, naturally) and is just 24 next year. So please, tell me how bad it looks right now. Seems to me that the potential outcomes of that deal are all over the map.
(If you’re saying that Vogelbach might not have been the right SORT of player for Seattle to target in hindsight, sure, I can get that. But outside of that, this isn’t even beginning to render a decent verdict)
As a Tigers’ fan, I’m annoyed they didn’t get in on Rasmus. We just saw his floor as a player last year and that mediocre production was still worth the price the Rays’ are paying. He looks to be the last CF-capable player on the market who, as Dave said, “you can play most days without having him crush your line-up.” And the Tigers instead look like they’re going to run with a platoon of Tyler Collins/Jacoby Jones, neither of whom can handle the position offensively or defensively. Plus, those 1-2 wins might make a real difference to their wild card hopes.
Or for the Angels.
Mike effing Trout will be playing center…
“The trend in free agency for quite a while has been that offense is expensive and defense is cheap”
Defense is cheap right now, except for that Jason Heyward defense…that cost about 23 million a year.
I take me some Travis Jankowski instead…
It’s amazing how much damage one awful season can have on consensus. Heyward put up 3.8 oWAR with a .293/.359/.439 slash line in a pitcher’s park at age 25 (and with the pedigree for plenty more) before hitting the market, and yet because he lost himself in the first year of his new deal we should pretend he was an all defense signing? That isn’t fair or accurate at all.
In other news, Xander Bogaerts’s future prospects ended in 2015 when he completely lost his hitting game in midseason, and Hanley Ramirez locked in that he would never recover from a season aborted due to a shoulder injury (and an ill-fated defensive plan that distracted him from his hitting). Right?
Good luck betting on Heyward’s offense to come back at age 28…I dont think anybody likes those odds. Did you see some of the balls he was swinging/not swinging at in the playoffs? If you did then you wouldn’t be saying this.
Its age 27 actually. And no one is expecting him to become an elite Bat at this stage of his career. But, given his career production, it is not absurd to expect him to bounce back and produce around 115 wRC+ in 2017.
There is still a lot of market correcting to do in my possibly narrow view.
I just can’t see how teams can’t find a spot or money for guys that pop 40 or more homeruns per year. They massively effect the games they are in.
Defense in the game I feel is heavily overvalued. One of the writers here showed a chart the other day and personally I didn’t see a huge differential in your average guys vs your great guys.
(I realize the guys available are below average defenders)
For example, human factors aside, I don’t see how Jason Heyward is more valuable to a team based on 2016 numbers than say sticking Trumbo or Carter out there in his place, or maybe in LF.
You can argue future upside and all, but is Heyward more valuable in 2016 than these guys? Justin Upton had a lower WAR than Heyward in 2016 and this is kind of my point. I can’t see how Heywards’s defense was more valuable than Upton’s power.
Or, if you like speed like me, is 2016 Heyward more valuable than 2016 Rajai Davis?
I would have rather had any of these guys personally than Heyward. You may disagree. And, this is realizing we didn’t know he was going to crater.
However, these guys put up pretty good counting stats, that I’m sure impacted those individual games heavily, yet Heyward is making 20+ million and some of these guys are still looking for a job.
This is just a silly argument. Obviously if the cubs knew heyward was going to be 2016 jason, they wouldn’t have signed him to that contract. His wRC+ dropped by almost 50 points from 2015 to 2016. That’s like the difference between Mike Trout and Mark Trumbo.
The cubs fantastic defense is a huge reason their pitchers outperformed their fip and their team was successful. It’s harder to notice defense because you don’t watch every single play made by every single defender in every single game to get an idea of what a normal player can and can not do when it comes to making plays. However, just because it is harder to see defensive contributions than it is to see things like a player’s counting stats doesn’t mean it isn’t important.
You can argue that defensive metrics are less than fantastic or that war may overvalue defense, but I don’t think it’s valid to just assume that it is less important because you can’t as easily see the contribution that a player makes with his glove as you can with the bat/feet.
Heyward was signed with the expectation of an above average offensive player (hitting and base running) and elite rf defense. The fact that his offensive cratered doesn’t make defense over rated.
Defense is why the team was successful?? Then why did Joe Maddon not start Heyward every game in the postseason when it matters most? I think it was because he was looking for offense…. Hell, if it wasnt for some good luck in the WS last years playoff stat line would of been historically low for the # of plate apperances.
For a site that is supposed to be all about numbers and hard evidence, there sure are a lot of Heyward fanboys here.
Another thing on defense vs power.
Kyle Schwarber.
If the Cubs (or people in the game) value defense so highly, who blinks first if the Cubs offered Schwarber to the Rays for Kevin K?
In Schwarber, if he hits .233 with 43 bombs in 2017, high walk totals, with below average defense vs Kevin K, who maybe hits .251 with much lower walk totals, some more stolen bases, maybe 10-15 homers, and excellent defense…………..who is better?
Do the people that Kevin throw out, or make catches on, or maybe the extra bases he steals, bring more value over the course of a year than the extra walks, homers, and (most likely) doubles that Schwarber provides?
And, another question. If you pay 20 of millions to Heyward, how do you still value Schwarber so highly if you are the Cubs? Would you not be trying to trade Schwarber for a Kevin K, or a pitcher, and run out someone like Almora instead if this is a core organizational philosophy?
Of which, I doubt it totally and completely is, but I just find the valuations and how they are formed interesting.
You’re leaving off the extra bases that having a player like KK in cf eliminates. Whether that be him cutting off a ball from rolling or limiting a player from taking the extra base.
With regard to your comment on the cubs, I assume it goes something like this. They value schwarber because he is good at baseball, just like how they value heyward because he is (or was) also good at baseball. They value players who are good at baseball. So while they do seem to prefer to put players who are good at defense on the field, it isn’t like they are ignoring offense and running out a bunch of guys who are all glove no bat players. You need a balance of all of these things to make a successful team. Having strong defense in cf and rf and defensive replacements for late game situations allows you to stomach a Schwarber in lf if you think he is an elite hitter, which the cubs’ front office seems to.
MLB has a documented history of collusion. You cant help but at least consider the possibility. It may be that their tactics are more sophisticated to make it less obvious or the MLBPA has become so weak or coopted it no longer fights it. The last time an accusation was made was in 2003 when the MLB settled w/o admission. This was in the aftermath of Arods , Manny and Jeters huge deals in 2000-2001 which led to MLB trying to stop the madness. Adjusted for payroll inflation those 3 deals are still unsurpassed and the top deals today are well below this.
That said, there are other factors. The awful CBA the players agreed to which failed to get s significant increase in the LT threshold for one which kept many if the big market teams out of the bidding
Still, power hitters have long been the most sought after and highly paid position players. There is a reason for that, because like premium starting pitchers they are the commodity in shortest supply. They should be valued even more highlybtodsy in the age of the K and lower OBP’s since many hood teams get over 40% of their run production from the HR. However, last years juiced ball which led to 70% of qualified batters hitting 20 or more HR might have had a dampening dampening effect on the market for power hitters. Perhaps this was even the primary reason to juice the ball.
I also wonder if MLB is not somehow sharing offers in a database to prevent teams from making unnecessarily high bids for fear a competitor has made a much higher bid (even when they may not have made any bid at all) This allows some measure of control and prevents teams bidding against themselves or budding against phantom offers.
In any event, free agency is not operating like a free competitive market. Its obviously constrained by regulations (CBA) and there may indeed be some level of collusion by an entity which has been a habitual offender, but whose tactics tend to be smarter. Attendance and post season revenue does not have as much influence on total revenue in the past so teams are no longer as competitive as they once were, so there are structursl issues as well. Why spend 50 million for a 50% chance of increasing revenues 75 million when you can just pocket the 50 million w/o risk. With the 2nd WC luck can get you into the post season just as easily as spending money so long as you build a mediocre team.
The MLB players union has become just like all the other unions in the USA. The head guy works for the company, not those he supposedly represents. There are no strikes.
Think about it. When was the last strike in the USA in some meaningful industry? Most Americans under forty have no memory of a strike. That’s something that only happens in other countries and the fake news media in the USA don’t cover strikes. It’s something you have to find yourself on the web, or watch RT.
Jack Nicholson played the last major union leader in the USA and no one has found his body yet.
What? The mlbpa just signed the best deal in their history.
Seriously though the deal just signed has Marvin, Miller rolling in his grave. The owners just got a deal that if they’d offered it in 1988 would have lead to an immediate strike.
“There is a reason for that, because like premium starting pitchers they are the commodity in shortest supply.”
Except they aren’t this offseason.
I think it’s far more likely that the implementation of more analytical front offices across the league + the decent number of these players available has just led to less demand for their services than it is MLB has some sort of computer system with offers in it. It’s not like these power hitters are can’t miss players. They’re largely one dimensional hr hitters.
Edwin got offered 4/80 by the jays and turned it down. And then the jays overpaid for KM. Maybe the blue jays just aren’t a part of this offer sharing system?
It’s a fairly recent change that teams have valued defense at all beyond an elite SS, CF, maybe C. This happened shortly after Moneyball when teams adjusted and OBP was no longer undervalued.
I think the success of the Royals and the Cubs World Championship have gotten many teams to finally consider the value of outfield defense not just CF defense. Though this doesn’t hold for our commenter above not the “experts” who put Matt Kemp as a top 5 LF on ESPN. Yes despite a horrible offensive year, Hewyward was basically a league average RF, which is why the Cubs kept running him out there. Why is this harder to believe for an OF than for a flashy SS?
The day of reckoning on the Jason Heyward contract approaches. It was delightful to hear the boos from Cubs fans when he came to the plate.
How heavily was he booed? I saw almost every inning the Cubs played last year (except for some weeknight West Coast games) and was not aware of this. I also recall a few articles that said something like, good thing for Heyward that the Cubs are on pace to win 100+ games, otherwise he’d be getting booed…
Yeah those poor Cubs fans seem miserable
I have read this a few times:
Why would a club take on Smith’s $7 million when a Saunders or Moss is available for considerably less, and at no cost in talent?
I really do not understand it. Considerably less than 7 million to me means like a bit more than half. Is he trying to say that Saunders and Moss would both only get about 4 to 5 million per year? And if that is the case. Wow.
If you watched just how bad Moss was for most of the last half of last season, you wouldn’t be going “Wow”.
“and at no cost in talent?”
Had the Orioles given up players with positive surplus value, sure I’d agree.
I don’t think it’s as much a readjustment of hitting as it is both an issue of availability and a readjustment of free agency. There are a lot of free agent hitters out there so the supply outstrips the demand driving down the cost. You don’t need to overpay for option 1 when you have options 2-15 etc… There really were/are an absurd number of DH types on the market this year.
Also, in the past few years, very few teams are willing to build much of their team through free agency because it has become extremely expensive so teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Tigers, etc…used to go out and sign every good player they could get. It’s a model that doesn’t work long-term though and every team is shifting against it. It means smarter bidding in the free agent market for that one extra piece that puts you over the top instead of trying to fix your whole team via free agency.
Very interesting article! You may want to define who “Smith” is as soon as he’s introduced in the article, I had to do some searching around to understand what was going on.
For several of these players, I think that roster spot limitations dramatically limit their usefulness and market in this era of carrying only 13 position players on rosters.
Take Chris Carter as an example. He totaled 0.9 fWAR in a full season of playing time in 2016 and has a similar rate projection for 2017 per Steamer. In a vacuum, that’s enough production to say that he’s a useful bench player even if he’s not good enough to be an everyday starter. The problem with having him on the bench, however, is that he takes up a roster spot but can’t play anywhere except 1B and DH. Carter isn’t nearly as useful as a 1 WAR bench player who is either a utility infielder or can play all OF positions (including CF).
That exact consideration doesn’t fit all of these bat first players, but it’s a notable contrast versus the positional versatility of having a player like Rodriguez or Pearce on the bench.
Carter played 1B quite well. You’re using a measure that doesn’t reflect that. Hypothetically you’re right, but its not so easy in real life.
I do not see the basis for this claim at all. For his career, Carter’s defense at 1B is well below average: -7.1 UZR/150 (and also negative by DRS). His 2016 UZR/150 was -5.7, a bit better but broadly in line with his career.
Carter is an above average hitter because of his power, but he’s not a great hitter because of mediocre OBP (.321 in 2016, .314 for his career). He’s a below average base runner who also gives back value as a below average defender at 1B. There’s ample evidence from Carter’s career that he’s roughly a 1 WAR player with maybe the opportunity to put together a 2 WAR year if things break really well for him.