The Red Sox and J.D. Martinez Still Need Each Other
(Photo: Keith Allison)
Jeff Sullivan wrote last week that the DH just had its worst season. That was the main point of his piece. Along the way, though, Jeff also did some myth-busting with regard to how the DH spot is being utilized these days. There’s an emergent belief that the DH has become a revolving door on many clubs, used more often to keep players fresh and create roster flexibility, and less often to simply give a lone, defensively challenged hitter a full complement of at-bats.
What Jeff found contradicts this belief, however. Last season, the top-15 designated hitters in the AL accounted for 64% of plate appearance. Since 1973, though, the average for primary DHs is just 56%.
From Sullivan’s piece:
So designated hitters are hitting worse than ever not because of a transformation of the role itself but just because they’re hitting worse than ever.
While the collective production of DHs might improve in 2018, it’s still a bleak landscape, with only seven AL teams projected to produce a win or better from the position. The Mariners (3.0 WAR), Yankees (2.6), Indians (2.4), Athletics (1.8), and Rangers (1.2) account for the top-five DH teams. Their respective depth charts at the position are led by Nelson Cruz, Brett Gardner, Khris Davis, Edwin Encarnacion, and Shin-Soo Choo. The average age of those players is 34.2 years. While the DH position often allows for aging bats with diminishing defense to find their way into the lineup, there is hardly a youth movement occurring at the position. It’s possible the position is even weaker than in 2017.
While teams are still employing regular designated hitters, they rarely invest in such players. The two largest contracts awarded to current designated hitters were the four-year, $68-million pact received by Victor Martinez from the Tigers leading into the 2015 season and the three-year, $60-million deal the Indians gave to Encarnacion. While the Angels should have perhaps anticipated that Albert Pujols would require a move DH, he was nevertheless signed as a first baseman.
So with the DH looking to be historically weak and few teams willing to pay a premium for the position, this might be a point in time when it makes sense for the right club to invest in the DH and gain a competitive advantage in the process.
The Red Sox jump out as an obvious candidate. That’s why they’ve been connected to J.D. Martinez all winter and reportedly have a standing five-year offer out to the Boras client. An agreement has seemed inevitable, but pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report tomorrow and nothing has yet occurred. Boston ought not to let this opportunity slide away.
The DH position was a great strength for the Red Sox during the David Ortiz era, of course. From 2003 to -16, the club only once posted a wRC+ worse than 118 at the position. Last season, meanwhile, Red Sox DHs produced a 90 wRC+, the sixth-worst mark in franchise history.
During the Ortiz era, the Red Sox had a competitive advantage at DH. They posted 48.2 WAR from the DH spot from 2003 to -16. The next nearest AL club, the Yankees, produced 30.2 WAR. Only six AL clubs in that 13-year span produced 20 or more wins from their DH spot.
The Red Sox could purchase another similar advantage in the short- to mid-term.
Since 2015, Martinez has posted the seventh-best wRC+ in the game (147). Last season, amongst hitters who made at least 400 plate appearances, Martinez’s 166 wRC+ trailed only that of Mike Trout and Aaron Judge.
Yes, we have to worry about how Martinez will age. Yes, he could fall off a cliff. Yes, there is risk. But there appears to be little immediate or short-term concern. They’ve already traded a lot of tomorrow for right now. And Martinez is not yet ancient. He’s entering his age-30 season.
In an examination of how comparable hitters have aged from ages 30 to 36, our own excellent Craig Edwards found earlier this offseason that Martinez could “still return a $150 million investment” even if paired with below-average baserunning and defense. The latter is a concern for NL clubs, of course. Martinez recorded a -14.8 UZR/150 and -5 DRS last season. His defense was even worse in 2016 (-22 DRS and -21.5 UZR/150). In the AL, that wouldn’t have to be a problem.
While the end of the contract could be ugly, the totality of the contract might not be so unpalatable. And while there are cheaper hitters like Carlos Gonzalez and Logan Morrison available, Martinez has an elite-level bat. He would give the Red Sox a sizable competitive advantage in one lineup spot.
Environment and context are important, too.
The Red Sox hold a one-game edge over the Yankees in FanGraphs’ projections. The next-closest projected division race? The NL Central, where the Cubs hold a six-game lead over the Cardinals. And one can argue the Yankees have a far better long-term outlook than Boston, ranked No. 2 in Baseball America’s farm system rankings. The Red Sox rank No. 24 in that same list. The Yankees are determined to get under the luxury threshold and be key players in next year’s free agent shopping, while the Red Sox already have $204 million committed to 2018 salaries, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts. It appears as though the Red Sox are not concerned with getting below the tax threshold. So this might not only be a time to invest in the DH and a rare bat for the position, but the Red Sox have a division title to worry about and perhaps a shorter window.
We also don’t know for how long Chris Sale and Craig Kimbrel will remain healthy and elite. Boston traded considerable prospect wealth to acquire them. The Red Sox ought to be in win-now mode. A player like Martinez, could, in theory, tip the divisional balance in their favor. That’s incredibly valuable.
While it’s prudent to remember the Albert Pujols contract this time of year, Pujols’s first year in Los Angeles was in his age-32 season. Martinez is 30. He’s at the height of his powers, having ranked second in Statcast’s barrels-per-batted-ball metric both last season and 2015. Dave Dombrowski has been criticized, and rightfully so in some cases, for his big-game hunting, for trading too much of tomorrow for today. But this is an instance when the Red Sox ought to ensure that they get their target, which is the best bat available — one of the great offensive sources in the game.
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.
I don’t disagree with the author’s main point (JD Martinez can help them and the Red Sox should sign him, the Red Sox are in the right context to add more value, etc). But since the point is to gain an overall advantage in value and not an advantage at any single position, it would be more convincing to discuss how much of an advantage he would provide over Hanley Ramirez (or Moreland, if Ramirez is going to mostly play first base).
I also think the real reason the Red Sox aren’t going to six years is because they have no interest in bidding against themselves. They’ll probably have to make some kind of token face-saving concession to seal the deal, but it isn’t necessary to just tack on another year at the end with a similar AAV.
Maybe they can do the Jose Bautista “mutual option” for a 6th year.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I did not see a specific contract length or price recommended by Travis for JDM. I like analysis as much as the next guy, but isn’t it self evident that JDM provides material improvement over Moreland/Hanley? Do we really need several paragraphs of analysis that amount to “yes, the sun is hot”? Article references one game gap between Boston and NYY. A couple of wins here added by JDM could be big. You reference a face-saving gesture to get it done. My reading of article was Travis recommended doing that now and get JDM on board. If Boston goes from 5/$100mm to 5/$120mm, then that’s fine for Boston. I didn’t see him advocating total surrender or 6/$150mm or more deals.
I just did a search and it came up empty on the 6 year recommendation. I think it was in the little one-sentence blurb that shows up for “Latest” stories and then disappears–something like “Why the Red Sox Should Go To 6 Years” or something like that (which is why you see commenters talking about six years).
With regards to Moreland/Hanley, maybe most of us don’t need to hear it, but it is an argument that makes sense. Using league-wide DH trends in WAR doesn’t tell us anything about why the Red Sox (as opposed to the Yankees, or Cleveland, or the Twins, any AL team with designs on contending this year) should sign Martinez.
(actually, that might be an interesting article, along the lines of the Ohtani one earlier–which team would benefit the most from signing Martinez? The Red Sox likely come up first, but we don’t know that for sure, and examining Moreland/Hanley vs other replaced players would be interesting)
There’s also the fact that gaining an advantage in a single position is helpful to gaining an overall team advantage, but not the same. It’s just an odd way to say it…it isn’t like anyone is claiming the Reds are contenders this year because they have a massive advantage over the rest of the league at first base. I just don’t know what the league-wide DH trends tell us.
There is a more charitable way to read it, and to say that because teams aren’t “investing” in a full time DH then someone should be able to snag Martinez on a really good deal. But since the Red Sox are literally following that plan right now, the “The Red Sox shouldn’t let them get away” story that Travis concludes with actually is the opposite of that recommendation.
So yeah, I don’t get this one.
Honestly, I concur with much of what you say. He did take an odd route (DH advantage) to basically say Boston really needs JDM and maybe should bump their offer. I know you are not saying that Boston should abjectly surrender and make a silly contract to just win this year. Others are looking at his article as a general fangraphs trend and I can somewhat get where they are coming from. There is a style/depth/format that many of us enjoy greatly. I do think this specific article is better if he had given better info on where negotiations are at and what he really thinks should be the compromise. I just don’t need a lot of data on Hanley/Moreland or guys like Lomo to understand that JDM is better, the importance of that edge is important/relevant for 2018, and that Boston can afford a small loss on this negotiation in order to better win on the field. Long term roster management is important, but there is a such a thing as winning now so long as you don’t devastate your future.
I think that there’s a lot of frustration on this article in particular, but that’s related to (a) mistaken analysis that gets repeated over and over again, and (b) making assertions about the market and spending when the data is clearly lacking.
However, this article is neither of those as much as it is just…not that convincing. Which is weird to say, since I already agree with the author’s main point.
If reporting is accurate, Boston has already gone to an offer of 5/$125 million that’s been on the table for about two months.
New reports out of Boston say thats no higher than 5/100
The actual report says “closer to 5/100 than 5/125,” so at this point it’s most likely the 5/110 offer that was floating around twitter.
It’s as if Dombroski has already matched Boston’s greaer need and Martinez’s actual value to make a best offer above market.
No one knows what precisely is on the table. if 5/125 is there, then my personal opinion is JDM needs to jump on that. if it’s 5/100, then I think Boston ought to come up a bit to get this deal done.
He cited Craig’s absurd $150m 6-year valuation.
To make this valuation, Craig manipulated the data by arbitrarily throwing the catchers out of the sample.
“I then narrowed the list by removing catchers and looking at players who played mostly full seasons at 29 years old, putting up at least a 140 wRC+ during that year. The list yielded 10 names.”
He used a 10-man sample where the best performers were caught-PED users David Ortiz and Jason Giambi. He then projected RC+ only – but converted it to a fake WAR by ignoring defense and baserunning entirely. This was easily the worst player valuation I’ve ever seen on fangraphs- but Travis has cited it approvingly several times.
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/j-d-martinezs-potential-for-falling-off-a-cliff/
By using such poor methodology, Craig concluded that Martinez was “something like a four-win player-” despite every serious projection method having him at least 1.3 WAR less.
Craig also didn’t incorporate retirement into his projection at all- so while his 10-man sample quickly dwindled to just Ortiz and Giambi, he simply ignored the survivors bias and used the WAR from players still playing instead of acknowledging that the players who had retired had declined to the point of being unproductive.
Boston certainly does not need Martinez, it is easier to argue that they need to avoid him. He is less than a 2 WAR upgrade, and signing him would put Boston well into the luxury tax- costing them $30+ for a <2 WAR upgrade this season, with a far worse $/WAR ratio going forward.
Travis, Craig and Rian would be the worst GMs in baseball, fangraphs sadly appears to be post-peak. Worst fangraphs writers ever, well beyond parody.
Wow, a bit over the top with the criticism, in my opinion. Did LaVar Ball write this post?
Seriously, though, Thom, why be aggressive and condescending about this? I’ve said this elsewhere, that you’re right to ask for more numbers based analysis when it’s lacking, but you seem to be really pissed about a transition to a new kind of website and your making it personal.
You’re also ignoring what seems to be the writing on the wall. It’s been widely speculated that you can’t get traffic anymore just by crunching numbers and looking for inefficiencies. Baseball journalism has changed now that analytics is not only mainstream but often proprietary and secret, right? Didn’t Dave Cameron on the podcast last year use the reemergence of the Yankees and Dodgers to ask what the point of Fangraphs would be in the future? He wondered if the goals of citizen-journalist-analysts had been finally accomplished when the richest teams in baseball started playing smarter. This is a paraphrase, but wasn’t that the gist?
So now many of the sites best number crunchers are working in front offices because of this. Hell yeah! Celebrate them and read with an open mind while the new writers and community here help redefine each other. Because baseball is in a weird spot right now. There’s much work left to be done if we want the best and most baseball there is. I’m sorry that there is hardly anyone left to talk to anymore about how players should be valued, how bullpens should work. Those wer really exciting storylines to follow over the last years, and breathtaking to see them picked up by teams at the highest level. You may not like that, and you may not like the direction the site is going, but please, stop crapping on the new writers while they figure this out.
Hopefully someone on staff can account for the new look in a post so readers will be less grouchy. Think of us as a group of players having trouble buying in with the new ways.
It’s not aggressive.
When fangraphs writers say that Pujols is the worst contract in baseball and the worst player in baseball- that’s not aggressive, its a valuation.
Following Craig & Travis’ suggestions would make a GM the very worst in the sport. These suggestions are among the very worst in all of baseball media. No one on ESPN or bleacher report or any other lowest-common-denominator publication is recommending worse moves- they are instead recommending these same “Boras terms” moves.
Further, Craig’s Martinez valuation is right about the worst I’ve seen on any medium, let alone fangraphs. Throwing out data, using a 10-man sample, ignoring defense and baserunning- so as to produce a WAR estimate that is twice as large as any serious projection- is about as bad as it gets. Promoting a $150m valuation for Martinez- when serious projection models including fangraphs contract estimator says half of that- is about as bad as it gets. There isn’t a worse baseball journalist making more inaccurate valuations or using worse methodology.
It’s not aggressive to say so. No GMs in baseball are operating as illogically as Craig, Travis and Rian are urging them to.
Nasty, then? I don’t know, I’m not really a grammarian. You have good points. You’re also being confrontational and calling names.
And as I say above, I’m not sure if the role of Fangraph’s writers in the future will continue you be writing and thinking as GMs would. I’m not saying that’s good or bad, just asking you to be civil about it.
It’s emotional, aggressive and a source of pride for someone who is looking to feel good through shutting down others.
Like you point out, he does have good points. But he isn’t stable enough to illustrate them in a normalized manner.
Ok perhaps, I apologize for sharp adjectives and being repetitive- I’m sure these authors can provide great content. I feel let down by the misleading style and the agenda- that type of writing feels hostile and manipulative so it offends me. But I agree that there is no need to be extra sharp.
Were you honestly inspired by Cameron’s last year of writing? ‘This is a fair contract if you use $9m per WAR and a slight overpay if you use $8.5m per WAR. So all parties should be relatively nonplussed.’
Convergence is here. Front offices are smart. A great number of us who have been part of this journey for a long time see the old style as like turning up to the office every day. I honestly wish the quality of analysis was better but the pivot towards labour economics and dare I say the ethics of analytics is welcome.
Agreed on your main points thought about ‘the writing on the wall’ and commercial viability.
What bothers me beyond the poor content is the slipperiness of the new ‘up-is-down’ speak. The new pivot towards broad ‘every club must go for broke’ has been pseudo-explained by Rian- he wrote that he saw the light and is now convinced that planning for the future, making sound business decisions, and other SABR-oriented roster-planning is bad. His argument is that ‘real’ baseball is about Aaron Judge smashing homers, green grass, summer nights, and every team competing.
It bothers me how disingenuous this pivot, series, and salesmanship is. Fangraphs has provided great content for free/low cost, with readers only paying moderate subscriptions, seeing some ads, and providing some clicks- it has been and continues to be a great site. This is the first truly disingenuous pivot I’ve seen at fangraphs- though admittedly some started to creep in ever since the ESPN deal. I completely agree that I’m ignoring commercial realities and the norm of modern sport media content- fangraphs did make its way by being different, but might not have the incentives or energies for that anymore- the niche appeal may have run its course.
Even so, the tone deaf, anti-fact, insistent nature of this most recent series makes the articles worse than puff-pieces. There is an agenda, it’s repeated every day, it dovetails perfectly with ESPN/Boras/CAA agenda, it attacks the Head of the Players’ union constantly under the false guise of being “pro-labor” when it is not. There is an unwillingness to admit that this coordinated series is a talking point, which is why I find Rian’s tale about “seeing the light” is so vapid and labored.
The circular patting-on-the-back with these self-referenced articles is also bizarre and low quality. Why isn’t Travis linking to Jeff’s chat where he says that the 2018 won’t be unique other than being slow, and that the tanking narrative is agent spin? These new writers link to themselves so frequently that it creates an echo chamber- falsely giving the impression of consensus when even Jeff Sullivan disagrees with this tired PR campaign.
Adding Jeff Jaffe should be a huge boost, so that is a very welcome development. Hopefully Carson and Jeff Sullivan stay, and fangraphs will still produce top stuff- but who honestly looks forward to the next Travis/Craig/Nathaniel/Rian (and hopefully not also Meg) article about ‘why the ______ need to sign Boras Client _____.?’ I literally don’t think that a single fangraphs reader wants any further articles in this series unless the quality greatly improves as discussed in the comments.
there’s a community writing portion of this website. write some if you want better content.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. This is well said, and I share many of these concerns. Hopefully someone on staff is reading and is considering them too. But I think the only way they will is if we turn down the volume and stay focused on baseball, though. So thank you.
Anyway, I for one welcome the “pivot” to labor issues (others man not, which is fine), but I agree that the recent articles have just not been up to the levels that we’re used to. But I think it’s too soon to panic. Let’s just get through the off season, and give the new folks a second to settle.
When has David Ortiz been proven to have used anything named specifically? I mean we know that if it had been roids he popped for, those NY writers DEFINITELY would have leaked that.
Ortiz tested positive in 2003.
https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/david-ortiz-says-his-failed-ped-test-leaked-because-too-many-yankees-tested-positive/
Really? The great senator from Maine (and Red Sox Director) Senator Mitchell led the 2003 steriod investigation and low and behold there were leaks about the Indian players (info was supposed to be sealed…) just prior to the 2007 ALCS amid conflict of interest allegations. Did you really want to replay all this steroid nonsense? David Ortiz (a great player) was purported to be one of the sealed names- unlike AROD whose name was also leaked. Take the snarky comments and move on.
Absurd to call the 3rd best hitter in the game the last 4 years a 1.3 WAR player
@Paul22
I didn’t say he was a 1.3 WAR hitter:
“Craig concluded that Martinez was “something like a four-win player-” despite every serious projection method having him at least 1.3 WAR less.”
Martinez is projected around 2.5 WAR, Craig projected him at 3.8 by taking a small sample, throwing out the catchers and ignoring defense, baserunning, and retirement.
Travis did not cite 6/150 in this article. I am assuming that the 5/100 is more what’s on the table and I think Boston can come up from that to get a piece that is uniquely satisfying to their personal team needs. if it is a slight overpay, then so be it. Boston can afford it and a slight overpay doesn’t materially injure Boston’s ability to compete in the future.
One thing you may be missing is that he’s not JUST an upgrade over Moreland/Ramirez, he’s also an upgrade over the last player booted off the roster. The team will have more quality depth in case of injury. Although he’s a pretty bad OF, he can still play the position if necessary.
He’s more valuable than the last player booted off the roster entirely because he (we) would expect him to reach 650ish PAs. Martinez wouldn’t be all that much more valuable when receiving 300ish PAs.
“it would be more convincing to discuss how much of an advantage he would provide over Hanley Ramirez”
He did…
“Last season, meanwhile, Red Sox DHs produced a 90 wRC+, the sixth-worst mark in franchise history.”
Point noted.
I think the reason I must have missed that was because it was sandwiched by the “competitive advantage at DH” business which I thought was confusing.
Makes sense. I think Travis went that way to try to use terminology we’ve been using, in how teams search for that competitive edge other teams haven’t begun to utilize et.
The 30-36 year old, $150m DH “competitive advantage.”
Who is using that terminology? Travis’s ‘zig while others are zagging’ mantra doesn’t make sense- teams shouldn’t try to strike out all the time just because no one else is, nor should they try to walk every batter faced simply because others are doing the opposite. Neither should they sign a 2.7 WAR 30 year old to a 5/6 year deal around $25m AAV- saying they “need” to (repeatedly) is wrong.
Eh nobody cares Thom. Nobody here cares as long as you’re too emotional to discuss things properly.
If you tone down your obsession and harshness, let’s talk.
WAR understates the value of dH, 1B and corner OFers. The positional adjustments are way too large and teams have always paid them more per WAR than those who get a WAR bias from overly generous positional adjustments
Every position must be filled on the field and hitting is the scarcest commodity in baseball among position players.
Ramirez projects to post a 112 RC+.
The advantage of adding Martinez would be relative to what the BoSox expect to get out of their current DH options, not the difference between what Martinez projects to provide and what BoSox DHs actually hit last season.
So the author didn’t really do what the poster said would be convincing, but instead used poor methodology making an irrelevant comparison.
I’ll take the “under” on that projection.
I’d like for teams to get creative on token face-saving concessions to seal free agent deals, throwing in some local flavor. For example, the Red Sox could sweeten their 5/$125 million offer by offering Martinez:
– his very own Boston Duck Tour DUKW (driver not included)
– a copy of the original Sweet Caroline single, autographed by Neil Diamond
– $1000 Dunkin’ gift card each year
– 4 VIP tickets to a Dropkick Murphys show of his choice each year
I am pretty sure that the Dropkick Murphys would be willing to hang out with JD Martinez backstage, and he could use that gift card on about 65% of blocks in Boston.
– A written contract signed by Kirk Minihane, Nick Cafardo, and Peter Gammons promising not to criticize Martinez in the media in any way until after August 1, 2018
So many more people would need to sign onto that. But it would be fun to imagine that happening just for the comedy of it driving David Price to Norman Bates-level madness
Boston has a number of roughly 1 WAR options at DH- Hanley Ramirez, Michael Chavez, Aneury Tavarez or whomever else.
Martinez projects for 2.7 WAR this season: so he projects to be a 1.7 WAR improvement over in-house options for 2018, a 1.2 WAR improvement for 2019, a 0.7 WAR improvement for 2020, then a 0.2 WAR improvement for 2021. After 2021, he projects (0.7 WAR) to be worse than 1WAR.
So that’s about a 3.8 WAR improvement better than inhouse options, spread over 4 years. $100m+ (plus luxury tax) for a 4 WAR improvement (which would be reduced by years 5 and 6) would be just about the worst business in baseball.
There are almost zero 3 WAR DHs in MLB, plus there are almost zero teams that lack internal 1 WAR options. Accordingly, typical (i.e. <3 WAR) free agent DHs should pretty much never make big money on a 5/6 year contract, since any elder 3 WAR DH will only be better than a 1 WAR alternative for 4 years.
Concluding that the Red Sox "need" to spend $100m+ on a 2.7 WAR DH is simply poor analysis.
Your analysis is pretty poor… It’s almost as if you don’t look at anything besides the few data points that support your opinion. And then ignore when they’re wrong.
As mentioned multiple times by multiple people, tone it down and we can actually have discussions.
Or, you know, do your own analysis in the community section.
He’s abrasive, but he has something to offer. By comparison, following him around to add “nuh uh” seems completely useless.
My mention Chavis or Tavaras was pretty poor- they obviously don’t have bats for DH so aren’t good examples of internal candidates. Ramirez is the relevant inhouse option.
10 of 15 AL teams have players currently projected at DH for 1 WAR. Additionally, with ~50 AL players projecting near 110 RC+ (for roughly 1 WAR at DH), nearly every AL team has one or several poor fielder hitters who are currently projected at a position in the field but could prove 1+ WAR production at DH.
Perhaps I have been too sharp and apologize. It is hard, though, to pin down exactly what phrasing I’ve used that is clearly unsuitable. Is to too far to say ‘worst’ ‘absurd’ ‘wrong’ ‘poor’ etc? It’s not like I’ve sworn at them or really engaged in ad hominums. Technically, the ’emotional balance’ critique you’ve offered is probably harsher language than I’ve offered- though maybe your complaint is with my tone or criticism: and I’ll admit fault on being repetitive.
I can’t remember this much objection to any fangraphs content to be honest- so I do think that, despite a sharper than needed tone, it is probably helpful to raise the issue that this pivot runs contrary to what so many readers love about fangraphs.
Id just like to point out, you’re including into a DH evaluation Michael Chavis (I think you are), who has never played a full season over AA, as well as Anwuery Tavarez. Neither are even on the 40 man. They are NRIs, and if they had any chance of making the roster it would be from a calvalcade of injuries to corner infield and outfield spots, not at DH. While I agree with you on almost every point…kinda took a simple trip there
Oh I’ve just assumed the reason he hasn’t signed with the Sox (to his exact contract demand or higher) yet is they have Dave Dombrowksi ducktaped to the wall of his office.
They both need each other but it’s pretty clear JDM needs the Red Sox a lot more than the other way around.
Without the Red Sox Martinez is either looking at a big 1-year deal or 3/60 type contract. Without Martinez the Red Sox loses some edge early in the year against the Yankees, but gain flexibility to add more effectively at the deadline for either stretch run or postseason.
The Fangraphs Contract Estimator has JDM at 5 years, $86.3M with a linear aging of .5 WAR/year starting at 3 WAR this year. Thus, your 3 year, $60M idea to match Encarnacion’s contract from last year makes sense since it allows the Red Sox to avoid JDM’s 1.5 & 1.0 WAR years. I said it in Rian’s article yesterday, but Fangraphs needs to push free agents to accept shorter-term deals and stop accusing owners of “collusion” if they don’t hand out terrible long-term deals. This would enable small market teams to access a more affordable FA market and not make bad deals so crippling for teams.
Travis could also improve these articles by putting in more information about the team’s long-run budget and what the Red Sox should do with other players such as JBJ, Michael Chavis, Hanley, and Moreland. No wonder he always come to the conclusion that a team should hand out a 6 year, $150M deal.
Well, I don’t think fangraphs needs to push anything, and they probably don’t have the clout to push anything anyway. But clearly the market isn’t there. If it is there then Martinez would’ve had bidders beyond Arizona’s supposed 1-year deal and Boston’s 5 year deal at whatever it’s suppose to be that apparently it’s such a travesty Boras has been openly lamenting the death of baseball as we know it.
I don’t think players should settle for anything less than they d deserve. The problem is with the current CBA and the way front offices think, they don’t deserve as much as they think they do. Whether that’s right or wrong, is another question.
Not Fangraphs job to advocate on behalf of the owners that players take lesser contracts. Nor did I see 6/$150m concluded in the article.
I’d suggest it’s also not Fangraphs’ job to advocate on behalf of players that owners offer bigger contracts. But Fangraphs obviously disagrees with me, as is their right.
What value does the article add then? Boston reportedly has a standing 5-year offer that is significantly higher than the Fangraphs Estimator would predict, so do we need an article telling us that Boston likes JDM? Why hasn’t JDM taken it? Answering that question would make a more interesting article.
Presumably all of the “11 of the top 20 FA’s” who haven’t signed could have offers lower than their expectations going into the post-season. Why haven’t they acquiesced? Are they “January-effect” deniers?
Fangraphs writers have been advocating on behalf of FA players. I’m asking for balance that they consider that players need to change to fit the more rational landscape. (I worded “Fangraphs needs to push” awkwardly.) Jeff Sullivan has done some of that.
Travis cited Craig’s absurd “ignore defense, baserunning, retirment, and catchers’ projection for Martinez (as a 4 WAR player): which came out to 6 years/159m.
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/j-d-martinezs-potential-for-falling-off-a-cliff/
It is literally the “job” at fangraphs to generate revenue by advocating for smart, insightful, baseball activities.
It’s a bit rich to downvote the OP for saying fangraphs “needs” to do something smart (i.e. insightful baseball analysis) whereas the author is saying that the BoSox “need” to do something dumb. As the OP admitted, using the word “need” is maybe strong- but if fangraphs wants to continue to excel at their niche, they do need to publish intelligent articles that use sound methodology to provide insight.
lol the red Sox are behind the Yankees in projected Win% in both FanGraphs and PECOTA, but no they need a guy with a career ISO of .229. They’re certainly not a team that finished last in the AL in homers. Hanley Ramirez as DH, baby!
If they’re content to play the wild Card game and lose to an 86-win team, by all means do so. That or they could also trade their prospects at the Deadline. However, now they could just buy a great player and use their resources, which the 3rd most valuable franchise can certainly afford.
Great bait, mate.
Well, the Red Sox are going to sign some hitter to fill their DH slot this offseason. It doesn’t have to be Martinez. They can for instance, sign a 2 WAR player for cheap and then during the deadline trade for a 3 WAR player (aka Martinez) for a couple of lottery tickets. That would give them nearly as much production as Martinez without commiting $150mil or whatever Boras’ demands are.
And before you think they need to pay more on the trade market, just look at what 2017 JD Martinez received on the trade market from Arizona. The market for sluggers isn’t what it used to be.
Yeah, exactly this. I’d wager JD himself may well be re-available come the trade deadline. If not, there’ll be some other aging and expensive slugger available from some disappointed team. Maybe Nelson Cruz.
Only 25% of position players reached the 3 WAR threshold last year. GMs don’t give those players away for “lotto tickets”…
a 3 WAR player making nearly $30m has no surplus value- so those players are available for 45 FV types especially when they have only 3 months left on their deal.
So demand for such players should be high
Oh man. Another one of these. I expect it to be about as well-received as the last ones. Fangraphs is what it is now.
The argument that the Red Sox are at an important point on the win curve is an important and obvious one. And the fact that their relative positioning vs the Yankees is unlikely to make 2019+ more prospective seems valid.
But how about a little meat on the bone? What do you see as the marginal difference in value between Hanley/Moreland and JDM? A win? Three? If so, what does that do to their odds of winning a WC vs missing the playoffs, or winning the ALE vs the wildcard? And how would that impact their ultimate chances of winning the World Series?
And what are the alternatives? And what are the costs that come with them? LoMo et al seem to be dismissed out of hand just because “Martinez has an elite bat’. What do you conjecture the cost of that “elite bat” would be vs a long-tailed liability to JDM?
Why similarly dismiss Pujols out of hand because he was two years older? He was also a better runner and fielder, and more importantly was more or less cooked by the time he was 33. Unless you think Martinez is signing a 2 year deal, that sort of thing can’t just be waved away.
What is happening around here?
You’re right that there has been a change, and I applaud you for pushing for more analysis. It will certainly strengthen the arguments. But what upsets you about the change? When you refer to “another one of these” how would you summarize, in a sentence or two, what has changed recently. Are you upset that there’s less number crunching, or is there more too it?
Not to answer for him but I think it can be summed up as alot more vague, ephemeral “think pieces” and less actual substantive analysis.
It’s not “number crunching,” it’s thought, argumentative complexity, or analytic depth of any kind. These patently phoned-in squibs are as boring to read as they must be to write. Why bother?
If the point is just to incite the commenters to do some thinking about a particular question, instead of an “article” they can just post a headline that says “J.D. Martinez. Red Sox. What do you think?” and start day-drinking, and it’d be nicer for all of us than this pretense.
Yikes, ok. Well, I’m not blind. Sure, some of the new content (in a historically slow offseason) has been uneven. Sure. But everybody chill! There’s about to be real baseball again soon. Let’s talk again at the trade deadline and see if you still don’t respect the new look and new writers then.
I’ve been seeing something different happen, and while I’ve been really impressed by how much the readers of this sight care about its legacy and it’s future, I’m disappointed how many people are taking shots at writers trying to figure out the next version of what the site should and can be.
There isn’t any reason to hold back a criticism of current content just in case content six months from now doesn’t deserve criticism.
We’ll all be happy if things improve. That’s much of the reason we want the authors here to know that we consider them in need of improvement.
Again, I’m not asking anyone to hold back. Let them know! Just don’t get personal until later (i.e., ASG time), when there might be real reason to panic.
With the greatest of respect and cordiality I will venture to suggest that, given your remarks here and elsewhere in this thread, you may want to reconsider whether what seems like “taking shots” and “name-calling” to you in fact might emerge from others’ airing of their critical judgement, rather than simple reflexive hostility.
This is a fair point. On re-reading the comments late last night and again this morning I can see the differences. While there surely is some hostility, you’re right that some of what I thought was hostile was really just thoughtful and generally good natured griping. Onward!
There used to be this thing called Notgraphs. Then they left and it seemed as though everything (even the Hardball times) has just gotten more and more vague and mainstream. Like a discussion you have with your other passionate baseball fan.
This is more of a Travis Sawchik problem than a Fangraphs problem. A few months ago he was pumping out quality articles with in-depth analysis like no other. Now it’s just articles like this one, over and over again. I wonder if someone told him to change his style, because this is an incredibly dramatic decline.
Yeah he’s experiencing a pujols-level decline this offseason
No kidding, at one point last year I thought he wasn’t that far behind Jeff and Dave on the quality output. This offseason he’s been no better than a generic blogger or sports radio talker.
Maybe they’ve been spending time interviewing all the candidates for the new writer slots (great hires!). And as you say, when there’s baseball, Sawchik writes great stuff. This has been a historically boring off season. Might as well make up a controversy. Catchers and pitchers report in a week. Hopefully this takes care of itself.
Catchers and pitchers report today!
I think there’s a pretty strong argument to be made that JD Martinez is the single best hitter they can find to stick at DH (either 1B or DH is their weakest link, depending on your opinion of Hanley’s and Moreland’s futures) and thus, he’s the single best thing they could do to improve the team.
That wasn’t the argument made here though, even though I wish it was.
(I also think there is another underrated weakness the Red Sox have: Their rotation is heavily, heavily left handed, which is terrifying given all the truly elite right-handed bats in their division)
So maybe signing Jake Arrieta is the single best thing they could do to improve the team?
Three cheers for this comment. The trend here at fangraphs away from meaningful analysis has been disconcerting.
I am comfortable with not requiring every fangraphs article be written at a level necessary to support nuclear fusion. Adding unnecessary facts does not improve clarity. In this case, article cites one game difference between Boston and NYY. WAR from last year supports at least a two game improvement with JDM. Majority of us don’t need obvious conclusions spoon fed to us. You might like a particular style of article and that’s fine. But this is a pretty simple situation that doesn’t require it. Article doesn’t advocate an irrational surrender to a ridiculous contract, but it is getting time to make whatever minor concessions are necessary to sign what could well be a pennant winning piece. There might be a lesser alternative for 2018 and it might be cheaper. A minor “loss” on salary is easily absorbed by a franchise as profitable as Boston. There is no alternative use of those dollars for 2018.
It’s hard not to agree that since the loss of Dave Cameron the content feels different, less bite? idk, it’s hard to articulate.
The above being said it also seems like the readership has changed, at least the readership that takes the time to comment. Over the course of the past year, maybe 2 years I’ve noticed that the comment have changed. I can recall on occasion Dave C, August F, Eno S & Jeff S (Among others) saying that the insightful comments sparked the idea for an article/research piece and the back and forth was usually fairly civil, well not anymore. Lately it seems like every article regardless of content just starts a cyclical back and forth of insults and counter insults and all the great ideas get lost in the dust.
These days if I read an article that I know is going to have a generally negative reception I try to avoid the comment section all together.
If I am the one being uncivil, I apologize.
I am mindful that I have beaten this drum (dead horse?) a lot lately, and there’s probably not much more to be said on the topic. (I’d love to know if the FG staff has been following this discussion, and if so what they honestly think – but that post doesn’t seem to be forthcoming.)
To the question of “what would I like to see more of?”, I’d say some combination of
(a) coverage of a topic I hadn’t considered
(b) coverage of a topic I had considered, but with a fresh angle
(c) coverage of a topic I had considered, with an angle I had considered, but with more substantive/objective research done to back up the premise
(d) a buddy comedy featuring Bartolo Colon and Ichiro
It’s my sense that a pretty substantial plurality is unhappy with what seems like increasingly undifferentiated offerings. But I don’t see the web traffic/ad monetization data that backs that up; I could be totally off base.
And I am mindful that I am coming to a free website and effectively complaining that I am not getting what I paid for. And that Jeff is worth the price of admission alone (and the Jay Jaffe addition is great!)
Internet message boards are already chock-full of millionaires who bench press 400 lbs and spend all of their time with models (those times when they are not reading about baseball) – and have infinite snarky comments about how they could “do it better” than people who already trying their best.
They don’t need another one.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I agree there’s been a change, that it seems intentional, and it’s based on information we don’t have access to. I too would like to see a post (or a podcast episode) dedicated to explaining the new look and how we got here. Very well said. And re: what your asking for seems totally reasonable to me. I’m hopeful our readers take time to share there concerns more thoughtfully. It’s been a real bummer to see this escalate to name calling.
DBA455 nothing I said was in respect to you, I agreed with your assessment of the content, my comment was not directed at any one person. It’s just an overall feel of the tone lately, I don’t know if I would call it toxic but at times it feels combative.
The problem is unmoderated comments where the downvotes don’t actually do anything.
We can’t even hide spam comments. It’s really unacceptable for such a major site and not that hard to fix.
abgb123, I admit to being frustrated with some of the analysis here lately and being quite critical of some of the posts here.
I’d like to think I’m being constructive, and I think at first I was. But it is just maddening to see people to make the same. mistake. over. and. over. again. It’s easy to lose your mind on the internet and yell “NO NO YOU SCREWED IT UP AGAIN.”
I think that this is compounded by certain writers’ tendency to link back to previous articles from the past couple of weeks. This is really good practice for a click-based website but what it means is that when someone really screws up in an earlier piece (like the “New Year’s Discount” piece, which is almost certainly a spurious effect) it gets linked to over and over again. So when you read most/all articles, you wind up reading the same error every other day for two weeks. Sometimes, you get a whole rogues’ gallery of errors in the same piece.
I don’t have that many concerns about the type of content, since quite often writers know better than I do what I would like to see more of. The big exception is the excessive posts on the underwhelming free agent market. It became obvious that the writers were running out of new angles to take on it, simply because we did not have anywhere near enough data to actually write intelligently about it. I think the prevailing sentiment there was summarized by carter, who wrote in the first comment here: “I’m dying for there to be something else to write about.”
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/one-more-look-at-baseballs-spending-landscape/
A lot of us had suggestions in that comment section. More generally, I feel like the offseason is a good time to do some more historical stuff.
(I also second DBA455’s response here, especially that this is a free website and I don’t want to complain too much for that reason)
I understand and I also wasn’t referring to you, I was not referring to any one person while also inditing all of us at once. I have been guilty of at time’s committing the exact infractions I am complaining about, but then it sometimes gets next level with some people, insults, vote bots, agenda pushing, it all makes the comment section seem like to much.
As for the content & writers, I have the utmost respect for these writers, they do fantastic work and on a daily basis there work is out there for the world to criticize and that’s something most of us don’t have to deal with. My issue is more in the moving target that is the content, clearly there has been a shift in how the analyst is being conducted, it feels rushed I guess, like I said above, its hard to articulate.
Maybe I’m just an old man shaking his fist at the clouds because of favorite authors on my favorite site have all moved on.
I, for one, will reserve judgment until this interminable offseason is over and the FG team reports to spring training at full strength.
Frankly, I think these articles follow a trend started by Dave Cameron of writing articles based on unproven assumptions and ignoring evidence to the contrary, which certain readers just lap up without critical thinking. I don’t think these recent articles are much different from the ones I’ve seen from Dave Cameron, in general.
Dave and fangraphs got a lot worse once they became an ESPN content partner. Dave set such a high standard for so long though, it’s hard to nitpick but likely the realities of the career must have caused him to pivot towards broader appeal.
I have no doubt that Travis, Craig, Nathaniel, Meg and Rian can offer great content. The chance that they are all recycling the exact same Boras/CAA talking points by pure chance is very low. Similarly, only Jeff is taking the opposite stances (in his last chat he said the 2018 offseason will have a normal spend, and he said the tanking myth was just agent spin)- suggesting that perhaps only Jeff has the seniority (and Fox Sport support) to politely turn down the assignment that the new writers have seemingly been given.
Alternatively, fangraphs could be doing consulting for Boras corp or something to that effect. There is very likely a revenue-related, specific reason that FG has taken the decision to bombard readers with this strangely anti-empirical ‘every club must go for broke because Aaron Judge hits the everloving shit out of a baseball’ stance.
How about we dismiss Pujols out of hand ‘cuz like heck he was (only) 2 years older? (seeing as how Jay Jaffe is now on board, figured we’d take back up where we left off back at BP 😉 )
Brett Gardner is not the Yankees DH. He’s their best defensive OF.
DH is going to be shared among Stanton, Judge, Sanchez, and Ellsbury.
I agree with your point, but Aaron Hicks *MIGHT* have something to say about second sentence.
I think Hicks will be the starting CF. Gardner is the 4th OF.
I keep thinking I must be missing something about JDM because I see an often injured 30 year old who can’t play the field worth a damn and just posted a career best season from which is is likely to regress a fair amount.
I’m sure he will still be a good hitter next season and in fact steamer says he is a 130 wRC+ in 2018. but a 130ish wRC+ at DH is worth what….2 wins? And if 130 is closer to his true talent level (as opposed to the 166 he posted last year) then what is he in year 2 or 3 of this deal?
I can totally understand why teams are not beating down his door with 5 and 6 year deals.
That’s totally mis-stating his talent level. Since his breakout he’s had a 149 OPS+ with a seasonal low of 139. Calling him a 130 OPS+ hitter is just wrong.
Even with his hideous D ratings in 2016 (which don’t matter if he DHs), he’s been worth 4.2, 5.0, 1.8 and 4.2 WAR. Calling him a 2 WAR player is just wrong.
If you dont think he is a 130 wRC+ then you argument is with steamer, not me. That is what they project him for (depth charts has him as the exact same too) next year.
I’m simply saying that if that is true then as a DH he is likely a ~2 win player. Which is pretty historically accurate (EE was a 132 wRC+ DH last year and was worth 2.5 wins) and in line with his projections as well. Steamer has him at 2.3 fWAR, Depth Charts has him at 2.7 fWAR and BP has him at 1.8 WARP for 2018. Its far from wrong.
And that is hardly overwhelming in the sense he should be worthy of a massive contract.
Steamer and depth Charts are the same projection system.
You can’t rely on one projection system as gospel. Zips has him at a 144 OPS+. A Marcel calculation would be similar, and he’s only 30, so Marcel should be decent.
You can count on one hand the hitters in the MLB that are better than him.
And you would need 4 hands to count all the guys who were more valuable than him because they are not bat first DH’s.
Not relying on one system as i pretty clearly mentioned BP as well. Also ZiPs has him at a 137 wRC+.
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2018-zips-projections-arizona-diamondbacks/
So its not one system. Its pretty much all of them. They all see him as around a 130 wRC+ hitter next year. And IF that is the case and IF he is playing DH then he, historicly speaking, he is going to be worth ~2 wins. Which is not something teams are probably going to be eager to dump alot of money/years into.
You are doing a whole lot of circling around but nothing you have brought up acutally counters my original point.
ZIPS projects a 137 wRC+. Splitting the difference between the two systems, that has him as a 134 wRC+ hitter in 2018. That would have placed outside of the top 25 in 2017.
This is a terrible methodology.
You need to compare projection with projections, not with actual season results.
Goldschmidt is projected for wrc+ 137 by steamer.
That would have placed him in 22nd in 2017.
Does that mean steamer thinks Goldschmidt’s bat is not in the top 20? No.
Even with the low projection of wrc+ 130 for JDM, who posted wrc+ of 154, 136, 141, 166 for the past four seasons, steamer ranks him as the 17th best bat.
I didn’t say steamer ranks him outside the top 25. I can see how I left the door open to that interpretation, but it was just sloppy writing.
Even with the low projection of wrc+ 130 for JDM, who posted wrc+ of 154, 136, 141, 166 for the past four seasons
This is more of the same question-begging seen in every conversation about JDM’s projections. None of you that take issue with his projections have bothered with constructing arguments against them – or even meaningful alternatives. You just list his last four seasons as if they prove something, as if they are not already accounted for in the very projection you’re disputing.
You project him for, what, a 145 wRC+? Fascinating. Show your work. Then and only then can we have a conversation about this that means anything.
I also did not say that you said steamer ranks him outside the top 25.
I am saying your sentence “(JDM’s split projection of wrc+ 134) would have placed outside of the top 25 in 2017.” is as meaningful/meaningless as the sentence “Goldschmidt’s projected wrc+ of 137 would have placed outside of the top 20 in 2017”
Thanks for clearing that up.
I think the most important point is that the Red Sox don’t need a well-rounded player, since their weaknesses are at 1B/DH. Going for the best possible masher would be the best way for them to upgrade their team, since anyone else they stick at DH would also provide no defense.
This is more of a point about the Red Sox than anyone else, though. For any team that needs him to play the field and/or has an adequate option at DH, JD Martinez doesn’t “fit” the team as well. And I think the Red Sox have probably made him a fair offer based on their needs, his past production, and his other offers.
I think you could make an argument for the D-Backs or Rockies to sign him on a really big pillow deal, but that’s it. Maybe the Blue Jays or Angels, except they probably don’t want to admit the Kendrys Morales/Albert Pujols errors. Maybe the Twins? Only maybe.
some good points but incomplete. .
he is one player who is over 30 and wants huge money for past performances which may not happen again… most all these old guy contracts are horrible with maybe 1 good year in there … and strangles the team for the other years..
Also Martinez attitude of spoiled brat entitlement shows he will flop and get retirement nonperformance pay for years..
the borass and skankees started this huge contract underperformance welfare for players and in essence killed the competitive balance of baseball because of grabbing off prayers from less wealthy teams.. skankees never earn championship. . they bought the game .. just like the BLACK SOXS
The Black Soxs are famous for losing on purpose. Isn’t that the opposite of what borass and the skankees are doing?
grabbing off
Yankees are unintentionally winning…
Yeah, I thought the Black Sox sold the game. Or did the movies steer me wrong yet again?
Hey Travis, interesting article, i wrote this on the Red Sox a few weeks ago
http://maximustake23.blogspot.com.br/2017/12/the-red-sox-are-fine-no-need-to.html
Hoping to get your input on it.
No, no they don’t.
We’re neglecting the ‘DH’ penalty here, which I believe Tango has securely established. JD will not hit quite as well as a DH as he has playing the field. Also, hasn’t JD stated he doesn’t want to be a full-time DH? If so, forcing him to do so ain’t gonna work out well. (first slump he gets into, “it’s because of this full-time DH junk, dadgummit!”)
Great point. A DH penalty of 14 wOBA points would knock his projection down a bit more.
mglbaseball.com/2013/12/09/pinch-hitter-dh-and-other-penalties-revisited/amp/
“While the DH position often allows for aging bats with diminishing defense to find their way into the lineup, there is hardly a youth movement occurring at the position.”
Could this be why the DH is performing poorly? Can someone find the average age of the DH over the last decade or two?
At this point, I’m looking more forward to ThomServo’s responses than the article.
You’re not alone. It’s interesting to see how he can fake data to support his emotional responses.
Yes, I agree the Red Sox need a 2 WAR player signed to an exorbitant contract.
An additional point to consider is that we are talking about a big free agent coming to Boston. Certain types of players/personalities just do not fit well in this type of situation. Martinez has never played on a team with close to as much media scrutiny as the Red Sox, and he has never entered a season with his team, the fans, and the media expecting his performance to live up to a mega-contract. He has played for Houston when they were terrible, Detroit when they were mediocre, and small-market Arizona during a three-month long postseason run, and has never been paid more than $11.8 million in a single season. If the Red Sox sign Martinez, when he has his first slump he will have to show the mental fortitude to deal not only with his lagging performance but also the immense pressure and criticism laid upon him by Boston’s fans and media. That is not something we have any indication he will be able to do successfully.
I’m still not entirely convinced the relative surety of JDM’s bat balances out the expense and risk of a five year, nine figure deal for a 30something DH when Logan Morrison is available for far less. There is risk/downside in LoMo, obviously… risk that his last season and a third of hitting like an elite bat is a peak he can’t sustain, downside in that he’s a lefty when Boston could use a righty. But if they can get LoMo for 2 years at say, $18MM total, how much of a dropoff is that really likely to be from JDM? Don’t the lower price tag and greater financial flexibility mitigate the risk more than enough?
“downside in that he’s a lefty when Boston could use a righty.”
Why? Of the 20 projected non-Boston SPs in the AL East right now, the only lefties are Sabathia, Montgomery, Snell and Happ.
My question is “Why shouldn’t the RedSox stand firm, and not increase their offer when no pressure is being exerted by a competing bid?” Soon, Martinez and Boras will need to either find a competitive bid from another team, or take Boston’s 5/$125M.
Well, Boras is working on getting something from Arizona, apparently. I guess we’ll see if Dombrowski believes in the “mystery team.”
The reason the DH position is struggling is because the teams do not know how to utilize it most efficiently. It is NOT for rotating players through it as a quasi day off. These guys are not use to hitting in that type of situation and are ineffective. Very few things raise my temperature more than discussing the value of a great DH. From an obviously biased catbird seat, David Ortiz was worth far more than his WAR would indicate. The fact that he did not play any meaningful defense is held against him for absolutely no reason. How can he get a -1.4 defensive WAR, year after year, when he wasn’t even on the field? It would be more appropriate to actually add the Defensive WAR of the first baseman who actually played than penalize Ortiz. J.D. Martinez is a perfect candidate for this position. He is even worse in the outfield than Ortiz was at first. The Red Sox are going to have to look the other way when they write checks to two DH’s this year to the tune of $47M but putting a potentially great DH in the lineup is the way to go.
WAR operates from a baseline where 0 is set equal to position-neutral replacement level production. This ‘zero’ is not the same as a null set ‘zero.’
The generic ‘replacement level player’ contributes ‘replacement level execution on defense,’ thereby saving a replacement level of runs (called “zero” as in replacement level), whereas a DH contributes no execution on defense, thereby saving 0 runs (zero as a null set): the difference is apparently 1.4 WAR (it’s 16 runs I believe).
DH value is limited for two reasons: (1) they play only half the game and contribute null for the other half; and (2) there are many very good hitters who are around 16 runs below average on defense. The result is that, if the Brewers were in the AL, there are many 1-2 WAR positions players who are decent with the glove that can push 110+ RC+ bat-only types over to DH. This creates a very high floor for DH bat production. WAR value from DHs also get dinged -0.5 by negative baserunning scores.
So if a star slugger has the sort of bat you’d associate with 4.5 WAR (if he were replacement level running and defending)- would instead be worth about 2.4 WAR at DH (-1.6 for the glove, -0.5 for the running).
An example from last year, OF Justin Upton posted a 137 RC+, with wash running/defense, totaling 5.0 WAR. DH Edwin Encarnation posted a 132 RC+, lost 13 runs from running/defense, and totaled 2.5 WAR (with ~60 more PAs).
Ortiz was a great masher, so it was impossible for anyone to fail to notice his bat. But he lost 8 runs or so a year on the basepaths, one of the worst runners in the game- part of the reason he never scored more than 86 times from 2008-2016, despite having 600+ PA in 7 of those 9 seasons. WAR appropriately values his contributions.
I see absolutely no problem in delivering null on defense. There is a reason the DH only plays half the game. I believe the American League plays with a 10 man starting lineup. One of those 10 does not play in the field because there is no position. This skews every and all arguments about the value of the DH. The DH’s contribution should be measured only by his effectiveness on offense.
You think the Red Sox haven’t in any way suffered playing guys like Manny and Hanley in the field because they were the lesser evil out there?
The fact is, adjusting for the context of those teams, Ortiz was probably worth less than the generic DH adjustment. If he were able to clear the very low bar of mediocre corner outfielder, those teams would have been a lot better. Obviously he deserved every bit of negative defensive value he was attributed.
This is almost like Bastiat’s seen vs. unseen in economics. You want to penalize (e.g.) Manny Ramirez for his observably bad defense but not Ortiz, whose even worse defense (unseen but nonetheless real) forced Manny into LF.
Yet the Red Sox are willing to hurt themselves by risking losing him with a low ball offer of 5/120 (confident nobody else is in on him somehow) and the Yankees doing the same with their desire to get under the LT to save a few dollars , dollars that are inconsequential given their humongous revenues , and pass on a Yu Darvish at a bargain price which could have put them ahead of the Red Sox.
One of the plus factors an arbitrator looks at to determine collusion as opposed to just conscious parallelism is when some teams hurt themselves to support the collusive action. Look no further than these two teams.
A major concern I have with projecting Martinez at DH is whether he can thrive at the role. We know some have like David Ortiz. But can Martinez? We know 3 things. One is that he says he doesn’t want to do it. That is major red flag to me. It could be negotiating, but we don’t know that.
Second is that he has around a 750 career OPS DHing, about 100 points lower then his career numbers. Now that is small sample and its mostly from his early career when he really sucked at it. He was better recently. But again, we don’t know and there is some concern with his numbers.
Finally, we know generally that players struggle with the role, which is why the DH offense in MLB is so surprisingly bad. This is my point, what if Martinez doesn’t put up the numbers people expect because he isn’t good at DHing? I think it should be talked about more, especially in an article about how valuable Martinez would be at DHing compared to the rest of baseball. There is some gamble in a 100+ million dollar offer with a fairly large unanswered question.
I think the Sox will find a way not to let Ramirez get 597 PAs this season regardless of whether they sign Martinez or not.
Signing JDM prevents Hanleys 22 million 2019 option from vesting, and gives them a chance to beat the Yankees in 2018. While they won 93 games last year the Yankees were in it to the end. The Yankees are much stronger with Stanton and a full year of Gray and Roberston and Kahnle and the Red Sox are unlikely to go 15-3 in extras again.
Not doing the obvious to help yourself sounds like taking one for the team (MLB). Red Sox are the 2nd richest team in MLB and flush with cash from the BamTek sale (like every team). With ratings and interest in the team dropping they have a compelling need to spend on JDM.
As for knowing JDM has no other offers or that no other team will jump in, Scott Boras would love to know how they can be so sure…….the future arbitrator of the eventual collusion case will want to know too.
The Diamondbacks have finally announced the humidor. My guess is this means they are out of the JDM bidding. If I ran the Yankees I would find a way to get in on this, because not only would it ding the Red Sox, it would create a lineup that is just absurd.
…While the end of the contract could be ugly…
I thought this is what teams are trying to avoid with long term contracts?
Matt Kemp is available in case DD wants a slugging DH.
what’s duda going to get, a one year deal worth 5 million? how about LoMo?
i think i’d rather just give one of them a 1-2 year deal and save my money for anything besides a 30+ year old DH who wants 5 years and over 100 million