The Teams That Will Run the Off-Season
Today, the off-season begins in earnest, as free agents become eligible to sign with new teams at 5 pm eastern. And given the number of interesting players on the market and which teams look like buyers, it should be a more active free agent atmosphere than we’ve seen in past years. Toss in a number of high-profile trade targets, and we could be in for a pretty interesting winter.
But every year, it seems, a few teams end up driving the off-season action. Last year, White Sox GM Rick Hahn became the most popular guy in town, as he shopped Chris Sale and Adam Eaton around at the winter meetings, eventually making blockbuster trades for both. The Dodgers were the big spenders, bringing back their trio of top-tier free agents, though at rates that proved to be bargains in every case.
Of course, in prior years, teams like the Diamondbacks, Padres, and Tigers have dominated the off-seasons with their aggressive attempts to get better, only to see those moves push the franchise in the wrong direction. So being the hot stove kingpin isn’t always a good thing, and with a particularly risky set of premium free agents, there’s a decent chance that whoever makes the most big moves this winter will also end up wishing they had been a bit more cautious. But as we head into the time when a few teams are looking to remake their franchises in significant ways, let’s take a look at which teams might end up being the ones who have the most impact — one way or the other — on their clubs this winter.
Derek Jeter’s first off-season in charge of a front office probably won’t be a low key affair. Reports suggest that the new ownership group wants to cut roughly $60 million off their payroll, and that means the Marlins are going to be the most obvious sellers of the off-season. Giancarlo Stanton seems like a lock to be traded, and then some combination of Dee Gordon, Christian Yelich, Marcell Ozuna, Martin Prado, Dan Straily, and the veteran relievers they signed last winter are probably headed out as well.
The preferred plan is apparently trading Stanton/Gordon/Prado, though unless they are willing to eat some salary, they won’t get much in return for that trio. If the goal is to get legitimate talent in return, they’ll likely have to part with one of their better players on a team-friendly contract, which means teams won’t stop calling about Yelich and Ozuna just because trading them doesn’t appear to be Plan A. And with so many players potentially available, plus the uncertainty of how Jeter’s group will value the offers they receive, I’d expect nearly every team looking to upgrade this winter to have some conversations with Miami’s front office.
Perhaps the team most often suggested as Jeter’s first trade partner, the Cardinals interest in Stanton has been well reported, and John Mozeliak has admitted that they’re going to try to make a substantial trade before November 20th, when 40 man rosters have to be set in preparation for the Rule 5 draft. The Cardinals want to make a consolidation trade, moving multiple guys for one impact player, so in addition to Stanton, they’ll probably call on every big name player that could theoretically be available.
That probably includes guys like Josh Donaldson and Manny Machado, both of whom could be free agents next winter; the Cardinals do have a history of trading for impending free agents and then convincing them to stick around St. Louis long-term, after all. And with a number of interesting young players — especially outfielders — to dangle, the Cardinals will probably be having trade discussions with a bunch of teams even after they figure out which impact player they can most reasonably acquire. If their big bat acquisition ends up being Stanton (or another outfielder), they’ll probably have a few more trades to make after that, and could end up being the center of the OF market for the next couple of months.
As a buyer who will also potentially be moving some low-cost upside hitters, the Cardinals could be a trade match for every one of the other 29 teams, and that could put them in a position to be the team the off-season revolves around.
Dave Dombrowski’s M.O. is pretty well established at this point, as he believes in targeting high-end players and paying whatever it takes to get them. While he’s had some misses along the way, his plan has brought his new team Chris Sale and Craig Kimbrel the last few years, and with the Yankees breathing down their necks in the A.L. East, it’s a pretty good bet that he’ll be looking to add another high-profile free agent this winter.
Most of the talk centers around signing either J.D. Martinez or Eric Hosmer to improve the line-up, which ranked 27th in home runs last year, and Dombrowski almost certainly will do what he can to add power to his offense. But I wouldn’t rule them out of other pursuits either, especially with the young core starting to get into their arbitration years, and the reality that the franchise likely won’t keep all their young core position players long-term.
If there’s a winter where a guy like Jackie Bradley Jr. or Xander Bogaerts could be on the block, it’s probably this one; trading a guy like that next winter, when everyone’s focus will be on a few elite free agents, could be a harder task. So while Dombrowski probably will outbid everyone else for one of the big free agent bats, I wouldn’t be shocked if he also made a significant trade to try and make his roster a bit more Dombrowski-like, then signed another free agent to fill the just-created hole. Either way, Boston will likely be quite busy this winter.
Okay, he’s not a team, but assuming MLB and NPB get a posting agreement squared away, Otani will complicate every team’s winter plans. Because of his unique situation, every team in baseball should be planning some sort of recruitment pitch, and if he actually does come over and sign a standard minor league contract, he’ll instantly become the kind of value that could change the direction of an organization.
But because the process seems to be moving fairly slowly — reportedly, Otani still hasn’t picked an MLBPA-certified agent — it seems unlikely that he’ll have signed with an MLB club before the end of the year. And most teams try to get their heavy lifting done before Christmas, so everyone will have to come up with an off-season plan that involves not having Otani on their roster next year, but many will also want to leave room for him to have a place if he does pick them as the winner of this weird lottery.
So there’s a needle to be threaded here, and a bunch of teams will probably be trying to figure out how to make it clear that they have a spot waiting for Otani without putting themselves in a bad situation if he ends up not signing with them. The timing of Otani’s decision could end up having a pretty significant impact on the pitching market, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a few high-end free agent pitchers wait out his decision, hoping to sell themselves as the fall-back plan to the teams who had hoped to add Otani but ended up on the outside looking in. Due to Otani’s presence, we might see more arms sign in January than we’re used to.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
I’m rooting for #TeamOtani
Perhaps a little less enthusiastically, once it becomes #TeamBoras
Good news for those of us who are annoyed by Boras: Otani hired CAA.
555565666666666666
Do you utilize a pay~pal account.. in case you do you can make an extra 650 /week to your account working at home for a few hours each day, check out this site
650 a week, all from home? And all I need is a PayPal account?! Damn, I’d be a fool NOT to look into it. HOW IS ANYONE UNEMPLOYED WITH OPPORTUNITIES LIKE THIS
Haven’t you found out that all the country’s problems are due to lazy poor people? Why work for $650/week when you can collect welfare and food stamps and feast on lobster and caviar every day? And all on the backs of hard-workin’ ‘Mericans! THANKS OBAMA
Tongue in cheek, I’m pretty sure. Tho’ apparently that went ‘whoosh’ on 13 of you.
Two things: 1) I can’t see the MLBPA agreeing to give the team 20 million and the player a couple hundred grand or so. Not sure how this gets resolved. And, 2) I know the guy wants to play here, but I find it fascinating that he’s willing to give up (or maybe postpone, I guess) such a huge payday. I give the young man tons of credit for being willing to come over to play now.
If he comes over, I really hope he goes to an AL team so that he can play DH occasionally and also pitch!
On point 1), I’m with you. I really hope Otani doesn’t come over until he’s an unrestricted FA. It just galls me for him to give some billionaire owner a $100M gift, but coming over early.
Agree with snapper here, I don’t give Otani “credit” for leaving $200M on the table. I still find it so staggering that I don’t yet believe it’s a certainty.
He could do anything he wants with that money, from lighting it on fire to donating it all to charity. But why forfeit it altogether?
I don’t hate team owners and think that they are just as entitled to their earnings as anyone else – but why enrich them, and implicitly endorse a horrifically unfair labor situation, because of impatience?
Get a great insurance policy and try again in 24 months.
Not everyone views money the same way, and certainly not every one cares about labor equity. In fact, I’m pretty certain that Japanese and American attitudes towards employment are completely alien to each other.
Not sure that matters. There must be something Otani could spend $100M on, especially charity, that would make him happier than giving it to a billionaire American.
Not everybody cares about charity.
And like I said, I don’t expect you to understand Japanese attitude towards employment. Just don’t assume everybody thinks the same way as you do.
First of all, MLBPA already agreed 20 million for team and peanuts for the player. MLB is now trying to eliminate the 20 million for team and keep the young players getting peanuts. MLBPA apparently is rejecting an exception for Otani thta MLB has proposed.
Otani is likely counting on a significant endorsement revenue bump. In Japan that goes from a local endorsement package to a national package, not to mention endorsements for US brands selling goods in Japan and US. This could be significant in a market like NY. Jeter made up to 20 million a year in endorsement revenue from US sponsors alone.
Second, Otani will likely expect teams to pay well above minimum after his rookie season and would ask to see their policy and calculation methodolgy for raises for pre-arb players. There is nothing in the CBA requiring a team to pay at or close to the minimum for a year 2 or 3rd yr player coming off a great rookie or sophomore season. That this is the case more often than not is due to weakness of the MLBPA and collusion. A good example is the raise given to Betts after his great 2016 where the Red Sox offered him double the minimum and still paid it after Betts refused to sign off on it (done so in the event of a future collusion law suit by MLBPA). I believe the Angels did the same before thwir extension. Basically done to show good will on the part of the team. Before FA stars frequently got large raises (multiples of the minimum) after great rookie or sophomore seasons . Then owners decided they had to subsidize FA contracts and this ended.
It seems like this could be used as a chip to get him to pick the team who dangles an opportunity to be a 2-way player. He’s not going to make much money his first 2 major league seasons, so this could be quite the incentive.
Xander could be on the block??
Doubtful. People love to talk about it, but he’s easily among the second tier of SS and that’d be a nightmare to replace.
Realistically, I see Bradley as the most likely to move. He’s the most redundant of their young core (Betts is better and Benintendi is likely to be). He also makes for the easiest path to add a big bat. If you make a move on Martinez, you can shift one of the two remaining OF over to accommodate him. The defense suffers (But the hit is absorbable), but the offense gains some significant power and consistency (I love Bradley, but he’s obviously streaky).
The Red Sox have to be very disappointed in the giant leap backward that Bogaerts took this year but there is nobody behind him and he is young enough to snap back. Perhaps a hitting coach change will help. The Red Sox have to get some power and Martinez is the best available and putting Benintendi in CF isn’t a bad situation. If Manny could play LF for two WS champions I guess Martinez can. Nobody has been a bigger JBJ advocate than I have been after first seeing him play at Salem in 2012 but he isn’t untouchable.
Trading Prado now would be quite the move. He’s coming off a year where he had no value at all, but his hamstring wasn’t right. Do the Marlins or any other team think he’ll bounce back? And Gordon actually isn’t so onerous a contract because of his stellar baserunning, but it’s hard to see too many teams paying much for his mostly-empty batting average (no walks, no power). Those guys are both 3-WAR guys at their best but it’s not clear to me what a good match would be.
Meanwhile, Stanton’s no-trade clause is going to be interesting. He’s a SoCal native, and so the most logical team was the Angels, but unless the Angels are willing to trade Kole Calhoun they don’t have a spot in the outfield. Would the Dodgers or Giants try? Would Stanton waive his no-trade clause to go to St. Louis?
I think Stanton would waive his no-trade clause to go anywhere but Miami
this is the answer. Stanton may play hardball, but he will jump at the chance to go almost anywhere. A contender like St. Louis? of course
You think so? Aside from Miami being a low-class franchise that maybe has grated on Stanton, what makes you say this? Do we know he doesn’t care about location, or other relevant things about where he would be going?
I think whether the Dodgers are in play depends a lot on how much salary the Marlins are willing to pick up. The Dodgers have this offseason lined up as an opportunity to dip below the Competitive Balance Tax and reset their tax obligations. If they can get Adrian Gonzalez’s money off the books, they will have space for a large contract add while doing that.
if they can’t, they won’t.
I suspect they will be offering Gonzalez some front office position if he’ll retire.
I’m struggling with how and why Gonzalez would agree to retire and forego the $22.4 million that he’s due to make next year. MLB would almost certainly crack down on a blatant attempt to circumvent the luxury tax if Gonzalez got a nebulous front office or instructional position that paid more than a few hundred thousand dollars per year. I don’t see any workaround unless Gonzalez agrees to walk away from a massive amount of money, probably something like $20 million in terms of net present value.
It also looks to me like the Dodgers very likely are going to want to release Gonzalez in any case – meaning he gets his 2018 money – for space on the 40 man roster. I’m counting 41 players on the Dodgers’ current 40 man roster, once everyone comes off the 60-day DL (which doesn’t exist in the offseason) – http://m.dodgers.mlb.com/la/roster/40-man/. That count is after removing free agents and declining Ethier’s option. I don’t know if the Dodgers would like to add any additional minor leaguers to the 40 man before the Rule 5 draft, and I assume that they will sign some bullpen arms in the off-season. I’m sure there’s some relative dead wood (besides Gonzalez) among those 41 players, but it looks to me like the Dodgers have a 40 man roster crunch this off-season.
Beyond the 40 man, next year’s 25 man roster is also a concern. If Gonzalez is healthy, the Dodgers either need to put him on the active roster, taking up a space, or release him, due to the veterans’ consent rules.
So it seems to me that there’s a game of chicken where Gonzalez will probably get his 2018 money from the Dodgers simply because they release him, so I don’t see why he would decide to retire.
Could be a medical retirement like Prince Fielder and so the team gets reimbursed by the insurance company. Stays on the books for tax purposes though
Right, if the Dodgers bought insurance on his contract. There’s also a good chance that Gonzalez needs to stay on the 40-man roster during the offseason (and 60 day DL during the year) to collect the insurance.
That’s what happened with Prince Fielder, and Nathaniel Grow wrote that this 40 man roster requirement is “apparently pretty standard”.
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/insuring-prince-fielder/
If the Cot’s estimates are fairly accurate, I don’t see much of a path for the Dodgers to get under the luxury tax in 2018 – https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12Fdcz-v1dHv7WUA6N73JhLNL7cZ-JCaUSRyh8LQvG7A/pubhtml#
Cot’s currently shows the Dodgers right at the tax threshold – $189k over – including arbitration estimates. That was before picking up Forsythe’s option, however, which adds $8.5 million to 2018.
We also need to consider the incentives in contracts, Maeda in particular. This year Maeda earned a bit over $4 million in incentives by making 25 starts and pitching 134.1 innings. If he does the same next year, those earned incentives end up in the 2018 luxury tax number.
So, if Gonzalez retired and walked away from his 2018 money, the Dodgers remove his $22 million luxury tax AAV and have perhaps something like $9 million of 2018 luxury tax space to stay under the threshold. I don’t see why he’d do so, but let’s assume his retirement for a hypothetical. It would seem, though, that signing one pretty good middle-reliever plus 1 or 2 lesser bullpen arms would use up all of that salary space.
It’s also important to remember that luxury tax is measured each year based on where payroll ends up at the end of the season. Getting under the threshold this offseason doesn’t help the Dodgers if they add enough salary during the 2018 season to push back over the $197 million luxury tax line in 2018.
I do see a path for the Dodgers – with Gonzalez’s money – to be considerably less over the luxury tax than they were in prior years and stay below the line ($40 million over the luxury tax threshold) where a team’s top draft pick moves back 10 places starting in 2018.
Dodgers have always planned to be under the tax for ’19, not 18. Forsythe option kind of seals this, I think.
I can see how that could happen for 2019. They have lots of contracts up after 2018, some of which contributed little if anything this year ($50 million to the trio of Gonzalez, Kazmir, and McCarthy). Lots of moving pieces, because several other contributors (Puig, Forsythe, Ryu, and Grandal) are also free agents after 2018 and look to be generating surplus value for the Dodgers on a $ per WAR basis.
I’ve been trying to figure out some creative accounting shenanigan that would get the Dodgers under the tax line this year. The only way I think it is possible would be possible is to trade Gonzalez and maybe another big contract like Kazmir for a boatload of super-expensive long-term contracts, and get the other team to pay them down this year in exchange for long-term salary relief. So maybe the Royals could dump Alex Gordon and/or Kennedy’s long-term contract if they paid them down this year and took Gonazalez. But I’m not sure if that’s legal under the CBA and even if so that’s only $21 million more to play with, which will probably get eaten up pretty quickly with arb raises.
Interesting thought. My best guess is that such a maneuver wouldn’t really work for the luxury tax, as you indicate might be the case. I know that contracts themselves are viewed based on average annual value for luxury tax purposes, so it would make sense that payments from one team to another to defer salary also are viewed based on AAV for luxury tax purposes.
Maybe if they agree to hire Gonzalez for $30 million dollars to take a one-year position off the field? Yeah, I don’t know if the league would like that either. I think their only hope is to see whether someone without a first baseman take him off their hands if they threw in an FV40/FV45 prospect. I doubt it though.
The latter point is an interesting thought. On the former, I am 99.99999% sure that MLB would see through that deal and void it as blatant attempt to circumvent the luxury tax, per a prior comment that I made above.
The Phillies come to mind as a team that could be a good candidate to “buy” a prospect by taking on Gonzalez’s remaining $21.5 million: rebuilding, big market team with the revenue from a lucrative TV deal, and minimal salary commitments for 2018. On the last point, Cot’s has the Phillies right now at only $38 million of 2018 payroll including projected arbitration awards.
The estimates of prospect value earlier this year from Fangraphs are that Gonzalez’s full 2018 salary is more like two 45 FV prospects, or one 50 FV position player, or one 55 FV pitcher. As one prospect, that’s still a back half of the top 100 level prospect.
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/valuing-the-2017-top-100-prospects/
The other question, of course, is whether the Dodgers would want to sell prospect(s) in that way to dip under the luxury tax for one year. I can see the benefit for them of doing so, but the new international amateur free agent pool rules also mean that they can’t any longer periodically use money to help replenish their farm system. The Dodgers – a team that values depth, often uses platoons, makes mid-season acquisitions, and is likely to be over the luxury tax line quite a bit in the future – also have their own reasons to place a high value on prospects.
I’m not sure if a hole at 1B is that big of a consideration, because Gonzalez was just so bad in 2017, well below replacement value, that I can’t see any team planning to contend counting on him in their 1B plans for 2018. He’s also a tough player to roster if he’s not expected to start, because he has no positional versatility. Even the Phillies might just release him after taking on the salary to “buy” a prospect. Why not take a flyer at 1B on a young player with team control and upside rather than seeing if Gonzalez can still be mediocre, as he was in 2016, rather than terrible, as he was in 2017?
I doubt we’re going to get any more comments on this, but I just thought of another unlikely option: Adrian Gonzalez to the Angels for a PTBNL, where the PTBNL is Pujols and would occur after the season…
…yeah, the league would love that one.
(This would also work with the Tigers and Jordan Zimmermann, or the Royals and one of their bad contracts, or perhaps “not work” since the league would have a fit)
I like your creativity!
I agree that the league would throw a fit, and I think they could rectify the situation. Apparently a trade needs to close within 6 months of the original trade by sending the PTBNL. So if it’s, for example, a right before opening day trade, the league still sees the end of the trade before they finalize luxury tax bills for 2018 and (most importantly, because the monetary aspect can always be fought over later) well before figuring out QO comp picks for the amateur draft in 2019.
Pencilling out the math would get challenging too. There are now surtaxes and other disadvantages (worse first round draft pick if $40 million or more over the luxury tax line, for example) for being way over the luxury tax, so dipping below one year at the cost of going way, way over in future years doesn’t necessarily work out out for a team.
In other words, it makes sense for a team to get under the tax in 2018 and therefore pay less future luxury tax if that team signs Harper or Machado after 2018. It may defeat the point, though, to get under the luxury tax in 2018 but then have the luxury tax burden on one of those players plus Pujols (or other bad contract) in future years.
Not a Rockies fan but man do I want to see Stanton play 81 games in Denver every year.
I pledge to buy a ticket to a Rockies game somewhere I can drive to if the powers that be make this happen. Pretty please?
I agree with your thinking that Dombrowski could trade Bogaerts this offseason. In your words, he’s a ‘very weird good player.’ And Dombrowski likes traditionally good players, not weird good players, so I would not be surprised if he made that move.
It’s extremely disappointing that MLB put a flawed international policy in place. The owners’ wallets benefit, but international players and team as well as MLB as a whole lose.
coincidentally, that’s a feature of all of MLB’s policies.
True.
I’m surprised by the down votes – as fans, we should want the best players in the world to be playing for our enjoyment. The international policies in place prevent that.
I find that very hard to believe. The Cardinals are too cheap to spend money and the majority of the prospects they have to deal are more like low cost, low upside
How many teams really want a guy who might project someday to be an average outfielder? They have value but realistically, it’s the most common sort of baseball player besides an okay reliever.
And their pitching rotation will be suspect with Lynn gone and Wainwright yet another year older. If Reyes wasn’t coming off of injury, sure they might move some, but it’s just too iffy as it is now
Yes they are unlikely to trade Reyes/Weaver/Flaherty, but they also have Alcantara, Fernandez, Hicks, and Hudson. Those 4 are unlikely to contribute meaningfully to the 2018 rotation.
It is a bad misstatement of history to claim that “the Cardinals are too cheap to spend money.” Over the past several years, they’ve always been in the top half of opening day payroll and usually somewhere right around 10th – http://www.stevetheump.com/Payrolls.htm
I too would like to see the Cardinals move payroll up some in ways that would improve the team, but let’s look at the cases where they’ve been outbid on free agents in the past few years. Pujols, Heyward, and Price are the three notable cases where it was reported that another team outbid the Cardinals in money or possibly on other terms (player opt-outs for Heyward). Looking back at each case, it appears that the Cardinals dodged a bullet in not paying up for players whose performance sharply declined almost immediately.
And, realistically, while the Cardinals have the revenue to spend somewhat more on payroll than they do now, they don’t have the revenue to spend at the Dodgers / Yankees / Red Sox level where those teams can eat a lot of dead money without severely harming the quality of the team on the field.
Agree. The Cardinals aren’t cheap, they’re shrewd.
I hope the Red Sox sign Eric Hosmer. Would give a chance to Toronto to catch up. =P
I’m an NL fan, not well familiar with what the Red Sox can offer for the power bat they want. Tyler Thornburg for Kyle Schwarber?
Homer is a very good player, but I just don’t see him as being substantially better than Carlos Santana or Logan Morrison.
Santana is a switch hitter with power who walks as often as he strikes out. He is not a perfect player, but the Red Sox don’t need perfect. I get the sense they could sign Santana for half of what Hosmer is asking.
They could (and probably should) sign Santana or Morrison, and use the cost savings to re-sign Eduardo Nunez. Nunez would get a nearly full-time role if he was willing to divide his time between the various infield positions, some OF time, and occasional DH.
And there I was, wondering why you’re comparing Homer Bailey to Carlos Santana and Logan Morrison…
Stanton to the Yankees courtesy of #2.