Yasmani Grandal Is Better Than This
Free agent Yasmani Grandal reached a one-year agreement with the Brewers, worth $18.25 million. Grandal’s contract — while surprising — is not proof that baseball is broken. Not in an offseason where Lance Lynn got $30 million. Not in an offseason where Zach Britton got $39 million. Not in an offseason where Andrew McCutchen got $50 million. Nathan Eovaldi got $68 million. Patrick Corbin got $140 million. And even in Grandal’s specific case, it’s been reported he turned down an offer of $60 million or so from the Mets. Now, there’s reason to believe that didn’t happen exactly as so. It feels more than a little far-fetched. But the conversations, at least, were productive, before the Mets opted for Wilson Ramos instead. Grandal had a chance to do better than this.
But still, Yasmani Grandal signed a one-year contract barely worth more than the qualifying offer he declined. He signed a one-year contract with a competitive team, but a competitive team that happens to play in baseball’s smallest market. This could ultimately work out just fine — with a big season ahead, Grandal would re-enter free agency, and maybe next winter he’d find a larger guarantee. There’s nothing wrong with bringing home $18.25 million in the meantime. It’s just surprising there wasn’t greater demand. The Brewers lucked out; a good player just fell into their lap. It probably shouldn’t have happened.
Joe Frisaro just published a new entry at MLB.com. The most popular subject of trade rumors right now is Marlins catcher J.T. Realmuto, and Frisaro lists the consensus frontrunners as the Braves, Dodgers, Astros, Padres, Rays, and Reds. Maybe that’s all accurate, and maybe that’s partially accurate, but it’s easy to see why Realmuto would be a hot commodity. He’s athletic, he’s in his 20s, and he has another two years of arbitration eligibility. Oh, and he’s super good. Might be baseball’s best catcher.
That last part isn’t certain, though. Among the other candidates would be Yasmani Grandal. How effective is Grandal at the plate? The following table should give you an idea. For all regular and semi-regular catchers, you’re seeing three-year wRC+, single-year wRC+, and projected upcoming wRC+. The projections are based on Steamer.
| Catcher | 2016-2018 | Catcher | 2018 | Catcher | 2019 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gary Sanchez | 124 | Wilson Ramos | 131 | Buster Posey | 117 |
| Wilson Ramos | 120 | J.T. Realmuto | 126 | Gary Sanchez | 116 |
| Buster Posey | 116 | Yasmani Grandal | 125 | Yasmani Grandal | 115 |
| Yasmani Grandal | 116 | Francisco Cervelli | 125 | J.T. Realmuto | 109 |
| J.T. Realmuto | 115 | Omar Narvaez | 122 | Willson Contreras | 108 |
| Willson Contreras | 113 | Elias Diaz | 114 | Danny Jansen | 108 |
| Robinson Chirinos | 110 | Kurt Suzuki | 108 | Francisco Cervelli | 107 |
| Evan Gattis | 109 | Buster Posey | 106 | Wilson Ramos | 106 |
| Mike Zunino | 108 | Yadier Molina | 103 | Willians Astudillo | 104 |
| Tyler Flowers | 108 | Robinson Chirinos | 103 | Russell Martin | 101 |
Grandal profiles as a top-five offensive catcher. Perhaps even top-three. And I’ll remind you that the league-average wRC+ for a catcher isn’t 100. Last season, it was 84. Grandal has been in the majors for seven years. His lowest single-season wRC+ to date has been 100. He walks, and he hits for power. And that’s only the half of it.
Catchers also have critical defensive responsibilities. Now, some of these we think we’re good at quantifying, and others, not so much. But here’s another table, showing three-year and single-year Defensive Runs Saved per 1,000 innings. This includes pitch-framing, and there’s at least an attempt to include something that might capture game-calling success.
| Catcher | 2016-2018 | Catcher | 2018 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jeff Mathis | 23.7 | Jeff Mathis | 32.5 |
| Austin Hedges | 18.0 | Sandy Leon | 17.5 |
| Roberto Perez | 17.2 | Austin Hedges | 16.6 |
| Luke Maile | 14.6 | Max Stassi | 15.3 |
| Buster Posey | 13.2 | Buster Posey | 13.2 |
| Sandy Leon | 13.1 | Mike Zunino | 13.0 |
| Yasmani Grandal | 13.0 | Tyler Flowers | 11.3 |
| Martin Maldonado | 12.0 | Russell Martin | 11.3 |
| Manny Pina | 11.6 | Austin Romine | 9.8 |
| Derek Norris | 10.4 | Gary Sanchez | 9.2 |
In fairness, you don’t see Grandal on the right-hand side. But he’s actually just in 11th, a half-run behind Sanchez. Again, absolutely, these numbers aren’t perfect. Being a catcher is hard, and a lot of the job comes down to establishing relationships. I don’t know how you see that in statistics. But the statistics do capture an awful lot, and most of them agree that Grandal is quite good. At hitting, he’s good. At the defensive stuff we can measure, he’s good.
Maybe you’d like to see a direct player comparison. Here’s 2016-2018 Yasmani Grandal, and 2016-2018 J.T. Realmuto:
| Catcher | Ages | PA | K-BB% | wRC+ | BsR | DRS | BP Defense |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| J.T. Realmuto | 25-27 | 1655 | 13% | 115 | 8 | -25 | 4 |
| Yasmani Grandal | 27-29 | 1457 | 13% | 116 | -16 | 39 | 72 |
Basically the same at the plate. Realmuto is the better athlete, so he’s the better baserunner. But Grandal dominates Realmuto on the defensive side. According to DRS, the gap has been 64 runs. According to Baseball Prospectus, the gap has been 68 runs. Yes, Grandal is a couple years older. Yes, the defensive numbers might not reflect reality. Let’s say you want to cut Grandal’s defensive advantage in half. They’re still very comparable backstops. A team that likes Realmuto should be a team that likes Grandal.
Because Realmuto is still in his arbitration years, he’s more affordable under any budget. I recognize that makes him more widely appealing. Grandal was always going to require an eight-figure average salary. That surplus value, however, will be reflected in whatever prospect package the Marlins might get in return. Realmuto is going to cost a haul — they might get a prospect on the level of, say, Kyle Tucker. Grandal costs no prospects. I mean, yeah, he does cost a draft pick, but not a first-rounder. The Brewers are giving up just their third-highest draft pick. That’s worth maybe a couple million. All teams act like they’d rather have prospects than money. Here, they’ve behaved in the opposite way.
It’s not as if Grandal doesn’t have his warts, his various red or yellow flags. I’ve already been receiving messages critical of Grandal’s ability to get along with his pitchers. That’s been a long-standing impression, dating back to his time with the Padres. On the other hand, Zack Greinke tends to be pretty honest about his feelings, right? Here’s Greinke, from April 2015:
“He’s been unbelievable back there,” Greinke said. “His catching is better than advertised, and working with me individually, he’s been as good as you could expect. I don’t think, from what I’ve seen so far, you could ever have expected anything more.
[…]
“I couldn’t draw up a better catcher at the moment.”
That’s just one player talking, but that’s a pretty strong recommendation, and I’ve heard that Grandal has gotten better with his pitchers over time. The last couple years, Clayton Kershaw has made 39 starts with Grandal, and 15 starts with Austin Barnes. I’ll also note that, the last three years, the Dodgers have had a winning percentage of .593 in Grandal starts, and a winning percentage of .581 in non-Grandal starts. That’s not conclusive in any way, shape, or form, and Grandal has lost playing time to Barnes on the biggest stage each of the last two Octobers, but the Dodgers still preferred Grandal overall. They didn’t make a point of pushing him out the door. He was their main backstop for four straight first-place seasons.
I know that Grandal looked bad in the playoffs. I know that everyone knew that Grandal looked bad in the playoffs. Over his career so far, he’s been relatively unclutch. Teams don’t make decisions based on clutch performances, though, and the postseason numbers might not mean a thing. Over his first 27 games in the playoffs, Barry Bonds had an OPS of .618. From that point forward, over another 21 games in the playoffs, he had an OPS of 1.446. Bad moments in big moments can be hard to forget, but they’re easy to erase. One clutch hit turns everything around.
The more you stare at Grandal, the more you open yourself up to the criticism, the more you can understand how things landed where they did. Maybe Grandal tanked his own market when he couldn’t reach an agreement with the Mets. Maybe we haven’t made enough of how Grandal and his pitchers haven’t always been on the same page. Maybe the Dodgers knew something when they played Grandal less often in the playoffs. He might just not be the kind of guy you want to have around in a clubhouse for three or four years. Yet he was in the Dodgers’ clubhouse for four years! And as Emma Baccellieri wrote, it wasn’t all that long ago that Russell Martin signed for five years and $82 million. Martin was signing for his age-32 to age-36 seasons. Grandal is going into his age-30 season. The market has changed — that much is undeniable — but this is extreme.
It’s a great move for the Brewers, obviously. Grandal is a hell of a lot better than Manny Pina and Erik Kratz, and so this plugs a conspicuous hole. The Brewers are unlikely to miss the draft pick they’re giving up. For Grandal, he’s going to a contender, and he’ll make more than the qualifying offer, so it could be worse. He’ll try this all again in a year. But while I know the Brewers needed a catcher, where were the Angels on this one? Where were the Rockies on this one? Where were the Astros on this one? To name just a few teams. These aren’t even teams that aren’t trying. They just weren’t trying in this specific way. From where I sit, it boggles the mind.
Teams can talk about their restrictive budgets. Teams can talk about how they’d rather have Realmuto. All things being equal, I’d rather have Realmuto, too. But there’s only one J.T. Realmuto in baseball, and he’s going to cost a prospect fortune. Grandal was only going to cost money. I don’t know how he wound up with the Brewers, but it seems like the end result of seeing him for what he isn’t, as opposed to seeing him for what he is. That and the whole Mets thing, but it never should’ve been New York or bust.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
If the Rockies weren’t in on Grandal every single person in that FO needs to be fired. I mean they already needed to be fired, but c’mon.
The Rockies were in on Grandal, but their demand that he play second base was a deal-breaker for him.
Splitting time at 2nd and LF
For the next few seasons, the answer to all of these sorts of questions will be “The Ian Desmond Contract”.
The Rockie’s are smart and they know what their doing. All you need is the new made up stat’s on this web sight and a calaculacator –
Yasamani Grandall – $18.2 million divide by 3.6 WAR’s above replacement = $5.055555556 money per WAR above replacement
Ian Desmond – $22 million divide by -0.7 WAR’s above replacement = -31.42857143 money per WAR above replacement
Obviously, -31.42857143 is a lot less money than $5.055555556, so they choose the right player. Just do the math, nerd’s! The Rockie’s have one of the BEST front orifice’s in all of baseball. From someone who know’s!
One of the best comments I’ve read that wasn’t Serbian’s circa 2015-17. Bravo/a.
I always knew Annie Lennox was the real genius behind The Eurythmics…
Wow. They should give Desmond a contract extension with numbers like that.
Dozier and Grandal seemed like perfect fits, both have signed elsewhere.
As a Rockies fan this is really frustrating. Major upgrade at an obvious position of need, get to keep Brendan Rodgers in the system, and don’t commit to long term dollars to try and keep Arenado around. Just money to improve a black hole in a lineup with a few of them to go all in on a season with the franchise’s best ever pitching staff and maybe it’s best ever player.
Maybe they were in and got outbid, but it feels very Rockies for them to let him pass to roll out the Murphy/Iannetta/Wolters trio again.
Larry Walker was COL’s best player, with Todd Helton not too far behind. No disrespect to Arenado, who’s great, just not Walker or Helton great.
Grandal + Dozier would have made a lot of sense. They probably just don’t have the money (see: Desmond contract).
The Rockies talent acquisition is the same as any poorly run organization:
1. Pay for a “Great Place To Work (TM)” designation
2. Wait for job-seekers to come pouring in.
The Underpants Gnomes would prefer to see:
1.5 ???
But, yes, South Park Management at its best.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone were born and brought up in Colorado — they understand these things.
This was definitely the surprise of free agency for me (so far).
I think it’s worth noting that this “The Brewers are giving up just their third-highest draft pick. That’s worth maybe a couple million.” is true for the Brewers specifically, but it’s not true for all of the potential suitors.
EG, for the Astros, the implicit pick cost would have been considerably higher. (I believe the 40-something pick and int’l pool money).
Of course, the Astros may be the exception to the rule there among the speculated teams. (Although the Dodgers would have had the opportunity cost of forsaking a comp pick).
What’s most interesting to me is that the Brewers seem to have lowered their Grandal cost with the Alex Claudio trade. Or lowered their Claudio cost with the Grandal trade, if you prefer.
IE, their 3rd highest pick today was less dear than their 3rd highest pick was a month ago. Clever.
There’s always that incentive, once you break the QO seal or trade away a competitive balance pick, to keep piling on.
All I got from this is “wow, Brewers just improved a TON. For cheap.”
What a great signing for them.
I find it bizarre that the A’s would rather give similar money to Khris Davis and go with Josh Phegley at catcher
sad where MLB is going. First, today Kyler Murray is going NFL for more money (bad optics for MLB), and now as shown in last few years FA….owners would rather save money and sign a mediocre player before paying for the great players that would elevate the team. Worse product and worse for the fans. SAD
Murray may go to the NFL, or he may stick with baseball. What he’s doing at this point is keeping his options open if he declares for the NFL draft, as it’s been reported that he’ll do.
What he ultimately does – and whether it’s driven by more money – remains to be seen. Looking at last year’s NFL rookie contracts, the guaranteed money on rookie contracts (per Spotrac) fell below Murray’s $4.66 million signing bonus from the A’s early in the 2nd round of the NFL draft. The last pick of the first round (Lamar Jackson) got $7.5 million guaranteed (on an overall 4 year / $9.5 million rookie contract), the first two picks of the 2nd round each received a bit over $5 million guaranteed, and then subsequent 2nd round picks received less guaranteed money than Murray’s signing bonus.
Edited addition: the latter point is that there’s some chatter that Murray would be a late 1st round NFL draft pick, but that’s far from consensus. I’d personally guess that he’s probably got a lot more downside than upside from late first round, especially if his height is really more like 5′ 9″ than the 5′ 11″ at which he’s currently listed.
Do you think he’s lying about his height? Can people get away with that in 2019?
It is fairly common for the height listed on a team roster to be off, especially in college and the minor leagues.
Echoing Vincent’s point, the NFL Scouting Combine measurements are the only definitive public source of which I’m aware for the height of football players. I’m not aware of any such source for baseball players. And I was a bit off in my initial take with Murray. I have seen him described as 5′ 11″ in some places, but the Oklahoma football website lists him at 5′ 10″.
And it appears routine for players across sports to be listed as taller than they actually are. Here is a quote from an ESPN article on the topic:
“This year, on the 56-man Senior Bowl North roster alone, 70 percent of the players are caught stretching the truth by more than half an inch in height or more than 5 pounds in weight. Almost 40 percent have lied by an inch or more in height and 10 pounds or more in weight. The fudging in Mobile is consistent with the sleight of hand going on across the sports landscape. In 2012, college hoops blog Run the Floor analyzed the data at the predraft Portsmouth Invitational Tournament and found that of the 62 players measured, 76 percent were at least an inch shorter than they claimed.”
There’s no mention of baseball, but apparently it’s also very common for NHL and NBA players to be listed as 1 or 2 inches taller than their actual heights.
I’ll put the link on this tangent in a separate comment since I think that links trigger moderator approval.
Link: http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/23913544/the-body-issue-getting-athlete-real-measurements-rarely-easy
I think I saw Pedroia listed as 5’10” at some point several years back. Maybe if a 3” bird was sitting on top of his head. Commonly exaggerated.
What’s also essential for Murray in his decision is that he plays QB. Not only is there a far-lessened risk of injury, but if he succeeds to even modest degrees, he’s likely to be among the highest paid players in football, even if not relative to his own position.
The next biggest factor will be when he’s drafted. While I was of the mind that he would not go until the 2-3 round (at best) only a few weeks ago, it is appearing more likely now that someone may take a chance on him in the first round, and even in the Top 10-15, given the relatively weak state of this year’s QB class and recency bias borne out of the success of Baker Mayfield and other mobile, athletic QBs that didn’t fit the traditional mold. If he’s going in the first round of the NFL draft, he’ll make significantly more money in the short-term. Beyond that, his earning power will depend largely on his ability.
Relative to their peers in football (peers referring to the tier of player in which they reside within their sport), baseball players have traditionally made far more money (although that model may be changing before our eyes, Yasmani Grandal not withstanding). Peyton Manning, first overall pick in 1998, made ~$250mil in his career. Albert Pujols, drafted in the 13th round of 1999, is projected to make ~$360mil for his career. Miguel Cabrera, signed for $1.9mil out of Venezuela in 1999, is projected to make ~$400mil.
Endorsements play a role, and there’s evidently significantly larger potential in that regard in football. Even though there may be a heightened risk of injury in football, potentially limiting long-term earning potential, that should be lessened by his position, and then re-calibrated back up a few ticks by the nature in which he plays.
The success rate is just so much smaller in baseball, even for Top 10 picks, that you couldn’t blame a guy who:
1.. plays the singular most lucrative, lauded position in all of professional sports in QB,
2. is projected to be picked in the top 40 picks, and could go as early as the first 15 (conjecture),
and 3. just won the Heisman Trophy.
for choosing football instead. If he were a WR, or going later in the draft, it might be different.
But, as it stands, football is actually the safer choice, funnily enough. He’d need to be supremely confident in his ability to succeed in baseball, and supremely patient, to pursue it. If that were the case, and he were right, he would stand to gain more in the long run. Absent that, you couldn’t blame him for going the other way, and I don’t think that necessarily reflects negatively on baseball. It reflects on his individual circumstances (those of a unicorn), self-assessment and character.
I greatly envy his abilities. I can’t say the same about the decision that the 21 y/o is faced with.
Let’s also not forget that NFL contracts aren’t guaranteed and that NFL careers are often far, far shorter than careers in baseball. If he does go NFL, there’s no guarantee that he’s going to end up with more money over his lifetime.
he’s not making the choice to make more money over his lifetime – he’d be choosing a larger amount guaranteed up front over the possibility of making more over the long haul.
The only way you make “real” money in baseball is by surviving until your first FA contract.
Murray is giving up a 4 million signing bonus and a few years of making $2000/month in the minors in order to get the guaranteed 8-10 million he’ll get by being drafted in the middle of the first round.
And i don’t think there’s any chance the guy lasts into the 20s in the NFL draft.
Murray is looking more likely to get garunteed 15MM as top 10 pick. #1 pick gets 35-40 $MM. The head coach of the cardinals just went on record a couple months ago saying he would take Murray 1-1.
Please tell me the last under-6 foot qb to be drafted in first round? I’m an avid football fan and literally can’t remember this happening.
You nailed it Hebrew, theres a safer floor in football along with a more realistic ceiling as a Qb to be payed Big- The Safer choice is football today if your Murray-
Only 2/3 of first rd draft picks even make ‘The Show”
Nice write up. Couldn’t help but notice Ramos 3 year wRC+ is 120. Last year was 131. He is projected for 106.
Also kind of surprising Posey is projected for 117 when his 3 year mark is 116.
I don’t trust Posey’s Steamer projection at all, but a lot of that is the defensive side. They’re projecting him to blow away his previous defensive total by over 50% at age 32. There’s basically no chance that happens.
Yeah, that Posey def projection is crazy.
He was really bad in 2015 though.
I wonder if and when Jeff signs with a major league team there will be this big “aha” moment where he is like “Oh, so this is how MLB teams value players.” Because it seems like year in, year out we are proven that this cost per WAR is horribly inaccurate/wrong.
So there are a few issues going on here. The first is that the $/win number is calculated incorrectly most of the time. What a lot of calculations do is take the average salaries and wins from the free agent class the previous year, when what they should do is take the prospective valuation of players (since that is what teams believe they are paying for when they sign a player). Here, it looks like Grandal is being valued at about $6M per win. That doesn’t seem all that far off for position players–Brantley is getting $32M for a projection of about 4.5 wins, so about $7M per win (if you think he’s 2.5 this year and 2 next year). Murphy’s projected for 1.9ish wins this year, and got $24M, so if you peg him for about 3.4 wins over two years that gets you to about $7M per win. This is low, but it’s not THAT much lower than what we’ve seen here (and likely in other offseasons too).
(pitchers, and especially relievers, are clearly valued differently, which is a whole other ball of wax).
The second issue is that I’m not confident teams and players don’t negotiate on $/win. Sure, that factors into it, and I’m sure it makes its way into the process, but a lot of it is just whatever you can get the other side to accept before going in a different direction. Teams likely figure out how much they want to improve by (in terms of their own WAR/win curve calculations), how much of a budget they have, and then try to get as close as they can to improving without going over budget (and ideally paying as little as they have to). $/win likely gives them a guide as to whether it’s a good deal or not, but I’m not sure they’re expecting to hit those numbers exactly, and ideally teams would prefer to end up much lower than them.
(One other issue: And even if they were to negotiate on $/win do teams share their proprietary versions of WAR with the agents? I don’t necessarily think they do. )
Something overlooked here is that a strictly rational team should not pay a player based on that player’s “abstract” WAR [calculated relative to the league replacement level] but rather based on their production relative to their internal options [internal replacement level or whatever]. It’s entirely possible for a team to face a 0-WAR “true” replacement level; however, the Brewers don’t appear to. Per BP WARP, their catchers [Pina + Kratz] put together 3.7 wins last year. Based on aging and regression, maybe they can reasonably expect something like 2-3 wins this year. If Grandal is worth 4-5 wins this year, then we’re still seeing a team pay $10M per win [above Brewer-replacement-level].
I made the same point in the comments a couple days ago, but not as clearly as this comment. 100% agree!
I think teams also likely have a spectrum where they value a guy’s 25th, 75th, 99th, etc. percentile projections. That’s why Corbin got so much and why Harvey got anything.
It seems like you have to make this (good) point on every $/WAR comment, and I don’t mean that in the sense that you feel compelled to do so. It’s a rational point, and I wish it didn’t have to be made every time, but it seems like this $/cost of a win hangup that people have just won’t die.
I really wish I didn’t have to make it on every comment either. But it drives me insane. I am hoping that we can convince Dan to run projections for the life of the contracts signed and we can evaluate $/win directly ourselves because while the $/win is a really useful framework, the shift away from using projections (which Dave did in the old days) to a retrospective calculation is just the wrong way to do it.
I also wish the fangraphs articles on trades/signings would get back to doing some objective, methodological evaluations of baseball transactions. The internet has enough subjective think pieces. Sure, if the authors want to insert their opinions about broader market narratives in the articles, fine. But at least go through the motions in part of the article of telling readers the on-the-field competitive implications of the transaction.
There was one where Dan ran projections for a guy for the next few years as part of it. That gave it something to hang its hat on. I think that most of them do this to a certain extent, even this one. But I do think that there is a lot more to write with this one as well.
So you’re arguing for FG to be less interesting? Weird choice but sure. Saying that, for pretty much every major transaction, they do the objective stuff too, don’t they? Can you point me in the direction of a transaction that had a particularly weak write up?
‘And even if they were to negotiate on $/win do teams share their proprietary versions of WAR with the agents? I don’t necessarily think they do’
This what makes BVW interesting, to me (an agent turned GM). He certainly hit the ground running, almost like a kid in a candy store.
Agents may not have a teams proprietary info, but they have their own. And having access to both is an interesting test case (no matter how bad a team is, in that regard – the gap has certainly tightened) .
Wilson Ramos got more guaranteed money than Yasmani Grandal… free agency may not be broken, but it’s definitely buggy.
Grandal could have certainly received a lot more over two years from someone than Ramos received from the Mets. But it would appear that since noone wanted to give him a bank-breaking long-term contract, his strategy is to take another crack at free agency again next year. There is nothing wrong with free agency – it is a leverage game, and Grandal overplayed his hand. Capitalism is sometimes a tad messy.
The only offer we definitely know about is the one he signed. We can’t make assumptions based on leaks from interested parties (his agent?). He signed the best offer he got, like they all do.
Why should we care about “more guaranteed money” without considering contract length? If Grandal can survive 2019 without getting the yips or going to prison, his 2019-2020 earnings will eclipse Ramos’s.
On a Mets-related note, they gave Bobby Bonilla more “guaranteed money” than either player – just over a 35-year term.
I cannot believe that this was the best deal offered. It makes zero sense.
It could be the best ONE year deal offered. But there have to have been multi-year deals on the table for less than Grandal thought he was worth. Maybe Mets at 4/60 was more rumor than real, but too many teams need catchers. Someone(s) offered him a $30-$40M guarantee, and he just thought he could do better next year.
Unless he got final offers (or a definite “no”) from the Braves, Dodgers, Astros, Padres, Rays, and Reds, there’s simply no other reason to sign this deal, and certainly no reason to sign it in early January.
This was all he got. Some people need to take a step back and look whats going on big picture. The direction FA is trending is not good.
Why?
Obviously it is bad when the top free agents turn down these low offers and then deprive baseball and us fans of their talents and go back to their day jobs as Walmart greeters.
Every single free agent worth a damn will sign. Oddly low contracts for a player or two are meaningless. Grandal “accepted” over 18 million. Maybe if he was 38 and had balky knees and had a lifetime earning over 150 million, he says “no” and walks away from the sport. Short contracts are good for the sport. Good for fans. Good for teams. Not so good for the players, but still much better than any other career option they may have.
You are misssing the big picture. the players and the owners need to be happy. Right now the owners are screwing the players and the players are pissed. Us fans want both happy. A strike is all that is left if owners keep this up and that does not benefit the fans.
I want the owners happy, but i also want the players happy. Owners are currently robbing the players and also the public with these new tax funded stadiums every 15 years. A strike is coming in 2 years with new cba due to players being upset. book it. That is terrible for MLB and terrible to us fans. Unless somthing drastic changes next year, this FA is garbage…so was last one too.
No, I think you are missing the big picture, and reading too many garbage articles from Heyman, SI, and (unfortunately/increasingly) closer to home.
When the MLBPA economists and lawyers look at the actual numbers, they won’t be so pissed.
Here’s a news flash for why there won’t be a strike – the MLBPA and MLB already agree (and have a history of agreeing) on the broad goal of MLB players getting ~50% of total MLB revenues in salaries/benefits, and all players (including minor leaguers) getting ~56% of total MLB revenues. No one is going to rock that boat, and no one is going to kill the golden goose to try to radically change those percentages.
The only question once there is broad agreement on 50% is how to structure the CBA to make that happen for the life of the CBA.
The only thing that *may* be happening now is that teams have increasingly figured out that FA contracts are the least efficient place to spend money and that players are more substitutable than previously assumed, and so it has created downward pressure on FA salaries and players *might* start getting less than 50% overall.
If that is actually true (and evidence so far has been pretty weak), then there are a multitude of ways that the parties can get back to 50% – e.g., minimum salaries can be increased, which is easy to do conceptually and will be effective, since no teams employ fewer than the 25-men allowed by MLB rosters. That is just one example – there are lots of ways to tweak the system.
Again, people who think there will be a strike don’t understand why complex disputes don’t settle. If it is true that the current system is *not* resulting in ~50% of the revenues going to players, the owners will agree to tweak the system so that they do get 50%. There is no evidence the players would strike over getting 55% and no evidence the owners would lock the players out rather than give the players the 50% that has been agreed to in past CBAs.
By the way, the players love taxpayer-funded stadiums as much as the owners do, and join in the benefits/revenues from them.
Wrong. You don’t even have to be an mlb fan to see that the spending is not there. There have been several articles written about how the mlb finagles the accounting to show they pay 50%. Reality is the MLB players get about 30%.
I’ll respectfully disagree with this:
“[a] Right now the owners are screwing the players and [b] the players are pissed”
On the former I think you are wrong and on the latter I don’t know.
I think the owners are finding market-clearing free agent prices more efficiently. I don’t think that’s “screwing”.
To keep it on topic to Grandal, even if this reported Mets offer is true, I am not sure that “The direction FA is trending is not good” for him. IE, if he plays reasonably well this year he could very plausibly stand to do better than 40/3 next year.
Or he could continue to go year-to-year. Which would inherently mean bearing more risk – but that’s the nature of these transactions: figure out risk and reward for each counterparty.
On the latter, are the players pissed? Well … maybe. Probably, even. But if so, it seems to me that they are mostly pissed about a labor agreement that they negotiated and voluntarily committed to.
If I were Tony Clark, would I have personally have (allegedly) prioritized better food in the clubhouse over, say, one less year of team control? I’m being flippant, but you get the point.
The owners are playing by the rules of the game. That the players agreed to. They may not have fully thought through the implications. But that’s not “screwing”.
(As has been written elsewhere, the party that is most taken advantage of in my view are the minor league players. Who the MLBPA has been completely content to ignore as they pursue their own self-interest).
Yasmani Grandal according to BP is the best catcher in the game. He put up 5 bWAR, higher than anyone else. He’s a free agent, and the best offer he could get was a 1 year deal for 18$MM. this is not good. He should’ve had teams kicking the door down opening up the bank for him. Something is really wrong with teams not wanting to spend. Jeff Borris had an excellent article about this the other day. Not good.
I don’t think short contracts benefit fans. The constant churn makes it harder for teams to connect with kids (and others) to create long term interest via popular players or just consistency. People root for laundry but they don’t like it being rubbed in their faces either (by taking it to an extreme). Also: what’s bad for fans is equally bad for teams, it’s a symbiotic relationship.
More and more fans, though, are becoming educated to the economic side of the game and would rather see their team win than root for singular players (excepting their fantasy teams, in which case they want both). Players come and go, whether via retirement, trade, injury, or sucking. Teams (mostly) stay in one locale for the average fan’s lifetime.
I’m not saying that certain players don’t become fan favorites by any means, but I think it’s far less upsetting nowadays that a star player leaves when most fans realize that their team can still be successful without them, especially when they can still see said player play pretty much whenever they want (barring blackouts).
Yeah, there’s six teams reported hot on Realmuto, and Grandal settles for a glorified QO in early January? Who’s his agent?
My problem isn’t the contract, but that I expect him to sign it in March if his market goes unexpectedly cold. I don’t understand what the rush to sign this 1yr guarantee is. Is it not worth risking a couple million from the March 1yr offer to see if the 3-4yr offer approaching this AAV materializes over the next two months?
You say “glorified QO” like that’s a bad outcome. There is a reason some players accept the QO, and others regret not accepting it.
Unless a player is a bonafide superstar, the qualifying offer is a risk/reward proposition. You can choose the certainty of a 1/~$18M contract, or you forfeit that certainty to test the waters of free agency.
Grandal basically ended best of both worlds: he still had a 1/~$18M offer in hand a month later, but had seen enough from free agency to be satisfied by simply accepting that one-year deal.
i’d guess he got a bunch of multi-year offers, but they’d all be deflated on what was obviously a down year with a bad ending… grandal probably thinks (accurately) that if he can get through next season with his regular hitting and fewer defensive hiccups, he will, ultimately, make a lot more money…
but if he can’t catch, he’s not worth much…& right now, there’s a big chunk of value he’s losing because he needs to prove he can still do the job… because at this point he’s like the catcher in major league who can’t throw the ball back to the pitcher…
Are all the details out on this? I wonder if he has a “No-QO” clause in this Brewers deal and wants to re-establish his defensive chops and test free agency without the QO. Total speculation on my part, just throwing it out there.
He can’t be QOed a 2nd time.
Players can only be QO’d once in their career under the current CBA https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-qualifying-offer-rules-explained/c-259650658
It was the best year of his career (3.6 fWAR), for what it’s worth, not a down year.
This seems similar to the Brewers’ off-season plan from last year: add to a position where they already have decent depth while ignoring what appear to be more obvious holes.
Last year, they added Cain and Yelich despite having Santana, Broxton, and Braun already in the outfield, while ignoring their lack of depth in the rotation. This year, they added Grandal, even though they already had Manny Pina and Erik Kratz. Granted, Pina and Kratz are offensively limited, but Baseball Prospectus had them combining for 3.7 WAR last year, primarily because their defense was so good. Getting 3.7 WAR from the catcher position is hardly terrible, so Grandal might not be quite as large of an upgrade as many expect. And meanwhile, the rotation again goes unaddressed.
This isn’t meant as a criticism, of course; it’s hard to argue with the results from last year’s strategy. But I do wonder if pitchers like Burnes and Woodruff will be able to supply the same kind of magic that Chacin and Miley provided to make the strategy work last season.
Just wondering who that available pitcher upgrades the Brewer’s staff versus the cost to acquire said SP? The returning starters are Chacin and Anderson. Jimmy Nelson was really good in 2017, and needs a spot in 2019 if healthy. All of Burnes, Woodruff, and Peralta were well regarded prospects and need their opportunity to join the rotation. Davies, while a #4/#5, is still there. If Grandal represents a 2 win improvement over Pina/Kratz at $18mm, what available pitcher has that same impact and at same cost ($ and/or prospects)?
This obviously depends on what you think of the Brewers’ rotation. Steamer hates them all. I see them more as having about five #4 starters, plus Nelson (who could be anything from an ace to not playing at all) and Anderson (who I have no idea what he’s gonna be).
So if you have a rotation full of 2-win starters, who improves them? The short answer is: Nobody who doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. The only pitcher out there on the FA market who is going to upgrade the rotation is Keuchel, and he’s a 3+ win pitcher who is going to be expensive. The other option is to trade for someone like Kluber, and in theory he should be available based on what Cleveland was willing to take back from NYY for Carrasco, but I wouldn’t move him for anything less than an eye-popping return. It’ll start with one of the Burnes/Peralta/Woodruff trio, and who knows how high it will go from there.
Wait, are you saying the Brewers have a rotation of 2 WAR starters? Because the depth charts don’t think any of their starters will touch that mark.
Yeah, Steamer hates their rotation. Really, really hates it. If you think they’re all back-end guys like Steamer does, then improving it becomes a lot easier.
Jimmy Nelson is healthy this year so I’ll take the over on him.
That’s really the point I was making. The other rumor is a trade for Madison Bumgarner would cost $12mm/1 year and prospect(s). While he potentially has Verlander type bounce back to elite status, he’s probably not a huge upgrade either. Also, it’s plausible that the Brewers best 5 SPs don’t include Anderson or Davies (Chacin, Nelson, and the 3 younger guys).
Of course, there’s a high probability they’ll be unconventional in their pitcher usage, perhaps Knebel or Hader leads them in starts for 2019, and don’t count out Erik Kratz getting more time on bump (2.83 FIP in 2018) now that Grandal is in the fold.
Morton and Happ both project to be 2-win improvements over Anderson, and both signed short-term deals with AAVs less than what the Brewers paid for Grandal. If the Brewers *had* decided to target rotation improvements in free agency, either would have been a good fit.
If all Grandal cost them was money and an inconsequential draft pick, why couldn’t they then turn around and trade one (or both) of Pina/Kratz for pitching help? Another team might be more amenable to trading for a cheap, defensively-minded catcher than spending that much and losing what may be a more valuable pick.
But he had a better deal offered. he turned it down whether because the Mets are a joke (they are) or he thought he could do better (he couldn’t) he made a decision and left a lot of money on the table. I can’t get too worked about him not having multiple teams offer that because the best offer wasn’t exactly where he wanted it to be. Life is sacrifice. Bigger issue is with so many teams tanking there are never anyone but a few contenders vying for free agents and then those get dwindled down to the few looking for help at that position and it really shouldn’t be a surprise teams weren’t putting on a huge courtship for him or Ramos.
I thought I remembered legitimate argument at the time Grandal was offered the QO that he might take the QO, and hit the market again next year, since the QO would provide a higher AAV than he was likely to get. And that’s very close to what happened here, except that the market valued Grandal as slightly greater than the QO amount given that the Brewers also gave up a draft pick (in addition to slightly beating the QO amount). So, perhaps the Brewers valued him at $19.5-$20MM for 2019. Not sure that legitimate debate a few months ago really squares with the tone of this piece.
Some other things that the article might have mentioned –
Grandal will have the fourth-highest salary in baseball for a catcher, behind Posey, Yadi, and the aforementioned Russell.
The Brewers are currently poised to have their highest team salary ever next year, by a lot. More evidence that small-market teams will spend and set new team records for spending depending on whether and how they can improve their team. The Brewers were in exactly the right spot in the win curve and had a very poor C situation for 2019, which no doubt pushed them to spend on Grandal.
The Brewers trade for Alex Claudio likely helped to facilitate this signing, as it would have cost the Brewers more (perhaps too much) to sign Grandal if they hadn’t already shipped away their competitive balance pick.
It’s a bit odd to mention the Russell contract as some sort of benchmark, since overall it has been a bad contract. A reasonably fair but crude lesson to take away from Russell’s contract is “don’t sign early-thirties FA catchers to 5-year contracts” even if they seem to be still athletic (as Russell was sold as).
I don’t understand the unsupported claim that the Mets’ reported offer to Grandal was far-fetched. Consistent reporting from different reporters came out saying it was 4yrs and just under $60MM. Indeed, part of the discrepancy as between high 50’s and 60MM was supposedly due to counting contract incentives. Regardless, if Grandal’s agents had accepted a 4yr/56MM deal earlier in FA, Grandal’s name would be right next to the other names Jeff lists (Corbin, Lynn, McCutchen, etc.) as evidence that the FA market was healthy as ever. The reason that didn’t happen was Grandal’s agents, not some failure of the overall market.
You’re right. It was speculated that he’d take the QO and try again next year by commenters on this very site, for what it’s worth.
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-free-agency-analysis-fangraphs-doesnt-want-you-to-read/
I also didn’t read this article as having the viewpoint that I’ve seen elsewhere – that this signing was a product of a broken system and owner collusion. It is just curious, really no matter how you slice it.
Perhaps though, Grandal was seriously considering what some speculated. He could take the QO, make $17mil this year and hit the open market again next year while still relatively young. Maybe the multi-year offers weren’t too his liking from an AAV + length standpoint, and he decided he liked his chances of fielding similar offers next year after already collecting $18mil this year, rather than trying to jump back in in three years and having made $30-$40mil.
Thanks for posting the link.
Hell, Kiley said that Grandal had “a market for multi-year deals but at a lower AAV and likely well under $50 million guaranteed.” Then Grandal actually got a reported offer for more than 50MM guaranteed (despite Kiley’s view of Grandal’s market), turned it down, and then (basically) did exactly what Kiley said he was a “threat” to do – he took a 1-yr/~$18MM contract.
Obviously, Kiley and Jeff are different people and can have different opinions about things, but Jeff’s current incredulity about Grandal’s signing just doesn’t square with what the discussion was just two months ago.
Didn’t the crowdsourcing and Kiley have Grandal’s market at 3 years and ~$39 to $45 million?
First, Grandal (reportedly) got a much better offer than that. But moreover, it would make complete sense for Grandal to take $18MM for 2019, and expect to sign better than a 2yr/22MM contract next offseason, after throwing off the yoke of the QO. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if Grandal had 3yr offers in that range but simply turned them down.
Great comments above; in totality, I don’t see taking something above the QO as a bad gambit or in any way an indication of a broken system. He wanted more or longer, didn’t get it, and will take a very nice 1 year payday and get back to it.
Which led to a thought in my head. Grandal gets off to a good, sane, non-MVP near projections start – meaning that he’s doing very well and is one of the top 5 C’s in the game. Say he likes the Brewers, for whatever reason (chemistry, manager, front office, owner, beer & brats, whatever. Stearns floats him a 3/$40 extension, effectively offering him back the Mets contract. What does one say in that circumstance?
While my gut says no, I just feel like there might be an incentive to get back to the bird in the hand, if you will, particularly if he’s just doing (admittedly very good) Grandal and not changing perception. At $13 per, counting the $18.25 front end as sunk cost, that would seem to be an intriguing play for the Crew.
Not sure I’d argue the Martin contract is bad. He earned 8 WAR in 4 years and that doesn’t include his defensive value. Seems like a pretty fair contract.
Yeah, this comes up a lot. Martin was average-ish last year, he just had a terrible BA. And he was better the years before. Martin’s contract was structured to give him the higher salaries later. This does not mean that Martin has a bad contract right now, it just means his relatively fair contract overall is ending in 2019. Not like the Jays are spending that 2019 budget anywhere else aside from Tulo’s release money.
My interpretation of Jeff’s comment about the Mets’ 4 year / $55 to $60 million offer being “far-fetched” is that the observed behavior of players is that they overwhelmingly find such an offer (lower AAV, but much higher total guarantee) far more appealing than Grandal’s deal with the Brewers.
Granted, there are some possible explanations.
Maybe Grandal’s personal preferences make him an unusual outlier.
Maybe Grandal’s agent simply screwed up by misreading that the Mets would move on to sign Ramos rather than snapping up an offer that offered far more guaranteed money than the next highest multi-year offer, though it strikes me as a bit odd that an agent would be savvy enough to talk a team up to an outlier offer (versus others on the table) but also foolish enough not to jump on getting that deal done.
The explanation is pretty straightforward though. The Mets offered an outline of a contract in the 4yr/mid-to-high fifties MM range, but Grandal’s agents wanted to push them up to $65MM. Then the Mets balked and pivoted to Ramos (the Mets were probably already talking to Ramos at the time, but who knows).
It seems very reasonable that Grandal’s agents thought they could negotiate the Mets up to $65MM without losing the ability to take the Mets’ offer in the fifties, especially given the relatively early point in the offseason when this was being discussed. Grandal’s agents could have (reasonably) thought the worst outcome was that the Mets would hold firm in their lower range, not that they would disengage altogether and move to another target.
Sure, it was a miscalculation by Grandal’s agents, but it’s not a far-fetched or implausible one.
they shouldve balked. The top 3 catcher in the MLB only offered 15 $MM /yr? (#1 according to bWARp) Something is wrong.
Still, it seems like the potential market was rather small this offseason. Craig Edwards from last week after the Jonathan Lucroy signing:
“A lot of contenders could still use Grandal’s services, but Cleveland has been cutting costs and already traded away an inexpensive catcher. The Phillies, Padres, and Diamondbacks have top catching prospects at or near the big leagues, while the Dodgers have two of the best prospects in baseball not too far away. The Rangers aren’t trying to compete. The Red Sox make a lot of sense, but the team is already really good and signing Grandal would put them in the 72.5% tax range . . .. The Rockies would also make a lot of sense. The Astros probably still do despite the addition of Chirinos, and the Brewers could get in the mix, like they did when they signed Lorenzo Cain a year ago. The White Sox are probably a dark horse, particularly if they don’t get Manny Machado or Bryce Harper. If Grandal can’t find the good multi-year deal his play deserves, a one-year reunion with the Dodgers might make some sense as well.”
That doesn’t mention the Rays, Braves or Reds, who are all rumored Realmuto participants.
Yeah, I think Craig just focused on teams with the lowest projected fWAR at the catcher position. The Reds project to yield 2.4 fWAR at the position, ranking them 16th in the MLB. All of the teams discussed project to be worse than the Reds, except for the White Sox.
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/with-jonathan-lucroy-signing-yasmani-grandal-market-shrinks/
Oops, I just saw Red. Ranking and fWAR at catcher’s position:
13 (tied). Rays (2.5 fWAR)
13 (tied). Braves (2.5 fWAR)
16. Reds (2.4 fWAR)
The reason why the Reds would be interested in Realmuto but not Grandal is that the Reds can offload Tucker Barnhart’s contract in a trade for Realmuto, but can’t do that by signing Grandal. Moreover, Realmuto is something like $10MM cheaper for 2019.
I concur 100% with Jeff’s analysis. Yasmani Grandal is the most likely candidate to be the best catcher in major league baseball in 2019. He is a comparable offensive player to Realmuto, an overall better defender, and a far better framer.
The fact that teams keep on trying engage with the Marlins on Realmuto instead of paying for Grandal is a sign that something is really wrong. There are a large number of teams who really could have used him–the Rockies, Red Sox and Astros, and Phillies all made sense to a certain degree. So did the Brewers, so it’s not a huge surprise to see him wind up there. This is an offseason where Andrew McCutchen got 3/$50M, and there’s definitely more teams that need a catcher than need a corner outfielder.
From the Brewers’ perspective, I think this has to be considered a pretty big win for them. It’s a playoff contending team that also had some pretty big holes, and now they’ve plugged one with arguably the best player at his position. The Nationals traded a definitely okay prospect to Cleveland for the right to pay Yan Gomes about half this, so it looks like a great deal for Milwaukee.
I do wonder, however, about the decision for both sides to go for a one-year deal at that AAV instead of a longer-term deal. The Brewers now are going to have the largest payroll in their team’s history at the same time they don’t have anyone who could conceivably be a major league catcher under control for 2020…but they also don’t clog up the long-term ledger. Grandal gets a big one-year deal and a chance to score a nice deal next offseason, but now he has to hope whatever crushed him this offseason doesn’t do the same next time when he’s a year older. I can see how one or both sides might prefer a short-term deal, but also how one or both sides might have preferred, say, a 4/$44M deal. There’s definitely some interesting stuff going on behind the scenes that hasn’t been reported yet and that I can’t quite figure out from the basics of the deal.
I think you’re right in speculating that he is betting on himself, but I don’t know that it’s obvious that he was “crushed” this offseason. We don’t know what multi-year offers he had on the table.
What’s the likelihood that, should his performance and health remain steady, that offers change significantly for a 30 y/o C versus the 29 y/o he is now? It might be a shrewd decision to take the big money now and wait one extra year to take the safety of a multi-year, lower AAV deal. It’s an interesting gamble on his part considering his volatility, but not a crazy one.
I also don’t buy that the system is broken. Martin’s contract makes this look bad, but consider that Martin had compiled nearly double the fWAR of Grandal when he signed his contract (29.4 for Martin versus 15.2 for Grandal), and had put up four 4+ fWAR seasons, three of which were 4.9+, and he was coming off of 9.0 fWAR combined in the two seasons prior to his signing. Grandal’s best season was last year where he put up 3.6, but 2017 was less encouraging (2.5), and the offense was far more “average” in 2017. Then factor in the fact that, despite all this, Martin’s contract has been bad for Toronto, and you can understand teams perhaps treading more lightly without needing to blame the system or ownership collusion / greed (not that you blamed either explicitly).
He’s a good player, but he’s not 2015 Russell Martin. And 2019* knows what 2015 Russell Martin turned into.
Baseball Prospectus who values catchers correctly imo shows Grandal as the best C in MLB this past year putting up a 5 bWARp. 2nd best was Realmuto with 4.3 bWARp. Grandal had DRC+ 115 to Realmuto DRC+ 113.
Really unbelievable a catcher of that caliber barely getting 18$MM.
Are they double counting catcher framing impact on pitcher WARP?
Why do you think $60M/4Year offer from the Mets is far-fetched?
Also, regarding Clutch numbers, I think there is reason to believe that a slow player with low AVG/high ISO tends to be less clutch.
What teams have to give up to sign Grandal
Brewers: pick 104
Rockies: pick 76
Astros: pick 69 and $0.5M international free agent money
Angels: pick 55 and $0.5M international free agent money
Mets: pick 52 and $0.5M international free agent money
Even if the Angels and the Brewers value Grandal equally, the QO does limit what the Angels would be willing to pay by several million.
I think too many people are obsessed with the total amount and not realizing that Grandal’s salary would be 27th among all hitters.
If he is not going to get $60M/4 years, then I think it is the right call to get a high AAV 1 year deal (compared to say $30M/2 years) to get rid of the QO and come back to the market when he is still young and healthy.
Well, sort of young, and we don’t know if he’s going to be healthy. But I do agree that there’s no point for him signing a 2-year deal–he either should be maximizing his AAV on a one-year deal or maximizing his overall guaranteed money.
It’s also worth noting that while the three year numbers are strong, he is just one season removed from a very weak 2017 relative to his own standards. The wRC+ was 102, but the oWAR was actually a negative on the back of a brutal .308 OBP (Again, relative to his own production. He’s a career is .341).
Don’t get me wrong – he’s good, especially at catcher. But we’re not very far removed from seeing his floor, which looks more like Yan Gomes (still solid, but not a big plus offensively) than JT Realmuto.
It’s one thing when league-average starters in their mid-30s can’t get big FA contracts, but this is gonna be one of the MLBPA’s primary arguments for change during the next CBA negotiations. Grandal’s well within his rights to ask for what Russell Martin got in 2015, especially since revenues have only continued to rise in the years since.
I posted above, but we seem to have forgotten (or never realized) how good Martin was prior to his signing. Perhaps because age, injury and that dang turf in Toronto have caught up with him.
“Consider that Martin had compiled nearly double the fWAR of Grandal when he signed his contract (29.4 for Martin versus 15.2 for Grandal), and had put up four 4+ fWAR seasons, three of which were 4.9+, and he was coming off of 9.0 fWAR combined in the two seasons prior to his signing. Grandal’s best season was last year where he put up 3.6, but 2017 was less encouraging (2.5), and the offense was far more ‘average’ in 2017. Then factor in the fact that, despite all this, Martin’s contract has been bad for Toronto, and you can understand teams perhaps treading more lightly without needing to blame the system or ownership collusion / greed (not that you blamed either explicitly).
He’s a good player, but he’s not 2015 Russell Martin. And 2019* knows what 2015 Russell Martin turned into.”
-Me
This is a good take, although I’d argue the Martin contract hasn’t been bad for Toronto. He’s created $64M in value, and been paid $62M.
I’d agree it’s not likely he adds $18M next year so he won’t create surplus value, but the contract is much closer to “break even” than “bad”.
Yes, while I’m not intimately familiar with the math assigned to $ per Win, he has been more productive than I had recalled in his time in Toronto. Apologies for the misleading hyperbole.
I wonder if the perception that a “smart ” FO like the Dodgers seemed not interested in bringing Grandal back was a signal to the other teams.
And the fact he was relegated to the bench when it mattered most by said “smart team” I really think this factor is being downplayed a touch in here right or wrong
It’s kinda stupid to blindly assume that your competitor knows best, when you might make out like a bandit if they’re wrong. If they seriously make decisions based on the assumption that the Dodgers are smarter than they are they shouldn’t be in their jobs. If they make decisions based on the assumption that teams know the most about their own players, and if they choose to not keep one then that player sucks, they shouldn’t be in their jobs.
The point is that it’s not “blind assumption.” It’s objective evidence to be considered in addition to whatever the team can see for itself.
Indeed, it’s rather good evidence since the Dodgers have every motivation in the world to put the best possible team it can on the field in the playoffs, and the Dodgers are surely using every possible resource they have to make the best decision on how to accomplish that, and given those two things, they benched Grandal.
And even with that, Grandal just became the 4th highest paid catcher in baseball for 2019, and was signed by a FO widely seen as one of the most analytically savvy.
Perhaps important to recall that replacement level is abstract in the aggregate, but each team faces different replacement levels based on their specific situation. So, it’s unhelpfully reductive to say Grandal is a 3 or 4-win player -> Grandal can expect a $30 or $40 M AAV.
Relying on BP WARP [which includes framing], the Brewers’ catchers were worth 3.7 wins [Kratz = 2.1, Pina = 1.6]. Grandal was a 5-win player. Baking in playing time adjustments and regression by the Brewers’ duo, it’s pretty easy to get to a 2-win upgrade which costs ~$10M/win.
For HOU, Stassi + Chirinos were at about 3 WARP/600; for COL, Ianetta + Wolters were worth 4 WARP. LAA would have been a more obvious landing spot [particularly because Grandal presumably already has residence in LA], but Briceno + Smith were worth ~1.5 WARP last year — they’ve got that plus whatever Lucroy has left [FG depth charts say 1.7 WAR, although I’d expect that’s a bit high].
At least among these teams, I don’t know that I see more than a 2-win upgrade. More than anything, this is to say that Grandal’s case isn’t particularly strong evidence that the $/WAR framework for understanding transactions is broken [or at least, it’s not nearly as broken as MLB’s FA regime].
To figure out the upgrade you take the better of the 2 on last season’s roster (Kratz = 2.1, Pina = 1.6 for MIL) and ADD the amount that the new 2nd catcher brings. This brings you to 2.1 + 5 if Kratz and Grandal replicate last year’s numbers. Therefore the upgrade is 7.1 – 3.7 = 3.4, substantially better than 2.
Nope, that’s not it — you need to prorate production relative to playing time. Kratz + Grandal = 737 plate appearances which is probably ~100 too many. I’d also probably bet against Kratz repeating his ~6-win WARP/600 pace.
That’s not how replacement level is viewed because the Brewers can trade the excess value in the contracts of Kratz and or Pina to fill another need, such as SP. Unless a team has above replacement level players at all positions at the major and AAA levels the conventional definition works.
I do think there’s some surplus value in a strict $/WAR sense on the Kratz and Pina contracts [$1.5M + minimum @ first-year arb eligibility, respectively]. However, I don’t know that the Brewers would find a suitor interested in a 1.5ish win backup catcher. The market isn’t frictionless.
A’s should love a 1.5 Win catcher.
“I know that Grandal looked bad in the playoffs. […] Teams don’t make decisions based on clutch performances, though”
Is there a reason to be so sure about this? It kind of seems like the postseason embarrassment is the most glaringly obvious factor that might’ve caused Grandal’s market value to shrink, which is what we’re seemingly looking to explain here. I know all the various arguments why we don’t think teams _should_ make decisions this way but I do not see, at least at first glance, why I should be convinced that, in this case, they _didn’t_.
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2019-top-50-free-agents/
Here’s Fangraphs FA article from November. The median crowd and Kiley estimates were in the 3yr/$39-45MM range, and there was thought that Grandal would take the 1yr/$18MM QO.
Based on what has happened, it doesn’t look like Grandal’s market shrank at all and no explanation of his shrinking market value is needed. Rather, his market looks to have been about what was expected (and Grandal could have beaten the market estimate had he taken the Mets’ offer). Grandal accepting the Brewers’ >$18MM offer certainly doesn’t mean he didn’t have offers in the 3yr/$40MM range.
I mean, there was a fairly well-sourced report saying he has an offer of at least 4/$50M, perhaps higher. I think that’s pretty close.
Im with you 100% and think this is being downplayed in here a touch. Its not like this was just last year I mean it was basically the same story 2017- Most teams willing to spend 18 mill a year on a player have reservations on making the playoffs and obv want major contributions from that player when they get there-
off-topic, but did I miss when the comments no longer turned green/red?
And when the font size for responses got smaller?
“Over his first 27 games in the playoffs, Barry Bonds had an OPS of .618. From that point forward, over another 21 games in the playoffs, he had an OPS of 1.446. ”
Well gee, I wonder why…..
Postseason Bonds through 1997: .200/.323/.288, 1 HR in 80 AB (Age 25-32)
Postseason Bonds 2000-On: .296/.527/.746, 8 HR in 71 AB (Age 35-38)
Somehow I think Grandal might just require a little ‘help’ to get that kind of stat boost.
Whoa. So my big takeaway from this is that Russell Martin is still projected as an above-league-average hitter (okay at 101%) for 2019, as well as a plus defender.
Absolute steal by the Brewers. Maybe the sucker will be the team that trades for Realmuto, as it might come out to costing more than $18 mil for one year, if all things are equal.
A catcher in his thirties who repeatedly screwed the pooch on national TV in the World Series gets $18.25 million in salary for one lousy year and some of you don’t think that it’s enough? OMG
Not just the passed balls – Grandal has 8 postseason hits in 92 career PA, with 35 strikeouts. 16 walks bring him up all the way up to .107/.264/.200. It’s not a big sample size, but it’s about 20% of a starting catcher’s regular season workload. Remember, Fangraphs glossary page says K% stabilizes after about only 60 PA, BB% after about 120 PA.
Grandal is a comfortably mid-20s K% player during the regular season who accumulates value with 20+ HR power and a nice walk rate. If you look at his pitch type info, he is below average against almost every other pitch in almost every single season, besides the fastball.
The pitching is better in the postseason, and you’ve got even more matchup based PA. Maybe Grandal is viewed as a well above average regular in the regular season, and someone whose particular profile just doesn’t work when he’s more like a low contact 35 K% type in the postseason. His secondary skills are excellent for a catcher, but they’re not THAT good that he’s a well above average regular with a Gallo-ian K rate.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Grandal gets gassed as the year goes on. I remember a couple years ago he basically stopped hitting by the end of the season. I think you very well could count on him for 500 PAs a year, which you probably can’t do for any guy other than Realmuto and Posey, but the ideal situation is a time-share that would keep him fresh for the playoffs. Let’s see if that happens.
That’s a possible factor I didn’t consider, too. Grandal appeared in 140 games last year. Just picking another guy who comes to mind, Salvador Perez was terrific his first year as an age 23 starter, and appeared in 138 games. They pushed him up to 150 (!) in 2014 and that begins a five year stretch of negative Off values for WAR, age 24-28, even as his ISO has gradually crept up towards and into the .200s. The Royals had some terrible backups these years; the Dodgers didn’t. Maybe Grandal would look more like himself if the Dodgers hadn’t waited until October for more Barnes.
And I think he’s a very good player at a barren position. I don’t mean to dump on the guy. QO/FA compensation has to be a primary factor for the circumstances causing the Grandal contract, but I’m willing to believe that postseason performance, or perhaps guesswork at how regular season performance may or may not translate to postseason performance, does play into player evaluation. A 4.00 ERA is a useful pitcher for getting to the postseason; if you expect that to be, say, a 5.00 ERA in a postseason talent pool, it’s a less valuable pitcher than an alternative, all other things being equal.
I concur 100% and well written Red – As a dodger fan and having seen over 1000 abs from Grandal personally I can tell you hes a mistake pitch hitter and that just doesnt happen much in the playoffs- There were sooooo many times in the postseason all we needed was a ground ball to second base to move a runner along/in and what did we get…. the killer K of cource
Why aren’t the Phillies in on a catcher? Alfaro has some tools but the plate discipline and contact profile is pretty horrific and he hits too many grounders to fully tap into his raw power. Maybe ochart can improve that but even then he is mike zunino.
The Phillies line-up definitely is a bit thin after Hoskins and getting grandal or realmuto could have really helped them.
It must be amazing to be part of a sanctioned monopoly (league) / oligopoly (teams) that is so good at somehow all being on the same page and at being “disciplined”, as Buster Olney repeatedly and lovingly described Stearns today. How was this not a bidding war among several teams? Putting aside any labor/management stuff momentarily, this amazingly simultaneously “disciplined” (yes I am strongly implying collusion) market is messing with the product on the field, something this dude can’t abide.
Look at Jeff’s first paragraph for a list of contracts this offseason that are tough to square with any sort of collusive market.
If there were in fact discussions with the Mets about 4 years with guaranteed money in the $55 to $60 million range, that makes a collusive market look even less likely. It’s actually a very strong sign that the free agent market is not collusive if there are some outlier bids well above other offers.
I just find it really hard to believe (without corroboration) that he turned down 4/60+. That would be insane so by Occam’s Razor I’m going with he signed his best offer like every free agent does. Or he just really refuses to be a Met, but that’s a lot of money even still. So it probably never happened. Did it get discussed? Maybe. A lot of stuff gets discussed. Did he refuse to sign a written offer for 4 / 60? I doubt it until proven otherwise.
Maybe they faxed the offer to the wrong number? Wouldn’t be the first time..
https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/ny-sports-crazy-suns-trade-marshon-brooks-20181214-story.html
Why wouldn’t he turn down 4/60, when he gets 3mil more this year and enters free agency again without the QO? As you said, Occam’s Razor.
I grant that he *may* not get 3/42 next year (which would make up the “loss”), but I’d bet that if he even approximates his usual production he’ll do better than that.
Occam’s Razor would actually tell you, simply, that Grandal got what he was worth on the market. Especially when his market ended up being (basically) exactly what was expected by the crowd and what Fangraphs’ lead FA market analyst (in this case, Kiley) predicted just two months ago.
Occam’s Razor would also tell you that widespread, secret conspiracy across every team in MLB that lots of FO people would need to know about but no one mentions outside the conspiracy is kooky and exceedingly unlikely.
Last, if you want a legal answer to your collusion point, all you’ve described (at best) is what’s called conscious parallelism, and in the antitrust world, that isn’t even enough evidence to keep your case in court past the very first time the defendants file motions to dismiss. In other words, as a matter of law, it is no evidence at all of collusion.
MLB and MLBPA both need to consider the best interests of minor league players in their next CBA negotiations, even though they are not a part of the MLBPA. Think of all the great prospects like Kyler Murray who are lost to other sports because of the higher risk and longer time horizon to MLB salaries that can be avoided by pursuing careers in other major league sports. If MLB owners don’t want to give one person half a billion dollars, fine – that doesn’t mean they can just spend less money and expect that it’s sustainable, or healthy for the sport. Remember: last time, they needed steroids to save the sport, and now we just tear the fingered players apart as if the owners and the players’ union had absolutely no responsibility for what happened.
Let’s pretend. Cubs now need to move a knight, or bishop to create a counter move. For the moment, let’s assume tomorrow the Cubs announce they signed Harper. So now for the crystal ball; Bryant, Rizzo, Contreras, Baez, remains the cornerstones. Give me their batting order on opening day.
How is the Cubs batting order in a hypothetical world where they sign Harper relevant to this article?
I really dont’ feel too bad for Grandal if he turned down a 4 year 50+ – What in the world did he expect? This is the same guy that was picking splinters out of his butt the last 2 years when all the marbles were on the line- He is basically a bad fastball hitter with a good eye who has an uncanny ability to shrivel up when the lights are the brightest-
Two years, that’s nothing. My Red Sox blew 7 years 210+ on a guy who shriveled up in the postseason practically every year of the 2010’s….
I can only imagine what the 2018 postseason would have been like without him 😉
If anyone has actual confirmed evidence of a 4/60 or 3/40s offer, I would love to see it. There is a lot of discussion about rumors here. I have no reason to believe he turned down any specific long term offer. He likely did what 99% of players do, which is sign the best offer available to him. Sure, that takes his preferences into account, but incentives matter and players almost always don’t leave lucrative mystery better offers on the table.
I actually think you’re onto something. It was reported by the LA Times that Grandal turned down the offer. It’s what a source told someone named Jorge Castillo, who, no offense bud, isn’t Ken Rosenthal or Jayson Stark. It was reported after Ramos had signed for 2/19. It seems entirely plausible that the Dodgers would want to put downward pressure on their negotiations with Grandal by floating a rumor of a rejected multiyear contract right after an aggressive suitor goes with a different catcher. An MLB team floating a rumor to affect public perception of a player or manager in negotiations? Why, that’s never happened before, not even once.
Rosenthal largely confirmed that report about a week ago:
“The report that free-agent catcher Yasmani Grandal rejected a four-year, $60MM proposal from the Mets earlier this winter is “essentially accurate,” Rosenthal writes. While the Mets didn’t submit a formal offer to Grandal, the two sides did discuss a deal in the $55MM to $60MM neighborhood, per Rosenthal, who adds the 30-year-old was aiming for a contract worth closer to $65MM. The Mets balked at Grandal’s request, though, and then signed the No. 2 catcher available, Wilson Ramos. There’s now “doubt” Grandal’s next contract will approach what the Mets were willing to give him, Rosenthal relays.” https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/01/rosenthals-latest-bosox-jbj-mets-grandal-d-holland-as-anibal-astros-keuchel.html
Rosenthal, Heyman, and Bob Nightengale have all confirmed that there was some sort of offer from the Mets at 4 years / $50+ million declined by Grandal prior to the Mets moving on to sign Ramos.
As I say in more detail in a comment above, the way that this situation has played out strikes me as very odd. Combined with Red’s very good comment above wondering why Grandal signed this deal now rather than see if clarity on Realmuto leads to better offers, I’m wondering if Grandal’s agent has simply really mismanaged this process.
So it’s confirmed that no such offer existed. A discussion is not an offer.
“While the Mets didn’t submit a formal offer to Grandal…” You can’t sign a discussion.
“Jeff Sullivan 10:05
I don’t think Grandal would’ve turned down such an official offer. My guess is that the conversations did revolve around a big contract, but the Mets never actually put it on the table. This isn’t based on inside information, mind you. But I’m guessing ultimately the Mets walked away”
This is what I’m saying. An offer means something that can be accepted. A conversation is just a conversation.
Andrew Friedman needs to get off his ass and bring in some players. The Dodgers window is wide open and he’s letting it go to waste. Friedman needs to sign Machado and make a trade for Realmuto. If Dave Dombrowski were the Dodger GM this would have happened already.
Really looking like that report about not going over the tax threshold is a very real consideration….
Going into the offseason I really wanted the Nats to sign him, but they found a work around that could work. Still , it’s a steal for the brewers.
Imo it is not collusion but the “fault” of sabermetrics.
1. Due to aging curves and injury stats the risk and value of long term contracts is very easily to asses even for mediocre front offices.
2. Due to projection systems teams are very realistic in assesing their playoff odds. Mediocre teams used to thing ” if a few guys have a good year maybe…” but now they are realistic meaning only a third of the league really tries. The wc isn’t a huge incentive either at least not to make big signings.
You can’t stop progress though even though some politicians think they can turn back the time and just ban globalization and automation but this is not how the world works.
Imo you can’t turn back the clock. If you are serious about raising wages you could do two things:
-expand playoffs to give more teams an incentive to spend and create more of a bidding war
-move more salary into arb and pre arb players as those are the ones who produce
Especially the first one is realistic i think because it wouldn’t cost the owners that much. It would make the season longer but if you remove an off day or two it only would make the season a week longer or so.
Didn’t realize DRS loved Sandy Leon that much. Wow.
The contracts for mediocre players are too high. Can they not get minor Leaguers to produce as well as these mediocre players? I believe so. But overall this means:
A) Teams have alot of money to spend
B) Baseball is diminishing talent wise and in popularity as the minors are filled with weak players.
C)Teams are weak at scouting and bringing good players from the minors who can do the job in favor of big names.
I pick B & C
It seems like both Grandal and the Dodgers have egg on their face after this one. I have a hard time believing that Friedman wouldn’t have been willing to increase his 1 year, $17.9M offer that Grandal rejected by $400k. The two sides must not have circled back with each other before Grandal signed this Milwaukee deal. Either Grandal could have gotten more from LA if either side had made one simple phone call, or the Dodgers weren’t willing to go a smidgeon over $17.9M and Grandal just prefers Milwaukee.
or the Dodgers felt that after last postseason it was too toxic of a situation to have Grandal come back, and they’ll just take the draft pick compensation….
From an economic perspective, because of the presence of draft pick compensation if Grandal *declines* the QO (coupled with the odds of Grandal declining the QO), it means that the Dodgers can (and likely do) value Grandal at less than $17.9MM.
A quick hypothetical shows this –
Let’s say the Dodgers’ expected value for a draft pick in the 70’s is $5MM (I’m just picking a number – it could be less or more).
Let’s say the Dodgers actually value Grandal for 2019 at $15MM.
In this case, if the Dodgers think Grandal was 80% likely to turn down the QO, then the value of the draft pick compensation at the time the Dodgers tendered the QO was $4MM, which justified making the QO at $17.9MM even if the Dodgers actually valued Grandal at $15MM. In other words, the Dodgers were willing to risk “overpaying” Grandal by $2.9MM to get an asset worth $5MM.
Players aren’t happy that management isn’t throwing money away for past production and over paying at the end of long term contracts. Elite players are still getting paid, low end players are getting what they’re worth, minimum wage averages 600K. The mid level players have to realize they are not worth as much as they are led to believe, and those 7-10 year 100+ million contracts aren’t happening any more for most. You’re going to get paid for your production over the entire length of your contract with age and production decline amortized into that calculation. The days of team management hoping to get 7 productive years out of a 10 year contract and figuring out how to manage the finances of the last 3 years is over. Get used to it.
Yep and the owners will get used to it too when the new cba has no player control past 3 years. the days are soon to be over for 12+ years of player control. Minor + Majors. If they don’t want to pay for past performance, than the players union will change the rules on their side too or they won’t agree to new CBA. I know for fact the biggest attorneys in us are already working on the players union cba.
I’ll beleve that when I see it. Especially given that it’ll start as a lock out, not a strike….
Definitely the theory that postseason baseball doesn’t impact free agency took a major hit this offseason.