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there's no one you can add to that phillies team and make them a contender. they need to be blown up.
2016 MLB thread. THE CUBS HAVE BROKEN THE CURSE! Chicago Cubs are your 2016 World Series champions
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by proshares,
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Dodgers don't need Hamels that much, so don't see them giving up Urias to get him.
Can never have enough arms. A solid SS and a big league catcher should be the focus at the moment. Two things that have been sorely missing the past two years.
Can never have enough arms. A solid SS and a big league catcher should be the focus at the moment. Two things that have been sorely missing the past two years.
La Stella Trade Provides Clues to Valuation of Bonus Slots.
Why Isn’t Jason Heyward a Center Fielder?
Estimating Jason Heyward’s Next Contract.
Diamondbacks Decide to Find Out What Jeremy Hellickson Is.
Giancarlo Stanton, Ball-Striking, And The Future.
How Giancarlo Stanton Contracts Would Have Gone.
Blue Jays Commit to Playoff Race, Sign Russell Martin.
The Fascinating Jason Heyward/Shelby Miller Swap.
The Bargains of the 2015 Free Agent Class.
THE RAREST PITCH IN BASEBALL.
Is Elvis Andrus Still Valuable?
Pirates Reunite with A.J. Burnett.
The Tigers of the Future Aren’t Totally Screwed.
The Top-Five White Sox Prospects by Projected WAR.
On Sunday — while much of America watched football, and at least one American (the author, in this case) shopped for boxed wines at a local discount grocer — the Atlanta Braves traded Tommy La Stella to the Chicago Cubs in exchange for right-hander Arodys Vizcaino and the right to spend about $800 thousand more internationally (without penalty) between now and July 2nd.
At face value, and perhaps even below face value, the motivations for the trade are somewhat obscure — insofar, that is, as Chicago very famously has a surplus of promising young infielders while Atlanta, now more than ever, lacks a reliable option at second base. That said, it’s probably wise to proceed with any further consideration of this deal under the assumption that all the actors in it are behaving rationally, as Chicago and Atlanta — in particular with the elevation of John Coppolella’s influence in the latter’s front office — have smart and well-informed decision-makers.
In terms of incentives for making such a trade the Cubs have the most glaringly obvious one. Because they far exceeded their international spending limit in 2013-14, they’re forbidden during the present international signing period from offering more than a $250 thousand bonus to any one prospect. Despite that, however, they were still assessed bonus slots — one for $2.3 million, one for $458 thousand, one for $309 thousand, and so on — like all the other 29 major-league teams. These slots, logic would appear to dictate, have value to the Cubs only as a tradeable asset. Otherwise, they would merely disappear come July 2 of this next year.
So, the Cubs’ impetus for trading their bonus slots is strong. Whatever value could be extracted from them would, in some sense, be surplus value. The surplus value, in this case, takes the form of infielder Tommy La Stella. As a rookie last year, La Stella played in 93 games, 86 of them in a starting capacity at second base for Atlanta. In 360 plate appearances, he recorded an 84 wRC+ and -0.1 WAR, exhibiting — as one would have expected based on his minor-league resume — an advanced approach, limited power, and fringe-average second-base defense.
Steamer projects La Stella to perform better in 2015, calling for a 97 wRC+ and a 1.4 WAR per every 600 plate appearances from La Stella. That’s a nice addition. And because he lacks any sort of carrying tool, he’s more valuable than traditional scouting evaluations would indicate. That said, he’s also unlikely ever to develop into an indispensable starter on a championship-level club — which the Cubs might very well be in the near future. So, despite the fact that he joins a team with a nominally crowded infield — one that includes Javier Baez, Kris Bryant, Starlin Castro, Addison Russell, and Luis Valbuena — there remains no urgency for the Cubs to move anyone via trade to make room for La Stella.
The Cubs have already indicated their comfort with the status quo by converting Arismendy Alcantara to center field. Jed Hoyer spoke to their so-called surplus in further depth with reporters on Sunday, saying “How [all the current infielders] fit may not be clear but that was the case with Chris Coghlan last year and he worked his way into the lineup.” Except for the fact that he’s unable to play shortstop, La Stella has the opportunity to fill a bench role — probably including outfield, at some point — more than competently.
The implications of the trade for Atlanta are slightly more complex, it would seem. For, while the Cubs’ biggest problem might be finding playing time for La Stella, Atlanta now has one fewer second baseman than it used to, and they didn’t have any impact options there to begin with.
As noted above, La Stella made 86 starts at second base last year, with Uggla coming in second place on the club by that measure (with 33) and Phil Gosselin third (17). While Gosselin made the majority of starts down the stretch, that was also during an interval when Atlanta had clearly excused themselves from the the postseason race, when the club’s focus might have been less on winning ball games and more on examing what the organization featured in terms of talent.
La Stella was an improvement over Uggla insofar as he wasn’t actively losing games for the club. And even if he’s projected to improve upon his 2014 figures, he remains unlikely to produce markedly above-average numbers. If the Braves front office is hoping for that, La Stella isn’t the answer.
The answer probably isn’t in the system, either — at least not for the 2015 iteration of the Braves. Here are the four players currently on Atlanta’s 40-man roster who are also capable of playing second base — plus also Jose Peraza, who’s been mentioned by name as another candidate:
Name PA AVG OBP SLG wRC+ Off Def WAR
Jose Peraza 600 .268 .297 .347 80 -13.9 6.6 1.2
Tyler Pastornicky 600 .258 .306 .351 85 -10.0 -0.4 0.8
Phil Gosselin 600 .260 .300 .350 82 -12.1 1.7 0.8
Ramiro Pena 600 .241 .297 .335 78 -15.5 0.3 0.3
Elmer Reyes 600 .236 .265 .329 65 -23.7 6.6 0.1
Entering just his age-21 season, Peraza already owns the most encouraging projection among this group*. Given that he’s recorded only 200 plate appearances at Double-A or higher, however — and probably requires further time to develop — it’s likely that he’ll spend much of 2015 in the minors. So, unless one of the other four listed takes a significant step forward over the next three months, it’s almost certain that Atlanta will have to address their second-base situation — for 2015, at least — by way of free agency.
*Note, however, that Peraza receives a generic shortstop’s positional adjustment here for his defensive projection, even though he (a) made the majority of starts in 2014 at second base and (b) is likely to play that position as a major leaguer, too. Which is to say: the figure here might be a shade optimistic, even if one assumes that Peraza is a plus defender at second base.
And this is where we can learn something about the extent to which Atlanta values the $832 thousand in international bonus slots they’ve acquired from Chicago. For, if we assume that Atlanta must turn to free agency with a view towards addressing their second-base hole, then we can estimate — in a general way, at least — how much Atlanta values those international picks and/or the flexibility that a larger cap allows them.
We’ll assume, for the moment, that finding a player comparable to La Stella on the open market would cost about $9 million (i.e. 1.5 wins at roughly $6 million a win). Instead of just keeping La Stella, however, the Braves have created a situation where they’re now probably compelled to pay full market value for whatever wins they’ll get out of second base. Whoever that next second baseman is, the Braves will be compensating him not for his full projected win value, but his full projected win value minus the total La Stella would have provided. So a two-win player — likely to be paid $12 million in free agency — would actually be receiving, from Atlanta’ perspective, $12 million for half a win; a three-win player, $18 million for 1.5 wins; a four-win player, $24 million for 2.5 wins; and so on.
In this hypothetical scenario, what this means is that Atlanta values a combination of Arodys Vizcaino and those international bonus slots at something like $9 million. That established, by estimating the value of Vizcaino, we can isolate the likely value of those bonus slots to the Braves. How much do we think? He features promising stuff, but has an injury history and also struggled both with Triple-A and major-league hitters in 2014. Maybe $2 million for a Vizcaino-type? Maybe $1 million? Maybe not even that much?
This is all quite speculative, of course. But even if we think a team would pay $2 million for a year of Arodys Vizcaino, that still leaves about a $7 million surplus — i.e. the price tag on the $832 thousand in bonus slots now available to Braves care of the Cubs. That’s a factor of about 9x — about three times what Dave Cameron has used in off-the-cuff estimates previously.
Of course, those figures are founded on the assumption that Atlanta’s and Steamer’s evaluations of La Stella are identical. It’s very possible they’re not. As noted above, La Stella features little in the way of traditional tools. Kiley McDaniel’s assessment of La Stella features only one grade of 50 or above. The rest are 40s; the Future Value grade, also a 40. That’s about a one-win, bench-type player — and probably not one for whom an exact dollars-to-wins calculation is appropriate. Nick Punto, for example — still projected for 2015 to produce about 1.0 WAR in 600 plate appearances — received $3 million last offseason to fill exactly that kind of infield bench role for Oakland. Performing our speculative arithmetic while valuing La Stella as a $3 million asset instead of a $9 million one — and assuming, meanwhile, that Vizcaino is worth the league minimum — results in a $2.5 million valuation of that $832 thousand in international bonus slots. That’s a factor of about 3x — or the rough figure Cameron has generally used to translate bonus money to open-market dollars.
Regardless of the precise valuation, that money will be appreciated by the club’s overhauled international scouting department. And it appears as though the cost was worth the benefit of that flexibility in this case for Atlanta.
At face value, and perhaps even below face value, the motivations for the trade are somewhat obscure — insofar, that is, as Chicago very famously has a surplus of promising young infielders while Atlanta, now more than ever, lacks a reliable option at second base. That said, it’s probably wise to proceed with any further consideration of this deal under the assumption that all the actors in it are behaving rationally, as Chicago and Atlanta — in particular with the elevation of John Coppolella’s influence in the latter’s front office — have smart and well-informed decision-makers.
In terms of incentives for making such a trade the Cubs have the most glaringly obvious one. Because they far exceeded their international spending limit in 2013-14, they’re forbidden during the present international signing period from offering more than a $250 thousand bonus to any one prospect. Despite that, however, they were still assessed bonus slots — one for $2.3 million, one for $458 thousand, one for $309 thousand, and so on — like all the other 29 major-league teams. These slots, logic would appear to dictate, have value to the Cubs only as a tradeable asset. Otherwise, they would merely disappear come July 2 of this next year.
So, the Cubs’ impetus for trading their bonus slots is strong. Whatever value could be extracted from them would, in some sense, be surplus value. The surplus value, in this case, takes the form of infielder Tommy La Stella. As a rookie last year, La Stella played in 93 games, 86 of them in a starting capacity at second base for Atlanta. In 360 plate appearances, he recorded an 84 wRC+ and -0.1 WAR, exhibiting — as one would have expected based on his minor-league resume — an advanced approach, limited power, and fringe-average second-base defense.
Steamer projects La Stella to perform better in 2015, calling for a 97 wRC+ and a 1.4 WAR per every 600 plate appearances from La Stella. That’s a nice addition. And because he lacks any sort of carrying tool, he’s more valuable than traditional scouting evaluations would indicate. That said, he’s also unlikely ever to develop into an indispensable starter on a championship-level club — which the Cubs might very well be in the near future. So, despite the fact that he joins a team with a nominally crowded infield — one that includes Javier Baez, Kris Bryant, Starlin Castro, Addison Russell, and Luis Valbuena — there remains no urgency for the Cubs to move anyone via trade to make room for La Stella.
The Cubs have already indicated their comfort with the status quo by converting Arismendy Alcantara to center field. Jed Hoyer spoke to their so-called surplus in further depth with reporters on Sunday, saying “How [all the current infielders] fit may not be clear but that was the case with Chris Coghlan last year and he worked his way into the lineup.” Except for the fact that he’s unable to play shortstop, La Stella has the opportunity to fill a bench role — probably including outfield, at some point — more than competently.
The implications of the trade for Atlanta are slightly more complex, it would seem. For, while the Cubs’ biggest problem might be finding playing time for La Stella, Atlanta now has one fewer second baseman than it used to, and they didn’t have any impact options there to begin with.
As noted above, La Stella made 86 starts at second base last year, with Uggla coming in second place on the club by that measure (with 33) and Phil Gosselin third (17). While Gosselin made the majority of starts down the stretch, that was also during an interval when Atlanta had clearly excused themselves from the the postseason race, when the club’s focus might have been less on winning ball games and more on examing what the organization featured in terms of talent.
La Stella was an improvement over Uggla insofar as he wasn’t actively losing games for the club. And even if he’s projected to improve upon his 2014 figures, he remains unlikely to produce markedly above-average numbers. If the Braves front office is hoping for that, La Stella isn’t the answer.
The answer probably isn’t in the system, either — at least not for the 2015 iteration of the Braves. Here are the four players currently on Atlanta’s 40-man roster who are also capable of playing second base — plus also Jose Peraza, who’s been mentioned by name as another candidate:
Name PA AVG OBP SLG wRC+ Off Def WAR
Jose Peraza 600 .268 .297 .347 80 -13.9 6.6 1.2
Tyler Pastornicky 600 .258 .306 .351 85 -10.0 -0.4 0.8
Phil Gosselin 600 .260 .300 .350 82 -12.1 1.7 0.8
Ramiro Pena 600 .241 .297 .335 78 -15.5 0.3 0.3
Elmer Reyes 600 .236 .265 .329 65 -23.7 6.6 0.1
Entering just his age-21 season, Peraza already owns the most encouraging projection among this group*. Given that he’s recorded only 200 plate appearances at Double-A or higher, however — and probably requires further time to develop — it’s likely that he’ll spend much of 2015 in the minors. So, unless one of the other four listed takes a significant step forward over the next three months, it’s almost certain that Atlanta will have to address their second-base situation — for 2015, at least — by way of free agency.
*Note, however, that Peraza receives a generic shortstop’s positional adjustment here for his defensive projection, even though he (a) made the majority of starts in 2014 at second base and (b) is likely to play that position as a major leaguer, too. Which is to say: the figure here might be a shade optimistic, even if one assumes that Peraza is a plus defender at second base.
And this is where we can learn something about the extent to which Atlanta values the $832 thousand in international bonus slots they’ve acquired from Chicago. For, if we assume that Atlanta must turn to free agency with a view towards addressing their second-base hole, then we can estimate — in a general way, at least — how much Atlanta values those international picks and/or the flexibility that a larger cap allows them.
We’ll assume, for the moment, that finding a player comparable to La Stella on the open market would cost about $9 million (i.e. 1.5 wins at roughly $6 million a win). Instead of just keeping La Stella, however, the Braves have created a situation where they’re now probably compelled to pay full market value for whatever wins they’ll get out of second base. Whoever that next second baseman is, the Braves will be compensating him not for his full projected win value, but his full projected win value minus the total La Stella would have provided. So a two-win player — likely to be paid $12 million in free agency — would actually be receiving, from Atlanta’ perspective, $12 million for half a win; a three-win player, $18 million for 1.5 wins; a four-win player, $24 million for 2.5 wins; and so on.
In this hypothetical scenario, what this means is that Atlanta values a combination of Arodys Vizcaino and those international bonus slots at something like $9 million. That established, by estimating the value of Vizcaino, we can isolate the likely value of those bonus slots to the Braves. How much do we think? He features promising stuff, but has an injury history and also struggled both with Triple-A and major-league hitters in 2014. Maybe $2 million for a Vizcaino-type? Maybe $1 million? Maybe not even that much?
This is all quite speculative, of course. But even if we think a team would pay $2 million for a year of Arodys Vizcaino, that still leaves about a $7 million surplus — i.e. the price tag on the $832 thousand in bonus slots now available to Braves care of the Cubs. That’s a factor of about 9x — about three times what Dave Cameron has used in off-the-cuff estimates previously.
Of course, those figures are founded on the assumption that Atlanta’s and Steamer’s evaluations of La Stella are identical. It’s very possible they’re not. As noted above, La Stella features little in the way of traditional tools. Kiley McDaniel’s assessment of La Stella features only one grade of 50 or above. The rest are 40s; the Future Value grade, also a 40. That’s about a one-win, bench-type player — and probably not one for whom an exact dollars-to-wins calculation is appropriate. Nick Punto, for example — still projected for 2015 to produce about 1.0 WAR in 600 plate appearances — received $3 million last offseason to fill exactly that kind of infield bench role for Oakland. Performing our speculative arithmetic while valuing La Stella as a $3 million asset instead of a $9 million one — and assuming, meanwhile, that Vizcaino is worth the league minimum — results in a $2.5 million valuation of that $832 thousand in international bonus slots. That’s a factor of about 3x — or the rough figure Cameron has generally used to translate bonus money to open-market dollars.
Regardless of the precise valuation, that money will be appreciated by the club’s overhauled international scouting department. And it appears as though the cost was worth the benefit of that flexibility in this case for Atlanta.
Why Isn’t Jason Heyward a Center Fielder?
“If he was such a good outfielder, why doesn’t he play center field?” This is a common refrain echoing around the hallways of UZR Incorporated, a not-entirely baseless question that generally pertains to highly rated corner outfielders. If they’re such defensive dynamos, why not put them in the most important outfield position?
Those in the know recognize that their high advanced stat scores are relative to their peers, so a collection of bad outfielders can help prop up a good corner OF glove. But the question still demands an answer, an answer I think it deserves in the case of Jason Heyward – what’s stopping the Cardinals from playing him in center field every day?
In the past, the biggest reasons to keep Heyward in his right field corner related to his teammates. Michael Bourn was in place in for 2011 and 2012 and then the B.J. Upton signing kept Heyward mostly away from center field. The 6’5 Heyward did manage to find some reps in center in 2013, mind you. And when he was there, he did this:
Heyward played in the middle of the outfield for a few weeks at the end of July and then spent more time there at the end of the season and into the playoffs, as Heyward patrolled center field during Atlanta’s four game division series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Sunk costs being what they are, Heyward didn’t see his name on the lineup with an “8” beside it once in the 2014 season. But with a new team, might he get the chance to spread his wings in center?
A sneaking suspicion won’t leave me alone when it comes to the reasons Heyward hasn’t got his shot in center field – his height. Keith Law mentioned Heyward “outgrowing” the position in high school and conventional wisdom supports the claim. Only two other players standing 77 inches high or taller qualified for the batting title while playing every day in center field: Von Hayes and Alex Rios. Both players came up as right fielders but, after trades created opportunties, both lanky men got their shot in center.
Hayes was also 25 when he was moved to the Philadelphia Phillies in a huge trade. Hayes was the Phils regular center fielder for three years before he moved to the infield (he was usurped by Milt Thompson, acquired in a deal from the Braves.)
Rios was blocked in center by Vernon Wells during his time in Toronto. After the White Sox claimed him on waivers, he prowled center for the White Sox in 2010 and 2011. Like Heyward, Rios was known as a terrific defensive right fielder with a cannon arm.
Considering the best player in baseball is also a center fielder who has more physically in common with J.J. Watt than A.J. Pollock, there is no reason to think Heyward’s tall frame can’t stand up to the rigors of everyday center field. The days of assigning players positions based on their body types are in the past, aren’t they?
By moving Heyward to center field every day (rather than just the platoon situation Mike Axisa suggests here), the Cardinals would be freed up to move either Peter Bourjos or Jon Jay. Jay is an unusual player, a high average hitter with no power and generally neutral splits; he also plays a nice center field in his own right. Bourjos’ defensive value splits opinions on his ultimate role, as some believe he can fetch a decent return in trade. Randal Grichuk is an interesting player, one the Cardinals do not want to give up on quite yet.
With just one year of Heyward’s services at their disposal, moving Jay might not be an immediate option. But he represents a league-average starting center fielder, one who sprays line drives around the field in a distinctly Cardinalsy fashion. But the drop off, as projected by Steamer, between Jay and the twosome that would replace him (Grichuk/Bourjos) is quite steep.
Name PA HR AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+
Jon Jay 551 7 .278 .345 .379 .322 106
Randal Grichuk 222 7 .241 .282 .401 .300 91
Peter Bourjos 248 5 .236 .296 .364 .294 87
Bourjos’ defensive reputation suggests that, given a full season of playing time, his glove makes him nearly Jay’s overall equal at the everyday center fielder (2.2 WAR for Jay versus 2.1 WAR for Bourjos), though the Cardinals might not withstand the offensive drop-off on a team predicated upon contact and long rallies. Throwing the position over to Grichuk and prospect Stephen Piscotty involves a great deal of risk for a deal clearly built to win now.
Heyward’s superlative defense gives the Cardinals flexibility more than anything else. The flexibility to make a move with one of their cost-controlled outfielders or the flexibility to seek further upgrades in the outfield.
The knock on Heyward is he doesn’t hit like a corner outfielder, which is to say he doesn’t hit like many expect him to hit. While a breakout at the plate appears possible, his current offensive line might suit him better in the middle of the diamond, where his defense can truly shine.
The makeup of the Cardinals roster doesn’t necessarily give the Cardinals much reason to experiment with Heyward in center, though he could probably handle the position just fine. In 2013, the team won 90 games with a far, far worse defensive player taking the majority of CF reps. If the Cardinals are really going for it in 2015, they can certainly pursue moves to upgrade other positions with their glut of center fielders, knowing Heyward is back there. At the very least, it’s something to consider. If Piscotty or Grichuk force the issue, it’s a nice luxury to room for a great defender to allow more offense into the mix.
Those in the know recognize that their high advanced stat scores are relative to their peers, so a collection of bad outfielders can help prop up a good corner OF glove. But the question still demands an answer, an answer I think it deserves in the case of Jason Heyward – what’s stopping the Cardinals from playing him in center field every day?
In the past, the biggest reasons to keep Heyward in his right field corner related to his teammates. Michael Bourn was in place in for 2011 and 2012 and then the B.J. Upton signing kept Heyward mostly away from center field. The 6’5 Heyward did manage to find some reps in center in 2013, mind you. And when he was there, he did this:
Heyward played in the middle of the outfield for a few weeks at the end of July and then spent more time there at the end of the season and into the playoffs, as Heyward patrolled center field during Atlanta’s four game division series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Sunk costs being what they are, Heyward didn’t see his name on the lineup with an “8” beside it once in the 2014 season. But with a new team, might he get the chance to spread his wings in center?
A sneaking suspicion won’t leave me alone when it comes to the reasons Heyward hasn’t got his shot in center field – his height. Keith Law mentioned Heyward “outgrowing” the position in high school and conventional wisdom supports the claim. Only two other players standing 77 inches high or taller qualified for the batting title while playing every day in center field: Von Hayes and Alex Rios. Both players came up as right fielders but, after trades created opportunties, both lanky men got their shot in center.
Hayes was also 25 when he was moved to the Philadelphia Phillies in a huge trade. Hayes was the Phils regular center fielder for three years before he moved to the infield (he was usurped by Milt Thompson, acquired in a deal from the Braves.)
Rios was blocked in center by Vernon Wells during his time in Toronto. After the White Sox claimed him on waivers, he prowled center for the White Sox in 2010 and 2011. Like Heyward, Rios was known as a terrific defensive right fielder with a cannon arm.
Considering the best player in baseball is also a center fielder who has more physically in common with J.J. Watt than A.J. Pollock, there is no reason to think Heyward’s tall frame can’t stand up to the rigors of everyday center field. The days of assigning players positions based on their body types are in the past, aren’t they?
By moving Heyward to center field every day (rather than just the platoon situation Mike Axisa suggests here), the Cardinals would be freed up to move either Peter Bourjos or Jon Jay. Jay is an unusual player, a high average hitter with no power and generally neutral splits; he also plays a nice center field in his own right. Bourjos’ defensive value splits opinions on his ultimate role, as some believe he can fetch a decent return in trade. Randal Grichuk is an interesting player, one the Cardinals do not want to give up on quite yet.
With just one year of Heyward’s services at their disposal, moving Jay might not be an immediate option. But he represents a league-average starting center fielder, one who sprays line drives around the field in a distinctly Cardinalsy fashion. But the drop off, as projected by Steamer, between Jay and the twosome that would replace him (Grichuk/Bourjos) is quite steep.
Name PA HR AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+
Jon Jay 551 7 .278 .345 .379 .322 106
Randal Grichuk 222 7 .241 .282 .401 .300 91
Peter Bourjos 248 5 .236 .296 .364 .294 87
Bourjos’ defensive reputation suggests that, given a full season of playing time, his glove makes him nearly Jay’s overall equal at the everyday center fielder (2.2 WAR for Jay versus 2.1 WAR for Bourjos), though the Cardinals might not withstand the offensive drop-off on a team predicated upon contact and long rallies. Throwing the position over to Grichuk and prospect Stephen Piscotty involves a great deal of risk for a deal clearly built to win now.
Heyward’s superlative defense gives the Cardinals flexibility more than anything else. The flexibility to make a move with one of their cost-controlled outfielders or the flexibility to seek further upgrades in the outfield.
The knock on Heyward is he doesn’t hit like a corner outfielder, which is to say he doesn’t hit like many expect him to hit. While a breakout at the plate appears possible, his current offensive line might suit him better in the middle of the diamond, where his defense can truly shine.
The makeup of the Cardinals roster doesn’t necessarily give the Cardinals much reason to experiment with Heyward in center, though he could probably handle the position just fine. In 2013, the team won 90 games with a far, far worse defensive player taking the majority of CF reps. If the Cardinals are really going for it in 2015, they can certainly pursue moves to upgrade other positions with their glut of center fielders, knowing Heyward is back there. At the very least, it’s something to consider. If Piscotty or Grichuk force the issue, it’s a nice luxury to room for a great defender to allow more offense into the mix.
Estimating Jason Heyward’s Next Contract.
In yesterday’s write-up of the Jason Heyward/Shelby Miller trade, I wrote this:
Because of how quickly he got to the big leagues, Heyward is in line to hit free agency after his age-25 season, and he’s going to have roughly +25 career WAR when he reaches the open market. Barring a disastrous 2015 season, he’s going to get paid, and you can be certain that his agents will be pointing to the 13 year, $325 million deal that Giancarlo Stanton has agreed to as the new precedent. Sure, Heyward isn’t going to get 13/$325M, given the massive differences in power, but it seems likely that he’ll demand a deal that starts at 10 years and goes north of $200 million.
Robinson Cano got $240 million as a similarly valuable player entering his age-31 season; Heyward might not have Cano’s offensive track record, but he’s going to be selling his prime years, and the deal won’t extend into the period of his career where you’d expect him to essentially be worthless. If the Cardinals want to lock up Heyward before he gets to free agency, it’s probably going to take something like the contract they refused to give Albert Pujols. Maybe they might be able get him to take a slight pre-free agent discount and get him for 9/$200M or something in that range, but let’s dispel the notion that the Cardinals are going to be able to sign Heyward for anything other than a mountain of cash.
Which generated a lot of responses like this.
Screen Shot 2014-11-18 at 9.59.51 AM
Since I basically just made the claim without any evidence to support it, I figure it’s on me to actually back up my assertion. So, let’s go through and see if we can estimate what Jason Heyward’s market price would be as a free agent next winter.
The primary assertion against that kind of valuation is that teams simply don’t pay for defense the same way they do for offense, and that assertion it’s true. There’s absolutely a premium paid for power hitting in free agency, and Heyward doesn’t have the kind of skillset that other $200 million players have had. If we want to estimate what a good bat/great glove corner outfielder is going to get, we need to look beyond what guys like Prince Fielder, Albert Pujols, and Robinson Cano signed for. We need to look at how the market has paid this kind of player before.
Thankfully, Heyward’s skillset isn’t really all that unique. Over the last decade, we’ve seen a pretty decent number of players who achieved their value through similar methods. For instance, here are Heyward’s career numbers in a table with the the performances of four other similar outfielders, up to the point at which they reached free agency.
Name PA wRC+ BsR Off Def WAR OFF/600 DEF/600 WAR/600
Jason Heyward 2,819 117 14 70 46 21 15 10 4.6
Carl Crawford 3,784 116 48 120 37 29 19 6 4.5
Carlos Beltran 3,911 112 41 100 56 29 15 9 4.4
Ichiro Suzuki 5,180 117 39 149 54 37 17 6 4.3
Jacoby Ellsbury 3,839 109 44 83 50 27 13 8 4.3
There are some differences, certainly, but overall, they all established themselves as something like +4.5 WAR/600 PA players in their pre-free agent careers, and they all did it with positive contributions from their bat, their feet, and their gloves. If you prefer to look at the more narrow window of a player’s final three years before free agency, Heyward’s 2012-2014 numbers still measure up remarkably well with this group, especially Crawford’s final three years in Tampa.
Name PA wRC+ BsR Off Def WAR OFF/600 DEF/600 WAR/600
Jason Heyward 1740 116 10 43 43 15 15 15 5.1
Carl Crawford 1817 118 22 60 33 16 20 11 5.2
Since it’s the closest match, let’s deal with the Crawford comparison for now, and we’ll circle back to the others in a minute. Crawford hit the market after his age-28 season and signed a seven year deal for $142 million, which is in line with what several people in the comments suggested they think Heyward should sign for. Only $142 million in 2010 is not the same thing as $142 million in 2014. If we think Crawford is a good stand-in for Heyward’s market value, then we have to bring Crawford’s value into present day dollars. Actually, we have to bring them into 2015 dollars, since that’s when Heyward is hitting free agency, so Heyward will hit the open market with five years of inflation between his deal and Crawford’s contract with Boston.
Rather than turn this into another post about the different ways of calculating the market price of a win, let’s just take the simple route and look at the total spending differences in MLB payrolls during that time. Crawford’s deal began in 2011, when the total of all 30 MLB payrolls was $2.78 billion. Last year, MLB was at $3.45 billion, and they’re already at $3.1 billion for 2015 without including any of the free agent contracts. 2015 league payrolls are going to end up around $3.7 billion or so, most likely, so the league will have seen roughly 37 percent more money going to players since Crawford’s deal was signed.
If you simply scale Crawford’s annual salary to match current spending levels, his $20 million AAV becomes $25 million to keep pace with inflation. If we assume that he’d be able to command the same contract length, Crawford’s inflation-adjusted price becomes 7/$175M. And Crawford was selling his 29-35 seasons; Heyward is going to be three year’s younger than Crawford was when he hit the open market, and very likely will have little interest in a seven year deal. If we’re going to use Crawford as an example of Heyward’s market value, then we essentially have to admit that Crawford is evidence that Heyward is likely to land a deal in excess of $200 million as a free agent, even if he just takes the same inflation-adjusted AAV and adds an extra year.
But, of course, a lot of people hated the Crawford contract at the time, and it’s just one deal. So, let’s look at the others.
Carlos Beltran got $17M per year when total league payroll was $2.18 billion. If we translate that into a $3.7 billion spending economy, Beltran’s $17M per year turns into $28.8 million per year; Beltran also got seven years, starting with his age-28 season.
Ichiro Suzuki got $18M per year when league payroll was $2.69 billion. In a $3.7 billion economy, that turns into $24.8M per year. Ichiro only got five years, but the contract began when he was 34, and his three most recent seasons averaged about +4 WAR per 600 PA, about a win less than Heyward’s three most recent seasons. Ichiro was a decade older and well into his decline phase, and he still got the equivalent of $25 million per year.
Ellsbury’s the easiest one of all, given that he just signed last year, so we don’t have to inflate his salary all that much. Adjusting upwards slightly, his $22M per season becomes about $23M per year. Ellsbury got seven years starting with his age-30 season.
Four very similar players to Heyward, skills and value wise. The inflation-adjusted salaries put them squarely in the $23 to $28 million per year range. Even if you don’t think Heyward is as good as these guys, you could essentially perform the same exercise with Vernon Wells or Torii Hunter, and you’ll get the same results, essentially. $18-$20 million per year, even four or five years ago, is $25+ million per year in today’s dollars.
And then there’s the age factor. Assuming Heyward’s market value in 12 months is roughly the same as it is now, he’s not settling for a seven year deal. Heyward’s going to be looking for 8-10 years at around that $25 million per year AAV, and that’s assuming he doesn’t have a breakout season. If he does, and he hits for power again, the price might get near $30 million per year, or push to 12 years if teams would rather inflate the contract length rather than the annual salary.
His 2015 performance will go a long way to determining which side of the $200 million coin Heyward falls on. If he struggles with injuries or continues to be a slightly above average hitter, maybe he’ll settle for $175-$200 million, basically just taking the Ellsbury contract and adding a year or two in length. If he hits as he has through his career, I’m guessing $225-$250 million is probably more likely, as he’ll aim for something like the Robinson Cano contract. If he has a breakout year and becomes the hitter that people have been projecting, then $300 million isn’t out of the question. At that point, he’s a a younger version of what Beltran was, but still heading into his prime years, and would easily be the most coveted free agent in years.
This is why the Braves traded him. It’s why I doubt the Cardinals will get him to sign a long-term deal any time soon. They have a history of getting players to take below-market deals to stay in St. Louis, but they’re not going to get Heyward to take $150 million for the peak of his career. He’s bet on himself to this point, and a year from free agency, there’s no reason to sell himself short now. The market doesn’t pay for defense quite the same way it pays for power, but it has paid plenty of similar players enough money that $200 million for Heyward is probably the starting point in negotiations.
Are the Cardinals prepared to go there? I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. I don’t think they gave up four years of Shelby Miller with no plan to even try and keep Heyward, and they know he’s looking at a huge contract in a year if they don’t get him signed. The Cardinals have proven they’ll put their money where UZR’s mouth is, and it paid off nicely with their faith in Jhonny Peralta. They’ll probably face a similar reaction if they give Heyward $200+ million to keep him in St. Louis, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that turned out to be a similarly good idea.
Because of how quickly he got to the big leagues, Heyward is in line to hit free agency after his age-25 season, and he’s going to have roughly +25 career WAR when he reaches the open market. Barring a disastrous 2015 season, he’s going to get paid, and you can be certain that his agents will be pointing to the 13 year, $325 million deal that Giancarlo Stanton has agreed to as the new precedent. Sure, Heyward isn’t going to get 13/$325M, given the massive differences in power, but it seems likely that he’ll demand a deal that starts at 10 years and goes north of $200 million.
Robinson Cano got $240 million as a similarly valuable player entering his age-31 season; Heyward might not have Cano’s offensive track record, but he’s going to be selling his prime years, and the deal won’t extend into the period of his career where you’d expect him to essentially be worthless. If the Cardinals want to lock up Heyward before he gets to free agency, it’s probably going to take something like the contract they refused to give Albert Pujols. Maybe they might be able get him to take a slight pre-free agent discount and get him for 9/$200M or something in that range, but let’s dispel the notion that the Cardinals are going to be able to sign Heyward for anything other than a mountain of cash.
Which generated a lot of responses like this.
Screen Shot 2014-11-18 at 9.59.51 AM
Since I basically just made the claim without any evidence to support it, I figure it’s on me to actually back up my assertion. So, let’s go through and see if we can estimate what Jason Heyward’s market price would be as a free agent next winter.
The primary assertion against that kind of valuation is that teams simply don’t pay for defense the same way they do for offense, and that assertion it’s true. There’s absolutely a premium paid for power hitting in free agency, and Heyward doesn’t have the kind of skillset that other $200 million players have had. If we want to estimate what a good bat/great glove corner outfielder is going to get, we need to look beyond what guys like Prince Fielder, Albert Pujols, and Robinson Cano signed for. We need to look at how the market has paid this kind of player before.
Thankfully, Heyward’s skillset isn’t really all that unique. Over the last decade, we’ve seen a pretty decent number of players who achieved their value through similar methods. For instance, here are Heyward’s career numbers in a table with the the performances of four other similar outfielders, up to the point at which they reached free agency.
Name PA wRC+ BsR Off Def WAR OFF/600 DEF/600 WAR/600
Jason Heyward 2,819 117 14 70 46 21 15 10 4.6
Carl Crawford 3,784 116 48 120 37 29 19 6 4.5
Carlos Beltran 3,911 112 41 100 56 29 15 9 4.4
Ichiro Suzuki 5,180 117 39 149 54 37 17 6 4.3
Jacoby Ellsbury 3,839 109 44 83 50 27 13 8 4.3
There are some differences, certainly, but overall, they all established themselves as something like +4.5 WAR/600 PA players in their pre-free agent careers, and they all did it with positive contributions from their bat, their feet, and their gloves. If you prefer to look at the more narrow window of a player’s final three years before free agency, Heyward’s 2012-2014 numbers still measure up remarkably well with this group, especially Crawford’s final three years in Tampa.
Name PA wRC+ BsR Off Def WAR OFF/600 DEF/600 WAR/600
Jason Heyward 1740 116 10 43 43 15 15 15 5.1
Carl Crawford 1817 118 22 60 33 16 20 11 5.2
Since it’s the closest match, let’s deal with the Crawford comparison for now, and we’ll circle back to the others in a minute. Crawford hit the market after his age-28 season and signed a seven year deal for $142 million, which is in line with what several people in the comments suggested they think Heyward should sign for. Only $142 million in 2010 is not the same thing as $142 million in 2014. If we think Crawford is a good stand-in for Heyward’s market value, then we have to bring Crawford’s value into present day dollars. Actually, we have to bring them into 2015 dollars, since that’s when Heyward is hitting free agency, so Heyward will hit the open market with five years of inflation between his deal and Crawford’s contract with Boston.
Rather than turn this into another post about the different ways of calculating the market price of a win, let’s just take the simple route and look at the total spending differences in MLB payrolls during that time. Crawford’s deal began in 2011, when the total of all 30 MLB payrolls was $2.78 billion. Last year, MLB was at $3.45 billion, and they’re already at $3.1 billion for 2015 without including any of the free agent contracts. 2015 league payrolls are going to end up around $3.7 billion or so, most likely, so the league will have seen roughly 37 percent more money going to players since Crawford’s deal was signed.
If you simply scale Crawford’s annual salary to match current spending levels, his $20 million AAV becomes $25 million to keep pace with inflation. If we assume that he’d be able to command the same contract length, Crawford’s inflation-adjusted price becomes 7/$175M. And Crawford was selling his 29-35 seasons; Heyward is going to be three year’s younger than Crawford was when he hit the open market, and very likely will have little interest in a seven year deal. If we’re going to use Crawford as an example of Heyward’s market value, then we essentially have to admit that Crawford is evidence that Heyward is likely to land a deal in excess of $200 million as a free agent, even if he just takes the same inflation-adjusted AAV and adds an extra year.
But, of course, a lot of people hated the Crawford contract at the time, and it’s just one deal. So, let’s look at the others.
Carlos Beltran got $17M per year when total league payroll was $2.18 billion. If we translate that into a $3.7 billion spending economy, Beltran’s $17M per year turns into $28.8 million per year; Beltran also got seven years, starting with his age-28 season.
Ichiro Suzuki got $18M per year when league payroll was $2.69 billion. In a $3.7 billion economy, that turns into $24.8M per year. Ichiro only got five years, but the contract began when he was 34, and his three most recent seasons averaged about +4 WAR per 600 PA, about a win less than Heyward’s three most recent seasons. Ichiro was a decade older and well into his decline phase, and he still got the equivalent of $25 million per year.
Ellsbury’s the easiest one of all, given that he just signed last year, so we don’t have to inflate his salary all that much. Adjusting upwards slightly, his $22M per season becomes about $23M per year. Ellsbury got seven years starting with his age-30 season.
Four very similar players to Heyward, skills and value wise. The inflation-adjusted salaries put them squarely in the $23 to $28 million per year range. Even if you don’t think Heyward is as good as these guys, you could essentially perform the same exercise with Vernon Wells or Torii Hunter, and you’ll get the same results, essentially. $18-$20 million per year, even four or five years ago, is $25+ million per year in today’s dollars.
And then there’s the age factor. Assuming Heyward’s market value in 12 months is roughly the same as it is now, he’s not settling for a seven year deal. Heyward’s going to be looking for 8-10 years at around that $25 million per year AAV, and that’s assuming he doesn’t have a breakout season. If he does, and he hits for power again, the price might get near $30 million per year, or push to 12 years if teams would rather inflate the contract length rather than the annual salary.
His 2015 performance will go a long way to determining which side of the $200 million coin Heyward falls on. If he struggles with injuries or continues to be a slightly above average hitter, maybe he’ll settle for $175-$200 million, basically just taking the Ellsbury contract and adding a year or two in length. If he hits as he has through his career, I’m guessing $225-$250 million is probably more likely, as he’ll aim for something like the Robinson Cano contract. If he has a breakout year and becomes the hitter that people have been projecting, then $300 million isn’t out of the question. At that point, he’s a a younger version of what Beltran was, but still heading into his prime years, and would easily be the most coveted free agent in years.
This is why the Braves traded him. It’s why I doubt the Cardinals will get him to sign a long-term deal any time soon. They have a history of getting players to take below-market deals to stay in St. Louis, but they’re not going to get Heyward to take $150 million for the peak of his career. He’s bet on himself to this point, and a year from free agency, there’s no reason to sell himself short now. The market doesn’t pay for defense quite the same way it pays for power, but it has paid plenty of similar players enough money that $200 million for Heyward is probably the starting point in negotiations.
Are the Cardinals prepared to go there? I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. I don’t think they gave up four years of Shelby Miller with no plan to even try and keep Heyward, and they know he’s looking at a huge contract in a year if they don’t get him signed. The Cardinals have proven they’ll put their money where UZR’s mouth is, and it paid off nicely with their faith in Jhonny Peralta. They’ll probably face a similar reaction if they give Heyward $200+ million to keep him in St. Louis, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that turned out to be a similarly good idea.
Diamondbacks Decide to Find Out What Jeremy Hellickson Is.
Over his first full season, back in 2011, Jeremy Hellickson ran a mediocre 115 FIP-. It wasn’t a particularly awful mark for a rookie, but that doesn’t suggest the kind of talent you build around. Yet, the same year, Hellickson also posted an ERA- of 76. By the numbers you don’t notice while watching, Hellickson was 15% worse than average. By the numbers you do notice while watching, Hellickson was 24% better than average. The ERA-/FIP- difference of 39 points was, to that point, the biggest full-season difference since 1996. Hellickson became a pitcher of intrigue.
And then he went and doubled down. As a sophomore, a 117 FIP-. As a sophomore, an 80 ERA-. That’s a difference of 37 points, which is basically tied with his first difference of 39 points, and it’s also one of the greatest single-season differences in recent history. One time, you might be comfortable writing off as a fluke. But twice in a row? That’s twice the sample size. Oh, the questions we all asked. Through his first 400-some innings, Hellickson looked like one of the fabled breakers of modern analytics.
Now it’s November 2014 and Hellickson is property of the Diamondbacks. Some things have changed.
For Tampa Bay, Hellickson was a pretty obvious trade candidate. He has two more years of team control, and he’s about to cost something like $4 million. That’s fine, for a good pitcher, but the Rays clearly lacked confidence that Hellickson would be good anymore. Meanwhile, the Diamondbacks have openly been in the market for rotation help, under new front-office leadership. Next year’s rotation could at some point have Patrick Corbin, Bronson Arroyo, and Archie Bradley, but they won’t be starting in Phoenix in April, so, there are openings. Hellickson isn’t far removed from being interesting, he’s not old, he comes with a potential injury excuse for under-performance, and he’ll cost just that $4 million or so.
Headed to Arizona: Hellickson, just. Headed to Tampa Bay, or, more realistically, certain Tampa Bay affiliates: Andrew Velazquez and Justin Williams. Velazquez is 20 and a shortstop. Williams is 19 and an outfielder. A couple months ago, Kiley wrote up the Diamondbacks’ system, and he slotted Velazquez eighth and Williams ninth. The sentences are more important than the rankings. So –
On Velazquez
Velazquez is small at 5’8/175 but the switch-hitter has the most usable power of the three shortstops in this group and has the best feel to hit as well. He has the tools to stick at short, stole a lot of bases but isn’t a huge runner (55 on the 20-80 scale, with excellent instincts) and is still learning the position, with some scouts saying he fits better at second base or in a utility role long-term.
On Williams
Williams was a 2nd rounder out of high school in 2013 with 60 raw power from the left side as a carrying tool and was among the youngest in his draft class, just recently turning 19. He has an average arm but doesn’t project as more than a fringy defender, so the bat has to carry him. Williams beat expectations in Low-A this year but needs to make adjustments to get to his power in games and scouts are concerned advanced breaking stuff will give him trouble at higher levels.
Interesting, both of them. Miles and miles away, both of them. As Dave Stewart put it:
“I didn’t really think about the shortstop situation, because [Velazquez is] so far away,” D-backs general manager Dave Stewart said. “He played low-A ball last year. He’s probably three, four years away, and Williams is probably four, five years away, and I looked at it more that way than the fact that I was trading from a position of strength.”
It’s pretty clear Tampa Bay got some real talent; it’s pretty clear both guys are projects, the odds stacked against them, and one can only wonder what the Rays might’ve been able to get for Hellickson a couple of years ago. Alas, that hypothetical didn’t happen, and reality did happen, the simplified results being displayed in the following handy little table:
Split ERA- FIP- Difference
2010 – 2012 79 115 -36
2013 – 2014 133 113 20
Career 99 114 -15
Also, elbow surgery cost Hellickson more than half of this past season, after he neglected to inform team officials of some ongoing discomfort. That wasn’t a popular move, but, I suppose Hellickson isn’t the first pitcher to have kept an injury to himself. It’s not Tampa Bay’s problem anymore.
For a guy who’s been up and down, Hellickson’s FIP- has remained remarkably consistent. It hasn’t been higher than 117, and it hasn’t been lower than 112. It doesn’t seem like he’s on the verge of a strikeout or a groundballing breakthrough, so it seems like Hellickson’s success will be determined by his ability to beat his own peripherals. It’s something you usually bet against, but Hellickson built himself a strong case as an outlier in his first two full years. So what are we supposed to do with him?
Because we use it so commonly, let’s go back to 2002. We know that some guys naturally beat their peripherals, and some guys naturally under-perform them. Sometimes a guy is Johnny Cueto, and sometimes a guy is Ricky Nolasco. Let’s say that we can start to observe real differences around the 1000-inning mark, or thereabouts. Over the window, 127 pitchers have thrown at least 1000 innings. Here’s how their ERA-/FIP- differences are distributed.
The absolute greatest difference, in terms of ERA- being lower than FIP-: 15 points, belonging to Cueto and Chris Young. Then 12 points, belonging to Jered Weaver, Jarrod Washburn, and Jeremy Guthrie. At the other end, Nolasco (17) and Jeremy Bonderman (13). Coincidentally, it seems like things are pretty normally distributed. Anyway, that would seem to set a ceiling around a 15-point difference. At least, covering the last 13 years.
Hellickson’s a little north of 600 career innings, and his ERA-/FIP- gap is 15 points. That’s a match for our max, which means it would be unreasonable to expect Hellickson to get back to what he was doing in the first half of his big-league career. That would be just too extraordinary. You also have a regression-to-the-mean factor, and a pitched-in-front-of-the-Rays-defense factor. The last four years, the Rays have ranked first, first, fourth, and seventh in BABIP allowed. In Hellickson’s rookie 2011 season, the Rays were first by DRS and second by UZR. The next year, eighth and sixth. As Hellickson got worse results, the Rays also had a worse team defense behind him.
It seems pretty inarguable that Hellickson got at least some help from his defenders. That accounts for some of the ERA-/FIP- difference. In 2011, Hellickson also absolutely allowed weaker contact than average, with pop-ups all over the place, but then, Tony Blengino has identified Tim Hudson as one of the kings of generating weak contact, and his career ERA-/FIP- difference is seven points.
Take Hellickson. His observed career gap is 15 points, in favor of a lower ERA-. You have to add some league-average pitching, to account for regression. You also have to account for the Rays’ defense. Maybe his “true” gap is 10 points. Maybe it’s 7 or 8 points, or 5 points, or 0 points. But his true gap is presumably lower than the observed gap, and then you remember Hellickson’s FIP- consistency. Hellickson needs to beat his peripherals by a good amount to be even a league-average pitcher.
If Hellickson projects for his career-average 114 FIP-, then almost all the outcomes would have him as a fairly mediocre starter. That seems like the most reasonable guess, and while you can see why the Diamondbacks are willing to take a shot on his re-discovering his razor-thin margins, you should always bet against a guy being extreme. Especially if he’s more recently been extreme in the opposite direction. Johnny Cueto’s putting together a pretty exceptional kind of peak, but Jeremy Hellickson most likely isn’t as good as Johnny Cueto.
Weeks ago, David Laurila talked to Rays pitching coach Jim Hickey. Hellickson came up a few times, and you can see some hints of frustration in Hickey’s words. He likes Hellickson’s raw talent, but wishes he would stop nibbling, and acknowledges he has to make some adjustments. He didn’t make those adjustments in Tampa Bay, and while mediocre pitchers are an adjustment or two away from improving, mostly they don’t improve. Hellickson, at least, gets a fresh start.
It’s a pure benefit trade for Tampa Bay, because Hellickson was finished there, and they turned him into far younger talent. For Arizona, the hope is that Hellickson can turn in something like an average ERA for just a few million dollars. There’s value there, for one or two years as other arms get healthy or develop, but unless Hellickson is a very rare breed, he’s not going to stabilize anything. Odds are, Arizona won’t miss the prospects they dealt. Odds are, after he’s gone, Arizona won’t miss Jeremy Hellickson.
And then he went and doubled down. As a sophomore, a 117 FIP-. As a sophomore, an 80 ERA-. That’s a difference of 37 points, which is basically tied with his first difference of 39 points, and it’s also one of the greatest single-season differences in recent history. One time, you might be comfortable writing off as a fluke. But twice in a row? That’s twice the sample size. Oh, the questions we all asked. Through his first 400-some innings, Hellickson looked like one of the fabled breakers of modern analytics.
Now it’s November 2014 and Hellickson is property of the Diamondbacks. Some things have changed.
For Tampa Bay, Hellickson was a pretty obvious trade candidate. He has two more years of team control, and he’s about to cost something like $4 million. That’s fine, for a good pitcher, but the Rays clearly lacked confidence that Hellickson would be good anymore. Meanwhile, the Diamondbacks have openly been in the market for rotation help, under new front-office leadership. Next year’s rotation could at some point have Patrick Corbin, Bronson Arroyo, and Archie Bradley, but they won’t be starting in Phoenix in April, so, there are openings. Hellickson isn’t far removed from being interesting, he’s not old, he comes with a potential injury excuse for under-performance, and he’ll cost just that $4 million or so.
Headed to Arizona: Hellickson, just. Headed to Tampa Bay, or, more realistically, certain Tampa Bay affiliates: Andrew Velazquez and Justin Williams. Velazquez is 20 and a shortstop. Williams is 19 and an outfielder. A couple months ago, Kiley wrote up the Diamondbacks’ system, and he slotted Velazquez eighth and Williams ninth. The sentences are more important than the rankings. So –
On Velazquez
Velazquez is small at 5’8/175 but the switch-hitter has the most usable power of the three shortstops in this group and has the best feel to hit as well. He has the tools to stick at short, stole a lot of bases but isn’t a huge runner (55 on the 20-80 scale, with excellent instincts) and is still learning the position, with some scouts saying he fits better at second base or in a utility role long-term.
On Williams
Williams was a 2nd rounder out of high school in 2013 with 60 raw power from the left side as a carrying tool and was among the youngest in his draft class, just recently turning 19. He has an average arm but doesn’t project as more than a fringy defender, so the bat has to carry him. Williams beat expectations in Low-A this year but needs to make adjustments to get to his power in games and scouts are concerned advanced breaking stuff will give him trouble at higher levels.
Interesting, both of them. Miles and miles away, both of them. As Dave Stewart put it:
“I didn’t really think about the shortstop situation, because [Velazquez is] so far away,” D-backs general manager Dave Stewart said. “He played low-A ball last year. He’s probably three, four years away, and Williams is probably four, five years away, and I looked at it more that way than the fact that I was trading from a position of strength.”
It’s pretty clear Tampa Bay got some real talent; it’s pretty clear both guys are projects, the odds stacked against them, and one can only wonder what the Rays might’ve been able to get for Hellickson a couple of years ago. Alas, that hypothetical didn’t happen, and reality did happen, the simplified results being displayed in the following handy little table:
Split ERA- FIP- Difference
2010 – 2012 79 115 -36
2013 – 2014 133 113 20
Career 99 114 -15
Also, elbow surgery cost Hellickson more than half of this past season, after he neglected to inform team officials of some ongoing discomfort. That wasn’t a popular move, but, I suppose Hellickson isn’t the first pitcher to have kept an injury to himself. It’s not Tampa Bay’s problem anymore.
For a guy who’s been up and down, Hellickson’s FIP- has remained remarkably consistent. It hasn’t been higher than 117, and it hasn’t been lower than 112. It doesn’t seem like he’s on the verge of a strikeout or a groundballing breakthrough, so it seems like Hellickson’s success will be determined by his ability to beat his own peripherals. It’s something you usually bet against, but Hellickson built himself a strong case as an outlier in his first two full years. So what are we supposed to do with him?
Because we use it so commonly, let’s go back to 2002. We know that some guys naturally beat their peripherals, and some guys naturally under-perform them. Sometimes a guy is Johnny Cueto, and sometimes a guy is Ricky Nolasco. Let’s say that we can start to observe real differences around the 1000-inning mark, or thereabouts. Over the window, 127 pitchers have thrown at least 1000 innings. Here’s how their ERA-/FIP- differences are distributed.
The absolute greatest difference, in terms of ERA- being lower than FIP-: 15 points, belonging to Cueto and Chris Young. Then 12 points, belonging to Jered Weaver, Jarrod Washburn, and Jeremy Guthrie. At the other end, Nolasco (17) and Jeremy Bonderman (13). Coincidentally, it seems like things are pretty normally distributed. Anyway, that would seem to set a ceiling around a 15-point difference. At least, covering the last 13 years.
Hellickson’s a little north of 600 career innings, and his ERA-/FIP- gap is 15 points. That’s a match for our max, which means it would be unreasonable to expect Hellickson to get back to what he was doing in the first half of his big-league career. That would be just too extraordinary. You also have a regression-to-the-mean factor, and a pitched-in-front-of-the-Rays-defense factor. The last four years, the Rays have ranked first, first, fourth, and seventh in BABIP allowed. In Hellickson’s rookie 2011 season, the Rays were first by DRS and second by UZR. The next year, eighth and sixth. As Hellickson got worse results, the Rays also had a worse team defense behind him.
It seems pretty inarguable that Hellickson got at least some help from his defenders. That accounts for some of the ERA-/FIP- difference. In 2011, Hellickson also absolutely allowed weaker contact than average, with pop-ups all over the place, but then, Tony Blengino has identified Tim Hudson as one of the kings of generating weak contact, and his career ERA-/FIP- difference is seven points.
Take Hellickson. His observed career gap is 15 points, in favor of a lower ERA-. You have to add some league-average pitching, to account for regression. You also have to account for the Rays’ defense. Maybe his “true” gap is 10 points. Maybe it’s 7 or 8 points, or 5 points, or 0 points. But his true gap is presumably lower than the observed gap, and then you remember Hellickson’s FIP- consistency. Hellickson needs to beat his peripherals by a good amount to be even a league-average pitcher.
If Hellickson projects for his career-average 114 FIP-, then almost all the outcomes would have him as a fairly mediocre starter. That seems like the most reasonable guess, and while you can see why the Diamondbacks are willing to take a shot on his re-discovering his razor-thin margins, you should always bet against a guy being extreme. Especially if he’s more recently been extreme in the opposite direction. Johnny Cueto’s putting together a pretty exceptional kind of peak, but Jeremy Hellickson most likely isn’t as good as Johnny Cueto.
Weeks ago, David Laurila talked to Rays pitching coach Jim Hickey. Hellickson came up a few times, and you can see some hints of frustration in Hickey’s words. He likes Hellickson’s raw talent, but wishes he would stop nibbling, and acknowledges he has to make some adjustments. He didn’t make those adjustments in Tampa Bay, and while mediocre pitchers are an adjustment or two away from improving, mostly they don’t improve. Hellickson, at least, gets a fresh start.
It’s a pure benefit trade for Tampa Bay, because Hellickson was finished there, and they turned him into far younger talent. For Arizona, the hope is that Hellickson can turn in something like an average ERA for just a few million dollars. There’s value there, for one or two years as other arms get healthy or develop, but unless Hellickson is a very rare breed, he’s not going to stabilize anything. Odds are, Arizona won’t miss the prospects they dealt. Odds are, after he’s gone, Arizona won’t miss Jeremy Hellickson.
Giancarlo Stanton, Ball-Striking, And The Future.
After a few days of heightened speculation, word finally came down on Monday that the Miami Marlins and Giancarlo Stanton had come to an agreement on a historic 13-year, $325M deal. Terms have not been fully disclosed, but it seems clear that Stanton will have the ability to opt out of the deal at some point, most likely after the 2019 season. This is massive news on many levels – it’s the largest dollar guarantee to a single player in the history of the sport, and a huge departure in operating procedure on the part of the club.
It furthers the ongoing industry trend toward diminished free agent pools, as teams continue to lock up their best and brightest in advance of the exhaustion of their six years of team control. Today, let’s take a quick and dirty look at the potential outcomes for player and club by examining Stanton’s foremost attribute – his peerless ball-striking ability.
I’ve gone into fairly significant detail regarding Stanton’s offensive game in previous articles; today I’m going to take a slightly different path, by considering the velocity of his batted balls.
We don’t have access to all manner of batted-ball velocity data, but from Home Run Tracker, one finds that Stanton hit the hardest home run (119.9 mph) in all of 2014. He also hit the third-hardest home run. He also hit the 19th-hardest home run of the entire season.
Here’s the top-20 hardest-hit home runs:
Num Hitter Team Date MPH
1 Giancarlo Stanton MIA 5/4/2014 119.9
2 David Ortiz BOS 4/22/2014 119.9
3 Giancarlo Stanton MIA 4/4/2014 118.8
4 Russell Martin PIT 4/9/2014 117.7
5 Hanley Ramirez LAD 6/8/2014 117.6
6 Hunter Pence SF 5/21/2014 116.9
7 C.J. Cron LAA 5/10/2014 116.9
8 Justin Upton ATL 4/10/2014 116.5
9 Oswaldo Arcia MIN 8/3/2014 116.5
10 Ian Desmond WSH 9/16/2014 115.9
11 Jonathan Schoop BAL 4/24/2014 115.8
12 Matt Holliday STL 9/12/2014 115.8
13 Anthony Rizzo CHC 5/3/2014 115.7
14 Nate Freiman OAK 8/17/2014 115.6
15 Edwin Encarnacion TOR 6/1/2014 115.5
16 Wil Myers TB 4/19/2014 115.5
17 Pedro Alvarez PIT 4/4/2014 115.5
18 Jose Bautista TOR 8/30/2014 115.5
19 Giancarlo Stanton MIA 7/18/2014 115.4
20 Alex Gordon KC 5/18/2014 115.2
There aren’t many Stantons on that table. There are a few different classes of player, a portion of them somewhat mediocre overall. There are some young legitimate power hitters, like Anthony Rizzo and Justin Upton. There is the established, somewhat mediocre free-swinging type, like Pedro Alvarez and Ian Desmond (the latter of whom is a good hitter for a shortstop, but not necessarily overall). Finally, there’s the fresh-faced youngsters with raw power, who don’t yet have a semblance of plate discipline, or even a plan, really – this would encompass Oswaldo Arcia and C.J. Cron.
There aren’t many established, fully-formed all-around star hitters in their mid-thirties on this list. David Ortiz, Matt Holliday, and Jose Bautista are the only three I see. A couple of years ago, Bautista’s name would have been all around a list like this. Since then, however, he has made “The Adjustment”. More on that later.
How then, could this massive investment turn out for the Marlins? There are a range of possibilities, and my gut tells me it’s more likely to turn out relatively well. Let’s look at a range of potential outcomes anyway:
POSITIVE OUTCOMES:
- Stanton follows something resembling the classic development path for a player of his age and ability. This player has just turned 25 years old – if the deal goes its full term, at least two-thirds of its length should be composed of peak-level seasons. Stanton is a power-before-hit guy, not hit-before-power, but is about as good as a 25-year-old power-before-hit guy can be. His late-thirties project to be more Mickey Mantle than Hank Aaron, but that’s about as critical as I can be. His strikeout rate is high but improving, and his popup rate is high but acceptable given his prodigious power. His liner rate is slightly below average, but not a problem, and his walk rate is strong. If he can get his unintentional walk rate back to his 2013 level, .400 OBPs might be in his immediate future.
- The national, global and industry economics are strong over the contract period. If times are good, there is labor peace, and attendance remains strong with cable money continuing to exponentially increase, this deal could be a real bargain within a few years.
NEGATIVE OUTCOMES:
- Obviously, serious injury can befall any player. Stanton is no more or less prone to such an occurrence relative to other star players. There is one situation that bears watching, however. Let’s call this the “Casper Wells Effect”. In the summer of 2011, when I was employed by the Seattle Mariners, we acquired Wells in the ill-fated – for us – Doug Fister deal with the Tigers. Wells was no star, but he did have legitimate power. He slugged .538 in limited duty in Detroit in 2010, and .442 for the Tigers before the deal in 2011. He was on fire his first couple of weeks in Seattle, batting .326-.415-.652, with 5 HR – all in Safeco, to the big part of the yard – in just 46 at-bats.
Then, on August 17, 2011, Wells was hit in the face by a Brandon Morrow pitch. He batted all of .125-.222-.250 for the rest of 2011, hit .228-.302-.396 in 2012, and then was Mr. Waiver Wire in 2013, hitting .126-.186-.147. From a scouting perspective, you could easily see him bailing just the slightest bit – he was never the same after the pivotal HBP. His confidence, the one thing a hitter can’t lose, was shot.
Now Giancarlo Stanton is a whole different class of cat than Casper Wells, but the fact remains that the Miami Marlins just guaranteed $325M to a guy who hasn’t had an at bat since being hit in the face with a pitch – and the scene last September in Milwaukee was infinitely scarier than when Wells was – relatively – grazed in the nose by Morrow. This clearly will be something to watch next spring.
- The national, global and industry economics deteriorate over the life of the contract. Bubbles eventually burst. The TV money bubble, at least in some markets, is already showing signs of doing so. The stock market is at an all-time high, but what happens when the Fed stops printing money at will, which they are now in fact saying is their intention? There is a whole lot of crazy stuff going on in the world, in case you haven’t noticed. Some of it could make baseball, and in fact all major sports, seem very inconsequential should circumstances intensify. These are all factors way out of Stanton/baseball’s control, but when any corporation has a long-term $325M debt on its books, long-term outside uncertainties at least have a chance of intruding.
- He doesn’t make “The Adjustment”. In my formative years, I had the privilege of watching Mike Schmidt play baseball for the Phillies every day. For most of the 1970′s, Schmidt struck out a lot, but hit a ton of massive, no-doubt homers to the pull side, while all the way playing Gold Glove caliber defense at third base. A few years after Schmidt’s debut, the Braves’ Dale Murphy entered the league, and began doing the same things, except as a center fielder. As the 1980′s opened, they were the two best players in the National League, with Schmidt winning the MVP in 1980-81, and Murphy matching him in 1983-84.
In his early 30′s, Schmidt noticed that his natural strength was ebbing just the slightest bit, and made some changes to his offensive game. He focused a bit more on contact, and on using the entire field. His average home run distance came way down – but his home run frequency did not. He led the league in homers two more times in 1984 and 1986 at ages 34 and 36, as his K total plunged from an NL-leading 148 in 1983 all the way to 84 in 1986. He copped a final MVP Award in 1986 for his efforts.
On the other hand, Murphy never made “The Adjustment”. He had his last great year at age 31 in 1987, drilling 44 homers and putting up a .295-.417-.580 line. He never again slugged above .421 – he went from superstar to below average offensive corner outfielder in record time. Could there have been other factors at play? Sure – a lot of players seemed to get a lot bigger around that time, while Murphy did not – but in any event, he did not make the adjustments necessary for continued excellence once his natural gifts began to decline.
Jose Bautista showed many signs of making “The Adjustment” last season. His popup totals are way down, and his K rate continues to improve. He isn’t hitting the ball as hard or as far, but his “technical merit” scores are clearly improving, at the age of 33. I like his intermediate-term prognosis a lot more than I did a couple of years ago.
Bautista represents a good role model for Stanton, stylistically. The Marlin Masher is nowhere near the point where he needs to make material adjustments at the plate, but that day will come. If he can pull a Bautista once his physical gifts show signs of natural erosion, he can still be an offensive force in the latter stages of his earth-moving deal. Making “The Adjustment” could be the difference between it being a merely good, or great deal from the Marlins’ perspective.
It furthers the ongoing industry trend toward diminished free agent pools, as teams continue to lock up their best and brightest in advance of the exhaustion of their six years of team control. Today, let’s take a quick and dirty look at the potential outcomes for player and club by examining Stanton’s foremost attribute – his peerless ball-striking ability.
I’ve gone into fairly significant detail regarding Stanton’s offensive game in previous articles; today I’m going to take a slightly different path, by considering the velocity of his batted balls.
We don’t have access to all manner of batted-ball velocity data, but from Home Run Tracker, one finds that Stanton hit the hardest home run (119.9 mph) in all of 2014. He also hit the third-hardest home run. He also hit the 19th-hardest home run of the entire season.
Here’s the top-20 hardest-hit home runs:
Num Hitter Team Date MPH
1 Giancarlo Stanton MIA 5/4/2014 119.9
2 David Ortiz BOS 4/22/2014 119.9
3 Giancarlo Stanton MIA 4/4/2014 118.8
4 Russell Martin PIT 4/9/2014 117.7
5 Hanley Ramirez LAD 6/8/2014 117.6
6 Hunter Pence SF 5/21/2014 116.9
7 C.J. Cron LAA 5/10/2014 116.9
8 Justin Upton ATL 4/10/2014 116.5
9 Oswaldo Arcia MIN 8/3/2014 116.5
10 Ian Desmond WSH 9/16/2014 115.9
11 Jonathan Schoop BAL 4/24/2014 115.8
12 Matt Holliday STL 9/12/2014 115.8
13 Anthony Rizzo CHC 5/3/2014 115.7
14 Nate Freiman OAK 8/17/2014 115.6
15 Edwin Encarnacion TOR 6/1/2014 115.5
16 Wil Myers TB 4/19/2014 115.5
17 Pedro Alvarez PIT 4/4/2014 115.5
18 Jose Bautista TOR 8/30/2014 115.5
19 Giancarlo Stanton MIA 7/18/2014 115.4
20 Alex Gordon KC 5/18/2014 115.2
There aren’t many Stantons on that table. There are a few different classes of player, a portion of them somewhat mediocre overall. There are some young legitimate power hitters, like Anthony Rizzo and Justin Upton. There is the established, somewhat mediocre free-swinging type, like Pedro Alvarez and Ian Desmond (the latter of whom is a good hitter for a shortstop, but not necessarily overall). Finally, there’s the fresh-faced youngsters with raw power, who don’t yet have a semblance of plate discipline, or even a plan, really – this would encompass Oswaldo Arcia and C.J. Cron.
There aren’t many established, fully-formed all-around star hitters in their mid-thirties on this list. David Ortiz, Matt Holliday, and Jose Bautista are the only three I see. A couple of years ago, Bautista’s name would have been all around a list like this. Since then, however, he has made “The Adjustment”. More on that later.
How then, could this massive investment turn out for the Marlins? There are a range of possibilities, and my gut tells me it’s more likely to turn out relatively well. Let’s look at a range of potential outcomes anyway:
POSITIVE OUTCOMES:
- Stanton follows something resembling the classic development path for a player of his age and ability. This player has just turned 25 years old – if the deal goes its full term, at least two-thirds of its length should be composed of peak-level seasons. Stanton is a power-before-hit guy, not hit-before-power, but is about as good as a 25-year-old power-before-hit guy can be. His late-thirties project to be more Mickey Mantle than Hank Aaron, but that’s about as critical as I can be. His strikeout rate is high but improving, and his popup rate is high but acceptable given his prodigious power. His liner rate is slightly below average, but not a problem, and his walk rate is strong. If he can get his unintentional walk rate back to his 2013 level, .400 OBPs might be in his immediate future.
- The national, global and industry economics are strong over the contract period. If times are good, there is labor peace, and attendance remains strong with cable money continuing to exponentially increase, this deal could be a real bargain within a few years.
NEGATIVE OUTCOMES:
- Obviously, serious injury can befall any player. Stanton is no more or less prone to such an occurrence relative to other star players. There is one situation that bears watching, however. Let’s call this the “Casper Wells Effect”. In the summer of 2011, when I was employed by the Seattle Mariners, we acquired Wells in the ill-fated – for us – Doug Fister deal with the Tigers. Wells was no star, but he did have legitimate power. He slugged .538 in limited duty in Detroit in 2010, and .442 for the Tigers before the deal in 2011. He was on fire his first couple of weeks in Seattle, batting .326-.415-.652, with 5 HR – all in Safeco, to the big part of the yard – in just 46 at-bats.
Then, on August 17, 2011, Wells was hit in the face by a Brandon Morrow pitch. He batted all of .125-.222-.250 for the rest of 2011, hit .228-.302-.396 in 2012, and then was Mr. Waiver Wire in 2013, hitting .126-.186-.147. From a scouting perspective, you could easily see him bailing just the slightest bit – he was never the same after the pivotal HBP. His confidence, the one thing a hitter can’t lose, was shot.
Now Giancarlo Stanton is a whole different class of cat than Casper Wells, but the fact remains that the Miami Marlins just guaranteed $325M to a guy who hasn’t had an at bat since being hit in the face with a pitch – and the scene last September in Milwaukee was infinitely scarier than when Wells was – relatively – grazed in the nose by Morrow. This clearly will be something to watch next spring.
- The national, global and industry economics deteriorate over the life of the contract. Bubbles eventually burst. The TV money bubble, at least in some markets, is already showing signs of doing so. The stock market is at an all-time high, but what happens when the Fed stops printing money at will, which they are now in fact saying is their intention? There is a whole lot of crazy stuff going on in the world, in case you haven’t noticed. Some of it could make baseball, and in fact all major sports, seem very inconsequential should circumstances intensify. These are all factors way out of Stanton/baseball’s control, but when any corporation has a long-term $325M debt on its books, long-term outside uncertainties at least have a chance of intruding.
- He doesn’t make “The Adjustment”. In my formative years, I had the privilege of watching Mike Schmidt play baseball for the Phillies every day. For most of the 1970′s, Schmidt struck out a lot, but hit a ton of massive, no-doubt homers to the pull side, while all the way playing Gold Glove caliber defense at third base. A few years after Schmidt’s debut, the Braves’ Dale Murphy entered the league, and began doing the same things, except as a center fielder. As the 1980′s opened, they were the two best players in the National League, with Schmidt winning the MVP in 1980-81, and Murphy matching him in 1983-84.
In his early 30′s, Schmidt noticed that his natural strength was ebbing just the slightest bit, and made some changes to his offensive game. He focused a bit more on contact, and on using the entire field. His average home run distance came way down – but his home run frequency did not. He led the league in homers two more times in 1984 and 1986 at ages 34 and 36, as his K total plunged from an NL-leading 148 in 1983 all the way to 84 in 1986. He copped a final MVP Award in 1986 for his efforts.
On the other hand, Murphy never made “The Adjustment”. He had his last great year at age 31 in 1987, drilling 44 homers and putting up a .295-.417-.580 line. He never again slugged above .421 – he went from superstar to below average offensive corner outfielder in record time. Could there have been other factors at play? Sure – a lot of players seemed to get a lot bigger around that time, while Murphy did not – but in any event, he did not make the adjustments necessary for continued excellence once his natural gifts began to decline.
Jose Bautista showed many signs of making “The Adjustment” last season. His popup totals are way down, and his K rate continues to improve. He isn’t hitting the ball as hard or as far, but his “technical merit” scores are clearly improving, at the age of 33. I like his intermediate-term prognosis a lot more than I did a couple of years ago.
Bautista represents a good role model for Stanton, stylistically. The Marlin Masher is nowhere near the point where he needs to make material adjustments at the plate, but that day will come. If he can pull a Bautista once his physical gifts show signs of natural erosion, he can still be an offensive force in the latter stages of his earth-moving deal. Making “The Adjustment” could be the difference between it being a merely good, or great deal from the Marlins’ perspective.
How Giancarlo Stanton Contracts Would Have Gone.
In case you were wondering, yes, you’re already used to this. The biggest contract in the history of North American sports is being handed out by perhaps the most famously cheap organization in the history of North American sports, and with a press conference scheduled, that means we’ve got something official: the Marlins are giving 13 years and $325 million to Giancarlo Stanton. Potentially. It’s complicated. But the contract’s agreed to, which is amazing, and almost as amazing as the fact that many of us have already moved on from the news given it was almost done late last week. This is the day to discuss Russell Martin or Jason Heyward or Shelby Miller. We already processed the Stanton stuff, but it feels like we should make a conscious effort to process a little more. This is a big deal. It’s also a big deal.
Fresh off of the Twitter, we have Buster Olney making a relevant guess:
Unofficial guess on industry opinion on the Stanton $325m deal:98 pct. think the Marlins are crazy. As you would expect w/ a deal that size.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) November 17, 2014
Seems like the industry usually reacts with astonishment, early in offseasons, before going on to make similar decisions later in offseasons. It’s always startling to recognize how much money there is in this game. The Stanton deal, though, is obviously exceptional — this is a new level of commitment. You can’t not stare at the potential maximums. What does 13 years even mean? How many dollars is three hundred twenty-five million dollars? This contract would conceivably end in 2027. By then, current eighth-graders could be getting PhDs in microbiology. It’s crazy to think about the commitment because the future is overwhelming. None of us know what’ll happen tomorrow. 13 years is almost 5,000 tomorrows.
Something we can’t do easily with our own lives is compare ourselves to similar people in the recent past. I can’t develop a profile of my neighbor and analyze a bunch of other people to see what might be going on with my neighbor in four or five years. But we can do this with athletes, at least in terms of their athletic performances. So let’s follow through with this pretty basic concept. How crazy a contract is this, that the Marlins are giving out? We don’t know anything about Stanton’s next 13 years, but what about the next 13 years, for previous Giancarlo Stantons? How did those go?
I decided to set some pretty simple filters. For ages, I examined the window between 22 – 24, capturing Stanton’s last three years. I went back to 1950, set a plate-appearance minimum of 1,500, entered a wRC+ minimum of 140, and entered an ISO minimum of .200. The FanGraphs leaderboards spit out 19 names: Stanton’s, and 18 others. We’re going to play with those 18 others.
We’re going to assume that Stanton follows each individual career path. For example, let’s take Eddie Mathews. If Stanton followed the Mathews path, he’d be worth 7.3 WAR next season. He’d be worth 4.2 WAR in 2022, and 0 WAR in 2027. We’re taking what Mathews did between 25 and 37, and then plugging that in for Stanton.
The remaining step is figuring out value, in terms of money. Here, I’m running parallel calculations. One assumes a starting point of $6 million/WAR, today, and the other assumes $7 million/WAR. Reasonable people disagree on these, which is why I’m showing them both. I’m assuming 5% year-to-year inflation. This, also, is something we can’t know, but over the course of the past decade, payroll has increased an average of 5.4% each season. It actually jumped more than double that between 2013 – 2014, but we should assume that won’t continue.
With all the numbers in place, we can easily calculate the player value over the 13 seasons. So, let’s walk through the Eddie Mathews path, again, in all the detail:
Year Age WAR $/WAR, (A) $/WAR, (B) Value, (A) Value, (B)
2015 25 7.3 6.0 7.0 43.8 51.1
2016 26 5.8 6.3 7.4 36.5 42.6
2017 27 8.3 6.6 7.7 54.9 64.1
2018 28 7.7 6.9 8.1 53.5 62.4
2019 29 7.1 7.3 8.5 51.8 60.4
2020 30 5.7 7.7 8.9 43.6 50.9
2021 31 7.9 8.0 9.4 63.5 74.1
2022 32 4.2 8.4 9.8 35.5 41.4
2023 33 5.2 8.9 10.3 46.1 53.8
2024 34 3.1 9.3 10.9 28.9 33.7
2025 35 1.5 9.8 11.4 14.7 17.1
2026 36 0.3 10.3 12.0 3.1 3.6
2027 37 0.0 10.8 12.6 0.0 0.0
If we start at $6 million/WAR, then the Mathews path would have a value of $476 million. If we start at $7 million/WAR, then the Mathews path would have a value of $555 million. Stanton is being guaranteed $325 million. The opt-out, of course, complicates things some. We don’t know the precise structure of Stanton’s contract, but if Stanton went the way of the Mathews path, he would probably exercise the opt-out after the sixth year. So then we wouldn’t care about the final seven. I don’t know the best way to handle that, so here I’m just going to pretend like the opt-out doesn’t exist, save for occasional mentions, like this one.
So that’s the Eddie Mathews path. How do the numbers come out, for all of the individual paths? That’s what this table is for. For the players who are still active and haven’t yet reached age-37, I filled out the data with Steamer projections and a standard semi-aggressive aging curve.
Name Value, $6M/WAR Value, $7M/WAR
Hank Aaron 776 905
Alex Rodriguez 572 667
Frank Robinson 567 662
Miguel Cabrera 532 621
Mickey Mantle 527 615
Albert Pujols 507 591
Eddie Mathews 476 555
Reggie Jackson 410 478
Frank Thomas 385 450
David Wright 349 407
Will Clark 308 359
Ken Griffey Jr. 305 355
**** Allen 286 334
Jack Clark 280 326
Rocky Colavito 255 298
Boog Powell 216 252
Don Mattingly 197 230
Darryl Strawberry 190 222
The literal worst-case scenario is that Stanton never plays again. Something terrible happens and his career is over. Maybe that terrible thing already happened, on account of Mike Fiers. But, no. You can’t let yourself be paralyzed by fear of the extremely unlikely. Next time you eat a sandwich, you could choke to death. You can’t not eat sandwiches. Next time you go jogging around the neighborhood, you could be killed by a falling fire-escape ladder. You can’t not exercise (or you’ll be killed by something else). There are actual worst-case scenarios and there are realistic worst-case scenarios, and I think the table includes some realistic worst-case scenarios. Strawberry’s career plummeted right off a cliff at 30. Mattingly lost his power as a result of a chronic back injury. Both paths would still be worth 60 – 70% of the Stanton terms.
And there’s the other end. Hank Aaron just never slowed down. Miguel Cabrera is particularly encouraging, if you’re not buying that Alex Rodriguez is also encouraging because of what he put in his body. Frank Robinson, Mathews, Albert Pujols…Mickey Mantle might’ve been too good to serve as a Stanton comp, but it’s not like he’s in here skewing all the numbers.
Based on the values in the first column, the average is $397 million, with a $367-million median. Based on the values in the second column, the average is $463 million, with a $429-million median. The point being, based on these comparisons, Stanton should be worth the money, if the assumptions hold somewhat true. It could be payroll goes up more than 5% on average. Balancing out a certain amount of this is that the opt-out has value for Stanton, and not so much for the team. The likelihood is that Stanton only stays around if he’s declined a fair amount. But based on where we are today, Stanton should offer a ton of value over the next six years, and every long-term contract has an iffy second half. I don’t know exactly how to value an opt-out clause, in terms of money, but nothing about this indicates “crazy” to me. I mean, the terms out of context are crazy — wow, $325 million, that’s an unimaginable amount of money! — but given what Stanton is, given how he should be expected to age, and given how much money there is right now in the sport, this looks a lot better than other, shorter contracts to older players from the recent past. Giancarlo Stanton isn’t even a week and a half removed from his 25th birthday.
The caveat is the obvious caveat: above, we used market rates for wins. Different teams have differing abilities to spend market rates, and while Stanton makes sense on a $150-million ballclub, he makes no sense at all on a $50-million ballclub. This all forces us to wonder how capable the Marlins are of change, under the leadership of Jeffrey Loria. For good reason, a lot of people see that name and their minds are made up. Loria has abused every shred of trust he’s ever had in his vicinity. But if the Marlins were to be genuinely turning over a new leaf, what might that look like? It might look like an unprecedented guarantee for the face of the team. It might look like extension negotiations with other young talent. You can even reflect on the trades from a few years ago that made Stanton upset, and see the good sense in them. Perhaps the Marlins didn’t mess up by tearing the team apart. Perhaps the Marlins messed up by spending to build the wrong kind of team. If you’re somehow willing to trust again, and I don’t blame you if you’re not, this is what it would look like if the Marlins were going to join the rest of Major League Baseball.
That’s the crazy thing to think about. It’s definitely crazy to think about making a 13-year commitment to a baseball player, but when they’re really young and really great and really averse to ever throwing pitches, baseball players are actually kind of predictable. A lot of those guys, predictably, go to the Hall of Fame.
Fresh off of the Twitter, we have Buster Olney making a relevant guess:
Unofficial guess on industry opinion on the Stanton $325m deal:98 pct. think the Marlins are crazy. As you would expect w/ a deal that size.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) November 17, 2014
Seems like the industry usually reacts with astonishment, early in offseasons, before going on to make similar decisions later in offseasons. It’s always startling to recognize how much money there is in this game. The Stanton deal, though, is obviously exceptional — this is a new level of commitment. You can’t not stare at the potential maximums. What does 13 years even mean? How many dollars is three hundred twenty-five million dollars? This contract would conceivably end in 2027. By then, current eighth-graders could be getting PhDs in microbiology. It’s crazy to think about the commitment because the future is overwhelming. None of us know what’ll happen tomorrow. 13 years is almost 5,000 tomorrows.
Something we can’t do easily with our own lives is compare ourselves to similar people in the recent past. I can’t develop a profile of my neighbor and analyze a bunch of other people to see what might be going on with my neighbor in four or five years. But we can do this with athletes, at least in terms of their athletic performances. So let’s follow through with this pretty basic concept. How crazy a contract is this, that the Marlins are giving out? We don’t know anything about Stanton’s next 13 years, but what about the next 13 years, for previous Giancarlo Stantons? How did those go?
I decided to set some pretty simple filters. For ages, I examined the window between 22 – 24, capturing Stanton’s last three years. I went back to 1950, set a plate-appearance minimum of 1,500, entered a wRC+ minimum of 140, and entered an ISO minimum of .200. The FanGraphs leaderboards spit out 19 names: Stanton’s, and 18 others. We’re going to play with those 18 others.
We’re going to assume that Stanton follows each individual career path. For example, let’s take Eddie Mathews. If Stanton followed the Mathews path, he’d be worth 7.3 WAR next season. He’d be worth 4.2 WAR in 2022, and 0 WAR in 2027. We’re taking what Mathews did between 25 and 37, and then plugging that in for Stanton.
The remaining step is figuring out value, in terms of money. Here, I’m running parallel calculations. One assumes a starting point of $6 million/WAR, today, and the other assumes $7 million/WAR. Reasonable people disagree on these, which is why I’m showing them both. I’m assuming 5% year-to-year inflation. This, also, is something we can’t know, but over the course of the past decade, payroll has increased an average of 5.4% each season. It actually jumped more than double that between 2013 – 2014, but we should assume that won’t continue.
With all the numbers in place, we can easily calculate the player value over the 13 seasons. So, let’s walk through the Eddie Mathews path, again, in all the detail:
Year Age WAR $/WAR, (A) $/WAR, (B) Value, (A) Value, (B)
2015 25 7.3 6.0 7.0 43.8 51.1
2016 26 5.8 6.3 7.4 36.5 42.6
2017 27 8.3 6.6 7.7 54.9 64.1
2018 28 7.7 6.9 8.1 53.5 62.4
2019 29 7.1 7.3 8.5 51.8 60.4
2020 30 5.7 7.7 8.9 43.6 50.9
2021 31 7.9 8.0 9.4 63.5 74.1
2022 32 4.2 8.4 9.8 35.5 41.4
2023 33 5.2 8.9 10.3 46.1 53.8
2024 34 3.1 9.3 10.9 28.9 33.7
2025 35 1.5 9.8 11.4 14.7 17.1
2026 36 0.3 10.3 12.0 3.1 3.6
2027 37 0.0 10.8 12.6 0.0 0.0
If we start at $6 million/WAR, then the Mathews path would have a value of $476 million. If we start at $7 million/WAR, then the Mathews path would have a value of $555 million. Stanton is being guaranteed $325 million. The opt-out, of course, complicates things some. We don’t know the precise structure of Stanton’s contract, but if Stanton went the way of the Mathews path, he would probably exercise the opt-out after the sixth year. So then we wouldn’t care about the final seven. I don’t know the best way to handle that, so here I’m just going to pretend like the opt-out doesn’t exist, save for occasional mentions, like this one.
So that’s the Eddie Mathews path. How do the numbers come out, for all of the individual paths? That’s what this table is for. For the players who are still active and haven’t yet reached age-37, I filled out the data with Steamer projections and a standard semi-aggressive aging curve.
Name Value, $6M/WAR Value, $7M/WAR
Hank Aaron 776 905
Alex Rodriguez 572 667
Frank Robinson 567 662
Miguel Cabrera 532 621
Mickey Mantle 527 615
Albert Pujols 507 591
Eddie Mathews 476 555
Reggie Jackson 410 478
Frank Thomas 385 450
David Wright 349 407
Will Clark 308 359
Ken Griffey Jr. 305 355
**** Allen 286 334
Jack Clark 280 326
Rocky Colavito 255 298
Boog Powell 216 252
Don Mattingly 197 230
Darryl Strawberry 190 222
The literal worst-case scenario is that Stanton never plays again. Something terrible happens and his career is over. Maybe that terrible thing already happened, on account of Mike Fiers. But, no. You can’t let yourself be paralyzed by fear of the extremely unlikely. Next time you eat a sandwich, you could choke to death. You can’t not eat sandwiches. Next time you go jogging around the neighborhood, you could be killed by a falling fire-escape ladder. You can’t not exercise (or you’ll be killed by something else). There are actual worst-case scenarios and there are realistic worst-case scenarios, and I think the table includes some realistic worst-case scenarios. Strawberry’s career plummeted right off a cliff at 30. Mattingly lost his power as a result of a chronic back injury. Both paths would still be worth 60 – 70% of the Stanton terms.
And there’s the other end. Hank Aaron just never slowed down. Miguel Cabrera is particularly encouraging, if you’re not buying that Alex Rodriguez is also encouraging because of what he put in his body. Frank Robinson, Mathews, Albert Pujols…Mickey Mantle might’ve been too good to serve as a Stanton comp, but it’s not like he’s in here skewing all the numbers.
Based on the values in the first column, the average is $397 million, with a $367-million median. Based on the values in the second column, the average is $463 million, with a $429-million median. The point being, based on these comparisons, Stanton should be worth the money, if the assumptions hold somewhat true. It could be payroll goes up more than 5% on average. Balancing out a certain amount of this is that the opt-out has value for Stanton, and not so much for the team. The likelihood is that Stanton only stays around if he’s declined a fair amount. But based on where we are today, Stanton should offer a ton of value over the next six years, and every long-term contract has an iffy second half. I don’t know exactly how to value an opt-out clause, in terms of money, but nothing about this indicates “crazy” to me. I mean, the terms out of context are crazy — wow, $325 million, that’s an unimaginable amount of money! — but given what Stanton is, given how he should be expected to age, and given how much money there is right now in the sport, this looks a lot better than other, shorter contracts to older players from the recent past. Giancarlo Stanton isn’t even a week and a half removed from his 25th birthday.
The caveat is the obvious caveat: above, we used market rates for wins. Different teams have differing abilities to spend market rates, and while Stanton makes sense on a $150-million ballclub, he makes no sense at all on a $50-million ballclub. This all forces us to wonder how capable the Marlins are of change, under the leadership of Jeffrey Loria. For good reason, a lot of people see that name and their minds are made up. Loria has abused every shred of trust he’s ever had in his vicinity. But if the Marlins were to be genuinely turning over a new leaf, what might that look like? It might look like an unprecedented guarantee for the face of the team. It might look like extension negotiations with other young talent. You can even reflect on the trades from a few years ago that made Stanton upset, and see the good sense in them. Perhaps the Marlins didn’t mess up by tearing the team apart. Perhaps the Marlins messed up by spending to build the wrong kind of team. If you’re somehow willing to trust again, and I don’t blame you if you’re not, this is what it would look like if the Marlins were going to join the rest of Major League Baseball.
That’s the crazy thing to think about. It’s definitely crazy to think about making a 13-year commitment to a baseball player, but when they’re really young and really great and really averse to ever throwing pitches, baseball players are actually kind of predictable. A lot of those guys, predictably, go to the Hall of Fame.
Blue Jays Commit to Playoff Race, Sign Russell Martin.
This past year, as a regular for the Pirates, Russell Martin was worth 5.3 WAR, according to our data. Here’s the list of Blue Jays catchers who’ve had five-win seasons:
(1)
The year before, also with the Pirates, Martin was worth 4.1 WAR. Here’s the list of Blue Jays catchers who’ve had four-win seasons:
(1)
Looking ahead, over almost 500 trips to the plate, Steamer projects Martin to be worth 3.8 WAR. Here’s the list of Blue Jays catchers who’ve had 3.8-win seasons:
(1)
It’s a bit of a dreary history. Ernie Whitt was worth 3.6 wins in 1983. Pat Borders was worth 3.5 in 1990. Whitt was worth 3.4 in 1987. And then that’s it for even three-win seasons. The Blue Jays have never employed a star-level catcher. Now they have one in Russell Martin, who they plucked away from the National League for $82 million over five years. It’s not a sure-fire bargain — no long-term contract to an aging catcher can ever look like a bargain — but with the splash, the Blue Jays have moved up in the AL East, committing to a run toward a tournament the franchise hasn’t seen since 1993.
It is interesting to think about what this does to Martin’s NL suitors. The Pirates already acted to acquire insurance in Francisco Cervelli, but Martin seemed like a good bet to land with either the Cubs or the Dodgers. With Chicago, he could’ve represented a substantial improvement; with Los Angeles, he could’ve plugged one of few remaining weaknesses. As such, both those teams will have to consider alternatives like Miguel Montero, and maybe this makes it more likely the Cubs spend big on the starting rotation. But that’s a subject for another day, or for at least another post.
This morning, based on our depth charts and on the Steamer projections, the Blue Jays’ catcher situation was tied for fifth-worst in baseball. Now with Martin, they should be around the fifth-best, and while you know enough about how the error bars work, the Jays move past the Orioles in current projected WAR. They come right in line with the Rays and Red Sox, and while the Red Sox intend to make an impact move or two, the same might not be said of Tampa Bay. Martin greatly solidifies the Jays behind the plate, and he’ll also help to make them look better on the mound.
Based on market rates, for $82 million, the Jays are paying Martin to be worth something on the order of 10 – 11 wins. Historically, for catchers between the ages of 29 – 31, Martin’s been around the 85th percentile. For those catchers over the next five years, through age 36, the 85th percentile has been worth about 10 – 11 wins. It’s simple, but it works. If you prefer something Martin-specific, let’s begin with his 3.8-WAR projection for next season. Dock him six-tenths of a win each year, and in the end he’d have been worth 13 wins. Dock him 0.75 wins each year, and in the end he’d have been worth 11.5 wins. Pitch-framing value isn’t included, here. It appears the Jays have committed to a reasonable contract. No reason to think this is a huge mistake; no reason to think this is a huge awesome deal for the team. It falls within 10% or so of a good idea for both sides, and that’s the most that can be said about that.
What happens now is that the Jays trade or bump Dioner Navarro. They still have Josh Thole also under contract, but nevermind what happens to Navarro now; what matters is the improvement, to Martin. Toronto gave Navarro a small contract and he was fine over the first half of it. But Navarro’s an easy guy to push aside to make room for a star, similar to how the Cubs dumped Rick Renteria as soon as they realized they could get Joe Maddon. Navarro can hit a little, but his overall value is limited, and while he slugged .492 in 2013, that same year 65% of his extra-base hits were homers. His career mark is 34%, and last year he came in at 35%. Navarro isn’t a power hitter, so he’s not going to see another 137 wRC+.
Martin’s unlikely to see another 140 wRC+. Last season was his best season, driven by improvements going up the middle and the other way. Some relevant wRC+ splits:
Split Career 2014
Pull 137 91
Center 100 218
Opposite 91 179
Pittsburgh kills right-handed hitters who try to hit for pull power, so coincidentally or not, Martin last year did his damage elsewhere. Toronto’s ballpark plays very differently, so maybe Martin will get back to trying to drive the ball to left, but we can keep things simple: over his whole career, Martin’s hit 6% better than average, and Steamer projects him to be 9% better than average next year. He has a good eye, and he has decent power. Martin’s a more reliable hitter than Navarro is.
And as a defender, it’s not even close. Martin’s considerably more athletic than Navarro is — this also shows up on the bases — and that’s among the reasons the Jays think Martin shouldn’t age too terribly. Martin’s shown above-average control of the running game, while for Navarro it’s been neither a strength nor a weakness. Martin’s been an above-average pitch-blocker, while Navarro’s been below-average. And then you’re left with the framing stuff. Martin’s long been recognized as a high-quality receiver. Navarro, less so. Navarro rated as one of the worst framers last season. Martin rated as one of the better ones. With help from Baseball Savant, let’s compare called strike zones:
With Martin, you see more of an attack down in the zone, and a lot more called strikes down in and below the zone. Though they were both catching different pitching staffs, the Jays and Pirates pitchers tied in walk rate, and Jays pitchers had a much higher zone rate, which might imply better command. According to Matthew Carruth’s StatCorner data, and also to the Baseball Prospectus data, the difference between Martin and Navarro in terms of framing is worth tens of runs a year. Last year’s gap was about 30 runs. Over the whole of the PITCHf/x era, the gap looks like about 25 runs over an average season.
So the thing we know for sure: the framing metrics love Martin a lot more than they love Navarro. Could be you’re looking at more than a two-win difference. Perhaps more reasonably, it’s a one-win difference or so, between the two backstops. Whatever the case, it’s a difference that isn’t captured by the individual WAR figures available on the player pages, so while Navarro’s functional as a third-tier semi-regular, Martin’s a true difference-maker today, and his receiving shouldn’t age quite like the rest of his skills. Framing seems to not really deteriorate.
At the catcher position, the Jays just upgraded their durability, discipline, power, running, blocking, throwing, and receiving. Though we don’t have numbers for it, the Jays also seem to have upgraded their leadership, and in the overall picture, the Jays significantly upgraded their team and therefore their 2015 playoff prospects. Like most free-agent contracts, this one’ll look worse a few years down the road, but Martin ought to age somewhat gracefully, as he’ll be declining from a hell of a peak.
(1)
The year before, also with the Pirates, Martin was worth 4.1 WAR. Here’s the list of Blue Jays catchers who’ve had four-win seasons:
(1)
Looking ahead, over almost 500 trips to the plate, Steamer projects Martin to be worth 3.8 WAR. Here’s the list of Blue Jays catchers who’ve had 3.8-win seasons:
(1)
It’s a bit of a dreary history. Ernie Whitt was worth 3.6 wins in 1983. Pat Borders was worth 3.5 in 1990. Whitt was worth 3.4 in 1987. And then that’s it for even three-win seasons. The Blue Jays have never employed a star-level catcher. Now they have one in Russell Martin, who they plucked away from the National League for $82 million over five years. It’s not a sure-fire bargain — no long-term contract to an aging catcher can ever look like a bargain — but with the splash, the Blue Jays have moved up in the AL East, committing to a run toward a tournament the franchise hasn’t seen since 1993.
It is interesting to think about what this does to Martin’s NL suitors. The Pirates already acted to acquire insurance in Francisco Cervelli, but Martin seemed like a good bet to land with either the Cubs or the Dodgers. With Chicago, he could’ve represented a substantial improvement; with Los Angeles, he could’ve plugged one of few remaining weaknesses. As such, both those teams will have to consider alternatives like Miguel Montero, and maybe this makes it more likely the Cubs spend big on the starting rotation. But that’s a subject for another day, or for at least another post.
This morning, based on our depth charts and on the Steamer projections, the Blue Jays’ catcher situation was tied for fifth-worst in baseball. Now with Martin, they should be around the fifth-best, and while you know enough about how the error bars work, the Jays move past the Orioles in current projected WAR. They come right in line with the Rays and Red Sox, and while the Red Sox intend to make an impact move or two, the same might not be said of Tampa Bay. Martin greatly solidifies the Jays behind the plate, and he’ll also help to make them look better on the mound.
Based on market rates, for $82 million, the Jays are paying Martin to be worth something on the order of 10 – 11 wins. Historically, for catchers between the ages of 29 – 31, Martin’s been around the 85th percentile. For those catchers over the next five years, through age 36, the 85th percentile has been worth about 10 – 11 wins. It’s simple, but it works. If you prefer something Martin-specific, let’s begin with his 3.8-WAR projection for next season. Dock him six-tenths of a win each year, and in the end he’d have been worth 13 wins. Dock him 0.75 wins each year, and in the end he’d have been worth 11.5 wins. Pitch-framing value isn’t included, here. It appears the Jays have committed to a reasonable contract. No reason to think this is a huge mistake; no reason to think this is a huge awesome deal for the team. It falls within 10% or so of a good idea for both sides, and that’s the most that can be said about that.
What happens now is that the Jays trade or bump Dioner Navarro. They still have Josh Thole also under contract, but nevermind what happens to Navarro now; what matters is the improvement, to Martin. Toronto gave Navarro a small contract and he was fine over the first half of it. But Navarro’s an easy guy to push aside to make room for a star, similar to how the Cubs dumped Rick Renteria as soon as they realized they could get Joe Maddon. Navarro can hit a little, but his overall value is limited, and while he slugged .492 in 2013, that same year 65% of his extra-base hits were homers. His career mark is 34%, and last year he came in at 35%. Navarro isn’t a power hitter, so he’s not going to see another 137 wRC+.
Martin’s unlikely to see another 140 wRC+. Last season was his best season, driven by improvements going up the middle and the other way. Some relevant wRC+ splits:
Split Career 2014
Pull 137 91
Center 100 218
Opposite 91 179
Pittsburgh kills right-handed hitters who try to hit for pull power, so coincidentally or not, Martin last year did his damage elsewhere. Toronto’s ballpark plays very differently, so maybe Martin will get back to trying to drive the ball to left, but we can keep things simple: over his whole career, Martin’s hit 6% better than average, and Steamer projects him to be 9% better than average next year. He has a good eye, and he has decent power. Martin’s a more reliable hitter than Navarro is.
And as a defender, it’s not even close. Martin’s considerably more athletic than Navarro is — this also shows up on the bases — and that’s among the reasons the Jays think Martin shouldn’t age too terribly. Martin’s shown above-average control of the running game, while for Navarro it’s been neither a strength nor a weakness. Martin’s been an above-average pitch-blocker, while Navarro’s been below-average. And then you’re left with the framing stuff. Martin’s long been recognized as a high-quality receiver. Navarro, less so. Navarro rated as one of the worst framers last season. Martin rated as one of the better ones. With help from Baseball Savant, let’s compare called strike zones:
With Martin, you see more of an attack down in the zone, and a lot more called strikes down in and below the zone. Though they were both catching different pitching staffs, the Jays and Pirates pitchers tied in walk rate, and Jays pitchers had a much higher zone rate, which might imply better command. According to Matthew Carruth’s StatCorner data, and also to the Baseball Prospectus data, the difference between Martin and Navarro in terms of framing is worth tens of runs a year. Last year’s gap was about 30 runs. Over the whole of the PITCHf/x era, the gap looks like about 25 runs over an average season.
So the thing we know for sure: the framing metrics love Martin a lot more than they love Navarro. Could be you’re looking at more than a two-win difference. Perhaps more reasonably, it’s a one-win difference or so, between the two backstops. Whatever the case, it’s a difference that isn’t captured by the individual WAR figures available on the player pages, so while Navarro’s functional as a third-tier semi-regular, Martin’s a true difference-maker today, and his receiving shouldn’t age quite like the rest of his skills. Framing seems to not really deteriorate.
At the catcher position, the Jays just upgraded their durability, discipline, power, running, blocking, throwing, and receiving. Though we don’t have numbers for it, the Jays also seem to have upgraded their leadership, and in the overall picture, the Jays significantly upgraded their team and therefore their 2015 playoff prospects. Like most free-agent contracts, this one’ll look worse a few years down the road, but Martin ought to age somewhat gracefully, as he’ll be declining from a hell of a peak.
The Fascinating Jason Heyward/Shelby Miller Swap.
Maybe we should have seen this coming. It was pretty clear that the Braves were going to trade an outfielder this winter, with both Justin Upton and Jason Heyward entering their final season before they became free agents, and the team apparently preferring to employ Evan Gattis as a left fielder rather than as a catcher. The team tried to re-sign Heyward when they spent last year locking up their young core, but found his price prohibitive, so he almost certainly wasn’t staying in Atlanta beyond the 2015 season, and the Braves probably aren’t good enough to be pushing all of their chips in for the upcoming season.
So, trading Heyward now makes a good amount of sense for the Braves, and they made it clear that acquiring starting pitching was their #1 priority this winter. A natural trade partner would have a hole in right field, some rotation depth, and the potential desire and ability to try and sign Heyward to a long-term deal before hit the open market next winter. No team in baseball fit that description as well as the St. Louis Cardinals, so while we didn’t hear any pre-deal rumors of the deal that sent Shelby Miller and Tyrell Jenkins to Atlanta for Heyward and Jordan Walden, it feels like we should have anticipated something like this. It’s the kind of move that seemingly makes a lot of sense for both sides.
We’ll start with the Cardinals side of things, since they’re acquiring the best player in this deal. Jason Heyward is a stud, and you don’t even have to buy into defensive metrics to agree with that statement. For 2015, Steamer projects him at +4.5 WAR per 600 plate appearances, the 16th highest total of any position player in baseball, and that’s with him grading out as just a slightly above average defender: the +10 fielding projection right field adds up to a +3.5 DEF rating, which includes the positional adjustment for playing a corner spot. In terms of forecast defensive value, Heyward’s projection puts him in roughly a similar group to guys like David Wright, Robinson Cano, Pablo Sandoval, and Josh Reddick.
It’s also a significant step back from what he’s done previously, as his career DEF/600 PA rating is +10. In other words, Steamer is projecting Heyward to take a big step back defensively and still be one of the best players in the game, because the forecast sees a 25 year old with a career 117 wRC+ and positive contact rate trends, so it thinks Heyward is on the verge of a big offensive breakout. From a purely offensive standpoint, Steamer expects Heyward to be as good (or slightly better than) the good Upton, Matt Kemp, Ryan Braun, or Hanley Ramirez. If you combine the offensive level of those players with above average defensive value, well, you’re left with a superstar.
And that’s why the Cardinals have to be pretty thrilled with this move. They’re legitimately getting one of the best young players in baseball, and at the only position where they had a glaring need. Adding Heyward to fill their right field hole will end up being one of the largest improvements any team makes this winter. The question for the Cardinals is how long they’ll get to keep him.
Because of how quickly he got to the big leagues, Heyward is in line to hit free agency after his age-25 season, and he’s going to have roughly +25 career WAR when he reaches the open market. Barring a disastrous 2015 season, he’s going to get paid, and you can be certain that his agents will be pointing to the 13 year, $325 million deal that Giancarlo Stanton has agreed to as the new precedent. Sure, Heyward isn’t going to get 13/$325M, given the massive differences in power, but it seems likely that he’ll demand a deal that starts at 10 years and goes north of $200 million.
Robinson Cano got $240 million as a similarly valuable player entering his age-31 season; Heyward might not have Cano’s offensive track record, but he’s going to be selling his prime years, and the deal won’t extend into the period of his career where you’d expect him to essentially be worthless. If the Cardinals want to lock up Heyward before he gets to free agency, it’s probably going to take something like the contract they refused to give Albert Pujols. Maybe they might be able get him to take a slight pre-free agent discount and get him for 9/$200M or something in that range, but let’s dispel the notion that the Cardinals are going to be able to sign Heyward for anything other than a mountain of cash.
The team definitely has the means to take on a contract like that. They only have $73 million in committed contracts for next season, and Matt Holliday‘s contract expires at the end of the 2016 season, so they have the flexibility to make Heyward a franchise-player type offer. And they do have a history of acquiring players on the cusp of free agency, only to convince them to stick around instead, but stretching for a single player the way Heyward will require would be something new for this front office.
For now, this has to be viewed as a rental. A rental with a chance to purchase, perhaps, but this isn’t a trade-and-sign deal like we’ve seen with the R.A. Dickey or Martin Prado trades the last few years. The Cardinals are getting a great right fielder, but they’re only guaranteed to get him for one year, and then it’s either a really large long-term commitment or settling for the compensation pick that comes from letting a premium free agent walk away at year’s end. There’s a non-zero chance that the long-term return on this deal for St. Louis will be minimal.
But the short-term upgrade is huge, especially if they flip Peter Bourjos for a starting pitcher to replace Miller, which shouldn’t be too terribly difficult. Having Heyward/Walden/Pitcher To Be Named instead of Bourjos/Miller/Jenkins could be a three or four win upgrade in 2015, depending on what kind of starter they get in return, and that’s three or four wins in a year in which marginal upgrades are going to be extremely valuable to the Cardinals.
Adam Wainwright is probably just about finished as an ace, and is headed for a decline. Yadier Molina won’t be able to hit forever. Holliday isn’t a spring chicken anymore. The Cardinals have plenty of good young talent, but their best players are getting worse, and the Cardinals needed a significant upgrade to put themselves in position to win the NL Central once again. This move does just that.
The long-term cost will essentially boil down to what you believe Shelby Miller is. Is he a top-flight young pitcher, the guy who has produced +6 WAR by runs allowed in 370 big league innings, and just turned 24? or is he a two-pitch tease, overrated by run prevention, heading for a short-term crash when his mediocre peripherals catch up with him? A strong case could be made for both outcomes.
Miller throws a lot of fastballs up in the zone, and as Eno noted through multiple conversations with pitchers this year, high fastballs can produce some terrific results, often inducing a lot of useless contact that isn’t captured in FIP-type metrics. If Miller’s approach to pitching up with a good fastball makes him a guy who can sustain a BABIP in the .270-.280 range, the underwhelming strikeout rates become a lot less problematic. If you’re a Braves fan who wants to be excited about this deal, here’s the first ~400 IP comparison you want to use.
Name IP BB% K% GB% HR/FB LOB% BABIP ERA- FIP- xFIP-
Shelby Miller 370 9% 20% 39% 10% 79% 0.267 92 110 110
Matt Cain 437 10% 20% 37% 6% 72% 0.259 83 86 102
Cain was always better at home run prevention than Miller, but the template is similar, and it’s certainly possible that Miller is a (somewhat worse) new version of the Cain skillset. If Miller’s FIP-beating ways prove sustainable to a significant degree, picking up four discounted years of a quality young arm is a very solid return for a single year of Heyward, especially if the Braves don’t see themselves as strong contenders in 2015.
But Cain is notable because most pitchers can’t do what he’s done, and not every young hurler who posts a low BABIP for 400 innings is definitely going to follow in his footsteps. Here’s another, less-rosy comparison for Miller, again with career performance through the equivalent of two full seasons.
Name IP BB% K% GB% HR/FB LOB% BABIP ERA- FIP- xFIP-
Jeremy Hellickson 402 8% 17% 38% 10% 82% 0.244 79 115 110
Shelby Miller 370 9% 20% 39% 10% 79% 0.267 92 110 110
A couple of years ago, the arguments for Hellickson were the same as they are for Miller today. Maybe he’s just good at inducing a lot of popups, and because he’s a flyball guy, he’s always going to run lower than average BABIPs, so he’s underrated by metrics that focus only on walks, strikeouts, and home runs or ground balls. Hellickson managed to keep things going through age-25, and then promptly fell apart, pitching poorly and getting injured. The Rays just shipped him to Arizona for two lower level prospects rather than bet on him returning to prior form.
More often than not, guys who post big gaps between their ERAs and their FIPs regress towards the latter, which is why FIP and xFIP work for most pitchers. It doesn’t mean Miller is definitely not an outlier, but he probably isn’t at outlier to the degree that he’s been so far, and he’s probably more of an okay pitcher than a very good one.
But even four years of an okay young arm is pretty valuable. After all, we’re looking at league average starters making $10-$12 million per year in free agency, and Miller will a little more than the league minimum this year, with three below-market arbitration years to follow. Even if Miller is more of a solid arm than a future ace, the Braves are getting a lot more quantity of value here, and they’re allocating it into the years where they think they might be more able to contend.
And Miller isn’t the only thing they’re getting. Tyrell Jenkins was a first round pick a couple of years ago, and while he’s battled arm problems since, Kiley McDaniel remains somewhat intrigued by his potential. Here’s Kiley’s updated take on Jenkins:
Jenkins missed the first half of 2014 recovering from shoulder surgery on a muscle in his shoulder (not the joint itself), something that had been bothering him for years. He turned 22 in the middle of this season and was understandably a bit rusty in half a season at High-A, but started to find his stride in the Arizona Fall League, where I scouted him a few weeks ago. He sat 92-94 and hit 96 mph, flashing above average fastball life at times, with an above average 80-83 mph hard curveball and a changeup at 81-84 mph that’s average when he keeps it down in the zone.
He’s incredibly athletic and the breaking ball has flashed plus at higher velocites, so there could still be even more in the tank than what I saw. I’d like to get a full, healthy 2015 on the books for Jenkins before i give a projection with some certainty, but he seems to be headed in the right direction now with enough starter traits to project him in a rotation. I’d grade him as a 50 FV/#4 starter now, but I could edit that up a notch by the middle of next season.
The combination of Miller and Jenkins give the Braves two live-arms that they’re buying somewhat low on, and if both end up pitching to their previously-believed potential, this would turn into a huge win for Atlanta. If either of them turn into quality mid-rotation starters, or if you think Miller is already that now, then this probably is a smart enough move for a somewhat-rebuilding team to divest a short-term asset into some future value.
Of course, if Miller is Hellickson 2.0 instead of Cain 2.0, and Jenkins is just another power arm who can’t miss bats, then this could look pretty terrible for the Braves as well. If Steamer is correct about Hewyard’s impending breakout, this could turn out to be a franchise player for a couple of arms with legitimate question marks who might turn out to be nothing at all. This move could be great, okay, or terrible for Atlanta, and it all depends on how the young arms develop, which is maybe the most difficult thing to project.
The fact that there’s no obvious most likely outcome suggests this is a pretty fair move for both sides. I probably prefer this a little bit from St. Louis’ perspective, since I lean more towards assuming Miller’s strikeout regression is a concern, but even I’d still say this is a fair return for a single year of a player looking at a monster paycheck next winter. The Cardinals get better now, and get a chance to make Heyward the new face of their franchise, while the Braves probaby get better for the future.
And that makes this seem like a smart trade for both teams. The Cardinals get the better player and a chance to extend a player the Braves weren’t going to keep, while the Braves get some good young pitching to make a stronger run in 2016. This is a deal that serves the purposes of both sides. It might end up favoring one or the other, but at the time of the deal, it makes sense for both Atlanta and St. Louis.
So, trading Heyward now makes a good amount of sense for the Braves, and they made it clear that acquiring starting pitching was their #1 priority this winter. A natural trade partner would have a hole in right field, some rotation depth, and the potential desire and ability to try and sign Heyward to a long-term deal before hit the open market next winter. No team in baseball fit that description as well as the St. Louis Cardinals, so while we didn’t hear any pre-deal rumors of the deal that sent Shelby Miller and Tyrell Jenkins to Atlanta for Heyward and Jordan Walden, it feels like we should have anticipated something like this. It’s the kind of move that seemingly makes a lot of sense for both sides.
We’ll start with the Cardinals side of things, since they’re acquiring the best player in this deal. Jason Heyward is a stud, and you don’t even have to buy into defensive metrics to agree with that statement. For 2015, Steamer projects him at +4.5 WAR per 600 plate appearances, the 16th highest total of any position player in baseball, and that’s with him grading out as just a slightly above average defender: the +10 fielding projection right field adds up to a +3.5 DEF rating, which includes the positional adjustment for playing a corner spot. In terms of forecast defensive value, Heyward’s projection puts him in roughly a similar group to guys like David Wright, Robinson Cano, Pablo Sandoval, and Josh Reddick.
It’s also a significant step back from what he’s done previously, as his career DEF/600 PA rating is +10. In other words, Steamer is projecting Heyward to take a big step back defensively and still be one of the best players in the game, because the forecast sees a 25 year old with a career 117 wRC+ and positive contact rate trends, so it thinks Heyward is on the verge of a big offensive breakout. From a purely offensive standpoint, Steamer expects Heyward to be as good (or slightly better than) the good Upton, Matt Kemp, Ryan Braun, or Hanley Ramirez. If you combine the offensive level of those players with above average defensive value, well, you’re left with a superstar.
And that’s why the Cardinals have to be pretty thrilled with this move. They’re legitimately getting one of the best young players in baseball, and at the only position where they had a glaring need. Adding Heyward to fill their right field hole will end up being one of the largest improvements any team makes this winter. The question for the Cardinals is how long they’ll get to keep him.
Because of how quickly he got to the big leagues, Heyward is in line to hit free agency after his age-25 season, and he’s going to have roughly +25 career WAR when he reaches the open market. Barring a disastrous 2015 season, he’s going to get paid, and you can be certain that his agents will be pointing to the 13 year, $325 million deal that Giancarlo Stanton has agreed to as the new precedent. Sure, Heyward isn’t going to get 13/$325M, given the massive differences in power, but it seems likely that he’ll demand a deal that starts at 10 years and goes north of $200 million.
Robinson Cano got $240 million as a similarly valuable player entering his age-31 season; Heyward might not have Cano’s offensive track record, but he’s going to be selling his prime years, and the deal won’t extend into the period of his career where you’d expect him to essentially be worthless. If the Cardinals want to lock up Heyward before he gets to free agency, it’s probably going to take something like the contract they refused to give Albert Pujols. Maybe they might be able get him to take a slight pre-free agent discount and get him for 9/$200M or something in that range, but let’s dispel the notion that the Cardinals are going to be able to sign Heyward for anything other than a mountain of cash.
The team definitely has the means to take on a contract like that. They only have $73 million in committed contracts for next season, and Matt Holliday‘s contract expires at the end of the 2016 season, so they have the flexibility to make Heyward a franchise-player type offer. And they do have a history of acquiring players on the cusp of free agency, only to convince them to stick around instead, but stretching for a single player the way Heyward will require would be something new for this front office.
For now, this has to be viewed as a rental. A rental with a chance to purchase, perhaps, but this isn’t a trade-and-sign deal like we’ve seen with the R.A. Dickey or Martin Prado trades the last few years. The Cardinals are getting a great right fielder, but they’re only guaranteed to get him for one year, and then it’s either a really large long-term commitment or settling for the compensation pick that comes from letting a premium free agent walk away at year’s end. There’s a non-zero chance that the long-term return on this deal for St. Louis will be minimal.
But the short-term upgrade is huge, especially if they flip Peter Bourjos for a starting pitcher to replace Miller, which shouldn’t be too terribly difficult. Having Heyward/Walden/Pitcher To Be Named instead of Bourjos/Miller/Jenkins could be a three or four win upgrade in 2015, depending on what kind of starter they get in return, and that’s three or four wins in a year in which marginal upgrades are going to be extremely valuable to the Cardinals.
Adam Wainwright is probably just about finished as an ace, and is headed for a decline. Yadier Molina won’t be able to hit forever. Holliday isn’t a spring chicken anymore. The Cardinals have plenty of good young talent, but their best players are getting worse, and the Cardinals needed a significant upgrade to put themselves in position to win the NL Central once again. This move does just that.
The long-term cost will essentially boil down to what you believe Shelby Miller is. Is he a top-flight young pitcher, the guy who has produced +6 WAR by runs allowed in 370 big league innings, and just turned 24? or is he a two-pitch tease, overrated by run prevention, heading for a short-term crash when his mediocre peripherals catch up with him? A strong case could be made for both outcomes.
Miller throws a lot of fastballs up in the zone, and as Eno noted through multiple conversations with pitchers this year, high fastballs can produce some terrific results, often inducing a lot of useless contact that isn’t captured in FIP-type metrics. If Miller’s approach to pitching up with a good fastball makes him a guy who can sustain a BABIP in the .270-.280 range, the underwhelming strikeout rates become a lot less problematic. If you’re a Braves fan who wants to be excited about this deal, here’s the first ~400 IP comparison you want to use.
Name IP BB% K% GB% HR/FB LOB% BABIP ERA- FIP- xFIP-
Shelby Miller 370 9% 20% 39% 10% 79% 0.267 92 110 110
Matt Cain 437 10% 20% 37% 6% 72% 0.259 83 86 102
Cain was always better at home run prevention than Miller, but the template is similar, and it’s certainly possible that Miller is a (somewhat worse) new version of the Cain skillset. If Miller’s FIP-beating ways prove sustainable to a significant degree, picking up four discounted years of a quality young arm is a very solid return for a single year of Heyward, especially if the Braves don’t see themselves as strong contenders in 2015.
But Cain is notable because most pitchers can’t do what he’s done, and not every young hurler who posts a low BABIP for 400 innings is definitely going to follow in his footsteps. Here’s another, less-rosy comparison for Miller, again with career performance through the equivalent of two full seasons.
Name IP BB% K% GB% HR/FB LOB% BABIP ERA- FIP- xFIP-
Jeremy Hellickson 402 8% 17% 38% 10% 82% 0.244 79 115 110
Shelby Miller 370 9% 20% 39% 10% 79% 0.267 92 110 110
A couple of years ago, the arguments for Hellickson were the same as they are for Miller today. Maybe he’s just good at inducing a lot of popups, and because he’s a flyball guy, he’s always going to run lower than average BABIPs, so he’s underrated by metrics that focus only on walks, strikeouts, and home runs or ground balls. Hellickson managed to keep things going through age-25, and then promptly fell apart, pitching poorly and getting injured. The Rays just shipped him to Arizona for two lower level prospects rather than bet on him returning to prior form.
More often than not, guys who post big gaps between their ERAs and their FIPs regress towards the latter, which is why FIP and xFIP work for most pitchers. It doesn’t mean Miller is definitely not an outlier, but he probably isn’t at outlier to the degree that he’s been so far, and he’s probably more of an okay pitcher than a very good one.
But even four years of an okay young arm is pretty valuable. After all, we’re looking at league average starters making $10-$12 million per year in free agency, and Miller will a little more than the league minimum this year, with three below-market arbitration years to follow. Even if Miller is more of a solid arm than a future ace, the Braves are getting a lot more quantity of value here, and they’re allocating it into the years where they think they might be more able to contend.
And Miller isn’t the only thing they’re getting. Tyrell Jenkins was a first round pick a couple of years ago, and while he’s battled arm problems since, Kiley McDaniel remains somewhat intrigued by his potential. Here’s Kiley’s updated take on Jenkins:
Jenkins missed the first half of 2014 recovering from shoulder surgery on a muscle in his shoulder (not the joint itself), something that had been bothering him for years. He turned 22 in the middle of this season and was understandably a bit rusty in half a season at High-A, but started to find his stride in the Arizona Fall League, where I scouted him a few weeks ago. He sat 92-94 and hit 96 mph, flashing above average fastball life at times, with an above average 80-83 mph hard curveball and a changeup at 81-84 mph that’s average when he keeps it down in the zone.
He’s incredibly athletic and the breaking ball has flashed plus at higher velocites, so there could still be even more in the tank than what I saw. I’d like to get a full, healthy 2015 on the books for Jenkins before i give a projection with some certainty, but he seems to be headed in the right direction now with enough starter traits to project him in a rotation. I’d grade him as a 50 FV/#4 starter now, but I could edit that up a notch by the middle of next season.
The combination of Miller and Jenkins give the Braves two live-arms that they’re buying somewhat low on, and if both end up pitching to their previously-believed potential, this would turn into a huge win for Atlanta. If either of them turn into quality mid-rotation starters, or if you think Miller is already that now, then this probably is a smart enough move for a somewhat-rebuilding team to divest a short-term asset into some future value.
Of course, if Miller is Hellickson 2.0 instead of Cain 2.0, and Jenkins is just another power arm who can’t miss bats, then this could look pretty terrible for the Braves as well. If Steamer is correct about Hewyard’s impending breakout, this could turn out to be a franchise player for a couple of arms with legitimate question marks who might turn out to be nothing at all. This move could be great, okay, or terrible for Atlanta, and it all depends on how the young arms develop, which is maybe the most difficult thing to project.
The fact that there’s no obvious most likely outcome suggests this is a pretty fair move for both sides. I probably prefer this a little bit from St. Louis’ perspective, since I lean more towards assuming Miller’s strikeout regression is a concern, but even I’d still say this is a fair return for a single year of a player looking at a monster paycheck next winter. The Cardinals get better now, and get a chance to make Heyward the new face of their franchise, while the Braves probaby get better for the future.
And that makes this seem like a smart trade for both teams. The Cardinals get the better player and a chance to extend a player the Braves weren’t going to keep, while the Braves get some good young pitching to make a stronger run in 2016. This is a deal that serves the purposes of both sides. It might end up favoring one or the other, but at the time of the deal, it makes sense for both Atlanta and St. Louis.
The Bargains of the 2015 Free Agent Class.
In past years, I’ve often compared shopping in free agency to shopping at Whole Foods, in that everything is just more expensive than it should be. But given that I’m currently writing this post at my local Whole Foods — their oatmeal is actually pretty good, and not too expensive for mornings when work-from-home writers just have to get out of the house — I feel like that would be a hypocritical analogy to make today.
So, Whole Foods, you get a one-day reprieve from being the example of an overpriced market. And to be fair, maybe it isn’t the best analogy anyway, given that Whole Foods does sell mostly high quality stuff, while the free agent market is full of things other teams didn’t really want anymore. Maybe free agency is more like a really expensive Craigslist?
Regardless, you get the point. Free agency is expensive. The winner’s curse often applies, as teams are initially happy with their purchases, but eventually realize that the shiny new thing they just bought isn’t shiny or new. The average age of free agents is going up, and aging curves appear to be getting steeper, and that combination leads to a lot of players selling the last few years of their decline phase, which is not a great time to be investing heavily in an asset.
But, occasionally, the market does undervalue a player. Often it’s health related, but sometimes a bad platform year performance can convince too many buyers that decline has already begun to set in, and teams can buy low on a player poised for a rebound. It does happen, so today, I’m going to try and identify five potential bargains in this class. Of course, I tried this last year too, and came away with Brian McCann, the short Chris Young, Roberto Hernandez, Scott Kazmir, and Omar Infante; a whopping 20% of those guys were worth their contract last year. So, you know, take these opinions with as many grains of salt as you think are necessary.
But let me take another stab at this. Here are five guys I think could prove to be decent buys this winter. For reference, I’m going to list both the expected contracts from our Contract Crowdsourcing project and my own expectations. On to the list.
5. Jason Hammel, Starting Pitcher
Crowd: 3 years, $27 million
Dave: 3 years, $30 million
Teams tend to value consistency, especially in veterans. They like to know what they’re paying for, and a nice long steady track record helps makes it easier to set expectations. Hammel doesn’t offer that, as his xFIP- over the last five years show: 92, 121, 83, 115, 96. And those are core skills that are supposed to be fairly steady. Hammel has vacillated between being pretty good and pretty lousy, which is very likely going to drive his price down.
But if you look at the package as a whole, Hammel looks essentially like a league average starting pitcher, and that’s basically what Steamer has him projected as, putting up +1.9 WAR per 200 iP. Of course, Hammel has never actually thrown 200 innings in a season, so perhaps he’s better projected as about a +1.5 WAR pitcher, and $9 or $10 million per year isn’t exactly a steal for that kind of performance.
But there’s also some pretty limited risk, given the short term he’ll likely command, and Hammel comes with a bit more upside than most of the average-innings-eater types. Like Jason Vargas last year, he won’t be a sexy addition, but he’s the kind of moderate cost acquisition who could provide some real value for a team in the regular season.
4. Francisco Liriano, Starting Pitcher
Crowd: 3 years, $36 million
Dave: 3 years, $39 million
Take everything I just said about Hammel’s inconsistency driving down his price and multiply it by a factor of 10. Liriano has occasionally been completely dominant and completely terrible, and he’s been regularly injured in between. He’s been very good for the Pirates for the last two years, but even in something like the best possible context for him as a pitcher, he still only managed 160 innings per year. If you sign Liriano, you’re hoping for quality, not quantity.
And it’s probably time to stop expecting him to perform at the level of his peripherals now, as he’s nearly 1,200 innings into his career and has an ERA (4.07) significantly higher than either his FIP (3.61) or xFIP (3.56). So, that +2.9 WAR per 200 IP Steamer projection? He’s probably going to underperform that both in innings and runs allowed. A more realistic forecast is around +2 WAR, probably, and that’s assuming he stays healthy, which he very well might not.
But, again, there’s upside here, and the corresponding price won’t be outrageous. There won’t be too many other guys who can perform at this level signing for what Liriano will sign for. $12 or $13 million per year buys you an average player these days, but Liriano gives some hope that he might be able to produce more than his price would infer. Especially if he finally gets around to pitching to his peripherals for once.
3. Russell Martin, Catcher
Crowd: 4 years, $56 million
Dave: 5 years, $75 million
I know: a five year deal for a 32 year old catcher is what passes for a top-three bargain these days? By the end of the deal, Martin probably won’t be a catcher anymore, even if the crowd is right about the length of the deal he ends up taking. This contract is almost certainly going to result in some dead money in the last year or two of the contract, so for it to be a bargain, Martin is going to have to produce significantly more than $15 million per year worth of value up front.
And I think he very well might. For one, his plate discipline isn’t going anywhere, so even if his power goes away, he’s got a decently high offensive floor, as declining down to the level of Ryan Hanigan wouldn’t make Martin useless. And Martin doesn’t even have to hit for that much power to be a very good player; his career ISO is only .141, and that’s been enough to help him post a 106 wRC+. Martin looks like a pretty good bet to be something like a league average hitter for the next few years, and a catcher who can hit at league average levels is pretty valuable.
Especially because we’re not capturing all of his defensive value. Per StatCorner, Martin’s value by framing runs, by season since 2007: +25, +31, +23, +10, +29, +24, +17, +12. Even if we don’t believe that the actual value of these runs is as high as the current estimates — I’m in that camp — and cut these values in half, Martin looks like about a +1 win framer, and this is another skill that has been show to age well. Steamer’s projection for Martin’s 2015 performance has him worth +3.6 WAR per 450 plate appearances, and that’s without any framing value; include it in the calculation, and Martin might just be the best free agent on the market this winter.
Of course, I made a very similar argument about McCann last year, and that didn’t work out so well in year one. But at $15 million per year for four or five years, Martin seems like a very reasonable bet to me, at least, relative to the other bets that free agency offers.
2. Brandon McCarthy, Starting Pitcher
Crowd: 3 years, $36 million
Dave: 3 years, $42 million
The winner of this bidding will likely be the one who puts the most emphasis on his most recent performance, as the 2014 version of McCarthy is quite interesting indeed. After 110 innings of a great xFIP/terrible ERA combination, the Yankees picked up McCarthy for a song and saw him immediately start pitching like his peripherals suggested, giving them 90 spectacular innings in the process. Even after switching from the NL to the AL, he sustained his increase in strikeouts, and even knocked it a few ticks higher, all while still avoiding walks to an extreme degree.
And there are plenty of reasons to think it wasn’t a fluke. His fastball averaged 92.9 last year, up two miles per hour from his 2013 velocity, and his breaking stuff was coming in harder as well. Velocity spikes and performance improvements often go together, and if he can keep throwing 93, McCarthy can likely sustain more of his recent performance than his career numbers would suggest.
The fact that it was just one year in which his ERA was abysmal for the first half of the season, along with his own injury history, will likely keep this deal short term. Even if he pushes up towards $15 million per year, there’s few players on the market who offer this kind of potential performance without carrying a hefty price tag. His long history of shoulder problems certainly aren’t something to just be ignored, but overall, I can’t see too many better options for a team looking for an impact player this winter.
1. Chase Headley, Third Base
Crowd: 4 years, $56 million
Dave: 4 years, $60 million
While analysis based on n of one is never a good idea, Headley’s situation reminds me an awful lot of mid-career Adrian Beltre. Solid player, monster breakout season based on a power spike, followed by a quick regression to career averages, and then hitting free agency coming off a down year in which his primary selling points were hot corner defense and the hope that a more hitter-friendly ballpark might give him a real boost.
Beltre, of course, went on to become a monster once he left Safeco Field, and his current contract with the Rangers — signed after his big bounce back in Boston — is maybe the best large free agent contract signed in the last decade. We can’t project the same kind of improvement from Headley, but there are reasons to think that he’s more than the average bat/good glove combination that his 2014 numbers would suggest, and you don’t have to expect him to repeat his +20 UZR from last year to think that he could be a valuable piece going forward.
As a pull-power hitter who most frequently bats from the left side, Petco Park was maybe the very worst environment for him to come up in. The fence adjustments of 2013 mitigated it’s extreme pitcher nature to some degree, but it’s still a west coast ballpark where the ball doesn’t fly, and for most his career, the right-center gap was cavernous. Like Beltre in Seattle, Headley’s skillset was just an awful fit for his home park.
And yet he still managed to be an above average hitter during his time in San Diego. His career wRC+ is 114, almost the equal of Pablo Sandoval‘s career 122 wRC+, yet perhaps because of the up-and-more-recently-down nature of his offensive performances, the generally accepted view is that he’s a glove-first acquisition. But Headley’s track record is pretty solid, and if he gets to a park that inflates doubles or is generally friendly to left-handed pull hitters, Headley could be a nice offensive piece as well.
I’d probably take the under on Steamer’s +3.9 WAR per 600 PA forecast, but expecting +3 WAR with some hope for a bit of a boost isn’t unreasonable at all. I don’t think it’s completely insane to prefer Headley to Sandoval even without factoring cost in, and it seems quite likely that Headley will be the cheaper of the two. If you’re looking for power, you probably want to look elsewhere, but if you’re looking for overall value this winter, Headley might be the best target out there.
So, Whole Foods, you get a one-day reprieve from being the example of an overpriced market. And to be fair, maybe it isn’t the best analogy anyway, given that Whole Foods does sell mostly high quality stuff, while the free agent market is full of things other teams didn’t really want anymore. Maybe free agency is more like a really expensive Craigslist?
Regardless, you get the point. Free agency is expensive. The winner’s curse often applies, as teams are initially happy with their purchases, but eventually realize that the shiny new thing they just bought isn’t shiny or new. The average age of free agents is going up, and aging curves appear to be getting steeper, and that combination leads to a lot of players selling the last few years of their decline phase, which is not a great time to be investing heavily in an asset.
But, occasionally, the market does undervalue a player. Often it’s health related, but sometimes a bad platform year performance can convince too many buyers that decline has already begun to set in, and teams can buy low on a player poised for a rebound. It does happen, so today, I’m going to try and identify five potential bargains in this class. Of course, I tried this last year too, and came away with Brian McCann, the short Chris Young, Roberto Hernandez, Scott Kazmir, and Omar Infante; a whopping 20% of those guys were worth their contract last year. So, you know, take these opinions with as many grains of salt as you think are necessary.
But let me take another stab at this. Here are five guys I think could prove to be decent buys this winter. For reference, I’m going to list both the expected contracts from our Contract Crowdsourcing project and my own expectations. On to the list.
5. Jason Hammel, Starting Pitcher
Crowd: 3 years, $27 million
Dave: 3 years, $30 million
Teams tend to value consistency, especially in veterans. They like to know what they’re paying for, and a nice long steady track record helps makes it easier to set expectations. Hammel doesn’t offer that, as his xFIP- over the last five years show: 92, 121, 83, 115, 96. And those are core skills that are supposed to be fairly steady. Hammel has vacillated between being pretty good and pretty lousy, which is very likely going to drive his price down.
But if you look at the package as a whole, Hammel looks essentially like a league average starting pitcher, and that’s basically what Steamer has him projected as, putting up +1.9 WAR per 200 iP. Of course, Hammel has never actually thrown 200 innings in a season, so perhaps he’s better projected as about a +1.5 WAR pitcher, and $9 or $10 million per year isn’t exactly a steal for that kind of performance.
But there’s also some pretty limited risk, given the short term he’ll likely command, and Hammel comes with a bit more upside than most of the average-innings-eater types. Like Jason Vargas last year, he won’t be a sexy addition, but he’s the kind of moderate cost acquisition who could provide some real value for a team in the regular season.
4. Francisco Liriano, Starting Pitcher
Crowd: 3 years, $36 million
Dave: 3 years, $39 million
Take everything I just said about Hammel’s inconsistency driving down his price and multiply it by a factor of 10. Liriano has occasionally been completely dominant and completely terrible, and he’s been regularly injured in between. He’s been very good for the Pirates for the last two years, but even in something like the best possible context for him as a pitcher, he still only managed 160 innings per year. If you sign Liriano, you’re hoping for quality, not quantity.
And it’s probably time to stop expecting him to perform at the level of his peripherals now, as he’s nearly 1,200 innings into his career and has an ERA (4.07) significantly higher than either his FIP (3.61) or xFIP (3.56). So, that +2.9 WAR per 200 IP Steamer projection? He’s probably going to underperform that both in innings and runs allowed. A more realistic forecast is around +2 WAR, probably, and that’s assuming he stays healthy, which he very well might not.
But, again, there’s upside here, and the corresponding price won’t be outrageous. There won’t be too many other guys who can perform at this level signing for what Liriano will sign for. $12 or $13 million per year buys you an average player these days, but Liriano gives some hope that he might be able to produce more than his price would infer. Especially if he finally gets around to pitching to his peripherals for once.
3. Russell Martin, Catcher
Crowd: 4 years, $56 million
Dave: 5 years, $75 million
I know: a five year deal for a 32 year old catcher is what passes for a top-three bargain these days? By the end of the deal, Martin probably won’t be a catcher anymore, even if the crowd is right about the length of the deal he ends up taking. This contract is almost certainly going to result in some dead money in the last year or two of the contract, so for it to be a bargain, Martin is going to have to produce significantly more than $15 million per year worth of value up front.
And I think he very well might. For one, his plate discipline isn’t going anywhere, so even if his power goes away, he’s got a decently high offensive floor, as declining down to the level of Ryan Hanigan wouldn’t make Martin useless. And Martin doesn’t even have to hit for that much power to be a very good player; his career ISO is only .141, and that’s been enough to help him post a 106 wRC+. Martin looks like a pretty good bet to be something like a league average hitter for the next few years, and a catcher who can hit at league average levels is pretty valuable.
Especially because we’re not capturing all of his defensive value. Per StatCorner, Martin’s value by framing runs, by season since 2007: +25, +31, +23, +10, +29, +24, +17, +12. Even if we don’t believe that the actual value of these runs is as high as the current estimates — I’m in that camp — and cut these values in half, Martin looks like about a +1 win framer, and this is another skill that has been show to age well. Steamer’s projection for Martin’s 2015 performance has him worth +3.6 WAR per 450 plate appearances, and that’s without any framing value; include it in the calculation, and Martin might just be the best free agent on the market this winter.
Of course, I made a very similar argument about McCann last year, and that didn’t work out so well in year one. But at $15 million per year for four or five years, Martin seems like a very reasonable bet to me, at least, relative to the other bets that free agency offers.
2. Brandon McCarthy, Starting Pitcher
Crowd: 3 years, $36 million
Dave: 3 years, $42 million
The winner of this bidding will likely be the one who puts the most emphasis on his most recent performance, as the 2014 version of McCarthy is quite interesting indeed. After 110 innings of a great xFIP/terrible ERA combination, the Yankees picked up McCarthy for a song and saw him immediately start pitching like his peripherals suggested, giving them 90 spectacular innings in the process. Even after switching from the NL to the AL, he sustained his increase in strikeouts, and even knocked it a few ticks higher, all while still avoiding walks to an extreme degree.
And there are plenty of reasons to think it wasn’t a fluke. His fastball averaged 92.9 last year, up two miles per hour from his 2013 velocity, and his breaking stuff was coming in harder as well. Velocity spikes and performance improvements often go together, and if he can keep throwing 93, McCarthy can likely sustain more of his recent performance than his career numbers would suggest.
The fact that it was just one year in which his ERA was abysmal for the first half of the season, along with his own injury history, will likely keep this deal short term. Even if he pushes up towards $15 million per year, there’s few players on the market who offer this kind of potential performance without carrying a hefty price tag. His long history of shoulder problems certainly aren’t something to just be ignored, but overall, I can’t see too many better options for a team looking for an impact player this winter.
1. Chase Headley, Third Base
Crowd: 4 years, $56 million
Dave: 4 years, $60 million
While analysis based on n of one is never a good idea, Headley’s situation reminds me an awful lot of mid-career Adrian Beltre. Solid player, monster breakout season based on a power spike, followed by a quick regression to career averages, and then hitting free agency coming off a down year in which his primary selling points were hot corner defense and the hope that a more hitter-friendly ballpark might give him a real boost.
Beltre, of course, went on to become a monster once he left Safeco Field, and his current contract with the Rangers — signed after his big bounce back in Boston — is maybe the best large free agent contract signed in the last decade. We can’t project the same kind of improvement from Headley, but there are reasons to think that he’s more than the average bat/good glove combination that his 2014 numbers would suggest, and you don’t have to expect him to repeat his +20 UZR from last year to think that he could be a valuable piece going forward.
As a pull-power hitter who most frequently bats from the left side, Petco Park was maybe the very worst environment for him to come up in. The fence adjustments of 2013 mitigated it’s extreme pitcher nature to some degree, but it’s still a west coast ballpark where the ball doesn’t fly, and for most his career, the right-center gap was cavernous. Like Beltre in Seattle, Headley’s skillset was just an awful fit for his home park.
And yet he still managed to be an above average hitter during his time in San Diego. His career wRC+ is 114, almost the equal of Pablo Sandoval‘s career 122 wRC+, yet perhaps because of the up-and-more-recently-down nature of his offensive performances, the generally accepted view is that he’s a glove-first acquisition. But Headley’s track record is pretty solid, and if he gets to a park that inflates doubles or is generally friendly to left-handed pull hitters, Headley could be a nice offensive piece as well.
I’d probably take the under on Steamer’s +3.9 WAR per 600 PA forecast, but expecting +3 WAR with some hope for a bit of a boost isn’t unreasonable at all. I don’t think it’s completely insane to prefer Headley to Sandoval even without factoring cost in, and it seems quite likely that Headley will be the cheaper of the two. If you’re looking for power, you probably want to look elsewhere, but if you’re looking for overall value this winter, Headley might be the best target out there.
THE RAREST PITCH IN BASEBALL.
You might think the rarest pitch in the game is the knuckleball -- only two pitchers regularly throw it right now. But there is a pitch that only Brad Ziegler throws often.
Ziegler throws a changeup -- out of a submarine arm slot. Nobody else throws the same pitch with the same mechanics.
Only six sidearmers threw at least 25 changeups last season, and if you up that number to 100 thrown, only Ziegler and (lefty) Aaron Loup make the list. If you limit the list to just submariners, Ziegler's the only one who throws a changeup regularly.
Turns out, the physics of throwing a ball from that angle could be the reason so few sidearmers boast a solid changepiece.
Take Ziegler's slider as an example. Back when he threw overhand, before 2007, he was putting traditional slider spin on the ball from his old arm slot. Thanks to Matt Lentzner at The Hardball Times, we know what that slider spin looks like. From his piece, here are the spins on the ball on pitches leaving from your traditional three-quarter arm slots:
And now here's the spin that those same grips and mechanics would produce out of Ziegler's submarine slot. Very different.
As you can see, the submarine slider has spin that looks more like a three-quarters slot cutter. In late 2013, the pitcher confirmed that this is exactly what his slider looks like. "A true big league slider will have tilt to it. My slider is more flat," Ziegler said. "It's more like a cutter, but it's not as hard."
The average slider has 1.3 inches of vertical movement, or four inches more drop than the average sinker. The average cutter has 5.8 inches of vertical movement, or just about half an inch more drop than the average sinker. Ziegler's slider has 6.1 inches of vertical movement. So his slider does, indeed, look more like a cutter.
Here's the thing, though: His sinker has -6.3 inches of vertical movement. That's a full foot of difference from your average overhand sinker. You know what conventional pitch has that much drop? The curveball. Now check the spin charts again.
That submarine sinker with a six inch drop is a rare pitch -- it has more drop than any other sinker in baseball. It drops like a breaking pitch, and probably because he's putting spin on the ball that looks like a three-quarter slot curve.
Take a look at Ziegler's sinker in action, and given that he throws it 86 mph, it's pretty devastating. Basically a hard slider in terms of velocity and a curve in terms of drop, the sinker comes at you as often as a fastball should.
But there are 31 other pitchers who have a release point lower than five feet, and so there are other sidearm sinkers. Their sinkers feature more drop than your average over-the-top sinker: Darren O'Day. Joe Smith. Justin Masterson. Randy Choate. All are funky, all have sink.
But only six of the 32 with the low release slots throw a changeup. That's about a one in five rate. Among the rest of the major-league pitching population, the rate is over one in two (351/681). And it probably has something to do with that illustration above.
Given that Ziegler said that his grip is a circle change grip, and that nothing else is much different about his changeup -- "The release is still the same -- the mechanics are primarily the same" he said -- we can conjecture what sort of spin he's putting on the ball.
You pronate ('pull down' on the inside the ball for a righty) with the changeup and supinate (pull down on the outside of the ball) with breaking pitches, generally. If you compare the slurve's average movement to that of the straight change, you get nearly opposite movement. So let's flip the slurve's movement picture for the submariner to create a changeup spin for Ziegler. And let's compare it to the most similar looking three-quarter slot pitch.
Mechanics, especially for a submariner, are a tricky thing. But it kind of looks like the spin of a submarine change might look a little like the opposite of the spin on a three-quarters slot cutter. If they produced similar movement, you'd get a flat change with a little fade and no sink.
That's not quite how it works out. The average right-handed changeup drops and fades about two inches more than the average right-handed sinker. Ziegler's changeup fades and drops about three inches less than his sinker. Watching it live, you can see that it moves less than his sinker.
This isn't something that only Ziegler has dealt with. Only one sidearm change -- Ben Rowen's -- actually managed to fade more than its corresponding sinker. And yet almost all of them other than Ziegler's dropped more than their sinkers. So it seems that getting more fade than your sinker is the tough part about the sidearm change.
Ziegler admitted that harnessing the changeup had been tough, but said the pitch was more about the change in speed than movement. What does his change look like? "Hopefully just like my fastball but slower," he said. And the trouble in developing it was just like the trouble with learning the new submarine mechanics overall. After the Athletics asked him (it took "three weeks of talking on the phone" to be convinced), he dedicated himself to the new mechanics. A bit of body soreness later ("everything was aching at first") and he was used to it.
It's cheating to say that Ziegler's submarine change is the rarest pitch in baseball. There are only three true submariners pitching right now. But it also seems like the physics of throwing a changeup from down under make things difficult. Try to mimic pulling down on the inside of the ball from that angle, and you'll see that it is difficult to pull off.
Not to Ziegler, not anymore. "I feel pretty comfortable throwing the change more," he said after all the hard work he put in between 2012 and 2013. With a 19% whiff rate and a 67% groundball rate in 2014, that change is now among the best in the game from any slot.
Alongside his crazy sinker, the pitch helps make Ziegler's a unique arsenal. And fun to watch.
Ziegler throws a changeup -- out of a submarine arm slot. Nobody else throws the same pitch with the same mechanics.
Only six sidearmers threw at least 25 changeups last season, and if you up that number to 100 thrown, only Ziegler and (lefty) Aaron Loup make the list. If you limit the list to just submariners, Ziegler's the only one who throws a changeup regularly.
Turns out, the physics of throwing a ball from that angle could be the reason so few sidearmers boast a solid changepiece.
Take Ziegler's slider as an example. Back when he threw overhand, before 2007, he was putting traditional slider spin on the ball from his old arm slot. Thanks to Matt Lentzner at The Hardball Times, we know what that slider spin looks like. From his piece, here are the spins on the ball on pitches leaving from your traditional three-quarter arm slots:
And now here's the spin that those same grips and mechanics would produce out of Ziegler's submarine slot. Very different.
As you can see, the submarine slider has spin that looks more like a three-quarters slot cutter. In late 2013, the pitcher confirmed that this is exactly what his slider looks like. "A true big league slider will have tilt to it. My slider is more flat," Ziegler said. "It's more like a cutter, but it's not as hard."
The average slider has 1.3 inches of vertical movement, or four inches more drop than the average sinker. The average cutter has 5.8 inches of vertical movement, or just about half an inch more drop than the average sinker. Ziegler's slider has 6.1 inches of vertical movement. So his slider does, indeed, look more like a cutter.
Here's the thing, though: His sinker has -6.3 inches of vertical movement. That's a full foot of difference from your average overhand sinker. You know what conventional pitch has that much drop? The curveball. Now check the spin charts again.
That submarine sinker with a six inch drop is a rare pitch -- it has more drop than any other sinker in baseball. It drops like a breaking pitch, and probably because he's putting spin on the ball that looks like a three-quarter slot curve.
Take a look at Ziegler's sinker in action, and given that he throws it 86 mph, it's pretty devastating. Basically a hard slider in terms of velocity and a curve in terms of drop, the sinker comes at you as often as a fastball should.
But there are 31 other pitchers who have a release point lower than five feet, and so there are other sidearm sinkers. Their sinkers feature more drop than your average over-the-top sinker: Darren O'Day. Joe Smith. Justin Masterson. Randy Choate. All are funky, all have sink.
But only six of the 32 with the low release slots throw a changeup. That's about a one in five rate. Among the rest of the major-league pitching population, the rate is over one in two (351/681). And it probably has something to do with that illustration above.
Given that Ziegler said that his grip is a circle change grip, and that nothing else is much different about his changeup -- "The release is still the same -- the mechanics are primarily the same" he said -- we can conjecture what sort of spin he's putting on the ball.
You pronate ('pull down' on the inside the ball for a righty) with the changeup and supinate (pull down on the outside of the ball) with breaking pitches, generally. If you compare the slurve's average movement to that of the straight change, you get nearly opposite movement. So let's flip the slurve's movement picture for the submariner to create a changeup spin for Ziegler. And let's compare it to the most similar looking three-quarter slot pitch.
Mechanics, especially for a submariner, are a tricky thing. But it kind of looks like the spin of a submarine change might look a little like the opposite of the spin on a three-quarters slot cutter. If they produced similar movement, you'd get a flat change with a little fade and no sink.
That's not quite how it works out. The average right-handed changeup drops and fades about two inches more than the average right-handed sinker. Ziegler's changeup fades and drops about three inches less than his sinker. Watching it live, you can see that it moves less than his sinker.
This isn't something that only Ziegler has dealt with. Only one sidearm change -- Ben Rowen's -- actually managed to fade more than its corresponding sinker. And yet almost all of them other than Ziegler's dropped more than their sinkers. So it seems that getting more fade than your sinker is the tough part about the sidearm change.
Ziegler admitted that harnessing the changeup had been tough, but said the pitch was more about the change in speed than movement. What does his change look like? "Hopefully just like my fastball but slower," he said. And the trouble in developing it was just like the trouble with learning the new submarine mechanics overall. After the Athletics asked him (it took "three weeks of talking on the phone" to be convinced), he dedicated himself to the new mechanics. A bit of body soreness later ("everything was aching at first") and he was used to it.
It's cheating to say that Ziegler's submarine change is the rarest pitch in baseball. There are only three true submariners pitching right now. But it also seems like the physics of throwing a changeup from down under make things difficult. Try to mimic pulling down on the inside of the ball from that angle, and you'll see that it is difficult to pull off.
Not to Ziegler, not anymore. "I feel pretty comfortable throwing the change more," he said after all the hard work he put in between 2012 and 2013. With a 19% whiff rate and a 67% groundball rate in 2014, that change is now among the best in the game from any slot.
Alongside his crazy sinker, the pitch helps make Ziegler's a unique arsenal. And fun to watch.
Is Elvis Andrus Still Valuable?
Over the summer at ESPN and FG+, I wrote a piece that investigated just how terribly the recent trend of long-term extensions for players at least two years away from free agency had gone. While Ryan Howard was the obvious poster boy for “Wow, that was a bad idea,” the future deals given to Ryan Zimmerman, Ryan Braun, Joey Votto, Justin Verlander, Evan Longoria and others all look a little questionable now, either because of unexpected decline/injury in the period between the signing and the actual start date, or because of how much payroll space it’s taking up. Not all have gone badly — Felix Hernandez and Troy Tulowitzki have been worthwhile investments — but many have, and that’s without even knowing what’s going to happen when Miguel Cabrera‘s eight-year extension kicks off in 2016.
Teams can’t exactly always wait until precisely one minute before free agency to give extensions to valuable players, but giving out these deals so far ahead of time is such a hugely risky proposition, because so much can go wrong, both on and off the field. Organizations may be buying the security of knowing that their player can’t walk away in the near future, but they’re trading off the very valuable ability to gain an extra year or two of information on that player, and it’s easy to see that some of these deals never would have been signed if the teams knew at the time what they knew when the original contract would have ended.
It’s with all that in mind that today I’m interested in looking at a youthful and valuable shortstop who is just about to start an eight-year extension he agreed to with his team two seasons ago. Texas’ Elvis Andrus is only 26, but he’s also coming off the two worst wOBA years of his career, years that came after ink hit paper. Is this contract doomed to sink the Rangers? Or is he still a valuable asset?
* * *
This is coming up now because there’s a few big-market teams that need a shortstop this winter — Yankees, Dodgers, Mets, perhaps the Red Sox if they whiff on Pablo Sandoval and slide Xander Bogaerts back over — and with J.J. Hardy already extended in Baltimore, there’s very few acceptable free agent options at the position. No, really: Just go look at our Free Agent Depth Charts. You’ll see a few guys with acceptable-to-great bats who aren’t plus defenders (Hanley Ramirez, Asdrubal Cabrera, Jed Lowrie), and a better fielder who just sat out half the year and had a 44 wRC+ (Stephen Drew).
That being the case, and because the Rangers have both many holes to fill and young infield depth in Jurickson Profar, Rougned Odor, and Luis Sardinas, Andrus has been popping up in trade rumors, being connected most notably to the Yankees. This weekend, GM Jon Daniels didn’t shoot down talk of a deal, and listed out exactly what Texas needed to fix, noting that a trade was the most likely scenario:
Jon Daniels said that they will “listen” on Elvis Andrus because of their depth including Luis Sardines, Jurrickson Profar and Odor XM 89
— Jim Bowden (@JimBowden_ESPN) November 16, 2014
Jon Daniels said #Rangers needs are Starting Pitcher, Catcher, LF or DH…more likely solved by trade than FA @MLBNetworkRadio — Jim Bowden (@JimBowden_ESPN) November 16, 2014
First, let’s remember why the Andrus extension seemed to make sense in the first place — because he was young (2016 is only his age-26 season), because he was an elite fielder, a very good base runner, incredibly durable, and close to a league-average hitter. It’s difficult to find all of that in one package, so while the dollar amount was shocking, the thought behind it wasn’t.
At the time, Dave Cameron wrote here that the deal was a good example of teams learning to value defense more than they had in the past. Daniels said it was “something we didn’t normally do,” because of Andrus’ youth. Before this season, when the Rangers were ranked No. 4 in our shortstop positional power rankings, I noted his down 2013, but pointed out just how hard it was to find a good shortstop, saying “If “eh, he’s not terrible at the plate” sounds like less than high praise, well, he’s still doing enough good things elsewhere to rank No. 4 here. (Related: Just wait until we’re talking about Pedro Florimon or someone below, and then think about how great Andrus looks.)”
So, yes, the deal was certainly defensible at the time, because Andrus had just put up back-to-back four-win seasons and was young enough to think more would come. Here’s the bad news: all of Andrus’ important offensive trends, particularly since.
Since 2010, Andrus’ walk rate has decreased every year, and for a player without much power, that’s a problem. In 2011-12, when he was at least able to show some small amount of pop and get his slugging into the .360-.370 range, that wasn’t such a big deal. In 2013-14, when he’s slugged .332, walked less than ever, and made less contact, it does present a problem. Unsurprisingly, the first year of these five (75 wRC+) look a lot more like the last two (79, 79) than do the middle two of 2011-12 (93, 97).
A roughly league-average offensive shortstop with plus defensive skills is a star, and that’s why his WAR in those big two seasons were 4.4 and 4.4 A below-average offensive shortstop with plus defensive skills is still worthwhile, hence Andrus’ 2.8 WAR in 2013. A below-average offensive shortstop with declining defensive skills, well, that’s a problem, and it’s why WAR saw Andrus at just 1.3 in 2014.
Let’s acknowledge the usual cautions about single-year defensive stats, and note how he ranks in our “Defense” metric, which includes not only a player’s performance, but is adjusted for position.
2010: 8.2
2011: 13.9
2012: 14.7
2013: 10.1
2014; 2.1
A September ESPN report attempted to explain why:
In 2014, he’s played with five different second basemen and had to expand his range in the outfield with left fielder Shin-Soo Choo’s sprained ankle limiting his range. He’s even had to go further to center field because of the early struggles of Leonys Martin.
At the plate, Andrus’ runs scored (67), hits (146), RBIs (34) and OBP (.315) are down. He’s hit into a career-high 20 double plays. He’s been caught stealing an AL-leading 13 times. Andrus has battled through inflammation in his right elbow, something that’s been bothering him since spring training. The discomfort comes and goes, and he really needs rest.
We have spray charts, so let’s investigate that claim of needing to expand his range. At left, we have Andrus’ made plays (in green) and missed (in red) from 2013; at right, the same for 2014:
Maybe it’s not out of the question that there’s something to that. Looking at the ‘made plays,’ it wasn’t so nearly as clustered this year as last (although some of that is likely due to increased shifting by the team). The ‘missed plays’ in 2013 were mainly your typical infield singles and occasional errors; in 2014, he was all over the field trying to get to balls. While his Range Runs had slightly declined from 11.2 to 7.8 to 4.9 in the previous three years, it plummeted to -5.1 in 2014.
Perhaps you think that it’s a flaw in the defensive stats, saying that Andrus was unfairly penalized for the shortcomings of his teammates, and I won’t rule that out completely, but that’s also not it by itself. As the quote above shows, Andrus was dealing with a sore right shoulder all season long, which isn’t ideal for a shortstop; as the quote linked here shows, Andrus reportedly showed up to camp overweight and was “uncomfortable” with it late in the year. Considering that his BsR and his Speed score both declined this year, and he led the AL in times caught stealing, it’s easy to wonder if the 2014 Andrus just wasn’t getting to balls that the 2012 version would have. (He’s reportedly focusing on losing weight this winter.)
Looking ahead to 2015, Steamer likes Andrus for a rebound, projecting an 87 wRC+ and better defense, good for a three-win season. If a winter of rest helps with his arm, and if he’s dedicated to conditioning as he says, perhaps that helps the defense and base running bounce back. I can’t say I’m as optimistic for the bat, however. Andrus’ swing rates really haven’t changed all that much, other than the fact that pitchers are throwing him fewer strikes and he’s not swinging less. The little power he showed two years ago has disappeared, and he doesn’t walk. It’s not great when “but he’s young” is the best hope you have for a hitter.
Still, the biggest issue with the contract is the length, because while $15 million annually for the next six years (and $14 million for two after that) sounds like a ton, it’s really not. It’s barely more than the qualifying offer. It’s paying him like slightly less than a three-win player, and that valuation will only turn in the team’s favor as the cost of a win likely continues to rise over the next few years. Even the length might not be so bad, because Andrus has opt-outs after both 2018 (his age-29 season) and 2019 (30).
If Andrus were a free agent this winter, as he would have been if not for the extension, he’d likely still get something close to that average annual value, just for not as many years. This hasn’t worked out the way Texas hoped it would have, expecting that a young player could maintain or improve with the bat rather than regress. But while the contract makes his trade value minimal unless the Rangers were to pick up an enormous amount of it, it’s not entirely the millstone it might seem to be. After all, it only takes a small rebound for him to once again be an above-average player at a position that’s difficult to fill. The Rangers just might have wished they waited another year to hand out that extension.
Teams can’t exactly always wait until precisely one minute before free agency to give extensions to valuable players, but giving out these deals so far ahead of time is such a hugely risky proposition, because so much can go wrong, both on and off the field. Organizations may be buying the security of knowing that their player can’t walk away in the near future, but they’re trading off the very valuable ability to gain an extra year or two of information on that player, and it’s easy to see that some of these deals never would have been signed if the teams knew at the time what they knew when the original contract would have ended.
It’s with all that in mind that today I’m interested in looking at a youthful and valuable shortstop who is just about to start an eight-year extension he agreed to with his team two seasons ago. Texas’ Elvis Andrus is only 26, but he’s also coming off the two worst wOBA years of his career, years that came after ink hit paper. Is this contract doomed to sink the Rangers? Or is he still a valuable asset?
* * *
This is coming up now because there’s a few big-market teams that need a shortstop this winter — Yankees, Dodgers, Mets, perhaps the Red Sox if they whiff on Pablo Sandoval and slide Xander Bogaerts back over — and with J.J. Hardy already extended in Baltimore, there’s very few acceptable free agent options at the position. No, really: Just go look at our Free Agent Depth Charts. You’ll see a few guys with acceptable-to-great bats who aren’t plus defenders (Hanley Ramirez, Asdrubal Cabrera, Jed Lowrie), and a better fielder who just sat out half the year and had a 44 wRC+ (Stephen Drew).
That being the case, and because the Rangers have both many holes to fill and young infield depth in Jurickson Profar, Rougned Odor, and Luis Sardinas, Andrus has been popping up in trade rumors, being connected most notably to the Yankees. This weekend, GM Jon Daniels didn’t shoot down talk of a deal, and listed out exactly what Texas needed to fix, noting that a trade was the most likely scenario:
Jon Daniels said that they will “listen” on Elvis Andrus because of their depth including Luis Sardines, Jurrickson Profar and Odor XM 89
— Jim Bowden (@JimBowden_ESPN) November 16, 2014
Jon Daniels said #Rangers needs are Starting Pitcher, Catcher, LF or DH…more likely solved by trade than FA @MLBNetworkRadio — Jim Bowden (@JimBowden_ESPN) November 16, 2014
First, let’s remember why the Andrus extension seemed to make sense in the first place — because he was young (2016 is only his age-26 season), because he was an elite fielder, a very good base runner, incredibly durable, and close to a league-average hitter. It’s difficult to find all of that in one package, so while the dollar amount was shocking, the thought behind it wasn’t.
At the time, Dave Cameron wrote here that the deal was a good example of teams learning to value defense more than they had in the past. Daniels said it was “something we didn’t normally do,” because of Andrus’ youth. Before this season, when the Rangers were ranked No. 4 in our shortstop positional power rankings, I noted his down 2013, but pointed out just how hard it was to find a good shortstop, saying “If “eh, he’s not terrible at the plate” sounds like less than high praise, well, he’s still doing enough good things elsewhere to rank No. 4 here. (Related: Just wait until we’re talking about Pedro Florimon or someone below, and then think about how great Andrus looks.)”
So, yes, the deal was certainly defensible at the time, because Andrus had just put up back-to-back four-win seasons and was young enough to think more would come. Here’s the bad news: all of Andrus’ important offensive trends, particularly since.
Since 2010, Andrus’ walk rate has decreased every year, and for a player without much power, that’s a problem. In 2011-12, when he was at least able to show some small amount of pop and get his slugging into the .360-.370 range, that wasn’t such a big deal. In 2013-14, when he’s slugged .332, walked less than ever, and made less contact, it does present a problem. Unsurprisingly, the first year of these five (75 wRC+) look a lot more like the last two (79, 79) than do the middle two of 2011-12 (93, 97).
A roughly league-average offensive shortstop with plus defensive skills is a star, and that’s why his WAR in those big two seasons were 4.4 and 4.4 A below-average offensive shortstop with plus defensive skills is still worthwhile, hence Andrus’ 2.8 WAR in 2013. A below-average offensive shortstop with declining defensive skills, well, that’s a problem, and it’s why WAR saw Andrus at just 1.3 in 2014.
Let’s acknowledge the usual cautions about single-year defensive stats, and note how he ranks in our “Defense” metric, which includes not only a player’s performance, but is adjusted for position.
2010: 8.2
2011: 13.9
2012: 14.7
2013: 10.1
2014; 2.1
A September ESPN report attempted to explain why:
In 2014, he’s played with five different second basemen and had to expand his range in the outfield with left fielder Shin-Soo Choo’s sprained ankle limiting his range. He’s even had to go further to center field because of the early struggles of Leonys Martin.
At the plate, Andrus’ runs scored (67), hits (146), RBIs (34) and OBP (.315) are down. He’s hit into a career-high 20 double plays. He’s been caught stealing an AL-leading 13 times. Andrus has battled through inflammation in his right elbow, something that’s been bothering him since spring training. The discomfort comes and goes, and he really needs rest.
We have spray charts, so let’s investigate that claim of needing to expand his range. At left, we have Andrus’ made plays (in green) and missed (in red) from 2013; at right, the same for 2014:
Maybe it’s not out of the question that there’s something to that. Looking at the ‘made plays,’ it wasn’t so nearly as clustered this year as last (although some of that is likely due to increased shifting by the team). The ‘missed plays’ in 2013 were mainly your typical infield singles and occasional errors; in 2014, he was all over the field trying to get to balls. While his Range Runs had slightly declined from 11.2 to 7.8 to 4.9 in the previous three years, it plummeted to -5.1 in 2014.
Perhaps you think that it’s a flaw in the defensive stats, saying that Andrus was unfairly penalized for the shortcomings of his teammates, and I won’t rule that out completely, but that’s also not it by itself. As the quote above shows, Andrus was dealing with a sore right shoulder all season long, which isn’t ideal for a shortstop; as the quote linked here shows, Andrus reportedly showed up to camp overweight and was “uncomfortable” with it late in the year. Considering that his BsR and his Speed score both declined this year, and he led the AL in times caught stealing, it’s easy to wonder if the 2014 Andrus just wasn’t getting to balls that the 2012 version would have. (He’s reportedly focusing on losing weight this winter.)
Looking ahead to 2015, Steamer likes Andrus for a rebound, projecting an 87 wRC+ and better defense, good for a three-win season. If a winter of rest helps with his arm, and if he’s dedicated to conditioning as he says, perhaps that helps the defense and base running bounce back. I can’t say I’m as optimistic for the bat, however. Andrus’ swing rates really haven’t changed all that much, other than the fact that pitchers are throwing him fewer strikes and he’s not swinging less. The little power he showed two years ago has disappeared, and he doesn’t walk. It’s not great when “but he’s young” is the best hope you have for a hitter.
Still, the biggest issue with the contract is the length, because while $15 million annually for the next six years (and $14 million for two after that) sounds like a ton, it’s really not. It’s barely more than the qualifying offer. It’s paying him like slightly less than a three-win player, and that valuation will only turn in the team’s favor as the cost of a win likely continues to rise over the next few years. Even the length might not be so bad, because Andrus has opt-outs after both 2018 (his age-29 season) and 2019 (30).
If Andrus were a free agent this winter, as he would have been if not for the extension, he’d likely still get something close to that average annual value, just for not as many years. This hasn’t worked out the way Texas hoped it would have, expecting that a young player could maintain or improve with the bat rather than regress. But while the contract makes his trade value minimal unless the Rangers were to pick up an enormous amount of it, it’s not entirely the millstone it might seem to be. After all, it only takes a small rebound for him to once again be an above-average player at a position that’s difficult to fill. The Rangers just might have wished they waited another year to hand out that extension.
Pirates Reunite with A.J. Burnett.
Over the last few years, the Pirates have developed a bit of a reputation for being exceptional at extracting value from discarded pitchers: Francisco Liriano, Edinson Volquez, and Mark Melancon are three of the more recent examples, for instance. However, before any of those three got to Pittsburgh, the Pirates worked their voodoo on A.J. Burnett, taking him off the Yankees hands in the winter of 2011 and extracting two excellent years from him after New York decided to pay him to play for anyone else but them.
Over the 2012-2013 seasons, Burnett threw 393 innings with a 92 ERA-/85 FIP-/82 xFIP-, providing well above average performance and durability, and because the Yankees were financing his costs, the Pirates paid just $13 million for those two seasons. However, the cost-conscious organization declined to make him a qualifying offer last offseason, and despite some mutual desire for another contract between both sides, Burnett ended up taking a two year contract to go pitch for the Phillies.
It didn’t go well for either side. Burnett was bad, his teammates were worse, and so both sides decided to opt-out of the second year of the contract, allowing Burnett to become a free agent again. And now, with the choice of where to pitch once again, Burnett has decided to go back to Pittsburgh, signing on for the 2015 season for $8.5 million. By opting out of his Phillies deal and signing with the Pirates, he ended up leaving $4 million on the table, so this represents a pretty significant pay cut for Burnett, but as a 38 year old who has made over $100 million in his career, happiness clearly came ahead of maximizing dollars earned.
And Burnett should be pretty happy to be back in Pittsburgh, as his success there was likely no mirage. For one, the Pirates have been employed aggressive defensive positioning to try and limit their allowed rates of hits on balls in play, and have combined that with an emphasis on catchers who specialize in expanding the strike zone. Toss in a pitcher friendly ballpark and Pittsburgh is one of the best places for any pitcher in all of baseball. Burnett has chosen a pretty good place to have an affinity towards.
Of course, pitching in Pittsburgh won’t magically turn Burnett back into the guy he was a few years ago. He’s older now, and in baseball, older usually means worse. Steamer projects him for +1.8 WAR in 2014, but Burnett is a guy who has consistently underperformed his FIP, so a runs allowed forecast would put him closer to +1.5 WAR. And sure enough, that’s what Dan Szymborski projected him for when he tweeted out an early ZIPS forecast for Burnett after the news broke. A +1.5 WAR starter is certainly useful, but would make Burnett about half as valuable as he was during his prior stint in Pittsburgh.
They’re getting the same name, but probably not the same performance, and because the Yankees aren’t footing most of the bill this time around, he’s actually going to cost them even more. But there’s nothing wrong with paying more than a hilarious bargain, as long as you’re still paying less than market value, and $8.5 million for roughly a +1.5 WAR pitcher comes out to about $5.7 million per win, a bit less than last year’s average price, and almost certainly less than what the cost will be this year. Worse pitchers are likely going to get more money and more years than Burnett just did; this is the kind of deal you can sign when a player directs his agent to only negotiate with one team.
So this seems like a win for both sides. Burnett gets to pitch where he wants, while the Pirates get a useful back-end starter for a little less than it would have cost them to bid against other teams for something similar. Given his age and declining skills, Burnett has little upside remaining, but a reunion with the Pirates pitcher-friendly environs should allow him to throw a 180 decent innings. And thanks to his sinker/slider repertoire, even in the worst case scenario, he’d probably make a very effective right-handed bullpen piece, so there’s little downside at all to this kind of signing.
The team can’t afford to see him as the guy who pitched like their ace a few years ago, but this contract doesn’t ask him to do that, and I’m sure the Pirates are wise enough to realize he’s more of a #5 starter than a #1 starter at this point. As a depth piece, Burnett can help the Pirates, and the contract makes plenty of sense for both sides. But if they don’t re-sign Francisco Liriano, Burnett’s not the guy to take his place, and this shouldn’t be the last pitching upgrade they make this winter.
Over the 2012-2013 seasons, Burnett threw 393 innings with a 92 ERA-/85 FIP-/82 xFIP-, providing well above average performance and durability, and because the Yankees were financing his costs, the Pirates paid just $13 million for those two seasons. However, the cost-conscious organization declined to make him a qualifying offer last offseason, and despite some mutual desire for another contract between both sides, Burnett ended up taking a two year contract to go pitch for the Phillies.
It didn’t go well for either side. Burnett was bad, his teammates were worse, and so both sides decided to opt-out of the second year of the contract, allowing Burnett to become a free agent again. And now, with the choice of where to pitch once again, Burnett has decided to go back to Pittsburgh, signing on for the 2015 season for $8.5 million. By opting out of his Phillies deal and signing with the Pirates, he ended up leaving $4 million on the table, so this represents a pretty significant pay cut for Burnett, but as a 38 year old who has made over $100 million in his career, happiness clearly came ahead of maximizing dollars earned.
And Burnett should be pretty happy to be back in Pittsburgh, as his success there was likely no mirage. For one, the Pirates have been employed aggressive defensive positioning to try and limit their allowed rates of hits on balls in play, and have combined that with an emphasis on catchers who specialize in expanding the strike zone. Toss in a pitcher friendly ballpark and Pittsburgh is one of the best places for any pitcher in all of baseball. Burnett has chosen a pretty good place to have an affinity towards.
Of course, pitching in Pittsburgh won’t magically turn Burnett back into the guy he was a few years ago. He’s older now, and in baseball, older usually means worse. Steamer projects him for +1.8 WAR in 2014, but Burnett is a guy who has consistently underperformed his FIP, so a runs allowed forecast would put him closer to +1.5 WAR. And sure enough, that’s what Dan Szymborski projected him for when he tweeted out an early ZIPS forecast for Burnett after the news broke. A +1.5 WAR starter is certainly useful, but would make Burnett about half as valuable as he was during his prior stint in Pittsburgh.
They’re getting the same name, but probably not the same performance, and because the Yankees aren’t footing most of the bill this time around, he’s actually going to cost them even more. But there’s nothing wrong with paying more than a hilarious bargain, as long as you’re still paying less than market value, and $8.5 million for roughly a +1.5 WAR pitcher comes out to about $5.7 million per win, a bit less than last year’s average price, and almost certainly less than what the cost will be this year. Worse pitchers are likely going to get more money and more years than Burnett just did; this is the kind of deal you can sign when a player directs his agent to only negotiate with one team.
So this seems like a win for both sides. Burnett gets to pitch where he wants, while the Pirates get a useful back-end starter for a little less than it would have cost them to bid against other teams for something similar. Given his age and declining skills, Burnett has little upside remaining, but a reunion with the Pirates pitcher-friendly environs should allow him to throw a 180 decent innings. And thanks to his sinker/slider repertoire, even in the worst case scenario, he’d probably make a very effective right-handed bullpen piece, so there’s little downside at all to this kind of signing.
The team can’t afford to see him as the guy who pitched like their ace a few years ago, but this contract doesn’t ask him to do that, and I’m sure the Pirates are wise enough to realize he’s more of a #5 starter than a #1 starter at this point. As a depth piece, Burnett can help the Pirates, and the contract makes plenty of sense for both sides. But if they don’t re-sign Francisco Liriano, Burnett’s not the guy to take his place, and this shouldn’t be the last pitching upgrade they make this winter.
The Tigers of the Future Aren’t Totally Screwed.
The Detroit Tigers are in an unusual position. There’s nothing unusual about a team trying to win now, but there’s something unusual about the Tigers’ particular sense of urgency. We can acknowledge it has something to do with Mike Ilitch, and his age, and that’s a little weird to talk about, but it’s out there. Ilitch wants to see a winner and people don’t live forever, so this is the current line of thinking: the Tigers will do anything to try to win right away, no matter what it means for the future, because what if there isn’t a tomorrow?
It’s pretty obvious where the Tigers’ priorities are. They just gave four more expensive years to a soon-to-be 36-year-old Victor Martinez, and that contract’s been identified as one that’ll look mighty bad pretty soon. But I think people might’ve gotten too far ahead of themselves in declaring that the future will be a mess, myself included. It’s easy to observe some of the parallels between the Tigers and the Phillies, but the future Tigers aren’t sure to be screwed. There’s a way to survive, such that the window doesn’t have to slam shut.
It’s time to start making assumptions. I’m going to choose to focus on 2018: though that’s only one season, it’s the future season thought to be the ugliest. Already on the Tigers’ books for that year:
$28 million for a 35-year-old Justin Verlander
$30 million for a 35-year-old Miguel Cabrera
$17 million for a 39-year-old Victor Martinez
So that’s $75 million, guaranteed, for three players who’ll be a combined 109 years old. That’s not the whole of it, either. The Tigers are also contributing $6 million a year to the Rangers’ Prince Fielder fund. They’ll probably be on the hook for a $5 million Anibal Sanchez buyout, since it’s doubtful the Tigers will want to pay him $16 million when he’s 34. Now, there’s one more thing: Ian Kinsler will have a $5 million buyout, and a $10 million club option. Let’s assume the Tigers pick that option up, since it’s really only a matter of $5 million and Kinsler should still be a contributor.
Put that together and you’ve got $96 million in combined commitments. And, of course, it projects to be spent inefficiently. Let’s take the 2015 Steamer projections as gospel. Now, across the board, let’s dock each player half a win a season, for aging. We’re left with a projected combined 8.5 WAR for 2018, for Verlander, Cabrera, Martinez, and Kinsler. Cabrera still projects to be good, and Kinsler still projects to be something like average, but you’re looking at more than $10 million per win. This is the Tigers’ future disadvantage.
Yet there’s a difference between no flexibility and limited flexibility. Where is the Tigers’ payroll going to be in 2018? More guesses. On the one hand, it’s said that the Tigers have long been operating at a loss. On the other hand, they’ve routinely increased opening-day payroll by at least 10% season over season. Let’s be conservative and figure the Tigers will increase spending by 2.5% each year. This is a lower rate than the projected league-wide inflation. That would give the 2018 Tigers a $181 million payroll. They’d have a $199 million payroll, if they kept increasing spending by 5% each year instead.
Stick with $181 million for now. Subtract out the $96 million and you’re left with $85 million. That’s an estimate of the Tigers’ remaining space. And remember, it could be about $100 million if the Tigers spend just a little more. Already, we have them projected for 8.5 WAR. Let’s set a target of, say, 35. It’s low, but it’s above .500, putting the Tigers within reach of the wild card. The 2012 Orioles made the playoffs with 29 WAR. The 2013 Indians got in at 37, while the 2012 A’s got in at 38.
So you have $85 million, to spend on roughly 26 – 27 WAR. That’s $85 million down the road, so in present-day money, you have a rough equivalent of the Rays’ 2014 opening-day payroll. With that amount of money, you’re trying to match the WAR of the 2013 Cubs, or the 2012 Mets. The closest 2014 comparison would be the Mets, again. It’s incredibly hard to build a contender with Rays money, but the Tigers wouldn’t have exactly the same task, since they already would have eight or nine wins locked in. They’d need to have other talent, but at least Cabrera should be good, Kinsler should be average, and Martinez should be okay. It’s not the same as starting from nothing.
What’s problematic, of course, is that at the moment, the Tigers don’t have a very good farm system. In order to stay competitive, the future roster is going to need some injections of cheap young talent, and while I don’t blame the Tigers too much for the current state of things, this is often what happens when you’re routinely successful. You’re drafting late, and you’re trading long-term pieces for shorter-term pieces. The Tigers, at the moment, have a bottom-five system. They just the other day traded arguably their top prospect, in Devon Travis.
But they did trade Travis for a young player. In 2018, Anthony Gose will be in his penultimate year of team control, and being defense-first might keep his costs down. Ditto Jose Iglesias, who would be in his last year of team control. Nick Castellanos would be in his penultimate year, like Gose, and he’s very recently been a top prospect. There’s no reason to give up on his development, so he could be vital for the Tigers down the road.
And you can think about a guy like Steven Moya. The odds are against Moya, but as a boom-or-bust type of prospect, the upside’s enormous, and if he develops he’d be cheap when the other guys are old and expensive. There aren’t other prospects like Moya, really, in the Tigers’ system. Moya might lead them all in ceiling.
One thing the Tigers might consider is signing J.D. Martinez to a long-term extension. Though he still has three years of control, and though his breakout spanned just 480 plate appearances, this could represent an opportunity for a future bargain. There’s the risk that Martinez declines again in 2015, but he’s just 27 now, and he might be willing to sign away a free-agent year or two, maybe with some options. Martinez would get his security; the Tigers would get, maybe, a high-quality slugger through his prime.
This is getting into specifics, where, really, 2018 is a ways away. What’s very much clear is that, down the road, the Tigers are going to be limited by all the spending they’ve already done. What’s not at all clear is that the future Tigers will be hopeless. The system right now isn’t poised to be of much help, with mostly low-ceiling position players and mostly low-ceiling starters and relievers, but there are also international avenues for finding youth, and systems and players can improve quickly. You hesitate to think anyone could follow in the footsteps of the Cardinals, but the Cardinals have stayed competitive while their Baseball America organization talent ranking has gone up from 29th in 2010 to 24th to 10th to 1st. The Tigers need to be good about their talent evaluation and their player development, but it’s not set in stone that they’ll be a mess. They’ll have to be efficient, but efficiency is possible, and the Tigers understand what lies ahead.
Dave Dombrowski deserves the benefit of the doubt. Even after the Doug Fister trade. Same guy also made the Prince Fielder trade. I don’t exactly love where the Tigers are headed, but where the Phillies have gotten to is something of a special circumstance, and I’ll trust Dombrowski over Ruben Amaro with the whole of my being.
It’s pretty obvious where the Tigers’ priorities are. They just gave four more expensive years to a soon-to-be 36-year-old Victor Martinez, and that contract’s been identified as one that’ll look mighty bad pretty soon. But I think people might’ve gotten too far ahead of themselves in declaring that the future will be a mess, myself included. It’s easy to observe some of the parallels between the Tigers and the Phillies, but the future Tigers aren’t sure to be screwed. There’s a way to survive, such that the window doesn’t have to slam shut.
It’s time to start making assumptions. I’m going to choose to focus on 2018: though that’s only one season, it’s the future season thought to be the ugliest. Already on the Tigers’ books for that year:
$28 million for a 35-year-old Justin Verlander
$30 million for a 35-year-old Miguel Cabrera
$17 million for a 39-year-old Victor Martinez
So that’s $75 million, guaranteed, for three players who’ll be a combined 109 years old. That’s not the whole of it, either. The Tigers are also contributing $6 million a year to the Rangers’ Prince Fielder fund. They’ll probably be on the hook for a $5 million Anibal Sanchez buyout, since it’s doubtful the Tigers will want to pay him $16 million when he’s 34. Now, there’s one more thing: Ian Kinsler will have a $5 million buyout, and a $10 million club option. Let’s assume the Tigers pick that option up, since it’s really only a matter of $5 million and Kinsler should still be a contributor.
Put that together and you’ve got $96 million in combined commitments. And, of course, it projects to be spent inefficiently. Let’s take the 2015 Steamer projections as gospel. Now, across the board, let’s dock each player half a win a season, for aging. We’re left with a projected combined 8.5 WAR for 2018, for Verlander, Cabrera, Martinez, and Kinsler. Cabrera still projects to be good, and Kinsler still projects to be something like average, but you’re looking at more than $10 million per win. This is the Tigers’ future disadvantage.
Yet there’s a difference between no flexibility and limited flexibility. Where is the Tigers’ payroll going to be in 2018? More guesses. On the one hand, it’s said that the Tigers have long been operating at a loss. On the other hand, they’ve routinely increased opening-day payroll by at least 10% season over season. Let’s be conservative and figure the Tigers will increase spending by 2.5% each year. This is a lower rate than the projected league-wide inflation. That would give the 2018 Tigers a $181 million payroll. They’d have a $199 million payroll, if they kept increasing spending by 5% each year instead.
Stick with $181 million for now. Subtract out the $96 million and you’re left with $85 million. That’s an estimate of the Tigers’ remaining space. And remember, it could be about $100 million if the Tigers spend just a little more. Already, we have them projected for 8.5 WAR. Let’s set a target of, say, 35. It’s low, but it’s above .500, putting the Tigers within reach of the wild card. The 2012 Orioles made the playoffs with 29 WAR. The 2013 Indians got in at 37, while the 2012 A’s got in at 38.
So you have $85 million, to spend on roughly 26 – 27 WAR. That’s $85 million down the road, so in present-day money, you have a rough equivalent of the Rays’ 2014 opening-day payroll. With that amount of money, you’re trying to match the WAR of the 2013 Cubs, or the 2012 Mets. The closest 2014 comparison would be the Mets, again. It’s incredibly hard to build a contender with Rays money, but the Tigers wouldn’t have exactly the same task, since they already would have eight or nine wins locked in. They’d need to have other talent, but at least Cabrera should be good, Kinsler should be average, and Martinez should be okay. It’s not the same as starting from nothing.
What’s problematic, of course, is that at the moment, the Tigers don’t have a very good farm system. In order to stay competitive, the future roster is going to need some injections of cheap young talent, and while I don’t blame the Tigers too much for the current state of things, this is often what happens when you’re routinely successful. You’re drafting late, and you’re trading long-term pieces for shorter-term pieces. The Tigers, at the moment, have a bottom-five system. They just the other day traded arguably their top prospect, in Devon Travis.
But they did trade Travis for a young player. In 2018, Anthony Gose will be in his penultimate year of team control, and being defense-first might keep his costs down. Ditto Jose Iglesias, who would be in his last year of team control. Nick Castellanos would be in his penultimate year, like Gose, and he’s very recently been a top prospect. There’s no reason to give up on his development, so he could be vital for the Tigers down the road.
And you can think about a guy like Steven Moya. The odds are against Moya, but as a boom-or-bust type of prospect, the upside’s enormous, and if he develops he’d be cheap when the other guys are old and expensive. There aren’t other prospects like Moya, really, in the Tigers’ system. Moya might lead them all in ceiling.
One thing the Tigers might consider is signing J.D. Martinez to a long-term extension. Though he still has three years of control, and though his breakout spanned just 480 plate appearances, this could represent an opportunity for a future bargain. There’s the risk that Martinez declines again in 2015, but he’s just 27 now, and he might be willing to sign away a free-agent year or two, maybe with some options. Martinez would get his security; the Tigers would get, maybe, a high-quality slugger through his prime.
This is getting into specifics, where, really, 2018 is a ways away. What’s very much clear is that, down the road, the Tigers are going to be limited by all the spending they’ve already done. What’s not at all clear is that the future Tigers will be hopeless. The system right now isn’t poised to be of much help, with mostly low-ceiling position players and mostly low-ceiling starters and relievers, but there are also international avenues for finding youth, and systems and players can improve quickly. You hesitate to think anyone could follow in the footsteps of the Cardinals, but the Cardinals have stayed competitive while their Baseball America organization talent ranking has gone up from 29th in 2010 to 24th to 10th to 1st. The Tigers need to be good about their talent evaluation and their player development, but it’s not set in stone that they’ll be a mess. They’ll have to be efficient, but efficiency is possible, and the Tigers understand what lies ahead.
Dave Dombrowski deserves the benefit of the doubt. Even after the Doug Fister trade. Same guy also made the Prince Fielder trade. I don’t exactly love where the Tigers are headed, but where the Phillies have gotten to is something of a special circumstance, and I’ll trust Dombrowski over Ruben Amaro with the whole of my being.
The Top-Five White Sox Prospects by Projected WAR.
Yesterday afternoon, Kiley McDaniel published his consummately researched and demonstrably authoritative prospect list for the Chicago White Sox. What follows is a different exercise than that, one much smaller in scope and designed to identify not Chicago’s top overall prospects but rather the rookie-eligible players in the White Sox system who are most ready to produce wins at the major-league level in 2015 (regardless of whether they’re likely to receive the opportunity to do so). No attempt has been made, in other words, to account for future value.
Below are the top-five prospects in the White Sox system by projected WAR. To assemble this brief list, what I’ve done is to locate the Steamer 600 projections for all the prospects to whom McDaniel assessed a Future Value grade of 40 or greater. Hitters’ numbers are normalized to 550 plate appearances; starting pitchers’, to 150 innings — i.e. the playing-time thresholds at which a league-average player would produce a 2.0 WAR. Catcher projections are prorated to 415 plate appearances to account for their reduced playing time.
Note that, in many cases, defensive value has been calculated entirely by positional adjustment based on the relevant player’s minor-league defensive starts — which is to say, there has been no attempt to account for the runs a player is likely to save in the field. As a result, players with an impressive offensive profile relative to their position are sometimes perhaps overvalued — that is, in such cases where their actual defensive skills are sub-par.
5. Trayce Thompson, OF (Profile)
PA AVG OBP SLG wRC+ WAR
550 .215 .285 .378 84 1.1
As he had in 2013, Thompson spent all of 2014 in the Double-A Southern League. In roughly the same number of plate appearances as 2013, he recorded roughly the same walk and strikeout rates, roughly the same number of home runs, and roughly the same slash line. Despite the similarity between those two seasons — and seeming lack of development — Thompson’s projection for 2015 is about half a win greater than it was for 2014. Reason No. 1: Steamer puts more emphasis on recent performance, and an adequate season in the high minors is more valuable than a slightly better one in the lower levels. And No. 2: Thompson is still ascending towards his peak, so the any age curve adjustment is bound to help him.
4. Micah Johnson, 2B (Profile)
PA AVG OBP SLG wRC+ WAR
550 .262 .310 .363 87 1.3
Johnson has ascended rapidly through the minors over the last two seasons. After beginning 2013 at Kannapolis in the Class-A South Atlantic League (at which level he about half a year older than average), Johnson recorded the majority of his plate appearance in 2014 at Triple-A (at which level he was nearly four years younger than average). His relative success isn’t a complete surprise, given his contact ability. While that gives him a relatively high floor, his lack of power limits his ceiling. Steamer projects Johnson to hit only seven home runs per 600 plate appearances in 2015.
3. Matt Davidson, 3B (Profile)
PA AVG OBP SLG wRC+ WAR
550 .218 .290 .382 86 1.6
Considered at points a candidate to move over to first base, Davidson made all but a small handful of his defensive starts at third in 2014. With his offensive struggles, it would appear as though the capacity to remain at the more challenging position — with the larger WAR positional adjustment — is necessary for the former D-backs prospect’s chances of producing wins at the major-league level. Power on contact remains an asset for Davidson, who hit 20 home runs last year in 539 plate appearances; the difficulty appears to be making contact in the first place, after he recorded a 30.4% strikeout rate with Triple-A Charlotte in 2014.
2. Tyler Saladino, SS (Profile)
PA AVG OBP SLG wRC+ WAR
550 .242 .308 .353 85 1.7
Because he’s recorded strong plate-discipline rates and exhibited the capacity to handle shortstop — and because he hasn’t really shown anything in the way of a carrying tool — Saladino features the sort of profile that typically receives higher marks from projection systems like Steamer than from scouts. With regard to Saladino, the precision of his projection is largely based on his fielding ability. As noted by the author in a needlessly lengthy meditation on defensive projections earlier today, Steamer — where minor leaguers are concerned — Steamer just assesses a generic positional adjustment (with no attempt to estimate defensive runs saved). In the case of Saladino, that adjustment is +6.1 runs — which is to say, the shortstop’s +7.5 run adjustment prorated down to 550 plate appearances. If he’s more of a guy who can merely handle shortstop but is more comfortable at second base, then perhaps 1.3 WAR is a more reasonable projection for 550 PAs.
1. Rangel Ravelo, 1B/3B (Profile)
PA AVG OBP SLG wRC+ WAR
550 .256 .316 .377 93 1.7
Defensive ability is even more relevant to Ravelo’s projection. Predominantly a third baseman earlier in his professional career, he receives the third-base positional adjustment the projection presented here. Unfortunately, Ravelo’s most recent defensive experience has taken place almost exclusively at first base. The positional adjustments between the two are substantial: +2.5 per season for third; -12.5 for first base. An adequate third baseman is still likely to become an above-average first baseman, so it’s not necessarily the case that Ravelo loses precisely 15 runs of value per season based merely on his move across the diamond. That’s he’s probably a 0.5- to 1.0-win player is more likely, however, than the projected figure listed above.
Below are the top-five prospects in the White Sox system by projected WAR. To assemble this brief list, what I’ve done is to locate the Steamer 600 projections for all the prospects to whom McDaniel assessed a Future Value grade of 40 or greater. Hitters’ numbers are normalized to 550 plate appearances; starting pitchers’, to 150 innings — i.e. the playing-time thresholds at which a league-average player would produce a 2.0 WAR. Catcher projections are prorated to 415 plate appearances to account for their reduced playing time.
Note that, in many cases, defensive value has been calculated entirely by positional adjustment based on the relevant player’s minor-league defensive starts — which is to say, there has been no attempt to account for the runs a player is likely to save in the field. As a result, players with an impressive offensive profile relative to their position are sometimes perhaps overvalued — that is, in such cases where their actual defensive skills are sub-par.
5. Trayce Thompson, OF (Profile)
PA AVG OBP SLG wRC+ WAR
550 .215 .285 .378 84 1.1
As he had in 2013, Thompson spent all of 2014 in the Double-A Southern League. In roughly the same number of plate appearances as 2013, he recorded roughly the same walk and strikeout rates, roughly the same number of home runs, and roughly the same slash line. Despite the similarity between those two seasons — and seeming lack of development — Thompson’s projection for 2015 is about half a win greater than it was for 2014. Reason No. 1: Steamer puts more emphasis on recent performance, and an adequate season in the high minors is more valuable than a slightly better one in the lower levels. And No. 2: Thompson is still ascending towards his peak, so the any age curve adjustment is bound to help him.
4. Micah Johnson, 2B (Profile)
PA AVG OBP SLG wRC+ WAR
550 .262 .310 .363 87 1.3
Johnson has ascended rapidly through the minors over the last two seasons. After beginning 2013 at Kannapolis in the Class-A South Atlantic League (at which level he about half a year older than average), Johnson recorded the majority of his plate appearance in 2014 at Triple-A (at which level he was nearly four years younger than average). His relative success isn’t a complete surprise, given his contact ability. While that gives him a relatively high floor, his lack of power limits his ceiling. Steamer projects Johnson to hit only seven home runs per 600 plate appearances in 2015.
3. Matt Davidson, 3B (Profile)
PA AVG OBP SLG wRC+ WAR
550 .218 .290 .382 86 1.6
Considered at points a candidate to move over to first base, Davidson made all but a small handful of his defensive starts at third in 2014. With his offensive struggles, it would appear as though the capacity to remain at the more challenging position — with the larger WAR positional adjustment — is necessary for the former D-backs prospect’s chances of producing wins at the major-league level. Power on contact remains an asset for Davidson, who hit 20 home runs last year in 539 plate appearances; the difficulty appears to be making contact in the first place, after he recorded a 30.4% strikeout rate with Triple-A Charlotte in 2014.
2. Tyler Saladino, SS (Profile)
PA AVG OBP SLG wRC+ WAR
550 .242 .308 .353 85 1.7
Because he’s recorded strong plate-discipline rates and exhibited the capacity to handle shortstop — and because he hasn’t really shown anything in the way of a carrying tool — Saladino features the sort of profile that typically receives higher marks from projection systems like Steamer than from scouts. With regard to Saladino, the precision of his projection is largely based on his fielding ability. As noted by the author in a needlessly lengthy meditation on defensive projections earlier today, Steamer — where minor leaguers are concerned — Steamer just assesses a generic positional adjustment (with no attempt to estimate defensive runs saved). In the case of Saladino, that adjustment is +6.1 runs — which is to say, the shortstop’s +7.5 run adjustment prorated down to 550 plate appearances. If he’s more of a guy who can merely handle shortstop but is more comfortable at second base, then perhaps 1.3 WAR is a more reasonable projection for 550 PAs.
1. Rangel Ravelo, 1B/3B (Profile)
PA AVG OBP SLG wRC+ WAR
550 .256 .316 .377 93 1.7
Defensive ability is even more relevant to Ravelo’s projection. Predominantly a third baseman earlier in his professional career, he receives the third-base positional adjustment the projection presented here. Unfortunately, Ravelo’s most recent defensive experience has taken place almost exclusively at first base. The positional adjustments between the two are substantial: +2.5 per season for third; -12.5 for first base. An adequate third baseman is still likely to become an above-average first baseman, so it’s not necessarily the case that Ravelo loses precisely 15 runs of value per season based merely on his move across the diamond. That’s he’s probably a 0.5- to 1.0-win player is more likely, however, than the projected figure listed above.
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Thanks, pro.
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i miss reyes on the mets. ironically a good SS is exactly what we need. DO It SANDY!
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i miss him too. too bad sandy is incompetent and will just waste money on some schmuck.
GreenNGold89
formerly bbllplaya23
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- Apr 5, 2005
Billy Butler? 3 year, 30 mil? Hopefully not final...
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- Feb 22, 2006
/micheal scott nooooooo gif
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- Oct 2, 2014
Beane trying to set everyone up by making them think there's a market inefficiency by getting guys like Jim Johnson and Billy Butler lol
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- 74,395
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- Apr 4, 2008
these front office nerds 
mr marcus
Banned
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- May 3, 2010
Yuck...Billy in Oakland? 
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Gross.
jumpmanfromdabay
Banned
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- Jan 25, 2008
Billy Beene is losing his mind
GreenNGold89
formerly bbllplaya23
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Just blow up the team and retire Billy. Take Lew with you. Please. That is all I want.
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- Feb 22, 2006
Get a new park
That's all I want
Hell, is rather have jj or jed instead of butler
That's all I want
Hell, is rather have jj or jed instead of butler
GreenNGold89
formerly bbllplaya23
- 6,551
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- Apr 5, 2005
I can't believe how stupid this move is. This team is done, they are not doing anything next year. Just blow it up. No SS, no 2B, garbage catcher, weak corner outfielders, question marks in the rotation, no leaders...Yeah, Billy Butler is going to help us win...:x
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- Feb 22, 2006
Let's see what shark and kaz net the squad
Edit
I'm hoping billy trades all asserts to farhan for their prospects!
Ca''maan
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elpablo21
Supporter
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- Feb 11, 2008
-0.3 War gets you 30 mil?
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- Feb 16, 2006
Giancarlo Stanton celebrating the signing of his new contract
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How do you trade someone withy a no trade clause? Anyway happy that the Marlins locked up Stanton, if Fernandez was healthy last year definitely could have been in the wildcard. Just need to get rid of Loria and by some miracle have Arison own the team.
Giancarlo Stanton celebrating the signing of his new contract
Not everyone was havin a good time.
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Got that "I'm too drunk" face. Free booze and dude got out the gates too hot. Letting it go more than Elsa, fast forward an hour later and he can't decide to go home, puke, or stay with the beautiful women surrounding Stanton.
Not everyone was havin a good time.
lightweight champion
Banned
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- Jun 23, 2007
The night before Thanksgiving '09 I went to Mix in Sacramento with a couple of homies, worst night of drinking in my life. I looked like dude in that pic, never in my existence did I want anything more than just a chair to sit down.
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We've all been there. The point where you're completely indecisive, struggling between coherent decision-making and blowing chunks all over the dance floor.
- Status