Nationals Arm Race

Machado states on the West coast … and should help SD make the playoffs really soon. Photo via Baltimore sun

I was listening to Baseball America’s podcast this week, where they reviewed their top 30 farm system rankings, and they noted a pretty amazing stat:

13 of the last 14 Farm systems they’ve ranked #1 made the playoffs within 2 seasons of being ranked #1 … and the 14th made it within 3.

It was so amazing, I just had to go back and quantify it.  Using my Minor League System Org Rankings worksheet (which contains every ranking I can find from 2000 to present), here’s how the data stacks up:

Sure enough … every team who has been ranked by BA as the #1 farm system since 2005 has made the playoffs within 2 years, with the exception of Kansas City … who made it in 3 years and actually WON the World Series on the backs of their #1 rank-driving players.  You’ll notice I put in two rankings in 2012: that was the year that the Nats were ranked #1 … then traded a ton of their depth for Gio Gonzalez and got dropped 10 points in-between the time that Baseball America published their annual rankings and they posted their rankings online … so technically the Nats qualify here, but after that big trade Texas ascended to #1.

Pretty amazing stat.

So, with the Padres ranked #1 right now … and having just added one of the best players in the game … its a good assumption that they’re back in the playoffs just as soon as their top-end prospects matriculate.  Do I really think they can overcome the high-spending Dodgers to actually WIN the division?  A tougher call; they’re going to need to commit to spending what it takes (in terms of dollars or prospects) to fill holes.

Still waiting. Photo via fanragsports.com

Unbelievably, its now mid February, pitchers and catchers are reporting to Spring Training … and the two best FAs and two of the best players in the game remain unsigned.

If there was ever a sign that baseball’s collective pay system is broken, we’re seeing it.  An amazing combination of tanking, salary cap, poor CBA negotiating and GMs too smart for their own good has the game barrelling towards a large, ugly work stoppage in a few years time.  But we have to get there first.

Here’s my all-still unemployed team.  Every one of these players is unsigned as of the date/time i’m writing this and per mlbtraderumors: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/12/2018-19-mlb-free-agents.html

How many games do you think this team wins?

• Catcher: Matt Wieters starting with A.J. Ellis backing him up (post publishing correction per comments; Ellis has retired so we’ll go with Evan Gattis as the backup/DH).  Poor defense, but halfway decent offense based on 2018 numbers.
• 1B: Logan Morrison: he fell off a cliff in 2018, but had an OPS+ of 133 in 2017.  Bet on a rebound.
• 2B: Josh Harrison.  2 time all star, solid player.
• SS: Manny Machado
• 3B: Mike Moustakas: four straight years of above MLB average production.
• LF: Carlos Gonzalez: would you bet against CarGo with a chip on his shoulder?
• CF: Adam Jones: maybe he can’t really play CF anymore, but he can still play
• RF: Bryce Harper
• Utility: Marwin Gonzalez: can play 6 positions, hits the ball and isn’t 30 yet.  Why is he still a FA?

Lots of power potential here: I’d go Harrison, Machado, Harper, CarGo, Jones, Morrison, Moustakas, Wieters and Pitcher.

My Rotation?

• #1: Dallas Keuchel
• #2 Gio Gonzalez
• #3: Clay Buchholz
• #4: Ervin Santana
• #5: Yovani Gallardo

That rotation is better than 10 teams’ rotations right now.

bullpen?

• Closer: Craig Kimbrel
• Setup: Jim Johnson, Sergio Romo
• RH middle relief: Bud Norris, AJ Ramos
• LH middle relief: Xavier Cedeno, Aaron Loup

————-

Is that a lot of talent still waiting to be signed?  I think so.  I still count at least 15 starters who could impact nearly any team in the league on the bench.  its just crazy.

Soto in his younger years. Like the beginning of 2018.
Photo via minorleagueball.com

Quick post to say thanks to everyone who contributes here and makes for a nice place to have a conversation about our favorite team that often drives us nuts.

As a Nats fan, i’m grateful this season for the furious work our GM has done to shore up the team for 2019.  Just thinking about his moves from a bWAR perspective:

• Replacing 90+ innings from Ryan Madsen and Sammy Solis and A.J. Cole (combined 2018 bWAR: -1.7) with comparable innings from Trevor Rosenthal and Kyle Barraclough (combined bWAR for 2018: 0.4) is addition by subtraction, but we’ll call it 1 full win.
• Replacing the black hole of production on both sides of the ball from our Catcher spot (combined 2018 bWAR: -0.1) with the production of our two new C signings Yan Gomes and Kurt Suzuki (combined 2018 bWAR: 4.7).  Call it 4 additional wins, since both catchers can’t play at the same time.
• Replacing Tanner Roark and Gio Gonzalez in the rotation (combined 2018 bWAR: 4.5) with Patrick Corbin and Anibal Sanchez (combined 2018 bWAR: 7.6).   Call it 3 more wins.
• Replacing Bryce Harper‘s abhorrent defense in the outfield this season (dWAR component of an astoundingly low -3.2 in 2018) with someone who actually plays the outfield competently in Victor Robles (a plus plus defender in center, allowing Adam Eaton to slide to RF, where he has posted dWARs in the 1.5 to 1.8 range.  I’ll call this at least 4 more wins.

That’s 1+4+3+4 more wins just based on the moves we’ve already made.  That’s 12 wins on last year’s 82-80 season.

And then there’s this: first year rookie manager Dave Martinez‘s learning on the job season contributed to an astounding -8 on the Nats pythagorean record, which just isn’t sustainable.  Between a better bullpen and better luck, the team should improve by this factor going forward.  Lets call it 4 additional wins.

Voila.  that’s 16 wins over last year’s 82-80 season, which equates to a 98 win season.  And that’s before we find out if Robles can put up a Juan Soto season, or if Soto improves on his 2018, or if we find a competent 2nd baseman to add more value, or if Ryan Zimmerman doesn’t blow off an entire season and puts up 2017-esque numbers, or if we find out that Joe Ross can return to his 2016 form (2 bWAR season in half a season starting).

So that’s some optimism heading into the new year.

Another season, another MVP runner-up for Trout at the behest of another player? PHoto via redsox life

Hi there.  Its time to write about the “silly season” of baseball.   Its my annual awards predictor piece.

Here’s my predictions for how the awards will go.  Important note: This is not necessarily how I believe the awards should go, it is how I think the current electorate will vote …  though I do tend to believe that the MVP award in particular is not just about naming the WAR leader in the league.  And I also tend to favor giving a pitcher the Cy Young and a non-pitcher the MVP.  But feel free to discuss in the comments if you think i’m wrong.  I can be argumentative either way 🙂

How do I think the voting will go?

• AL MVP: Betts
• NL MVP: Yelich
• AL Cy Young: Snell
• NL Cy Young: Scherzer, changed mind to deGrom after reading the tea leaves
• AL Rookie: Ohtani
• NL Rookie: Acuna
• AL Manager: Melvin (Oakland)
• NL Manager: Snitker (Atlanta)

Discussion/Reasoning

• AL MVP: Mookie Betts is the best player on the best team, always a good place to start with MVP thoughts.  Yes, once again Mike Trout is having a phenomenal year, and once again he toils on the West Coast and for a team out of the playoff race.  I’m eternally sympathetic to those who think MVP should not include team performance … and i’m perennially finding myself agreeing with “old school” sentiments that ask a simple question; how can you be the most valuable player when your team isn’t a factor for most of the year.   Also in the mix would be Betts’ teammate J.D. Ramirez, the Oakland phenomenon Matt Chapman, Houston WAR leader Alex Bregman, and Cleveland stars Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor.  My personal hedge statement here: I’d be rather surprised if Betts did not win.
• NL MVP: Christian Yelich has really exploded late in the season to put his name into this discussion.  But the question may end up being this: is this one of those weird years where no dominant, obvious position player candidate steps up and thus the award goes to a pitcher?  I’d suggest this might be possible … except that the top 3-4 pitching candidates all play for non-playoff teams.  And that doesn’t match the narrative.  I’m going to go with Yelich, then the top NL pitchers right behind him, with perhaps Javier Baez,  Nolan Arenado and Freddie Freeman getting some votes as their respective “best player on a playoff team” status.  Coincidentally … did you know that Anthony Rendon is 2nd in the NL in fWAR behind Yelich?  I certainly didn’t.  Personal Hedge statement: I’d still be shocked if a pitcher for a non-playoff team won here, and would find it hard to vote for one of these other position players mentioned.
• AL Cy Young: Blake Snell.   This might be an interesting case of whether you’re wow’d by conventional stats or not.  Snell has a sub 2.00 ERA, but he’s doing it thanks to a ridiculously low BABIP, which drags down is fWAR and puts him well down the league leader list.  Meanwhile in bWAR … he’s the top AL pitcher, ahead of his competition for this award.  I think the fact that he’s put up the numbers that he has playing in the AL East and having fully 25% of his starts this year come against Boston and the Yankees is pretty amazing.  I’d vote Snell.  Also in the mix here: Verlander, Cole, Sale, Kluber, Bauer.  Personal Hedge: wouldn’t be surprised if this went to Verlander or Sale instead.
• NL Cy Young.  Max Scherzer  Yes i’m convinced that his broaching the 300k mark put him over the top, despite the unbelievable season that Jacob deGrom had.  I could be wrong; maybe the electorate has now advanced to the point where they recognize that a guy who finished 10-9 was indeed the best pitcher of the year.  We’ll see.  Either way, I sense these guys go 1-2.  After them, look for Aaron Nola Kyle Freeland, and Patrick Corbin.  Personal Hedge: deGrom is getting enough “holy cow look at this season” buzz that it wouldn’t really surprise me if he won.  And he’d be completely deserving.  Btw, as the off-season narratives grew, I became less and less convinced I had this one right.  Writing this ahead of the awards, I think deGrom wins.
• AL Rookie: Shohei Ohtani: it shouldn’t be close honestly.  He had a 4.0 WAR season, clubbing more than 20 homers and looking pretty darn solid on the mound before the inevitable elbow injury derailed his season and cost him 60 games or so.   Only Gleybar Torres is close; this should be a unanimous vote and I hope Ohtani comes back from injury sooner than later.  Personal Hedge: a vote against Ohtani is really a bad one honestly.
• NL Rookie: Ronald Acuna; its Acuna or Juan Soto, both of whom had historic seasons at a young age.   Acuna’s monster September pushes him over the top, and his stat line for the season is just slightly better than Soto’s, despite the missed time.  By narrative, Soto would have this hands-down though; he advanced from Low-A to putting up a 4-win season as a 19yr old, has had perhaps the 2nd or 3rd best teen-aged season in the long history of our game, and might have been in the MVP race had the Nats won the division.  Hedge: I begrudgingly have to admit that Acuna is slightly better, and rookie status isn’t given context (ie, its not part of the equation that Soto started the year in Low-A and Acuna was in AAA and a known #1 overall prospect).
• AL Manager: hard not to say that Bob Melvin‘s performance taking an expected also-ran to nearly 100 wins isn’t the Mgr of the year.  He’s on his like 18th starter of the year, he’s winning with a bunch of non-prospects, he’s turned trash into treasure (Blake Treinen).
• NL Manager: Brian Snitker, who took the NL east by 8 games in a complete surprise based on nearly every pundit’s pre-season predictions.  No other NL playoff team was really this big of a “surprise” so he gets it.

Actual Award Results added as they were awarded (updated post-publishing).  Finalists announced 11/4/18.

• AL MVP: Betts easily 28 of 30 1st place votes.
• NL MVP: Yelich nearly unanimously; deGrom got one 1st place vote.
• AL Cy Young: Snell squeaked by Verlander with 17 of 30 first place votes to win.
• NL Cy Young: deGrom nearly unanimously, getting 29/30 first place votes.
• AL Rookie: Ohtani in a landslide, getting 25 of 30 1st place votes (Andujar got the other 5).
• NL Rookie: Acuna, in a landslide, getting 27 of 30 first place votes.
• AL Manager: Melvin getting 18 of 30 1st place votes.
• NL Manager: Snitker, getting 17 of 30 1st place votes.

My prediction results: 7 for 8 (missed on my initial deGrom prediction).

Links to other awards that I didn’t predict this year (again, updated post-publishing as they’re announced)

• Roberto Clemente Award: Yadier Molina
• Hank Aaron Award: J.D. Martinez in the AL, Christian Yelich in the NL.
• Gold Gloves: finalists named on 10/25/18 and include just one National: Anthony Rendon.  Actual awards named 11/4/18.
• Relievers of the Year: Edwin Diaz in the AL, Josh Hader (awful tweets and all) in the NL.
• Fielding Bhttps://www.billjamesonline.com/2018_fielding_bible_awards/ible:
• MLB Executive of the Year: Billy Beane in the inaugural year of this award.
• Silver Sluggers: No Nats named this year, and no real competitors for the award honestly.
• Wilson Defensive Player of the Year:
• Comeback Players of the Year: Michael Brantley and Matt Kemp.
• BA Executive of the Year:
• Sporting News Executive of the Year:
• Edgar Martinez DH of the Year:
• J.G. Taylor Spink Reporter of the year (named at Winter Meetings): Jayson Stark for 2019.

Other links to awards worth noting

• MLB.com Players/Pitchers/Rookies of the Month.
• Players choice awards: The players choice awards had some interesting choices.  Miguel Andujar and Acuna for Rookies, Snell and deGrom Pitchers of the year, Curtis Granderson the “Marvin Miller” man of the year, etc.
• Esurance MLB Awards:

Cole: over reaction to his first start or not? Photo AP

First off, welcome to the 2018 season.  Sorry for the lack of material here; its been a heck of a spring.  Shifting priorities and a job transition that included basically four months of overlapping tasks has sapped all my spare time.  Thanks for keeping the conversation going.  Today marks the official end of the main source of time issues … so perhaps starting in the coming weeks i’ll be able to return to all the “fun stuff” that I like to talk about.  Minor league pitching staffs, opening day trivia, starter rankings, nats prospect rankings/farm system rankings analysis, etc.  We’ll get there.

In the meantime, inspired by Keith Law’s frequent answer to questions in his chat yesterday,  lets have some  Over Reactions to the first few games of the season.

1. A.J. Cole‘s first start debacle; disagree with me if you want, but was anyone really, really that surprised by his dud of a first start?  If you want to tell me that its just one game, SSS, yadda yadda … then what in his previous time in the majors gave you any impression that he had turned a corner?  I didn’t get a chance to post about it, but the signing of Jeremy Hellickson to me was a sneaky awesome move .. i absolutely think he can and will slot into that 5th starter spot and give much more competent starts for the big league team going forward.
2. Ryan Zimmerman‘s slow start.  I have literally never heard of a player who “took off” the entirety of Spring Training like he just did.  Now he’s just 3 for 22 and has gotten sat twice in the season’s first week.  WTF is going on?  I am firmly in belief there’s some unannounced injury issue there that the team for whatever reason is being silent about.
3. Koda Glover‘s shoulder.  Is Glover the new Christian Garcia at this point?  He’s now on the 60-day D/L… is he gonna come back off?
4. Adam Eaton‘s ankle.  Hmm … considering the irony that the Nats traded not one, not two but eventually three guys who could have eliminated the entire A.J. Cole situation to acquire Eaton … and that he’s played a grand total of 29 games in a Nat’s uniform … any injury, even if minor, seems like a cause for concern.
5. Catchers.  our three catchers are now a combined 3-22.

I realize its easier to focus on the negatives (above) than the positives (Bryce Harper‘s monster start, the other four starters excelling thus far, Eaton’s great production early).  But hey, its also conversation starters.

So which of these 5 issues above is really something you’re worried about at this stage?  Are you worried about nothing because its 7 games in and nobody should over-react to anything?    If I had to rank my 5 issues in terms of worry for me right now, not even being realistic and acknowledging that its still early, blah blah, i’d probably go 1,2,5,4,3.

How about you guys?  Anybody go to opening day?  We had SRO tickets but bailed when it looked like the wind chill was going to be in the 30s.  🙂

Is someone going to sign this guy?? Photo via mlb.com

We’re in a weird time in baseball.  The players drastically misplayed their hand in the last couple of CBA negotiations, allowing the luxury tax to become so penurious that it now basically functions as a hard cap … but without the corresponding hard floors that would prevent the wholesale tanking we’ve been seeing lately.  This has resulted (along with a couple other factors) in the worst FA market we’ve seen since the days of collusion.

I thought i’d do a little noodling to see just how bad this problem is.

Taking a quick look at 2017 off-season spending patterns and looking at the general activities of teams, here’s what seems to be going on:

Trying and Spending Big

• Boston: not really a surprise that they’re spending money, with more just announced with J.D. Martinez.  The Boston-NYY wars are back on.
• New York Yankees: obviously trying … not necessarily “spending” a ton of money on the FA market but spent a ton to acquire Giancarlo Stanton in terms of added payroll
• Los Angeles Angels, who won the Ohtani sweepstakes, signed Justin Upton to a 9-figure deal and have made moves.
• Philadelphia: Added nearly $40M in payroll … but in really odd moves for a team that seems like it should just be waiting things out another year.   Does anyone really think they’re a playoff team?
• Milwaukee: they even bought a compensation-attached FA in Lorenzo Cain, perhaps looking at their division and sensing that a WC run is in the offing.
• Chicago Cubs: they’re the big spenders this off-season, having more than $50M of payroll AAV
• Colorado: still spending money in an attempt to get into the NL WC game.

Trying and Spending “some”

• Minnesota: the most surprising team on this “trying and spending” list; the Twins keep signing guys.  Good for them.
• New York Mets: they definitely have signed FAs … but they’re not signing marquee guys who might actually help them get better.
• San Francisco: they havn’t signed a ton of guys, but have “spent” a ton of prospect depth to acquire the likes of Andrew McCutchen and Evan Longoria this off-season.
• San Diego: in one of the more inexplicable deals of the past few years, San Diego signed Eric Hosmer to a $144M deal so that they can continue to finish 30+ games out of first in the NL West.  But hey, they spent some cash!

So, that’s just 11 of the 30 teams that are actively spending on the FA market.  About a third of the league.   And it includes half the teams you’d project to make the playoffs this year right now (Boston, NYY, Milwaukee, Colorado and Minnesota).

How many of these teams are “done”  spending at this point?  There’s still several QO-attached FAs who are/were expecting $50M or bigger contracts; where in this list above do you see anyone still willing to absorb a $20M/year AAV?

Trying but not really Spending:

• Houston: the defending champs havn’t really had to spend a ton, having acquired Justin Verlander last season to address their biggest need.  They’ve signed just two minor FAs.
• Arizona: have added about $10M of contracts … but are just augmenting the edges of their surprise 93-win team from last year.
• Los Angeles Dodgers: the league’s wealthiest team has added a grand total of $3M of salaries for the new  year.  $3M!!
• Cleveland: successful small market team is just working the edges of their 102-win team and trying to maintain their success while the window is open.
• Washington: we’re at the luxury tax threshold, it seems like the owners don’t want to go over it, and we’ve added around the edges of the roster only.

Can’t fault these 5 teams for having done the work to put themselves in near-guaranteed playoff position (in fact, they’re probably the “other” 5 teams making the playoffs in 2018).   This has also contributed to the problem; most of the time playoff teams want to get better to get to the next level; half your likely 2018 playoff teams are tapped out and standing pat on last year’s rosters.

Treading water and not spending

• Oakland: what’s new?
• Toronto: seem to be in a no-man’s land in a division with two teams absolutely trying; should probably sell off
• St. Louis: not exactly lighting the world on fire with off-season moves.
• Seattle: they made a flurry of moves last season and have spent very little this off-season; they cannot outspend or outperform two other divisional teams right now, so are just treading water.
• Baltimore; as normal, nobody knows what’s going on with this front office.  They’ve bought two veteran 5th starter FA pitchers and … that’s it.
• Texas: i’m not entirely sure what Texas is doing; they have money to spend, desperately need starting pitching .. and are doing very little.
• Chicago White Sox: little new spending; they’re like a couple other teams that are coming out of a rebuild and waiting for their prospects to mature.

Most of these teams are staring in the face of a tank job.  Only Chicago is on their way out (well, technically Philadelphia too, who should be sitting here but instead spent $60M on a DH to “play” first base for them in Carlos Santana).  Not one of these teams really can look at their situations or their divisions and say that they’re favored to make a playoff run.

Not Trying/Tanking and not spending:

• Atlanta: they’re still waiting for all their prospects to grow up; may not be “tanking” but definitely are not spending the money to win in 2018.
• Miami: we’re all painfully aware of the shambolic sell-off in Miami; yet another stain on MLB for enabling a billionaire owner to suck freely at the revenue trough while not putting anything back.
• Pittsburgh: traded their franchise player, have not committed one penny of MLB FA dollars.  The chickens have come home to roost in Pittsburgh; we’ll see you in 20 years when you’re relevant again.  They should have sold off last season frankly.
• Tampa Bay: you don’t trade your franchise player w/o officially waving the white flag.  Maybe we need to contract both Florida teams like certain curmudgeon NY-based columnists have advised
• Cincinnati: last place last year, payroll flat, no real chance of winning the division == tanking.
• Kansas City: their grand plan of offering QOs to all their FAs is being killed by the weird circumstances of this off-season, but they’re reading the writing on the wall and gearing for a rebuild.
• Detroit: like with Tampa and Pittsburgh, jettisoned their franchise player recently and probably wishes they could do even more.  they’re looking at $75M LESS in payroll in 2018 versus last year, and would do more if they could.  It could be pretty ugly in Detroit for a while.

That’s a lot of teams not really trying, or actively shedding players.    And it won’t take much to push some of the “standing pat” teams into this category.

The larger point is that 19 of the 30 teams, for one reason or another, are not spending this off-season.  Two thirds of the league basically went into the off-season not planning on doing anything except roster-fine tuning on the open market.

Great news for the Nats; Miami will be lucky to win 60 games, Atlanta still isn’t trying fully, Philly has done practically nothing to help make the leap, and the Mets seem like they’re going to be in Bernie Madoff-hell for years.  Will they win the division by 20 games again in 2018?  Probably not … but it shouldn’t be close.

There’s a slew of other underlying issues that are making the issue worse.  Kiley McDaniel summarized them pretty well in this chat answer from last week:

I think teams have

• 1) been getting more similar in their methods
• 2) more careful to avoid long-term deals
• 3) owners have been getting less involved
• 4) the league has been getting younger and rookies have been making more of an impact and they’re all cheaper than vets
• 5) it’s worked out that deals get better the longer you wait, so teams are seeing how much you can stretch that principle, so we were moving toward this gradually.

What made it all happen now was

• 1) the big market teams are trying to get under the tax for next off-season
• 2) Boras overplayed his hand but with more players than usual and
• 3) teams that can spend, big or middle market, want to wait until next off-season to spend huge money when there’s better players.

Sounds like a good summary of the off-season.

Post publishing update: just after I posted this, word comes out that the MLB player’s Union is filing a grievance against four teams for not spending their revenue sharing money.   Miami, Tampa, Pittsburgh and Oakland, four perennial violators of this rule and 3 of which I named as actively tanking.  Frankly, I would have put Oakland as an active tanker too except … they’re so poor right now they have no assets to sell.  Heck, even Mike Rizzo hasn’t been able to swing a trade with Oakland this off-season.

Ohtani signs with the … Angels? photo via theatlantic.com

We now know that Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani has signed; he’s going to the Los Angeles Angels … or in other words, the other baseball team in Los Angeles.  His selection of that team seems to have been driven by a desire to be on the West Coast, his apparent desire to be on an AL team to open up the DH opportunities in-between his starts … and his insane desire to leave literally tens of millions of dollars on the table.

I was listening to a podcast where some guy was trying to argue that Ohtani was actually making a “good” business move by coming over now.  I was flabbergasted.  The guy’s main argument was that by coming over now, he gets to free agency two years earlier and thus can get more money then.  But it gave zero credence to the fact that he’s going to be costing himself literally tens of millions of dollars by playing for MLB min salaries for three years.

I thought i’d try to map out just how ridiculously bad his financial decision was to leave Japan now versus in two years, when he’d be 25 and would be an unrestricted FA.  So, using some simple guesses and projections, here’s an attempt to discuss just how much money he’s leaving on the table.

By coming over now, he is subjecting himself to the same rules as any other IFA; he gets the maximum bonus that the Angels can offer ($2.315M after they acquired some bonus money just ahead of the signing).  He’ll play for the MLB minimum the next three years.  Then he’ll enter arbitration, with the caveat that any shenanigans in the contracts he may sign to buy out arb years will probably be voided by MLB.  So we’ll use the records for 1st/2nd/3rd year eligible arb players as benchmarks.

By year:

• 2017: $2.315M bonus
• Age 23-25 seasons: 2018, 2019, 2020: MLB minuimums or there abouts; lets assume he gets good raises and earns $545k, $800k and then $1.1M (Mike Trout owns the current record for pre-arb player salary of $1M).
• Age 26 season in 2021: 1st arb year; $10M, which is Ryan Howard‘s current record for first year arb eligible players … and which is significantly higher than the 1st year record for pitchers (Dallas Keuchel‘s $7.25M).
• Age 27 season in 2022: 2nd arb year: $11.3M
• Age 28 season in 2023: 3rd arb year: $15.5M
• Age 29 season in 2024: 4th arb year (why does he get a 4th year?  Because what’s stopping the Angels from keeping him in Spring Training until a few weeks have passed and keeping him for an extra year?  Wouldn’t you?): $19.75M.

So, adding that up; assuming he matches the absolute highest figures in arb figures and doesn’t sign an extension, he’d earn $61.31M in bonus and salary by the time he’s reached Free Agency.

Versus ….

• 2018: plays in Japan at his current salary of about $2.378M
• 2019: does the same.

And in 2020, he comes over here completely unencumbered and signs a massive deal.   The pundits that i’ve read, when asked what he’d be worth on the open market right now, say between $200M and $240M in total value.  Their argument would be that he’d easily be the best FA on the market, he’s got better stuff than any pitcher out there (he sits upper 90s, touches triple digits and per Dave Cameron of fangraphs has spin rates the equivalent of Luis Severino … all while producing at the plate and being an 80 runner).   $200-$250M is a crazy contract to try to project to … so lets assume, for the sake of argument, its a $25M AAV deal (which is probably light, but makes the point anyway).  To then cover the same years as the above scenario:

• 2020, 2021,2022, 2023,2024 at $25M/per.

So that’d be $125M plus his two years of Japan salary.  That’s a difference of about $65M just between now and 2024 … and that assumes several key points (that he gets the arbitration record each year, that he continues to get his ridiculously cheap $2.3M Japanese salary, and that he “only” gets $25M AAV).

Odds are that the actual difference would be much higher, since he’s likely to get a lot more than $25M AAV.  Why?  Because unlike typical Pitcher FAs we see in the majors … he’s still in his early 20s, he’s got no injury history … and he can hit!  So if you think he’s likely to get closer to $35M AAV … then add another $50M to that $65M gap above and now you see why people are saying he’s making a $100M mistake.

Yes, Ohtani will be making bank through endorsements.  So he’s not going to be hurting for cash.  But the life of a pro athlete can be fleeting; you get as much as you can, as soon as you can, because there’s no guarantees about what happens tomorrow.  Ohtani might blow out his elbow twice in four years and he’s out of the league before he even hits free agency.  Or he might turn into the next Roger Clemens.  He’s making a huge gamble though in order to “compete” against the best now versus in a couple years.

(I think I got the above scenario right … let me know if there’s some detail of his contract that I missed).

Stanton is your defending champ .. and one heck of a slugger. Photo unk via rantsports.com

I know some think the HR derby is a sham.  However I like it, I love the new format (timed instead of by outs), and the results speak for themselves; by some accounts tickets for the HR derby are going for more money than the All Star Game itself.  And this year seems rather compelling, with the defending champ and inarguable holder of the league’s current title of ‘Best slugger” in Giancarlo Stanton the #1 seed in his home town, set to hopefully face off against the #2 seed Aaron Judge, who is busy setting Statcast exit velocity speed records and running away with both the AL MVP and Rookie of the Year award (last time someone’s done that?  Ichiro Suzuki in his “rookie” year in Seattle).

So we know they got Stanton and Judge right; who else is in this year’s tourney and who *should* have been there?

Here’s a link to the 2017 HR Bracket.   Your seeds are:

1. Giancarlo Stanton
2. Aaron Judge
3. Cody Bellinger
4. Mike Moustakas
5. Miguel Sano
6. Charlie Blackmon
7. Justin Bour (shout out to the Westfields HS and George Mason alumni Bour!  Also worth noting; he was a 25th round pick; bully for Bour to even be in the majors, let alone slugging his way onto the national stage)
8. Gary Sanchez

I’m with Logan Morrison here: half field makes no sense compared to who *should* be in.  In my perfect world, here’s who i’d have in the tourney.  This is a combination of looking at the 2016 HR Derby field,  2017 home run leader board, the 2017 hit tracker longest home run list, the Statcast exit velocity/average HR length figures, and my own personal opinion.

By Seed:

1. Giancarlo Stanton; defending champ and clear #1 seed.
2. Aaron Judge: 2017 HR leader
3. Mark Trumbo: last year’s #1 seed and was a monster in the derby.
4. Bryce Harper: perhaps a homer pick, but he’s clearly a masher of the ball and deserves to be in this tourney.  He turned it down yet again in 2017.  I don’t know why.
5. Kris Bryant: A Harper-Bryant first round would be just like their school-boy days in Las Vegas.
6. George Springer: 2nd in the league in homers right now.
7. Kris Thames: great reclamation story, has 20+ homers in his return to the majors.
8. Cody Bellinger: the LA rookie has had nearly as impressive a breakout season as Judge.

If I could go 9-16, I’d probably throw in guys from this list:

• Yoenis Cespedes: his prior HR Derby wins were legendary
• Justin Bour: he can put a hurt on the ball
• Kyle Schwarber: I love the look on his face when he really mashes one.
• Joey Gall0: another power-first guy who can really back into one.
• Miguel Sano: a deserving participant this year.
• Marcelle Ozuna: can’t believe this guy is playing CF for the Marlins.
• Paul Goldschmidt: he’s definitely one of the elite home run hitters in the league.
• Mike Trout: people don’t think of him as a slugger … but he’s got his fair share of 480-foot moon shots on his resume (yes I know he’s injured right now; this is my “theoretical” derby!)

And in the “not a young whipper snapper anymore” division, I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing any of these guys in an expanded field:

• Mike Napoli; just for the beard.
• Nelson Cruz: believe it or not, he’s the league leader in homers for the past three 3+ seasons inclusive, by a sizeable margin over #2.
• Edwin Encarnacion: #2 behind Cruz in total homers; I know he’s having a down year after leaving Toronto but he’s still a slugger and a half.
• Chris Davis: you don’t just fall into 50+ home run seasons.
• Jose Bautista: for the bat flips and ensuing brawls
• Mark Reynolds: this era’s version of Adam Dunn
• Albert Pujols: only makes sense to have the active HR leader in the field.

What do you think?  Did I miss anyone obvious?

Oh a prediction: I like the two top seeds to advance, with Stanton beating Judge in an anti-climactic final.

I see that everyone’s already jumped the gun on predictions in the comments of the previous post.  So I’ll put it out here:

Predictions for each division:

• NL East: Washington again but its close
• NL Central: Cubs by a fair margin
• NL West: Dodgers by a hair
• NL Wild Cards: I think its San Francisco and the NY Mets again.

I know this is exactly what happened last year … but what has really changed in the NL?  Miami is significantly weakened from last year, Philly is still a couple years away, and Atlanta’s rotation looks pretty good … if the year was 2005.  I do think Washington holds off the Mets for the division, simply because the Mets’ arms just can’t hold up like ours can.

So, it seems to me we’re going to have precisely the same NLDS again.  Us versus the Dodgers.  Can we figure out how to beat them this time?

NL Champs: hard to root against the Cubs again.

• AL East: Boston
• AL Central: Cleveland by a lot
• AL West: Houston
• AL Wild Cards: Toronto and Texas

More of the same but some shuffling of the deck chairs.  The Orioles take a step back and Houston takes a big step forward.

AL Champs: Cleveland again.

So we have a WS rematch.  And this time, Cleveland comes out on top thanks to a couple of untimely injuries with the Cubs (perhaps to their aging pitching squad).

Cespedes is my all-Cuba cleanup hitter. Photo via Business Insider

I saw a little throw-away post at USAtoday.com before the start of the 2016 baseball season: there were no less than 23 Cuban-born players on MLB rosters on 2016 opening day.  And even more defected or were signed in the 2016 calendar year.

How awesome is that?  I think its great that we have a huge contingent of Cubans playing in the league again and I wish that a generation hadn’t been lost due to politics.  A good percentage of the teams in the majors now have at least one Cuban on their 40-man roster somewhere, and many have multiple IFA Cuban signees scattered in their lower minors.  Not the Nats though; we got kinda burned by Yunesky Maya and then blew our IFA budget last year on some D.R. players; perhaps they’ll go after some of the rising talent next July 2 window.

I’ve long hoped for a unification of the Cuban National team to compete in the WBC; I think they’d take so much pride in their team it would really add to the event.  However it looks as if the Cuban government will continue to hold a grudge and prevent any defectors from representing their country in the 2017 WBC.  The WBC rosters were announced recently, and we’ll see some of these names in the analysis below for reasons that will become apparent soon.

So, since we won’t get a full-strength Cuban WBC team, I thought I’d take a stab at what could have been.   I did a similar post in March of 2013 but with all the recent defections the roster looks much improved.

Manager: Fredi Gonzalez of the Atlanta Braves.  The only Cuban-born hall of Famer Tony Perez can be the bench coach.  They can bring out the likes of Tony Oliva and Camilo Pascual to be his assistants; they’re the most decorated Cuban ex-pros still living.

Pitching Coaches: Livan Hernandez and Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez: the brothers re-unite to teach the staff how to throw junk balls and make starts despite being hooked on Marlboro Reds.

Hitting Coaches:  Jose Canseco, Rafael Palmeiro.  These two can double as “Strength coaches.”  🙂

Positional Players:

• C: Yasmani Grandal, starting catcher for the Dodgers, 2015 All-Star.
• 1B: Jose Abreu, 91 homers in his first three years in the MLB, Rookie of the Year in 2014, when he also made the All-Star team and won the Silver Slugger.
• 2B: Aledmys Diaz: debut in 2016 and made the All-Star team; prodution fell off so he “only” finished 5th in 2016 Rookie of the Year voting.
• 3B: Adonis Garcia: a solid bat for Atlanta at the corner despite debuting at age 30.
  
• SS: Jose Iglesias: 2015 All-Star for Detroit after finishing 2nd in RoY voting in 2013.
• LF:  Jorge Soler: Flipped to Kansas City this off-season, escaping a log-jam in Chicago.  Huge power, yet to reach his potential.
  
• CF: Yoenis Cespedes: just signed the largest contract of the off-season; not really a CF but played there nonetheless.  2-time All-Star and Home Run derby winner 
• RF: Yasiel Puig: despite his demotion in 2016 has the potential to be one of the elite players in the game, which he in-arguably was his first two years in the league.  2015 all-Star.
  

That’s a pretty solid starting lineup; 6 of the 8 players here have already made a MLB all-star team.  Lots of power; you’d probably have a slugger like Soler batting 7th.  I think you line these guys up Iglesias, Diaz, Pug, Cespedes, Abreu, Grandal, Soler, Garcia, Pitcher.

Reserves:

• Catcher: Brayan Peña
• Corner Inf/PH: Yonder Alonso , Kendrys Morales, Yulieski Gurriel, Yoan Moncada
• Middle Infield: Yunel Escobar, Adeiny Hechavarria,  Alexei Ramirez,  Alex Guerrero
• OF: Rusney Castillo, Hector Olivera, Yasmany Tomas, Leonys Martin, Alfredo Despaigne, Yoelkys Céspedes, Victor Mesa

The reserves include a number of solid veteran guys like Alonso and Morales, middle infield cover from the likes of  Hechavarria and Ramires, and plenty of OF coverage from players like Tomas and Olivera.  And one of the top prospects in all of baseball (Yoan Moncada, the centerpiece of the Chris Sale trade this past off-season) can’t even crack this lineup; he may be your starting 3B before long.  Perhaps Gurriel, a decade-long star in the Cuban series, should be starting at third over Garcia; we’ll see how he fares once he gets more time in Houston.  Despaigne is the biggest player on this list who still hasn’t come to the MLB: he opted to take up the Cuban government’s relaxing of rules and has been playing in Japan recently.  Yoelkys Cespedes is indeed Yoenis’ younger brother and is getting some attention for his abilities already.

Starting Pitchers

• Oridismar Despaigne: he’s been knocked to the bullpen in the Majors, but someone has to start for the Cuban team.  Career 4.89 ERA.
• Raisel Iglesias: posted a 2.53 ERA in 2016 as he transitioned from the rotation to closer.  He’s gotta start for this team though.
• Roenis Elias: 4th starter for Seattle in 2014-15, struggled/got hurt for Boston in 2016.
• Ariel Miranda : 10 starts for Seattle last year with a 3.54 era; he may not make their rotation in 2017 but he’ll get time.

So, we’re a little light on starters.  We may be reaching out to some domestic-based pitchers.  Starter Lazaro Blanco just pitched two masterpieces in the Caribbean Series, shutting out the Dominican Republic team for 6 innings then giving up just one run in seven innings in the semis against Mexico.  Their #2 and #3 starters (Vladimir Banos and Vladimir Garcia) weren’t half bad either.  Freddy Alvarez got pummeled in his only series start but is on the WBC roster as a returning veteran and should see time.  Perhaps we should also look at promising 18-yr old Cuban prospect Osvaldo Hernandez, who was just declared a FA and may sign a multi-million dollar deal soon.

Relievers

• Aroldis Chapman (2009 WBC team member): the most dominant reliever in the game, 4-time All-star
• Dalier Hinojosa: setup guy with Philly, decent numbers, like a 6th/7th inning guy.
• Raudel Lazo: lefty reliever with Miami’s farm system; closed for their AAA squad and posted a 1.78 ERA in 2016 in New Orleans.
• Yaisel Sierra: struggled in AA for the Dodgers, demoted to bullpen.
• Armando Rivero, RP for Atlanta
• Yadier Alvarez: LA’s #1 remaining prospect; only in high-A but well regarded.

Past Chapman and Hinojosa, there’s not much depth here either, so again we dip into the domestic-based players.  Cuba depended on three late-innings relievers in the Caribbean series: Livan Moinelo, Miguel Lahera and Jose Garcia.  All three are named to the official WBC roster.

In summary, the Consoildated all-Cuban team can bash the heck out of the ball … but will struggle on the mound until the 8th or 9th inning when Chapman can take over.  But it’d be a fun team to watch play!

Did I miss anyone?  Maybe; its impossible to keep track of the dozens of Cuban signings done over the last couple of years.  Pipe up if you see someone mising.

Some references used to make this:

• Here’s a direct link to all Cuban-born players in baseball-reference.com.
• 2016 July 2 International signing list
• Here’s the 2017 Cuban Caribbean Series Roster, which may look rather similar to the WBC roster.
• Cuba’s official 2017 WBC roster
• Ben Badler’s top 10 Cuban prospects circa 2015

And Peter Gammons just posted his own version of this the day before I published (but weeks after I wrote this).  Compare and contrast his team; i did not cross check to see if I missed anyone.