Looking at this winter’s free-agent market broadly, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney writes (Insider link) that it produced generally poor results from the players’ side. The trend, he and the agents he spoke with suggest, is one of elite players continuing to earn while others are increasingly forced into one-year pacts. That could, in turn, continue to suppress the market for sub-elite players next year, since there’ll again be a larger pool of talent. This certainly seems to be an area that warrants a closer look once the market fully settles out. As of three years ago, the trend had been in favor of multi-year deals as teams competed to land talent on the open market.
Here are some more market notes:
- With southpaws flying off the board, things are “heating up” for Travis Wood, according to ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick (via Twitter). It’s possible he’ll choose his landing spot by the end of the weekend, per the report, though it’s still not clear whether he’ll be heading for a rotation or pen spot (let alone where that might be).
- Despite picking up Logan Morrison and Rickie Weeks, the Rays still intend to remain involved on some of the better hitters still available, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (links to Twitter). In particular, slugger Chris Carter and even catcher Matt Wieters seemingly remain of interest to Tampa Bay. Another righty bat, notes Topkin, might step into a platoon in the first base and DH spots. The club could take a look at Byung Ho Park, who was just designated by the Twins, and others under consideration include Mike Napoli and Franklin Gutierrez (who’d spend time in the outfield).
- The Rockies are unlikely to make further additions to their major league roster, MLB.com’s Thomas Harding suggests in response to a fan inquiry. Even if someone like starter Jason Hammel represents a screaming value, Harding hints, the organization may not have the roster or payroll flexibility to give out a MLB deal.
Watch Wood be this year’s Fowler and come back to the Cubs on a one-year deal. With the only team serious about him starting is not a contender. Say he’ll get a shot at the #5/6 with Montgomery and Anderson. Though he likely ends up as the go-to lefty in the pen again. (yeah right, not happening)
I really don’t like Travis wood’s chances of being very good next year, but i feel the same about Aaron loup and to a lesser extent JP Howell, so wood might be needed. I’m in the minority, but I like what Shapiro has done this winter. One thing i don’t understand is not taking advantage of Boone Logan or jerry Blevins cheap markets.
Owner collusion? It happened before and that is something that the MLBPA should certainly look into now if this trend continues.
No, the MLBPA should look at the CBA it just signed. They got fleeced.
The newer and far more onerous penalties for exceeding the luxury tax will act as a de facto salary cap. Even the Yankees and Dodgers are working to get under that limit.
In order to avoid the international draft, they agreed to that absurdly low hard cap on intl. signings.
Clark got owned by Manfred. Bottom line.
It’s hard for me to believe a collusion claim seeing the talent currently on the market, the CBA agreement, and the potential 17
I agree. It’s more a matter of what was available on the market than collusion. This years crop was full of deficiencies. Old, bad defense, high strikers, declining production, never were’s,… Hard to get bidding wars going on a bag of French fries. They’re tasty, but I wouldn’t overpay.
I feel like the trend to be a “rebuilding” club or a contending club is killing FA. If you had 30 teams serious about trying to win every year, heck even 28 teams serious about winning, there is no way Weiters, Wood, Hammel would still be unsigned. As a Cubs fan I was excited about the thought of seeing blue chips come through the system and heck it paid off quick but I’m not sure this is gonna be a good trend for MLB.
This is an outlier of a season. There were so many one dimensional hitter types and loogys on the board at one time. The fact that only 15 teams employ the DH hurts those old, aging, no defense, swing for the fences type guys and most of those teams already have a guy that can slot in or they see the value in using it for flexibility on future one dimensional players that probably already exist on their roster.
There are holdouts every year. It’s just how it works.
It’s a horrible trend for teams to tank. Gotta be hard for fans to watch their team give up for few years. Cubs have multiplied the teams that are doing it because of their success. Id personally rather see teams put their best possible team out there each year.
You mean last finishing in last place for a few years and then calling your GM a genius when you win it all?
He is a genius, since they won it last year, and will at least have a chance to win it for the next 5 years. But you’ve consistently shown you just blindly hate the Cubs on this site so I know you’re just a troll.
I understand what themed is saying. How many times did the Cubs rebuild before they got it right. Tearing down is not a guarantee of building a winner.. I do give the Cubs FO credit for getting it right, finally.
Cubs did a bad job tanking. Bryant was 2 pick Schwarber 4 and Almora 9th pick. Why didn’t they get #1 pick every year ? That was the Astros. So if any of you were manager of a team and it’s last game of season and your tied with team you are playing. The next coming of kershaw or trout is in draft next year . How hard do you try to win the game? Happens every sport . Colts tank to get luck. Lakers and sixers tank all the time. Cubs traded for Russell contreras was a international signing arrieta Rizzo Hendricks were trades. Heyward zobrist Lester free agency signings. Pipeline Jimenez was international signing as well.
If you go for it every year, you end up old and and not competitive eventually. Rebuilding is smart, and like the Cubs have proved, very successful. I’d much rather have my team be bad for 3 years and then good for 10 instead of being mediocre consistently
Cubs have gone thru many rebuilds, Over 100 years of them. Doesn’t sound like a great plan to imitate.
“The Cubs didn’t win the World Series for over 100 years — so rebuilding doesn’t work well.” Genius, man.
stymeedone:
The plan NOT to imitate is bad ownership and bad front office. The Cubs finally had a real plan once the Rickettses and Theo/Jed took over and changed the culture from bottom to top.
If your team has a P.K. Wrigley-type or a Chicago Tribune-clone as its current owner, forget about having a real plan or having sustained success.
Now they have. Shortest team without a World Series….Cubs. 108 years was yesterday and yesterday’s gone baby!
Stymeedome- Just because you don’t win a title doesn’t mean you are rebuilding. If you make the playoffs for 9 out of 11 years with 6 division titles, is that rebuilding? No, it’s contending.
I believe the Cardinals have been very competitive for the last 20 years with no intentional tank jobs whatsoever. Take a look at the record. The Cardinal organization are the real geniuses.
Yes one last place finish since 1918. One. Even in down years they have been competitive and often fell just short of the goal. I would take our last 20 years vs any other teams last 20 years, even though teams such as Yankees and giants and Red Sox have won more World Series. Those teams have also all had pretty bad years in there. Every year we are in it to win and it’s great as a fan to know your FO is going for it. Last year was a major disappointment and definitely a down year for cardinals, yet they missed playoffs by one game and weren’t eliminated until last day of season. Most teams would’ve loved for that season. I think that is major reason why so much hate for cards. They’ve found a way to be good and compete almost every single year, win a couple titles, win a few pennants and keep the core together but yet bring in new guys to take over and be competitive every year without ever tanking. Myself I find that way to be much more genius than tanking and stockpiling draft picks and going for it all in a short window. Were the Cubs great last year? Yes. Are they great this year? Most likely. Will they remain great over next 20 years? Doubtful, unless they adopt a plan closer to Cardinals.
Ha haven’t won a World Series since 2011. Larussa Pujols Curse is on. Matt Holliday Hex.
I agree with you about the Cards, but I’m not sure why you’ve included the Yankees as a team that’s had bad years. Over the past 24 seasons they’re worst season is an 84 win season. They won 14 divisions, made the playoffs 19 times and have reached 7 WS, winning 5 of them. They’ve also built themselves a top 3 farm system while staying competitive. I understand they have a financial advantage over 90 percent of the league, but they’ve done a great job.
Yeah good point on the Yankees. I agree with you on that. I’d say Cards and Yankees are two very good examples of teams not tanking and doing it right. I’d also include the braves of the 90’s.
JDGoat, I agree with you. Going for it every year is not the way to field lasting success. However, there is a difference between the “tanking” trend that teams like the Braves and Reds are doing and the “rebuilding on the fly” that teams had done in the past. The latter method allows a team to field a competitive team, one that plays solid baseball and could compete for a playoff spot if everything works the way it’s supposed to.
Cardinals have gone for it every year and are still up at top and have remained up at top for 21 years now….it is possible.
How long does it take to get old and mediocre and no longer compete? As a cardinal fan I assume it takes longer than 21 years apparently. Key is to make smart drafts, keep your prospects and don’t ever get too much money invested into one single player. If cards would have matched angels offer for pujols we wouldn’t be competing still. Playoffs 5 years in a row, missed playoffs by one game, and most are projecting cards to be a wild card team. Then in playoffs it’s pretty much a crap shoot and anything can happen. Key is to get there. I’m 39 years old and life long cards fan and have seen only a handful of teams that aren’t atleast competing for playoffs until very end of season. Time will tell if Cubs will be able to continue this run for that long or if they tank again in a few years. My money is on them tanking again.
I do agree the way the Cubs built their team is pretty weak. The Yankees have done well but some of that wasn’t great fo just deep pockets. The Cardinals avoided the plunge by not making the big mistakes teams like the Angels and to some degree the recent Yankees made. Pujols into his forties? Nah. Arod? Nah(at least they had success while mortgaging the future though). They also got a lot of value from picks that normally don’t bring a ton. Cubs got away with it because they have a fan base that accepted losing. Always next year mentality
You’re wishing for a condition that can’t ever possibly exist. 28 teams “going for it” would necessitate that a significant number of them would make poor signing decisions, and that year or the next would mean they’re automatically in rebuilding mode.
Why hasn’t anyone brought up the idea that the influx of International Players has certainly thinned out the market for players (not saying that it’s a bad thing, just “a thing”….lol). Are There More Plyers Than Spots? Of course there are, But do the math, then study Supply & Demand charts, and one possible situation becomes easier to identify.
As of May 2014 (the only records that I could find)……MLB Teams had signed 259 International Players. If you consider the Big League roster, plus 3-4 minor league teams for each MLB team…….that number represents about a 10% increase in “Players Looking For Jobs”. There’s 750 “Jobs” at the Major League level, so if that percentage carries over, that’s about 75 guys who “won’t find a job in the Bigs this year.
Supply & Demand states that “When there’s a fixed demand, and an excess supply, prices fall”.
These numbers are meant to be exhaustively accurate, by any means. But they do represent a reasonable explanation why the Elite players are signing contracts (they’ll always have a suitor), and the middle tier and lower tier guys are struggling to sign deals….or are signing smaller deals.
Let’s hope the alternative fact people in the WH don’t read this. In addition to banning people based on their religion, they’ll ban people based on their batting average or their defensive runs saved stat. Why not? It makes as much sense as most of the rest of the stuff they’re doing.
Booooo. Low effort joke. Not a Muslim ban. Obama created the list of countries currently banned. Zero reason for democrats to complain about the list if they didn’t complain when Obama did the same to Iran in 2011.
Also, just keep politics off a baseball site I mean damn man
No kidding. Leave it to a crying liberal to blame Trump for a poor free agency. Typical.
Those bans were entirely different situations. But yes I agree get these posts off this site
Amen. Preach it JDGoat.
No politics, please. Plenty of them (and arguments) to be found elsewhere. I come here for baseball. Baseball.
I think you’re trying too hard to make sense of things. International signings have pretty much not changed, numbers wise in years, public awareness and money are up, but that’s been the MLB as a whole. Most major league teams have upwards of 7-8 affiliated teams, not 3-4. That also doesn’t include training facilities across Latin America. Those 259 international signings, most of those are kids who won’t even come stateside for 2-3 years and aren’t taking anyone’s spot. This is about the time of year you start seeing the mid-tier, specialists, and roster depth players come off the board much faster. The Carter, Napoli, Trumbo, Bautista type players are ones who usually get snatched up late. This year’s weak market just made it look worse than it was. Players who are old, coming off down years, are one dimensional, have injury concerns, and have serious holes in their game almost always sign late. Same with bullpen pieces, unless you’re a closer or top notch setup guy, free agency can drag because how volatile BP arms are from year to year.
The players being discussed here just aren’t any good and now pretty much every team knows it.
Carter, Weiters, Hammel, Pagan, Napoli, etc….they are all very limited players, making them below average major leaguers. Teams stopped valuing one-dimensional sluggers a while ago (that slugging has to at least come with some OBP). Teams now value complete players that provide value all over the diamond. and realize that they can get the same value from prospects as they can from guys that can do 1 thing well and everything else poorly.
The whole “80% of the money goes to 20% of the players” is not new….it has been this way for a long time and has nothing to do with teams not spending on crappy players and everything to do with the fact that teams have 6+ yrs of control of every player before they are eligible for free agency..
I thought teams were just not trying to spend specifically this offseason, because its the weakest class in years and next year and the year after’s classes are where teams are looking to spend big?
Pretty silly to act like this year is the “new trend” when the reality its a 1-off. Teams were wise not to spend this year, because now they arent blocking anyone from the next 2 offseasons, where the quality of player is much greater.
Why spend big for a replaceable talent? Right now, there’s a surplus of players who are similar to others–single tool guys for whom there are alternatives. I do agree that the players got rolled in the last CBA, but that’s not the only thing that’s going on.
With this influx of players and still remaining talent unemployed I feel may be a good reason to expand the league to 32 teams. You could easily fill out two 25 man rosters between the major league talent still available as well as the increase in international players. The teams may not be good at their inception but they can grow from there. It also would get rid of the inter league year round which I don’t find natural for baseball.
Good reasons*
They first have to figure out the situations is Oakland and Tampa Bay. Those are two bad situations especially in Tampa where they can’t get anything worthwhile tv contract wise because of the uncertainty with the stadium. But yes the game money wise is in a great state to not think there won’t be teams added within the next 10 years. Plus it’d make a whole lot of sense having 8 divisions of 4 teams.
I feel like teams aren’t spending this year because 1) they already spent, when you are paying Panda like the Bosox or A-rod like the Yankees, Prince Fielder like the Rangers, these guys don’t play, okay maybe Panda but how about Rusnet Castillo, the players that are deserving will get paid but one the undeserving players contracts run up. 2) teams like the phillies don’t want to win. Call it what you want they don’t need to be competitive.
The Phillies were good for a long stretch and many good moves, signings and trades to improve while the window was open. But they really hung on to former glory players too long. Extensions Etc. They are bad now for sure. The successful plan of the Cubs and others just allows the phils to stink a bit longer.
Expansion:
Baltimore
New York
Toronto
Boston
Detroit
Kansas City
Chicago
Cleveland
Milwaukee
Seattle
Minnesota
Los Angeles
Tampa
Los Angeles
Houston
Texas
Washington
New York
Philadelphia
Atlanta
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Colorado
San Diego
Chicago
St. Louis
Cincinnati
Pittsburgh
Miami
Arizona
Charlotte
New Orleans
That would create 50 more slots for players. It would be weird to have 4 team divisions, and I don’t really like that, but it works in the NFL. It would maybe increase rivalries by having less teams, but the division race might not be as competitive with 3 teams to go against instead of 4. What do you guys think of the alignment above?
The division names are in order:AL EAST, AL CENTRAL, AL WEST, AL SOUTH, NL EAST, NL WEST, NL CENTRAL, NL SOUTH.
I do not know how to fix it but Arizona should not be in the same division as Miami and Charlotte.
I don’t know. Maybe Tampa and Arizona trade leagues? Then it would be Arizona, Houston, Texas, LA, and on the NL Miami, Charlotte, New Orleans, and Tampa. That would have both Florida teams in the NL and I don’t know if that would be an issue. I did put Milwaukee in the AL again.
Montreal will get a team again before Charlotte or New Orleans. I guess the question becomes does Tampa relocate and if so where?