DraftKings is offering MLBTR readers a FREE Opening Day contest! Enter now and compete for your share of a $1,000 prize pool! Submit your lineup by 7:00pm eastern time on Friday. Click here to enter this FREE contest at DraftKings today!
This is a sponsored post from DraftKings.
In Andrew Zimbalist’s 2006 book In The Best Interests Of Baseball?, he wrote:
“[Commissioner Bud] Selig had a pet phrase that makes considerable sense: the fans of each team need to have ’faith and hope’ that their team has a chance to win at the beginning of each season. Without this faith and hope, fans will eventually lose interest, and the game will suffer.”
After reading that recently, I was inspired to create an annual Faith And Hope Report here at MLB Trade Rumors, so we can put a number on how many teams are competitive and track it over time. I’ll be combining FanGraphs’ projected playoff odds with my own common sense, and there is some subjectivity involved on the borderline teams. I’ll elaborate on those later in this post.
Teams that enter the 2019 season with faith and hope: Yankees, Red Sox, Rays, Indians, Twins, Astros, Athletics, Angels, Nationals, Phillies, Mets, Braves, Cubs, Cardinals, Brewers, Reds, Pirates, Dodgers, Rockies, Padres, Diamondbacks
Teams that enter 2019 without faith and hope: Blue Jays, Orioles, White Sox, Tigers, Royals, Rangers, Mariners, Marlins, Giants
Conclusion: 70% of MLB teams have faith and hope of contending in 2019.
Arguable teams:
Click here to read the transcript of today’s chat with Tim Dierkes.
Mike Trout is closing in on the largest deal in baseball history, and that was a major focus of today’s chat with MLBTR owner Tim Dierkes. Read the transcript here.
Here’s our list of the largest contract each of the 30 MLB teams has ever signed. Each contract is linked to its MLBTR post, with the exception of those that predate the site’s existence.
This is the latest post of MLBTR’s annual Offseason in Review series, in which we take stock of every team’s winter dealings.
The White Sox pinned most of their offseason hopes to signing Manny Machado, and instead wound up adding a series of largely unexciting veteran players.
Major League Signings
Options Exercised
Trades and Claims
Notable Minor League Signings
Notable Losses
Of MLBTR’s top ten free agents this winter, the White Sox reportedly showed some level of interest in at least seven of them. Their most high-profile pursuit was that of Manny Machado. Prior to the Winter Meetings, GM Rick Hahn tried to make it clear to reporters that he couldn’t “guarantee by any stretch that we’re going to convert on these targets.” Dallas Keuchel and Craig Kimbrel notwithstanding, the dust has settled on the offseason, and the White Sox failed to convert on any premium player they were targeting.
Looking at what the team actually did, this was a fairly typical recent White Sox offseason. It’s just that fan expectations tend to balloon when front office brass is meeting with Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, we know the team can afford either player, and it’s about that time where a rebuilding process draws to a close. The club hung around in the Machado bidding til the bitter end, strangely acquiring Manny’s brother-in-law Yonder Alonso and good friend Jon Jay presumably to help close the gap on an offer that fell far short. Here’s White Sox executive vice president Kenny Williams attempting to defend the team’s eight-year, $250MM final offer, as reported by Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times: “People are lost on the fact that on a yearly basis, our offer was more than San Diego’s. The average annual value was $31 [million] and change. So it was about years guaranteed. So there is an argument that could be made that our offer was the better of the two. It certainly had more upside for him. All he had to do was basically stay healthy.” This is almost comical, as is Williams’ assertion that if the team had gone further financially, fans would have been “much more disappointed in our inability to keep this next core together.” The key piece of that core, Eloy Jimenez, remains a minor leaguer for the purpose of gaining control of his 2025 season. The team’s “next core” literally hasn’t reached the Majors yet, but giving Machado an extra two years would break it up?
Chicago’s offer to Machado came in a full $50MM shy of the contract he received from the Padres. The Sox thought this star free agent was going to be swayed by a ridiculous $100MM in additional non-guaranteed money, or by the acquisition of his buddies? Going into free agency, there was never a reason to think $250MM would get the job done for Machado or Harper, so why even try? Hahn’s claim that the Sox made a “very aggressive offer” is patently untrue. With every large market team sitting out Machado’s market and the price coming in much lower than it could have been, the White Sox still never got close. After losing out on Machado, Hahn pledged, “The money will be spent. It might not be spent this offseason, but it will be spent at some point. This isn’t money sitting around waiting to just accumulate interest. It’s money trying to be deployed to put us in best position to win some championships.”
Perhaps Hahn said that so that Sox fans will dream about signing Anthony Rendon or Xander Bogaerts next winter, but the Machado progression hardly inspires confidence that White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf is willing to outspend the field for a premium free agent. When Reinsdorf last did that by signing Albert Belle – over 22 years ago – Bud Selig and the owners were stunned that “the owner who’s railed the loudest and longest about curbing player salaries has just broken the bank,” wrote Jon Pessah in his 2015 book The Game. There’s little reason to think Reinsdorf will shatter precedent again.
Given the self-imposed $250MM limit on Machado, the White Sox knew they weren’t going to get close on Harper. The White Sox certainly explored other avenues, including upgrades at catcher. They made a multiyear offer (terms unknown) to Yasmani Grandal, according to Robert Murray of The Athletic. And the Sox were “in the mix” for J.T. Realmuto, according to Ken Rosenthal. The White Sox had moved on from last year’s tandem, Omar Narvaez and Kevan Smith, deciding someone new should pair with Welington Castillo in 2019. They went with non-tendered former Tigers catcher James McCann. Patrick Nolan of Sox Machine disparaged the choice, writing, “The White Sox’ young pitchers have had the misfortune of throwing to tiny strike zones and guys who let the ball get away, and McCann’s poor receiving and pitch-blocking will help continue that trend.” It’s particularly painful to see a pitcher’s dream backstop, Martin Maldonado, sign with a division rival for the same contract (although Maldonado’s asking price at the time McCann signed had not yet fallen to this level).
The White Sox made reasonable efforts to address their bullpen this winter, trading Narvaez for Colome in November and signing Herrera in January. Colome is under team control through the 2020 season, though his salary in that season will climb even higher than this year’s $7.325MM. He’s a solid reliever who stands a good chance of serving as the team’s closer. They also signed Herrera to a two-year deal with a vesting option for a third season. Herrera had surgery in September to repair a torn Lisfranc ligament in his foot, but he’s made his Cactus League debut, implying the procedure may not affect him during the 2019 season. Herrera’s got some other red flags, such as 2018’s declining strikeout and ground-ball rates, but the 29-year-old still throws 97 miles per hour and has a chance to be a major asset to Chicago. Along with holdovers Nate Jones and Jace Fry, this could be a decent bullpen, especially compared to the cumulative work of last year’s unit. The White Sox reportedly showed interest in Adam Ottavino, Andrew Miller, and Joe Kelly before they signed elsewhere.
With highly-regarded pitching prospect Michael Kopech out for 2019 due to Tommy John surgery and James Shields gone to free agency (though technically still unsigned), the White Sox reportedly poked their head in on free agents Patrick Corbin, J.A. Happ, and Nathan Eovaldi, before ultimately trading for Ivan Nova in December. Nova, owed $8.5MM in 2019, is a pitch-to-contact, homer-prone veteran who projects for an ERA around 4.60. If you’re looking for a veteran starter who could potentially be flipped for something interesting in July, Nova doesn’t qualify. Nor does Ervin Santana, who signed a minor league deal but seems likely to eventually earn the team’s fifth starter job.
“Fundamentally this is a baseball deal,” Hahn told reporters upon acquiring Alonso from the Indians in December, but that claim hardly stands up when looking at the types of contracts that comparable first-base-only sluggers received this offseason (MLBTR Free Agent Tracker link). I again turn to Patrick Nolan of Sox Machine, who explains that adding Alonso at designated hitter will “either eat into Daniel Palka’s plate appearances or force everyone to watch Palka play the outfield more often,” while it also “helped out a division rival with $8 million in cash relief.” That’s a little harsh, but in Nova and Alonso, the White Sox took on $17.5MM for a pair of players projected by Steamer and ZiPS to be worth about one WAR apiece in 2019. It feels like spending money just to spend money.
Jay, his friendship with Machado aside, is an acceptable veteran stopgap for a club that parted ways with longtime right fielder Avisail Garcia. Top prospect Eloy Jimenez will start the season at Triple-A after being optioned just hours ago — presumably to “work on his defense” or another semi-vague reason that will be resolved once he cannot accrue a full year of service time in 2019 (as is commonplace throughout the league with this caliber of prospect). Until Jimenez arrives, none of the White Sox outfielders look like part of their next contending team.
The truly baffling aspect of Chicago’s offseason additions is that had they simply condensed the money offered to that patchwork collection of stopgaps, those resources could’ve been utilized to up the offer to Machado — a transformative player who’d move the needle considerably more not only in 2019 but in the long term. The near-$50MM they spent on this offseason’s group is worth much more than $50MM in 2028-29 dollars. Perhaps the Padres would’ve been willing to further increase their proposal had the ChiSox presented a legitimately competitive offer, but the approach would’ve been much more understandable.
2019 Season Outlook
Fangraphs projects the White Sox as a 70-win team this year, virtually no different from the Tigers or Royals. Given the team’s run at Machado, this may seem like an incredibly disappointing offseason, but go back to something Hahn said in September 2017: “I think even under the most optimistic projections of our ability to contend, certainly ’18 and ’19 don’t include the bulk of the time when we anticipate having a window open to us.”
So, it seems the club was willing to sign Machado or Harper at a relative bargain price and maybe make a little noise in ’19, but that duo’s free agency was always coming a year before the White Sox thought their team would be ready. The White Sox have just $12.5MM committed to two players for the 2020 roster, so they’ll again enjoy major payroll flexibility in the offseason. Generally, you don’t get a fourth year for an intentional rebuild, so it’s 2020 or bust for this group.
How would you grade the White Sox’ offseason? (Poll link for Trade Rumors app users.)
Click here to read a transcript of today’s chat with Tim Dierkes.
The following 40-man roster players have less than five years service time and are out of minor league options. That means they must clear waivers before being sent to the minors. I’ve included players on multiyear deals. This list was compiled through MLBTR’s helpful sources.
Angels
Astros
Athletics
Blue Jays
Braves
Brewers
Cardinals
Cubs
Diamondbacks
Dodgers
Giants
Indians
Mariners
Marlins
Mets
Nationals
Orioles
Padres
Phillies
Pirates
Rangers
Rays
Red Sox
Reds
Rockies
Royals
Tigers
Twins
White Sox
Yankees
We’ll have 2019 Major League Baseball about two weeks from now, perhaps with Oakland’s Mike Fiers throwing the season’s first pitch to Seattle’s Mallex Smith in Tokyo. Though Dallas Keuchel, Craig Kimbrel, and others remain unsigned, I’m going to begin our monthly look ahead at the 2019-20 MLB free agent class. These players are on track to become free agents after the 2019 season.
As you can see in MLBTR’s Extension Tracker, we had three notable would-be free agents come off the board in February: Nolan Arenado, Miles Mikolas, and Aaron Hicks. I feel that Arenado and Mikolas did about as well as they would have in free agency, while it’s possible Hicks’ deal reflects some trepidation toward the backwards trend in dollars per WAR that teams have instituted the last two winters. There’s a good chance some of the projected free agents listed here will also forgo the open market if a reasonable contract offer is presented. As always, these players are ranked by my estimate of their 2019-20 open market earning power.
1. Xander Bogaerts. I didn’t begin this exercise expecting Bogaerts to top the list, but if he manages another five win season as Boston’s shortstop, his youth could result in the winter’s longest contract. Bogaerts, a client of the Boras Corporation, won’t turn 27 until October. He’s gone year-to-year throughout his career after signing out of Aruba for $410K in 2009. Bogaerts has now banked over $25MM in his career. He’s coming off his finest season yet, posting a 133 wRC+ that was second only to Manny Machado among qualified shortstops. Bogaerts’ defense has long rated as a plus. While I don’t expect Bogaerts to approach the $300MM contract Machado received, I do think he’ll join the $200MM club with a strong 2019 season.
2. Chris Sale. Bogaerts’ teammate Chris Sale has placed top six in the AL Cy Young voting for the last seven years. The lefty joined the Red Sox in a December 2016 blockbuster trade with the White Sox. Sale’s dominance has continued in Boston, though he was limited to 158 regular season innings in 2018 due to two DL stints for shoulder inflammation. Sale’s earning power in free agency will depend on his health this season. Six years ago, Sale signed a contract extension with the White Sox that has provided tremendous surplus value to both of his clubs. While it had been standard practice for top free agent starters to be paid through age 36 – see Jon Lester, Max Scherzer, David Price, and Yu Darvish (and Zack Greinke, who was paid through 37), the old way of doing things in free agency may no longer apply. So Sale, 30 this month, will likely seek a six-year contract, though he could have trouble getting there unless one team gets irrational or he accepts a reduced average annual value to max out the guarantee. In the best case, Sale could inch his way past Greinke’s six-year, $206.5MM deal, since Sale will be more than 17 months younger than Greinke was when he reached his historic pact.
3. Gerrit Cole. Cole, another Boras client, was drafted by the Yankees out of high school in the first round in 2008. Cole’s signability changed after the draft, and his family requested that the Yankees not even make an offer. After three years at UCLA, Cole was drafted first overall by the Pirates. He was generally solid for the Pirates, including one great season in 2015, before they traded him to the Astros in January 2018. Cole posted the best season of his career in his first season as an Astro. Including his record draft bonus, Cole has earned over $33MM in his MLB career on the year-to-year plan. With another comparable campaign, he’ll be fishing for the seven-year deal signed by Price, Scherzer, and Stephen Strasburg. This would only take Cole through his age 35 season – a reasonable length even in this day and age. Price’s seven-year, $217MM deal will be four years old when Cole reaches free agency. My guess is that Cole will fall short of that level but will still sign one of the five largest pitching contracts in baseball history.
4. Anthony Rendon. The Nationals let Harper defect to the Phillies on a record $330MM contract, but that might pave the way for a deal with yet another Boras client, Rendon. Rendon has quietly amassed 13 WAR over the last two seasons, sixth in all of baseball for position players. The Nationals’ third baseman combines stellar defense with a 140 wRC+ bat, and the result is that he’s every bit as valuable as Harper or Machado right now. Rendon turns 29 in June, and he’s amassed about $47MM already in his MLB career. It’s been rare lately that any top position player gets paid past age 35, as Machado and Eric Hosmer did, and many such as Nolan Arenado, Jose Altuve, J.D. Martinez, Justin Upton, and Yoenis Cespedes were only paid through 34. We’ll put Harper aside, as only drastically reducing his average annual value allowed for him to be paid through age 38. This is my way of saying I think Rendon is looking at a six-year deal in the best case. Back in January, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic wrote that Rendon was seeking a contract comparable to Altuve, in his extension talks with the Nationals. That deal was essentially $151MM over five years, though things have gotten worse for free agents in the year since then. Also since then was Arenado’s seven-year, $234MM extension with the Rockies, notable mainly for its $33.4MM AAV. Rendon would certainly be within his rights to seek $30-33MM per year in his ongoing extension talks with the Nationals, which may continue into the season.
5. Paul Goldschmidt. Goldschmidt starred for the Diamondbacks for eight years until last December’s trade to St. Louis. Goldy inked what became a club-friendly six-year contract back in 2013. So on the one hand, the slugging first baseman has banked $45MM in his MLB career. On the other hand, he’ll turn 32 in advance of his next contract. These days, that probably caps him at a four-year deal unless he takes a light AAV. The Cardinals clearly would like to make Goldschmidt, a client of Excel Sports Management, more than a rental.
6. Zack Wheeler. Wheeler, 29 in May, posted the best season of his career in 2018. The righty was drafted sixth overall out of high school by the Giants in 2009 and was traded to the Mets for Carlos Beltran in 2011. He made his MLB debut in 2013 and did solid work before going down for March 2015 Tommy John surgery. Wheeler ended up going two and a half years between MLB starts, nearly getting traded to Milwaukee in the interim. That Wheeler failed to return to the Mets in 2016 served as a reminder that Tommy John recovery is not always seamless. Wheeler’s 2017 season was abbreviated due to a stress fracture in his arm, and he actually began the 2018 season in the minors. Wheeler, one of the hardest-throwing starting pitchers in the game, just kept getting better in the 2018 season. He finished with a 2.06 ERA in his final 15 starts. An encore performance could make Wheeler a sleeper Cy Young candidate, but it’s all about stringing together a second consecutive healthy season for the first time in his career. His ceiling would likely be a five-year deal taking him through age 34, the age through which Miles Mikolas, Jordan Zimmermann, Jake Arrieta, and Patrick Corbin were signed. Both Wheeler and Chris Sale are represented by Jet Sports Management.
7. J.D. Martinez. Martinez, 32 in August, has been the second-best hitter in baseball over the last two seasons by measure of wRC+. Though he’s able to play the outfield, he’s best-served as a designated hitter. Martinez signed a five-year, $110MM deal with the Red Sox in late February last year, but the Boras client has the chance to opt out of the 2019 or 2020 seasons. Given the way Martinez has been hitting, it stands to reason that even in this free agent climate, he will stand a good chance at topping the three years and $62.5MM he’ll have remaining on his contract after 2019. Since he’d probably only be looking at a four-year deal this time around, it’s possible the Red Sox could simply tack on one more year to his current deal.
8. Didi Gregorius. Gregorius, 29, was signed by the Reds out of Curacao for $50K back in 2007. A pair of three-team trades eventually led him to the Yankees’ shortstop job in 2015, with the near-impossible task of succeeding Derek Jeter. Gregorius’ bat steadily improved over his four seasons with the Yankees. Combined with strong defense, he’s totaled 8.7 WAR over the past two seasons – on par with Machado and Bogaerts. However, Gregorius went down for Tommy John surgery in October. He could return anywhere from June to August, complicating his free agency picture. Both Gregorius and the Yankees seem open to an extension, and the club did just prevent Aaron Hicks from exploring free agency by giving him a seven-year, $70MM deal. Like Goldschmidt, Gregorius is represented by Excel Sports Management.
9. Justin Verlander. Verlander, 36, finished second in the AL Cy Young voting last year, in a dominant season that was every bit as good as his Cy/MVP 2011 campaign for the Tigers. He’s a likely Hall of Famer and is one of the game’s best starting pitchers currently. When it comes to the topic of Verlander’s free agency, it’s difficult to ignore his age. I have to think it caps him at a three-year deal, albeit with a premium AAV in the $30MM range. The Astros have difficult decisions on the horizon regarding their pair of aces. Verlander is represented by ISE Baseball.
10. Madison Bumgarner. Like Verlander, Bumgarner was an ace for an extended period of time. But with the Giants’ lefty, it remains to be seen what his second act will look like. An April 2017 dirt bike accident caused injuries to Bumgarner’s ribs and shoulder, limiting him to 17 starts that year. Then in March of last year, the pitcher’s left hand was fractured during a Spring Training game, delaying his season debut until June. Upon his return, he wasn’t quite the Bumgarner of old, with his strikeout and walk rates going in the wrong direction. Still, Bumgarner doesn’t turn 30 until August, and by then we should know whether his 2018 season was a blip on the radar or the start of a trend. His contract, which will be negotiated by The Legacy Agency, will depend on that question.
Honorable mentions: Marcell Ozuna, Yasiel Puig, Rick Porcello, Nick Castellanos, Josh Donaldson, Yasmani Grandal, Khris Davis, Scooter Gennett
Note: I’m currently operating under the assumption that club options for Corey Kluber, Anthony Rizzo, Jose Quintana, Chris Archer, Starling Marte, and Matt Carpenter will be exercised after the season, and that Stephen Strasburg and Yu Darvish will not opt out of their contracts.
Click here to read the transcript of today’s chat with Tim Dierkes.
MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com
Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information
scroll to top
