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Checking In On Last Season’s Worst Bullpens

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A bad bullpen can play a major role in destroying a team’s playoff hopes, as we saw with last year’s Phillies. They finished a game behind the National League’s lowest-seeded playoff team, in part because their relief pitchers could not perform. Here’s how the Phillies and the game’s other four worst bullpens from 2020 (based on ERA) have tried to improve themselves since last season ended….

Phillies (7.06 ERA, 13.1 K-BB percentage):

  • The Phillies might have broken their playoff drought last year if not for a bullpen that didn’t get much high-end production out of any of its regulars. New Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and general manager Sam Fuld have gone to work to better the unit, having added several veterans – Archie Bradley, Jose Alvarado, Brandon Kintzler, Tony Watson, Chase Anderson, Hector Rondon, Neftali Feliz and Sam Coonrod, to name some – early in their regime. Some of those players aren’t on guaranteed contracts and will have to fight for spots this spring, but there’s no shortage of experience or success among most of the group.

Rockies (6.77 ERA, 8.8 K-BB percentage):

  • Daniel Bard earned NL Comeback Player of the Year honors as a member of the Rockies, and Yency Almonte also put together a very good 2020. They’ll stick around this season, though no other returning Rockies relievers recorded good numbers over a solid amount of innings last year. There is some potential for the team’s bullpen production to get better in 2021, though. Mychal Givens, who has typically been a quality reliever, struggled in a mere 9 1/3 innings last season; Carlos Estevez, one of the Rockies’ most reliable relievers in 2019, put up an ERA north of 7.00 in 24 frames; and newcomer Robert Stephenson, whom the Rox acquired from the Reds earlier this offseason, was effective two years ago before falling off a cliff in 2020.

Mariners (5.92 ERA, 7.8 K-BB percentage):

  • In light of last year’s issues, general manager Jerry Dipoto came into the offseason saying he wanted three to four new relievers. True to his word, Dipoto added to the Mariners’ relief corps with the likes of Rafael Montero, Keynan Middleton and Will Vest (Rule 5 pick), though the team can’t necessarily count on anyone from that group to fix its issues in 2021.

Red Sox (5.79 ERA, 13.2 K-BB percentage):

  • The Red Sox made an unexpected trade with the enemy Yankees when they acquired righty Adam Ottavino from New York in a January salary dump. Ottavino, who will count $9MM against Boston’s luxury-tax bill in 2021, had a rough time last season, but the 35-year-old has typically been a solid option. Along with Ottavino, Hirokazu Sawamura (a former Nippon Professional Baseball hurler whom the Red Sox signed for a two-year, $3MM deal), Matt Andriese and Rule 5 selection Garrett Whitlock are newcomers to the group.

Marlins (5.50 ERA, 6.7 K-BB percentage):

MLBTR Poll: Forecasting The Yankees Rotation

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Jameson Taillon is aiming for 120 to 150 innings in his comeback from Tommy John surgery, writes Ken Davidoff of the New York Post. Taillon has just 37 1/3 innings to his name over the past two seasons, and since this will be his second time coming back from TJ, there’s reason to temper expectations regarding his workload. Davidoff looks at PECOTA, Steamer, and ZiPS to get an idea for what the projection systems think Taillon can handle in 2021 – though the creators of the systems admit this is an area that requires guesswork. Still, it’s instructive to know that the three systems project 103 innings, 133 innings, and 106 1/3 innings – in line with Taillon’s thinking.

How those innings manifest might be the question for the Yankees. The mean of the three projections is 114-ish innings, which would be just under four innings per start over a full 30-game workload. That’s not likely to be the shape of Taillon’s 2021 production. We know that depth will be key in 2021 across the league, but thinking in this way about Taillon all but erases the possibility of a five-man rotation surviving the season.

While that’s an absolute best-case, rarely-achieved feat in the first place, it’s worth keeping in mind before getting frustrated when Deivi García, for example, doesn’t make an opening day roster, speculatively speaking. And while Clarke Schmidt’s injury doesn’t appear to be serious, it serves as a generous reminder that the injury bug can bite at any time.

As if Taillon didn’t cloud the Yankees’ projections enough on his own, the rest of the group doesn’t bring much certainty either – beyond Gerrit Cole, of course. The projection systems collectively tag presumptive No. 2 starter Corey Kluber with an expectation for about 137 innings in 2021, a forecast largely born from the fact that the soon-to-be 35-year-old managed just one inning in 2020 and 35 2/3 innings the year before. Still, Kluber was a workhorse before 2019, with five straight 200+ inning seasons with the Indians.

Jordan Montgomery slots into the No. 4 spot, and he logged just 51 2/3 innings over the past two seasons after undergoing Tommy John surgery himself. Somewhat remarkably, the starter with the most innings after Cole the past two seasons is the guy who missed all of 2020 under the league’s domestic violence policy: Domingo Germán. Germán made 24 starts and amassed 143 innings with a 4.03 ERA/4.72 FIP, 38.1 percent groundball rate, 25.8 percent strikeout rate, and 6.6 percent walk rate in 2019. Those are above-average walk and strikeout numbers. Germán faces his own uphill climb, of course. Given comments made by his Yankee teammates this offseason, there’s more than a little doubt about how well he’ll be able to re-acclimate to the spotlight that comes with donning Yankee pinstripes.

García will obviously be a candidate to join the rotation, as could other 40-man roster arms like Schmidt, Michael King, Nick Nelson, Alexander Vizcaino, Luis Medina, and Luis Gil. Veterans Jhoulys Chacin and Asher Wojciechowski are also in camp as non-roster invitees. Jonathan Loaisiga, Albert Abreu and Luis Cessa are expected to pitch out the bullpen, but they’ve spent time starting games in the past. The Yankees also hope to receive a mid-season boost when Luis Severino returns from Tommy John. Severino threw just 12 innings the past two seasons, but he was an ace in the two years before that, averaging a 3.18 ERA/3.01 FIP, 5.5 fWAR in 192 innings per season in 2017 and 2018.

Of course, no matter the starting five, most teams are going to call upon more than just their opening day rotation to toe the rubber. The Yankees themselves used nine different starting pitchers in 2020 over just 60 games. They used 12 in 2019, 12 in 2018, and 11 in 2017. Those units finished eighth, fifth and fourth in the American League by measure of FIP, ninth, third and third by fWAR. Yankee starters ranked third in the AL by both FIP (4.19 FIP) and fWAR (5.3 fWAR) last season.

Volume isn’t everything, but for pitchers, inning totals do often point to success, or at the very least, health. Given the uncertainty of the Yankees new rotation, what are your expectations? Who of the starters after Cole stands the best chance of surviving the season?

(Poll link for app users)

(Poll link for app users)

MLBTR Poll: Top-5 Free Agent Contracts

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With there’s always quite a lot of room to quibble over free agent rankings, there was really no debate regarding the top handful of talent in this year’s class. (At least, that is, once Marcus Stroman elected to accept the qualifying offer.) After Trevor Bauer, J.T. Realmuto, George Springer, Marcell Ozuna, and DJ LeMahieu — in whatever order; that’s how we had it — the drop-off to the rest of the board was rather pronounced.

As it turned out, those players signed contracts that hewed fairly closely to MLBTR’s predicted ranges. But the market, as always, had a few surprises for our in-house brain trust. In particular, Springer and LeMahieu came away with a fair bit more money than we had anticipated.

Trevor Bauer to Dodgers for three years, $102MM (with two opt-outs): If you’re of the opinion that Bauer is an ace-level hurler, then this deal represents a steal. The Dodgers are paying a premium rate, sure, but without any of the long-term entanglements. Then again, it’s only fair to note that Bauer has completed just one full season with a sub-4.00 ERA.

J.T. Realmuto to Phillies for five years, $115.5MM: This is a lot of coin for a free-agent catcher, but Realmuto is arguably the game’s best all-around backstop and the Phils got an up-close look at him before committing. If you value the hard-to-quantify contributions of a top-shelf catcher, this could be viewed as a bargain. On the other hand, Realmuto will turn thirty before the deal begins and the rigors of the position represent an ever-present concern.

George Springer to Blue Jays for six years, $150MM: Speaking of age, that’s the one real demerit in the situation of Springer, who’ll turn 32 at the tail end of the 2021 campaign. He’s a well-rounded masher who adds value with a versatile glove. If he can turn in a few more premium seasons and then settle in as a high-quality regular at the tail end of his career, Springer could easily reward the Jays for this contract.

Marcell Ozuna to Braves for four years, $65MM: Ozuna is significantly younger than Springer and easily bettered him at the plate in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. But Ozuna’s stretches of bliss have surrounded other spans of merely above-average play, and his glove is not as renowned as his bat. While there’s obviously some cause to temper expectations, there’s a realistic scenario where the Atlanta organization achieves huge value in this deal.

DJ LeMahieu to Yankees for six years, $90MM: The idea of a 32-year-old LeMahieu signing a contract like this … well, it still feels a bit preposterous to hot stove watchers of a certain age. But you can threw out what you thought you knew about the guy with the Rockies. He has been on a tear ever since he donned pinstripes. Throw in a quality glove and gravitas, and you’ve got a great finishing piece for any team with championship ambitions. The sixth year feels like a stretch, but it’s important to remember that it was designed to tamp down the annual luxury tax hit for the Bronx Bombers.

So, which of these contracts do you believe was the shrewdest investment from the team perspective? (Response order randomized; poll link for app users.)

Trading A Cy Young-Caliber Starting Pitcher

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Less than three months after their first-round playoff defeat to the Marlins, the Cubs traded second place NL Cy Young finisher Yu Darvish to the Padres.  This occurred after the Cubs won their division with a .567 winning percentage, which would have extrapolated to about 92 wins in a full season.  I looked back through the last 20 years, and this has never been done: winning teams simply do not trade top-2 Cy Young finishers.

As you might expect, teams prefer not to trade top-2 Cy Young finishers at all.  In the past 20 years, it’s only been done twice in the offseason: the Mets traded 38-year-old R.A. Dickey to the Blue Jays after the 2012 season, and the Diamondbacks dealt 41-year-old Randy Johnson to the Yankees after Arizona’s abysmal 2004 campaign.  Let’s see if the more recent Dickey trade bears any similarities to what the Cubs did.

December 17, 2012: Mets trade Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey with Mike Nickeas and Josh Thole to the Blue Jays for Noah Syndergaard, Travis d’Arnaud, John Buck, and Wuilmer Becerra.

The 2012 Mets finished with a 74-88 record, good for fourth place in the NL East.  Dickey, a knuckleballer, had quietly signed a minor league deal with the Mets after an uninspiring 2009 season out of the Twins’ bullpen.  He flourished in the Mets’ rotation, finding another gear in 2012 en route to a 2.73 ERA over 233 2/3 innings.  That effort resulted in 20 wins and the Cy Young award for the 38-year-old.  At that point, the Mets had one year of control left on Dickey at an affordable $5MM.

Dickey hoped to stay longer.  In May of his Cy Young-winning season, he told Mike Puma of the New York Post, “I like it here and I want to be here. I feel like the team is moving in the right direction, and I want to be a part of the solution. Now it’s up to them. If I’m in those plans, [addressing the contract] is one way to make it known.”  As late as September of 2012, GM Sandy Alderson spoke of his intent to retain Dickey as well as David Wright long-term.  They were the clear bright spots on the 2012 team.  By November, however, a significant gap had emerged in contract talks between the Mets and Dickey, with the righty reportedly seeking a two-year extension worth $26MM.

Once the Mets succeeded in locking up Wright, the PR hit of potentially trading Dickey diminished, and the trade rumors began in earnest.  In 2021, the Cubs’ nod to the negative PR of the departures of Darvish and Theo Epstein, among others, seems to be the nostalgia signing of Jake Arrieta.  Not quite on par with the Wright extension, though the Cubs do have Anthony Rizzo, Javy Baez, and Kris Bryant as extension candidates given their impending free agency.

The Mets reportedly discussed Dickey with eight different teams at the Nashville Winter Meetings in 2012, ultimately reaching an agreement with the Blue Jays pending a contract extension for the pitcher.  The Jays hammered out a two-year, $25MM deal – only $5MM more than the Mets had offered – and the deal was done.  Alderson explained the Mets’ approach:

“One of the reasons the negotiations were prolonged is we began to see forces of supply and demand at work, frankly.  On the one hand, we saw the value of starting pitching go up in terms of compensation. At the same time, we saw the supply start to go down in terms of availability. And so because we were proceeding on two tracks, at some point we had to wait and see what the value might be.”

Much like the 2021 Cubs after trading Darvish, Alderson talked about how the Mets weren’t giving up on the 2013 season, saying, “No. 1, we have made this trade, and we feel a number of the players that we’ve acquired — John Buck, certainly — and probably Travis d’Arnaud will make contributions in 2013.  We can’t quantify those at the moment. But we do have expectations about that. In addition, there’s a lot of time between now and when we report to spring training. So we do expect to do some other things. We do expect to acquire some other players. We recognize we have holes to fill — that we may have created a hole in our rotation, but we will address those. We certainly are not punting on 2013.”

What were those “other things?”  The rest of the Mets’ offseason consisted of signing Shaun Marcum for $4MM and adding some veterans on minor league deals.  I didn’t expect much from the 2013 Mets, writing, “The Mets have been a sleeping giant under the Alderson regime, parting ways with their best veterans other than Wright, avoiding free agency, and allowing their attendance to slip to 17th in MLB. A decent rotation won’t be enough to overcome the team’s gaping holes in 2013, but perhaps the season will provide a sneak preview for the Mets’ return to relevance in the coming years.”  The Mets wound up treading water in 2013, putting up the same 74 wins they had in 2012.

Then-Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopolous talked about the Mets’ leverage in the negotiations:

“Sandy clearly had the option to sign the player back. Everyone knew that. That was made aware. And the player wanted to stay.  I think Sandy, when d’Arnaud was on the table, he was probably on the table for 10 days. And it really didn’t move anywhere. There was no traction. There was no dialogue. It just was not enough from his standpoint, as much as we valued Travis.”  Anthopoulos would go on to tell reporters that Syndergaard was the last player the Mets insisted on acquiring.

Having recently added Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, and Mark Buehrle in a blockbuster deal with the Marlins, Anthopoulos pulled the trigger on Dickey and gave up two major prospects in d’Arnaud and Syndergaard.  How were the prospects perceived at the time?

In d’Arnaud, the Mets landed an MLB-ready prospect ranked 23rd in baseball in early 2013, according to Baseball America.  It would be similar to acquiring Luis Patiño in the present day, who happens to be the main piece the Padres sent to the Rays for Blake Snell last December.  Baseball America slapped a 60 grade on d’Arnaud at the time, generally assigned to “first-division regulars.”  D’Arnaud was said to have the ability to become an All-Star catcher, “if he can stay healthy.”

Though d’Arnaud played well in 2014-15, accumulating 6.2 WAR over 175 games, his Mets career was mostly marked by a litany of injuries, and he was released in May 2019.  D’Arnaud has had a resurgence since then, with a 120 wRC+ over 550 plate appearances.  He took home his first Silver Slugger award with the 2020 Braves and is entering the last year of a two-year, $16MM free agent contract.

Syndergaard, meanwhile, landed 54th on BA’s top 100 back in 2013.  He, too, was assigned a 60 grade, with “the ceiling of a frontline starter.”  Syndergaard, who had been drafted out of high school, was a 20-year-old who had yet to pitch above low-A, but he was considered a polished pitcher at the time.  He ascended quickly to top-15 prospect status, reaching the Majors in 2015 and finishing fourth in the Rookie of the Year voting.  He pitched well for the Mets in their 2015 run to the World Series and finished eighth in the 2016 NL Cy Young voting.

Though Syndergaard missed most of the 2017 season with a lat injury and all of 2020 due to Tommy John surgery, he’s tallied 18.8 WAR for the Mets and should be a factor in 2021 before becoming eligible for free agency.

While Buck and Becerra didn’t pan out for the Mets and d’Arnaud fell short of expectations, the acquisition of Syndergaard alone made the Dickey trade a resounding success for the Mets and Alderson.  The chances of the Cubs having landed a player of Syndergaard’s caliber in the Darvish deal are remote, but we’ll have to check back in five years or so.

With Dickey seeking a reasonable two-year extension, a suitor could have expected to control him for three years in total, which is what the Blue Jays wound up getting.  Dickey would only need to be paid $30MM over the three-year term, in an offseason where Zack Greinke landed a six-year, $147MM contract and Anibal Sanchez signed for five years and $80MM.  Dickey would be paid just 40% of the AAV the market’s top pitcher received in free agency, on a much shorter term.  In 2021, Trevor Bauer signed for three years and $102MM, an average annual value of $34MM.  With the Cubs picking up $3MM of Darvish’s tab, the Padres got him for $59MM over three years – a $19.67MM AAV that is about 58% of Bauer’s.  Bauer’s contract could easily become $85MM over two years assuming he opts out of the final year, however, and then Darvish’s AAV would be about 46% of Bauer’s.

It’s not a perfect parallel, and both Dickey and Darvish came with some risks, but it’s fair to say the Cubs weren’t offering quite the same payroll-friendly ace the Mets were – especially with teams reeling from the pandemic.  The Cubs surely would have upped their return had they been willing to include more cash or take on a bad contract.  Talent-wise, Dickey was a 38-year-old knuckleballer who had never shown strikeout potential prior to 2012.  Darvish, on the other hand, made four All-Star teams prior to 2020 and consistently rates among the top strikeout pitchers in the game.  Darvish seems more likely to deliver ace-caliber seasons for his new team than Dickey was, though he poses a greater health risk.  As it turned out, Dickey never reached 2 WAR in any of his four seasons with the Blue Jays.

Like the Mets in 2012, the Cubs didn’t have any real urgency to make a deal this offseason, and should have held out unless they were bowled over.  The Padres had already traded the aforementioned Patiño, the game’s #23 prospect, but still had prospects ranked #10, #11, #36, #76, and #85.  The Cubs received none of them.  Though the Cubs threw in a credible backup catcher in Victor Caratini, their return was one year of righty Zach Davies, plus prospects Reginald Preciado, Owen Caissie, Ismael Mena,  and Yeison Santana.  None of the four prospects are near the Majors, and all of them received 45 grades from MLB.com.  Santana, who recently turned 20, is the oldest of the bunch.  We’ll let future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw take it from here, in his interview with Jorge Castillo of the L.A. Times:

“There’s a lot of smart guys in front offices. Figure something out that’s easier to do than trading away a [star]. Just, for example, a potential Cy Young [Award winner] in [Yu] Darvish, who has been one of the top five pitchers in baseball for a year and a half, for prospects that could potentially be good but they’re 17, 18 years old. And [Zach] Davies is a great pitcher, but to me, that’s just not . . . For the Chicago Cubs to do that, it’s not good. It’s just not good.”

Kershaw would know.  He’s finished in the top two for Cy Young voting five times, and his big-market employer never entertained trading him immediately thereafter.

So then, why do the deal if you’re the Cubs?  A mandate from ownership to reduce payroll is the likely answer, as the Cubs removed $59MM of Darvish’s $62MM commitment from the books.  Darvish carries a $21MM CBT payroll hit for 2021, yet the Cubs added $31.33MM back to the payroll in Davies, Joc Pederson, Jake Arrieta, Andrew Chafin, Trevor Williams, Jake Marisnick, Austin Romine, Jonathan Holder, and Kohl Stewart.  The new acquisitions project to 6.1 WAR, while Darvish projects for 3.8 by himself.  This sequence of moves represents a clear step back, as the Cubs could have easily kept Darvish’s 3.8 WAR out of one roster spot, while adding all the same supplementary help aside from Davies.

The 2021 Cubs currently carry a CBT payroll of about $170MM, more than $45MM shy of where they sat last year.  They project as roughly a .500 team, and fit in well in a division where most of the teams aren’t really pushing for the title.

The Luxury Tax Boogeyman

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The competitive balance tax has been an insidious force against the players.  Back in 1996, in the wake of the ’94 strike, a new collective bargaining agreement was reached and healing between the teams and players could begin.  As Jon Pessah wrote in his book The Game, “[Union head Donald] Fehr finally said yes to a luxury tax — the first time the union agreed to any form of payroll restraint since free agency changed everything in 1976.”  I don’t think anyone anticipated what the luxury tax would become.

In that CBA, which covered 1997-2001, the luxury tax was to cover only the 1997-1999 seasons, sort of an experiment.  Opening the door to the luxury tax in that 1996 deal wasn’t perceived as a major hit to the players.  Pessah wrote, “This labor war was a huge victory for Fehr and the union…The owners never got their salary cap or any changes to free agency or salary arbitration.”

Fast forward to 2021, and it’s clear that most major market teams use the base tax threshold of $210MM as something of a soft salary cap.  It’s a limitation MLB likes having in place, as it helps keep free agent salaries down.  If MLB wanted the luxury tax removed, they could do so easily, as they did when it was decided the tax would not be collected in 2020.

Here’s the chart for tax rates (link for app users):

The tax brackets for 2021 are $210-$230MM, $230-250MM, and $250MM and beyond.

In their extrapolated 2020 payrolls, the Yankees, Astros, and Cubs exceeded that year’s $208MM base tax threshold.  It’s notable that while MLB did not make these three teams actually pay tax in 2020, they still didn’t give them a free reset.  That’s why the Yankees sit around $200MM right now – they’re in that third column of the chart, and they want to move back into the first for 2022.  It’s all about the reset, not the actual tax amount if they slightly exceed $210MM in 2021.

The Cubs are trying to avoid the third-time CBT payor column as well, and they’ve accomplished that goal and then some in getting Yu Darvish, Jon Lester, Tyler Chatwood, Jose Quintana, and Kyle Schwarber off the books.  They’re only around $170MM for 2021, a full $40MM shy of the threshold.  The Astros are sitting around $196MM, so they have wiggle room as well.  The machinations of these three teams, particularly the Yankees, assume that the luxury tax system will remain similar in a new CBA, and there actually is a reason to reset in 2021.  If the union succeeds in drastically increasing the thresholds, which should be a major priority for them, all three clubs could have easily reset in 2022 anyway.

The one club that didn’t get the memo about treating $210MM as a soft cap is the Dodgers.  The Dodgers pulled off their reset in 2018 and have stayed below the base tax threshold since, putting them in the first-time payor column for 2021 after the signings of Trevor Bauer, Justin Turner, and Blake Treinen.  With a projected CBT payroll of $254.4MM currently, they’re looking at a tax penalty of about $13MM for 2021.  If a third-time payor spent $254.4MM, their tax penalty would be over $26MM.  In any case, exceeding $250MM places another tax: the club’s highest available pick moves back 10 spots in the next draft.  That’s why the Dodgers will likely find a way to get below $250MM this year.

It’s worth asking: if you’re not the Yankees, Astros, or Cubs, why are you so scared of the $210MM boogeyman?  None of the other 27 teams need to reset – they’re already in the first-time CBT payor column.  That includes the Red Sox, sitting around $204MM and letting the Blue Jays pass them up.  The Angels are around $191MM.  The Mets are around $187MM.  The Phillies are around $196MM.  The Nationals are around $194MM.  That makes five teams this winter that seem to have some deference to the $210MM base tax threshold.  What would be so bad about spending, say, $220MM?  The tax penalty would be $2MM, exactly the price of one year of Hansel Robles.

So the Reset Club includes the Yankees, Astros, and Cubs.  And then five additional teams – the Red Sox, Angels, Mets, Phillies, and Nationals – belong to the Soft Cap Club.  For the other 22 teams, the luxury tax simply has no bearing, which will only be underlined if the thresholds go up significantly in the next CBA.  It’s possible the eight luxury tax avoiders have grand plans for the 2021-22 free agent class – check it out – and want to be first-time payors after they go big next winter.  Otherwise, it’s hard to understand why a Soft Cap Club forms every offseason.

MLBTR Poll: Jackie Bradley’s Future

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After last night’s agreement between Justin Turner and the Dodgers, Jackie Bradley Jr. stands out as the top remaining free agent position player. The longtime Red Sox center fielder has earned a reputation as one of the game’s top defensive outfielders and is coming off a strong 2020 season at the plate.

It was reported earlier this month Bradley was seeking a long-term deal, potentially even targeting a five-year pact. That’s a rather lofty goal; entering the offseason, the MLBTR staff projected a two-year, $16MM contract for Bradley.

While a five-year deal would register as a major surprise, Bradley has drawn a decent share of reported interest this winter. The Mets, Giants, Red Sox, Astros, Cubs, Phillies and Blue Jays have all been tied to Bradley at various stages of the offseason. Toronto can safely be ruled out, having signed George Springer since engaging with Bradley very early on. The Phillies still have room for a center field upgrade, but it seems unlikely Philadelphia would be willing to make a run at Bradley after spending to re-sign J.T. Realmuto and Didi Gregorius. The Cubs, meanwhile, have since signed Joc Pederson and Jake Marisnick to join Ian Happ and Jason Heyward in the outfield.

That leaves the Mets, Giants, Astros and Red Sox as the likeliest landing spots on paper. We’ll turn things over to the MLBTR readership to predict Bradley’s destination and contract length.

(poll links for app users)

 

Which Players Will Have The Largest Change In Performance In 2021?

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FanGraphs’ 2021 playoff odds are out.  If you’re into forecasting, it’s fun to look at something like this.  At this moment in time, FanGraphs projects the Yankees, Twins, Astros, Mets, Cardinals, and Dodgers as the six division winners.  Their projections have the White Sox, Blue Jays, Padres, and Braves as the wild card teams.

For FanGraphs’ playoff odds to have any meaning, you have to consider the many underlying assumptions.  FanGraphs’ Ben Clemens explains how it’s done here.  Most importantly, team projections require forecasts for both performance and playing time.  I’m going to assume that the site’s Depth Charts player projections, described as ” a combination of ZiPS and Steamer projections with playing time allocated by our staff,” are similar to what fuels their playoff odds.

One thing that’s easy to forget when talking about which teams have improved the most over the offseason is that we cannot assume the performance of holdover players will be constant.  Take AL MVP Jose Abreu, for example.  Abreu was worth 2.6 WAR in last year’s 60-game season, so with a simple multiplier of 2.7, that extrapolates to about 7 WAR over a full season.  In other words, for 60 games, Abreu played like a 7-WAR player.

FanGraphs’ blended ZiPS/Steamer projections do not predict anything close to a 7 WAR season for Abreu in 2021.  Instead, they predict a 1.8 WAR campaign, the same as Abreu produced in 2019.  A 1.8 WAR Abreu is basically what’s baked into FanGraphs’ projection of 88.2 wins for the 2021 White Sox.  Their projection is that Abreu will be the 11th best player on the 2021 White Sox.

Here’s a look at the position players FanGraphs expects to lose the most WAR in 2021, compared to the player’s extrapolated full season 2020 production (link for app users):

On the flip side, many who struggled in 2020 are expected to bounce back.  I’ve replaced negative 2020 WARs with zero for the table below, as I don’t think it makes sense to extrapolate J.D. Martinez’s -1.0 WAR to -2.7.  With that in mind, here are the biggest projected gainers for position players (link for app users):

On to the starting pitchers.  Here are the biggest projected dropoffs (link for app users):

And here are the biggest projected gains for starting pitchers.  As you’d expect, the biggest gains are projected for pitchers who missed all of 2020 due to injury or opting out (link for app users):

What do you think?  Which players will experience the biggest change from their 2020 performance?

This Date In Transactions History: Marlins-Phillies Realmuto Trade

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On February 7, 2019, the Phillies and Marlins lined up on a monumental intra-division trade. Miami sent J.T. Realmuto to Philadelphia in exchange for pitching prospects Sixto Sánchez and Will Stewart, as well as MLB catcher Jorge Alfaro. The then-rebuilding Marlins relinquished their final pair of seasons of club control over one of the game’s premier catchers in exchange for longer-term value. With Realmuto now having played out those two years in Philadelphia, it’s worth taking stock of the progress of the players involved.

To date, the trade is shaping up to be a rare win-win. Realmuto more than lived up to his end of the bargain. Since the start of 2019, the former third-rounder has hit an above-average .273/.333/.492, all while rating as a high-end pitch framer and throwing out an elite 42.9% of attempting basestealers. He and Yasmani Grandal are well clear of the rest of the field when looking at FanGraphs’ WAR leaders among catchers the past two seasons. The Phillies didn’t find much in the way of team success, but that’s not the fault of Realmuto, who has been one of the sport’s two most productive catchers since the trade.

Of course, the Phillies-Realmuto relationship didn’t end once he reached free agency. Philadelphia brought back the franchise backstop on a five-year contract last month. The Realmuto acquisition would have been a successful one for the Phils regardless of whether they managed to re-sign him; trading for Realmuto during his arbitration years is a separate decision from the one to sign him to a long-term deal in free agency. Still, the Phillies acquiring Realmuto two years ago certainly couldn’t have hurt their chances of winning the bidding for him this winter.

The Marlins’ end of the deal is a bit more uncertain (as one would expect when a team trades away an established star for a group of talented younger players) but certainly looks bright. Sánchez was seen as the prize of the package at the time of the deal, and he’s only elevated his stock since then. The young righty spent most of the 2019 season in Double-A, where he was very good, and then made his MLB debut last season.

Over his first seven starts at the big league level, Sánchez pitched to a 3.46 ERA/4.18 SIERA. His strikeout rate (20.9%) was a bit below-average, but Sánchez posted better than average marks in both walk rate (7.0%) and ground ball rate (58.0%) as a 22-year-old. It may be too early to definitively declare the flamethrower a future ace, but he’s clearly a central piece of a young rotation the Marlins hope will allow them to perennially reach the postseason, as the Fish did in 2020.

Alfaro and Stewart remain in the Miami organization, but their respective stocks have fallen since the trade. After a decent 2019 season, Alfaro struggled in 2020 and was eventually supplanted on the depth chart by Chad Wallach. Stewart, meanwhile, had a difficult 2019 season in High-A. Eligible for this offseason’s Rule 5 draft, Stewart was left off Miami’s 40-man roster but went unselected.

Even if neither of the secondary pieces in the deal become core pieces for the Marlins, the Realmuto-Sánchez central framework of the trade will be fascinating to follow. There figures to be plenty of times for broadcasters and fans to rehash the details of the blockbuster when the two square off against one another over the coming years.

Top 10 Remaining Free Agents

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It took more than two months, but high-end free agents have finally come flying off the board in Major League Baseball over the past few weeks. J.T. Realmuto, George Springer, DJ LeMahieu, Didi Gregorius, Masahiro Tanaka, Liam Hendriks, Michael Brantley, Marcus Semien, Andrelton Simmons, Joc Pederson, Jose Quintana and Nelson Cruz – all among MLBTR’s top 20 free agents when the offseason began – have agreed to deals since 2021 opened. The open market does still feature several notable names from MLBTR’s rankings, though, as you’ll see below…

1.) Trevor Bauer, RHP (original prediction: four years, $128MM)

  • The reigning NL Cy Young winner remains without an employer as spring training approaches, though a resolution could come very soon. It may now be a two-horse race between the Mets and Dodgers to secure Bauer’s services.

4.) Marcell Ozuna, OF/DH (original prediction: four years, $72MM)

  • Ozuna is still in limbo partly because MLB hasn’t announced whether the universal DH will return in 2021. He spent most of his season there last year with Atlanta and was a premier hitter in terms of both bottom-line production and Statcast figures. The Dodgers, Brewers, Yankees, Red Sox and Twins have been connected to Ozuna in the rumor mill. The Twins have since agreed to re-sign DH Nelson Cruz, so Ozuna may have lost one suitor this week.

11.) Jake Odorizzi, RHP (original prediction: three years, $39MM)

  • While Odorizzi went through a difficult and injury-shortened year as a Twin in 2020, they’re still interested in re-signing him. At least a few other teams are targeting the 30-year-old, so he figures to land on his feet with a nice deal in the coming weeks.

14.) Justin Turner, 3B (original prediction: two years, $24MM)

  • There appear to be four finalists for Turner, who has been a tremendous contributor for the Dodgers dating back to his 2014 breakout. A return to the Dodgers is on the table, though Turner’s age (36) is working against him when it comes to earning power. It’s possible neither Los Angeles nor any other team will give him more than a two-year deal.

21.) Jackie Bradley Jr., CF (original prediction: two years, $16MM)

  • With George Springer off the board, Bradley is undoubtedly the premier center field option left in free agency. The longtime member of the Red Sox, 30, has received interest from Boston, the Mets and the Giants over the past couple of weeks. He’s reportedly shooting for “a significant contract,” possibly for more than four years.

22.) James Paxton, LHP (original prediction: one year, $10MM)

  • Paxton held a showcase that up to 20 teams attended at the end of December, and it apparently went well. The Blue Jays, Mets, Cardinals and Phillies are among the clubs that have shown some interest in the 32-year-old Canadian. Paxton endured an injury-wrecked 2020 with the Yankees, so he’s not a free agent at the best time, but he’s only two seasons removed from putting up very good production and has historically held his own when healthy.

23.) Taijuan Walker, RHP (original prediction: two years, $16MM)

  • After a trade from the Mariners, Walker closed the year with the flourish as a member of the Blue Jays, though it’s unclear whether they’re interested in re-signing him. The 28-year-old combined for a 2.70 ERA in 53 1/3 innings between the two teams, but that came with a much less impressive 4.60 SIERA and below-average strikeout and swinging-strike rates.

27.) Trevor Rosenthal, RP (original prediction: two years, $14MM)

  • The former St. Louis closer was brilliant last season between the Royals and Padres, which came after a couple of trying years owing to injury and poor performance. Rosenthal is now the No. 1 reliever left on the board. San Diego and Toronto are a couple of the teams that have considered him so far.

32.) Yadier Molina, C (original prediction: one year, $10MM)

  • While Molina has gotten interest from other teams this offseason, a reunion with the Cardinals seems inevitable. The 38-year-old has been been part of the organization since it drafted him in 2000, and indications are that he and the Cards want to stick together.

46.) Rick Porcello, RHP (original prediction: one year, $5MM)

  • Porcello is nowhere near the AL Cy Young winner he was with the Red Sox in 2016, but he remains an innings eater who can at least fill out the back of a team’s rotation. However, the rumor mill centering on the 32-year-old has been quiet this winter.

The Rockies’ Top Trade Chip In A Potential Rebuild

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Once all of the details are ironed out and Nolan Arenado has been officially traded to the Cardinals, it’s possible that Rockies owner Dick Monfort and GM Jeff Bridich won’t mention the word “rebuild” when explaining the trade to fans and media.  It could be sold as a perfect storm of a superstar player’s displeasure with the front office coinciding with an unprecedented economic downturn, leading the Rox with no choice but to move Arenado despite the team’s full intention to contend in 2021.

But, let’s be real — the Rockies face a big uphill battle in the NL West.  The Dodgers and Padres are arguably the two best teams in baseball, the Giants are a looming threat considering all their available payroll space following the 2021 season, and even the Diamondbacks could be primed for a rebound considering they couldn’t seem to catch a break last year.  After two consecutive losing seasons and the impending loss of Arenado, Colorado seems like a prime candidate to blow things up.  Several trade candidates remain on the roster, each with some obstacle that could limit what the Rockies could receive back in terms of high-quality young talent.

Trevor Story’s name has been whispered in trade rumors all winter, but Story is only under contract through the 2021 season and many of the top contenders have already addressed their shortstop needs.  Charlie Blackmon’s bat wasn’t quite as potent in 2020 as in past years, and trade suitors may balk at the $52MM (in guaranteed money and in two years of player options) owed to Blackmon through the 2023 season.  Scott Oberg’s continued health issues make him a question mark going forward.  Kyle Freeland and Antonio Senzatela each have three years of team control remaining and would definitely get some trade attention, though neither pitcher has been consistent enough to merit a blue-chip return.

Assuming the Rockies don’t go totally scorched-earth with a rebuild and start shopping former top prospect Brendan Rodgers or current top prospect Zac Veen, that leaves one player who would instantly bring back a big trade package.  From an overall consideration of team control, financial cost, and Major League track record, German Marquez is not just the Rockies’ best trade chip, but one of the more intriguing trade chips in all of baseball.

Let’s begin with Marquez’s underrated statistical record, as only 14 pitchers have accumulated more fWAR than Marquez (12.2) over the last four seasons.  Marquez has a 4.21 ERA and an above-average 24.2K% and 17.8K-BB% over 613 2/3 innings since the start of the 2017 season.  He averaged 177 frames per year during the regulation-length 2017-19 campaigns, while tossing a league-high 81 2/3 innings in the abbreviated 2020 season.  One knock on Marquez is that he allows quite a bit of hard contact, but he has limited the damage thanks to an ability to keep the ball on the ground (47.6% career grounder rate).

These are solid numbers for any hurler, but particularly impressive for someone who pitches their home games at Coors Field.  As you might expect, Marquez has some pretty notable home/away splits — a 3.51 ERA in 341 1/3 road innings during his career, and a 5.10 ERA over 293 innings in Denver.  It is certainly possible that the right-hander could reach another level of performance if he didn’t pitch in such a hitter-friendly environment, which makes him all the more interesting for trade suitors.

Marquez is entering his age-26 season, and is already locked up through at least the 2023 season on a five-year, $43MM contract extension signed in April 2019.  $36MM remains owed to Marquez over the final three guaranteed years of that contract, which includes the $2.5MM buyout of a $16MM club option for 2024.  Less than two years later, the Marquez extension still looks like a very canny move from Bridich and company, if for not quite the reason they expected — this affordable price tag makes Marquez a fit for almost every contender in the league, pandemic-lowered revenues notwithstanding.

While Marquez hasn’t had a Cy Young Award-winning peak like Blake Snell, Marquez is over two years younger than Snell, has fewer injury concerns, and is owed less money than the $39MM Snell is scheduled to make through the 2023 season.  By that token, Colorado is certainly within its rights to ask for a trade return similar to what the Rays received for dealing Snell to the Padres this offseason.  An enterprising team with some payroll space to spare could also sweeten the pot by offering to take some more money off the Rockies’ hands — perhaps the last $11MM remaining on Ian Desmond’s contract, in terms of salary, the buyout of his 2022 club option, and his $1MM assignment bonus in the event of a trade.

It remains to be seen if the Rockies will start a full-fledged rebuild immediately once Arenado is gone, or perhaps if the team will take the rebuild route whatsoever.  There’s a ticking clock on a Story considering his lack of remaining control, but the Rockies might not be in a particular rush to move Marquez quite yet since he is still signed through 2023.  The argument can be made, however, that Marquez will never be as valuable as he is right now, so if the Rockies did want to start looking to the future, the time is now to maximize their return.

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