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Offseason In Review: Kansas City Royals

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It was a pretty quiet offseason in Kansas City, though the Royals brought two franchise icons back into the fold and took a flier on a potential post-hype breakout candidate for third base.

Major League Signings

  • Alex Gordon, OF: One year, $4MM
  • Maikel Franco, 3B: One year, $2.95MM
  • Jesse Hahn, RHP: One year, $600K (Hahn was re-signed after originally being non-tendered)
  • Total spend: $7.55MM

Trades And Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Notable Losses

The Royals began their offseason by making the expected hire of Mike Matheny as the team’s new manager.  It was widely assumed that Matheny (brought into the organization the previous winter as a special advisor) would succeed Ned Yost in the dugout, and the former Cardinals skipper will now take over Missouri’s other MLB club after a somewhat turbulent ending to his tenure in St. Louis.

Whit Merrifield drew trade interest from the Padres and Cubs over the course of the winter, and it’s safe to assume that the Royals fielded calls from at least a few other teams given Merrifield’s overall value.  The 31-year-old is one of the better all-around veteran assets in the game, considering his ability to play multiple positions, his inexpensive contract that could extend through the 2023 season, and his three consecutive seasons of strong production.

And yet, Merrifield is still wearing the K.C. blue heading into whatever becomes of the 2020 season.  The same is true of left-hander Tim Hill, who drew interest from the Athletics, Yankees, and other clubs in the wake of two impressive years of work in the Royals’ bullpen.  There wasn’t as much buzz about Danny Duffy and Ian Kennedy (set to be the club’s highest-paid players in 2020), yet the two hurlers are also still in the fold, as the Royals didn’t pursue any salary-dump types of moves.

In short, it was a pretty stand-pat type of offseason for GM Dayton Moore, as the Royals didn’t make any truly significant steps towards either trying to build a contender or in further rebuilding.  Despite losing 207 games over the 2018-19 seasons, Kansas City has resisted undergoing a full overhaul, and upper management seems to believe that the Royals’ core group of talent isn’t too far away from bringing the club back into the postseason hunt.

Speaking of upper management, the winter saw a change at the very top of the organization, as the franchise was sold to Kansas City businessman John Sherman.  Formerly a minority owner of the Indians since 2016, Sherman’s direction for the Royals has yet to be determined, though much of the fanbase naturally hopes that Sherman will be more willing to spend on payroll.  Unfortunately, it may yet be months or even years before we get an answer to that question, given how the COVID-19 shutdown and the threat of a canceled 2020 season equals a massive revenue loss for every MLB team.

Even before the league hit the pause button, there wasn’t much in the way of splashy roster moves, as Moore pursued low-cost upgrades.  The most notable new face in the mix is Maikel Franco, the former top Phillies prospect who was non-tendered in December (Philadelphia decided against paying Franco a projected $6.7MM arbitration salary).  The Royals ended up signing Franco for a one-year, $2.95MM deal, choosing Franco over another infield option in former Brewer Travis Shaw.

Franco has shown only flashes of potential at the Major League level, hitting .249/.302/.431 with 102 home runs over 2539 career plate appearances with the Phillies.  The Royals already believe they have found some correctable flaws in Franco’s swing, however, making him an intriguing low-risk option for Kansas City at that price tag.  Franco is also just 27 years old and controllable through 2021 via arbitration.

In an absolute best-case scenario, K.C. hopes Franco can deliver anything close to the big breakout Jorge Soler just enjoyed in his own age-27 season, as Soler led the American League with 48 homers in 2019.  That performance instantly turned Soler into a potential franchise cornerstone, putting him along with Merrifield, Adalberto Mondesi, and Hunter Dozier as what the Royals hope will be the building blocks of their next winning team. Soler is a free agent after 2021. A long-term deal seems a possibility, though the sides didn’t tie one up before the season was paused.

Franco’s installation at third base set off a chain reaction within the Royals’ everyday lineup.  Dozier saw the majority of action at the hot corner last season, though he will now be penciled in as the regular right fielder, with Merrifield moving to center.  First base will be manned by the “soft platoon” of Ryan O’Hearn and Ryan McBroom, while Nicky Lopez will take over the starting second base job now that Merrifield is slated for outfield duty.

The Royals also have in-game flexibility thanks to Merrifield and Dozier’s positional versatility, and the open question about who would serve the utility infield role may not be as pressing as it was early in Spring Training since expanded rosters will almost surely be part of any 2020 season.  Humberto Arteaga, Kelvin Gutierrez, Erick Mejia, and new signing Matt Reynolds could all see some bench time as part of a larger roster.  Likewise, the decision of which of Bubba Starling or Brett Phillips would win the backup outfield job is now probably a moot point, since the Royals will have roster space for both out-of-options players.

Speaking of the K.C. outfield, longtime Royals fixture Alex Gordon decided to return for a 14th Major League season, signing a one-year, $4MM pact.  Gordon had a bit of a resurgence at the plate in 2019 — his 96 OPS+ and wRC+ were his highest since 2015 — and he still offers a very solid left field glove and a highly-respected veteran voice in the clubhouse.  After flirting with retirement, it isn’t yet known if Gordon intends 2020 to be his last season, which creates the unfortunate possibility that we may have already seen his last game if the 2020 season never gets underway.  (Or, if all of MLB’s games this season are played in Arizona and/or Florida, Gordon might not get another chance to play in front of the Kansas City fans.)

Gordon, Duffy, and Salvador Perez (who’s returning from Tommy John surgery) are the only remaining members of the Royals’ 2015 World Series-winning team, though there seems to be a chance Greg Holland could rejoin them.  Holland signed a minors contract with the Royals, and the league shutdown and subsequent transactions freeze has left the right-hander in something of a limbo state.  Kansas City did select the contract of another minor league bullpen signing in Trevor Rosenthal prior to the freeze, which could hint that the Royals have already made their choice between the two veteran relievers.

Looking to rebound after a pair of rough seasons, Holland hasn’t been a truly dominant relief arm since prior to his 2015 Tommy John surgery, when he was the closer of Kansas City’s old “Law Firm” bullpen trio that also consisted of Kelvin Herrera and Wade Davis.  If the Royals decide they better call Holl to the big league roster, it would only add another $1.25MM to the payroll, and Holland has still been able to amass a lot of strikeouts even while struggling to limit walks and home runs.

Holland is hoping to join Rosenthal and Rule 5 pick Stephen Woods Jr. as new faces in the K.C. bullpen, with minors signing Braden Shipley and the re-signed Jesse Hahn also competing for jobs.  Hahn has mostly worked as a starter at the big league level, but his six appearances last season after returning from Tommy John surgery came as a relief pitcher.

Newly-acquired Chance Adams also mostly pitched as a starter during his heyday as a top-100 prospect, though the former Yankee seemingly hit a wall over the last two seasons at both the Triple-A level and in 33 big league innings with New York.  Adams looked good (1.69 ERA, six strikeouts, no walks) over 5 1/3 Spring Training frames, making him a possibility to eventually see work in the Royals’ bullpen, or perhaps even get another look as a starter.

While Duffy, Brad Keller, Jakob Junis, and Mike Montgomery had the first four spots in Kansas City’s rotation spoken for, the fifth starter competition seemed wide open before spring camp ended.  The most interesting candidate was top prospect Brady Singer, even if the odds were on the former 18th overall pick beginning the season in the minors considering Singer has yet to pitch past the Double-A level.  Since there now might not be a minor league season in 2020, however, the Royals could opt to give Singer and several other arms who were on the borderline of winning jobs some playing time on an expanded roster.

2020 Season Outlook

The Royals were hoping to see breakouts or further progress from several players (including Mondesi, Lopez, O’Hearn, McBroom, Franco, and Junis) in order to see where they really stood in the rebuild process, and whether or not the club could start to make a concerted effort to compete as early as 2021.  Even with a new owner, it’s probably unlikely that K.C. would ever become a truly big spender, though a good chunk of money will come off the books once Kennedy’s contract is up after the season.

The specter of a shortened MLB season and potentially an entirely-canceled minor league season will now cost the Royals some crucial development time for their young players, and the transactions freeze may have also erased the possibility of the club working out a contract extension or two prior to Opening Day.  Extension talks could resume once the freeze is lifted, of course, though the nature of such negotiations could be entirely different given the state of a post-shutdown baseball world.

As to what the Royals did accomplish over the winter, it wasn’t a long list of moves by any means, and K.C. is likely to be battling the Tigers for fourth place in the AL Central even in the anything-can-happen realm of an abbreviated season.  A new owner and a new manager are indicative that a new era has indeed begun in Kansas City, even if the club is still figuring out what roster pieces can be carried forward into this next phase.

How would you grade the Royals’ offseason moves?  (Link for app users)

The Ridiculous Class Of Free Agent Shortstops In 2021-22

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We’ve recently taken a position-by-position run through next winter’s free agent class, highlighting which catchers, first basemen, second basemen, shortstops, third basemen, corner outfielders, center fielders, designated hitters, starting pitchers, lefty relievers and righty relievers will be available. All in all, it’s a class with top-heavy class, headlined by Mookie Betts and then dropping off to a series of appealing stars like J.T. Realmuto, George Springer and Marcus Semien. Next year’s group has plenty of intriguing pitchers but no standout aces and, outside of Betts, there’s probably no surefire candidate to score anything greater than a five-year deal on the open market. (Caveat: as has been oft discussed, that’s particularly true of next winter, when it seems safe to expect a more tepid free-agent market as owners look to recoup lost revenues from the 2020 season.)

Mookie-mania will make for a fun headline story in free agency. So will Trevor Bauer’s year-to-year mercenary act, which will begin this coming winter.

But at the risk of looking a little too far down the line, it’s hard not to notice that the 2021-22 crop of free agent shortstops might be the single best collection of players we’ve ever seen at one position in one free-agent class. Extensions, injuries and downturns could thin out this group — but unexpected one-year deals this winter (could Semien or Didi Gregorius accept a qualifying offer?) could also theoretically deepen it. As things stand, here’s an early look at a legitimately jaw-dropping crop of shortstop talent that will hit the market upon conclusion of the 2021 season (age for the 2022 season included in parentheses)…

Top of the Class

  • Francisco Lindor (28): Lindor turned down an extension offer reported to be worth more than $100MM a few years ago, and the move looks wise. He’s already topped $28MM in arbitration salaries and could plausibly command $300MM+ on a free-agent deal.
  • Javier Baez (29): Baez has been in extension talks with the Cubs, but their ownership has been reluctant to spend money in recent winters. Baez was an All-Star in 2018-19, finished second in ’18 MVP voting and is one of MLB’s most well-rounded infielders.
  • Carlos Correa (27): Correa hasn’t topped 110 games since 2016, but the former AL Rookie of the Year has been 29 percent better than the league-average hitter in his career, per wRC+. The average shortstop hasn’t topped 100 during his time in the Majors.
  • Trevor Story (29): No shortstop has more than Story’s 123 home runs since the time of his MLB debut in 2016 (despite missing about two months of that season due to injury). He’ll have to overcome the standard Coors Field stigma, but he’s hit for power on the road as well and grades out very well at shortstop (career +40 DRS).
  • Corey Seager (28): The 2016 NL Rookie of the Year returned from 2018 Tommy John surgery to swat 19 homers and an NL-leading 44 doubles in just 139 games in 2019. With so much star power around him in L.A., Seager has in some ways become underrated.

Established Veterans/Potential Regulars

  • Chris Taylor (31): Taylor has been outstanding since the Dodgers acquired him in a low-profile deal that wound up looking like a heist. He’s hit .268/.340/.468 in three seasons while playing all over the outfield and everywhere but first base on the infield.
  • Brandon Crawford (35): Long one of the game’s best defensive players, Crawford’s all-around game has taken a dip in recent years. There’s still time for the lifelong Giant to turn things around, though, and he should be provided ample opportunity to do so given his status as a leader in San Francisco.
  • Miguel Rojas (33): The Marlins hold a $5.5MM option over Rojas that’ll vest if he reaches 500 plate appearances in 2021. Rojas plays quality defense and is extremely difficult to strike out. But if he reaches the open market after 2021, it’ll be because Miami deemed him expendable despite that affordable rate.

Utility/Bench Options

  • Greg Garcia (32): Garcia has never hit that much, but he’s a useful defender at three infield positions who draws plenty of walks. Some could argue that his walk rate is propped up by hitting ahead of the pitcher, but Garcia has walked at a 13.8 percent clip in 326 PAs hitting leadoff, too.
  • Donovan Solano (34): Solano had barely seen the Majors since 2014 when he came out of nowhere to hit .330/.360/.456 in 228 PAs with the Giants last year. There’s a fair bit of smoke and mirror there, evidenced by a .409 BABIP, but that renaissance will still give him some new life in the big leagues.
  • Danny Santana (31): Speaking of unexpected renaissances, Santana brushed away a combined .219/.256/.319 from 2015-18 (732 PAs) to rake at a .283/.324/.534 clip with Texas last year. His strikeout rate soared to nearly 30 percent, though, and while his .353 BABIP wasn’t as high as his .405 mark from his brilliant rookie season in ’14, it still seems ripe for regression.

—

When a 28-year-old Corey Seager is the fourth- or fifth-best option at his position in free agency, we’ve officially reached the twilight zone. All five members in the “top of the class” bucket were first-round or supplemental first-round picks. In fact, all but Story, who “fell” to No. 45 overall, were selected inside the top 20. Correa was the No. 1 overall pick and isn’t even in the conversation for the best name on the list. All five were top 100 prospects. They’ve all made at least one All-Star team, and Correa is the only one of the bunch who hasn’t won a Silver Slugger (thanks largely to the fact that he shares a league with Lindor, who has won four in a row).

While the 2020-21 crop of free agents doesn’t have more than one total free agent who is a lock for a deal of six years or more in length, the 2021-22 class has five shortstops who could push for that length of contract given their track record, upside and in particular, their age. They won’t all get there, but right now we can’t rule any of them out.

Lindor seems like a lock, barring a catastrophic injury. Baez has some plate discipline questions but is an excellent defender and baserunner with plus power. Story’s defense probably doesn’t get enough attention, and he’s certainly not a bad hitter on the road. (There’s also some evidence to suggest that road performance is depressed for Rockies hitters, just as their home performance is bolstered, thanks to altitude issues.) Seager and Correa have been hit hard by injuries and would do well to avoid the IL between now and the conclusion of the 2021 season, but we’re talking about two shortstops on the right side of 30 with career wRC+ marks of 128 and 129, respectively, and 18-plus fWAR apiece through their first four-plus seasons (Seager despite missing nearly all of 2018 due to Tommy John surgery).

We’ll need to see just how free agency is hit by a season of diminished revenue in 2020 and what impact the expiring collective bargaining agreement has on open-market pricing. The current CBA expires in December 2021. And even if market circumstances are largely normal, to what extent will the sheer volume of quality shortstops available hurt the top players’ earning power? Right now, Lindor is the cream of the crop, but any of the five will have a bit harder time drumming up a true bidding war thanks to the presence of the others. All that said, the stage is set for some unprecedented fireworks thanks to what could very well be the best collection of shortstops we’ll ever see reach free agency at the same time.

A Max Return On Investment

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Even in April, the first full month of a typical Major League Baseball season, there’s room for high-impact transactions. To name one example, we’re coming up on exactly three years since Dodgers president Andrew Friedman further stacked the perennial NL West champions’ roster. On April 29, 2017, Friedman and the Dodgers announced the signing of infielder Max Muncy to a minor league contract. What looked like a nondescript signing then has turned into yet another of Friedman-led front office’s wise moves in Los Angeles.

Muncy came into the pros as a fifth-round pick of the Athletics in 2012, and he reached the majors three years later. However, from 2015-16, Muncy was anything but a valuable player for Oakland. He took 245 major league trips to the plate during that span and struggled to a .195/.290/.321 line with minus-0.7 fWAR. And Muncy wasn’t a world-beater with the Athletics’ Triple-A affiliate in Nashville, where he posted an OPS under .800 in parts of two seasons there. The A’s outrighted him in January 2017.

If you were an A’s fan whose team lost Muncy three years ago or a Dodgers loyalist whose club added him, “Who cares?” may have been a justifiable reaction. But nobody knew then that Muncy would soon establish himself as one of the biggest-hitting players in the sport.

Muncy didn’t appear in the majors during his first season with the Dodgers, but he did slash an encouraging .309/.414/.491 across 379 plate appearances with their Triple-A team in Oklahoma City. Muncy has scarcely played in the minors since then because he has simply been too good in the majors to go back.

Muncy took his first at-bat with the Dodgers on April 17, 2018, chipping in a pinch-hit single in an extra-innings victory over the Padres. He has piled up 225 more regular-season hits since then while slashing .256/.381/.545 with 70 home runs in 1,070 trips to the plate. Since Muncy joined the big club, just 14 major league position players have outdone his fWAR total (10.0), while only seven have bettered him in wRC+ (146). He’s right there with Nelson Cruz, Anthony Rendon, Juan Soto and teammate Cody Bellinger in the latter category. Hard to believe when you consider where he was a few years back. But it’s not just about the regular season for the Dodgers. They’re a playoff team every year, and Muncy hasn’t wilted on that stage. Remember this homer?

Adding to the 29-year-old Muncy’s value, he’s no slouch in the field. He accounted for a positive Defensive Runs Saved figure last year at three different positions – first, second and third. He’s one of seemingly countless Swiss Army knife-type players on the Dodgers’ roster, and among the key contributors to a team that has stayed dominant of late and should again vie for a championship whenever baseball resumes. The Dodgers are believers, having given Muncy a three-year, $26MM extension in February. Not a bad outcome for someone who first joined the organization on a non-guaranteed deal.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

The Yankees’ Rotation Is Facing Big Changes

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The Yankees made the biggest splash of the free-agent market this past winter when they signed right-handed ace Gerrit Cole to a nine-year, $324MM contract. Under normal circumstances, Cole would have already picked up a few starts as a Yankee, but he may not pitch at all in 2020 as we navigate through a coronavirus-caused hellscape. No matter what, he’ll be a Yankee for a long time, but their rotation will nonetheless face a significant amount of uncertainty heading into the next free-agent period.

If a season does take place this year, the Yankees plan to have Cole fronting a starting staff also made up of righty Masahiro Tanaka and a trio of lefties consisting of James Paxton, J.A. Happ and Jordan Montgomery. Except Cole and Montgomery, everybody there could hit the open market during the upcoming winter.

As of now, would the Yankees want to keep Paxton, Tanaka or Happ going forward? At least in the first two cases, it’s hard to believe they wouldn’t show at least some interest. The club sent a noteworthy package to Seattle in November 2018 to acquire the hard-throwing Paxton, who put up appealing results during his New York debut last year. Problem is that a lack of durability has been an all-too-common problem for Paxton, who has only maxed out at 160 1/3 innings in a single season so far (he underwent back surgery in February). His age (32 in November 2020) could also be cause for wariness.

Tanaka, also 32 in November, has generally delivered since the Yankees signed him out of Japan to a seven-year, $155MM guarantee in 2014. With that said, Tanaka’s regular-season ERA has been closer to 5.00 than 3.00 twice in the past three seasons. You also have to wonder about his health, as Tanaka has been pitching with a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow for the majority of his career. So, is that someone the Yankees want to gamble on for a second contract – one that’s sure to be fairly lucrative?

Unlike Paxton and Tanaka, Happ’s not in position to stick around for the long haul. He’ll be in his age-38 season come 2021 and was a disappointment last season, the first of a two-year, $34MM deal with the Yankees. However, it’s worth noting that the Yankees threw a $17MM vesting option for 2021 into that agreement. The original stipulation was that Happ would have to toss 165 innings or pile up at least 27 starts this year for that salary to become guaranteed, though it’s unclear how that situation will pan out during a truncated or canceled season.

Fortunately for the Yankees, one of their most pitchers should be back from injury sometime in 2021. Righty Luis Severino underwent Tommy John surgery in February, though if his all goes well, he ought to be on track to return by either spring or early summer next year. You can pencil him in for some innings after Cole, then. Montgomery, assuming he returns to his previously solid form after the TJS he had in June 2018, could also occupy a spot in a group devoid of Tanaka, Paxton and Happ. Moreover, the Yankees have a few other interesting in-house options who are either in the majors or close to it in Jonathan Loaisiga, Clarke Schmidt, Deivi Garcia, Mike King and Albert Abreu. Loaisiga’s the lone hurler there with real MLB experience, though; plus, it’s fair to question if the Yankees would be willing to count on anyone else there from the outset of 2021 because their development would be stunted to some degree by a shortened or canceled minor league campaign.

Of course, as they’re wont to do, the Yankees could try to spend their way out of this predicament next offseason. That said, there aren’t any surefire aces on a collision course with free agency. No Coles, no Strasburgs. That’s not to say the next market will be empty of helpful hurlers, however.

Along with Paxton and Tanaka, you’re looking at the likes of Trevor Bauer, Robbie Ray, Mike Minor, Jake Odorizzi, Marcus Stroman and Jose Quintana at or near the top of the list. Bauer seems to have the highest upside, evidenced by the otherworldly numbers he logged as recently as 2018, but his production fell last season and there’s some serious tension between him and Cole dating from their days as teammates at UCLA. Meanwhile, if you go back in the MLBTR archives, you’ll see that the Yankees have shown past interest in Ray and Minor. Stroman has apparently not impressed the team that much, though, as general manager Brian Cashman suggested in September. But there’s at least some familiarity with Quintana, once a Yankees farmhand whom they let go after 2011.

In addition to monitoring free agency, New York’s likely to give the trade market a look. It’s harder to predict who could end up available via that route, but Mike Clevinger and Carlos Carrasco (Indians), Matthew Boyd (Tigers), Danny Duffy (Royals), Jon Gray (Rockies), and Chris Archer (Pirates) could be among those who catch the Yankees’ attention.

Regardless of how the coming months turn out for the Yankees and the rest of MLB in general, the team will be in for an intriguing winter when it rolls around. The Yankees won’t be making a second straight Cole-type signing in their rotation at that point, but at least one more notable starting addition could be in the cards.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Posey & Perez(es) Lead 2021-22 Free Agent Catching Market

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It’s an MLBTR tradition to maintain a list of not only the immediately pending group of free agents, but also those next in line. As part of the festivities, a certain number of folks fail to read the headline and prefatory language closely, thus prompting vehement protestations about players wrongly included or excluded.

To forestall that outcome to the extent possible, we just ran through the full 2020-21 free agent class on a position-by-position basis. (Catchers, first basemen, second basemen, shortstops, third basemen, corner outfielders, center fielders, designated hitters, starting pitchers, lefty relievers and righty relievers.) Please explore those lists for the players who’ll be on the open market after the 2020 season.

What follows is a list of certain players — specifically, catchers — who are presently slated to qualify for free agency after the 2021 season. We’ve already run through the amazing group of shortstops in that class. The backstops don’t feature that kind of unbounded earning power. It’s important also to understand that this list is far from exhaustive, in that many catchers set for free agency in 2020-21 will ultimately ink one-year deals that put them back on track to return to the open market post-2021.

This is how the 2021-22 catching market shapes up at this point (season-age for 2022; alphabetical order within category):

Top of the Class

  • Salvador Perez (32): One of the game’s true workhorses behind the dish, Perez missed the 2019 season with Tommy John surgery. But the respite could conceivably enhance his long-term outlook after averaging 138 games annually over the prior six seasons. Perez’s value is a matter of quite some disagreement. Baseball Prospectus catching grades don’t love his work behind the dish and he’s a roughly average hitter whose best attribute (power) may lead some to overrate his abilities on offense. Fangraphs values his total career contribution at an underwhelming 10 WAR. Per Baseball-Reference’s measures, which give far more credence to Perez’s efforts with the glove, it’s a far more robust 22.1 WAR.
  • Buster Posey (35): It’s tough to imagine the Giants will end up exercising a $22MM club option rather than allowing Posey to test the open market with a $3MM buyout on his way out. Posey is a historically important member of the San Francisco organization, but there’s hope his eventual replacement (Joey Bart) is already nearing the majors. More importantly, the decline has been precipitous for the once-great Posey. Long a well-above-average hitter, he drooped in 2018 and fell off a cliff last year, when he posted a .257/.320/.368 slash line. The good news here is that Posey remains a high-quality performer behind the dish. And he may have been unlucky at the plate; Statcast credits him with a .315 xwOBA but he managed only a .298 wOBA. Given the talent level, it’s too soon to rule out a late-career surge.

Other Regulars (based upon 2019 playing time)

  • Roberto Perez (33): If the Indians end up picking up their cheap option over Perez for 2021, he’d be on track to hit free agency in the ensuing winter. If he can keep up last year’s league-average offensive output, the defensive standout might have a run of success as a near-everyday option.
  • Wilson Ramos (34): Another player covered by a club option in 2021, Ramos is a bat-first backstop who seems destined for an eventual return to the American League for the later stage of his career. He graded poorly in the field in 2019, when he carried a big workload for the Mets, but he has historically fared rather well with the glove. Durability remains an ongoing issue as well.

Top Timeshare Candidates

  • Tucker Barnhart (31): The Reds will have to decide between a $7.5MM club option and $500K buyout. Barnhart is a solid performer behind the plate and could function well as a half-time player for some time to come. The switch-hitter has a palatable 90 wRC+ against right-handed pitching.
  • Travis d’Arnaud (33): A strong bounceback 2019 season earned d’Arnaud a two-year deal with the Braves. He isn’t likely to turn into a full everyday receiver, having only once topped four hundred plate appearances in a season.
  • Yan Gomes (34): While he’s a steady hand in the field, Gomes wasn’t able to match his solid 2018 offensive work in the 2019 season. The Nats still liked him well enough as a timeshare guy to offer a two-year pact.
  • Martin Maldonado (35): The bat is never going to be a strength, but Maldonado is a trusted hand. He keeps finding himself in demand at the trade deadline.
  • Manny Pina (34): Pina is a somewhat underappreciated contributor. He performs well with the mask on and doesn’t hurt too much on offense, where he’s a career 90 wRC+ performer.

Three Years Ago, The Padres Got An Elite Reliever For Nothing

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We just passed the three-year anniversary of a transaction that looked inconsequential at the time but has since turned into one of the finest moves of Padres general manager A.J. Preller’s career.

On April 26, 2017, the Padres took a low-risk flier on reliever Kirby Yates via waivers. Yates had been with the Angels, but they and GM Billy Eppler designated him for assignment just a few days earlier. It was actually the second time that month that the Angels designated Yates, though no one took the bait the first time. That was understandable considering he never did much to stand out in the majors to that point, so you can’t really fault the Angels for cutting ties with him in light of that fact

As MLBTR’s Jeff Todd wrote when the Padres claimed the right-hander: “Yates, 30, only made it into one contest for the Halos this year. Over his 98 2/3 total MLB frames since the start of the 2014 season, he owns only a 5.38 ERA.” However, Jeff went on to add, “[Yates] has also generated 10.4 K/9 to go with 3.7 BB/9 in that span and showed career-best fastball velocity (94 mph) in his sole MLB appearance this year.”

And Yates, a 26th-round pick of the Red Sox in 2005, did put up excellent production at the minors’ highest level. Also a former member of the Yankees and Rays in MLB, he caught on with the Padres as the owner of a 2.26 ERA with 12.9 K/9 and 3.5 BB/9 over 135 2/3 innings in Triple-A. Little did the Padres or anyone else know Yates would soon go on to post even better numbers in San Diego.

While Yates did not manage dominant run prevention figures during his first year as a Padre, he was quite serviceable, giving them 55 2/3 frames of 3.72 ERA/3.50 FIP pitching and fanning a jaw-dropping 14.07 batters per nine (compared to 3.07 BB/9). San Diego clearly had a useful hurler on its hands, and he took it up several notches from there.

Last year was especially incredible for Yates, who fired 60 2/3 innings of 1.19 ERA ball en route to his first All-Star nod and totaled 41 saves in 44 attempts. Yates did not win NL Reliever of the Year honors (that award went to the Brewers’ Josh Hader), but maybe he should have. After all, along with amassing the most saves in the game, he paced all relievers in ERA and FIP, and finished second in fWAR (3.4; only Athletics steal Liam Hendriks was better), third in K/BB ratio (7.77), and fifth in strikeouts per nine (14.98).

So how did Yates, now 33, become such a force? As he explained to AJ Cassavell of MLB.com in 2018, the introduction of a splitter to his repertoire was the turning point.

“The Angels didn’t want me to get away from the slider,” Yates told Cassavell. “I wasn’t necessarily going to get away from the slider, but I was trying to add a third pitch. When I got here, it was, ’We like your split, we want you to throw it more.'”

Yates leaned on the pitch better than 36 percent of the time in ’18 and upward of 41 percent last year. Hitters could only muster a pitiful .182 weighted on-base average/.203 expected wOBA against it in 2019, per Statcast. According to FanGraphs, it has been the most effective pitch of its kind among all relievers since Yates began throwing it. It goes to show that any player, even a scrapheap pickup in his early 30s, might just be one adjustment from stardom.

For Preller, Yates was his second relief addition via waivers to evolve into an all-world bullpen piece. One April earlier, he grabbed Brad Hand from the Marlins (more on that here), and the Padres sold high on him when they sent him to the Indians in 2018. Perhaps Yates will meet a similar fate, or maybe he has already thrown his last pitch as a Padre. He’s scheduled to become a free agent next winter, though the two sides have discussed an extension. No matter where Yates pitches going forward, there’s no doubt he has provided worlds of value to the Padres and put himself in line to cash in on a multiyear contract. Who could have expected that to happen when they scooped him up three years ago?

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

What Might A Max Scherzer Extension Look Like?

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The last time he tried to sort out a new contract with his existing team, things didn’t exactly work out as hoped. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it for the Nationals to try … after all, Max Scherzer was once open to doing a contract with the Tigers. And when he addressed the topic this spring, Scherzer expressed some degree of openness … though he also indicated he has no interest in pushing the topic himself with two seasons remaining on his old free agent pact.

[MLBTR on YouTube: What If Max Scherzer Stayed A Tiger?]

It’s worth wondering whether a deal might actually make sense for both Scherzer and the Nationals. Committing in advance to a pitcher is always cause for some trepidation, all the more so at the prices and ages at issue here. But … well, let’s just say I won’t be the one to ask the famously intense hurler whether he’s still up to the rigors of the sport.

Scherzer has mostly been an exceptionally durable pitcher, though his decade-long string of 30+ starts finally ended in 2019. He ran into some ailments in the postseason and experienced minor health issues this spring. There’s not much cause for worry, but it’s still a reminder of baseball mortality. Many great players have run into late-career roadblocks relatively suddenly.

Let’s be honest, though: Scherzer is still one of the very best in the business. While he missed five starts last season, he still provided 172 1/3 innings of 2.92 ERA ball. And he turned in a league-leading, career-low 2.45 FIP by generating 12.7 K/9 against 1.7 BB/9. His 2.88 xFIP matches his lowest mark since coming to D.C. Scherzer posted a career-best 16.3% swinging-strike rate while maintaining a 95.2 mph average four-seamer — tied for a personal high.

If Scherzer isn’t the single best pitcher in baseball, it’s only because Jacob deGrom and Gerrit Cole have elevated their own games that much more. There is one other guy who deserves mention, though, when considering the very top starters over the past two seasons. Like Scherzer, this Justin Verlander fella has only increased his output since leaving the Tigers, where they both once starred … and he isn’t exactly a spring chicken.

Verlander represents the key comp when considering a potential Scherzer extension. His new deal — which was inked last spring and was to go into effect for the 2020 season — represents a highly relevant bit of contractual precedent. At two years and $66MM, the deal provides Verlander with eye-popping money at quite an advanced stage of his career: his age-37 and 38 seasons. You can easily argue that it’s still a reasonably team-friendly rate of pay.

That pact was entered just before the start of the 2019 season, which was to be Verlander’s walk year. There weren’t any performance-based discounts: He was coming off of a doozy of a campaign in which he racked up 214 innings of 2.52 ERA ball with dominant peripherals and rising swinging-strike numbers. But Verlander quite understandably couldn’t pry loose both a premium average annual value and an overly lengthy commitment from the Astros.

Like Verlander, Scherzer is slated to reach free agency ahead of his age-37 campaign. To be fair, though, the latter will hit the open market at a bit more advanced age than the former would’ve. Scherzer turned 35 late last July, so while 2020 is designated his age-35 season, he’s actually closer in age right now to where Verlander was (he had just turned 36) when he inked his deal. But Scherzer is two full seasons away from free agency, rather than one, as was JV.

You have to think the Nationals would jump at the opportunity to tack on two years to Scherzer’s deal at the Verlander rate. There was no indication that the Nats and Scherzer were going to reach agreement before Spring Training, so perhaps this is a conversation for the 2020-21 offseason. More will be known then, especially if the team gets to watch its staff co-ace work in a truncated 2020 campaign. There’s less risk committing later, of course. But leverage will also be lost in the meantime.

Honestly, it might be worth making a run at a deal once the contract freeze is lifted; perhaps there were even some talks beforehand that never reached the public eye. While agent Scott Boras isn’t fond of deals that keep his players from the open market, he has worked extensively with Nationals ownership — including on two massive contracts with the team’s other top starter, Stephen Strasburg, one of which was an extension. Sorting something out to keep Max in D.C. through the end of his career would not only mean locking in another part of the team’s highly paid, three-headed pitching monster (Patrick Corbin being the other), but might ensure that Scherzer becomes the first player to don a Nationals cap in Cooperstown. (He’s not a sure thing just yet, but isn’t far from locking down future admission.)

Thing is: would Scherzer really be willing to settle for a two-year deal, even at a sum that tops Verlander by a bit? Or would he hold out for an even larger and/or longer deal? Cole just took home a $36MM AAV on his monster contract with the Yankees. Perhaps Mad Max — who has earned that appellation through unremitting competitiveness — would want to be paid at or above that level on an annual basis. Maybe he’d find it limiting to suggest he’s only worthy of a two-year extension. Scherzer certainly doesn’t seem like the type to settle for something fair and plan ahead for hanging up his spikes. Come to think of it, he may not be that interested in a deal at all. He’s obviously loaded already, so this wouldn’t be life-changing cash (not that it was for Verlander, needless to say). Scherzer might rather wait to return to free agency … unless, at least, the Nats proved willing to go absolutely wild with an offer to keep him without the need to top other bids. Could it take three guaranteed years? Four?!

It’s anyone’s guess what his personal view is, not to mention that of Boras, but it’s unlikely that it would make a ton of sense for the Nationals to over-commit. The team already placed a huge bet on Strasburg and will be paying Corbin major money through 2024, so there’s a lot of rotation cash on the books already. While Scherzer’s a living legend who’s arguably just as good now as ever before, the baseball reaper ultimately comes for all the great ones. The only risks are paying him a bit more or losing him free agency. Then again, with a pitcher as special Scherzer, the thought of a departure may be enough to spur the Nationals to enter completely new contractual terrain to forestall that possibility.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Poll: Should MLB Adopt Tied Games In 2020? (Or Beyond?)

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We don’t know if any Major League Baseball games are going to be played in 2020, nor what tweaks we’ll see to the standard framework of a game if play does resume.  To recap some of the ideas have been publicly floated, teams could potentially end up playing the entire season at MLB stadiums and Spring Training parks in Arizona and Florida, regularly playing at least one doubleheader per week in order to fit as many games as possible into a truncated schedule.  We already heard last month that the league was planning to allow 29-man rosters for at least the start of a shortened season, and it could very well be the case that expanded rosters become the norm for any games played in 2020, owing again to the need to keep as many players fresh and healthy as possible for this sprint of a season.

The changes may extend to the on-field product itself.  Doubleheaders could be staged as two seven-inning games, rather than standard nine-inning contests.  Dodgers star Justin Turner recently proposed the idea that, instead of extra innings, teams would decide games in 2020 by having a Home Run Derby if the score was still deadlocked after a 10th inning.  As Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times noted in that last link, an abbreviated season could also give MLB the opportunity to apply its automatic-baserunner experiment for extra innings (already used in the All-Star Game and World Baseball Classic) to regular season contests.

These are all interesting ideas, and frankly, no concept should be off the table given all the difficulties the league faces in trying to launch any kind of season while keeping players, team staff, and stadium personnel as safe and healthy as possible.  That said, the traditionalist baseball fan in me can’t help but be hesitant at alterations to the nature of the sport itself.  Something like an expanded roster isn’t an issue, but holding a seven-inning game or deciding an important regular season contest with a HR derby doesn’t seem quite right.

If limiting the time of games and the extra innings conundrum are going to be obstacles, The Athletic’s Brittany Ghiroli (subscription required) recently suggested a simple proposal — tie games.  Every regular season contest would end after nine innings, no matter the score.  As per one reader e-mail to Ghiroli, MLB would adopt a point system of awarding two points for a win, one point for a tie, and zero points for a loss.

It can definitely be argued that ending extra innings is much more of a fundamental shift in baseball’s nature than, say, putting an automatic runner on second base in the 10th inning onward.  After all, there’s definitely a romance to the idea of a game that always has a decisive winner.  Just about every baseball fan has at least one personal story of attending a marathon game until the very end, or showing up bleary-eyed at work the next day after staying up very late to watch their favorite team finish a West Coast game that went 14 innings.

It’s worth noting, however, that the threat of a tie score adds its own level of drama to games.  As Ghiroli notes, it creates “a real emphasis on winning in nine innings, the drama unfolding over the final three outs because there is no more baseball.  Managers won’t have to save guys in the bullpen or think about who may be needed to play the field in the 10th.”

Postseason games, naturally, would still have as many extra innings as necessary to decide a winner.  But for the regular season, a tie game in baseball wouldn’t be any different than a tied football game or a tied soccer game, both of which are familiar concepts for sports fans.  While there may be some level of dissatisfaction in watching a game that ends without a clear winner, a tie has its own sort of “we’ll get ’em next time” feel that is particularly fitting for baseball, particularly since that proverbial “next time” could be the very next day.

Rather than limit draws to just a 2020 season, Ghiroli suggests that tied games could become a regular element of baseball going forward.  “We know viewership — on TV and at the game — drops the longer a game goes,” Ghiroli writes.  “We know baseball is constantly fighting the stigma of being long and boring.  We know, more than ever before, thanks to oodles of data that exhaustion increases the chances of injury and a game with its stars hurt suffers greatly.”  Adopting tie games wouldn’t be too much of an impact on the overall schedule; to use the 2019 regular season as an example, no team played more than 19 extra-inning games last year.

Let’s open it up to the MLBTR readership to get other views about both the idea of tie games or other late-game methods of deciding a winner, both in a 2020 season and beyond.  (Links to both Poll One and Poll Two for app users).

How The Royals Acquired The AL Home Run Champ

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Two of last season’s top three home run hitters were originally acquired in trade. NL champ Pete Alonso was drafted and developed by the Mets, but NL runner up Eugenio Suárez and AL leader Jorge Soler were plucked from other organizations early in their MLB careers. MLBTR’s Connor Byrne just looked back at the Reds’ brilliant acquisition of Suárez. It only seems fair to give the Soler trade its due.

Soler was a known commodity long before he signed a pro contract. His name appeared on MLBTR pages more than thirty times before he finally agreed with the Cubs as a twenty-year old international amateur in 2012. He immediately found himself on top prospect lists and quickly tore through the minors, making his MLB debut a little over two years after signing.

Despite an exceptional debut, Soler never quite established himself amidst a crowded outfield mix on the North Side. In 765 cumulative plate appearances from 2014-16, he hit .258/.328/.434 (106 wRC+) with 27 home runs. It was passable production, but not enough to consistently crack a lineup with Dexter Fowler, Jason Heyward, Albert Almora, and Kyle Schwarber on hand, to say nothing of infielders like Kris Bryant and Ben Zobrist capable of manning the grass. Even with Fowler departing as a free agent, the Cubs’ outfield looked like an area of surplus. (It hasn’t really borne out that way, but it looked like a strong group at the time). That made Soler a reasonable trade candidate for a team looking to defend a World Series title.

That offseason, the Cubs and Royals indeed lined up on a deal. With their own competitive window soon to close, K.C. acquired the 24-year-old slugger for contract-year reliever Wade Davis. It was perfectly understandable from the Chicago organization’s perspective. Aroldis Chapman was to sign elsewhere just a day later. The bullpen looked like the relative weak spot on a win-now club. As MLBTR’s Steve Adams pointed out at the time of the deal, Davis had some red flags (injuries and a slight velocity loss), but he was fresh off an utterly dominant three-year run in Kansas City.

Indeed, the Cubs mostly got what they bargained for from Davis. He did regress a bit in 2017, as Steve suggested he might. But Davis was still quite good in Chicago, working to a 2.30 ERA/3.38 FIP in 58.2 innings. The Cubs lost to the Dodgers in the NLCS, but that was the fault of their offense, not Davis. The right-hander has fallen apart since signing with the Rockies after that 2017 season, but the immediate returns on the deal were positive for the Cubs. That wasn’t the case for the Royals.

Soler spent the first month of that season on the injured list with a strained oblique. When he returned in May, he was dreadful, hitting .164/.292/.273 and earning a demotion to Triple-A. Soler did hit well in the minors, but 2017 was undoubtedly a disappointment. He seemed to reestablish himself in 2018, hitting well until suffering a season-ending toe fracture in June. Everything clicked in 2019, though.

Most importantly, Soler stayed healthy last season, playing in all 162 games. He increased his hard contact rate to a career-high 46.7% and dropped his infield fly ball rate to a career-low 8.8%. He made the most contact of his career and continued to draw walks at a hefty clip (10.8%). All told, Soler’s .265/.354/.569 slash (136 wRC+) placed him in the top 20 qualified hitters leaguewide. Even at pitcher-friendly Kauffman Stadium, Soler paced the Junior Circuit in home runs with 48. Statcast data supported the breakout, as Soler finished in the 95th percentile or better in average exit velocity, hard contact rate and expected weighted on-base average. Even as a mediocre defensive outfielder who’s best suited for DH work, that’s plenty productive. Soler was worth nearly four wins above replacement last season, per both Fangraphs and Baseball Reference.

The Royals are no doubt thrilled with the acquisition of Soler at this point. He’s finally emerged as the middle-of-the-order force many expected. Steve Adams explored the possibility of the sides lining up on an extension in September. Controlled through 2021, Soler could alternatively be a key trade chip for the rebuilding club if the sides can’t reach a long-term agreement.

Did The Orioles Find A Rotation Building Block Out Of Nowhere?

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A team in a total rebuild is open to giving any player a chance, particularly when that team is drastically short on starting pitching.  With the Orioles in such a state in April 2019, it paved the way for John Means to enter the Orioles’ rotation, on the heels of three relief outings earlier that season and one (disastrous) 3 1/3-inning appearance in his Major League debut on September 26, 2018.  That outing saw Means surrender five earned runs, giving him an ugly 13.50 ERA heading into the 2019 campaign.

Means didn’t exactly force his way into the rotation during Spring Training, with only a 5.40 ERA over 13 1/3 frames of 2019 Grapefruit League action.  Still, the southpaw did manage 15 strikeouts against just four walks, and given the lack of other pitching options available in Baltimore, the O’s figured it was worth giving Means a shot.

The result was one of the only bright spots of a 108-loss season for the Orioles.  Over 27 outings and 147 1/3 innings as a starting pitcher, Means posted a 3.73 ERA, 3.09 K/BB rate, and 6.6 K/9.  The majority of that production came in the first half of the season, as Means carried a 2.50 ERA through his first 82 2/3 innings and ended up as Baltimore’s All-Star representative.

Means struggled to a 8.34 ERA in his first five post-break starts, though he did manage to get on track with a 3.26 ERA over his final 49 2/3 frames of his rookie season.  As a nod to his breakout performance, Means finished second in AL Rookie Of The Year voting, albeit a distant runner-up behind unanimous winner Yordan Alvarez.

Whenever (or if) the 2020 season gets underway, Means will stand as the de facto ace of the Orioles’ staff — an unlikely development given where he was slightly more than a year ago.  An 11th-round pick in the 2014 draft, Means moved through the farm system with unspectacular but solid numbers over his 622 2/3 minor league innings, posting a 3.83 ERA, 7.1 K/9, and 3.50 K/BB rate.  There isn’t much variance in Means’ year-to-year cumulative stats in the minors, or even in his MLB numbers in 2019.

That type of consistency gives the O’s some hope that Means can at least somewhat replicate his 2019 performance going forward, despite some of the red flags raised by advanced metrics.  Means’ ERA predictors weren’t impressive, with a FIP (4.41), xFIP (5.48), and SIERA (5.02) that were all markedly higher than his actual 3.60 ERA.  The lack of a high strikeout total hurts Means in this respect, and he also isn’t a hard thrower (average fastball velocity of 91.8 mph) or a ground-ball machine.

What he does offer is the ability to limit the damage when opposing batters do hit his offerings.  As per Statcast, Means finished in the 90th percentile of all pitchers in fewest hard-hit balls allowed, while also sitting comfortably above average (72nd percentile) in exit velocity.  Means also had only a 9.9% homer/fly ball rate last season, the fourth-lowest mark of any pitcher in baseball with at least 150 IP and a particularly useful skill for a hurler in the tough AL East.

Means’ heater isn’t particularly fast, though he does generate some good spin, as indicated by his spot in the 75th percentile of fastball spin rate.  His top pitch, however, is a changeup that Fangraphs ranked as one of the best in the league last season.  Only six pitchers with 150+ innings thrown had a better pitch value score on a changeup than Means’ +12.3 number.

Means just turned 27 yesterday and is under team control through the 2024 season (and not arbitration-eligible until the 2021-22 offseason), giving the O’s plenty of flexibility with his future.  Given the long rebuild ahead for the Orioles, it may be a reach to count on Means to still be a productive member of the rotation by the time Baltimore is next ready to contend, so the O’s could eventually consider him as a trade chip.

There wasn’t much buzz about Means on the rumor mill this past winter, as while Baltimore is still at the point of its rebuild that any trade option must be considered, the club might prefer to see what they have with the left-hander in his sophomore year.  A case could be made that the O’s should have sold high on Means given his lack of a track record, and yet even with some regression baked into his future numbers, the potential of Means being a solid innings-eater going forward carries a lot of value.  For a team with so little pitching depth on hand, an unheralded prospect blossoming into at least a decent MLB-level arm counts as a big success.

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