MLBTR Polls

We’ve seen movement on the relief market already, courtesy of the Braves. But the starting pitching market remains absolutely wide open and loaded with options, even after Jake Odorizzi decided against a full-blown open-market experience in favor of taking the qualifying offer.

Something will have to give at some point. There’s chatter already that some top players prefer not to experience the kind of lengthy waiting game that held sway over much of the market the past two winters. As importantly, the same appears to hold true for some teams. While there’s a lot of rotation supply, there’s also quite a lot of demand.

Indeed, there are so many starters populating MLBTR’s list of the top 50 free agents that it would be silly to consider them all here. We’ll focus on the eight top names — those that we see as having $20MM+ earning power on the open market. Will one of the big guns (Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg) go early and set the market? Or will some team seek to bypass a major bidding war by quickly nabbing one of the next-best names available (Zack Wheeler, Madison Bumgarner, Hyun-Jin Ryu)? Sturdy veterans Dallas Keuchel and Cole Hamels might seek early deals; the former lagged last winter and the latter has made clear he’s willing to do a one-year contract with a contender. Then again, there could be a run on Michael Pineda, who looks to be an interesting upside play.

What do you expect? (Poll link for app users. Response order randomized.)

Ten players received $17.8MM qualifying offers this winter. The clock is now ticking on their decisions to accept or decline, with a final call due one week from today. In many cases, the QO is quite easy to spurn. For players of a certain quality level, there just isn’t much downside to saying no — even if that means dragging draft compensation with you onto the market. Even when the market doesn’t developed as hoped, it’s usually possible to beat or exceed the QO value. Last year, Craig Kimbrel secured a mid-season, multi-year deal while Dallas Keuchel earned a bit more than the QO rate for the time he spent in the big leagues in 2019.

That said, there are risks to rejecting the qualifying offer for qualifying offer recipients — even those that seem fairly obvious candidates to reject it. Ian Desmond, Mike Moustakas, Dexter Fowler, and Nelson Cruz are among those that have followed Kendrys Morales and Stephen Drew in stumbling into some of the pitfalls of the system.

This year, as usual, there’s a slate of players that won’t give the qualifying offer a second thought. And there are a few that will at least need to ponder how they’ll be treated on the market if they say no.

Here’s this year’s list …

• Jose Abreu, 1B, White Sox
• Madison Bumgarner, SP, Giants
• Gerrit Cole, SP, Astros
• Josh Donaldson, 3B, Braves
• Jake Odorizzi, SP, Twins
• Marcell Ozuna, OF, Cardinals
• Anthony Rendon, 3B, Nationals
• Will Smith, RP, Giants
• Stephen Strasburg, SP, Nationals
• Zack Wheeler, SP, Mets

There’s virtually no chance of Bumgarner, Cole, Donaldson, Rendon, Strasburg, or Wheeler settling for a one-year, $17.8MM payday when their market outlook is so strong. (But we’ll include them in the poll anyway.) There’s at least some argument for each of the other players to consider it.

Abreu is perhaps the most obvious option to run into choppy open-market waters if he declines. But there’s also every expectation that he’ll remain with the White Sox in one manner or another, so he could even reject it and just keep talking about a slightly lengthier pact (if one isn’t reached within the next week, as seems likely).

Excellent as Smith has been, he’s a relief pitcher. Much as there’s a newfound appreciation for the value of high-leverage arms, there’s still also an unwillingness to go too big in terms of contract length in the current market climate. There should be widespread interest in the southpaw, but perhaps teams will balk at the draft pick. It seems reasonable to think Smith can at least land a multi-year arrangement, particularly with Aroldis Chapman staying in New York before free agency kicked off, but that $17.8MM single-season salary still holds appeal. The incomparable Chapman is earning $16MM annually over three seasons on his new arrangement. Perhaps Smith will just shrug and count his blessings to be paid for one season like almost no reliever before him. (Wade Davis earned $18MM in 2019.)

It’s tougher to see Odorizzi or Ozuna following that same logic, but not impossible. The former just turned in a much better campaign than he did in his prior two seasons, which cuts both ways. Perhaps now is the time to cash in on that multi-year deal. But there are also some shades of Jeremy Hellickson, who took a QO out of fear that the market wouldn’t reward his strong results. Odorizzi’s peripherals look to be in better shape, it ought to be noted.

Ozuna seems to be a safer bet on the open market as a youthful hitter. But look back at that group of players that have really been bitten by the QO and you’ll see a bunch of position players, some of them relatively young at the time they reached the market. Teams may be somewhat more hesitant to do lengthy pitching contracts, but they’ve proven willing to bail out hurlers with heftier deals as well, likely reflecting the greater need for depth in that area and ease of knocking in-house pitchers down the depth chart when a new one is added.

Despite my best efforts, our polling system seems unwilling to enable a multiple-choice setup. Instead, we’ll settle for asking how many players you anticipate taking the offer this year:

(Poll link for app users. )

It has long been evident that this year’s free agent market would include some notably youthful corner outfielders. Our just-released top 50 list reveals MLBTR’s collective thinking on the subject, though we certainly discussed a wide range of possibilities with respect to each of these players. And there’s often good reason to prefer a lower-cost investment, even if it comes with less upside or greater risk.

As it turned out, Nicholas Castellanos took the highest spot on the board after a monster run down the stretch with the Cubs. I’m personally a bit less bullish than our prediction indicates. While Castellanos is accomplished and still youthful, I’m not sure there’s enough bat to carry his still-rough glove in a market environment that has not treated less-than-elite hitters kindly. But perhaps it’s best to put more money down if it means getting the most offensive bang available in this player group.

Of course, you might take issue with my personal preference for the market position of Marcell Ozuna. He has been outperformed at the plate by Castellanos, though Ozuna’s Statcast numbers have jumped off the page. Ozuna is a better defender but is hardly perfect in that area. He’ll also be dragging a qualifying offer onto the open market.

There’s a case to be made that there’s much more potential value to be had in Avisail Garcia, who is just as young as those players and just turned in a strong season. He still has a highly appealing toolset — including excellent speed, if you can believe it — and might yet have some ceiling. Perhaps he’s an under-the-radar target that some teams will be eyeing.

Are we missing anyone in this group? Oh, right, Yasiel Puig. He scuffled early last year but was a useful player on the field. He has at times been an excellent performer and still seems to have the ability to provide ample production. There may be some headaches, but Puig is also undeniably a charismatic presence that might just help jolt a quiet franchise. He seemed to get along well enough with the Reds and Indians; there were fireworks during 2019, but they weren’t directed at other members of his organizations.

Regardless of which player turned in the best 2019 showing or possesses the most pure talent, it’s possible to imagine any of these four pacing the group in 2020 and beyond. Who do you think offers the most intriguing opportunity on this winter’s market?

(Poll link for app users; response order randomized.)