Phillies Hire Bobby Dickerson As Infield Coach
Oct. 25: The Phillies have formally announced the hiring of Dickerson as the Major League infield coach for the 2022 season.
Oct. 22: Turnover continues in the Philadelphia and San Diego dugouts, as the Phillies are set to hire Bobby Dickerson away from the Padres to serve as their infield coach reports USA Today’s Bob Nightengale. Dickerson pulled double duty during the 2021 season for the Padres, serving as the team’s official bench coach and third base coach following the front office promotion of previous third base coach Glenn Hoffman.
The hiring serves as a reunion between coach and organization, as Dickerson served in the same infield coach capacity for the Phils during the 2019 season. This followed an eight year stint with the Orioles, who boasted a few Gold Glove-winning infielders during Dickerson’s tenure.
As was the case with the team’s recent hiring of Kevin Long, Phillies manager Joe Girardi adds a veteran coaching presence to cajole some new talent out of the existing roster. Dickerson will look to help Girardi in the latter’s third year with the team and boost an organization that has been stuck in a near .500 rut for four years in a row.
Philadelphia’s move to rehire a respected defensive coach comes on the heels of what the front office surely recognizes was an organizational weakness this past season. By measure of Defensive Runs Saved the Phillies ranked last in all of baseball in 2021, with the Jean Segura-manned second base the only position on the team to score plus marks in the metric.
As for the Padres, the departure of Dickerson comes as no surprise in the wake of recent firings to pitching coach Larry Rothschild and manager Jayce Tingler. It remains to be seen what other changes await a San Diego dugout that is quickly growing accustomed to making them.
Dodgers Notes: Roberts, Seager, Jansen
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts tells Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times that he’s yet to discuss a contract extension with the team but hopes to do so this offseason. Roberts is under contract through the 2022 campaign already, so the team doesn’t necessarily need to feel any urgency to get a new agreement worked out, although it’s common for managers in good standing with their clubs to ink deals that avoid “lame duck” status (i.e. managing through the final season of a contract with no deal in place the following year). President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman tells Castillo that the Dodgers “fully expect [Roberts] to be a large part of our future success.” While the Dodgers obviously won’t repeat as World Series champions, they still won 106 games during the regular season and, as Castillo profiles, dealt with a significant slate of injuries to various key players throughout the regular season and the playoffs.
Some more notes o the Dodgers…
- Corey Seager will head into the open market for the first time in his career on the heels of a .306/.381/.545 showing across his past two seasons (147 games, 641 plate appearances, 148 wRC+). He missed two months this year after an errant fastball broke his hand, but his bat looks as good or even better than it did prior to 2018 Tommy John surgery. Seager spoke of the difficulty of facing the “unknown” that is free agency but also made clear he’d love to return to the Dodgers (video via Sportsnet L.A.). “Absolutely,” Seager replied when asked if he wants to return. “I grew up here. I’ve spent a lot of time here. I believe in what these guys do. I believe in how we go about it. Yeah, absolutely.”
- It’s a similar story for Kenley Jansen, who hopes to be a Dodger for life, writes Mike DiGiovanna of the L.A. Times. Jansen’s decline in 2019-20 was a notable storyline for the Dodgers, but DiGiovanna explores how Jansen made some changes to his training regimen at the suggestion of director of team performance Brandon McDaniel. Jansen’s velocity and cutter movement rebounded in 2021, and he turned in a 2.22 ERA through 69 innings of relief. That said, Jansen’s strikeout, swinging-strike and chase percentages were at or below their 2020 levels, and his walk rate jumped to 12.9 percent — his highest rate since his rookie year back in 2010. Teammates Trea Turner (who faced Jansen as an opponent in the first half) and Clayton Kershaw discuss with DiGiovanna the manner in which Jansen has evolved as a pitcher since his days with a cutter-only approach. Another multi-year figures to be out there for Jansen, but given that he’ll pitch next year at 34, it figures to be a good bit shorter than the five-year pact he signed in the 2016-17 offseason.
MLBTR Chat Transcript
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Poll: Astros/Braves, Who Wins The World Series?
The Fall Classic is set to begin on Tuesday, with the Astros and Braves meeting in Game 1 of the World Series. This is the first time these two clubs have met in the World Series, though they were pretty frequent postseason opponents back when the Astros were in the National League. Between 1997 and 2005, Atlanta and Houston met five times in NLDS play, with the Braves coming out on top in three of those matchups.
The Braves are heading to the World Series for the tenth time in their history, and in search of their fourth championship. While nothing will ever top the 1914 Miracle Braves as the franchise’s signature comeback story, the 2021 team isn’t that far off, considering how this year’s Braves were only 52-55 heading into action on August 3. By this point, Atlanta had already lost Ronald Acuna Jr. and Mike Soroka to season-ending injuries, and Marcell Ozuna was away from the team (and soon to be put on administrative leave by the league) due to domestic violence charges.
However, the Braves were far from done. An aggressive trade strategy saw outfielders Joc Pederson, Adam Duvall, Jorge Soler, and future NLCS MVP Eddie Rosario all added prior to the trade deadline, and Atlanta went 36-18 the rest of the way. A lackluster NL East undoubtedly helped, but the Braves kept it going into October, defeating the Brewers in the NLDS and then ousting the defending champion Dodgers in the NLCS. That last win was particularly sweet for Atlanta, considering the blown 3-1 lead against Los Angeles in the 2020 League Championship Series.
The Astros had a bit of an easier time of it in the regular season, battling with the A’s and Mariners for the AL West lead for much of the year but eventually pulling ahead in comfortable fashion. Even without such familiar names as George Springer or Justin Verlander, Houston could still rely on several core members (i.e. Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman, Yuli Gurriel) of its last two pennant winners, plus a pitching staff that has been almost entirely overhauled since the Astros were last in the World Series in 2019.
This will be the fourth time the Astros have reached the Fall Classic, with Houston’s lone championship coming back in 2017. As you might have heard, there was more than a little controversy attached to the Astros’ success in 2017, so it’s safe to say that another championship won’t erase the “buzzers and garbage cans” cloud that may hang over the franchise for some time to come. Yet, that hardly matters to a group that has turned over a great number of its personnel since that 2017 season. Dusty Baker, for instance, has been manager for just the last two years, and it’s hard to not feel some sentiment for the veteran skipper trying to win the first World Series of his long managerial career.
Who is your pick to win it all? And, as an added bonus, how many games will be required? (poll link for app users)
Who will win the World Series?
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Braves in 6 37% (9,292)
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Astros in 6 26% (6,669)
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Braves in 7 14% (3,518)
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Astros in 5 9% (2,261)
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Braves in 5 7% (1,674)
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Astros in 7 4% (1,081)
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Astros in 4 2% (445)
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Braves in 4 2% (409)
Total votes: 25,349
Latest On Cardinals’ Managerial Position
The Cardinals recently shocked the baseball world by firing manager Mike Shildt, shortly after an incredible season in which a 17-game winning streak catapulted them into the postseason for a third consecutive year. Just a few days prior to that, it seemed like the club would take the opposite path and extend him beyond 2022, the last year of his contract. Instead, with the offseason now just about a week away, their plans for a Shildt-less future are not publicly known.
Ben Frederickson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch took a look at the situation, reporting that Cardinals’ president of baseball operations John Mozeliak has internal candidates like Oliver Marmol and Stubby Clapp at the top of the list. Marmol has been with the organization as a coach for a decade now, as he became the hitting coach for the Gulf Coast League Cardinals in 2011. He then went on to manage the rookie-ball Johnson City Cardinals and the Class A-Advanced Palm Beach Cardinals. He’s been with the big league club since the 2017 season, serving as first base coach and then bench coach. Clapp spent some time coaching in the Astros’ and Blue Jays’ organizations, before joining the Cardinals as the manager for the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds for the 2017 season. He came up to the major league team as first base coach for the 2019 season. The fact that they are already in the Cardinals organization would mean Mozeliak is already familiar with their abilities, making them known quantities. However, the same was true of Shildt, who had been with the Cardinals in various capacities for over a decade before becoming manager after the firing of Mike Matheny in 2018. It’s unclear if Mozeliak wants to take that same path this time around.
Frederickson also throws out a couple of wildcards, reporting that Rick Renteria and Matt Holliday have make it known they are interested in the position. Renteria would bring some managerial experience, having been the bench boss for the 2014 Cubs then the White Sox from 2017 to 2020. Holliday, on the other hand, would bring no such experience at the big leagues, although he is currently listed as a volunteer assistant coach at Oklahoma State University, where his brother Josh is the head coach. Holliday was with the Cardinals as a player from 2009 to 2016. Hiring Holliday would come as a surprise, although it would mirror the hiring of Matheny in some ways. When Matheny was hired in 2011, he was also just a few years removed from his playing days and had no previous big league coaching experience.
Kyle Schwarber Open To Red Sox Reunion
The Kyle Schwarber journey has been a rollercoaster over the past couple of years. It was fairly steady from 2017 to 2019, as he was in a groove as the Cubs’ regular left fielder, playing at least 129 games and hitting at least 26 home runs each year. His wRC+ was between 103 and 119 in each of those three campaigns. 2020, however, went in a completely different direction. Over 59 games in the shortened season, Schwarber’s slash line was a meager .188/.308/.393, producing a wRC+ of just 89. There was reason to think it was a fluke, however, as his BABIP on the season was .219, well below his previous campaigns. Nonetheless, the Cubs decided to move on from Schwarber by declining to tender him a contract for his final year of arbitration control, sending the lefty away from the organization that selected him fourth overall in the 2014 draft.
He then went on to have arguably the best season of his career in 2021, between Washington and Boston. He slashed .266/.374/.554, en route to a wRC+ of 145, easily a personal best. His 3.1 fWAR was just slightly below the 3.2 he produced in 2018, though he played 24 more games that season compared to 2021. Based on that excellent campaign, Schwarber is sure to decline his half of the $11MM mutual option for 2022 that was part of his deal with the Nationals, taking the $3MM buyout instead and heading to the open market in search of a big payday.
But could the Red Sox sign him and bring him back? Schwarber tells Alex Speier of The Boston Globe that he’s open to it. “It’d be pretty stupid not to think about [returning],” said Schwarber. “My team here has been unbelievable. … If they feel like they would like to talk about [a new deal], I’d be all ears. I just think it would be stupid to ‘X’ someone off for no reason. Especially for a place like this, I’d be all ears.”
As Schwarber astutely points out, it would be silly for a free agent to eliminate any potential bidders for their services, especially publicly. So, it’s not terribly surprising for him to say he’s interested in returning. However, it would make for a potentially awkward fit. Schwarber was moved from his usual corner outfield position to first base with Boston, due to the Red Sox already having Enrique Hernandez, Alex Verdugo, Hunter Renfroe and J.D. Martinez on hand as outfield options. The switch wasn’t without hiccups, as Schwarber made a few obvious flubs in his time at first, and defensive metrics seemed aligned in their disapproval of his initial attempts at the position.
Although there is the designated hitter slot to think of, Speier’s piece says that Martinez is unlikely to opt out of the final year of his contract, meaning that bringing Schwarber back would give the club two bat-first players with defensive limitations. With Hernandez, Verdugo and Renfroe also coming back for 2022, it will still be difficult to make all the puzzle pieces fit. Schwarber will be one of the premier corner outfield options in this winter’s free agent market, meaning he should get plenty of interest without having to continue the first base experiment.
The Red Sox, for their part, could also turn to more-seasoned options at first, with Freddie Freeman, Anthony Rizzo and Brandon Belt being the top names available. They could also let Bobby Dalbec have the position for now, as he’s been productive in his major league time so far. There’s also Triston Casas to think about. He’s considered a top-20 prospect in all of baseball, according to FanGraphs, Baseball America and MLB Pipeline. He finished 2021 in Triple-A and could soon force his way onto the big league roster. But a reunion between Schwarber and the Red Sox can’t be ruled out, as the slugger himself adds, “This is definitely a clubhouse that I could see myself wanting to stay in. These guys are amazing,” he said. “This is a World Series clubhouse, and I would love to hopefully see if that opportunity comes back.”
The Red Sox could have room for Schwarber from a financial standpoint as their current payroll for 2022 sits just under $160MM, per Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. Their opening day payroll in 2021 was just north of $180MM, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. However, the Red Sox could use their resources to address things besides first base, such as a pitching staff that is seeing Eduardo Rodriguez, Adam Ottavino and Hansel Robles head into free agency.
Farhan Zaidi Discusses Giants’ Upcoming Offseason
Giants’ president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi recently appeared on The TK Show, the podcast of The Athletic’s Tim Kawakami, and discussed a wide variety of topics pertaining to the past and the future of the club.
Broadly speaking, there’s a wide variety of paths for the Giants to take this winter. They have a lot of contracts coming off the books when free agency begins, which means they will have money to spend but also holes to fill. They could use that money to assemble a team that’s very similar to the 107-win 2021 squad, go with a completely different look, or somewhere in between. Regardless of how it plays out, Zaidi believes their success this season should help make them an attractive destination for potential signees. “We’re just going to keep trying to get better and better and better and at some point you reach the tipping point where you look up and you’re at the top of the standings, and that situation can perpetuate itself by reputation, a lot of free agents want to play for you, and you can draft off of that success if you just kind of keep grinding and trying to make the team better.”
It certainly stands to reason that free agents would be intrigued, especially given that the Giants have seemingly found a way to maximize the talents of veterans they’ve brought on in recent years, such as Darin Ruf, Anthony DeSclafani, Jake McGee and Alex Wood, who are all over 30 years old and did some of the best work of their careers in 2021. And there’s also Giants’ mainstays like Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford and Buster Posey, who are all 33 or older and had excellent seasons.
Zaidi elaborated on that point by giving some insight into how players approach free agency and how it’s evolved in recent years. He says that money and geography used to be the primary factors, but now, “I think guys are more aware of going somewhere they feel like there’s an infrastructure and a support system that can help them thrive from a performance standpoint. You get a lot more questions from free agents on what facilities do you have, can I speak to your pitching coach or hitting coach? And that’s a way bigger part of the recruiting process. We’ve been really focused on that pitch over the last couple of years.”
Zaidi had already discussed the rotation situation last week, which is surely going to be a big part of the Giants’ offseason as Wood, DeSclafani, Kevin Gausman and Johnny Cueto are all heading into free agency. Kawakami asked him about taking a similar approach to what they’ve done previously, giving short-term deals to talented pitchers with question marks on their records. “You look at the list of free agents and there are some names on that list who have had a lot of success in the past and maybe dealt with injuries this year or underperformed for whatever reason,” Zaidi said. “I think when you’ve got to fill out four spots in your rotation, you’re certainly going to look at that segment of the market.” The team has a $22MM club option on Cueto, but the fact that Zaidi admits they will be looking to fill four rotation spots seems to leave no doubt that they will opt for the $5MM buyout instead.
But those short-term deals aren’t the only thing on the table. “I would be surprised if we didn’t wind up doing at least one multi-year deal for a starting pitcher,” Zaidi added. “Certainly all of our guys who are free agents are going to be looking for multi-year deals based on the seasons they had. We have interest in bringing all of those guys back.”
In terms of payroll, the club should have lots of flexibility for 2022 and beyond. According to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, the club’s opening day payroll was just under $150MM this year, the lowest since 2014, when prorating the 2020 number. According to Jason Martinez of Roster Resource, they only have about $65MM allocated for 2022, when factoring in arbitration estimates. Assuming the club picks up its options on Buster Posey, Wilmer Flores and Jose Alvarez, that number would jump up to the $90MM range. Even if payroll stays steady for 2022, that seemingly gives Zaidi and his team $60MM to throw around this offseason. For 2023, there’s only $33MM on the books so far, with Crawford and Tommy La Stella the only guaranteed contracts. With that level of wiggle room, the club could surely find any number of ways to build a rotation around breakout star Logan Webb, for both the short and long term.
On the position player side of things, Zaidi seems to be less worried about their situation in that department. Kawakami quotes Zaidi from a press conference last week as saying, “We’re deep on the position-player side. We have a number of guys who are platoon guys, every-day guys, we have a lot of at-bats that are accounted for. And we’ve got guys like Thairo Estrada (and) Steven Duggar that we’d like to see get better opportunities. You’ve got a layer of prospects that are even closer to being big-league ready, guys like (Heliot) Ramos and Joey Bart. So we at least have some options on the position-player side. Where all those guys on the position-player side, not just Kris but Brandon Belt, Donovan Solano, these guys fit our team, we’d like to have them back, but we have some options on that side.”
Solano has had a nice run with the Giants but is about to turn 34, whereas Estrada is about to turn 26 and had a similarly-productive season, making it fairly reasonable to see that bringing Solano back isn’t the highest priority. Belt had a tremendous season at the plate but also comes with injury concerns. The club largely turned to a productive Wilmer Flores/Darin Ruf platoon when Belt was out, which they could do again in 2022. (Ruf can be retained via arbitration, Flores by a $3.5MM club option.) Bryant is a tremendous hitter but will be command a huge financial commitment this winter and is an imperfect fit on the Giants’ roster. Third baseman Evan Longoria is still under contract for one more year, at just under $20MM, meaning Bryant would likely be pushed into more outfield time, where his defensive numbers aren’t as good. The club also has a bevy of outfield options already in the fold, such as Duggar, LaMonte Wade Jr., Mike Yastrzemski, Alex Dickerson and Austin Slater. Prospect Heliot Ramos, whom Zaidi mentioned, finished his season at Triple-A and will need to be added to the 40-man roster next month in order to protect him from the Rule 5 draft, meaning he should be in the mix for an opportunity soon. Zaidi’s apparent lack of urgency around the position players seems to hold up to scrutiny. The option of a universal DH for 2022 would open things up somewhat, but that’s not guaranteed to happen.
All in all, it should be a fascinating offseason for the club. The rival Dodgers are in a similar situation, with lots of players reaching free agency, such as Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, Corey Seager, Chris Taylor and Kenley Jansen. Both clubs will surely be frequently connected to free agents in rumors this offseason, meaning 2021’s fierce competition for the NL West division crown figures to continue right through the winter.
Jon Gray Has Reportedly Rejected Extension Offer From Rockies
Jon Gray rejected an extension offer the Rockies made him before the end of the regular season, reports Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post. Gray continues to have interest in sticking with Colorado long-term, Saunders adds, although the expectation is now that he’ll at least test the open market.
There’s been reported mutual interest between the Rox and Gray in a long-term deal for months, but the sides have yet to line up on acceptable terms. Saunders suggests the right-hander could target a three or four-year deal with an average annual value in the $9-10MM range on the open market. Whether that kind of deal would be attainable could depend upon whether the Rockies tag Gray with a qualifying offer. Doing so would entitle the Rockies to draft pick compensation were he to sign elsewhere, although he’d be a strong candidate to accept an $18.4MM offer to return in 2022.
Perhaps that’d be a mutually agreeable outcome, since Colorado clearly has interest in retaining Gray. Despite already being out of postseason contention by late July, the Rockies seemingly made Gray unavailable relatively early on trade deadline day. That course of action makes little sense unless the team wants to keep him around, and subsequent reports made clear that’s the case.
Gray bounced back from an injury-plagued 2020 to post a solid season this year. Over 149 innings, the 29-year-old worked to a 4.59 ERA with average or better strikeout (24.4%), walk (9%) and ground-ball (48.4%) rates. He thrived at Coors Field, tossing 78 1/3 frames of 4.02 ERA ball while holding opponents to a .205/.291/.365 line in home starts. With how difficult it has proven for the Rockies to find pitchers capable of succeeding in the game’s most hitter-friendly environment, it’s easy to see why general manager Bill Schmidt and his staff have continually expressed interest in keeping Gray around.
Saunders adds some additional context on Colorado’s offseason priorities, writing that the club is expected to target “at least two impactful players.” What constitutes an impact addition is open to interpretation, but Saunders suggests the club will look for a power-hitting bat this winter, preferably an outfielder. He floats Nick Castellanos (almost certain to opt out of his contract with the Reds), Michael Conforto and utilityman Chris Taylor as possible targets.
That’s a varied collection of potential players of interest. Castellanos looks like a candidate for a nine-figure deal. Taylor has a strong case for a four-year contract in the $65+MM range. Conforto could land three or four years himself, but it’s also possible he looks for a one-year bounceback deal after a mediocre 2021 campaign. Signing any of that group would probably cost the Rockies a draft choice, as they’re all likely qualifying offer recipients.
As for other areas of need for the Rockies, Saunders floats the bullpen and middle infield. Shortstop Trevor Story is expected to reject a QO and sign elsewhere, leaving a middle infield vacancy. Former top prospect Brendan Rodgers has seemingly locked down one spot after hitting .284/.328/.470 across 415 plate appearances this past season. Rodgers is capable of manning either of shortstop or second base, leaving some flexibility for Schmidt and company in addressing the dirt.
Plugging all those position player gaps and/or retaining Gray would certainly make for a costly winter. Earlier this month, Colorado president Greg Feasel said the club was planning to increase payroll over the course of the next two offseasons — eventually pushing from 2021’s $118MM figure closer to their franchise-record $145MM mark from 2019. Colorado should indeed have spending room to work with, as Jason Martinez of Roster Resource estimates they have around $79MM in 2022 commitments at the moment — including projected arbitration salaries.
That financial flexibility should give the front office real room for upgrades, but they’ll have a tall task in constructing a contender. The Rockies have finished in fourth place in the NL West in each of the past three seasons, and the impending departure of Story only makes a return to contention in that loaded division harder. Despite those challenges, Saunders’ report reinforces that the Rockies aren’t planning to take a step back this winter. They’re at least plotting a hopeful win-now course of action that could see them remain in the market for some of the offseason’s top free agent hitters.
Trade Candidate: Paul DeJong
One of the biggest decisions for the Cardinals this winter is how to handle the shortstop position. That hasn’t been the case in a while. Paul DeJong had a great rookie season in 2017, and he’s been the Cards’ Opening Day shortstop for each of the four seasons since.
Going into 2022, it no longer seems to be DeJong’s job. That rookie season was propped up by a .349 batting average on balls in play that DeJong never seemed likely to sustain, but he was a solid hitter over the next couple years. Coupled with high-end defensive metrics, he was still a highly valuable player. DeJong’s bat has taken another step down over the last two years, though, and that seemingly puts his future with the organization in question.
Since the start of 2020, DeJong has tallied 576 plate appearances, nearly the equivalent of a typical season. He’s hit just .213/.295/.378, a mark that makes him fourteen percentage points below the league average by measure of wRC+. DeJong still brings some power upside, popping 22 home runs with a .165 ISO (slugging minus batting average) that’s right around average. He has struck out in an elevated 26.6% of his trips to the plate, though. Paired with a very low .254 BABIP, that has led DeJong to post one of the lower batting averages and on-base marks among regular players.
DeJong is still generally effective at barreling balls up, but he’s also had far too many wasted plate appearances. He’s an extreme fly ball hitter, which can be a bit of a double-edged sword. Hitting the ball in the air gives a player plenty of opportunities to do damage, but weakly hit fly balls aren’t especially useful. DeJong has had his share of softly hit balls in the air, with a 90.9 MPH average exit velocity on air balls that ranks in the 42nd percentile leaguewide (minimum 1000 pitches seen). That middle-of-the-road batted ball quality has come as DeJong’s contact rate has dropped a few percentage points over the past two seasons, falling from roughly league average to a bit below.
While DeJong hasn’t been an especially productive hitter in recent seasons, he hasn’t been without value. Defensive metrics have still pegged him as a solid or better defender. Over the past two seasons, DeJong has rated as six runs above average at shortstop by DRS, while Statcast has him at two plays above average. Even average play at shortstop is valuable, and DeJong’s probably at least a tick above par defensively.
Because of that defensive acumen, DeJong has been valued at around two wins above replacement since the start of 2020 by both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference. That’s roughly league average for the amount he has played. So even with his bat going backwards, DeJong’s still a capable player who is just two years removed from an All-Star berth. He’d be an upgrade over some teams’ current shortstop situations.
Speculatively speaking, the Yankees, Phillies, Nationals, Angels, Rangers, A’s, Astros, Tigers and Twins are among the teams who might be in the shortstop market this winter. With a star-studded crop of free agent shortstops, DeJong won’t be priority number one for any of those clubs. They can’t all land high-end free agent options, though, and some could view DeJong as a reasonable fallback option.
In March 2018, DeJong and the Cardinals agreed on a contract extension, the guaranteed portion of which runs through 2023. He’ll make $6MM next season and $9MM the following year, and he’s guaranteed at least a $2MM buyout on a 2024 club option valued at $12.5MM. The contract also contains another club option covering 2025. Given DeJong’s offensive struggles the past couple seasons, that deal no longer looks like a massive bargain. But it’s certainly not an outlandish detriment to a team’s finances either, and the two options give a potential acquiring team some upside if DeJong manages to turn things around at the dish.
That all leads to an interesting offseason decision for the St. Louis front office. DeJong’s 2022 salary isn’t outlandish, but they might want to look into the top shortstops available themselves. Alternatively, they could trade DeJong and rely on the player who became the de facto shortstop down the stretch this past season: Edmundo Sosa.
Sosa has long been viewed by public prospect evaluators as a future glove-first utilityman. He outperformed those expectations as a rookie, though, hitting .271/.346/.389 with six homers in 326 plate appearances. Sosa didn’t walk or hit for much power, but his aggressive approach helped keep his strikeouts low as well.
Turning shortstop over to Sosa based on half a season’s worth of work would be a risk, but he did enough down the stretch to seemingly surpass DeJong on the organizational depth chart. It’d be defensible to give Sosa a chance to seize the job, particularly given this regime’s solid track record in developing position players who overperform their general prospect expectations.
How to handle the shortstop position going into 2022 is a key question for president of baseball operations John Mozeliak, GM Mike Girsch and the rest of the front office. That’s unfamiliar territory in St. Louis, but DeJong’s recent drop-off at the dish makes it possible he could wind up on the move in the coming months.
Free Agent Faceoff: Kevin Gausman Vs. Robbie Ray
There are a few options for teams playing at the top of the starting pitching market to choose from this winter. Max Scherzer should land the highest average annual value, but his age (37) might cap the length of those offers at three years. Carlos Rodón had an utterly dominant platform year, but he dealt with some shoulder concerns at the end of the season that could be a red flag for teams. Marcus Stroman has a long track record of durability, great strike-throwing and elite ground-ball numbers, but he doesn’t miss bats the way most teams covet from their top-of-the-rotation arms.
It’s not out of the question someone from that trio could land a deal that surpasses general expectations. It seems more likely, though, that Kevin Gausman and Robbie Ray will ultimately wind up battling one another for the highest overall guarantee among pitchers. Let’s dig into each player’s profile to determine which one teams should have at the top of their preference lists.
For the first few seasons of his career, Gausman occasionally flashed the potential that had made him a top five draft pick. But he also had bouts of inconsistency and struggled badly enough in 2019 to be waived by the Braves and then non-tendered by the Reds, who had plucked him off the wire.
Since signing with the Giants over the 2019-20 offseason, Gausman has taken his game to a new level. His 3.62 ERA in 2020 was among the best marks of his career, and even that belied elite strikeout and walk numbers. That came in only twelve outings because of the shortened season, and Gausman accepted a qualifying offer last winter in hopes of proving he’d markedly improved over a bigger body of work.
Betting on himself is in position to pay off handsomely. Gausman stayed healthy all year, working 192 innings of 2.81 ERA ball. He didn’t quite sustain his 2020 strikeout rate, but this past season’s 29.3% mark still checked in fourteenth among the 129 hurlers with 100+ innings. Gausman’s 15.3% swinging strike rate was even more impressive, placing fifth among that same group. He’ll now market back-to-back great years of performance. He has missed bats at an elite level for the past few seasons, and the righty has always had plus control.
There’s not a whole lot to nitpick about Gausman’s numbers, although it’s at least worth considering that he succeeds somewhat non-traditionally. He’s tinkered with different breaking pitches but has never found an effective one. Instead, he leaned more heavily than ever on his four-seam fastball (52.7%) and splitter (35.3%) in 2021. Per Statcast, Gausman was one of just fourteen starting pitchers to use a split more than 10% of the time. Most teams are probably willing to look past that unconventional repertoire, since Gausman now has a multi-year track record of great play. Still, it’s a lot more common to see aces with a Ray-like arsenal (primarily fastball-slider), and that could be a factor for some clubs.
Great as Gausman was this past season, Ray was arguably better. The southpaw posted a 2.84 ERA over 193 1/3 frames. He thrived in a division that sent three other teams to the playoffs and split his year between a trio of home ballparks, all of which seemed to be favorable for hitters. Gausman spent the year in the National League, where he’d get to face the opposing pitcher on most nights; Ray wasn’t as fortunate pitching in the American League. And while Gausman turns 31 in January, Ray will pitch almost all of next season at age-30 before turning 31 in October.
Ray’s underlying metrics were similarly elite. He fanned 32.1% of opponents, the sixth-highest mark leaguewide. Ray checked in one spot ahead of Gausman on the swinging strike rate leaderboard, with his 15.5% mark ranking fourth. When batters did make contact against Ray, they were more successful than they’d been hitting against Gausman. Ray was more prone to hard contact and fly balls, and he indeed gave up more home runs. But on a batter-by-batter basis, they were similarly effective at preventing baserunners. Opponents hit .210/.267/.401 against Ray; they batted .210/.264/.345 off Gausman.
Of course, teams will take the players’ pre-2021 bodies of work into account when making a decision of this magnitude. For Gausman versus Ray, that only makes things more complicated. While Gausman was great in 2020, Ray had an awful season. He walked 17.9% of batters faced that year, posting a 6.62 ERA in 51 2/3 innings. It was a nightmarish year, but it’s also easy to see teams writing that off as a fluke. Not only was 2020 a season of inherent small samples, Ray made an obvious alteration to his throwing mechanics entering that year. Clearly, Ray’s pre-2020 adjustments negatively impacted his control, but he returned to his original throwing motion in 2021, as he explained to Kaitlyn McGrath of the Athletic last month.
While Gausman’s 2020 was unquestionably better than Ray’s, the latter had the better career track record going into that year. He was an All-Star in 2017, a year in which he finished seventh in NL Cy Young Award voting. He had a top ten strikeout rate (minimum 100 innings) every season from 2016-19. So while Ray was one of the worst pitchers in baseball in 2020, he certainly hasn’t come out of nowhere.
To recap: Gausman and Ray had similarly elite platform seasons. The former was also great in 2020, while the latter had a terrible season. Ray was far better before 2020, though, and he’s nearly a full year younger. Now, we’ll turn it over to the readership. Whom should teams looking to make a splash in free agency this winter prefer: Gausman or Ray?
(poll link for app users)
Who Should Land The Bigger Contract This Offseason?
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Robbie Ray 68% (4,924)
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Kevin Gausman 32% (2,266)
Total votes: 7,190