Giants Notes: Belt, DeSclafani, Suzuki
Brandon Belt has until November 17 to decide on whether to accept or reject the $18.4MM qualifying offer from the Giants, but the club isn’t just twiddling their thumbs in the meantime. Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic reports that they met with his representatives today and “discussed several contract formats.”
After a down year in 2019, Belt has been one of the best hitters on the planet for the past couple years. Over the past two seasons, he has hit .285/.393/.595, producing a wRC+ of 163, which is third-best in MLB among those with at least 550 plate appearances, trailing only Juan Soto and Bryce Harper. However, the first baseman, who turns 34 in April, has been often limited by injuries. Only one of his past five campaigns saw him get into more than 112 games, and it happened to be that down year in 2019. In 2021, it was just 97 games. Still, the production is strong enough that the Giants are happy to retain him, as evidenced by the extension of the QO, but also on whatever type of multi-year deal they discussed today.
A few months ago, the club extended their other Brandon for two-years and $32MM, which could perhaps be the type of deal they’re offering Belt now, slightly less money than the QO on an annual basis, but over a longer term. MLBTR recently predicted that Belt would accept the QO and try to re-enter the market a year from now, after he has hopefully had better health and seen the NL implement the DH.
Baggarly also reports that the club met with representatives for righty Anthony DeSclafani and discussed multi-year deals for him. Zaidi has already made it clear that the rotation is the “number one priority“, which makes a lot of sense given that it currently consists of just Logan Webb, on account of DeSclafani reaching free agency, as well as Kevin Gausman, Alex Wood and Johnny Cueto. DeSclafani, 32 in April, had a miserable season for the Reds in 2020 but righted the ship nicely in 2021. After being picked up by the Giants, he tossed 167 2/3 innings with an ERA of 3.17. MLBTR, in the same pieced linked above, recently predicted he would garner three years and $42MM, an annual average value of $14MM.
But the Giants aren’t just considering their departing free agents, of course. John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that they have interest in Seiya Suzuki, who is expected to be posted for MLB teams soon. Baggarly quotes Zaidi as saying that a right-handed hitting outfielder like Suzuki “kind of fits our team.” That’s a bit of an understatement, as their current outfield skews heavily the other way, with Mike Yastrzemski, LaMonte Wade Jr., Steven Duggar and Alex Dickerson all hitting from the left side and Austin Slater being the most notable righty. Kris Bryant, who hits right-handed, was brought into the mix at the trade deadline but is now a free agent.
MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk recently wrote about the Giants as part of the Offseason Outlook series and noted that they are lined up to be one of the busiest teams this winter, given their multiple openings and limited payroll commitments. Zaidi and the rest of his team are sure to explore each and every opportunity to add to their team this winter, and all indications point to them already doing just that.
Rangers Poised For Significant Payroll Increase
Rangers’ brass has suggested on multiple occasions the club anticipates being active in free agency this winter, and it indeed seems ownership is prepared to support an offseason spending spree. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports that the Rangers could add $100MM+ to their payroll this offseason.
That kind of offseason would certainly be atypical for a club coming off back-to-back last place finishes in the AL West. Texas clearly has designs at pushing forward their contention window, though. The current roster probably has too many holes for the Rangers to compete for a playoff spot next season. But adding one or more marquee players on multi-year deals could make a 2023 window more realistic, and this offseason’s free agent class has plenty of potential prime-aged targets. That indeed seems to be the front office’s thought process in projecting an active offseason.
“I don’t think we expect to just come out and be World Series contenders next season,” general manager Chris Young told reporters (including Kennedi Landry of MLB.com). “That said, we expect to take major steps from where we were this year and continue to build this so that by 2023, we’re in a very good position and competing for the division and have the opportunity to make the playoffs and potentially win a World Series.”
As the Rangers have stripped down the roster in recent seasons, the team’s spending has taken a corresponding nosedive. Texas has opened seasons with a payroll north of $165MM in the past, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, but Jason Martinez of Roster Resource currently projects their 2022 financial commitments around just $51MM (including arbitration projections). Last month, president of baseball operations Jon Daniels indicated the club would increase spending over the coming offseasons. Daniels was deliberately vague about precisely how much money the team might allocate in each winter, but it seems there’s a chance Texas makes multiple significant additions and pushes back near franchise-record levels of spending this winter alone.
The Rangers have very few players locked in anywhere on the roster, giving Daniels, Young and the rest of the front office ample avenues to explore. This year’s free agent class features a handful of franchise shortstops — including Dallas-area native Trevor Story — as well as a strong group of corner outfielders. One of the youngest players on the market is 27-year-old Japanese star Seiya Suzuki. Suzuki’s NPB team, the Hiroshima Carp, are expected to make him available via the posting process.
Executives with other clubs see the Rangers as one of the prime suitors to land Suzuki, hears Jon Morosi of MLB.com. Between the star outfielder’s youth and Texas’ payroll space, it’s a fairly easy connection to draw. Suzuki is coming off a massive .319/.436/.644 showing over 530 plate appearances, and some evaluators believe he can immediately step into MLB as an above-average everyday right fielder. If the Rangers’ scouting department shares that level of optimism, then a pursuit of Suzuki makes plenty of sense. MLBTR projects the right-handed hitter to land a five-year, $55MM contract that would come with an additional $10.125MM posting fee to be paid to the Carp.
Story and Suzuki are just two of numerous options for the Rangers, who seem likely to be connected to impact players all offseason. With Texas having perhaps as much payroll flexibility and desire to add talent as anyone, it could be a winter of big-ticket pursuits in Arlington.
NPB Notes: Cardinals, Martinez, Suarez, Red Sox, Suzuki
The Cardinals are among the teams with interest in right-hander Nick Martinez, reports Jon Heyman of the MLB Network (Twitter link). Martinez, who will reach free agency at the start of December, is coming off a dominant showing with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. Over 140 2/3 innings, the 31-year-old worked to a 1.60 ERA, striking out a quarter of the batters he faced in the process. After a four-season run in Japan, that strong 2021 campaign could earn Martinez another MLB look this offseason. Heyman suggests upwards of a third of MLB teams could join St. Louis in having interest in giving Martinez another opportunity stateside, although it stands to reason the Hawks would like to re-sign their star hurler as well.
A couple more notes on players currently in Japan’s top league:
- Robert Suárez is on the radar of multiple major league teams, according to a Japanese-language report from Yahoo! Japan (h/t to Sung Min Kim). The 30-year-old has posted incredible numbers serving as the Hanshin Tigers’ closer over the past two seasons. After working to a 2.24 ERA in 52 1/3 innings in 2020, Suárez dominated to the tune of a 1.16 mark across 62 1/3 frames this past season. His peripherals were equally impressive, as the righty struck out 25.3% of opposing hitters against a minuscule 3.5% walk percentage. Suárez has never pitched in the majors but reportedly also caught the attention of big league clubs last winter.
- The Red Sox are among the teams to have scouted NPB star Seiya Suzuki, reports Rob Bradford of WEEI. They’re certainly not alone in that regard, as the Hiroshima Carp outfielder has long been regarded as one of the top talents in Japan. The Carp will make Suzuki available to major league clubs this winter via the posting system, coming off a season in which the 27-year-old mashed at a .319/.436/.644 clip with 38 homers in 530 plate appearances. Between his youth, huge numbers in NPB, and scouting reports that suggest he could immediately step in as an above-average major league right fielder, Suzuki should be one of the winter’s most in-demand free agents. MLBTR projects he’ll land a five-year, $55MM contract — an investment that would cost an MLB team $65.125MM after accounting for the posting fee that would be owed to the Carp were Suzuki to land a $55MM guarantee.
Hiroshima Carp To Post Outfielder Seiya Suzuki For MLB Teams
The Hiroshima Carp of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball will post 27-year-old outfielder Seiya Suzuki for Major League clubs this winter, reports MLB.com’s Jon Morosi. Yahoo Japan reported two weeks ago that Suzuki was likely to be posted for big league clubs.
Suzuki’s posting will serve as a major storyline this offseason. The slugging right fielder is considered to be among the very best players in NPB at the moment and is putting the finishing touches on a monster season that has seen him slash .319/.436/.644 with 38 home runs, 26 doubles and nine steals (in 13 tries). That’s hardly a one-year fluke, either; dating back to 2018, the right-handed-hitting Suzuki has put together a combined .319/.435/.592 batting line with 121 home runs, 115 doubles, four triples and 44 stolen bases (albeit in 72 attempts) through 2167 plate appearances. Unlike many sluggers, Suzuki achieves this production without selling out for the power. Since 2018, he’s fanned in only 16.4 percent of his plate appearances — compared to a nearly identical 16 percent walk rate.
MLBTR has received a broad range of opinions when checking in with teams who’ve seen Suzuki. That’s in part due to the inherent volatility associated with signing star players from foreign professional leagues, whether it be NPB, the Korea Baseball Organization or the Cuban National Series. It’s also perhaps a reflection of the fact that scouts haven’t had the type of in-person access to Suzuki in recent years that they would have had prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The most bullish opinions we’ve gotten peg Suzuki as an everyday Major League right fielder — a solid defensive player with a strong arm and enough power to hit in the middle of a big league lineup. In an August profile of Suzuki, Dylan Hernandez of the L.A. Times cited a scout who called him the “best player in Japan the past few years,” and I’ve heard that sentiment echoed myself in doing background work on Suzuki. Baseball America’s Matt Eddy puts a 70-grade on Suzuki’s raw power (on the 20-80 scale), and at least one evaluator I spoke to thought he could produce 25-plus home runs with a solid batting average and strong on-base percentage. Suzuki is a four-time NPB Gold Glove winner in right field, and the expectation is that he can play average or better defense in the big leagues, even if he’s not a Gold Glover in MLB.
There’s obviously a fair bit of risk when committing significant dollars to any international star, and skeptics could point to the recent struggles from Yoshi Tsutsugo and Shogo Akiyama in their own transitions to Major League Baseball. However, Tsutsugo was seen largely as a pure power bat with minimal defensive value and preexisting strikeout issues in Japan. Sports Info Solution’s Ted Baarda took a look just today at why Suzuki is considered a much better bet to succeed in the Majors than Tsutsugo was. Akiyama, meanwhile, was five years older than Suzuki is now when he jumped to the Majors, and he didn’t stack up in the power department. Suzuki is younger and more well-rounded than both Tsutsugo and Akiyama, and we expect interest on the free-agent market to reflect that.
Once Suzuki is formally posted, Major League clubs will have 30 days to negotiate with his representatives. As a reminder, the current iteration of the NPB-MLB posting system did away with the former blind-bidding system and the $20MM-max posting fee system. Rather, the current system determines the posting/release fee owed to the Carp based on the size of contract signed by a player.
Any big league team that signs Suzuki would owe the Carp a fee equal to 20% of the contract’s first $25MM, 17.5% of the next $25MM and 15% of any dollars thereafter. That fee comes in addition to the contract itself, and any subsequent guaranteed money (e.g. salary unlocked through performance incentives or club options) also falls under this purview. If Suzuki does not agree to terms with a Major League club, he’d return to the Carp for the 2022 season. He could be posted a second time next winter and would be able to pursue Major League opportunities as an unrestricted free agent (i.e. outside the confines of the posting system) following the 2023 season.
Hiroshima Carp Could Post Outfielder Seiya Suzuki For MLB Clubs
The Hiroshima Carp of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball could make top outfielder Seiya Suzuki available to Major League teams via the posting system this winter, according to a report from Yahoo Japan. The Carp have begun taking some of the necessary steps, per the report, conducting a recent MRI for updated medical records and beginning to put together the requisite paperwork.
There’s still no guarantee that Suzuki will ultimately be made available this winter, but the outfielder himself acknowledged his desire to eventually test his skills against Major League pitching during an August interview with Dylan Hernandez of the the L.A. Times. “I think everyone feels they want to play at the highest stage if they can get the chance,” Suzuki told Hernandez.
While reports of well-regarded NPB and KBO players potentially being made available to MLB clubs are common around this time of every year, Suzuki is a bit of a different case. Having recently turned 27 years old, he’s much younger than most players who are made available through the posting system or wait until accruing nine full years of service time to reach unrestricted international free agency. He’s also widely regarded as one of the best players in NPB.
Hernandez quotes a big league scout calling Suzuki a “five-tool guy” and “the best player in Japan the last few years.” Sung Min Kim, who’s written for both FanGraphs and The Athletic, tweets that several MLB Pacific Rim scouts have considered Suzuki the top NPB or KBO player with a realistic chance of being posted in recent years. Longtime Orioles center fielder Adam Jones, who’s spent the past two seasons playing against him in Japan, tweets that Suzuki is an MLB-caliber talent. Ted Baarda of Sports Info Solutions wrote last October that Suzuki fits the strong-armed, power-hitting profile of a prototypical right fielder.
While there’s a gap in terms of the quality of pitching he’d face, everything Suzuki has done in NPB indicates that he’s indeed one of the most talented hitters in that league. He made his NPB debut at just 18 years of age in 2013, and while it was only an 11-game cup of coffee, he’d cemented himself as a regular for the Carp by his age-20 season. Suzuki posted a .731 OPS that year (2015), and that was the last time he’s had an OPS south of .936 in any given season.
Dating back to 2018, the right-handed-hitting Suzuki has put together a combined .319/.435/.592 batting line with 121 home runs, 115 doubles, four triples and 44 stolen bases (albeit in 72 attempts) through 2167 plate appearances. That includes 38 home runs and 26 doubles in just 526 plate appearances this season. Since 2018, Suzuki has walked at a huge 16 percent clip that is almost a mirror image of his 16.4 percent strikeout rate. He broke into NPB as an infielder, but he moved to right field in 2016 and has gone on to win four Gold Gloves for his work there.
The recent track record of outfielders making the move from NPB to MLB hasn’t been great, as neither Shogo Akiyama nor Yoshi Tsutsugo has lived up to expectations with their respective contracts (three years, $21MM from the Reds to Akiyama; two years, $12MM from the Rays to Tsutsugo). That said, Suzuki’s case looks quite a bit more compelling. Akiyama was posted in advance of his age-32 season and had never matched Suzuki’s power. Tsutsugo had more comparable power, but he also had significant strikeout issues in NPB and was not considered a good defender.
If Suzuki is indeed posted for big league clubs this winter, he’ll be the youngest and one of the most intriguing options on the corner outfield market. Alternatives, at present, include Kyle Schwarber, Michael Conforto, Joc Pederson, Eddie Rosario, Tommy Pham, Jorge Soler and (depending on where you’d play him) Kris Bryant. Nick Castellanos is widely expected to opt out of the final two years of his deal with the Reds, and Avisail Garcia seems likely to decline his half of a $12MM mutual option in favor of a $2MM buyout and a return to the free-agent market. Castellanos and Conforto will likely be tagged with qualifying offers, and it’s at least feasible (though less likely) that Milwaukee would consider the same for Garcia.
Suzuki wouldn’t come with the draft pick compensation as free agents who reject that QO, but as a posted player, he’d cost his new team more than just the base value of his contract. Under the latest iteration of the NPB-MLB posting system, all 30 clubs would be able to negotiate freely with Suzuki. The team with which he eventually signs would then owe a release fee to Suzuki’s former team, the Carp. That fee correlates directly with the size of the contract. Any team that signed Suzuki would pay a sum of 20 percent of a contract’s first $25MM to the Carp. The fee also includes 17.5 percent of the next $25MM and 15 percent of any dollars spent thereafter.
The release fee would be on top of the actual contract for Suzuki. For example (and not to say this is the type of contract Suzuki will command), a $50MM contract would cost a big league team a total of $59.375MM — $50MM to the player and $9.375MM to the former NPB club. Option years and incentives/bonuses are also factored in if they are eventually unlocked (e.g. a $10MM club option tacked on top of that theoretical $50MM deal would require the MLB club to pay $1.5MM to the NPB team once it is picked up — 15 percent of the guarantee beyond $50MM).
The posting process for Suzuki wouldn’t begin until after the conclusion of this year’s NPB season. Posting windows last for 30 days, and the fact that negotiations with Suzuki would coincide with ongoing collective bargaining negotiations between MLB and the MLB Players Association could complicate matters. If the Carp decide against posting Suzuki, or if he is posted and does not agree to a deal with a Major League team, Suzuki would return to the Carp for his age-27 campaign next year. He’s still two years from unrestricted free agency, so if he doesn’t come to MLB via the posting system this winter, it’s possible yet that the Carp could post him a second time next winter.