Uncategorized News & Rumors

With August nearing an end, it’s last call for teams to add players from outside their organizations who’ll be eligible to play in the postseason. It’s also time we put in a call for another mailbag. Submit your questions via email to mlbtrmailbag@gmail.com.

Wondering about final roster tweaks? Questions about arbitration decisions that are right around the corner? Have thoughts on how the free agent market might be shaping up? Send ’em our way!

It has been a while since we checked in on the 2017 vesting options that will be decided by the 2016 stat sheets. With all quiet elsewhere, it seemed like an opportune time for an update:

• Coco Crisp ($13MM option vests at 550 plate appearances or 130 games played in 2016): It has been an up and down year for the veteran, who currently owns an adequate but ultimately just-below-average .235/.301/.406 batting line on the year. He has reached 420 plate appearances in 98 games, so it would take something approaching everyday playing time for the option to vest. Crisp recently accused the A’s of tamping down his playing time to avoid just that possibility. From an outside perspective, it does seem that there are legitimate reasons unrelated to the vesting clause to justify less-than-regular action for Crisp — he hasn’t played all that well and the team reasonably hopes to see younger players in action — though the A’s undoubtedly have that consideration in mind as well. Regardless of the precise reason, it’s all but inconceivable to think that Oakland will allow that stack of cash to become guaranteed.
• Matt Holliday ($17MM option vests with Top 10 finish in MVP voting): This one was always a longshot to vest, and it became increasingly apparent over the year that Holliday was posting a solid — but hardly MVP worthy — campaign. Still, his recent injury put the final nail in the coffin for all but theoretical chances at landing inside the top ten. Accordingly, the Cards will face a difficult decision on the veteran outfielder, who is still an above-average hitter but has shown signs of decline.
• Chris Iannetta ($6MM option vests with 100 games started in 2016): Iannetta’s option was trending strongly towards vesting when we last looked, but things have changed with the re-emergence of Mike Zunino in Seattle. Iannetta would need to start 22 games to pick up the $6MM guarantee, but he has only appeared in seven contests thus far in the month of August. Iannetta has also seen his production drop; he currently owns a .218/.310/.343 batting line. Whether or not Seattle has any interest in picking up that tab remains to be seen, but it probably won’t make it to the club’s books by operation of the vesting provision.
• Yusmeiro Petit ($3MM option vests with 80 innings pitched in 2016): The likeliest path to this option vesting was for a need to arise to utilize Petit as a temporary rotation piece. While he has made one spot start and some other lengthy appearances, though, Petit has only compiled 55 frames to date — making it quite unlikely that the clause will vest. (Realistically, it would probably take multiple rotation injuries.) That being said, he has done everything the Nats hoped he would, carrying a 3.27 ERA with 6.7 K/9 and 2.1 BB/9, and still seems rather likely to have the option exercised regardless.
• CC Sabathia ($25MM option vests if he does not end season on DL with shoulder injury or miss 45+ games in 2016 due to shoulder injury): Sabathia’s season has taken a turn for the worst since the last time we checked in about two months ago. His results are looking more like those of disappointing recent years than the bounceback first half. But Sabathia has still shown no signs of shoulder problems, so with less than 45 days left to go on the season, it doesn’t seem there’s any way for the Yanks to get out from under this big tab.
• Kurt Suzuki ($6MM option vests with 485 plate appearances in 2016): The 32-year-old has 303 plate appearances of league-average offensive production, which bodes reasonably well for his free agent case but doesn’t set him up for another year in Minnesota by way of the vesting clause. It is all but official: Suzuki is headed to the open market.

As noted in the original update, both Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn had vesting options for the 2017 season as well, but those options were negated when each was released from the four-year contracts they initially signed with the Indians.

The August trade market is as tricky to navigate for observers as it is for teams, so we thought now would be an opportune time to re-start the MLBTR mailbag. You can submit your questions about team needs, possible trade targets, and even the offseason to come by shooting an email to mlbtrmailbag@gmail.com.

While we can’t get to all the inquiries that we receive, rest assured we read them all and do our best to answer those of greatest interest. We’ll run our responses tomorrow, and you can keep a look out on Mondays for future iterations of the mailbag.

Whether you need to refer to the current state of a team’s roster or farm system in the midst of an interesting trade rumor or want to have a look at an updated lineup projection immediately after a roster move is announced, Roster Resource has got you covered.

Now under the Trade Rumors umbrella, Roster Resource has a number of great improvements planned for the near future that will make your browsing experience even better. At this time, we offer up-to-the-minute rosters and depth charts with a ton of additional information to help give you a solid understanding of each organization.

Below, I’ve linked to depth charts for each of the 30 teams — with all of the recent trades and other transactions reflected — along with links to some other useful features to check out as the deadline draws near.

• MLB Team Info Tracker (40-man roster counts, “how acquired” breakdown, projected payroll)
• MLB Team Info Pages (Team Payroll, Service Time, etc.)
• MLB Transaction Tracker (official roster moves and future expected moves)
• MLB Injury Report (DL’d players, retroactive date, rehab assignments, injury updates)

• Arizona Diamondbacks
• Atlanta Braves
• Baltimore Orioles
• Boston Red Sox
• Chicago Cubs
• Chicago White Sox
• Cincinnati Reds
• Cleveland Indians
• Colorado Rockies
• Detroit Tigers
• Houston Astros
• Kansas City Royals
• Los Angeles Angels
• Los Angeles Dodgers
• Miami Marlins
• Milwaukee Brewers
• Minnesota Twins
• New York Mets
• New York Yankees
• Oakland Athletics
• Philadelphia Phillies
• Pittsburgh Pirates
• San Diego Padres
• San Francisco Giants
• Seattle Mariners
• St. Louis Cardinals
• Tampa Bay Rays
• Texas Rangers
• Toronto Blue Jays
• Washington Nationals

Current estimates on the 2017 qualifying offer have it priced at $16.7MM, according to ESPN.com’s Buster Olney (Twitter link). That would represent a year-over-year rise of $900K.

That’s a rather standard increase for the qualifying offer, which is determined by averaging the league’s 125 contracts with the highest mean salaries. It sat at $15.8MM for the current year, after rising from $15.3MM in 2015, $14.1MM in 2014, and $13.3MM in the inaugural year of 2013.

Teams can offer their departing free agents a one-year deal, at the established price tag, within five days of the conclusion of the World Series. Over the next seven days, players who receive the offer are allowed to talk with other teams and decide whether to take the single-season pact. If they reject it, then draft implications attach: their former team stands to gain a compensation pick in the following year’s draft, while a new signing team must give up their highest non-protected draft choice.

The real question with the qualifying offer, though isn’t so much its specific price tag as it is the underlying rules. With a new collective bargaining agreement being negotiated at present, many have suggested that it’s one of the most important issues that is — or, at least, could be — on the table for change. Even if something gets done, though, it presumably wouldn’t go into effect for the coming offseason.

It’s not yet clear whether there’s any realistic possibility of modifications to a system that has had a notable dampening effect on the market experiences of numerous mid-level free agents in recent years. Players entering the market after declining the one-year qualifying offer come with the added cost of draft compensation. That has arguably forced certain good but not great players — those who have the toughest decisions to decline the QO — to shoulder an out-of-proportion piece of the dampening effect that the system imposes on player salaries.

Notably, this last offseason was the first in which any player accepted a qualifying offer — thus taking a one-year deal (admittedly, at a nice price) rather than rolling the dice on a stalled market situation. Matt Wieters of the Orioles, Brett Anderson of the Dodgers, and Colby Rasmus of the Astros all took the deal. The fact that some players have now elected to take the big one-year payday and re-enter the market could conceivably make teams think twice about slapping the offer on marginal candidates.

For those who aren’t familiar with the qualifying offer system, you can check out this old-but-good overview and read up on why “avoiding the qualifying offer” is so important for a free agent’s value.

This is a sponsored post from Corey Dawkins of Baseball Injury Consultants.

“Clayton Kershaw had a 4.3% chance of getting injured last night when he pitched, but only a 0.7% chance of being hurt if he took the mound today instead.”

This fictitious example highlights one goal of my company, Baseball Injury Consultants, in the medical management of professional baseball players. We are trying to take the seasonal risk assessment to a daily, and then a pitch by pitch, basis among other things. We have seen pre-season risk assessments for years, but how useful is that information other than at the start of the season? Once the season begins, it doesn’t factor in any new information that comes in during that year. What if the Red Sox had a hard number to assess the risk of keeping Blake Swihart in left field on the day the wind was coming in from right field, pushing the ball closer to the cement wall on which he sprained his ankle?

We have moonshot goals because, despite great strides in the treatment of baseball injuries, the number of professional baseball injuries is only getting worse. It is not for a lack of trying or lack of talent. It just has not been put together yet. However, it is not impossible. Something has to be done because reducing injuries will, of course, make a difference in their athletic careers, but also improve the quality of life 20 years later.

We start by collecting daily injury and performance data on all professional baseball players, giving the capability to provide customized reports and for any sector, industry, company, team, individual researcher or fan. This can include baseball operations, daily fantasy baseball players, season-long fantasy baseball players, medical researchers, biomedical device manufacturers, or insurance entities to name a few.

We track as much information as we can find, from injury details to weather information to performance data, knowing that any piece of information might be the one that solves the puzzle.
Since someone checks the information before importing into the databases every morning, we fill the information void left over from automated scripts scraping news or transaction sites that don’t categorize injuries according to accepted medical terminology and/or don’t update the original listing.  For example, here’s a graph of MLB Tommy John surgeries by year.

So once we get validated information into the database and onto our website, you can find the information in ways you will not find anywhere else.  If you are a casual fan or want a snapshot of MLB, you can check out our “Quick Look” page for summary information and the records I have updated within the last seven days. In the three bar/column graphs, you can hover over individual sections to find greater detail about that particular item.

You can search and find summary team data on the “Teams” page.

You can also find search for players by name, browse by last name or find players by position on the “Players” main page.

Then once we find the player we want, we can go to the individual page for details at a level you will not find anywhere else. Similar to the “Quick Look” page, you can hover over the columns to find the exact categories and measured levels.

On the “Custom Search” page, you can find information in countless combinations.

We’re not stopping with just putting the information on the website. We have plans to create and put a model on the website that estimates how productive a player will be for daily fantasy leagues, based on an injury two or three days ago, such as a bruised hand. The website will also have an educational section for evidence-based injury analysis.

However, our biggest moonshot goal is to create individualized risk assessment models, drilling down information to the pitch by pitch level. This would give on-field managers and baseball operations something they never had before. What if they knew that a bruised bottom hand for a hitter affects his power by a certain percentage? What if the risk of throwing a slider on pitch number 103 more than quadrupled the risk not just immediately, but three weeks down the line as well?

These are the goals we are shooting for and hope to raise enough capital to do so soon. We look forward to you creating an account on Baseball Injury Consultants and checking out what we have to offer as well as improving the site.