Feb. 1: Despite Stewart’s comments, Carter “made it clear” to Jim Bowden of ESPN and MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM that he wants to play in Major League Baseball as opposed to signing a contract overseas (Twitter link).
Jan. 31, 10:48pm: Topkin writes that Stewart told him as recently as tonight that nothing was close between Carter and the Rays. As Topkin explains, Tampa Bay is taking its time in evaluating multiple right-handed bats for a spot on their roster.
6:08pm: It’s been a slow-moving market for slugger Chris Carter this winter, and agent Dave Stewart (the former Diamondbacks GM who has resumed control of his agency since being replaced in Arizona) tells Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports that signing in Japan is a possibility. “I think at some point we have to make it a serious consideration,” said Stewart, who also tells Rosenthal that Carter received interest from Japanese clubs last winter before signing with the Brewers.
Carter hit .222/.321/.499 and tied Nolan Arenado for the National League lead with 41 home runs in 2016, but Milwaukee elected not to tender him a contract for the 2017 season. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz had projected an $8.1MM salary for Carter, and Carter’s glut of strikeouts (an NL-high 206) and lack of defensive value led the Brewers to consider a raise of that nature too steep.
The rest of the league, it seems, has generally agreed with the Brewers’ assessment, as there’s hardly been a robust market for his services. That this offseason’s free-agent market was teeming with defensively limited sluggers certainly couldn’t have helped Carter’s case, but it’s nonetheless a bit surprising that his camp is giving consideration to signing overseas.
Rosenthal cites Stewart and other league sources as stating that the Rays offer the best opportunity for Carter at this point. Stewart tells Rosenthal he’s spoken with Tampa Bay enough to “know what they’re thinking” but adds that talks haven’t advanced just yet. That gels with a recent tweet from Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times, who reported that while the Rays are considering many options, nothing is close with Carter or with fellow right-handed slugger Mike Napoli.
Rosenthal writes that the Rangers, another potential fit, are seemingly more focused on Napoli and have told Stewart that they may rotate younger players at first base (which would be a poor outcome for both Carter and Napoli). Perhaps the Rangers would take a more serious look at Carter in the event that Napoli signed elsewhere, but Napoli has seemingly struggled to find a multi-year deal all winter, and most teams have filled their first base and designated hitter voids already.
The Yankees, for instance, signed Matt Holliday to a one-year deal at the start of the Winter Meetings, while the Astros signed Carlos Beltran to a similar pact and also acquired Brian McCann from New York (pushing Evan Gattis further into the DH mix). Boston filled its first base/DH void by inking Mitch Moreland to a one-year deal (he’ll pair with Hanley Ramirez), while the Rockies went outside the box and signed Ian Desmond to be their regular first baseman. The Blue Jays, meanwhile, quickly grabbed Kendrys Morales to replace Edwin Encarnacion, only to see Encarnacion’s market stagnate to the extent that the Indians were able to land him on a three-year, $60MM deal.
More recently, the Royals agreed to a two-year deal with Brandon Moss, removing yet another on-paper fit. And the Orioles, a once-popular prediction as Carter’s ultimate landing spot, re-signed Mark Trumbo and acquired Seth Smith, thus making it hard to see Carter fitting into the picture.
And yet despite all that movement, Carter and Napoli are hardly alone as first baseman/designated hitters remaining in free agency. Pedro Alvarez, Logan Morrison, Adam Lind, Mark Reynolds, Billy Butler, Justin Morneau and Ryan Howard are all still on the market and hoping to find jobs for the 2017 season, giving the few teams with interest in that type of player a good bit of leverage in negotiations with agents.
Looking around the league, the White Sox could still theoretically fit Carter as a designated hitter, while the Mariners could weigh the merits of signing him as an upgrade over the unproven Dan Vogelbach. The Marlins still don’t have a right-handed complement to Justin Bour at first base, though they’re said to be at their payroll capacity. The A’s, conceivably, could push Yonder Alonso to the bench and pair Carter with Ryon Healy at first base/DH, but there hasn’t been any serious talk of a reunion there. Those four teams, however, are mere speculation on my own behalf. Given the saturated market for sluggers and the fact that no team was willing to trade for Carter when his salary was projected to be in the $8MM range, it does seem possible that the best financial offer he’ll receive this winter could come from an overseas club.
just tryin to drive up the price
Chris Carter is trying to drive up the price?
Are you crazy?
He’ll be lucky to get a 1 year deal with an option at this point.
More of trying to hurry a team to offer a contract than to drive up the price.
From what I have seen and heard out of Dave Stewart he would never represent me on a multi million dollar transaction.
Well Matt Kemp loves him.
And Matt Kemp is a clown
but matt kemp plays in a real baseball town
A clown with a $160 million contract.
Mitch Moreland isn’t really any better than Carter though, he’s also bad defensively, makes no sense how he got a deal and Carter can’t.
Oh wait, one has Dave Stewart in his corner, one does not.
Mitch Moreland is coming off a gold glove season. Vastly superior to Carter as a defender
Gold Glove awards do not have anything to do with actual defense. Moreland has always graded out as a poor defender by the nature of 1B defense WAR.
As for the comp
Moreland has 4.2 fWAR in 773 G
Carter has 3.4 fWAR in 668 G
That’s a negligible difference, its not like one is an actually good player and one isn’t, they both do a couple things ok and are basically 1 fWAR players.
you might want to check that again, he rated as the best qualifying defensive 1b last year by uzr/150 and Def. fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=1b&stats=fld&#…
Seriously? Carter’s +WAR is strictly due to his offensive production. You do know that WAR combines both offense and defense….don’t you?
More often than not the players who win gold glove awards are fantastic defenders. Granted, hitting well never hurts their cause either.
Lol tell that to Eric hosmer and nick markakis
Rays light hitting center fielder says hello.
Wasn’t Kiermaier up high in the WAR rankings a few seasons ago?
He was banged up a little in 2016, but you are referring to 2015 when his defense got a full season to rack up the WAR.
Mitch Mooreland won a gold glove based on name recognition!
Kiermaier is not “light hitting”.
Being the best of a group of bad defenders who play the least valuable defensive position means very little. Home Runs mean more.
“More often than not the players who win gold glove awards are fantastic defenders.”
That is a false statement, Derek Jeter has multiple gold gloves and sucked at SS.
You – “Mitch Moreland isn’t really any better than Carter though, he’s also bad defensively”.
It doesn’t matter that 1b is the least valuable defensive position, what you said is incorrect. He is a good defender at 1b. You can say that his defense is less important/valuable, but saying he is bad defensively is just stupid.
Mitch Moreland has “name recognition”?
“More often than not the players who win gold glove awards are fantastic defenders.”
True statement. Do you really think that more often than not the players who win gold gloves are not fantastic defenders? I agree that Derek Jeter is not a good defender. He won 5 Gold Gloves between 2004 and 2010. There were 126 Gold Gloves given out in that span. I challenge you to find 59 more Gold Glove winners in that period who were not fantastic in the field.
Are you saying Moreland is a bad defensive player?
He won a gold glove and Beltre credited Moreland with him getting his this year
They’re opposites actually. Moreland is one of the best defenders at the position in baseball but doesn’t hit much. Carter is one of the worst defenders in baseball at any position, but OPS’s in the 800’s.
Hyperbole all over this in every which way. Morelands an ok defender but WAR hates 1B so its not graded with a lot of importance, AND he’s a pretty good hitter at times, he’s good for 20 bombs and a .300 OBP, which isn’t what you want from a cleanup hitter, but fine for a #8 guy.
They are both 1 WAR players who play DH/1B. One plays better defense and one hits a ton of homers. Doesn’t matter, you’re going to probably get a 0.8 WAR season from either of them in 2017, and that was my point.
Moreland is solid at first and he has a canon but limited range horizontally and verticality.
I don’t think he’s gold glove worthy but to say he is bad is being obnoxious
I’m a Ranger fan who watches the majority of their games. I’ve never been a big fan of Moreland as he was frustrating at times. But to say he is a poor defender is crazy. He seemingly does the splits every series to stop a poorly thrown ball. He digs hard hit balls out of the ground as good as almost any 1B in baseball. He will frustrate the Red Sox fans with his offensive slumps, but he is a solid defender.
First base defense is not that important in general, offense is more important from that position.
He’s a poor defender in that all 1B defenders are poor defenders, that is why they play 1B.
Again, any team that gets Carter or Moreland is pretty much going to get very similar if not the exact same value – this was my point from the start.
It’s not obnoxious to say 1B has the least defensive value, and pretty much everyone who plays there is a bad defender, that is WHY they play there in the first place.
It’s not obnoxious to say all 1B are bad defenders, is just plain stupid.
Yeah, just ask Bill Buckner.
Way different players. Not even close.
They are both 1 WAR players. Fact.
Yes, they are both 1war players, but because of completely opposite reasons. One plays defense and does a little hitting, and the other hit a lot of singers and sucks with the glove. Not sure why you keep trying to argue. Not on person has said they aren’t 1war players they’re saying Moreland is a good defender.
WAR is not everything. They add different things to a team. Moreland only got 5.5 million and that was probably a overpay but they were valuing defense since there was no way to replace Ortiz. The fact that WAR undervalues defense shows that Moreland is better all around player. Morelands BA is over 30 points higher, Carter does nothing but hit homeruns. Tons of power out there this year, and Moreland has about 40 less home runs then Carter but better at pretty much every other aspect. Carter also hit under 200 a couple times. Moreland only got 5.5 million and the value of power looks to be down. In Japan he can get what, 3-5 million? He was non tendered at about 8. He is probably hoping a team will give him 6-7 with some incentives.
Better in every other aspect? Without looking deeply, last year carter had a better obp and wOBA. Career wRC+ Carter 112 Moreland 98, last year specifically was 112/87. Carter is a better offensive player than Moreland, overall. Attempting to claim he’s not doesn’t work.
As overall players it could be argued that they are relatively similar, but there no real argument to be made that moreland is anything other than worse than carter offensively.
And I think this is the first time I have ever heard this argument – “The fact that WAR undervalues defense”
Ok, maybe I’m a little old, but why not look at standard baseball stats instead of all this sabermetric stuff? Carter committed 11 errors at 1st base. That’s 2nd most of any 1st baseman in the majors. Moreland committed 2. Tied for the fewest. They both hit about .230 and Carter had almost twice as many HRs. So, do you want the guy who can actually play 1st base, or do you want a DH. That tells you which one better suits your needs.
Well that does work in this instance, in general, those stats don’t do a great job of telling you who is better.. For instance Jeter didn’t commit many errors, but his range was so terrible that he was a negative ss. And BA and HRs don’t give you a full offensive profile of a player, but it does do a good enough job of summing it up here.
So to answer your question, the reason not to do it is because often they don’t give a clear or detailed idea of what or how much better one player is better at.
Yes^^^^ I love it. Keep spreading the knowledge and hopefully someday my dream will be a reality: a world where we don’t evaluate hitters on batting avg/RBI
Because errors are a lousy way to determine defensive ability. A statue won’t make many errors but a guy who gets to a lot more balls will make more. Quick, name the all-time single-season record holder for fewest errors/highest fielding % at third base. You’d think it was , what, Brooks Robinson or maybe Manny Machado? Nope. It’s noted poor defender Kevin Kouzmanoff.
In this instance carter is the much worse defender, but it’s not because of errors.
I meant to say WAR undervalues defense at the first base position, which It does. Power is going down in value. Look at Carters K numbers and BA. He does not fit into most contenders offenses. I did not mean to say Moreland is a better hitter, just a player I think the league values at about the same as Carter even though Carter hits tons of bombs.
I can’t believe there is an argument over who is better between these two. It is like an argument about which vegetable is better.
It depends on what he could be looking at for them, but for a guy who hasn’t made a ton of money (relative to mlb players) this does make some sense
Dave Stewart seems to be bad at everything about baseball except pitching.
He was pretty handy in baseball brawls alsi if remember correctly.. Someone (forget who) charge the mound and tried to kick him and he flattened them.. Like laid them flat out on the infield with a right hand several decades back. The guy (Stewert) was some kind of high degree belt judo expert, which made it funnier.
He won’t go to Japan. He’ll settle for some discounted offer from Tampa.
If the Mets could just move Bruce, Grandy, or both, the Rox could trade Blackmon to Mets (for a haul that would make me cringe as a Mets fan), then move Desmond to CF (he’s wasted at 1st), & sign one of these guys for a song.
Boatload of good prospects/young SPs, plus a “good enough” 1B. Seems like an upgrade overall (obviously not saying any available 1B is an upgrade over Blackmon – obvious downgrade, but good deal for Rox considering P upgrade & other prospects).
Of course, it starts with if, if, if….
A .261/.305/.422 line outside of Coors probably isn’t going to bring back a “haul” back for the Rockies. He looked better on the road in 2016, but his BABIP was high (.348 in 2016 vs .297 career).
I’m sure some AL team will give him $3-5 million on a one year deal. I know he has zero value except power, but his power is definitely worth something. My guess is that the Rays eventually pick him up, and even if they slot him into the 7 or 8 slot, he is going to win them a few games with one swing of the bat.
This guy would hit 80 HRs in Korea.
Rays need to sign him and Morrison, then trade Erasmo for a right handed outfielder.
Hard to ignore a 320 OBP with 41 HRs, if you’re gonna K that much you gotta have a few more walks. His GDP is going up as well. Might be better off in Asia.
Wladimir Balentien is hoping Carter stays in MLB so his HR record remains intact lol
He very well could crush it in Japan, but some guys come over here and they have a hard time with all the breaking balls. If he doesn’t sign with the Rays I’d like to see him on the Swallows.
Teams have just had enough with Carter striking out more than 200 times pretty much every year. I think he will get a 1 year deal around 4M$ on a team with a hitter friendly park
As long as this guy’s putting up 800+ OPS years, they shouldn’t be overly concerned about the strikeouts. With his high walk and strikeout totals, at least he likes to work the count, and you can’t argue with 40 bombs. His defense probably gives more teams pause than his strikeout totals.
Yeah, he should just DH and be used at 1st in rare situations. But any team needing a DH should grab him. It seems like 5-6 million could get it done since Japan does not pay more than that.
This guy could hit 60 home runs a year in Japan, sheesh.
If he could work on his plate discipline he could come back and land somewhere good
Lots of power but needs to not swing as often
He actually has a lot of plate discipline. He draws lots of walks. He just has an approach that puts him in pitchers counts way too often. There used to be a guy like this named Randy Milligan. He just waited and waited for his pitch. He walked a lot, struck out a lot and hit homers. Not at Carter levels but it was a less power-friendly era. It’s not that he swings too much. It’s that he swings too often at bad pitches because he’s behind in the count.
Actually my memory was a bit off on Milligan. He walked a lot but didn’t strike out much and didn’t hit for much power at all. I may have mixed him up with another player; I only remember watching him at the plate and rarely ever swinging at anything.
Realistically Carter is looking best case scenario at 1/6 with incentives so why not just go to Korea for a couple years. Make 2/20 and be a god. Pile up the stats and come back in a couple years and secure a three year deal to finish out the career.
No team, in either Korea or Japan, would pay Carter (or any player) $10MM per season.
Whoa what a shock to learn that lol. I guess I never paid attention to what they earn but you are right, it’s not even close. I thought Japan ballplayers did well but it looks like while they do better than Korea, but they both pale in comparison to here. My bad
I was very happy with Carter defensively last year. The homeruns and RBIs were great and if he can keep his batting average over to 220 is on-base percentage tends to be pretty good. I’d love to have him back if we can get him as a discount
This fine young man can’t find a job in the American League as a DH! Such a pity.
I would like to see Carter in the AL East with the Rays. Plus he can dh so he doesnt mess up the rays small ball in good defense. Seems to me it could be a place where stadiums kind of favor the Carters power bat. Just imagine him hitting bombs over the green monster. Stay in the MLB and work on defense. Al he needs to be is a average defender at 1st base.
If the NL adopted the DH rule this wouldn’t be a problem.
So why exactly did Trumbo do so much better than Carter on the free agent market this offseason? What does he do that Carter doesn’t? They both hit over 40 home runs, strike out a ton and don’t offer much in terms of defense. Carter strikes out more but also has a better walk rate.
123 wRC+ to a 112
fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&…
$40 million more earnings over 12 runs created per season? Steep.
Yeah, a bit of an overpay by the orioles. Just don’t mention it on Facebook or all the plebs who love BA and homeruns will eat you alive
That’s not how wRC+ works. That means that. Carter was 12% better offensively than average. Trumbo was 23% better than average.
Ahh ok. I believe 12 runs created would be using Bill James’ original (RC) statistic.
Honestly, if the Orioles are using Trumbo strictly as a DH, I would prefer Carter on a 1-year deal while collecting a draft pick for Trumbo signing somewhere else.
Hey, guys/gals, listen up here! Don’t you all even get it? The real story here, you might ask? That’s right, this opens the door not only to a Mr. Baseball sequel, but perhaps a Mr. Baseball reality show, starring Chris Carter, hosted by Tom Seleck!
Anyone who stays with Dave Stewart’s agency after this off-season deserves to end up out of the league. Everything this guy touches turns into a train wreck.
lol! Boras is the biggest train wreck in the league. Stewart is doing his job and trying to get the best possible deal for his client. But you are an expert and can give a great contract for your clients hahahaha
Boras is a train wreck? He’s the best in the business. Boras routinely gets his clients the best possible deal and if no deal suits them, they settle for a 1 year deal to play for a raise. More often than not everything has worked out for Boras clients. Stewart on the other hand has run his mouth multiple times about non-existent conversations or threats to move overseas only to have his own clients come in and deny his statements. He may be TRYING to get his guys the best deal, but he seems to be failing miserably at it. There is a reason why Boras has the big named guys and Stewart gets the left-overs. Can’t try to strong-arm front offices when all you’re peddling is Chris Carter.
Lemme guess, Stewart stopped making calls after speaking with the Braves.
Seattle should just sign him to platoon with Vogelbach and have Valencia be the utility guy instead of O’Malley. And if Vogelbach can’t hit you can have either Carter or Valencia be the full time guy.
Two more weeks before spring training. Where will Chris Carter end up? Maybe he’ll sign to be a replacement for someone sustaining a season ending injury…
Understand the Hiroshima Carp are working hard to bring Carter, Pedro Alvarez and Tim Lincecum to town. Carp fans are giddy. It’ll be like slow pitch softball with a harder ball.
Here has to be a Dansby Swanson joke here somewhere.
This gives me sads.
Matt Holliday and Jose Bautista worst signings behind Ian Desmond.
Leave it to Stewart to not know exactly what’s going on.