With Spring Training just around the corner here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day today:
1. Astros, Altuve to hold press conference:
As noted by USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, the Astros have scheduled a press conference for this afternoon in Houston where star second baseman Jose Altuve and team leadership will be available to discuss Altuve’s five-year extension. An eight-time All Star with three batting titles, six Silver Slugger awards, a Gold Glove award, and the 2017 AL MVP award, Altuve owns a career .307/.364/.471 slash line in 13 seasons in Houston since he made his MLB debut back in 2011. The deal keeps Altuve in an Astros uniform through his age-39 season.
2. Guerrero arbitration result:
Eleven arbitration cases have yet to reach a conclusion, and among the most high-profile of the remaining cases could be nearing a decision. The Associated Press has reported that first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Blue Jays went to a hearing yesterday. Guerrero filed at $19.9MM while Toronto countered at $18.05MM. Both those figures come in below MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz’s projection of $20.4MM, which would be a result of the 24-year-old slugger’s “down” season at the plate last year (by his lofty standards, anyhow). In 682 trips to the plate, Guerrero slashed .264/.345/.444 with 30 doubles and 26 home runs. While that’s certainly strong production, it left something to be desired after the youngster crushed the ball to the tune of a .292/.370/.539 slash line over the previous two seasons.
Yesterday saw five players sweep arbitration decisions, as right-handers Jacob Webb and Phil Bickford, outfielders Austin Hays and Taylor Ward, and utility player Mauricio Dubon all won their cases against their clubs, putting players ahead of teams 5-2 in this year’s slate of arbitration hearings.
3. Players to exit DFA Limbo:
When players are designated for assignment, they can remain in transactional limbo for up to a week while their team looks to trade them or attempts to pass them through waivers. For right-hander Declan Cronin of the Astros, outfielder Canaan Smith-Njigba of the Pirates, and right-hander Zack Weiss of the Red Sox, that one-week period expires today, meaning resolutions to each player’s DFA should be announced today. All three of the aforementioned players are unable to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency, meaning their club’s can retain them as non-roster depth entering the season if they pass through waivers successfully.
Cronin, 26, posted a 9.00 ERA across 11 appearances during his first season as a big leaguer last year, though he enjoyed more success at Triple-A with a 3.88 ERA in 51 2/3 innings of work. Smith-Njigba, 25 in April, came to the Pirates as part of the return in the Jameson Taillon trade and owns a .273/.366/.469 slash line at the Triple-A level, though he’s struggled badly in his first 44 trips to the plate in the majors. Weiss, 31, made his big league debut back in 2018 but had a disastrous outing for the Reds where he surrendered four runs on two walks and two homers while failing to record an out. That first cup of coffee was the only taste of major league action Weiss would get until his age-30 season four years later, when he reemerged as a member of the Angels. Since then, he’s pitched to a 3.29 ERA with a 5.27 FIP in 27 1/3 innings of work.
When you look at MLB Trade Rumors contributor’s Matt Swartz’s projections, Guerrero should win this case. I really enjoy Matt’s work projecting these arbitration cases. Very interesting reads.
Toronto offered too much. Vladdy is looking at being DFA’d this winter if he continues on his downward trajectory. Looking downward has become increasingly difficult for Vladdy as his ever expanding torso and thighs block his vision and will before long lead to him toppling over.
Vladdy Tipping could replace cow tipping.
While I strongly advocate for everyone to be in better shape, there is no need to be hostile about it.
How about Vlad’s atrocious baserunning? Is that fair game?
It’s highly unlikely he’d be DFA’d. The result of arbitration is a binding one-year contract at the major league level. If he’s DFA’d, Toronto is still on the hook for that contract. If other teams have the same concerns, he likely won’t be claimed. I’d have to check his service time, but, if he’s past five years, he can reject his outright assignment while still holding onto that contract. He could pick the best situation for himself where his new team would only pay him the league minimum while Toronto would be on the hook for the rest.
He won’t be DFA. Second he looks like he’s gotten in better shape recently. I think he has been training in Florida at the Jays Florida complex, which makes sense since it is a state of the art complex with many resources for players to improve their game.
Personally, I would not pay Guerrero $19.9 million. However, he probably gets it due to the sheer size of the first two increases.
$20MM for a 25 y.o. healthy slugger with his ceiling is an easy call.
When did morbid obesity become “Healthy”?
Trump says he’s healthy so it must be true
You could have stopped after “sheer size.”
@notagain27
Not sure he’s wroth $19M. Last year, he posted a 1 WAR on Fangraphs and a 2 WAR on BR. Given that 1 WAR was worth $8M in 2023, I’d say fair value would be somewhere around $8M – 16M. And he really shouldn’t be playing the field. It would make more sense for him to DH and find someone else to play 1B.
His gold glove is blocking his ears
Last year he was one of the worst defensive 1b’s in the league. He is capable of being very good but his overall performance across the board last year was awful.
-0.7 dWAR in 2022 means you should get a Gold Glove? That’s sad…
Vladdy on track to DH for the Samsung Lions.
It has nothing to do with “worth”. Like if he put up -2WAR last year he would still get $18M in arb.
Teoscar Hernandez was worth a similar bWAR and he got 1/23.5m as a FA. That was fresh off a career worst 208k season.
With what Vlad has done in the bigs he is absolutely worth 1/19.9m as hitting .300 with 40 HR’s could easily be in the cards.
Heck, Rhys Hoskins who is 5 or 6 years older and has never had a season like Vlad has and didn’t even play last year got a two year deal and 16m/yr.
These guys are actually usually pretty close on their figure/contract projections.
Vlad has 1 really good outlier season out of 5 so far in the majors. He has been much closer to the 788 ops player he was last season than the 1.000 ops player he was in that outlier season that has raised his career ops mark. So no, it wasn’t a down season it was another consistently average season
Vlad has 1 really good outlier season out of 5 so far in the majors.
===========================
Not really. The writers generally don’t realize this, but a lot of Vlad’s 2021 success was related to Sahlen (1.180 OPS) and TD Park (1.418). Without maybe 29% of his PAs being in minor league parks, I’m not sure if his OPS would be much more than maybe .900.
He’s a good player, but certainly no Soto.
He had a 791 ops in 2020 when they played the entire 60 game season at Sahlen field. Whatever the reason for his 1 good season, it doesn’t change the fact it was an outlier and remains his only good season so far
Vlad was also playing hefty in 2020.
False association with his success. In order for that to be a viable explanation, the rest of the team should’ve been raking at a significantly heightened level, as well. But if you remove Vlad’s production from the team’s totals during their time in the minor league parks, the team numbers pretty much fall in line with the rest of the season in Toronto.
It’s not like Vladdy’s home runs in Dunedin were barely scraping the top of the fence to boost his power production. He was on a roll, and that happened to come during the early-mid portion of the season.
Do you know who was even hotter at the plate during that time, and then cooled off even more dramatically in the second half? Shohei Ohtani. Was that due to the park he was hitting in? Or perhaps other factors?
I’d also look at the pitching stats. While their Rogers OPS was .644, their OPS at Sahlen and TD were .746 and .772. And a total of 1 HR per 29.66 ABs at Rogers compared to 21.43 and 22.76.
I’m okay with the causation/correlation argument, but I’d be surprised if this was a significant boost to Vlad’s numbers.
The Sahlen and Dunedin park factors aren’t outrageous though. Neither stadium has “minor league” dimensions with extremely close or short walls. Accordingly, Guerrero’s batted ball data indicates that his numbers would have been similar in most other MLB stadiums. So although you can argue Guerrero’s 2021 is an outlier, I would counterargue that his statistics during that season aren’t artificially inflated to a significant extent as a result of where he was playing games.
I don’t think the ballparks in ’21 were overly responsible for that season. His xwOBA that year was .417 which is right in line with his actual .419.
He’s no Soto. But in ’21 he acted more like it. His success is tied to the plate discipline. I wonder how much lineup construction matters with him. Without the power surrounding him in the lineup this year, he was the most aggressive he’s ever been with a 50% swing rate including poor chase rates. He certainly seemed to be trying to do too much. And I don’t really blame him. The whole team was chasing results last year and it went from a loose clubhouse/dugout to a really uptight one really quick. I know the analytics community will say that lineup construction doesn’t have much impact on success of the team, but I think there are human factors that affect players and their performance.
If anyone doubts Vlad’s talents, they are foolish. He needs to refine some of the skills and approaches to tap into the talent more. Letting the game come to him it in the way Soto does rather than chasing results would go a long way towards unlocking his ceiling. We saw that in ’21.
Big mistake by Houston! Slipping, saw it last year!
Slipping? They were a few great catches away by a rookie LF from being in the WS again. No Dusty to cost games anymore, either. I think the run will eventually go away, but they are still the best in the division and top 3 in the AL.
I don’t think Dice was saying Houston was slipping but rather Altuve himself. His offense was still good but his defense has slipped (-15 and -13 DRS the last two years)
He only had a 2.8 Bwar last year, the lowest in a full season since 2013
~3 bWAR in 90 games is still really good. That’s about 4.5 in 140-150 games.
Ah that makes sense. It was barely half a season, though. And the playoffs he turns into a different animal. His defense I don’t think has really ever been great, though.
5 years thou? That’s got front office written all over it.
I agree. His defense and his health has be declining. 2021 and 2022 he played in 140+ games but 2019, 2021 and 2023 he was 124, 48 and 90 games respectively.
If he can still hit, he could be a valuable DH at the end but his days at 2B are closer to the end if he continues the decline.
Can you really call his 48 games “not healthy” when it was the COVID season? That’s still 80% of games played, which is about 130 in a regular 162 game season.
A better payroll outlay for Toronto would have been:
-Nontendering Vlad Jr.
-Not paying IKF $15 mil
As a fan, if the Utility IF gets $15 mil, then there’s enough money for Snell or Montgomery. No excuses
Vlad simply isn’t bad enough to be non-tendered. He may not fully perform to the level the fans/team wants, but last year he put up a 117 OPS+. He should be better than that, but you don’t cut a guy who’s down year is 17 percent better than average.
I’d def tender Vlad. He’ll get back on track and still had a high OBP and 26 jacks. I think they expect him to hit 50 with the start he got off to, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he did.
Vladdy Flat out Does Not Hussle, he’s lazy. Brutal on the basepaths too….Not Worth what is about to be paid to him…..!
He’ll put up better numbers, IMHO. He’s def worth 20 mil in that particular economy…..and it’s year by year. Not some extention that’s going through the roof with deferrals/payraises.
Cotton pickin dirty cheating Ashtray.
How does an ashtray pick cotton?
Vlady is 24. He could still rebound and it could be a maturity issue. Lets see what he looks like coming into and out of spring training. If he is letting his body go and the numbers don’t improve he is more likely a trade candidate than a DFA. I can see a team taking a shot on him since he is still young and hope a change of scenery gets him back on track.
Spring a week away and several teams need pitching. Don’t understand ? Slowest in years that I have seen.
Whenever I see Altuve, I think about Pedroia.
What might have been 5 more years for Dustin?
Dang.
Vladdy shouldn’t be running the bases either…did you see him get picked off in the playoffs and he was languishing and flailing in the dirt there like a sea lion stuffed full of salmon?
Anyone who’s said non-tender Vlad needs to stop. The Jays need him. They need him to be focused and playing smart baseball in 2024. Vlad is also playing for a big contract the next two years.
Whether Vlad wins the arbitration case or not they still need another bat.
2021 Vlad Jr hit 12 of 48 hrs against the 110 loss Orioles. 2023 ZERO of his 26 against the 101 win Orioles.