Today's mailbag gets into the Nationals' offseason approach, the accuracy of preseason win projections, what Andrew Painter will do this year, the Royals' outfield, how small market teams can compete, the Yankees' third base situation, the Mets' rotation, and more.
Steve asks:
The Nationals have now spent over $50 million in this offseason on new acquisitions. Do you like their strategy of building depth with upside players with lower $ risk per player to keep the books clean for the coming years?
OTOH, they could have gone all in and met Bregman's rumored price of $210 million over 7 years, and had enough money for Nathaniel Lowe and Ogasawara and adding Finnegan, Lopez and Poche for their bullpen and skipped signing Sims for the bullpen and Bell for DH.
Which route do you like better?
Just to review, the Nationals added Trevor Williams, Mike Soroka, Kyle Finnegan, Josh Bell, Shinnosuke Ogasawara, Jorge Lopez, Lucas Sims, Amed Rosario, and Paul DeJong in free agency at a 2025 AAV cost of $38.75MM. They also traded for Nathaniel Lowe, who is earning $10.3MM this year.
Despite adding $49MM in total '25 AAV, the team's CBT payroll is only $138MM. The question is whether 2025 is/was the time for this team to pounce. Owner Mark Lerner doesn't think so, based on comments made to Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post. Referencing GM Mike Rizzo, here's what Lerner said to Svrluga:
“When Mike calls me in and says, ‘We really need to think about it,’ for next winter, we’ll talk about it,” Lerner said. “Right now, he doesn’t think — and I agree with him: There’s no point in getting a superstar and paying him hundreds of millions of dollars to win two or three more games. You’ve got to wait until — like Jayson. Jayson was right on the cusp of [the team] being really good, and it took us to the next level. That’s the ideal situation. It’s always on our mind.” He paused. “You could get nauseous thinking about it,” he said, laughing.
Despite the additions, FanGraphs projects the Nationals for only 73 wins this year. And even though - as I'll show later in the mailbag - teams sometimes outplay their projection by a dozen wins, that still might not be enough for a wild card.
The Nationals have three suspect lineup spots: Bell at DH, Keibert Ruiz at catcher, and Jose Tena/DeJong/Rosario at third base. Bregman alone doesn't make this team a likely contender, and he turns 31 in March. I don't think he fit as the team's Jayson Werth move. I doubt Nolan Arenado would've accepted a trade to D.C., and he doesn't sense for this team anyway.
The Nats still owe $40MM to Ruiz and have a few catching prospects in the pipeline, so I can see why they didn't do anything there. Likewise, adding a bigger bat than Bell might mean 74 or 75 wins instead of 73.
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Personally, I think the Lerners(and Mike Rizzo)have done a real nice job with the rebuild. I’m looking forward to seeing them in contention for at least a wild card spot within a year or two.
The Dodger’s have a monster television contract for years to come, along with a cash cow in Ohtani, I read somewhere the Japanese ties alone with endorsements will cover his full contract. And now with ESPN and MLB cutting ties on $1.6 billion, smaller markets are really going to have a harder time, That’s $180-$200 million loss per team. All teams are going to have to build a strong television market, Texas is currently doing this now. That extra money helps in free agency!
the dodgers are committed to over 1 billion$ in deferred contracts 2028-2046
thats a whole lotta dodger-themed ramen noodle bowls they’re gonna have to sell in tokyo
“Monster television contract”…The Dodgers have written the book on how to return a flagship franchise back to it’s former glory and then some.
A lot of people seem to have forgotten the Dodgers were a middling franchise rife with strife, divorce settlements, infighting and uncertainty just a little over a dozen years ago.
And now, the Guggenheim Group has brought the Dodgers to heretofore unknown heights and then some. All in the space of approximately 13 years.
Dodgers don’t have a TV contract. What they have is their own TV STATION. Not only do they make money in advertising they don’t have to pay for TV rights. So there’s that.
“A lot of people seem to have forgotten the Dodgers were a middling franchise rife with strife, divorce settlements, infighting and uncertainty just a little over a dozen years ago.”
The good old days.
Call me uniformed or whatever but I thought the WHOLE purpose of the Revenue Sharing bit in baseball was for the Have Nots to SPEND that money on player acquisition? The fact that none of them do and quickly shove that money down their pants is proof that until MLB MAKES them do it, The guys like Nutting, Castellini and Fisher will keep taking it while crying poor is ridiculous. Making a guy like Fisher buy a couple of FA’s 1 year out of ten isn’t really a formula for the program being a success. Every penny they get in revenue sharing should be used on player salaries or the formula is already broken. So fix it.
couldnt agree more. many owners treat their teams like a business, and as long as they get $ from revenue sharing they dont give a crap about spending and building successful tms. meanwhile cohen spends like crazy bc he loves his organization + the fans, and his reward is being penalized for it and getting taxed like crazy + losing draft picks.
manfred is to blame for all this. he is in charge. all he does is get down on his knees and kiss the rings of the owners. he’ll be gone in 2029. but someone else will replace him and kiss the rings as well. until a commish comes in and really brings common sense to the league, everything will remain the same unfortunately
@chandler…Your first paragraph had good points. But in your 2nd, you seem to be neglecting the fact that commissioners work for the owners. The last commissioner to side with fans/athletes was terminated.
Will that ever change? Maybe if more teams had public ownership? Of course, it’s not nearly that simple.
Human greed will prevent this from occurring. But a salary floor (NOT simply the league minimum x26) where if an owner does not exceed the ( increasing gradually with inflation/CPI ) salary floor, the owner is penalized with a portion of his ownership shares going under control of a special master.
Fans of a team could then buy shares of a team like the Pirates while the shares are under the special master.
The owner could get these shares back with greater investments into their team-of the wealthy robber baron invests BEFORE fans purchase shares.
This would never happen in the US, as our American society is many decades removed from when utilitarian principles were embraced by a a majority of Americans.
We Americans seem to have deluded ourselves in believing billionaires have our best interest at heart.
Given Painter’s talent, I would predict an ERA under 3 and at least 2 playoff wins.
Spicy take that Bregman, better than Werth, with more championships under his belt than Werth and younger now than Werth was when he became a Nat, can’t contribute to the team what Werth did.
Bergman’s asking price was $25M over Werth’s after inflation. Easily worth the premium, scandal or no.
Let’s get a Brett Baty trade to the Yankees for Marcus Stroman and Jorbit Vivas chat going!