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.
Rebuilds are tough for any team. Unless you are willing to buy yourself out of it like the Phillies did after the 2019 season, you do what the Nats did in their rebuild from 2006 to 2010 and build up from the farm system because that is how you can stay viable as winners for a long time.
But at some point when you go that route, your farm system can’t fill all the holes and you do have to spend or make key trades. The Nats did that with Werth, Gio, Scherzer, Trea, Eaton, Doolittle and others through free agency and trades.
The other thing the Nats did was they did extend Ryan Zimmerman and Stephen Strasburg on two additional contracts (the 2nd one after he opted out was a disaster).
So the Nats have a better core and farm than they had 15 years ago. Now they have to follow a similar blueprint. I thought they should have gone for Bregman but Tim DIerkes makes some good points.
The next 12 months will be very telling.
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
People talk about deferred money as if it’s some looming horror of a bill that will come due and doom the team until they get out from under.
That’s not the case, at all.
Guggenheim Baseball Management in accordance with the MLBPA puts aside a percentage of deferred salaries. They’re effectively paying those salaries, but by paying that money into interest-bearing instruments which will eventually be paid to players.
See how it works?
This isn’t anything like debt piling up that the Dodgers will have to pay out of future revenues. It’s salary that they’re paying NOW, and every year until the contract stipulates the player gets paid, by putting those salaries into escrow.
It’s essentially a loan the Dodgers are making to themselves, and since Guggenheim Baseball Management is made up of money managers who are already rich and like most extremely wealthy money managers cheat the system and pay comparatively small fines if caught, they’re excellent bets to bring themselves annual returns that beat what MLB sets as “net present value” ie the value of deferred money and what the club ultimately owes players.
@chandlerbing first, I love the image of the Dodger ramen bowls, made me literally lol so thank you.
Second though, those deferred dollars are put into escrow. Guggenheim group is great at one very big thing: investing. As long as the stock market doesn’t crash, they’ll have the funds.
JackStrawb
People talk about deferred money as if it’s some looming horror of a bill that will come due and doom the team
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Liken this to a mortgage. If you borrow $500k for a $600k house, and pay it off over 30 years, that $500k will cost you $1,079,190.95.
But the monthly bill you receive of $2,997.75 will look like a pittance 30 years from now.
Hey fans, don’t miss the Giants coming to town on Dodgers blue Maruchan ramen bowl night. The first 10,000 fans will receive the official Dodgers logo ramen bowl. Collect them trade them with friends. Fans be there!!!!!!!
“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.
The Jays have their own TV station too. It stinks just like the team
“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.
mlb fan
What I meant by Monster contract was, Enormous for years to come, They built something great that’s paying off.I only hope our Rangers are following the Dodgers pattern of building the system the same way. I think they are in the 1st leg of it currently.
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.
billionaires have our best interest at heart.
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Unless you know someone personally, then they probably don’t have your best interests at heart. People like to make money, and they like to keep it.
@JoeBrady You’re agreeing with Joe says but not correctly quoting his comment.
That is a bit odd….maybe a Joe rivalry
Hate to break it you you, but even hundredaires and thousandairs don’t have your best interests at heart. Not sure why billionaires get this special entitlement of their caring but you do you if life long disappointment is your thing.
You’re not delivering earth shattering nees to me. I don’t think any of our leaders are working in our best interest but there’s a sizable group of people that believe one particular billionaire and his african billionaire buddy do.
I think the term you are looking for is “African-American”, not ‘African’.
Past that, America has to run like a business. I’m a fiscal conservative/social moderate. But if you want to have funds available for housing, for transportation, for green initiatives, then you need to reduce that $36T deficit.
And FWIW, I believe in both higher taxes and lower spending.
Joe I’m more moderate on all accounts and I definitely agree we need to do better with with the deficit and more government efficiency. I have no confidence in the clowns working on it right now as I will never be convinced that billionaires give a rats butt about the working class.
“Not sure why billionaires get this special entitlement of their caring”
Because of the massive influence they have over everyone. Hundredaires and almost all millionaires individually have almost zero influence on anyone or anything in our society. Billionaires: A) in a theoretical sense don’t need to keep collecting money, and B) the normal attitude of only caring about yourself can, for billionaires, have huge negative implications for the rest of society, especially if they use their resources to ruthlessly acquire more money. They’re put in a ‘special entitlement of their caring’ because them not caring can actually hurt millions of people that they don’t know personally. It’s difficult for non-billionaires to have that kind of influence.
@JoeBrady: spot on. It’s too bad fiscal conservativism doesn’t seem to be a tenet of either party at the moment. Probably hasn’t been since the 90s.
As opposed to who exactly who has ever worked on it in the past? Anyone? Ever?
They may screw it all up but something has to be tried. The current state in unsustainable. Too many people dependent. The outcry over all of it is proof enough
@paddyyo I don’t know how you came up with your username but it has me howling!!! Good one!!
The CBA is a joke in how it defines revenue and the whole revenue sharing for teams is laughable.
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.
The Werth deal was horrible. He was good for 2 years, really bad for 5, at 7/122m when that was real money and wins were around 5m in FA.
Werth gave the Nats 9.0 bWAR in 7 seasons. Awful.
He was bad in the postseason, too, only excelling the year the Nats lost to LAD , 3-2 in the NLDS. No surprise that they only won the World Series after his contract had expired.
I see we agree that Bregman would be better.
Let’s get a Brett Baty trade to the Yankees for Marcus Stroman and Jorbit Vivas chat going!
I don’t think the Mets are going anywhere near Stroman (particularly if someone like Montgomery is available for just salary), but Vivas is an interesting player. Great strike zone judgment, but he really collapsed in 2024.
He probably has a higher floor than Baty, but if Baty ever pulls it together Brett probably has the higher ceiling. How’s Vivas’ arm at 3B?
Sorry. I don’t see Stroman as anything but a Yank for a while. Maybe, come mid season that could change.. Sorry he’s yours.
Why do so many believe signing a free agent fixes everything?? Just sign “insert name here”. He will fix your pitching and hitting and make grass greener.
Top: suggest you put all the questions addressed at the top as a teaser. Guys will want to see the answer and be invented to subscribe.
Nationals: would be spending closer to 100m, but they’re on the hook for Strasburg still. According to COTS.
Yes, that is 100% accurate.
My problem with the huge deferrals is all that money that is deferred doesn’t EVER count towards the luxury tax. I don’t think a salary floor and cap will help that much in the long run, but I believe all that deferred money should count against a team’s luxury tax at some point. “$700 million over ten years” should count as $700 million towards the luxury tax at some time, whether it’s immediate like the Mets are paying Soto, or over a longer period of time like cheater ohtani is getting. Defer all they want but it should count against the lux tax at some point. I don’t care about all that future money is less valuable nonsense either. LA is getting a huge advantage because they aren’t writing checks to ohtani for $70 million a year. That number should count against the lux tax of $241 this year, and if it doesn’t then whatever is deferred until 2034 or whenever the deferrals start the deferred should count then.
yes it does, the $46.078M net present value AAV counts toward the dodgers luxury tax every year of the contract.
The real world value of the money is counted 100%. Think along the lines of you lending me $100,000, and me paying you $10,100 every year for ten years. Would you do such a thing? That’s all they are doing. They are basically obligated to pay Ohtani $46M/year, and Ohtani is lending them the money to do so.
“cheater ohtani” is the best way to show how you lost an argument without even trying.
Arrenado and his ESP do not sense for the Rangers.
I had no idea he was an empath.
Trash cans not required.
The Tiger should have got him anyways. Yeah, offer money to waive the NTC…duh…
Now Quinn is known…too late…
They never listen to the Superfife!
Should have hired the Superfife!
One thing that has hurt middle and smaller teams is the draft slotting.
I remember Dombrowski saying, back in the Tigers heyday, that the Tigers could compete with the Yankees in paying for guys like Porcello, Maybin, Andrew Miller.
Agreed. Not that big market teams wouldn’t do it too, but yes. The Pirates giving Josh Bell $5MM was a classic example.
It’d be kind of interesting if small market teams could go over slot much more so than big market teams. But since that’d drive costs up overall, it won’t happen.
Going over slot is built into the draft pick. Last year, Cleveland had roughly 3x the draft capital as the Astros.
How does slotting hurt the poorer teams? They generally receive higher draft picks. And the higher-spending teams get penalized for both payroll and FA signings.