MLBTR Polls

It’s a quiet morning on the transactional front, so we’ll take a slightly tangential approach to start off the day. The beginning of the season always brings plenty of surprising, short-sample results, and this year is no different.

But this year’s crop of high-performing, debut position players is particularly interesting, as none were considered blue-chip prospects or came with much hype — at least, prior to strong results in camp this spring. While they’ll all unquestionably regress, they’ve also shown enough already to at least begin modifying their clubs’ thinking about how roster decisions will play out the rest of the way.

Each of these four players ranks within the top forty position players in baseball by measure of fWAR; none had suited up for big league action prior to 2016:

• Jeremy Hazelbaker, OF, Cardinals: Sure, he had nice numbers last year at Triple-A. But Hazelbaker is closer to his 29th birthday than his 28th, and only made it onto the active roster due to injuries. Nevertheless, he’s off to a .526/.522/1.053 start and has also contributed two steals — that coming on the heels of a highly productive Spring Training. The St. Louis outfield mix remains fluid, but Hazelbaker could play himself into a significant role since he hits from the left side, unlike presumed regulars Matt Holliday, Randal Grichuk, and Stephen Piscotty — as well as last year’s surprising breakout veteran minor leaguer, Tommy Pham. And it doesn’t hurt that Hazelbaker is capable of playing center.
• Joey Rickard, OF, Orioles: Baltimore added uncertain-but-intriguing outfielders via free agency and the Rule 5 draft over the winter, and the Rule 5 Rickard has seen the lion’s share of time while $7MM man Hyun Soo Kim largely rides the pine. Hardly easing into things the way most such players do, Rickard has already racked up a .409/.400/.636 slash in 25 plate appearances. He’s done that with more pop and less walks than he’s shown in the minors, and there’s obviously some correction to come, but at a minimum Rickard is showing the kind of usefulness that could make him an easy keeper for the O’s.
• Trevor Story, SS, Rockies: Stepping in for Jose Reyes while his domestic violence investigation is sorted out, Story has inspired a steady barrage of puns by swatting seven home runs in his first six major league games. Of course, he’s also swinging and missing quite a bit and has only managed two other hits (both singles) and one walk in his 28 plate appearances thus far. Looking forward, the job is probably Story’s to lose at this point, but he’ll need to improve his plate discipline as his 53.8% HR/FB rate (!) comes back down to earth.
• Tyler White, 1B, Astros: While Story’s tale is easier to tell, White’s hot start is arguably more impressive, as he’s not showing much vulnerability to the strikeout and is hitting everything in sight. White is slashing .545/.577/.1.091, which is obviously unsustainable, but his results generally reflect the intriguing blend of plate discipline, contact, and pop that he’s shown in the minors. He might eventually be pushed for playing time by the remaining options in the Houston system, but White has bought himself some rope to work with in his first seven games.

To make things interesting, chime in below with your prediction as to which of these players is most likely to reward those fans who are buying into their early-year excitement. Considering playing time opportunities, prior track record, performance to date, age, and other factors, which is the best bet to be a productive big leaguer for years to come?

(Poll link for mobile app users. Author’s notes: Do we really think anyone will keep up this rate of play? No! Is it too soon to tell who can nevertheless be productive in the long haul? Yes! That’s why we’re doing the poll now, when it’s interesting to see what people think and to discuss it, before a lengthier sample lets the stats largely tell the story by themselves. )

After a long winter of hot stove transactions, Opening Day is just around the corner.  For every trade, signing, release, waiver claim and DFA, fans ultimately have just one question about every move: how did this help my team improve?  What may be a minor transaction or an under-the-radar signing over the winter could pay huge dividends come October.

The beauty of baseball is that you just never know when “next year” will come.  The Rangers, Astros and Cubs had three of the eight worst records in 2014 yet made the postseason in 2015.  The Mets and Blue Jays each returned to the playoffs after years of frustration.  And, most of all, the Royals firmly erased any doubt that their 2014 AL pennant was a fluke when they broke through for the franchise’s second-ever World Series championship.

The 2016 season will undoubtedly have a lot of surprises, and come October, will the last two teams standing be preseason favorites, or could another unexpected club (or two) rise up to win a pennant?  With this in mind, give us your take on which two teams will square off in the World Series.  (MLBTR app users can weigh in here for the American League champion and here for the National League champion.)

With today’s signing of David Freese, the Pirates became the latest club to strike a fairly low-dollar, one-year pact with an established veteran. Among the other position players who weren’t bound by a qualifying offer and ended up signing during camp were Juan Uribe (Indians), Austin Jackson (White Sox), and Pedro Alvarez (Orioles).

Interestingly, it was quite possible to imagine several of those names ending up with the other clubs that made late-breaking deals. Now that the chips have fallen, let’s take a closer look at the fits:

David Freese, Pirates, $3MM: Freese fills an immediate need with Jung Ho Kang expected to miss time early, and will apparently take up the right-handed side of a platoon at first base alongside fellow offseason addition John Jaso. While Michael Morse and Sean Rodriguez also could have fit there, they could spend time in the outfield. And it’s worth noting that Pittsburgh could ultimately mix things around by moving Jordy Mercer out of full-time duties at short, as Kang did play in 60 games there last year.

Juan Uribe, Indians, $4MM: Cleveland reportedly preferred Uribe to Freese, and paid a bit more to add the older option. He does seem to carry a bit more upside, with better recent results at the plate and in the field, though he’s also been held to active part-time duty in recent years. There’s no question that the organization filled a need with the move, but it’ll be interesting to see whether Uribe or Freese turns out to be the better performer in 2016.

Austin Jackson, White Sox, $5MM: Jackson is yet another player that could have ended up in Cleveland, but instead he’ll suit up for the division-rival White Sox. Again, the fit is evident: Chicago added a quality defender up the middle, enabling Adam Eaton to play in the corner while decreasing the need to rely on Melky Cabrera and Avisail Garcia. It would be a surprise at this point if Jackson were to return to the power/speed combination he showed earlier in his career, but he’s only 29 and has a reasonable floor given his solid glovework.

Pedro Alvarez, Orioles, $5.75MM: Baltimore probably didn’t have quite as much to offer Jackson as did Chicago, since center field remains the realm of Adam Jones, but it’s arguable that he’d have represented a better fit. As it is, though, the O’s have added another impressive power bat to their lineup; it’s easy to forget that, in the midst of defensive struggles, Alvarez hit 27 home runs and slugged .469 last season. The move also means that Mark Trumbo will spend significant time in the corner outfield, though, which carries quite a bit of risk.

So, which of these moves looks best to you?

The impact of the qualifying offer remains a hot topic around baseball, and it’s hard to deny the effects on several veterans this winter. In many ways, the biggest difficulty faced may not just be a pure reduction in price, but the alteration of the market development for players saddled with draft pick compensation.

Ultimately, there were bargains to be found late in the winter. That’s exemplified, perhaps, by the experiences of the last three QO-bound position players to sign this offseason: Howie Kendrick, Dexter Fowler, and Ian Desmond. All had reasonable expectations of significant, multi-year deals, but it did not work out that way in practice.

Kendrick ultimately went back to the Dodgers for two years and $20MM. He was something of a luxury for a club that already had numerous options installed in the infield, but space was created when the price dropped.

At one point, Fowler seemed ticketed for the Orioles on a three-year pact, but ultimately returned to the Cubs on a $13MM guarantee. As with Kendrick, Fowler was an opportunistic re-addition for the team that had originally extended him the qualifying offer.

As for Desmond, things shaped up in an even more curious way. He sat back as players with lesser recent stat lines, such as Alexei Ramirez and Asdrubal Cabrera, inked deals with clubs willing to install them as regular shortstops. Desmond ultimately settled for just $8MM on a one-year term to play the outfield for the Rangers.

Texas also gave up the 19th overall draft pick in the Desmond transaction. Los Angeles and Chicago, meanwhile, sacrificed the ability to obtain compensation. Of course, all of those teams will have a chance to cash in an additional draft choice if they extend qualifying offers to these players when their deals expire.

So, we’ll pose the following question to MLBTR’s readers: which of these deals represents the best late-breaking investment for these teams?

Early-career extensions are always fun, but tend not to come with the same drama of talks with pending free agents. Sometimes deals get done late in camp, locking in an important player for years to come and keeping them from the open market; last season, for instance, the Red Sox locked in righty Rick Porcello just after the season began. Of course, Porcello himself was acquired in part because the team did not retain Jon Lester after failing to agree upon an extension despite extensive negotiations in the prior offseason.

As the Lester situation shows, the stakes are often ratcheted up in cases of players with a close identity to their clubs. That’s probably all the more true when (again, as in the case of Boston and its lost lefty) there’s widespread public acknowledgement of mutual interest and close attention from fans.

The Blue Jays face a particularly interesting set of extension questions as camp nears. One of those has already been answered, as the club reached a two-year arrangement with star third baseman Josh Donaldson, who will still have one year of arbitration remaining at the end of that contract.

Much more interesting, time-sensitive, and PR-fraught talks still remain to be had, however, with a pair of star sluggers who are key faces in the organization. Both Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion bloomed late in their careers, upon coming to Toronto. In each case, the team (under then-GM Alex Anthopoulos) bet on the players with extensions that turned into bargains for the organization. With those contracts set to expire after this season, they’re on the clock.

The case for a pair of big new extensions is pretty simple. There’s no question that both players are still producing at a high level at the plate, as they each landed in the top ten in the game by measure of wRC+, and they’ve each expressed interest in contract talks. Many fans are hopeful of pacts, with emotions running after a great run in 2015 was followed by a bad breakup with Anthopoulos. And the Blue Jays’ new front office tandem of Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins has publicly suggested that there will be an attempt at reaching new deals with the pair.

But that’s not all Shapiro and Atkins are considering here, of course. Bautista (35) and Encarnacion (33) are getting on in years. While the former is still capable of manning right field, it isn’t hard to imagine a time in the not-so-distant future where both players are limited to first base and/or DH roles.

Ultimately, as MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk recently wrote in discussing Bautista as an extension candidate, it’s an open question whether it makes sense for the organization to try to lock up both players. And it isn’t entirely clear whether the front office will be willing to enter anything approaching market-rate deals with the pair.

That will all begin to be resolved as contract talks begin in earnest. For now, though, it’s a good time for a poll: do you think that the Jays will get deals done with either or both?

It’s been a largely quiet offseason so far for outfielder Dexter Fowler, and that’s surprising in some ways. On the other hand, the market moved first for pitchers, and we’ve seen a steady stream of outfield signings since we hit 2016. With players in front of him such as Jason Heyward, Justin Upton, Yoenis Cespedes, and Alex Gordon, not to mention more direct competition in the former of Denard Span and the still-unsigned Austin Jackson, Fowler has simply had to wait.

While pre-winter predictions may no longer really apply, and the qualifying offer seems an increasing burden, that doesn’t mean that Fowler isn’t in demand. After all, he’s yet to turn 30, is capable of playing up the middle, and has consistently produced at the plate. Since the start of 2013, Fowler owns a 112 OPS+, and he swatted a career-best 17 long balls last year.

MLBTR’s Steve Adams and I talked through his market in last week’s podcast, and our own Tim Dierkes looked at every team in the league in relation to Fowler in his newsletter yesterday. (You can find information for subscribing to that free weekly feature right here.)

There are some good options still, though it’s hard to peg a clear favorite. Tim wrote that he sees the most plausible landing spots — for a variety of reasons, and under different scenarios — as the White Sox, Brewers, Giants, Indians, Orioles, Rangers, Athletics, Angels, Cardinals, Padres, and Phillies. From my perspective, a reunion with the Cubs still seems plausible, though as Tim noted that might only make sense in the event of a trade.

Which of those teams do you think seems most likely? Or, could a dark horse emerge?