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Poll: Who Will Be The AL And NL Champions?

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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.)

MLBTR Poll: Rating The Recent One-Year Deals

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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?

Poll: The Last QO-Bound Position Player Signings

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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?

Poll: Will The Blue Jays Extend Bautista & Encarnacion?

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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?

Poll: Who Will Be The Last Qualifying Offer Free Agent To Sign?

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The 2015-16 offseason may be remembered as the qualifying offer’s watershed.  A record 20 qualifying offers were issued in November, and for the first time in the four years since the QO system was instituted, three players (Brett Anderson, Colby Rasmus, Matt Wieters) actually accepted the one-year offer rather than test free agency.

As we approach Spring Training, I suspect at least some of the other 17 players may be wishing they had also taken that one-year, $15.8MM deal.  (Howie Kendrick and Hisashi Iwakuma come to mind.)  The qualifying offer also may have impacted a couple of names in the upper tier of the free agent market, though Chris Davis and Justin Upton did end up landing huge multi-year contracts in the end.

The three players still facing uncertainty, however, are Ian Desmond, Dexter Fowler and Yovani Gallardo.  It looks as if this trio will join Kendrick, Nelson Cruz, Kendrys Morales, Stephen Drew, Ervin Santana and others on the list of players whose markets were drastically affected by the QO, perhaps to the point of them eventually accepting a contract that would’ve seemed like a major bargain only a few months ago.  At this point in the offseason, no team has been willing to meet the asking price and/or give up the first round draft pick necessary to sign any of three players.

While none of the trio have signed, there have been plenty of rumors surrounding each player.  A recap…

Gallardo: The Orioles, Rockies and Astros have been the clubs most recently linked to the righty, with the Blue Jays, Royals and Rangers also reportedly interested at earlier points in the offseason.  We can probably cross off Kansas City and Houston in the wake of their signings of Ian Kennedy and Doug Fister, while Toronto likely doesn’t have the payroll space.

The O’s are very hesitant to give up their first-rounder (the 14th overall pick) to sign Gallardo.  Colorado’s first-rounder is protected so they would only have to give up a second-round pick, though GM Jeff Bridich has downplayed his team’s interest.  The Rangers, of course, are the only team that can sign Gallardo without having to surrender a pick, though they may also be tapped out payroll-wise and they already have several rotation options on hand, albeit with question marks.

Fowler: The Cubs (his former team), White Sox and Rangers have all been rumored to be monitoring the outfielder’s market, with teams like the Indians, Angels, Giants and Cardinals also mentioned as speculative fits.  In our last MLBTR poll, readers had the two Chicago teams as the clear favorites in predicting Fowler’s landing spot.  In my view, the White Sox seem like the best fit for Fowler since thanks to their protected first-rounder, the only pick they’d have to surrender is the bonus compensation selection they received from Jeff Samardzija signing with the Giants.  The Sox heavily value their draft picks, however, and their low-rated farm system needs reinforcements.

Re-signing Fowler makes some sense for the Cubs but it would create an awkward time-share between Fowler, Jorge Soler and Kyle Schwarber (Jason Heyward, obviously, would play every day in either right or center field).  I wonder if the Rangers’ interest in Fowler could be tied to Gallardo’s situation; if Gallardo signs elsewhere and Texas gets a compensation pick, the team could then be more willing to give up its first-rounder (the 20th overall pick) to bring Fowler into the fold.

Desmond: The former National’s situation is at once both seemingly the most muddled yet possibly the most flexible of the trio.  If reports of Desmond’s ability and willingness to play elsewhere than shortstop are still accurate, then his market could be opened up to teams looking for help at second, third or even the outfield.  In a recent edition of the MLBTR Newsletter, Tim Dierkes speculated that Desmond could be a good candidate for a contract with an opt-out after the first year, or perhaps even a flat one-year “pillow contract” to minimize the risk for teams uninterested in giving up a draft pick for a player coming off a tough season.

Dierkes cited the A’s, Braves, White Sox and Tigers as a few of the teams who could be fits for Desmond, with the Rockies also a maybe depending on Jose Reyes’ situation.  The Rays have also been mentioned as a dark horse candidate to sign Desmond on a semi-hometown deal, though given how Tampa is so reliant on developing young talent, it would be a big surprise to see them give up their first-rounder, the 13th overall pick of June’s draft.

Let’s open the debate up to you, the MLBTR audience.  Who do you think will be the last qualifying offer free agent available this offseason?  (MLBTR app users can weigh in here)

Poll: Who’ll Sign Dexter Fowler?

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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?

Poll: Best $100MM+ Hitting Contract

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Six weeks ago, Jeff Todd asked MLBTR readers which of the four nine-figure contracts given to pitchers this offseason was the best. 37.6% of you said you preferred Jordan Zimmermann’s deal — the cheapest of the four.

Of course, Jeff couldn’t ask a similar question about contracts for hitters, because the only hitter to agree to a deal over $100MM to that point was Jason Heyward. The hitting market was slow in coming, but now, finally, there have been two other hitters to cross the nine-figure threshold.

Heyward’s deal was the most expensive, at $184MM, although deferrals reduce its present-day value to about $5MM less than that. The deal also contains an opt-out after 2018, and possibly another after 2019 if he stays healthy. He also receives full or limited no-trade protection throughout the contract. Heyward is, of course, highly talented and very young and athletic for a free agent, but in a poll following the announcement of the deal, most MLBTR readers thought the Cubs overpaid.

The Orioles’ Chris Davis received somewhat less than Heyward, at $161MM and with very significant deferrals. He gets a partial no-trade clause but does not receive an opt-out. Davis is over three years older than Heyward and his skill set isn’t nearly as well rounded, which could lead to reasonable questions about how he’ll age over the life of the deal. Davis’ power is, however, second to none.

Justin Upton’s $132.75MM contract with the Tigers is the most recent of the three.  Upton gets an opt-out after 2017, as well as limited no-trade protection. He’s between Heyward and Upton in age. He doesn’t have Heyward’s defensive or baserunning value, and he doesn’t have Davis’ power either, but he’s blossomed into a reliable offensive threat, and his deal is a considerably smaller commitment than Heyward’s, at least.

Davis’ deal might be the riskiest of the three, given his age and issues with strikeouts. But one could argue that there’s more upside in Davis’ deal, too, given that he does not have an opt-out. What you think about the Heyward deal likely depends to some degree on how you weight defense in your assessment of a player’s value (and in your assessment of how he’ll age). Upton’s skill set is perhaps the easiest of the three to grasp — he’s a good, consistent power hitter who gets on base and plays decent defense in an outfield corner. He hasn’t yet blossomed into the MVP-type player he looked like he might be when he was a prospect, although he’s young enough that we might not have seen the best of him yet.

So which of these contracts is the best bet?

Poll: How Much Will Yoenis Cespedes Get?

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The free agent market has steadily advanced in the new year, but significant names remain. Many of them have drawn divergent opinions at times, perhaps none moreso than Yoenis Cespedes. With reports suggesting that Cespedes is receiving heavy interest, and could soon close in on a deal, it seems like an opportune time to get everyone’s predictions.

In this free agent profile, I broke down his benefits and drawbacks while agreeing with MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes that a $140MM guarantee was obtainable. That was in early December, and a seeming market lull made some wonder whether the dollars were drying up. Now, most signings are still coming in at expected values, and the above-cited reports suggest Cespedes won’t need to settle for a pure pillow contract. But will he max out his earning potential?

Opt-outs, options, deferred money, taxes, and the like all weigh in the equation, of course. But those are hard to account for in this sort of exercise, and the bottom-line guarantee is still king.

So, here’s your chance to weigh in:

Poll: The Jeff Samardzija And Mike Leake Contracts

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Early last month, the Giants agreed to terms on a long-term contract with veteran righty Jeff Samardzija. Two weeks later, the Cardinals agreed to terms with another veteran righty, Mike Leake. The two contracts were identical in duration (five years) and similar in value ($90MM for Samardzija, $80MM for Leake). They were also interrelated — the Giants were the team that most recently employed Leake before the Cardinals signed him, while the Cardinals were connected to Samardzija before the Giants signed him. Both pitchers were a tier below David Price, Zack Greinke, Johnny Cueto and Jordan Zimmermann, all of whom received nine-figure deals. Beyond those similarities, however, lie a number of key differences about what, exactly, their contracts attempted to accomplish.

Of the two pitchers, Samardzija is widely perceived as having greater upside — with his mid-90s velocity, tough slider and 6’5″ frame, many of his attributes match those of an ace. He will, however, be 31 this month, and his performances so far in his career have not matched that ace profile. His 2015 season with the White Sox, in particular, was extremely disappointing — he posted a 4.96 ERA, and while ERA estimators suggested that figure could have been somewhat better, his K/9 has plummeted from 9.3 in 2012 to 6.9 last season, while his ground ball rate fell to a mere 39%.

On the bright side, Samardzija has been one of the game’s most durable starters, throwing over 210 innings in each of the past three seasons. And as long as he stays healthy, he seems likely to get at least somewhat better results in the next few years than he got in 2015, when he had to pitch in front of a poor defense and in a tough ballpark in a DH league. Samardzija’s 2015 season wasn’t a good one, but it also represented something of a perfect storm. But the error bar on Samardzija’s future performance is large, and where he lands might depend somewhat on Giants coaches’ ability to help him get back to missing bats, and to inducing ground balls when he doesn’t.

Like Samardzija, Leake has reliably eaten innings. Unlike Samardzija, he’s been very consistent, posting ERAs well below four in each of the last three seasons and regularly inducing ground balls at around a 50% clip. He also limits walks, which prevents opposing batters from doing too much damage against him, and he helps himself by fielding and hitting very well. Leake is also one of the offseason’s youngest free agents — he only turned 28 in November and could well have several prime-era seasons ahead. Also, his contract is worth $10MM less than Samardzija’s (although Samardzija’s limited no-trade clause is preferable to Leake’s full no-trade).

If Samardzija looks like an ace, though, Leake looks like something far less than that. While he isn’t quite a soft-tosser, his stuff isn’t at all overwhelming, and he’s small, at 5’10” — Leake isn’t a lefty, but he’s always seemed like he should be one. Leake has obviously reached the point in his career where it’s wise to judge him more on his performance record than on his profile, but not all the indicators there are positive, either. While Samardzija’s ability to strike batters out has diminished in recent seasons, Leake has never really had that ability, and his K/9 dropped to a mere 5.6 in 2015. Career paths are hard to predict, but it’s difficult to imagine Leake becoming anything close to an ace as he gets older. He does, however, seem more likely than Samardzija to provide league-average innings over the course of his contract.

So which contract do you prefer? Which player’s deal was best for his team?

Free Agent Faceoff: Yovani Gallardo vs. Ian Kennedy

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There’s been plenty of action on the free agent market for starters, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some big earners still out there. Lefty Wei-Yin Chen rates as the best remaining option, in the estimation of MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes, and he’s said to be chasing a $100MM contract.

Whether or not he gets there, that’s probably not even a reasonable ask for the next two names on the list. But both of them — Ian Kennedy and Yovani Gallardo — have some contractual upside of their own.

We’ve seen pitchers in this general range score deals in the four-year, $50MM range in recent years, sometimes quite late in the offseason. (In the winter of 2013-14, Matt Garza signed in late January, while Ubaldo Jimenez waited until the middle of February.) Of course, that same year, Ervin Santana waited even longer and ended up settling for a one-year deal at the qualifying offer value (which was, at the time, $14.1MM).

For teams looking to add sturdy, mid-rotation arms, there really aren’t any other options available. The trade market remains a plausible option, to be sure, but there really aren’t any obvious candidates begging for a taker that would fit the mold of these two right-handers.

When Dierkes took stock at the outset of the market, he ranked Kennedy and Gallardo back-to-back (as the 19th and 20th-best players available) and valued both at identical rates: four years and $52MM. Interestingly, both present rather different profiles.

Kennedy, who just turned 31, has posted career-best strikeout numbers over the past two years (9.3 K/9) while holding his walks to a reasonable level (3.0 BB/9), leading both SIERA and xFIP to value him as a mid-3.00 ERA-equivalent contributor. He’s averaged 196 innings annually dating back to 2010, an impressive record of durability, while contributing a useful (albeit unexciting) 3.88 ERA.

In spite of all those positives, though, Kennedy has finished three of the past four seasons with an ERA north of 4.00. With his fastball velocity sitting above his career average and a double-digit swinging strike rate, it’s easy to attribute the poor run prevention to bad luck. Really, though, it all just poses a dilemma: is Kennedy’s long ball susceptibility — last year, Kennedy posted a MLB-high 1.66 HR/9 to go with the second-highest (17.2%) HR/FB rate — the product of poor fortune or poor pitching?

Gallardo, who’s about to reach 30 years of age, has more or less matched Kennedy in terms of annual innings (194 since 2010) while outperforming him in bottom-line results (3.66 ERA). Indeed, if we focus just on the last two years, it’s no contest in the earned run department, as Gallardo has worked to a sub-3.50 mark.

But things don’t look so great when you dig a bit deeper, as he’s gone from a modern-Kennedy-esque K:BB ratio (9.0 K/9 vs. 3.1 BB/9 in 2011-12) to a career-worst ratio of 5.9 strikeouts and 3.3 free passes per nine. Gallardo has continued to generate grounders on nearly half of the balls put in play against him, but his velocity and swinging strike rates have both tailed off noticeably. Things came to a head last year, as every major ERA estimator put him at 4.00 or greater, with SIERA calling him a 4.59 ERA-equivalent performer.

Really, this comparison is most interesting because both Kennedy and Gallardo have avoided any major injuries in recent seasons, are only about a year apart in age, and have generally landed in the same range in terms of how many outs they can get before handing things off to the pen. From there, it’s a question of how you view recent results, the relationship of peripherals to runs allowed, and luck.

So, MLBTR readers, which pitcher would you rather your team sign?

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