MLB 2023/2024 Free Agency Thread

[Fear The Chorizo]

3 hours ago, MrTPlush said:

Why would it be a huge mistake? Even if he pops off for a low .800 OPS, he would easily change that 2/$50mil left on his deal to $150mil+. The only reason he didn't get $200mil+ is because of the two terrible years prior to 2023. If he is anything above average, he is going to rip up that deal and get a huge contract. He would STILL be playing a year of a new contract in his 20s. If he opts out, he clearly played well enough to find a big time contract.

I agree he won't ever sign for 10 years...but he could easily net a 5-6 year contract...maybe even 7-8 if he repeated close to his '23 numbers. 

If Bellinger wants to sign a 7-8 year deal where he makes between $18-$20M a season, sure I guess he could still sign a longterm deal in one of the next two offseasons.

Because of the horrible years of performance AND the fluky 2023 season, Bellinger's resume permanently has warts on it to justify anyone offering him a 6-8 year deal at the AAV his team is saying he deserves.  

[Fear The Chorizo]

3 hours ago, jay87shot said:

Bellinger plays great defense, runs well, has the ablity to hit 30 HR a year and hit .307 last year. I get that metrics said he overperformed last year but this is a guy who won an MVP at 23. If he puts together a 5 WAR season, I don't think it would be crazy for a big market team to sign him to a 10-250+ deal, maybe 8 years makes more sense.

To contradict some of you Dodgers point, the Dodgers traded for Betts so it's not like the extended him early, JD was on a 1 year deal and they let him leave because they signed Shohei not because of Boras. 

The Dodgers gave Betts what I believe was the 2nd richest MLB contract in history at the time during the shortened COVID season, when Betts only had two months more to play before becoming an unrestricted free agent.  They had just acquired Betts in early 2020 right before COVID blew up stateside.  You think that extension would have come together if Boras was his agent?

Bellinger has had one 5+ WAR season, the year he won MVP 5 calendar years ago.  The 2020-2022 seasons are a bit too putrid for me to whitewash them based on a bounceback 2023 and just assume he's going back to being an elite slugger with plus defense at multiple positions.

[Fear The Chorizo]

4 hours ago, sveumrules said:

$350M+ seems like a pretty rich assumption.

Trout extended for 10/360 in March 2019.

Harper got 13/330 as a free agent in March 2019.

Betts extended for 12/365 from the Dodgers in July 2020 after they traded for him with one year before FA.

Tatis Jr extended for 14/340 in February 2021, but he was also two years younger than Belli and a SS at the time.

Lindor extended for 10/341 from the Mets in March 2021 after they traded for him with one year before FA.

Judge needed to hit FA to get 9/360 and that was three years later in 2022.

If $350M+ four years out from FA were the parameters after only one MVP calibre season in 2019, I can see why the Dodgers never went for an extension.

Across Bellinger's 1st 3 seasons in MLB, his performance absolutely made him that type of lifetime extension candidate at 23 years old after winning the league MVP for the Dodgers.  His 2019 MVP season he was an 8+ WAR player, but the 2017 and 2018 seasons had him over 4 WAR and every indication was that he was going to keep on developing as a great player.

With 4 seasons left prior to reaching free agency, a 13-14 year, $350M total contract in terms of value seems pretty accurate to me based on where contract values were headed around 2019.  If you want to argue semantics and say a hypothetical extension at that length would've only totaled $320M, you're missing my point that betting on himself cost Bellinger dearly in terms of guaranteed money and contract longevity....although I guess one could argue that it got Bellinger to free agency a year sooner since his 2020-2022 performance led to the Dodgers nontendering him last offseason.

[MrTPlush]

1 hour ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

If Bellinger wants to sign a 7-8 year deal where he makes between $18-$20M a season, sure I guess he could still sign a longterm deal in one of the next two offseasons.

Because of the horrible years of performance AND the fluky 2023 season, Bellinger's resume permanently has warts on it to justify anyone offering him a 6-8 year deal at the AAV his team is saying he deserves.  

Most experts had him tabbed at about $150mil this offseason, probably along the lines of that 7 year length. Of course, that was always a bit iffy considering the last few years before '23. I am guessing the Cubs offer wasn't the highest amount of money. Risking almost $100mil to hope it is a 1/$30mil deal isn't that great for the Cubs. It is like the Hoskins deal on steroids. I would guess he probably could have gotten 6/$108mil+ from someone. The Cubs likely offered and preferred him to take a much longer deal with a lower AAV.

If he has another great year, 2023 doesn't seem as fluky and the 21/22 seasons become much more of a blip. 6/$150mil at worst, probably a good chance north of $200mil. He maybe risked $30mil or so for a chance to bank $100mil+ with another good year. For a guy that has already made $60mil in his career and could sign a 1/$30mil contract with a $50mil insurance policy attached to it...not bad. 

[yourout]

A bit off topic but i see Luis Urias was traded to the Mariners

[sveumrules]

37 minutes ago, yourout said:

A bit off topic but i see Luis Urias was traded to the Mariners

Guess the Red Sox weren’t that impressed with their first hand look.

Kind of interesting since both Urias deals were for a single pitcher.

Mariners sent over Isaiah Campbell, a 26 year old reliever who threw 28 MLB innings last year.

His 2.83 ERA was pretty nice, but the peripherals weren’t quite as pretty with a 3.32 FIP, 3.80 SIERA, 3.87 xERA and 4.15 xFIP. He’s projected between a 4.21 and 4.37 ERA by the various publicly available systems for 2024.

Obviously a higher floor than Blalock having reached MLB already, but Bradley has the edge in upside being three years younger with better scouting reports and a chance to start still.

[Fear The Chorizo]

I was thinking about what other factors are at play with this endless quest for 2 of last season's best starting pitchers to still be looking for a new contract, besides the fact their agent is Boras.  I still think that's most of it, but there has to be other reasons.

 

Enter the COVID season, one where there wasn't a minor league season but minor leaguers still earned a year of minor league service time.  While that hasn't directly led to free agency grinding to a halt, it has absolutely led to a glut of players having to be added to 40 man rosters before teams typically would make that move in order to keep the rights to guys who absolutely have mlb upside, but need more minor league seasoning (Quero is a prime example of this for the brewers).  Even if that's limited to 1 or two 40 man roster spots per team, that's 45-55 fewer mlb jobs for veteran free agents the past few seasons.  And those 40 man spots aren't as expendable as the typical AAAA depth fodder if a FA gets added, as teams are hesitant to start the mlb service clock of those prospects still needing development by just calling them up.  That coupled with luxury tax issues for the typical big spenders(minus LAD) and obvious tv deal uncertainty for over half the league to just brush off and throw $35m plus for a guy like Snell are also big factors.  All that, and then when 29 other teams look at what the Dodgers can do with throwing a quarter billion bucks a year in TV money at their roster annually, they all realize that adding Snell doesn't make them better on paper, so why not roll with a youngster to start the season making less than $1m instead and see where they are come July before using a stockpile of aged prospects they would likely risk losing the next offseason to try and get better for the stretch run at a fraction of the cost?

[RobertCrawley]

The Orioles are picking up Teheran on a minor league deal. I wish we would have given him another shot.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

8 hours ago, RobertCrawley said:

The Orioles are picking up Teheran on a minor league deal. I wish we would have given him another shot.

Solid guy to have around as a 7th-8th option. I imagine he has a pretty early opt-out, and if I'm the Brewers, I'd probably rather see what Hall can do at the back end of the rotation. It will be interesting to compare what Teheran does for the Orioles compared to the numbers that guys like Junis or Joe Ross put up.

[SF70]

2 hours ago, Ron Robinsons Beard said:

Solid guy to have around as a 7th-8th option. I imagine he has a pretty early opt-out, and if I'm the Brewers, I'd probably rather see what Hall can do at the back end of the rotation. It will be interesting to compare what Teheran does for the Orioles compared to the numbers that guys like Junis or Joe Ross put up.

I think the team is flush with starter options.

Having Hall and Ashby rotation gives the team an abundance of starter options even if Ashby needs to start the year in Nashville to buildup arm strength.

Peralta-Hall-Miley-Rea-Ashby?-Ross-Junis is 6-7 deep before we even get to Gasser or eventually CRod-McKendry or even possibly Misiorowski.

Even if Ashby and Hall need to eventually go to the bullpen because of inning limitations, they can replace with Gasser and or CRod.

[RobertCrawley]

5 hours ago, Ron Robinsons Beard said:

Solid guy to have around as a 7th-8th option. I imagine he has a pretty early opt-out, and if I'm the Brewers, I'd probably rather see what Hall can do at the back end of the rotation. It will be interesting to compare what Teheran does for the Orioles compared to the numbers that guys like Junis or Joe Ross put up.

Teheran has lost a lot of his stuff since his All-Star days, but watching him with the Brewers, you could see a professional at work. He knew how to change speeds, work the batters, and on good days hit his spots that kept batters off balance. True, there were some games where he just didn't have major league stuff, but I was hoping an off-season with a good strength coach might make him even more effective, maybe even lightning in a bottle (which we need). I guess we'll see how he does with the Orioles. 

[monty57]

Not sure if it fits here, but the Yankees picked up Jahmai Jones, who we just dfa'd.

[Scooterfletcher]

I saw that Jones was picked up.   There have got to be a few low level pitching trades coming in the next week or two by us. 

[edfunderburk]

On 2/26/2024 at 7:11 PM, yourout said:

A bit off topic but i see Luis Urias was traded to the Mariners

It appears he will be their backup SS … if true - that’s a bad decision 

[wallus]

Chapman to the Giants, 3 years an 54 million with opt outs after the first two years. I wonder if that's going to be a new thing moving forward with free agents.

[edfunderburk]

13 hours ago, wallus said:

Chapman to the Giants, 3 years an 54 million with opt outs after the first two years. I wonder if that's going to be a new thing moving forward with free agents.

I’m glad Chapman didn’t end up with the Cubbies

I would have been thrilled for Milwaukee to sign him for 3 years & $54M 

I’m fine with the frugal decision my management to roll with the youngsters - great days ahead

I’m excited for this year - not knowing where we will be come October

It will be a fun season with lower expectations

I’m glad we will welcome so many of our prospects to the MLB roster

[tmwiese55]

I'm generally low on Chapman and didn't think he was worthy of the big deals talked about.   That said, at that deal and MKEs general plight at corner IF for a while now I could've gotten behind that deal.  Baseballwise, MKE would probably be a better spot for him to inflate his O stats to hope for a bigger payday next offseason but who knows where he preferred to live.  Being from CA and coming up with Oak that is likely much tilted in their favor so we would have had to pay more.  I'd guess MKE wasn't willing to do more than the 1+1 Hoskins type structure for him, and I'm fine with that. He's just not that good of a hitter. Fine to roll with the young guy and see what happens.   With the SPs left hanging out thee if a 1+1 or 1+2 type deal shows with one of them its better than on Chapman. 

[markedman5]

 

[sveumrules]

Jay Jaffe looks at free agency's biggest gainers and losers over at FanGraphs today with the Brewers coming in 10th in spending at $77.3M (which doesn't include Chourio's extension) and 7th in Net Projected WAR (4.8)

[brewmann04]

lets  see if the crew will add 

[jerichoholicninja]

3 hours ago, sveumrules said:

Jay Jaffe looks at free agency's biggest gainers and losers over at FanGraphs today with the Brewers coming in 10th in spending at $77.3M (which doesn't include Chourio's extension) and 7th in Net Projected WAR (4.8)

Cheap owner

[torts]

2 hours ago, jerichoholicninja said:

Cheap owner

That's 75 million more than what the dodgers are paying ohtani

[TURBO]

5 hours ago, jerichoholicninja said:

Cheap owner

 

[brewmann04]

Need another Fa pitcher 

[Fear The Chorizo]

I know we are still multiple weeks from Opening Day....but I honestly think one of Snell or Montgomery are going to remain unsigned when the regular season starts.  At this point it's not even for lack of big market teams with holes in their planned rotations due to injuries in spring training.

Who is going to throw upwards of $35m+ for a season for a starter who won't be stretched out and game ready until late April, when they could just wait two more months and likely land an impact starter at the trade deadline at a much lower cost?