JosephC

Puzzling why David Edwards would go pro with workout numbers like he posted at the combine. Maybe he just had a bad day, but if so, it occurred at the absolute wrong time for him. 3-cone time was alright, the rest was nothing to write home about.

More like 156 million when figuring in Harper's signing bonus.

Finding a match for Keuchel is pretty hard. Already discussed Philadelphia above. They are right on the edge in payroll. Astros top payroll was ~160 million which they hit last year. They are already at that number for this upcoming season. The Padres spreadsheet on Cots is a bit misleading because they have Machado at a low number because they pro-rate the signing bonus. Padres are paying him 30 million this year which will blow away their previous payroll high. The Brewers are also already at a payroll number higher than they have ever run before. The Braves are right around their top ever payroll, but with that new stadium and huge profits, they are the one team left that probably should have interest in Keuchel and could easily fit a 4 million, 72 million type deal in their payroll. It doesn't sound like Soroka's shoulder soreness was a big deal as originally thought, and then the rotation is full with Foltynewicz, Newcomb, Gausman, Teheran and Soroka. They have Toussaint and Gohara as #5 starter options, so pretty decent insurance as well. I still would think that Keuchel could get a minimum of 3 years, 48 million out of someone. But I'll be very interested to see who that is, because there doesn't appear to be a great match when looking at the various pitching staffs and historical payroll levels.

And this is precisely why it's pretty reasonable to think that Keuchel might have to settle for less than 1/2 of what he was seeking at the beginning of the off-season. The run prevention isn't even close between the two. 2018: Keuchel = 3.74 ERA, 3.69 FIP, Suter = 4.44 ERA, 4.49 FIP. But all those peripherals are what build the overall "metric model" and I'm guessing the models of the majority of teams say that Keuchel might be a decent #2 but probably will be pitching at a #3 level in the very near future. The recent ERA, FIP, xFIP are good but not close to being elite, and beyond that, most of the numbers tend to be really mediocre. Again, I like Keuchel and think he's a nice fit for Miller Park. But if I was running a team that pitched in the big park where the home run ball wasn't that big of a factor, then Keuchel really wouldn't be all that attractive.

Cots puts Harper's tax charge at 11.538 million on their spreadsheet, but it's a 30 million dollar payout to Harper this year (10 million salary + 20 million signing bonus). The Phillies have run payroll well past 170 million in the past, but I seem to remember some comments from the ownership saying that really wasn't sustainable. I'd guess in 2019 they'd probably want to run a pre-benefits payroll of about 170 million. Again, that's just a complete guess based on some historical information. When adding up the amount of dollars that Philadelphia will pay the highest paid 25 players for this year, the total is 156.263 million, 13.737 million under what I guess would be the approximate limit. I think there is still enough money there for them to add Keuchel, but it's starting to get pretty tight for them.

Big celebration in Madison last night following this announcement.

I don't think there has been any news about Keuchel for awhile now. Last thing was that, at the beginning of the off-season, Boras was looking for a 6 year deal in the 150-180 million dollar range. It sounded like Boras had backed off that demand a little bit but the asking price is still really high. It's like Boras looks at that Cy Young award from three years ago, and looked at the Patrick Corbin contract, and views Keuchel as a pitcher that all teams would value as a true ace. It's almost like Boras has just ignored the last three years on Keuchel's stat sheet.

Yep, this IMO is the one real gripe the players should have. The service time manipulations have become ridiculous. And the fans lose. If a superstar prospect is ready to play, is it fair to a MLB fan to have to watch a C-level player for 2 months? I don't think Hiura would fall into this group because he hasn't had a single AAA at-bat yet. But if Hiura played at AAA all of last year and ripped it up, how disappointing would it have been to watch a Spangenberg/Perez combo for two months (pre-Moustakas signing), just because the Brewers were trying to screw Hiura out of some money? I've outlined rules to eliminate many of the service time manipulations on page one and I think those are the types of things that the union should focus on. This, in effect, would shorten the window to free agency for many players and could be something the owners would agree to. I just think taking a "free agency after five years" or "four years of arbitration for all players" will just lead to dead ends with owners...and on those issues I would agree with the owners because it just hurts the small market teams too much to make those types of changes.

I don't think the Cardinals, or anybody else, would expect Mikolas to continue to pitch to a sub-3.00 ERA considering the peripherals from last year. His xFIP was 3.67, and that's probably a reasonable expectation moving forward considering his excellent control. Is 17 million average annual value unreasonable for a 3.67 ERA? Probably OK if Mikolas proves to be durable. Adjusting for payroll size, it would be like the Brewers having paid Chacin 12.75 million for last year's work...assuming one values ERA and sees some equivalence between Chacin's 3.50 ERA last year and a 3.67 ERA from Mikolas moving forward.

I don't think people are completely ignoring the defense, but when talking about mega-contracts, corner defenders are always going to be judged by the bat. Jason Heyward is still considered one of the best defenders in baseball, and his glove means near nothing when talking about his contract. Last year the Cubs even had him play a bit in centerfield, and he did a pretty good job there (+3 DRS, +5.4 UZR/150 in 154 1/3 innings), and pretty much everyone considers his contract to be a bad one. And Heyward's deal (8 years, 184 million) really isn't in the same league as the Arenado contract. Arenado could pile up gold glove after gold glove, but that contract will still be considered a bad one if his OPS slips to under .800 while playing his home games in Colorado.

I'm sure if an "open books" threat came along, the last thing the owners would worry about is paying players more money. They would be far more concerned about (1) having to pay for their own stadiums (2) having to pay a fair property tax rate on those stadiums. Anybody catch the news last week that the stadium district has already collected 569 million from the public? The funny thing is that Miller Park was only supposed to cost 400 million to build. Interest and upkeep sure is a killer. I hope that the 1/2 of the ill-will directed towards owners and the other 1/2 of ill-will directed towards the players will be remembered 10 years down the road when the Brewers declare that American Family Park is a pile of junk and they need a mere 1.5 billion (which actually means 2.5-3 billion after interest and upkeep) to build a new park that everyone can be proud of (even the 80% of the state residents who could care less about MLB) to remain competitive.

Over his career, Anderson has given up 1 home run about every 6 2/3 innings pitched. 2017 was a fluke year in that regard as the ratio dropped to about 1 home run in every 10 innings pitched. Giving up home runs is just going to be part of his game. But overall he's done a decent job of limiting the home run damage as evidenced by his career 3.89 ERA versus his career 4.48 FIP.

In the past, it seems like public perception is....if the owners lock the players out, then the owners are the bad guys...if the players strike, then the players are the bad guys. There is an insane amount of money for both parties here and whichever one walks away if going to look like the evil, greedy entity in this dispute. MLB and MLBPA have to tread lightly here. Speaking of changing public perceptions, more and more people are getting sick and tired of paying for billion dollar playgrounds when billion dollar owners and million dollar athletes could pay for it with their own money. Those folks in five southeastern counties must be getting sick of paying that sales tax by now, when Attanasio and Braun can just sit back and count their money and just wonder how the general public can be so stupid as to give them all that money.

Best way for players to approach this is not to try to get the owners to agree to free agency after five years or four years of arbitration, because those are concepts that ownership should and would dismiss immediately. What the players should go after are all the service time manipulations, where some significant changes could be made that a good percentage of owners may agree with. Credit a player with 1 full year of service time once he reaches 72 days on the 25 man roster in one season. That doesn't mean if Hiura begins the season on the opening day roster, that he'd get 2 years of service time once he got to day 144. No more waiting until the end of May to bring up the superstar prospect, now teams would have to wait until the end of July which would be difficult to do if the team felt that player was ready in April. And to address manipulation of waiting to bring a rookie up until July, change Super Two status from the current form to all players having over 2 years, 40 days of service time go straight into arbitration. So if a team wants to call the superstar prospect up in July, he is a lock to get four years of arbitration. A player automatically receives 1 full year of service time if he's added to the 25 man roster for a third time during the same season (activated from DL doesn't count). So you want to yo-yo the 9th man in the bullpen back and forth from MLB to AAA, the third time it's done that player has one year of service time. Eliminate the fourth year option. Automatic league-wide bonuses paid to third year players based strictly on plate appearances and innings pitched. In addition to the minimum salary, players get small bonuses for every 20 innings pitched or 60 plate appearances. No penalties for team when signing a qualifying offer free agent. Now luxury tax penalties go back to the MLB office. In the future, 50% of the luxury tax penalties go back to the MLBPA who would distribute it back to players with <3 years of MLB service time by whatever formula the MLBPA chooses.

80% agreed with what you say. Prior to 2017 I would have agreed with you 100%, but the previous off-season I claimed all these projection systems were nuts for predicting such a dramatic fall-off for both Braun and Villar. They got both of those right. I do pay attention to these projection systems and find some value in them. But just to pull a number out of my rear end, I'd probably put about 20% stock into a projection and about 80% stock into the historical data. What I don't understand are all the people who go nuts when they disagree with a projection. It's one thing to disagree, but why go nuts thinking one's personal opinion has any more value than the projection system? Neither party has a crystal ball. PS - The "go nuts" statement is not aimed at any member of this forum, but a couple people I know that don't post here.

I don't think the #26 ranking is out of line at all. Last time I did a complete run-through was early August, during the 10 days following the trade deadline, and I had rated them at #23. Burnes has graduated since then but I wouldn't assume that automatically drops the Brewers because other teams had players that graduated too (and lots of trade activity since then). I'll probably do another run-through after getting the BA Handbook. Personally, I'd be surprised if I had the Brewers in the bottom five but would be even more surprised if I had them outside of the bottom 10.

If one drops the 2012 and 2013 numbers (bad) and the 2017 numbers (good), and just keep what could be considered a "normal" offensive season from Gonzalez, that accounts for four of the last five seasons and the combined slash line from 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018 is .262/.314/.412/.726. Last year he was at .247/.324/.409/.733.

I like the updated sign stealing rules. These are the kind of rule changes I like as they don't impact the way the game has been played for so long, but has a chance to cut down on some of the peripheral crap we have to listen too. Really wish MLB would have taken this off-season to better define what pitchers can use and can't use to get a better grip on the baseball. Pine tar OK or not OK? I don't care one way or another and I'd bet most MLB fans feel that way. But I have a problem with the rules stating one thing but everybody looking the other way because they want their own guys to be able to do it. If everyone wants to do it, then change the rule. Don't need a whole bunch of stuff popping up in June about this pitcher using pine tar and this other pitcher not using pine tar. IMO, this is something that has a chance to develop into a big story and I think MLB is kind of foolish for not addressing it now.

Parra just doesn't have enough of a bat to be real attractive as a corner outfielder. Last three years he's slashed .283/.320/.407/.728 while playing all his home games in Colorado. That translates to a 80 OPS+ over those three seasons and last year he had an 80 wRC+. He still plays plus defense in both corner outfield spots but his bat is definitely subpar for those positions. Steamer projects him as a -0.1 WAR player for 2019. I am a bit surprised he had to sign a minor league deal, but if guessing a few months ago I probably would have put him at a 1 year deal at somewhere in the 1.5 to 2 million dollar range.

Have to admit I would have rather seen the Brewers hold onto this money for a potential big splash at the deadline. Adding his lefty bat does bring a significant upgrade to Spangenberg's bat, and IMO doesn't leave a path for Spangenberg to make the opening day roster unless someone else gets hurt. Grandal (switch), Thames, Shaw, Moustakas, Yelich and Gamel fixes that lefty bat problem the Brewers had at the beginning of the off-season. Still short on lefty pitching....that's the only real hole on the 40 man roster.

Great article. Mid-tier free agents are getting screwed because they are not getting the 80 million dollar contracts that Mike Leake and Wei-Yin Chen just got a few years ago. Since signing the contract, Leake has a 4.32 ERA, 3.96 FIP, 1.30 WHIP and 95 ERA+ and Chen has a 4.75 ERA, 4.38 FIP, 1.28 WHIP and 80 ERA+. Leake will probably be about a 1 bWAR/season player over the life of this contract and Chen could easily wind up in negative bWAR territory. If anything this shows that MLB owners and GMs have stopped drinking the mid-tier free agent Kool-Aid with many of these players.

splitterpfj is 100% right. The MLBPA really puts a huge value on the DH. The owners know that. Hard for me to believe the owners would ever adopt the DH in the NL simply "for the good of the game." It just makes sense that they would save something like this as a bargaining chip in future CBA talks.

Last time Braun appeared at 1B was on July 23, and that was due to Aguilar's injured hamstring. Braun played first base from July 21-July 23 because of that. Prior to that, he played parts of games on June 11 and June 17 at first base. On June 11 a double switch moved him from LF to 1B in the 7th inning and on June 17 he pinch-hit in the 8th inning and then finished that game at 1B. Last time he started a game at 1B not due to another player's injury was on June 1st. So appearances during the last four months were minimal and he would have been down to just a few innings played after June 1st if not for Aguilar's injury. Braun might see a minimal amount of innings at 1B in emergency situations, but based on the history it sure seems like the Brewers saw all they needed to see in April and May of last year.

Sounds like the Angels are in pretty heavy now. I think that's the best fit for Moustakas. Still scratching my head over their decision to sign Cozart to all that money and then move him to third. But it appears they currently have David Fletcher scheduled to play 2B, and he was more of a "so-so" prospect who had projected to be a utility player. Signing Moustakas and moving Cozart to 2B to get more of an impact with his glove seems like an ideal situation. Payroll still could be an issue. The last couple of years they've had the payroll around 166 million and they are already at 170 million. No clue as to how much higher they'd want to go. With the luxury tax at 206 million, they won't need to worry about that aspect of it.

Or maybe it's because the Brewer's statistical measure of defense is similar to UZR/150, and UZR/150 had Braun at a poor -19.0 when playing 1B.