It's going to be a photo finish as I try to get my 2014 MLB prediction series out before my team starts their season this coming Monday. Cool if I skip the under-the-radar transactions and just hit the big difference makers in one winter-abolishing megapost? Cool. Predictions hopefully coming tomorrow.
12/27: Rangers sign OF Shin-Soo Choo, 7 years, $130M. Choo's been a consistently good player with a few very good years mixed in. He draws walks, hits for a little power, and steals the occasional base, although his steal success rate isn't great. That package of skills has twice gotten him some MVP votes, including a 2013 season where he played most of the year out of position in center field but put up a monster .423 OBP. Given the Rangers' losses of Hamilton, Cruz, and others over the past two years, Choo fills a need. At some point the seven years and $18-19M salary will look ridiculous, but there could be a few good years at the beginning of the deal.
1/03: Rays re-sign 1B James Loney,3 years, $21M. Loney rebounded from a disastrous 2012 with a solid 2013, highlighted by a .348 OBP. He's not the traditional slugging first baseman, but few are anymore. I'm surprised the Rays chose to spend their limited resources on Loney's early thirties. That said, it's not a huge contract, and keeping last year's roster together for another run is a pleasant surprise from Tampa Bay. I neither love nor hate the signing, but like everyone else, I do like the Rays.
1/16: Dodgers sign SP Clayton Kershaw to a 7 year, $215M extension. This is what the best pitcher in baseball costs. Now we know. It was a foregone conclusion that the Dodgers were going to go way over the line to keep Kershaw around. I don't have a problem with this one absent context, but I do have a problem with Kershaw, Greinke, Gonzalez, Kemp, Ethier, and Crawford all making massive salaries for the next several years. This core might have a World Series or two in it, but it's also got a future that looks a lot ike the present-day Yankees.
1/22: Yankees sign SP Masahiro Tanaka, 7 years, $155M (plus $20M posting fee). And the Yankees went ahead and bought the Japanese version of Kershaw. Even though his numbers from NPB call to mind a peak Bob Gibson or Pedro Martinez, MLB is a different game and nobody seems to think Tanaka is as good as the last next big thing from Japan, Yu Darvish. Comments from Yankees brass that they expect Tanaka to be "a good number 3 starter" seem realistic, but for that, they gave a contract not that far off from what they gave C.C. Sabathia. 2013 was the first object lesson of paying prime value for a roster full of players past their prime. Tanaka is neither good enough nor Benjamin Button enough to reverse that trend.
2/4: Braves sign OF Jason Heyward to a 2 year, $13.3M extension. Once the Braves got their new stadium deal finalized, they went right to work signing their core. While other guys got four to eight years, they only bought out Heyward's arbitration years. Heyward's always looked like an MVP waiting to happen in my opinion and more years would have been better, but the cost would have been prohibitive and the player isn't without risk. This extension changes very little for the Braves- in two years, they'll probably be letting Heyward leave as a free agent so they can afford everyone else they signed.
2/5: Braves sign 1B Freddie Freeman to an 8 year, $135M extension. Signing a breakout star through age 32? OK, that's fine. Good OBP, possibly great if 2013 wasn't a fluke? Gotta like that. Home run totals in the 20's? Not terrible, as long as he's got help in the lineup. This deal looked astronomical at first glance, but the more I look at it, the more I think there's a chance Freeman's fifth-place MVP showing last year will be the norm for a while. I'll call it fair.
2/7: Diamondbacks sign SP Bronson Arroyo, 2 years, $23.5M. The Diamondbacks are an average team, and they've signed an average pitcher for good-pitcher money. He's also old enough that that durable arm could run out of mid-80's gas at any minute. Either add a couple years to the guarantee and get Matt Garza, or let a young guy have a crack at it. Add this one to the "Kevin Towers is a dope" file.
2/14: Braves sign SP Julio Teheran to a 6 year, $32.4M extension (option for 7th year). Atlanta followed up the Freeman and Heyward signings with a typical contract for a good pre-arb pitcher. Atlanta buys out at least one free agent year on the only one of their major league-proven young arms who won't start this season on the DL. Other than the standard caveats about young pitchers, there's nothing not to like here.
2/16: Phillies sign SP A.J. Burnett, 1 year, $16M. This doesn't change the Phillies' fortunes in any meaningful way, so it's a good place to talk about the qualifying offer system. In hindsight, Pittsburgh lost a draft pick by not tendering the one-year offer to Burnett, but at the time the choice was made, Burnett had said it was either Pittsburgh or retirement. Making the offer would have set the price, and it may have been too rich for the Pirates had he decided to accept. The argument against the current system is that it hurts the market value of good free agents, but let's not forget they had a choice in this. When someone turns down a $14M guarantee, that's the point where I lose sympathy if things don't go their way. The elite free agents aren't even affected by this; it's the Kendrys Moraleses and Nelson Cruzes of the world who lose out because of choices they made. This offseason produced some wacky outcomes- seriously, Stephen Drew is still unsigned?- but the players will learn from it. Teams are already pretty good at picking which players to extend the offer to, and in the 2014-15 winter some one-dimensional slugger is going to look at the contract staring him in the face, think of Kendry Morales, and accept it.
2/16: Braves sign RP Craig Kimbrel to a 4 year, $42M extension. The rule for reliever contracts: Keep it short-term and low AAV. The question: Is Kimbrel the exception to the rule? He's the best reliever in the game by a wide margin. WAR says he provides as much value as an above-average starting pitcher despite throwing a third of the innings. The contract only takes him through his age 29 season. The back of his baseball card is a total anomaly, one that likely would have broken the arbitration pay scale. That means the Braves saved at least a little money, assuming no major drop in production. So right now, yes, he appears to be worth it. For me, it's just hard to accept that an organization as well-run as the Braves gave out this contract. It's harder still to accept that it might have been the right move. The baseball world has learned from the B.J. Ryans and Jonathan Papelbons of the world over the past decade. It's hard to picture right now, but what if Craig Kimbrel's name gets added to that list?
2/19: Orioles sign SP Ubaldo Jimenez, 4 years, $50M. On the subject of qualifying offers, if Ubaldo can get a $50M guarantee even with a draft pick attached, the players are doing just fine. Jimenez has never had good control, but 2013 was a rebound year of sorts thanks to a shiny strikeout rate. Even the modest expectations of the league-average pitcher Jimenez was last year may be out of reach in Baltimore. All those walks don't bode well when you're facing the sick lineups of the AL East. I don't know if Matt Garza or Ervin Santana would have been a whole lot better here, but I know I don't like this fit.
2/19: Reds sign SP Homer Bailey to a 6-year, $105M extension. Unless the Reds are planning on spending a LOT more money, they aren't going to be able to keep their entire rotation together. With Jay Bruce and Joey Votto already eating up a sizable hunk of their upper-middle-class payroll, it's possible that they just won't be able to keep more than one of their top three pitchers. If that's the case, I have no problem in principle with signing Bailey. He's arrived as a good pitcher, and his health issues aren't as recent as Latos's or Cueto's. The problem is the staggering overpay. Bailey's maybe a $12M pitcher, $15M if he keeps improving. In a couple years, three guys will be making as much as the rest of the team combined and only one of them will be a bona fide superstar. I was enjoying the Reds' recent relevance as I root for three things: The White Sox in the AL Central, the Marlins in the NL East, and standings chaos in the other four divisions. Now that Reds relevance looks like it's got one, maybe two years left.
2/20: Braves sign SS Andrelton Simmons to a 7-year, $58M extension. Simmons is already known as the best defensive player in baseball, but let's not ignore his 50 extra-base hits last year, or the fact that his walk total wasn't too far from his strikeout total. If he can improve his offensive production even a little, he could be the best player in the NL before this contract is up. It's a lot of money for a guy with this little service time, but so was the first Evan Longoria contract. I'm calling this one a steal for the Braves, and by far my favorite deal from their late-winter spendphase.
2/23: Yankees sign OF Brett Gardner to a 4-year, $52M extension (beginning in 2015). I guess when you only produce one home-grown player every five years, you best sign him, right? If he plays the outfield and you've already got 3 other expensive, older outfielders, even better. This won't be a mess at all. In terms of value, it's not that bad. Gardner's a pretty good player and he'll get paid like it.
2/24: Orioles sign OF Nelson Cruz, 1 year, $8M. Other than Kendrys Morales, this was the one guy who definitely should have accepted the qualifying offer. The Ballpark at Arlington agreed with Cruz, and his all-or-nothing production became progressively more important to Texas's offense over the years. The Rangers should be fine with their new additions, and Camden Yards should be kind to Cruz. Health is always a question with him, but it's reasonable to expect 20-25 homers in 100 games, give or take. Pretty good value signing.
3/12: Braves sign SP Ervin Santana, 1 year, $14.1M. This was a strictly necessary move after the Braves learned both Kris Medlen and Brandon Beachy would miss the entire season with torn ligaments. The Braves needed a good starting pitcher, Santana needed to sign somewhere, the Royals needed their free draft pick. Maybe this is a win for everyone. But still... I don't usually like to bury a team because they start the season with bad injury luck, but two Tommy Johns is a seriously rough way to start off. Neither Santana's presence nor the theoretical young pitching depth makes me think "That's OK, they didn't need those 60 starts from Medlen and Beachy."
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