Hot Stove 2023-2024

Heyward is a really interesting comp with your mentioned caveats - both have time with Cubs/Dodgers, both considered to be great clubhouse/glue guys. The latter won’t get you signed on its own but it definitely helps when you have your best friend, who just happens to be Freddie Freeman, advocating for you to be picked up. And didn’t Heyward have a good season last year?

I wonder if Cubs fans think of Heyward’s contract the way Giants fans think of the Zito contract post-2012. His rain delay speech is credited by basically every former member of that team of being the reason they rallied and won game 7.

I guess your main concern with Bellinger is probably the peripherals - if you look at his baseball savant page, there’s some kind of alarming-looking data on his ability to hit fastballs. But he’s only 28, I don’t blame the Cubs for wanting him back, and for the guarantees in the contract.

Sorry, I should say I understand the guarantees in the contract.

heyward didn't have an injury that hurt his hitting either, did he? he just kind of ... stopped hitting (though he did manage to gradually improve over the past few years)

Heyward was entering his supposed prime when he signed with the Cubs, and he just happened to fall off a cliff as a hitter (though with his defense he was certainly a plus piece.) i think they were hoping he'd turn into a 30 HR, solid average, amazing defense guy. he just had a bad swing, though.

the Bellinger deal is perfect for Cody. idk what one would have expected him to ideally get, his hitting was awful to "not-good" for three seasons, and last year wasn't a return to his MVP season, it was just a step forward. the question is whether or not it was an indicator of a return to his MVP level, or just a perfect situation where everything fell into place to result in that stat line. there are questions about how much last year as due to good luck. if he faceplants, he's set for life anyway. if he tears it up even more, he gets to tear up the deal as well and get himself a couple hundred mill.

Trying to think of the best comparable for a volatile player like Bellinger signing a long term deal

Barry Zito!

The St. Louis Cardinals are signing Brandon Crawford, sources tell The Athletic. The move brings needed veteran shortstop depth behind Masyn Winn, with Tommy Edman's status for Opening Day unclear.

News here, more to come: https://t.co/gt0tBtsy3s

— Katie Woo (@katiejwoo) February 26, 2024

Superutilityman Kiké Hernandez and the Los Angeles Dodgers are nearing a one-year contract, sources tell ESPN. The deal would come on the heels of Manuel Margot trade to Minnesota being finalized. The trade will include cash going from the Dodgers to Twins, according to sources.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) February 26, 2024

Dodgers just cannot stay away from their favourite super utility man. Was kinda excited to see what Margot could do at the ravine tho

Every fandom gets their luis sojo

Red Sox in agreement with CJ Cron, per source.

— Chris Cotillo (@ChrisCotillo) March 1, 2024

https://t.co/huTA85w3B8 it's extremely hard for RHH to hit CF and RF HR in Fenway

— Red Sox Stats (@redsoxstats) March 1, 2024

Dodgers’ Kiké Hernández alludes to collusion in free agency

Seems weird to say that when his two highest paid teammates were flying cross country for literal months driving up their own pay by leveraging the demand from other teams, and one of them gave a deal to same team to stack a roster around him…some free agents aren’t in high demand full stop and others simply aren’t getting what they’re after. Snell was reported to be asking for $270m for 9 years, not that many teams that could pay that want to (0 at this count). I heard the Yankees made him an offer before they signed Stroman but at this stage taking on Snell on even an shorter contract with higher aav for example when they are over the highest tax threshold means they’re paying double for him. That’s an ask.

JD Martinez turned down $20m from SF by the way, that’s entirely on him, not “collusion”.

i don't know much about the business side of baseball but it seems like both things could be true: i'm sure some players have an unrealistic idea of their value at this moment, but i also would not be surprised if there was some form of collusion happening.

Probably the real issue for veteran players from owners is the increased speed that young players are being allowed to come up and stick from the minors, even if they struggle. The fact that owners can pay those guys almost nothing for years by comparison is the real issue. Brandon Crawford isn’t in SF because SF pushed all their chips in on Luciano, for example (and Crawford was terrible).

Snell for nine(!) years at $270 million(!!) -- it's nice to dream big and i guess it only takes one sucker. weird to say that about a two-time Cy winner he's dancing on a knife's edge, feel like he could tilt over into an annual 4.50 ERA guy vv fast.

I mean you can’t blame him for asking for it after his year especially with the lack of arms on the FA market but equally it’s a lot for a guy who doesn’t really post innings and who’s either Cy young winner or zero Cy votes in the career.

his stuff is good but those walks, yikes. he's not early Randy Johnson in that respect, but he's got to work on that. he needs a sorcerer of a pitching coach to help him out. i'd imagine he's going to get closer to 6/160 in the end.

i think it’s prob impossible to pull apart how much team behavior from the last 3-4 years is true collusion vs a sorta de facto collusion wherein teams are just “accepting” that the current structure of baseball highly incentivizes calling players up as early as possible when they’re cheap, signing them to long term under market deals asap and not really paying anyone except 3-5 guys across the league each year when they hit free agency at age 29. i’m not even sure there’s even that meaningful of a distinction, like you could certainly look at the management side of any union dispute — but especially one where the “management” is 30 separate entities — as a sort of open collusion against paying the other side what they deserve. the issue is really that the MLB union is so disparate and weak that i really don’t think they could ever organize to meaningfully change the overall structure of team control, free agency etc

i know that the adley rutschmans of the world who get called up early and perform really well and don’t sign immediate 10 year extensions are now being given more rope in terms of getting to FA earlier & stuff but that is still solving for a pretty narrow band of outcomes

Adley Rutschman maybe a bad example as he’s 26 this year and he may play another ten years at catcher or he may transition to first base after a few years, great bat but you can never really tell how long catchers will last.

I think the guaranteed money thing is so tempting for players, like they can hold out for free agency but so few of them make it that far comparatively and there’s always injuries that can slow or end your career prematurely. Some of those Braves deals are ridiculous for the players they have, but again, that’s a choice they made for guaranteed financial security.

Next offseason is going to be a lot more interesting because the free agents hitting the market are going to be higher quality and assuming the Yankees don’t extend Soto before then, someone’s paying him half a billion.

what would the free agent market of the last 2-3 seasons have looked like if the padres had not had a dying owner willing to spend his fortune — up to the point of borrowing money — on trying to win a title before he passed?

https://Twitter.com/Feinsand/status/1763791356017709259?s=20

Matt Chapman has agreed to a three-year, $54 million contract with the Giants, per source. The deal includes opt outs after each of the first two seasons. Chapman will earn $20 million in 2024, $18 million in 2025, and $16 million in 2026. @JonHeyman was on it.

— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) March 2, 2024

I'm starting to not understand this front office. The Giants need pitching, unless this isn't the last move. Now they have to move Bart and Davis, smh.

If they sign Snell or Montgomery , then I'm all in and would be happy.

They have to move Bart anyway. I assumed that was happening after they signed Tom Murphy to back up Bailey.

Makes sense, this signing, I think they were the only name persistently linked. Good veteran presence for that infield.

It's a great deal 54/3 works and a lot of fan bases would like this deal for their team.

The Giants only have Webb and a bunch of rookies. They need pitching.

Ok, this makes sense:

Pure speculation: The Giants don't make this move unless they're very sure that someone is eager and willing to take J.D. Davis and his full salary. Can't imagine they sign first, then start making calls second.

— Grant Brisbee (@GrantBrisbee) March 2, 2024

Chapman is so good. Just a joy to watch play third

JD Davis…to Seattle? 🤔

Just a joy to watch play third

Yes. And then he picks up a bat.

(I've written before about how I'm not fair to Chapman--statistically, he's Brooks Robinson. But his prolonged hitting slumps--which last year lasted from May to October--will wear you down.)

he also put up mvp numbers at the plate for a month to start the year. he's streaky for sure (esp last year) but if it evens out to a moderately above average bat, that's great when you consider his elite glove. i dread how the left side of the infield is going to look for the jays this year and, probably, what that is going to do to our pitching lines.

Well he’s not going to be putting up big power numbers in that park unless they give him Bonds’s old locker or something

SF's park factor is about the same as Oakland's... that is to say, a massive power suck.

Huh. Why did I think it was a hitters park? Looked a little on the smaller side to me when i was there. or is it more due to those cold ass winds coming off the water?

We discussed this itt a couple of weeks ago

Post by Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand) from trivial occurrences 2020 on ILX - trivial occurrences 2020

SF 25th, OAK 26th in 3yr avg:

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/statcast-park-factors

And lower than that if you just look at home run numbers
https://i.postimg.cc/d3qCHyB1/IMG-6249.jpg

The twin 84s = 16% below league average

oh wow. stadium is a lot larger than i realized

Phillies extended Zack Wheeler who would have been a free agent next offseason

Zack Wheeler’s 3-year, $126 million extension is the highest annual salary for any contract extension ever.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) March 4, 2024

never in a million years did I expect that original Phils/Wheeler contract to work out so well.

Mets let him walk for free, Giants traded him for a Beltran rental…doesn’t look that he really got very good until he went to the Phillies though

Mets couldn’t afford him, he was asking a lot and although they wanted him to stay this was pre Steve Cohen

funny you look back on those staffs with de grom, syndergaard, matz plus the mets acquiring scherzer and verlander and wheeler is the one leading all pitchers in WAR over the last 5 years

was matz ever hyped? he's decent when healthy but i missed the hype train on him earlier on. seems like he could have been really good had his arm not fallen off several times. btw, here is an impromptu test of the "generative AI" google uses now, when i prompted it with "matz injury steven history" (excellent prompt, i know)

Steven Matz, a left-handed pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, has had a long injury history. Here are some of his injuries:
July 23, 2022: Knee injury
May 22, 2022: Shoulder injury
May 23, 2022: Left shoulder impingement
May 22, 2022: Elbow injury
August 30, 2020: Shoulder injury
August 14, 2023: Left lat strain
August 2023: Flexor pronator sprain in left elbow

...accurate?

matz was hyped back in the mid 10s as part of that young mets rotation. ppl didn’t think he was better than degrom or syndergaard (ha) but i think if you polled mets fans at the time ppl were as or more excited about matz than they were wheeler. but i could be misremembering

he was pretty hyped iirc. He was a 2nd round draft pic and top 20 prospect by the time he debuted

i think if you polled mets fans at the time ppl were as or more excited about matz than they were wheeler. but i could be misremembering

I don't think you are misremembering, but possibly discounting the fact that Matz was a Long Island kid and lifelong Met fan who had a crazy debut that got everyone excited:

Matz debuted against the Cincinnati Reds at the Mets' Citi Field on June 28, 2015.[21][46][51] His first MLB pitch was a wild pitch to Brandon Phillips,[47][50][52] and later in that at-bat Phillips hit a home run.[48][50] Nevertheless, Matz got the win, giving up two runs, five hits, and three walks,[31][47][50] and striking out six over 110 pitches in 7+2⁄3 innings,[50][53] as the Mets defeated the Reds 7–2.[50][52] Additionally, using a bat gifted to him by Las Vegas teammate Matt Reynolds,[47][48][52] Matz recorded three hits as a batter and drove in four runs.[48][50] His first major league at-bat was a two-run double against pitcher Josh Smith.[47] Matz was the first pitcher in MLB history to record that many hits and RBIs in his debut game, and the 11th player at any position to do so.[48][50] He was also the seventh pitcher since 1914 with three or more hits in his first game, and the first since Jason Jennings of the Colorado Rockies in 2001.[48][50] Matz was the first pitcher and the 26th player in any position in the last 100 years with four RBI in his MLB debut

otm about that first game. he was a sensation in 2015 and was probably their best pitcher in the first half of 2016. but it’s never been the same since then. he would often get emotionally rattled when he got into difficult situations, and then was unable to shake it off (he’s a Mets fan through and through).

Thanks Jeff, I just leaned over the desk and vomited on the floor

Brutal news: Initial imaging showed Boston Red Sox starter Lucas Giolito likely has a partially torn UCL and flexor strain and could miss the 2024 season, league sources tell ESPN. Giolito, who signed a two-year deal with Boston, may need surgery to repair the right-elbow damage.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) March 5, 2024