What’s Left of the MLB Offseason?
At this point in the baseball year, we’re basically trapped in no man’s land. The big fish on the free agent market have all signed with their respective teams, any big splashes on the trade market were decided during the Winter Meetings, the majority of the rosters are set for the 2017 season, and yet we’re still 46 days away from pitchers and catchers reporting. And that only gets us to February. The wait for meaningful baseball isn’t even in the home stretch. We’re in a desperate situation, but there’s still something to look forward to over the next 43 days, 21 hours, and 53 minutes…
Where will the remaining free agents sign?
The recently signed Collective Bargaining Agreement has changed the strategy that most front offices use in their approach to major league free agents. The new deal, which would lighten the draft pick compensation penalty for signing qualified players, has diminished the incentive for teams to pursue some of the bigger names left on the market. Two of those players are Mark Trumbo and Jose Bautista.
The only two left with a declined qualified offer dangling around their necks, neither of the sluggers have seen their markets materialize to this point in the offseason.
I’ve already written about the increasing likelihood that Bautista returns to the Toronto Blue Jays for Off The Bench, which has only been reinforced by recent reports that he’d be willing to sign a one-year deal. His appeal is limited to American League clubs because he’s best served when the DH slot is available, and he’s further limited by the qualifying offer and the fact that half the league fanbases dislike him. There’s an obvious relationship between Bautista and the Blue Jays, as well as a glaring hole in the Jays’ lineup that his bat could fill. But I also want to take a deeper look into Mark Trumbo’s situation.
Coming off of a career year in which he hit 47 home runs, drove in 108 and posted a .850 OPS, many projected the Orioles’ outfielder to command up to 4 years on the free agent market. MLB Trade Rumors went so far as to rank him the 8th best MLB free agent. Yet, here we are approaching the new year and nothing has materialized for the American League home run champion. Why is that?
There’s no doubt that Trumbo’s counting stats jump off the page. How could a 31-year-old that led the league in home runs not have his fair share of free agent offers? Well, if you were to draft a scouting report on Trumbo’s five tools it would look a lot like this:
- Decent hitter
- Elite Power
- Weak glove
- Weak arm
- Poor baserunner
Going even further, if you were to write a scouting report on Trumbo every year for the past five years, it would look like that every single season. His power has buoyed his value, even turning him into an offensive asset, but do not confuse Trumbo with anything less than a one-dimensional player. His 198 home runs since 2011 are good for 9th among all players in that span, and he’s even driven in nearly identical totals to Chris Davis and Jose Bautista. So he’s one of the best home run hitters in baseball, but his overall offensive value is far from elite. Using FanGraphs’ wRC+ to give a more refined look at his production, Trumbo’s mark of 112 is good for 108th in the same time frame, one below Pablo Sandoval and above C.J. Cron.
Fortunately for Trumbo, his 47 home runs will be enough to convince some GM that he’s worth something in the range of $15 million per year.
Are there any moves left to be made on the trade market?
The biggest splash in the offseason was the deal sending Chris Sale to the Red Sox in exchange for baseball’s number one prospect, Yoan Moncada, as well as the Red Sox’ fifth-ranked prospect Michael Kopech. The White Sox would follow that move up by trading Adam Eaton to the Nationals for two top-10 pitching prospects in Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez, as well as first-round pick Nick Dunning. In the span of a week, the White Sox wrote the definitive guide on rebuilding through trades. But recent rumors indicate that their tear-down might not be finished.
As reported by Bob Nightengale, both the Yankees and Pirates are in speculative talks to land Chicago’s other highly-touted left-hander Jose Quintana. There’s also the potential for a three-team deal involving White Sox closer David Robertson, though it’s not clear who would move in each direction.
The addition of the Pirates into the rumor mill is intriguing, given the early offseason rumors that focused on their intent to trade away franchise center fielder Andrew McCutchen. Cutch is still on the roster, however, and after re-signing starting pitcher Ivan Nova it appears as though the Pirates consider themselves contenders in 2017.
Perhaps not the likeliest outcome, but the most interesting would be a three-team deal that saw both Quintana and Robertson leaving the White Sox. Easily the most valued piece in the deal, Quintana would command a heavy price-tag to be separated from the Sox’ rotation. From my armchair GM perspective, a three-team deal with David Robertson heading in the other direction could offset some of the cost inevitably required to trade for the young starter. A hypothetical scenario could see the Yankees acquiring Jose Quintana from the White Sox in exchange for a bevvy of blue-chip prospects, while the White Sox trade Robertson to the Pirates and Pittsburgh sends a prospect to the Yankees. The White Sox would most likely have to swallow part of David Robertson’s contract in any scenario, with $25 million remaining through 2018.
This scenario is of course purely speculative seeing as it’s unclear how close any of the sides are to coming to an agreement. Nevertheless, it provides us with some fodder during the dark days of the MLB offseason.
There is still plenty of MLB offseason to go before pitchers and catchers report. Hopefully, those days aren’t all boring.
-Daniel Cassese
