Expect Some Bad Baseball in the Coming Weeks

Mike Moustakas signed today and there are rumors that Bryce Harper is not far behind. But in a winter that saw Major League Baseball’s (MLB’s) annual “Hot Stove” come to a standstill, some of the sport’s biggest names remained unsigned for the coming year. The last time I looked, there were still dozens of baseball athletes still waiting for teams to make them the right offer; start with Manny Machado, Bryce Harper, Craig Kimbrel, and Dallas Keuchel and work your way on down: there would be enough great names to outfit a very strong lineup (if one could imagine a single team signing them all).

Oh yes, and a glance at my calendar suggests that Spring Training camps are officially beginning. There may still be a handful of big contracts out there, but probably few in the range of the $300 million and inflated expectations that a Harper or Machado believed they could command when the offseason began. Kimbrel and Keuchel also seem to have stratospheric beliefs of their own value. No doubt, most of these names will do what Moustakas did and settle for one year contracts with teams that move in at the last minute to get them for an affordable price.

Why has the Hot Stove free agent and trade market basically ground to a halt these last two years? The most likely explanation is the more analytical minded General Managers and the ways they are finally able to explain their craft to owners. In the past, owners went big on players they believed were difference makers, big home run hitters and pitchers with strong track records of winning. But bow we have ‘Wins Above Replacement’ (WAR) and a lot of other statistics. When an owner in the past would make a big salary commitment to a veteran hitter, the belief these days (supported by data) is that the vast majority of hitters decline beginning at age 32.

Just ask the Angels of Anaheim about Albert Pujols, a great guy and one of the premier players of his generation. They still owe him a ton of money and he may be playing at below replacement level at this point in his career. Today’s GMs do not give away that kind of money to players in their declining years.

Instead, they are able to go to their bosses, the teams’ owners, and show them that for $4 million they can sign a player with a value of 1 WAR (one win above an average quality replacement player). When the owner wants to make a splash and sign a popular player for $16 million, the GM can show them data to the effect that that player would only add 2.25 WAR. (Those are examples, not actual figures.) In essence, the higher tagged player is not worth the extra expenditure.

For the first time, the owners are listening, to the GMs who can show them data proving their points, and so we have fewer crazy deals being signed. Welcome to a re-aligning market.

What’s lost is what the fans want. Teams owners do want bankable stars who can draw in season ticket holders and excite fans. So is it worth a team going out and signing Harper or Machado because they are bankable stars? Yes and no. At a certain price, absolutely yes. But that price is still a lot less for most teams than those players are expecting. At that price, it’s not worthwhile for any but some on-the-edge or contending teams to make the splash.

Because as great as these players are (and Harper and Machado and still young and just moving into their primes), even top baseball players are not household names these days. An average NFL or NBA player has as much social media following as one of MLB’s top stars. Do they draw the fans? Some, but it’s not like the stadium will sell out and see a huge uptick in season ticket subscribers just because a team signs one of these guys. It will help some, but probably not a lot.

People want to see teams that win. The recent experience of the Chicago Cubs and the Houston Astros proved that ‘tanking’ and taking a few years to rebuild through the draft and the minor leagues can produce a winning baseball team. For some of the top MLB cities, a soft rebuild and slowly adding to the team using younger, cheaper players is probably a better option. The ‘tanking’ concept has been somewhat overblown and I don’t think it’s the major reason that many MLB players are not signed yet going into the season.

The main reason is value. Teams now have a better handle on that than ever before. They can quantify a win and a player’s expected impact. They can sign those guys young and cheap. And that will be a major issue in the next collective bargaining discussions; as the market re-aligns, the players union will demand a better deal for the young arbitration-eligible players under team control.

So the takeaways are these: Players and their agents need to accept that there is a new reality and that huge multi-year deals are going to be a lot scarcer. Teams will continue to have luck signing their own young players to team-friendly multi-year contracts, since free agency is much more uncertain these days. Opt outs and swellopts in contracts are becoming standard.

And above all, with these delays, expect some really bad baseball in the first few weeks of the season. Many of these free agents are training every day (is there really an offseason for premier athletes anymore?), but any delay in the hitters facing decent live pitching means their timing will be off when they finally do get signed and get into camp. Some pitchers also may be rusty in the beginning, maybe not the fireballers, but the guys who depend on finesse and secondary pitches that may not work well quite yet. It might be like the first few games of the NFL schedule when guys are still warming up, since their training camps are not really long enough these days either.

Should be interesting to watch how things develop, not only the baseball part, but the changes in this market in the coming year or two.

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