MLB 2014: Bold Player Predictions

The Game Room
21

I would be inclined to agree they are moving him too fast. I wouldn’t be worked up about a one-time drop upon advancing a level; that is quite normal, and as you point out was not accompanied by a rise in K rate, suggesting an element of bad luck. He’s shown the ability to learn and adapt before.

Making him the leadoff hitter right away in 2014, though, seems like a bit of a rush to me. He is not THAT young, so it’s not as is they can wait forever, but maybe starting him off in the #8 position would be wiser. Given that he may also struggle a bit in the outfield, it seems like a lot to put on him at once. But, hell, I don’t know him, maybe he’ll eat the pressure like Oreos and win the Rookie of the Year Award.

22

Monster season from Matt Kemp, finally healthy and with all kinds of protection in the batting order around him.
Billingsley wins at least 12 games as the #3 or 4 starter.

23

Josh Johnson will have a huge bounce back year with the Padres, and finish top 5 in NL Cy Young voting.

Tanaka will have an ERA higher then 5.00.

Colby Rasmus will have a 6+ WAR season and sign a 9 figure contract.

Mike Trout will finish with 12 WAR and finish second in the AL MVP vote.

24

Your guess is as good as mine. But I’d venture a guess that his ERA is somewhere in the 4.00 - 4.50 range for his first year. Tanaka has to 1) adjust to pitching every 5th day (instead of every 6th) 2) Deal with a larger sized ball (which could be problematic for a pitcher who relies on his splitter) 3) Perform on the biggest stage in North America 4) Adapt to hitters, who on average drive the ball 10% farther than their Japanese counterparts (and as a RH thrower in a park with Little League dimensions in RF.

And, after he’s done all that, he’ll have Jeter and Roberts behind him to deal with all those balls hit up the middle.

But apparently the Yankees’ scouts value him at least as good a pitcher as Felix Hernandez. The Yankees paid a $20 mil posting fee, and then gave him $155 over 7 years, with an opt out after 4 years. As Fangraphs.com pointed out, the Yankees are, in essence, paying out $108.5 million over 4 years ($27 MILLION per year.) Tanaka then, at 29 years old, has a player option for $66 mil at 3 years – but of course the only way the Yankees get him back is if he’s been a mediocre pitcher or worse. If he pitches close to his compensation he leaves or gets a new, longer, more lucrative contract from NY.

I don’t understand this one at all.

25

I’d rather have spent the money on Robinson Cano, and then instead of signing Roberts, signed someone like Ubaldo Jiminez to fill the rotation. But it’s not my money.

26

It’s not just the money, it’s the lack of flexibility the Yankees have burdened themselves on a pitcher that is not a sure thing. If he bombs, they’re stuck with him for 7 years. And if Tanaka is somewhere in the middle, with his value still uncertain at the end of 2014 or 2015, the Yankees will be unsure as to how aggressively they go after a free agent like Lester or Sherzer or Price in a couple of years.

The Red Sox used a very different strategy last year in over-paying (on an AAV basis) in order to get FA’s on 2-3 year contracts. For example, they paid Victorino $39 mil over 3 years, but probably could have gotten at a cheaper AAV if they’d offered a 4th or 5th year.

The Yankees, with all their money, could do that in a much bigger way. They could have overpaid FA’s on shorter deals… or even structuring long-term deals with a club-option that, if declined, has a considerable buyout. Instead of giving Ellsbury a 7 year deal at $22 mil per, they could have given him a 4 year deal at $25 mil per year, and a club option for three more years at $20 mil per, with a $20 million buyout if they decline. Ellsbury might have declined, but it would have been $120 gtd, with a chance to go to FA at 35 years old.

They could have overpaid (AAV) to sign Garza or Shields for shorter contracts.

In the end they might only save a small amount of money, but the flexibility – the ability to cut and run – is what would really be valuable to the Yankees. Most other clubs can’t really afford to do this, since they’re worried about the luxury tax cap, so they give the long-term deals and hope they get a good playoff run, and if not, they suck for a while.

The Yankees get stuck with too many under-performers, that they feel they have to keep around. With all their money, they probably should just pay them what’s owed and buy better, newer, talent, but you keep hoping that guys will come back and perform. If they had buyouts in place (even very expensive buyouts) they could use they $$$$$ advantage. Teixeira might come back from wrist surgery this year, but not the Yankees are stuck with him, even if a top 1st baseman becomes available in FA. Same with CC, and, of course, ARod.

Maybe I’m understating the cost and overstating the flexibility, but I just can’t believe the Yankees are stuck on a model of operations that hasn’t worked very well.

27

Hasn’t worked very well compared to being a dynasty, maybe. They’ve failed to win the division, what, three times this century?

28

Actually, the Yankees have failed to win the division 4 times in the last 7 years. They’ve missed the playoffs 2 out of the last 6 years, with the highest payroll in the league, no less in a period when 4/14 teams made the playoffs, and now 5/15.

And you/I can cherry pick the time frame to make/debunk an assertion, but I’m suggesting that what worked 10 years ago isn’t nearly as effective today. But I’d argue that the two most significant changes in baseball over the last 5/6 years are a) More teams benefiting from new regional tv revenue, and b) More top players signing long-term contracts before they reach free agency. [And in most cases a) has led to b)]

Conclusions, the FA pool is getting older, so you want to limit length of contracts even if you end up paying in 3 or 4 years what you could get in 5 years, but have to give a 7 year deal overall. You end up saving some money, unless the player has a great front end (in which case, if you’re the Yankees you’re happy because you got great return) but more importantly you have flexibility to weed out the dead wood.

29

Well it’s true about the cherrypicking - for instance, OK, it’s four times, but they’ve won the division two out of the last three years, no? - but on what basis are you actually making the claim that it hasn’t worked well? Compared to whose model?

30

I see diminishing returns. The Yankees are not projected to win the division this year, in spite of $450 mil outlay. (And winning a division, is just meaning your were best of five, if you don’t advance.) They won it all in 2009, because of they money they shelled out for Teixeira and Sabathia, which were wins (Burnett was a loss), but the wins were only short-term wins, and the opt out clause in CC’s deal really hurt.

I think the Indians had extended CC in the early 2000’s but had only bought out one year of FA… today smaller market teams might be able to buy out 2 or 3 years of FA. Judging by what Texas is spending, back in 2007, they probably would have extended him before FA

What the Red Sox did after the 2012 season was a small-scale prototype of the method I’m proposing. The Sox still worry about the cap and AAV, but it worked out well on a small scale. (Mid market teams give long-term deals to even out the AAV and stay under the cap.) Seattle got Cano with $240 mil over 10 years… Yankees (according to my method) should have offered $180 mil over 6 years, with 4 yearly club options of $15 mil each, or $7.5 mil buyout for each year they decline.) So min value to Cano is $210 ($180/6, + $30 mil in buyouts of 4 years), but, at 36, he’d still be free to pick up another deal. (And if it’s upfront costs you’re worried about, money can owed but deferred)

The point is I hear about how the Yankees have to spend money to fill seats (as well as tv viewers) because the loss in revenue for a poor team would far exceed the cost of overpaying for FA’s. So why should the Yankees be interested in locking up twilight years from aging players? They should be like the rich folks that buy a big blueberry muffin, take off the top and throw the stump away.

Giving players long-term deals with PLAYER (walk-away) options is the opposite of what they should be doing, even if they have to pay more per season played.

31

But of course a projection isn’t a return. They have won the division two out of three years. So whether they’re diminishing or not… they’re getting returns, aren’t they? I don’t think there’s been anyone in baseball who has been consistently better than the Yankees over the last however-many-you-like years.

I suppose I have a hard time distinguishing between what you’re saying and a backward-looking analysis that just waits until they don’t win the World Series and then says “they’re doing it wrong!”, especially in light of the comparison to a Red Sox team which just so happened to win a World Series last year after an actual-literal-last-place finish. That’s the “right” approach, but only by virtue of the fact that last season already happened, and they won, it seems to me.

32

Josh Hamilton will have another lousy year, less than 20 home runs.
Albert Pujols will again play less than half the season.
The AL West will still be interesting, with a newly competitive Seattle team battling with Oakland and Texas.
The AL East will be a battle between Baltimore and Tampa, maybe going down to the last game of the season.
The NL East will be a fun battle between Atlanta and the Washington Nationals.

33

If that’s the case, then the Angels are screwed for a long, long time. If they are able to sign Trout to a long-term extension, then they’ll be over the cap until Hamilton’s contract ends. Or, even worse, Trout decides to stick it out to FA and jump to a club that has better chances.

The AL East is really tough to predict this year. The Orioles are still adding pieces like Ubaldo Jimenez and Nelson Cruz, but those two players are tough to project in 2014. After years of over-estimating the Jays, I’ve sworn them off. Yankees have too many question marks, including Shawn Kelly as their set-up man, and their entire infield. The Sox’ fortunes depend upon two rookies up the middle in Bogaerts and J Bradley Jr. I guess that makes the Rays the early favorite, but maybe things will be clearer by opening day.

34

Essentially, it’s the regular season that tells you how good a team is. The post-season is a crap shoot and a showcase. But if you’re analyzing actual success, the season W-L record is the real stat.

35

It’s only been since the beginning of the decade that the Yankees have more than doubled the league average in annual payroll. Before that, all the Yankees usually (but not always) had the highest payroll, they were only about 10% ahead of the next team or 15% ahead of the next 4 or 5 teams. The real escalation came going into the 2001 season, when the Red Sox began to push them by going after Bernie Williams. In the last 10 years, the Yankees have spent almost $2.1 billion in payroll. The Red Sox, I believe, are in second place with $1.4 billion. That’s nearly 50% more, and the results, over a 10 year period have been 951 wins for the Yankees and 900 for the Red Sox. (the year 2012, accounts for 36 wins in that difference, when the Sox gave up the season and dumped their contracts on the Dodgers.) During that time they’ve made one World Series and won it. Sox have made 3 WS and won 3. The Yankees have won 6 division titles to the Sox 2, although in 2005 both teams finished with identical records. The Cardinals spent only $962 million over the last 10 years, or less than half of the Yankees, and they won 894 games over that time frame, with 5 Division wins, 3 WS made, with 2 WS wins.

To recap, the Yankees have outspent the Sox by 50% to get 5% more wins, and have outspent the Cardinals by more than 2 to 1 to get 5.5% more wins. (leaving aside the World Series appearances and WS wins.) Compared to any previous era, I consider that a diminished return.

I seriously don’t think the Yankees feel they’ve gotten adequate return for the $2.1 billion in payroll over the last decade. Division titles are nice, only because they get you into the playoffs. (Wild Cards use to be worth almost the same, up into last year, where the doubled the WC berths but weakened their value by half.)

And if you look at the Yankees run from 1995 through 2000, you’ll see that they won 4 WS and 4 Divisions with only a 10% advantage in payroll over the next two teams in the league. That was possible because they had an internally developed core-5 in Jeter, Williams, Rivera, Pettitte and, later on, Posada. They added free-agents, but primarily to complement the team, not to build it.

But given that the Yankees no longer give a damn about draft and development, if they’re going to outspend the league average by double, then they ought to change how they’re spending their money, because they’re not getting much of a return.

36

Since you feet the post-season is a crap shoot, then you must consider the Atlanta Braves from 1991-1995, the greatest Baseball Dynasty of all time. Excluding the strike season, 14 straight seasons atop their division, 13 seasons 90 wins or better… 1 World Championship.

37

I would like to see a comparison with some Yankees stretches, but, yeah, I see no problem with that statement in principle.

38

From 1949 - 1964, the Yankees won 14 pennants in 16 years. Up until 1961, but there were only 8 teams in each league. But it’s difficult to compare dynasties across era’s. Before 1965, there was no amateur draft, so the richest team like the Yankees could sign up as many of the amateur prospects as they could fit in their farm system. Once the amateur draft was installed in '65, the Yankees found it much more difficult to reload their team, becoming a bottom-feeder at worst, and an also ran, at best, until Free Agency was instituted in 1975. In between, there was no way for the Yankees to do the only thing they do better than anyone else… write big checks.

39

At this point it seems to me we’re both supporting the same argument. You don’t mean their model hasn’t worked, you just mean that it has worked, but you’re not impressed.