Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 322: The Qualifying Offer Analysis Episode

Episode Date: November 5, 2013

Ben and Sam discuss who did and didn’t get qualifying offers, which player stands to lose the most money as a result, and why the system doesn’t make sense.

Yeah! Little guy, that's right. Nelson. Yeah, down by the river. Good morning and welcome to episode 322 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus. I am Ben Lindberg, joined by Sam Miller. Today is Tuesday, so it's a Sam Topic Day. The way we're doing this tentatively this offseason is Sam Topics Monday, Tuesday, Ben Topics Wednesday, Thursday, and listener emails Friday. We may deviate from that from time to time, but that's the general idea. So what's our topic today? Qualifying offers. Okay, this was Qualifying Offer Extension Day. What do you think of Qualifying Off. Okay. This was qualifying offer extension day. What do you think of qualifying offer extension day?

It's not the most exciting. It's not on my calendar of exciting events. It's not near the top. Is it higher or lower? I guess calendars aren't ranked generally. So nothing's on the top of a calendar generally, unless sometimes you might leave your calendar on a table and then you might stack a cup on it.

But would you say it's more exciting than the day that Comeback Player of the Year is announced? Probably, yes. Do you feel like we transition too quickly into off-season mode? I feel like before the World Series was over, they were talking about Ellsbury's free agency on the broadcast, and I kind of wanted, like, a little bit of a, just a little bit of a breather or something before we started doing rumors.

I guess that's too much to ask. More exciting qualifying offer day or general manager's meeting? Probably GM meeting, period. Some stuff happens then. Does it? I think so. Non-tender Day, though. That's a good one.

Yeah, Non-Tender Day is a solid. I would say Non-Tender Day, to me, I think I might say that Non-Tender Day is more exciting than the draft. Hmm. I like Non-Tender Day. It's because we don't know the players who are getting drafted, whereas we know the players who are getting drafted. No, that's exactly right. I basically get no useful information. It's all just flowing past me.

And then a couple years later, the names will make sense. But the thing I love about non-tenor day and the thing that I like about qualifying offer day is that it is a chance. It is a day when somebody basically puts these players in order for me. So, like, I didn't, I don't actually think I knew whether Kendries Morales or A.J. Burnett is a better baseball player. And in my head, I thought that A.J. Burnett was. And I wouldn't have really even thought it was all that close. Burnett was. And I wouldn't have really even thought it was all that close. Like if I had both players and their salaries were the same, I would choose A.J. Burnett over Kendri's Morales easily, like without even looking it up. And yet I'm told today that Kendri's Morales is actually

a better baseball than A.J. Burnett. I think there were some other circumstances going on there. And are we talking about this in any sort. Um, and are we, are we talking about this in any sort of systematic way or are we just reflecting? Uh, no, no. Okay.

So, so with Burnett, my understanding based on, on reading things about it, uh, is that he basically declared that he is going to be a pirate or nothing, a pirate or retired. And if you do that, then your leverage is gone.

And if you're the sort of smaller market pirates, then you probably figure you can get him for $12 million or something instead of paying the $14.1 million. So I think that's what it is. It's not necessarily that they don't think he's as good as the Mariners think Kendris Morales is. It's more like they think they can get him for less. Because he apparently doesn't care that much about making money. Yeah. And I could have said Bronson Arroyo instead of AJ Burnett. But I think AJ Burnett is better than Bronson Arroyo instead of A.J. Burnett, but I think A.J. Burnett's better than Bronson Arroyo, maybe.

But maybe that's not true either. The thing, though, that, I mean, there are people who have retired, gone away for years, and then decided that they had second thoughts. It does not seem inconceivable to me in the least that A.J. Burnett would get some three-year $45 million offer from the Minnesota Twins and decide that, well, probably not the Twins, because it has to be driving distance from his home in Maryland or whatever it is that his wife can't drive further than.

But the Orioles offer him $3 million and $45 million. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he takes it. So the Pirates would be kicking themselves in that situation. And I don't know. I mean, the whole thing about this that surprises me is that I'm just surprised that anybody doesn't get a qualifying offer. I mean, obviously, that's not true. But, I mean, something that I've known to be true for a decade is that all the bad deal is in the long-term contract. And as someone used to say, I don't know who used to say it.

Somebody used to say it on the site. There's no such thing as a bad one-year deal. And that's not true. Like you, well, not you, but apparently I and major league baseball teams actually have dramatically different ideas about the cost of long-term risk. And teams don't seem to dread it the way that I instinctively feel like they should. They actually don't seem to pay a premium for a short deal. And they don't seem to get a discount for long-term deals. And so it seems to me that like Bronson Arroyo, you might not give him $14 million average annual value

because he's going to want three or four years. You might not give him that. But if you were willing to take one year, I don't know how any team wouldn't offer him that. It seems like you would rather have that than any three- or four-year deal that's going to be signed this offseason. But I'm wrong. Clearly I'm wrong, right?

Yeah. I mean, I think it was hayman or someone said that the explanation was just that the reds didn't have the money to risk that i guess like i don't know they're they're one of the smaller markets and probably lower revenue teams and they've got all the money uh devoted to v, and I don't know, Arroyo is going to be 37, and he doesn't strike people out, and I don't know. I see what you're saying, certainly. He's been consistently,

I mean, he's pitched 200 innings every year. He never gets hurt, and of course that's only true of pitchers until they do but as far as health goes he's a he's a pretty low risk pitcher i would think and and he's generally decent useful um yeah so yeah devote yeah devoted Devoto sounds like Latin. It sounds like a Latin phrase. Yes, it does. I wonder what Devoted Devoto would sound like. But the thing is that I don't expect that Arroyo would accept 1 in 14.

I mean that's basically my point is that he wants the long-term deal because he knows that's how he gets his ridiculous contract is on the back end. And so yeah, they're risking having to pay him $14 million. That, to me, feels like an extremely low-stakes risk. If he accepts it, well, you move some money around, you dump Ryan Ludwig or something, you get a credit card to take out a loan from next year, you figure out a way to pay. I mean, that's an unforeseen circumstance.

But, you know, like they say, if you never miss a flight, then you're getting to the airport too early. And if you never get stuck with one of these qualifying offers, you're probably being too passive on it. You probably should get stuck with one every once in a while. Are you surprised that Saltamachia didn't get one? I guess under the principle that you're surprised everyone didn't, then that would include Saltamachia.

But yeah, the Red Sox extended three of them, right, but did not extend one to, yeah, Napoli, Drew, Elsberry, but not to Saltamachia coming off. What is he? He's a 28-year-old catcher? Yeah, he'll turn 29 during next season. He's coming off his best season, you could say. You should say. And, yeah, I mean, he's not a defensive whiz by any means as we

saw in the post season, but he, he hits, he's, uh, he was a significantly better than league average hitter this year and has historically been roughly a league average hitter. And as a passable defender, that's, that's a pretty valuable player. And as a passable defender, that's a pretty valuable player. The somewhat tricky thing with Saltolamakia is that, unlike a lot of these guys, you're only going to have one catcher, really. You're going to have your starter and you're going to have your backup. And if you actually have in mind, if they're going into this offseason thinking,

we are targeting Brian McCann, or maybe something else. But if they're going in saying, we are targeting Brian McCann or maybe something else. But if they're going in saying we are targeting Brian McCann and they have to wait for Salta La Macchia to shake out before they can do anything, then it makes it a little harder to pursue McCann. It's a week, right? You can't. resume a camp because it's a week right you can't uh well yeah but um i mean i guess it's a week before he accepts or declines yeah i guess yeah you're right i was i was sort of thinking about how the kyle loge thing yes went forever and everyone he kept saying well eventually he's gonna just sign with the cardinals because nobody else will sign him but But yeah, I guess that's not a factor here. So never mind. So of the 13 players who received such offers,

and I'll just run down the list quickly for those of you who don't know, Beltran, Cano, Chu, Cruz, Drew, Ellsbury, Granderson, Ubaldo, Jimenez, Corota, McCann, Morales, Napoli, Santana, it seems like the consensus is or the greatest surprise has come from Morales. And this was reported, I think, a while ago that he was likely to be extended one and also likely to decline it. And I think people were surprised to hear both of those things.

Yeah. So I get that in that he's, what, a 30-year-old, pretty much DH only, who is not an elite hitter, a very good hitter, but not among the very best hitters in the league. And he's limited to probably AL teams, and there are only so many AL teams that even look like they would have a spot for a guy like that I think maybe he's offensively underrated

a bit because of the parks he's played in like if you look at his true averages they're pretty impressive over the last four years it goes 312 309, 298 300 I don't want to be and i don't want to i mean this might be he missed 2011 yeah this might this might be heresy but i think you could also suggest

that he might be overrated because park factors are maybe i don't know i'm just saying they might be a little screwy right now yeah that's possible so maybe it's maybe it's somewhere in between but you look at the he has not been he has not been a great road hitter he is like a basically a 750 road hitter yeah so that's that's not that's not would you would you give a 14 million dollar one-year deal to a 750 OPS road hitter no he's doesn't he's the one guy. There's five guys who didn't get a qualifying offer that I would have given before Kendries Morales. Who?

You didn't actually mean five. You just pulled that number out of the net. Yeah, I mean, Salty, Arroyo, Burnett. I think that I would put Morales and Vargas. I mean, Morales was traded for Vargas, and I thought that was a reasonable deal at the time. And I think that they both completely lived up to their career stories in the last year. Nothing has particularly changed. It's conceivable that, I don't know, maybe I think that Morales took a little bit of an edge. But considering where the Angels are, I would have expected the Angels to sign, to offer Vargas before I would offer Morales.

The thing about Morales that I read in every one of these analyses of him getting a qualifying offer is, and not just him, but in some of the other ones too, is like this line of thinking that there's no power hitters anymore. Yeah, I was just going to bring that up. This is not a real thing. Like if you say there are no starting pitchers available, well, that's a real thing. Every team needs a starting pitcher. You need five of them, in fact. You need five starting pitchers.

You need a person who can catch. If there were no catchers, that would be significant if you didn't have a catcher because you need one. You need a person who can catch if there were no catchers that would be significant if you didn't have a catcher because you need one you need a second baseman you need various things uh you know on your team there is no minimum number of power bats that you need though like there's no there's no rule mariners philosophy last winter though as we discussed needed a power bat as we did discuss yeah yeah. So the power bat is a arbitrary phrase that is constantly changing in relationship to the reality of Major League Baseball.

So in fact, there are exactly as many power bats as there have always been. It is exactly the same as it has always been. And even if it's not, even if somehow like the bat's all dried up, it wouldn't matter. You don't need them. You can do other things in baseball besides have three guys with power

in the middle of your order. So if teams are really putting a premium on Kendry's Morales because they look around and they see that 27 home runs finished, six in the National League this year uh that's illogical yeah that I've I've kind of been kind of been wrestling with this whole no and it it's often it seems like it's often there's no right-handed power there's always some some sort of power that there isn't. And I've heard this a lot about prospects too lately. Yes. Not just in the major leagues.

I mean, it's like offense is down, but it's not. I mean, how much disproportionately is power down relative to like contact or whatever? I mean, there are no contact hitters anymore well i was just gonna say this was gonna be my my drop the mic moment is that uh last year nobody had 200 hits which is like crazy like how does there how is nobody up 200 hits in the season but nobody's out there going well you need to pay a premium for your slap hitting you know single sitters because there's no more there's no more contact guys anymore uh you know juan pierre's not cashing in this year because he's the only guy who can get 175 hits or whatever um so yeah it's i mean to me

it's it's silly it's a very weird way of processing the sport um so of these people who got offers, and I guess other than Morales maybe, is there anyone on the list who you expect to have the loach sort of Michael Bourne lingering into spring training because no one wants to give him a draft pick with the amount of money that he feels he deserves? Well, I think Granderson will accept. And I have a hard time sort of seeing Granderson topping 1-14, either 1 or 14. So I think he'll accept.

I don't think there's a lot of pressure on him to go anywhere. And I think Morales, if Morales doesn't accept, is going to get shut out. um and i think morales if morales doesn't accept is going to get shut out um uh maybe i don't know i mean it seems sort of unthinkable that urban santana is going to be in demand but he is he's going to be in demand it's like this is my problem not his that i can't see this right uh and I guess I guess Napoli's not a not a gimme um I mean he's got he's got exactly the same hip that he had a year ago and the fact that he played on it for a year doesn't change what doctors are going to say I mean uh a doctor is going to look at his hip and see the exact same thing now a team will um be somewhat less worried about it

because they've seen him play a year but they're gonna ask their doctor and their doctor's gonna say the same thing uh and i i nelson cruz is kind of like a maybe a slightly more attractive morales so you could say that that he might have some of the same issues except he also has that right-handed power that you got to get so uh i guess he's okay um i don't know someone someone will sign i guess beltron would be the next most affected guy maybe just because he's older um or or drew possibly yeah Drew. I was, yeah, it wouldn't have shocked me if Drew hadn't gotten an offer. Yeah. Yeah, but I guess Morales is the only one who it seems like teams just won't even think he's,

potentially won't even think he's worth the draft pick and signing him for more than this. the draft pick and signing him for for more than this um should we should we discuss the the system at all in that people are making a a big deal and maybe in a justified for justified reasons of the fact that that six of these guys are yankees and red socks and and that this system ostensibly is supposed to be increasing competitive balance and really it's kind of just helping the bigger market teams who tend to have these players in the first place because they can sign them and have them on their teams and they don't have to trade them before their contracts are up and, uh, they can afford to, to risk their accepting a qualifying offer because they have the payroll to do

that. And it just makes it more difficult for other teams to sign them instead of leveling the playoff playing field at all. So it's kind of more of a, more of a leveling effect on the salaries than, than the competition. Yeah. Well, I was thinking about writing about this tomorrow,

and so I don't want to say much because as soon as I say something out loud, I can't write it anymore. Okay. I will just say that it's the dumbest system in the world. It's just 100% dumb start to to finish it is soup to nuts stupid i wonder whether it will survive the next cba i'd be sort of surprised if it did i mean well if i say this then i can't write it i'm afraid to say just i'm afraid to use any any. But just imagine somebody emailing us. Instant message me and I'll read it out loud.

No, imagine anybody emailing us for Wednesday email show and proposing this as an idea. We would never read that email. And we've had some pretty far-fetched proposals that we have discussed in depth. Yeah. So, yeah. Okay. It's yeah. Okay.

It's stupid. All right. Is that all we have to say about qualifying offers? Sure. Okay. So we'll be back tomorrow. We should have an interesting guest, I hope, for tomorrow's show. And you should be sending us emails at podcast at baseballperspectives.com.