Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 359: The Remaining Free Agents/Pillow Contract Candidates

Episode Date: January 7, 2014

Ben and Sam discuss the remaining big-name free agents and talk about which might be best served by one-year deals.

Yeah, so put your purse down and take off your jacket Oh girl, it's about to get nasty You love what we're gonna do So lay your head on my pillow Yeah, baby And just relax, relax Because this was made all for you uh you know i was just thinking that we're at that time of year where uh i would bet almost anything that you're planning to get at least one and maybe two guests for the topics that you have

to pick this week it is that brett tomko drawing interest portion of the off season do you remember the drawing interest piece i did last year uh no remind me no of course you didn't it was this season i mean you know news gets so scarce and topics get so so hard to come by that i wrote an article for uh the site on players who were drawing interest and the entire article was i actually oh i tried i tried to draw artistic representations of the actual interests that they would draw. Like this play, I forget who it was. It was not a piece that did well. No, that was a weird one, but you get to show off your paint abilities.

It was arguably the weirdest one i've ever done freddy sanchez drawing interest and uh jason giambi is working out and drawing interest and adam kennedy drawing interest and i tried to represent in in a in a visual style yeah they're the interest they drew i've wanted to do something similar i like the eyeing team's eyeing and i've always wanted to do something similar. I like the eyeing, team's eyeing. And I've always wanted to try to go back and watch games and try to find pictures of people on that team staring at that player. But it sounds really hard and time-consuming. And probably not much of a payoff.

Yeah, fair enough. All right, trust me, not much of a payoff. Yeah, fair enough. All right. Trust me, not much of a payoff. Whatever MLB trade rumors headline puns you've got in mind, they are best limited to tweets. Yeah, I don't do those. All right. So speaking of these things that are happening, I thought we would look at, well, let me just back up. Nelson Cruz, still a free agent.

Yeah. Nick Cofardo, still a baseball writer. The two merged this weekend when Nick Cofardo wrote about Nelson Cruz's free agency. And he wrote this. Would a one-year pillow contract be best for Cruz? That's what a few general managers we spoke to seemed to think. Some of the rumored four-year deals at $75 million don't seem to make sense for a player coming off a PED suspension.

It seems Cruz needs to reestablish his value. It would open more opportunities for him in places such as Seattle, New York Mets, Toronto, and Baltimore, among others. Cruz remains one of the best hitters out there, but teams are wary about PED guys after they're off the stuff. They're wary of PED guys, right? Can you be wary about – I guess you'd be wary about. I would be of, yeah.

Wary of. So I thought that we would look at – if I'm counting correctly, wary of um so i thought that we would look at there are if i'm counting correctly there are six um of our baseball prospectuses top 25 free agents or maybe just rj anderson's top 25 free agents available not counting aj burnett who is a special circumstance we stand behind him as a company you can say baseball prospectuses yeah and I did. And so six of the 25 top free agents are still free agents. You and I, I believe, are both generally fans of pillow contracts. The term. The term.

The term. And because we like the term, we have talked about them before. I thought we would just go over these six. Actually, there's seven if you count. They must all be pitchers and Nelson Cruz, right? Probably. Nope, not true. Nope, not the case.

So seven. And I just thought we would go through and see whether – I actually am a – I think that the pillow contract should be – well, I think it should be much more frequent. So I thought we'd go through and see whether you thought any of these guys are also have reached the point anytime afraid there's a certain point in the offseason where inevitably any free agent that is left and has um you know potential value in his performance will start getting pillow contract talk about him. And that makes sense because there's evidence that free agents make less once they sign later at a certain point.

Once they sign this late, they get less for how good they are than guys who sign earlier. And presumably if that is a line that goes straight down into spring training, then every day makes it sort of more tempting to have that conversation about them. And so I don't know if we're at that point quite yet, but there are only seven of the top free agents left. So maybe we are. So I thought we'd go through and see if you think they have a case. So first, Nelson Cruz, who is number 11, and we'll start with him because that's what we're starting with. Does this make sense to you?

Does it make sense to you that Nelson Cruz would need a pillow contract to rebuild his value after a PED suspension? I don't think so. I don't buy that. I don't think it has much to do with the PED suspension. It might have something to do with guess, was for a 2012 thing that he did. So theoretically, he was clean last year, maybe, if I remember the sequence of events. But so I guess you could say the teams weren't scared of him because he played well last year. Whereas Cruz, they could be scared of him.

But I don't know. whereas Cruz, they could be scared of him, but I don't know. As I said, when the Cardinals signed Peralta, I thought it was evidence that teams weren't that worried about PED guys and signing them and thinking that they were suddenly not going to play well anymore because they would be too afraid to keep taking whatever they were taking, and whatever they were taking was responsible for how well they played. keep taking whatever they were taking and whatever they were taking was responsible for how well they played so i think with cruz in particular there are lots of other reasons that that could easily explain why he is not getting the offers that maybe people thought he would be getting um

i don't know i i i think he's not that great really i. I mean, he's probably the best position player still available, but he is 33 years old. He's going to turn 34 next year. He has no defensive value. He has no base running value. He's a pretty good hitter, but unless you buy into the right-handed power scarcity idea, he doesn't get on base a whole lot. He's kind of, you know, maybe an average player right now, if that, and he's going to cost a draft pick, and he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would age particularly well. I mentioned on Clubhouse Confidential last week that his top Pocota comp is Juan Gonzalez, which,

you know, one comp doesn't mean the world, but Juan Gonzalez was essentially done as a productive player at Nelson Cruz's age. And he's good for like a hamstring strain or two every year. So with all of that combined, if he was coming out and asking for a four-year deal or expecting something big, I can understand why he wouldn't have gotten one yet. And Jeff Sullivan did a piece, what, last week, like looking at potential landing spots for Cruz and just like couldn't find any. He just like couldn't find any teams that would want Nelson Cruz. It's like almost, almost money aside, there just aren't a lot of openings for that sort of, uh, DH player who's just kind of limited. So, yeah, one thing, I mean, one thing you said, uh, I agree with,

with everything you say. I, I, I don't, I. I mean, if the problem is that he can't get anybody to give him four years and $75 million, it's hard to imagine what he's going to do that would get him that next year. I mean, he's got basically one year in his career that would have justified that. That was four years ago. And, you know, more, I mean, it seems like one of the great traditions of the pillow contract is going to a place like Texas, um, where the ballpark will pump up your numbers a bit and, uh, almost anywhere he goes, it's going to have a, a, the opposite effect. Uh, but there's one thing you said, which is the draft pick. Um, that is

probably one reason why he's having trouble getting anybody to sign him right now. Uh, or at least it's, it's a part of the math that teams would do. And it's quite likely he wouldn't have a draft pick attached to him next year. He might even be able to negotiate in his pillow contract that he won't have a draft pick, uh, attached to him next year. So, um, if that is, we don't, we don't know exactly how much teams price that at. But it's probably, I don't know, I wouldn't be, I guess it would probably be somewhere between maybe, you know, four and $10 million or so maybe. So even if, even if you think that, like, let's say. Depending on where your pick is. even if you think that um like let's say depending on where your pick is

depending on where yeah of course that's true if you're uh if you're a team that's giving up their like seventh overall pick or something if they sign him yeah so let's say though that it's you know four million or let's say i don't know let's say it's six to be generous so if nelson cruz ends up signing something that's like three years and 36 million dollars or something which probably is about what he's worth um then you know the team might dock him six million for that or five million for that or whatever and if it's only one year that he's giving up he might actually be smart to wait until. I'm not sure that guys who are marginal like that, who are barely worth signing with the traffic attached to them, shouldn't all be taking one-year contracts.

I mean, it's essentially a $5 million raise for next year, maybe, by not going out to the market when you're... Wait a minute. Wait, but so then that's a problem because then he would still cost a draft pick. Never mind. He would cost – the only way that he would not cost a draft pick is if he waited. Oh, yeah. I mean, no, the risk would be there.

But I'm just saying that he can't not cost a draft pick. So whatever he does this year is going to cost a draft pick. So that doesn't actually make any sense. He could sign with the Rangers, but then the Rangers would be giving up a draft pick so whatever he does this year is going to cost a draft pick so that doesn't actually make any sense he could sign with the rangers but then the rangers would be giving up a draft pick and he could go to a team after the draft he could wait until after the draft which is pretty late or he could go to a team that would give up a second round pick i can't remember who's already given up their picks but if you're a team like if you're a team whose first pick is already protected and whose second pick has already given up and it only costs you a third round pick well then that's hardly anything at all so maybe he could find that team uh anyway that was a lot

of talking um nelson cruz is done um let's go to the number one free agent according to baseball prospectus remaining uh which is urban santana who was number five overall um and the natural thing to say is that urban santana is coming off you know like a career year more or less or maybe the second best year of his career and there's no way that he can do anything but go down but on the other hand teams aren't dumb they've priced that likelihood of regression in and if he um if he's any you know if he manages to repeat uh he's a much more reliable guy and teams will price that in so you know it's it's unrealistic probably to think that teams are all dumbly going to only look at the last year of his of his performance as it is um and maybe he's one decent year away from getting a much bigger payday. So should Irvin Santana roll the dice?

I'm going to try to look up the free agent starting pitching market for next winter while we talk to see who will be available, barring extensions. But I don't – the only possible reason I could see for that is just because the starting pitching market is so weird this year. We saw all the position players sign very early and all at once and mostly on the same day. And then most of the top pitchers, really, other than Kuroda, who was kind of always either going back to the Yankees or going back to Japan, it seemed like everyone else is still available, I guess, partially at least, because teams were waiting to see whether Tanaka would be posted. And now they're waiting to see where Tanaka will go and how much he'll cost. And that's going to be holding things up for the rest of this month. And then we will be a few weeks away from spring training by the time the Tanaka negotiations are over.

away from spring training by the time the Tanaka negotiations are over. So between that and I guess the fact that this group and, you know, the people that you're going to bring up next are all sort of come with question marks or red flags and have sort of been up and down or have had injuries or and most of them will cost draft picks. That probably has also contributed to how slow to develop the starting pitching market has been. But, I mean, Santana is probably the most attractive guy available, right? Other than Tanaka. I kind of wonder whether Tanaka will end up costing too much. I kind of wonder whether Tanaka will end up costing too much just because his talent is so alluring and he's a 25-year-old free agent and we never see those.

Whether teams will end up overpaying for them instead of going for one of the domestic options who are all over 30 and cost draft picks. Although the posting fee has to be more than any team would value the the the draft pick at right so in a sense there's there's more of a cost associated to to signing tanaka than there is to any of these other guys an ancillary cost um which is a long-winded way of saying that probably Santana is not a great candidate for a pillow contract.

It seems, so the other two pitchers who are also starting pitchers and who are also on this list are Matt Garza and Ubaldo Jimenez, and the three of them are actually all fairly different, quite different, different circumstances and different typesdo Jimenez. And the three of them are actually all fairly different, quite different, different circumstances and different types of pitchers. But one thing that maybe is – I feel like you're right. Tanaka is the big reason that – and I'll get to that. But Tanaka seems to be the big reason that nobody is signing them yet or why that market hasn't congealed.

But all three of those guys are also kind of very easy to rank radically differently, depending on who you are. And I'm going to look up what I think Keith Law's rankings are because I know his are actually quite a bit different than ours. so he's got Ubaldo in his is the number three free agent period and the number one pitcher and for us Ubaldo is down at number

13 overall between Carlos Beltran and Jared Soto-Lamacchia and behind Nelson Cruz and that's a huge difference so if you think that if ubaldo certainly ubaldo thinks that he's number three you know like he he knows that he's he used to be hot stuff he came back it was hot stuff again you know he's a confident guy he's he's an

ace and so in his mind he is worth that and he only needs one team to to say, he is worth that. And he only needs one team to, to say that he is. Whereas, um, you know, we have him with lots of question marks and there's all sorts of reasons for that. So all three of these guys are the sorts of guys who, uh, it's easy to see why they would, why they would take a long time to sign. And it's also easy to see how another, another year could really solidify their status and remove a lot of the question marks. Garza's a weird guy because Garza feels like – I don't know that anybody's – I mean, we ranked him fairly high, and let's see, Keith ranked him 11th overall, which is like the one, two, three, 4, 5th starting pitcher. But Garza, it feels like to me more than almost anybody who's a free agent right now, saw

his stock drop a lot last year. I mean, I guess Curtis Granderson more, but sorry, there's an ESPN video audio playing in my headphones and I cannot currently think where which tab are you this is impossible uh here it is well we can't hear it all right uh I forget what I was saying oh yeah Garza feels just like Garza feels like a mess right now I don't feel like I would want Garza at all on my team um so is that because I said something sort of similar and Brian Kenny asked me whether we are over waiting his half season with Texas, whether we're reading too much into that. Because we all, I don't know, people kind of liked Garza a year ago and the Rangers

really liked Garza and wanted to trade for him. And now he is the one of these guys who doesn't cost a draft pick, right? He didn't get a qualifying offer. No, he couldn't because he got traded. Right, yes, right. So theoretically that should make him more attractive. It should. So why are we so scared of Matt Garza?

Is it just the injuries? I mean, that's a good reason. Yeah, well, remember when you wrote... He's not this bad, but remember the piece you wrote last year about Sean Markham when Sean Markham signed? Yeah, well, yeah. Well, we talked about Sean Markham a few times, and I said that I was giving up on injury rehab guys. Yeah, because eventually, even if they they come back they tend not to be they tend not to be like eventually the injuries catch up to the performance it's not that if a guy is

good but he's always injured you think oh well we just have to wait for him to be healthy and then he'll be great but but what actually happens the performance catches up to the injuries and he stops being injured or good and just stop he just becomes neither of them so ever since then i don't know maybe i've been a little less inclined to guys who i feel like are a certainty to be on the dl at some point in the year he's not quite in the markham class i mean he's no of course not he's not he's not close to that but yeah uh but yeah so i don't know maybe it's yeah i don't know he just he he he feels he feels old he feels old. He feels older than he, he just,

there's just an unmistakable sense of, of sad momentum going in his career. And maybe that's. Chauvinistic tweets. And yeah. And that weird ability to throw inability to throw is, is, is odd.

I don't know. Yeah, sure. We are probably overestimating his bad half season with Texas. I mean, Texas wanted him for like forever. Yeah. And then they, they finally get them pretty good players for him for a half season. Yeah. They were trying to get them for years and then they finally get them. It's like four days later, you could just see like the sense of disappointment. Like they had realized once they got close to him, they realized that there was like this smell

that they, that they didn't know because they were so far away. And I don't know, there's something about the way that Texas just immediately was disappointed in him that convinced me that there's something not quite right about Garza the pitcher. Yeah. I don't know, though. You're probably right. Probably his facial hair. That, too. I think I did a post on that once for some reason

his changing facial hair over the years he's had many different shaped goatees has jeff sullivan written about a lot of good work in our time can we find jeff sullivan's mac cars a post and rip that off too yeah he probably has one. He probably does. All right. So the starting pitching free agent market for next year, there are some attractive pitchers who theoretically are available, but by the time we actually get there, may not be anymore. Of course, beginning with Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer. So the Cy Young Award winning pitchers are free agents next season, theoretically. But I would be shocked if both of them made it.

I'd be sort of surprised if either of them made it. So if you figure that they might not be there, then you're looking at still some pretty good pitchers. But, I mean, there's John Lester, maybe. There's Homer Bailey. There's Justin Masterson. Peavy, Wandy Rodriguez, James Shields. And Giovanni Gallardo has a $13 million club option, I guess. Cueto has a club option that will be picked up. So, so I don't know. It's

not assuming Kershaw and Scherzer and those guys don't make it, um, probably won't look any stronger than, than this year's, I guess could be worse. What do you think Matt Garza's the best FIP of Matt Garza's career is? Like 3.75. No. Oh, goodness gracious. You're pessimistic. No, it's 2.95. It's really good.

Really? Yeah. What do you think the second best is? Now I'm going to overcompensate and it'll be too low. 3.4? 388. I did it. Yeah, you did do it.

Anyway, that's basically a league average pitcher. There's nothing wrong with a league average pitcher who's available for 140 innings a year, but it's not, I don't know, it doesn't do it for me. Anyway, the point i was going to make about tanaka is if we assume that these three guys are all on the board because teams are kind of waiting to see if they can get tanaka instead do you think that's a fair description of the market uh like if there was no tanaka would these three guys all be available? No, probably not. Would any of these guys be available? I'll say yes.

How many? Maybe one. Okay, so there's at least two teams that are waiting to sign these guys and would otherwise be interested in signing him, but for Tanaka. And probably maybe even more because it's not you know that if say one team signs santana as soon as tanaka goes off the board there might have been four teams that were trying to get santana so there might be this whole grip of teams like a half dozen teams that are looking at these guys and thinking boy i'd really like one of these guys

but i'd like tanaka even more doesn't it feel kind of it doesn't it feel like this is the time to strike if you're one of those teams? You have to think. Your odds of getting Tanaka are not very good. There's probably a dozen teams that will try to get Tanaka and probably five or so teams that have a really credible shot at it. So you've got at best maybe like a one in six ish one in seven ish chance of getting the guy and as soon as you do as soon as someone else gets him and you miss him then all it's going to be a run on sorry there's a run on Garza and Santana and Ubaldo so I guess maybe those three guys have had something planted in their mind that they're going to get this huge payday after

Tanaka signed so maybe you can't get them at a discount right now but it feels like it would be a pretty good position to be the one team that's like you know caressing them right now and saying nice things so especially if you're the team that figures of the you know say you're one of the five teams with the credible chance of Tanaka but you think you're like the fifth team with the credible chance of Tanaka, but you think you're like the fifth team with the credible chance of Tanaka. Well, then that means you're still the fourth team with the credible chance at Santana when it all comes down. Anyway, I'm surprised. I'm surprised that it works this way. It feels like it shouldn't work this way. All right. The last, yeah. Yeah, go ahead. Okay. The last two in the top 20, whatever I said, are both position players. One is Kendrys Morales.

Well, A.J. Burnett was also in there, right? I said that I was a— Oh, you did? I didn't hear that. Yeah. Okay, yeah, because he's going to retire and go back to the Pirates. Because he said that, yeah. Okay, so Kendrys Morales, pillow contract? Yeah.

Okay. So Kendry's Morales, pillow contract? Yeah. Well, any contract that someone would give him. Yeah, I don't – can you even call it a pillow contract in this case? Because I don't know. I feel like he's not gonna like would a team give him a ton for one year i don't know they would not give him a ton for one year they would give him not very much at all in exchange for giving up a draft pick maybe and let him walk away at the end it's hard to see what he does to increase his value other than shed the compensation pick,

and also maybe he finds a team that lets him play a position, and he does it, like, maybe it turns out to be, like, a plus-three first baseman, and all of a sudden the narrative around him changes, and he stays healthy all year. That's super-duper risky, though. If you were putting your entire career earnings in a one-year

pillow contract situation uh and then you're going and playing the field 150 times which is the entire question around you uh then that's not very safe um but i could see i don't yeah it's hard to see how he it's hard to see how he makes profit in any situation right now. It's a weird situation for Morales. You know he'll end up getting more than we think. Yeah, just like Loesch did. Yeah, just like Loesch did. Just like everybody does.

They all make more than we think. So you're saying no. In an interview with Peter Gamons today, Scott Boris expressed his confidence that Kendris Morales and the next guy you're going to ask me about will find good contracts with teams that will put more value on their contributions than the value of possibly second or third round draft pick oh so that's more or less what you said about Cruz yeah I mean half the league could sign one of these guys right now without giving up a first round pick because they've either already given up their first round pick or they're you know they have a protected pick but the problem is that most of

the teams with protected picks aren't the teams that go buying big free agents they're they're protected because they're usually you know they're bad boris suggested banning qualifying offers for players over 30 and a monetary compensation whatever the venn diagram is that that includes just his clients uh we should ban the qualifying offer for them uh and a monetary compensation system for teams who lose free agents under 30 that the clubs can reinvest in signings or draft spending uh hard to follow that. We should make the system more complicated. Almost anything that adds details to the compensation system bothers me because it should be done away with completely. And adding patches just makes it probably harder to get rid

of. So Stephen Drew is the last one. And I could see a case for Stephen Drew. Can you see a case for Stephen Drew? Yeah, I'm surprised that he hasn't drawn more interest. Oh, you mean as a qualifying offer candidate? As a pillow contract candidate? Yeah. Yeah, I guess. I mean, he's coming off a strong year.

Yeah, I guess. I mean, he's coming off a strong year. He stayed fairly healthy and he hit well and he fielded well and he won the World Series. And, you know, he's 30. I mean, he seems like he should have been a more attractive candidate than this. should have been a more attractive candidate than this. If the Cardinals were willing to pay Peralta as much as they did because it seemed like they were kind of getting held hostage when they were trying to trade for a shortstop, and they seemingly didn't have much interest in him. I think they said something like, you know, teams were asking too much in trade

and the only other available guy who was good was going to cost a draft pick. And that's why they went with Peralta. But it sort of surprises me that – I mean, I don't know. Let me look at the free agent shortstops for next year. But he's – I mean, it's not even close. He's by far the best available. He was the best available. I don't know. Why do you think he let's see it's uh estruble cabrera is a free agent next year jj hardy is a free agent

jed lowry is a free agent and hanley maybe if he doesn't get signed to an extension um i i just think because he more than anybody on the list except for Ubaldo, and maybe more than Ubaldo, but except for Ubaldo, feels like he can really change the story of who he is as a player with one more good, healthy year. I mean, he is potentially, I think he is potentially a four to six win player who still has tremendous questions about his health and about his consistency and if he had a four to six win season as a shortstop uh then you know next year he's he's he's old enough that he's not gonna you know necessarily ever get you know a huge deal but he's he's but he's

younger than shinzu chu yeah yeah and you know he shortstop. He plays it well still, it seems to me. That's at least the story around him. And it seems like there's the difference between him signing right now and the difference between him rolling the dice and having one more year like he just had is, you know, potentially like $60-ish million. And Ubaldo's the same way. I mean, Ubaldo right now seems to me a guy who i don't know maybe anibal sanchez kind of deal at the at the slightly higher end to me uh well

at the higher end to me but one more year like he had from late april on and all of a sudden he becomes um you know a $140 million guy. And so to me that's when you do a pillow contract is when you can really reestablish who people see you as because everybody gets lumped into categories. All these players, they hit the market and they're immediately lumped into a category as a number two pitcher or as a whatever they are.

That's what they are, as a bat first pitcher or as a, you know, whatever they are, that's what they are, as a, you know, bat first, you know, power hitter or whatever. And then they get compared to a bunch of guys who are in that category and they get a deal that's pretty similar to guys in that category. So if you can jump a level, if you can jump a tier or two, it makes a lot of sense to me to risk it. And, you know, Drew's a very rich man. He could probably risk a big... I don't know. I shouldn't tell him what he should risk, but it feels to me like Drew, more than anybody, could end up being a real bargain right now at whatever deal he signs, and therefore, he should probably not sign it.

Mm-hmm. Okay. four he should probably not sign it okay uh so we talked about a bunch of free agents okay show over uh i thought i had something else to say but i've forgotten all right i'll bring it back tomorrow so we'll be here okay okay uh send us hang on it's coming back close it's coming back it's close it's coming back what hey what if they had like a wouldn't you love to see a one year oh i remember what i was gonna say i remember what i was gonna say i was just gonna make a joke about how for the cardinals of the cardinal sign a qualifying offer free agent you know a compensation free agent they should take away they should take away their 13th round pick. Because that's really what would hurt them. That's where they get

their stars. If you take away their first round pick, they won't even notice. Good joke. I'm glad it came back to you. Alright. Anything else? That's the show. Got no more jokes? Okay. Send us emails at podcast at baseballperspectives.com,

and we will be back tomorrow. Okay. Ready? You want to start? Sure. It's your day. Yeah. I know.

Got to pick the topic. Yep. I know how you look forward to that. Hmm. Time to shine. Okay. Okay. Three fifty-nine. time to shine okay 359 three wait a minute okay hang on i just realized something hang on hang on cold feet are you are you like are you planting it are you planting a a tag for the end yeah