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Ranking Baseball’s General Managers

I’ll bet you don’t know who this is, but I think he’s baseball’s best GM. Photo AP via mail.com

I was listening to a baseball podcast this past week about General Managers in baseball and heard an interesting fact; it has now been more than two years since an MLB General Manager has been fired. Sure enough, the last GM fired was Houston’s Ed Wade in November of 2011. There is a GM with less service time (Rick Hahn of the White Sox), but he rose to take over the job for long time GM Kenny Williams, who was promoted to executive VP of the team. So all in all there’s been decent stability among baseball executives in the shorter term.

I’ve had a draft version of a “GM Rankings” post written for nearly three years. Why so long? Because I started the post, got distracted, and then no less than seven general manager positions were filled/replaced in two very hectic weeks following the end of the 2011 season. There’s no way you can judge how well a GM has done with just a few months on the job, so there was no point in trying to rank the GMs when a quarter of them were un-rankable.

Well, now we’re two plus years onwards from October 2011, each of those seven new GMs has had two seasons and three off-seasons to show their vision, and I think its time to revisit my rankings.

Below is an attempt to rank the GMs, #1 to #30. Beware: this is a massive post. 6,000+ words. I may have over-done it a little bit.

To me, a successful GM balances several factors all at once:

Winning at the major league level (obviously).
Total payroll outlay (in the context of free agency and use of your payroll budget)
Player development/Farm system rankings
Trades and industry opinion and reaction on moves made to build your team

Now for the caveats to keep in mind to the above GM goals:

Purposely NOT winning on the field: In some cases you get carte blanche to purposely be awful on the field after years of mis-management and get a pass (see Houston Astros and the Chicago Cubs, along with several other teams to a lesser, less obvious extent).
Payroll discrepancies/Major market GMs: To me, generating the best or 2nd best record in baseball with the largest payroll isn’t proving anything. In fact, if you do NOT make the playoffs despite such a massive payroll (as the Red Sox didn’t do in 2010 and the Yankees didn’t do in 2012), then if anything you’re really failing as a GM. So payroll versus success counts heavily to me. As you’ll see below with the rankings of the GMs from the profligate teams.
Farm system usage caveats: In some cases you sacrifice your farm system to make acquisitions to help you win now (like what the Milwaukee Brewers did in 2011 and what Toronto has done for the last couple of years).

I created a GM rankings spreadsheet where I track all sorts of interesting information that you use to judge GMs (the link is also along the right hand side of the blog), and where I tried to quantitatively judge the 30 GMs. The spreadsheet has GM tenure, market size, ownership meddling factors, Farm system rankings, 2012 and 2013 payroll versus W/L rankings, plus my attempts to quantify three facets of a GM’s job: MLB success, Trades and FA moves and the Farm system. I will freely admit; i am paying significantly more attention to performance over the past three years than performance over the past 10. Maybe that’s fair, may be not. But it hurts a long-time GM like Brian Cashman who guided his team to the playoffs year after year (but, see Cashman’s write up for my reservations on GMs of massive payroll teams).

I’m classifying the GMs into rough tiers:

The Elite: The best GMs in the game, who have balanced payroll, on-field success and development the best.
The Excellent: a group of ten or so GMs who are all excellent at what they do and are mostly interchangeable up and down the order.
The Middle-ground: a group of GMs that happens to include three of the biggest spender teams and the bottoming-out teams that are difficult to judge.
The Concerning: GMs who for various reasons are struggling right now.
The Underperforming: the bottom few GMs who for various reasons are easy targets for bloggers based on their moves and their teams.

It is really hard to rank these guys 1 to 30 without someone nit picking the order, but I would argue with you if you told me that some one in the bottom tier was actually “good.” It wasn’t as easy to do these rankings as I thought it would be; in fact every time I’ve come back to this post i’ve ended up moving around the GMs, to the point where I’m just declaring victory and publishing. I like the top and bottom of these rankings, but if you wanted to argue that the guy I’ve got ranked 22nd really should be 18th, then I probably won’t disagree.

Lets give it a shot:

The Elite

1. John Mozeliak, St. Louis. What more can you say about the model franchise of baseball and its leader/architect? The #1 farm system last year, a huge percentage of its players home-grown, in the playoffs three of the last four years, a win and a runner-up in that time, and all while maintaining a payroll outside the top 10 in the league. This team survived the FA loss of the game’s best player (Albert Pujols) by returning to the playoffs the subsequent year and leading the league in wins in 2013. Can’t ask for much more than that. Mozeliak is my choice for the best GM in the game over two other more famous candidates in the elite category.

2. Andrew Friedman, Tampa Bay. Is there any argument that Friedman is this high? He took over in 2005 and within three years had the league’s best record. They’ve won 90+ games four years in a row in the league’s best division. He’s done this despite routinely having one of the lowest payrolls in the game, despite off-loading talent as soon as it becomes pricey, by stockpiling draft picks (11 of the first 75 picks in the 2011 draft), and by signing his key players early on to incredibly club-friendly contracts (see the deals that Evan Longoria and David Price signed pre-arbitration). In fact, I daresay that the success the Rays have had in the draft was a driving force behind richer owners (hello, Mr. Jerry Reinsdorf) pushing for bonus limits on the amateur market. In 2013 the team had the 3rd lowest payroll in the game but still made the playoffs ahead of the Yankees (who spent nearly FOUR TIMES as much as the Rays). Many would say these facts by default put Friedman #1 and I wouldn’t argue; only the drop-off in his farm system this year keeps him from overtaking Mozeliak. Call these two GMs 1 and 1-a.

3. Billy Beane, Oakland. The league’s 2nd longest tenured GM is likely to retire as its longest, since he owns a stake in the team and has re-made his approach to building teams in the last couple of years to great success. This ownership stake affords Beane the job security that he wouldn’t have otherwise, and has afforded him the time he needed to find his next “market inefficiency.” After some lean years following the “Moneyball” period in the mid 2000s, Beane has turned the A’s into a two-time defending AL West defending champion (a division with two of the most profligate spending teams in the game). His new team-building method seems to be around wheeling-and-dealing, and he’s been good at it. He turned over a significant amount of his 2012 team and won even more games in 2013. The ding on Beane may be his farm system; Oakland has struggled to develop players lately and some may argue that Beane’s ranking should be slightly lower as a result. I’ll say this though; being successful in the league when routinely putting out payrolls in the $55M-$60M range (where his 2012 and 2013 teams sat) by default makes you one of the best in my book.

The Excellent

4. Jon Daniels, Texas Rangers. Texas made the 2010 World Series with the 27th highest payroll in the major leagues. That in and among itself is enough to earn Daniels his street cred. However, his 2013 payroll had ballooned to $125M and they got unlucky by missing out on the playoffs by one game in 2013. Otherwise two World Series trips in four years is still nothing to shake a stick at, and the fact that they didn’t win game 6 of the 2011 World Series still amazes me. Daniels’ reputation is on the line though in a big way; his moves for Prince Fielder, for Shin-Soo Choo and for Alex Rios will be tested in 2014. The team will need everything it can get out of its (mostly) home grown rotation thanks to unfortunate injuries already suffered this year (Derek Holland tripping over his own dog). I give Daniels a ton of credit for accomplishing what he did with a $65M payroll; can he continue to do it with a $130M payroll? The bar only gets higher.

5. Walt Jocketty, Cincinnati. I still wonder how he got fired in St. Louis. He made the playoffs 6 years out of 7, including a World Series win. Then the year following he gets canned. In Cincinnati, he inherited a reigning NL MVP Joey Votto but made some shrewd acquisitions (Mat Latos, Aroldis Chapman), and drafted well (including selecting Mike Leake, who has yet to spend a day in the minors). The Reds play in a small market but have made the playoffs 3 of the last 4 years and continue to develop good players (Billy Hamilton and Tony Cingrani being the latest two studs). Jocketty is in a lofty rank now; we’ll see how things go after the loss of Shin-Soo Choo this past off-season and the slight turning-over of the roster we’re now seeing. If the Reds continue to make the playoffs, Jocketty should continue to get a ton of credit.

6. Ben Cherington, Boston Red Sox. Normally I’m really skeptical of GMs for teams with $175M payrolls who have success. But it is difficult to argue with what Cherington has done since taking over the reigns. He completely undid a ton of the damage that his predecessor had done by offloading two horrible contracts (Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez) and one malcontent (Josh Beckett) on the Dodgers and actually receiving prospect value back. He has quickly built the Boston farm system back to where it is one of the best in the game (they have as many top 100 prospects as any organization out there). And they just won the World Series. Cherington loses some credit for the disastrous Bobby Valentine hiring that led to the even more disastrous 2012 season … but he also recognized the faults with both the team and the manager and led a complete 180 degree turnaround. And I laughed at Cherington’s almost comical chasing of closers (as documented in this space in June 2013). But a title erases a lot of criticism. Boston remains well positioned going forward but will be depending very heavily on the fruits of their farm system in 2014 and beyond. If Boston turns these high value prospects into another playoff appearance while driving down payroll, Cherington’s ranking will only rise.

7. Mike Rizzo, Washington Nationals. Rizzo took over for the disgraced Jim Bowden in March of 2009 and had quite a job ahead of him. The team on the field was on their way towards losing 100 games for the second year in a row and the farm system was dead last in the majors. What has Rizzo done since? The team improved 30 games in the win column between 2010 and 2012, the farm system was considered the best in the game just two years on from Rizzo’s hiring (it should be said, thanks to two straight #1 overall picks resulting in two of the most dynamic players in the last 20 years being available to us), and now has two drafts and two off-seasons worth of work under his belt. He has brought a new mind-set to the draft, focusing on quick-to-the-majors college arms instead of nebulous tools-y high school players. He also has managed to work with the sport’s most notorious agent (Scott Boras) and successfully handled the two most high-profile draftees (arguably) in the history of the game. He has completely re-made the Nats roster in the past two years (only 3 members of the opening day roster 2009 team are still with the franchise). I’ve questioned his roster construction at times, feeling like he over-emphasized defenders at the expense of offense (running Michael Morse and Josh Willingham out of town), and he obsessed over a leadoff/CF type until he got one (Denard Span, trading away our best starting pitching prospect at the time), but a 98-win season smooths over a lot of criticism. Other pundits place Rizzo even higher than I have; 7th seems like a good spot to be until we see if this team can get back to the playoffs. If the Nats falter again in 2014 and don’t achieve something in this “window,” Rizzo’s tenure and the 2012 season may be viewed simply as an aberration instead of a well built team.

8. Frank Wren, Atlanta Braves. A couple years ago you would probably have Wren ranked in the middle of the pack at best. He clearly botched both ends of the Mark Teixeira deals, essentially turning Texas regulars Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz, Matt Harrison and catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia into a year of Teixeira and Casey Kotchman. Imagine how good Atlanta would be right now if they still had the 3 core members that remain in Texas. That being said, you cannot argue with where the Braves have been going. With middle-of-the-road payrolls and an awful TV deal the Braves have a team with a lot of home-grown talent that won the NL East by 10 games last year. His rotation is young and home-grown (Minor, Beachy, Medlen, Teheran), his team full of home-grown talent (with Freeman, Heyward and Simmons leading the way). And they have the best bullpen in the game. On the down-side, there are questions about some of his recent signings (BJ Upton and Uggla in particular), the farm system hasn’t quite come back from its 2010 rankings (thanks to so much of the talent it generated), and I’m not sure anyone really likes Atlanta’s 2013 off-season. So, we’ll give Wren credit for the past few years and indicate a note of caution going forward.

9. Neil Huntington, Pittsburgh Pirates. I’m not sure if I’ve got him too high, but I’ll say this: after getting Pittsburgh to the playoffs (and a winning record) for the first time in a generation, Huntington has them in the right direction. His moves to build last year’s team were excellent, the team has a ton of home-grown talent yet still has one of the best farm systems in the game, and should continue to be a success in the NL Central.

10. Sandy Alderson, New York Mets. How can anyone involved with the New York Mets over the past 10 seasons be considered a success? Because long-time baseball insider Alderson has done well with what he was handed and has the Mets heading in the right direction. In the past three years their farm system has grown in leaps and bounds, going from the bottom third to nearly a top 5 system. He got great value in trade for R.A. Dickey, has drafted and developed well, and we started to see the fruits of that player development with last year’s all-star game starter Matt Harvey. He’s finally rid of the awful contracts that his predecessor handed him ($43.6M of the team’s $93M payroll last year was dead money to just two guys: Johan Santana and Jason Bay. Almost 50%) and has bought conservatively this off-season while Harvey recovers and more of his young arms matriculate. If the Mets ownership ever decides to start spending money again and this team’s prospects come to fruition, they could be a force.

11. Brian Sabean, San Francisco Giants. Sabean is the longest tenured GM in the game, is unabashedly “old school” and is consistently mocked for his signings and moves. I thought his Tim Lincecum deal was ridiculous, I couldn’t believe the amount of money they guaranteed Hunter Pence, and more than a few people are questioning the Michael Morse deal. San Francisco’s farm system is weak and has been for years (after contributing MVPs and Cy Young winners, it should be said). To all these naysayers I say this: Two World Series titles in the last four years. The goal of every team is to win the title, and his teams have done it twice in four years. The Yankees have one title in the last 15 years. So you have to give Sabean some credit. 11th seems about right. Not too high, not too low. He’d have been much higher had his team not imploded in 2013.

12. Chris Antonetti, Cleveland Indians. Antonelli has subscribed to the same “wheeling and dealing” mechanism for building teams that Billy Beane has done, and it turned a perennial doormat Indians team into a 2013 playoff team. They play in a small market and have an $80M payroll, and Antonelli has taken their farm system from awful to respectable in the last three years. So the system is improving as is the on-the-field product. So far, so good in Cleveland for Antonelli’s tenure. I’m hesitant to push him much higher because i’m convinced the Indians succeeded in 2013 on the backs of several very awful divisional rivals (for example; the Indians were 17-2 on the season versus the White Sox but only 4-15 versus the Tigers, quite a swing for a 90-win team; if they were that legitimate a team they would have been much closer to .500 against their divisional winner). So slightly above the median looks good.

The Middle-Ground

13. Jeff Luhnow, Houston Astros. Three years ago Houston was an 88-loss team with a $90M payroll and the 29th ranked farm system. To his credit, Luhnow has reversed at least two of those factors in a big way; he has cleared the decks of the awful contracts that boat-anchored the Astros under his predecessor. Of course, at the same time he’s turned the Astros into a 110-loss team and, for the first time since the dead-ball era, last place three years running. So what has Luhnow done? Inside of two years he’s gone from the worst farm system to the best on the backs of #1 overall picks Carlos Correa and Mark Appel. Soon they’ll likely add Carlos Rodon to that stable, giving this team a fearsome set of players to roll-out within a couple years. So how do we judge Luhnow? Right about in the middle; he’s set out to do what he needed to do; if his foundation leads to on-the-field success Luhnow will be counted among the best GMs in the game for laying out the roadmap and sticking to it.

14. Brian Cashman, New York Yankees. Some say that just the mere fact that Cashman has survived as long as he has in the shadow of the Steinbrenner family ownership of the Yankees should be proof enough that he is among the best GMs in the game, and certainly higher ranked than he is here. Fair enough. But here’s the inescapable facts: his farm system is deteriorating, the most significant player on the 2014 team actually developed at home seems to be Brett Gardner, they had a $225M payroll last year and didn’t make the playoffs, their rotation will pivot mostly on a 40-yr old’s career renaissance, and their starting 2014 infield played a combined 200 games last year. And they’re being saved only by the grace of Bud Selig‘s hatred for Alex Rodriguez, whose suspension “saves” the team $25M this year (quickly spent on their new “#3 starter” Masahiro Tanaka, to whom they guaranteed more than $175M dollars). I dunno; maybe Cashman should be lower. They have made the playoffs 4 of the last 6 years and have a title, and Cashman’s early tenure record speaks for itself .. but at what point do you notice that the team hasn’t done very much since the “core four” have entered their decline phases and begin to wonder if Cashman isn’t just a guy with a big checkbook instead of a good GM?

15. Dave Dombrowski, Detroit Tigers. Lots of on-field success thanks to Dombrowski sticking to his plan; he took over the year the Tigers lost 119 games. It is worth noting that 3 years later they were in the world series. Now he’s gotten them into the playoffs three years running, to which he’s due plenty of credit. But his farm system has hit rock bottom, he’s spending a ton of money, and he’s making very questionable moves. The industry panned his Doug Fister move (even if it seemed to greatly benefit the Nats) and people questioned his Prince Fielder for Ian Kinsler move. They were weird moves for a “win now” team. Perhaps I should give Dombrowski more credit, but his 2013-14 off-season knocked him down a number of pegs for me. If they miss out on the playoffs to an up-and-coming Royals team, he’ll suddenly be on the hot-seat.

16. Ned Colletti, Los Angeles Dodgers. Seriously, how do you judge the job Colletti is doing right now? His team’s payroll went from $95M in 2012 to more than $216M in 2013. He’s got $57M tied up in three outfielders not named Yasiel Puig right now. You almost got the impression that Colletti called up Boston and just said, “Hey, I’ll take every sh*tty contract off your hands right now … i’ve got money to spend and I don’t care how we spend it!” On the bright side, somehow the Dodgers have kept a reasonable ranking with their farm system throughout all of this, but the skill involved with paying everyone on your team $20M/year is close to nil. As with Cashman, I wonder if Colletti is ranked too high even here.

17. Dayton Moore, Kansas City Royals. Other mid-market teams (Oakland, Tampa, Pittsburgh) have shown a ton more accomplishment on the field than Kansas City; why hasn’t Moore’s teams done better? He’s been in his job nearly 8 seasons and the team spun its wheels for seven of them. Signings that didn’t pay off and fizzled farm system talents defined this team for years. Finally Moore went all-in, trading the best prospect in the game (Wil Myers) for a package of pitchers to help the Royals get over the hump. Between 2012 and 2013 they added $21M in payroll and these players and gained 14 games in the win column; just enough for … 3rd place. The industry entirely believes Moore was fleeced by Tampa Bay, and the trade looked so bad at the time that pundits wondered if Moore wasn’t getting some pressure from above to “win more now or get canned.” But it didn’t take Myers but the next season to win the rookie of the year award, and he may be a player that Kansas City fans rue for a generation. I think Moore may not be long for the job, and with good reason; why hasn’t he been able to win when guys like Huntington and Beane have?

18. Terry Ryan, Minnesota Twins. Ryan has been with Minnesota for-ever; hired in 1994. He stepped aside and then was re-hired in 2011, and is now in a rebuilding phase. The team let go one of its faces of the franchise last off season (Justin Morneau) and is going to begin a big youth movement this year. They’re going to be bad, but perhaps not Houston bad thanks to a couple of (odd?) starting pitcher signings. Help is coming; Ryan has built on of the best farm systems in the game and it features two of the top 5 prospects out there (Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano). Perhaps it isn’t fair to rank Ryan here with Luhnow higher, but Ryan was partly responsible for the downfall of this team and the abhorrent starting rotation of last year. But once their MVP-grade talents arrive at the majors, Ryan’s work of rebuilding the farm system should be rewarded.

The Concerning

19. Josh Byrnes, San Diego. Byrnes inherited a 90-win team that surprised but which was getting ready to hit a transitional stage. Byrnes got some good prospects from the Adrian Gonzalez deal and some more in the Mat Latos deal, but they havn’t turned into wins on the Three straight years of 71-76 wins has spirits dampened in San Diego. Now their MLB team looks poor, the farm system is good but drifting, and they’re talking about another rebuilding effort. He’s only a couple years in but things aren’t looking up; his division includes a team that is spending 4 times what he can spend.

20. Kevin Towers, Arizona. So here’s my summary of Towers’ tenure in Arizona so far: he continues to drive away players and prospects who aren’t “gritty” enough for him, trading them for 50 cents on the dollar. His farm system has gone from good to middle of the road. His payroll is rising … and yet his team is winning the same number of games. And yet both he and Kirk Gibson just got contract extensions. Why exactly does anyone think Towers and Gibson are doing a good job right now? How many more games would they have lost had they not magically found a 6-win player in Paul Goldschmidt (an 8th round pick) last year?

21. Jed Hoyer (Theo Epstein), Chicago Cubs. I know Hoyer is the GM, but lets be honest; this is Epstein’s team. The Cubs hired Epstein for him to re-make the franchise as he did in Boston. Except that Epstein left Boston in a huge mess, with a slew of very bad contracts and an even worse clubhouse. Now he’s come to Chicago and made some questionable moves (the Edwin Jackson signing, the Anthony Rizzo fan-boy pursuit, etc) while not making other more obvious moves (why is Jeff Samardzija still on this team if they’re “rebuilding?”). To their credit, they got value for Alfonso Soriano, only one of the most untradeable players in the game. And they’ve gotten a pass to rebuild the farm system, which is now ranked in the top 5 in the game and should start to bear fruit. Now, that farm system is loaded with hitters, and with Wrigley’s comfy stadium the Cubs may be offensive juggernauts in no time, but they still need pitching. How will the Hoyer/Epstein team handle that? Hopefully not with more signings like the Jackson deal.

22. Michael Hill, Miami Marlins. The one huge caveat that goes with the Miami GM job is this: Jeffrey Loria is probably the most hands on owner in the game, and you almost can’t judge this GM’s ability based on who is calling the shots. The only other owner who seems to have as much pull is, ironically, ranked next. Miami loaded up for 2012 in their new stadium and had completely dismantled things before August. Now they’re a $50M payroll team with some superstar prospects .. but a middling farm system and questionable direction.

23. Dan Duquette, Baltimore Orioles. Duquette has had an odd off-season; his owner 86’d two of his signings thanks to questioning the “medicals,” which insiders point out is Peter Angelos‘ method of nixing deals he doesn’t like. Must be frustrating. Instead Duquette is now signing every re-tread FA who can’t find a job thanks to the CBA’s draft pick compensation issues, punting draft pick after draft pick. The O’s did make the playoffs in 2012, thanks to an unsustainable record in one-run games, and have had a decent run of success out of their farm system (Manny Machado should be mentioned in the same breath as Trout and Harper frankly), but are they on the right track to get back?

24. Dan O’Dowd/Bill Geivett, Colorado Rockies. The Rockies have a very unique front-office structure right now, resulting from an August 2012 shake-up that left industry insiders questioning the roles and the message coming from the team. Nonetheless, the direction of the Rockies leaves something to be desired. They’ve drifted on the field, employed questionable starting pitching usage strategies, and generally are treading water. Their farm system is starting to look up though; will that be enough to compete in a division with the Dodgers?

25. Alex Anthopolous, Toronto Blue Jays. Anthopolous took over for the maligned JP Ricciardi after the 2009 season. In the time since, he traded Roy Halladay, acquired Morrow, traded for Escobar and Jo-Jo Reyes, acquired Rajai Davis, and perhaps most impressively offloaded the albatross contract for Vernon Wells. He had an 85-win team in the hardest division in baseball with a 70M payroll for 2011. Then he went for it, emptying the farm system (which was one of the league’s best in 2011) to acquire the likes of R.A. Dickey and the whole slew of ex-Marlins. Now he’s got a massive payroll, an underperforming team and empty cupboards in the minors. All the good work he did to prepare Toronto for battle in the AL east has gone for naught unless last year was just a big huge adjustment period for all these newly acquired veterans.

The Underperforming

26. Doug Melvin, Milwaukee Brewers: Melvin is an interesting case; the Brewers purposely bottomed out their farm system to make a playoff run in 2011, the last year before they lost Prince Fielder and their fortunes would change. And change they have; the Brewer’s player development efforts have not moved off the bottom of the league (their farm system is either last or dead last on every pundit list) while their on-the-field record has dropped (they’ve gone from 96 to 83 to 74 wins in the last three years). Now they’re the 4th best team in their division and it isn’t close, and it is unclear what their plan is going forward. They’ve got quality players at certain places, but have made odd signings (losing their 1st round pick last year to sign Kyle Lohse of all people). You can’t help the Ryan Braun situation, and they got unlucky with injuries (Corey Hart in particular) so perhaps this ranking is unfair. But I still feel like the Brewers are adrift in terms of strategy and thus Melvin’s ranked this low.

27. Jerry Dipoto, Los Angeles Angels. The worst or 2nd worst (along with Milwaukee) farm system in the majors for the past few years. One of the largest payrolls in the league giving them a 78-84 record last year. Over-paying for aging slugger (Albert Pujols) after aging slugger (Josh Hamilton) while inexplicably signing one of the worst statistical starters in the game to a multi-year deal (Joe Blanton) and entering last season with a clear and obvious rotation issue. Dipoto earned the absolute worst “quantitative grade” in my GM ranking xls, trying to measure the three GM factors of on-the-field success, farm system development and trades/FA signings. The only reason I don’t also rank him last is because i’m not entirely convinced that Dipoto isn’t a decent executive who’s being told by a highly-involved owner (Arte Moreno) to sign all these guys. But, there’s really no reason that a team playing in LA and who is spending three times what his divisional rival Oakland is spending isn’t consistently finishing ahead of them in the standings.

28. Rick Hahn (Kenny Williams), Chicago White Sox. What can you say? The White Sox lost 100 games with a $118M payroll last year and have had the worst (or near to it) farm system in the game for years. The White Sox organization is in a bad way, and i’m not sure why Williams’ stewardship was rewarded with the “promotion” to team president. They lost 18 games in the win column from 2012 to 2013 and it is hard to see how they’re going to be any better this year. It does seem though that they are undergoing a “rebuilding effort,” in that their payroll seems like it will be $40M less this year versus last and they’ve moved some of their bigger salaries in “rebuilding mode” moves (Alex Rios, Jake Peavy). So perhaps its slightly unfair to have Hahn so low, if he’s entering into a purposely bad period. Nonetheless; this set of executives got the White Sox where they are now, so their low ranking is earned.

29. Ruben Amaro, Philadelphia Phillies. I’ll admit that i’m probably biased here. While i’ve given credit to other GMs whose teams have had success in the past several years, i’ve not given Amaro the same benefit of the doubt. And that basically comes down to several, clear facts; Amaro has destroyed the Phillies with multiple long-term deals for declining players, most notably Ryan Howard‘s contract (widely considered the worst dollar for dollar contract in the game). His team 3rd highest payroll in 2013 and nearly lost 90 games. His recent FA moves have been laughable (Delmon Young and Michael Young? John Lannan as his sole pitching move last off-season? His ridiculous contract extension for Carlos Ruiz this past off-season?). His heels-in-the-ground obstinant refusal to adopt any understanding or acceptance for analytics or modern statistical approach to his job makes me wonder just how asleep at the wheel his owner is. He’s let his farm system lapse while his on-the-field product falters. He puts out mixed messages in regards to his direction (Cliff Lee mentioned in trade rumors? Are the Phillies going to rebuild or not?). But the coup-de-grace for me is the news that just came out that Amaro’s organization has purposely attempted to sabotage college kids who spurned the Phillies last summer, ratting them out to the NCAA out of pettiness, spite or vengeance. Despite their WS win and appearances in the last 6 years, I cannot for the life of me figure out why Amaro still has a job at this point.

30. Jack Zduriencik, Seattle Mariners. Zero playoff appearances in his tenure. His farm system has pushed out all the talent it apparently has to give and now is in the bottom third of the league with more than a few “busts” (notably Justin Smoak and Dustin Ackley vastly underperforming). A 90 loss team last year, and he’s just gotten done committing hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts yet likely has only improved his team a few wins, thanks to a fundamental lack of understanding of what it takes to build baseball lineups (he seems to be depending basically on 3 rookies in his rotation for 2014). And it seems that Zduriencik not only is poor at his job, but he may have depended on deception (if not outright fraud) to get it, thanks to the reporting of Geoff Baker at The Seattle Times last off-season. One only needs to look at his method of building teams to notice that he has no concept of defensive capabilities and he seems to collect 1b/DH types without consideration of how many runs they’ll be costing him thanks to sub-par defense (Michael Morse and Raul Ibanez at the corner OF positions last year, his plans to play Logan Morrison and Corey Hart in the OF this year). How long before Robinson Cano is a brooding $200M boat anchor on this team as they continue to lose 90 games year after year in a division dominated with better GMs and bigger payrolls? All these facts contribute to my ranking Zduriencik last.

Here’s some other links relevant to this discussion, for your perusal. Wiki’s list of all 30 GMs. Baseball America’s excellent Executive database. Scout.com’s Kiley McDaniel ranked the GMs by job security in Jan 2014. Buster Olney posted a “Peer Review” of GMs back in 2010, but its mostly obsolete with all the movement since. Still somewhat interesting to hear what GMs are saying about each other anonymously.

Finally some other rankings lists that I could find (and their top 5):

Dan Szymborski‘s top 5 Dec 2013: Beane, Friedman, Daniels, Mozeliak, Rizzo (from a chat).
MLBtraderumors ran a poll in April of 2013 where you can vote, and the top 5 crowd-source vote-getters are: Beane, Friedman, Mozeliak, Cashman and Sabean.
The NYPost’s Ken Davidoff ranks GMS every off-season and he came in with Friedman, Beane, Daniels, Dombrowski and Mozeliak in Dec 2013 (he has Cashman way too high, but he is a NY-based writer and focuses on the entire body of work).
Rantsports.com’s GM Power rankings from Aug 2013 (which I think are misguided mostly because of how low Beane is): Daniels, Cherington, Friedman, Huntington, Antonelli
And lastly this oddly titled “Sexiest GMs” ranking from Dec 2012 caused some laughs at the time. Towers, Beane, Moore, Cashman, Hoyer.

Thoughts? Think I have some guys too high and some too low? Discuss in the comments.

Written by Todd Boss

February 26th, 2014 at 8:03 am

Posted in Baseball in General

Tagged with adrian gonzalez, albert pu jols, albert pujols, alex anthopolous, alex rios, alex rodriguez, alfonso soriano, andrelton simmons, andrew friedman, anthony rizzo, aroldis chapman, arte moreno, ben chrington, bill geivett, billy beane, billy hamilton, bj upton, bobby valentine, brandon beachy, brandon morrow, brett gardner, brian cashman, brian sabean, bud selig, buster olney, byron buxton, carl crawford, carlos correa, carlos rodon, carlos ruiz, casey kotchman, chris antonetti, corey hart, dan duquette, dan o'dowd, dan szymborski, dan uggla, dave dombrowski, david price, dayton moore, delmon young, denard span, derek holland, doug fister, doug melvin, dustin ackley, ed wade, edwin jackson, elvis andrus, evan longoria, frank wren, freddie freeman, geoff baker, hunter pence, ian kinsler, jack zduriencik, jake peavy, jarrod saltalamacchia, jason bay, jason heyward, jed hoyer, jeff luhnow, jeff samardzija, jeffrey loria, jerry dipoto, jerry reinsdorf, jim bowden, jo-jo reyes, joe blanton, joey votto, johan santana, john mozeliak, jon daniels, josh beckett, josh byrnes, josh hamilton, josh willingham, jp ricciardi, julio teheran, justin morneau, justin smoak, ken davidoff, kenny williams, kevin towers, kiley mcdaniel, kirk gibson, kris medlen, kyle lohse, logan morrison, manny machado, mark appel, mark teixeira, masahiro tanaka, mat latos, matt harrison, matt harvey, michael hill, michael morse, michael young, miguel sano, mike leake, mike minor, mike rizzo, ned colletti, neftali felix, neil huntington, paul goldschmidt, peter angelos, prince fielder, ra dickey, rajai davis, raul ibanez, rick hahn, robinson cano, roy halladay, ruben amaro, ryan braun, ryan howard, sandy alderson, scott boras, shin-soo choo, terry ryan, theo epstein, tim lincecum, tony cingrani, vernon wells, walt jocketty, wil myers, yasiel puig, yunel escobar

Ask Boswell 2/18/14 Edition

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Lots of questions about Mr. Williams. Photo Nats official 2014 via sportingnews.com

Washington Post columnist Tom Boswell must be in heaven: he’s at Spring Training, in 80 degree weather, talking baseball. Here’s his 2/18/14 WP chat edition and how i’d have answered his baseball questions. He did an extra long session, doing an hour and then coming back for even more questions, so this is a huge post.

Q: Which Nat is most and least likely to benefit from Matt Williams’ detail-oriented approach?

A: I’ll take the easy way out on this one: I’ll say that the rookies are most likely to benefit and the veterans are least-likely. But that’s probably not very fair because it assumes that our vets will automatically have a hard time adjusting to a new voice. In reality, Matt Williams‘ pedigree as a player is going to shut just about any veteran up; name one player on this team who has accomplished anything close to what Williams did as a player? I mean, we’re talking about a guy with multiple All Star appearances, multiple Gold Gloves, multiple Silver Sluggers, a couple near MVP seasons, more than 200 post-season at-bats spread across 5 post-season trips, three trips to the World Series and one ring. He also played in two specific games that are both counted among the best games of the last 50 years (Game 7 of the 1997 World Series and 2001’s Game 7 of the World Series).

That’s a heck of a lot of accomplishments. Who in their right mind is looking him in the fact and doubting his wisdom about anything?

Boswell points out a number of guys who are “introverts” who like the structure, mentions Rafael Soriano as a possible problem child … but then also notes Soriano lost a ton of weight and is playing for a contract, so he doesn’t expect any issues. Fair enough.

Q: Where can I get good details on the Nats spring training schedules in Viera?

A: CSN’s Mark Zuckerman posts a great intro-to-spring training on his Natsinsider.com blog each year. Here’s parts 1 and 2, focusing on the Nats baseball Complex and the Town of Viera. Boswell speaks highly of watching bullpen sessions. Can’t blame him; man I want to do Spring Training sometime!

Q: What does the Yankees signing of Masahiro Tanaka do for the Yankees season?

A: Not much in my opinion. Despite Tanaka’s pedigree and $175M paycheck, he’s being touted by his own team as a “#3 starter.” That’s a heck of a lot of money for a #3 starter. Now in reality scouts liken him to a young Dan Haren (in terms of his repertoire), but he’s still not nearly in the same Ace class as the most recent Japanese import Yu Darvish. Plus he’s got to deal with the inevitable adjustment to this country, a new language, 10,000 obnoxious NY beat reporters, the food, the city, and that pesky 4-days of rest schedule we have here for our starters.

As for the Yankees chances in 2014 in general, check out their current depth chart: Their rotation is set to be Sabathia (coming off an awful year), 40-yr old Kuroda, Tanaka, Ivan Nova and David Phelps. Does that sound like a 95-win rotation? Here’s their infield: Mark Teixeira (15 games last year), Brian Roberts (77 games last year), Derek Jeter (17 games last year), and Eduardo Nunez (90 games last year). Does that infield inspire confidence? What makes anyone think that infield is lasting even a quarter of the season without a major injury? Plus, Buster Olney or Jayson Stark recently mentioned this factoid: “No team has ever in the history of the game had a winning season starting a shortstop as old as Jeter.” Yes the Yankees made some significant signings (Beltran, Ellsbury, McCann). But I don’t think its enough to make up for what’s going to happen to their infield. I think years of overpaying for FAs and being unlucky in their player development has caught up with the Yankees in a big way and they’ll be lucky to be a .500 team this year. Boswell points out that PECOTA has them as 82-80. And then he drops a scary subtle hint saying that Ian Desmond has already declined an $85M deal and may have his sights on becoming the next Yankees long-term shortstop. Ouch. Thankfully the timing doesn’t quite work out; Jeter retires after this year and the Nats have Desmond locked up for two seasons.

Q: Can you go into the stadium and see the view from your seats before committing to a Season Ticket?

A: No idea, but I’d bet the answer is yes. We could do that before, you know back when I was a season ticket holder, pre Nats stadium, pre kids, pre getting-royally-screwed-in-the-new-stadium-relocation game. Boswell assumes yes, and posts an answer confirming it from another fan later on who did exactly this.

Q: Why is the name Redskins such a hotbutton while the Braves gets almost no press?

A: (I couldn’t resist this question even if not entirely about Baseball): Probably because one name is a slur and the other is just a noun. In a politically correct world no person-indicating moniker would ever be used as a team nickname … but then again you can get rather ridiculous (is “Padre” and the drawing of a priest with a goofy smile swinging a bat offensive to the clergy? I’m of Irish descent; what if I said that the Notre Dame “Fighting Irish” is offensive to me because of my culture?). Plus, frankly, I don’t get why little Danny Snyder won’t just frigging change the name; I mean, how many gazillions of dollars of new merchandise sales would he get if he re-branded the team? Why is he so obstinate about this issue? Every time he posts some dumb letter defending the name it makes him look more and more like a little rich whiny fan-boy who grew up loving the team despite being too sickly to actually play, and now he’s clinging to an iconic symbol of his youth. As if it was a ratty security blanket. Boswell talks about cultural change and social progress and hints that he’s going to post his official opinion on the matter soon.

Q: Has Jeter’s retirement caused TOO much media attention?

A: Honestly, I don’t feel like it has; at least not as much as the questioner, who whined about all the coverage and news items related to Jeter. Perhaps its because he’s gone up against the Olympics and NBC’s force-fed human interest coverage machine that I havn’t noticed.

Olympics Rant/Tangent: Seriously; I thought I had seen it all with NBC’s ridiculous coverage over the years of figure skaters as “athletes” … now the coverage of these silly snowboarders has surpassed it. I’m sorry; if your “sport” requires judges who take into consideration your “style” or your “costume,” then it isn’t a sport. “Team skating?” “Ice Dancing?” Why not just have a frigging spinning contest or see who can coast the longest on one skate or some other useless reason to award a few more gold medals? In my opinion, if there isn’t a score or a race to a finish line or one man versus another in a contest … you’re not a sport. Nothing against figure skaters specifically; what they do is amazing, requires elegance and strength and years of training. But so does Ballet; why is one an olympic sport and the other a performance art? All those cirque-de-soleil performers? Why isn’t that an olympic sport too?

Tangent/Rant off.

I think we’ll all be pretty frigging sick of Derek Jeter once August and September rolls-around. Yeah he’s a great player, first ballot hall of famer. But so are about 20-25 other guys playing right now. I agree with the questioner’s rant about the over-coverage of all things Yankees. Boswell points out that Jeter’s career WAR is one spot above Bobby Grich, so as to temper some expectations. That’s harsh; even I recognize his importance to the game as a surpassing point than just whittling down all his accomplishments to one (dubious) number.

Q: What is Livan Hernandez’s role on this team?

A: Whatever it is, I think its friggin awesome that he’s in Spring Training representing the Nats. Kudos to whoever reached out and got him to come help out. Livan Hernandez may have played all over the majors (9 teams in 17 seasons; that’s tough to do when you’re not a left-handed reliever) but he played the most of it with our franchise. Boswell’s quoting of Drew Storen‘s description of Livan’s role is awesome: “His job is life-coach, bleep-talker and being Livo.” He also notes that Livan can provide some fielding and instruction on holding runners, a sore spot for several Nats starters.

Q: How is Christian Garcia looking so far? Any chance that he goes north with the club?

A: All reports list Christian Garcia as (finally) healthy. But its telling that the team is already specifically pointing out that “he’s made it further than he did last year.” It seems like his fragility is almost a running joke on the team now. Chances of breaking into the 7-man bullpen? Remote unless there’s injuries. But if he goes to AAA and pitches lights out, he’ll be first guy back. If he stays healthy (four words that should be attached to every single sentence ever written about Garcia). Boswell says that if he’s healthy, he’s on the team. I have a very hard time believing that; who makes way? Not Soriano, Storen, Clippard or Stammen. Not Blevins. Ohlendorf? Roark? Roark’s numbers last fall were *better* than anything Garcia did in 2012 and in 4 times the innings. Ohlendorf isn’t being paid north of $1M to screw around in upstate New York. And, none of this takes into account the statements from Williams about liking to have two lefties in the bullpen… If it were me, I’d want to see Garcia pitch at least a month straight without hurting something on his person.

Q: How would you grade Rizzo’s off-season?

A: Pretty frigging good. Fister: fantastic acquisition. McLouth; not too bad, should help. Lobaton: looking better and better, considering the pedigree i’m hearing about the two guys thrown into the deal (Vettleson and Rivero). I don’t think his lack of acquiring a better lefty will hurt; Sammy Solis is impressing and could contribute immediately, newly acquired Rivero apparently has some stuff, and there’s still the likes of Cedeno and a couple other AAA guys who we could use. Boswell says A- … and then tells a tid-bit about the Grant Balfour deal that fell through.

Q: Why are the Nats pitchers so bad at holding runners on? Is this something they’re working on this Spring

A: Why? beats me. Maybe a better defensive catcher will help in that category. They definitely seem to be working on it this spring as noted in the above Livo question. Boswell doesn’t really answer the question but then uses this question as a segue into talking about Williams’ anger issues. Random.

Q: If Ryan Zimmerman is going to play some first base … what the heck is Tyler Moore going to do?

A: A decent question, but which assumes that Tyler Moore is anything other than a bench bat. And it assumes that Adam LaRoche is going to platoon. I know plenty in the blogosphere want that to happen … but this is a contract year, and the last time couple times LaRoche faced a contract year he played pretty durn good. Meanwhile, Moore seems like the kind of player who could use a change of scenery and a trade to a team with more playing time. Boswell likes his swing.

Q: Is team improvement correlation or causation to a hitting coach change, like what happened last year with Eckstein’s firing?

A: You ask me, i’d say its correlation/coincidence. It isn’t the hitting coach facing 95 mph fastballs. But I’m no professional. Boswell can’t figure it out either.

Q: Did they really need another catcher when they had both two young options and Synder as a proven vet? Why waste a pitching prospect with a high upside for a backup catcher who can’t throw out runners, already a major problem. Did Rizzo get taken by the Rays?

A: Sounds to me like this question-er is overvaluing the potential contributions of our catching prospects Sandy Leon and Jhonatan Solano, is incredibly overvaluing what Chris Snyder still brings to the table, and is overvaluing Nathan Karns and what is ceiling seems to realistically be. Oh, and he’s undervaluing the prospects we got in return (both of which are in our top 14 according to mlbdraftinsider.com’s recent post). I like the move, it fixes a hole for the team and gives a couple of prospects to shore up a thinned system, all for a guy who I think we all liked in Karns but who likely faces a ceiling of a reliever. Boswell notes the need for a “real” backup catcher and notes that the team traded from depth.

Q: Have the Braves taken a step back this offseason and are really counting on BJ Upton to do anything on offense this year?

A: Yes and yes. McCann is a huge loss. Tim Hudson may not “seem” like a loss given the Braves pitching depth, but he was their opening day starter in 2013 and was their bulldog staff leader (if not an “ace” in the literal sense of the word). They also let go Paul Maholm, who gave them a ton of decent innings last year. They’re depending on Brandon Beachy to come back healthy and on the rest of their young rotation to contribute. Otherwise they did little this off-season other than extending a couple of guys. As far as BJ Upton, what choice do they have but to run him out day after day at this point? Same as Dan Uggla: those two guys are getting paid a ton of money and will be given every chance to prove themselves. Boswell agrees.

Q: How often have you seen baseball players take a hometown discount?

A: Not very often: Roy Halladay took a bit less so he could play for Philly … because their spring training complex is in the same town as his full-time home. Hard to think of obvious other players off-hand. The asker questioned whether Jordan Zimmermann would consider less money to play for his “hometown” Brewers … without really considering the fact that Milwaukee is a cheap-skate franchise and will *never* come close to paying the 9-figure deal that Zimmermann probably earns in two years’ time. Boswell doesn’t really answer the original question, just notes that so far our FA players are going for the money.

Q: In your opinion, who will end up being the fifth starter? Detwiler, Roark, or Jordan?

A: Ross Emery Detwiler, for the same reasons I pointed out in my 2014 Staff Projections post in late december. Quoting myself from that post:

Why am I predicting Detwiler will win the rotation spot? Partly because of options (Detwiler has none while Roark, Ohlendorf and Jordan all do), but partly because I’ve sort of come back around on him after looking more closely at his 2013 season. He had a decent to good 2012; he posted a 118 ERA+ and even if his advanced FIP/SIERA didn’t indicate he was quite that good, he was still more than a servicable 5th starter. Then in his first seven 2013 starts he was also very good (he had a 2.53 ERA in his first 7 starts and 42 2/3 innings … he got hurt in his 8th start). The rest of his season was a mess, with him fighting injury and ballooning his seasonal ERA from 2.53 to more than 4.00 in five more starts. If he comes back healthy to start 2014, why wouldn’t we expect more of the same performance that he had at the start of 2013? For these reasons, I think Detwiler breaks camp as the 5th starter.

I like Tanner Roark and feel the team is going to find a way for him to be in the MLB bullpen. I also now believe Taylor Jordan‘s off-season ankle injury will give the team an excuse to keep him in the minors a bit to season him up and maybe even keep some innings off his arm. So it’ll be Detwiler until he either falters or gets hurt again. At least we have a ton of options this year to cover for a starter injury.

Boswell says Detwiler as well but writes a ton on othe other guys, including a glowing talk about Roark. And he throws in this tidbit: Detroit asked for Jordan and Robbie Ray before settling for Ray and spare parts. Interesting.

Q: What’s your read on how the last two bullpen spots play out?

A: Also borrowing from my Dec 2013 post, I’ll go with Ohlendorf and Roark. Ohlendorf as the long-man, spot starter rubber arm guy. Roark with the hope he continues his magical run of exceptional command and fearless relief. I know that only leaves on lefty out there, and leaves guys like Ryan Mattheus and Christian Garcia in AAA. Hey, I could be wrong. Boswell doesn’t seem to guess.

Q: Do you think the coaches will let Espi continue to be a switch hitter or keep him as a lefty hitter only?

A: I hope you mean righty hitter only; he is a career .220 lefty hitter but .262 righty. If I was the Nats brass, i’d try him as a righty-only guy. But by all accounts Danny Espinosa is a bit stubborn and may not be open to limiting a unique skill that he may continue to think distinguishes himself from other competitors. I continue to wonder just how hurt he was last year … as others have said, it isn’t like Espinosa suddenly forgot how to hit. Yes he was always somewhat limited as a player, but 20-homer capable middle infielders don’t grow on trees. Boswell says the team isn’t messing with Espinosa, and that they want to see what he can do in 2014. Fair enough.

Q: Are you worried about the power (or lack thereof) in the Nats lineup?

A: Not really. The capability is there across the lineup. Zimmerman has hit 30. So has LaRoche. Desmond has hit 20. So has Espinosa. Ramos has 20+ homer capability if he’s healthy. Werth is good for 25 and has hit 30+ before. And none of this talks about our best power hitter Harper and what he can do. Basically the team is a whole bunch of guys with 20 homer capability. The Nats were T-3th in the NL in homers last year as a team (trailing two teams in offensive parks) and should improve in this category with a healthy Harper. Boswell just talks about Ramos’ stats extrapolated to a full season.

Q: Is praise of Williams’ approach tacit criticism of Davey Johnson’s?

A: Yeah probably. That’s why you change managers; to change the message. I’m not going to disparage Davey Johnson too much here other than to say what i’ve said before; the team needed a new voice. Boswell points out that Johnson’s 2012 job was fantastic and that there’s “different jockeys for different horses.” I like that analogy.

One last point: there was a question about MASN that Boswell went off on and gave some tidbits, including a shot at Bud Selig. Its worth the read; click on the chat link and head to the bottom.

Written by Todd Boss

February 19th, 2014 at 8:18 am

Posted in Chat/Mailbag Responses

Tagged with adam laroche, bj upton, bobby grich, brandon beachy, brian mccann, brian roberts, bryce harper, bud selig, buster olney, carlos beltran, cc sabathia, chris snyder, christian garcia, dan snyder, dan uggla, danny espinosa, davey johnson, david phelps, derek jeter, doug fister, drew storen, drew vettleson, eduardo nunez, felipe rivero, grant balfour, hiroki kuroda, ian desmond, ivan nova, jacoby ellsbury, jayson stark, jhonatan solano, jordan zimmermann, jose lobaton, livan hernandez, mark teixeira, mark zuckerman, masahiro tanaka, matt williams, mike rizzo, nate mclouth, nathan karns, paul maholm, rafael soriano, rick eckstein, robbie ray, ross detwiler, ross ohlendorf, roy halladay, ryan mattheus, ryan zimmerman, sammy solis, sandy leon, tanner roark, taylor jordan, tim h udson, tom boswell, tyler moore, wilson ramos, xavier cedeno, yu darvish

Possible 2013 WBC Nationals participants?

Roster Construction Analysis of 10 Playoff Teams; 2012 edition

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Justin Verlander is one of the most important home-grown players in the 2012 playoffs. Photo unk via rumorsandrants.com

Every year I do a bit of “Team Construction” analysis to kind of gauge the trends in roster construction. Last year’s post is here, and the links to the side have the underlying spreadsheet of player acquisition methods so you can see the pure details. This topic was also covered in-depth by John Sickels on his minorleaguebaseball.com blog for another viewpoint.

Borrowing from last year’s post, there are four main ways teams can acquire players:

Draft: The player is with the original team that drafted him. In the case of international free agents, if they’re signed as 16-year olds they are considered in this category as well (i.e., Ichiro Suzuki is not a developed player, but an international Free Agent). It could be better defined as “Club developed players.” Simple examples for the Nats: Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper.
Traded MLBers: The player was acquired by the team by virtue of trading an established MLB player. Most of the time these days, this means the player was acquired as a prospect (since most trades seem to be of the prospect-for-established player kind). Example for the Nats would be Michael Morse, who was acquired by our trading an established MLB player in Ryan Langerhans for Morse while he was still (essentially) a minor leaguer.
Traded Prospects: The player was acquired by the team by virtue of trading prospects. This is essentially the reverse of #2. The Nats key example is Gio Gonzalez.
Free Agent: The player was acquired in free agency. This category also includes two other types of acquisitions: waiver claims and cash purchases. These three categories are lumped together since all three indicate that a team has acquired a player with zero outlay in terms of development or prospects. Examples for the Nats: Edwin Jackson, Adam LaRoche.

Here is the summary of roster construction and “Construction Strategy Category” that we’ll talk about next. Note that I only count the “core players” on a team for this analysis. The core players is defined as the 5-man starting rotation, the setup and closer, the 8 out-field players, and the DH for AL teams. I didn’t extend this all the way to the 25-man roster, figuring that these core 15 players are the main reasons teams win and advance. That and huge chunks of the bullpen and the bench are either fill-in FAs or draftees and it would skew the analysis of how teams really got to the playoffs. Here’s the summary (the table is sorted by count of Draftees):

Season	Team	Drafted/Developed	Traded Prospects	Traded MLBs	FA/Waivers	Ttl	Constr Method
2012	Atlanta	11	1	3	0	15	#1
2012	St. Louis	9	0	2	4	15	#1/#4
2012	Washington	8	3	1	3	15	#2
2012	San Francisco	8	2	2	3	15	#2
2012	Cincinnati	8	2	3	2	15	#1
2012	New York Yankees	5	2	1	8	16	#4
2012	Detroit	5	5	2	4	16	#2/#4
2012	Texas	4	2	7	3	16	#3/#4
2012	Baltimore	3	1	8	4	16	#3
2012	Oakland	2	1	7	6	16	#3

So, what are the four construction methods I’ve identified? Again borrowing from last year’s version of this post, they are (with this year’s examples). The complication this year is that some of the 10 playoff teams don’t fall neatly into one specific category.

Method #1: Build from within 100%: (Cincinnati, Atlanta). Atlanta, amazingly, didn’t use a single Free Agent among its core 15 this year. They made a couple of key trades to acquire a few starters, but the rest of their lineup is home-grown draftees. That may change next year as they try to replace Chipper Jones, Michael Bourn and possibly Brian McCann, who may leave via free agency. Meanwhile Cincinnati has just a couple of free agents and mostly rely on guys they’ve grown as well.

Method #2: Ride your developed Core and use your prospects to acquire big names: (Washington, San Francisco and Detroit to an extent): The Nats have transformed themselves over just a couple of seasons, relying less on FAs to plug holes caused by an awful farm system to having most of their core team developed at home (See the table further below to follow the transformation of our team over the past few seasons). Those spots they couldn’t depend on have been filled by trades (three guys acquired by flipping prospects for them; in addition to Gonzalez Kurt Suzuki and Tyler Clippard also count here). San Francisco has seen their payroll skyrocket as they extend their home-grown talent, but for the most part they have stayed true to the team development concept. Their one major Free Agent (Barry Zito) is notoriously one of the worst contracts in baseball and it is somewhat surprising to even see him on the post-season roster. He wouldn’t be if Tim Lincecum was pitching in 2012 like he has regularly done in previous seasons. Detroit was entirely in method #2 until they decided to spend money like the Yankees; we’ll revisit in #4.

Method #3: Go Young and grow up Strong (Baltimore, Oakland and Texas to an extent): Baltimore acquired a massive chunk of their rosters by flipping major leaguers for prospects and watching them blossom into a surprise playoff team. Oakland has made a habit of getting rid of guys before they hit arbitration; fully 7 of their squad was acquired this way. The difference is that Oakland has been forced to buy a big chunk of their core group on the FA market, depending on cast-offs like Brandon Inge and Jonny Gomes to plug leaks and get production on the cheap. I’m guessing that Oakland will transform more into Category #1 as the vast amount of prospects they’ve landed lately continue to matriculate. Lastly Texas was entirely in this category before they dropped major money on the likes of Adrian Beltre and Yu Darvish, transforming them into a spending power to go with their still-excellent farm system.

Method #4: Spend what it takes to win: (New York fully with St Louis, Texas and Detroit partially here): The Yankees are the class-A example of this method (along with Boston and the Dodgers frankly), but the spending that St. Louis, Texas and Detroit cannot be overlooked. The Yankees more and more are depending on expensive FA purchases to replace what their farm system is not developing, and the problem is only being brought into more focus this off-season. Their 3 primary starters are FA acquisitions, their biggest FA is looking like a contract catastrophe, and their developed guys are not stepping up and taking over major roles (especially on the pitching staff). The other three teams mentioned here are mostly built on home-grown talent, but have spent so much money on the FA market lately that they are broaching into the upper echelons of MLB payroll. St. Louis is almost entirely built from within (as noted by other columnists doing this same type of analysis) but still has depended on a couple of key FAs to advance as far as they have.

Conclusions:

There’s no real formula to building a playoff team, as we see from the spread of the 10 teams among the four methods defined.
I think its safe to say that the most difficult methods to depend on are #1 and #3. You need to have a very good farm system to depend on the #1 method to work for you, and over the past few years only a couple of teams really have had success using this method (Atlanta and Tampa Bay). Kansas City has tried #1 for years and has gone nowhere. The #3 method is also frought with issues, since it requires a ton of patience from your fan base and may not be sustainable. Would anyone be surprised if both Oakland and Baltimore collapsed next season? Probably not; you really need to build on a base of players once you’ve established yourself as a good team and continue to augment, either through trade or through FAs. But even that can be dangerous; just ask Philadelphia this year, owners of the 2nd biggest payroll in baseball and just a 3rd place team.
Is Category #1 and #3 the same? No, not really. #1 teams rely much more heavily on personally developed prospects, while #3 teams purposely set out to acquire prospects in trade to combine with their own development mis-fortunes. If Baltimore had a better farm system, they wouldn’t have needed to jettison so many established MLBers to acquire prospects, and they’d probably be closer to a #2 team (a wealthy team who supplements developed players with key FAs, much like what Washington is doing).
Oakland is really a unique case; they do develop players but get rid of them because of a self-imposed incredibly restrictive salary cap. Imagine what Billy Beane could do with that team if he could have purchased just $30M of players on the open market (which would have still left Oakland in the bottom third of payroll).
Buying your way to a team (method #4) can work, but only if you have nearly unlimited money and everything goes right for you. There’s almost no excuse for a $175M payroll to get beat to the playoffs by a $55M payroll team (Oakland). That is unless you overpay for poor FA targets, install the wrong manager and saddle yourself with the worst clubhouse in baseball. In case you were wondering, the 2012 Boston Red Sox were a classic case of why money cannot buy happiness, and why unlimited funds do not necessarily guarantee playoff baseball. The Angels are another example; owing most of their season’s turnaround and success to Mike Trout and his MLB minimum salary providing nearly 10 WAR despite having the 3rd largest payroll in baseball and having just purchased the games pre-emminent hitter in Albert Pujols.
Frequent commenter Clark has a good point; classifying Mark Teixeira and Raul Ibanez as the same type of player (acquired via free agency) is a bit mis-leading. Clearly a $150M player isn’t the same as a $1M player. But, for the purposes of analyzing how much of your team is “bought” versus “developed” the point remains the same whether its a bargain basement guy or a $20M/year player.

So, if I had just purchased a new team, what construction method would I follow? I guess it depends; if I thought I had a patient fan base, I’d probably do exactly what is going on in Houston. I’d gut the MLB roster, trade every tradeable asset and start over payroll-wise. I’d follow strategy #1 until I was at least competitive, and then i’d probably switch over to a #2 strategy or a #3 strategy, depending on just how good my developed players were. You hope for #3; it implies you’ve got so much in-house talent that all you need to do is keep extending your key guys and you’ll keep winning.

I don’t think #4 is a sustainable way of building rosters. The Yankees have gotten away with it for years, but only because they initially had a banner crop of developed players (the “core four”) to depend on up their spine. Would anyone be surprised if the Yankees fail to make the playoffs next year? Alex Rodriguez looks incredibly old, Derek Jeter just broke his ankle, they’re losing a number of hitters to FA and they only have a couple of starters locked up. Where’s their starting pitching for 2013? And what happens if they finally get hit with injuries to their rotation to the extent that Boston did this year? I think this is why you see $80M payroll teams beating out $170M payroll teams all the time; teams get bloated, they over pay their own players and suddenly are old, inflexible and unable to adjust financially to buy what they need.

Lastly, here’s what the Nats roster has done over the past few seasons:

Season	Team	Drafted/Developed	Traded Prospects	Traded MLBs	FA/Waivers	Ttl	Constr Method
2010	Washington (end of 2010)	7	1	2	5	15	#2
2011	Wash (2011 opening day)	6	2	1	6	15	#2
2011	Wash (primary Roster for season)	6	2	2	5	15	#2
2011	Wash (end of season)	9	1	2	3	15	#2
2012	Washington (playoff roster)	8	3	1	3	15	#2

The team has been slowly replacing Free Agents with home-grown or acquired talent, and as we all know is well on its way towards a strong, home grown team. This year’s core team only uses 3 pure FAs: Adam LaRoche, Jayson Werth and Edwin Jackson. We could very well see LaRoche replaced outright with the home grown Tyler Moore, and if the team replaced Jackson with someone like John Lannan (not that we’ll possibly see that happen), we could be down to just one FA in the core squad.

Written by Todd Boss

October 19th, 2012 at 11:48 am

My 2012 Fantasy Baseball Team

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Kemp reacts to being the first overall pick in my fantasy league. Photo unknown via ladodgertalk.com

As with last year’s edition of this post, feel free to stop reading now if you don’t want to read fantasy team analysis of a league that you’re not necessarily in. I know that really grates some people, and I understand. For those of you who do play fantasy, I’ll try to talk about who was available and who I had to choose from for each pick so you can get a context of the decisions I made.

League overview: 12 team 6×6 head to head. Your categories are:

Hitting: Runs, HRs, RBIs, SBs, Batting Average and OPS.
Pitching: Wins, Saves, K’s, ERA, WHIP and Holds.

Last year we had Losses as a category instead of Holds but too many of the league hated the Losses category, but wanted to keep OPS as a 6th category. So we’ve introduced Holds as a category for the 2012 season. I proposed this but rather inadvertantly; my strategy going into this 2012 season was going to be to go after the exact type of pitcher who normally gets holds; the setup-guy, the excellent specialized reliever who pitchers 60-70 innings but gets 70-80 K’s with excellent ERAs and WHIPs. With no Losses to worry about, the value of holding any type of pitcher increased over last year’s edition of the league. The only downside was that we are also introducing a transaction limit for the season (65 over the 21 week season). So picking good arms early will be crucial.

We added an 11th and 12th team to the league at the last minute, two newer guys to fantasy baseball who made some “interesting” picks throughout the night. I was picking 1st out of the 12 in a typical snake draft order.

My draft strategy for 2012 is as follows:

Get the minimum number of hitters, and get them early to get the best players available.
Focus on Homers. Homers lead to Runs and RBIs, 3 of your 6 offensive categories.
Get a couple of top end starters early, then spend the entire 2nd half of the draft on pitching.
Focus on NL, high K/9 starters only.
Get a high end closer if they’re available, but don’t over spend.
Focus on the high-end Holds leaders and setup guys, getting guys who can close in a pinch.

What became apparent about 5 rounds into the draft is the disservice of drafting 1st (or last) in such a huge league; if a run starts on a position, you have almost no chance of getting any of the top guys. Catchers, top-end Holds guys and top-end Closers all had major runs without my even getting a consideration to get a pick in. Once all the top closers were gone, I decided not to scrounge for saves, at all. If a guy like Rodriguez or Holland becomes a closer and I get free saves, all the better. But what I really want are low ERA, low WHIP innings all week that help lower the overall team ERA/WHIP.

Below are my round-by-round picks. Yahoo O-Ranks are given; this is Yahoo’s rank for the player for the 2012 season. Average Draft Rank (ADR) is listed as per MockDraftCentral’s ratings, though honestly after the Holds guys start going off the board the ADR is mostly useless. Plus ADR reports are based on the classic 5×5 league, not the 6×6 league that we’re doing. But it does illustrate some of the over-drafts and/or value picks I got.

Matt Kemp: (Yahoo #2, ADR #2) With the first overall pick I really was choosing between Kemp and Miguel Cabrera. I liked Cabrera because he’ll be gaining positional flexibility at 3B, a relatively thin position. I also like Cabrera because he’s gaining Prince Fielder to provide lineup protection. However; Kemp was the #1 producer last season, had 39 Hrs to Cabrera’s 30 and threw in 40 steals for good measure. I think Kemp is the best player in baseball and I see no reason that he won’t at least repeat his (near) 40/40 performance. With the understanding that I’ll be missing most of the high end infielders by virtue of not picking again until the 23rd overall pick, I take Kemp. Cabrera’s grounder to the face just a few hours before the draft didn’t really factor into the decision. Ironically Ryan Braun was ADR #1 but he didn’t go until 4th or 5th in our league.
Ian Kinsler: (Yahoo #20, ADR #23). With the 24th pick, I really wanted Curtis Granderson, who was a bit undervalued (Yahoo ranked #22 but 6th best player in 2011), but he got snagged just before I picked. Kinsler was highest guy on the board and was the natural pick. I’ve had Kinsler before and he’s always a solid, mid 20s producer with some consistency. He was hurt in 2010 but in 2009 was a top 10 player. Lets hope for a similar season. 2B is thin (even more so with Chase Utley‘s injury), so I didn’t mind getting a halfway decent one this high.
Giancarlo Stanton: (Yahoo #25, ADR #26): With the 25th pick, I reached a little bit for Stanton. I didn’t want to go with slighly higher ranked guys like Mark Teixeira and certainly not Hanley Ramirez (who Itook #2 overall last year and absolutely killed my team). Cliff Lee (Yahoo #24) should have been there but was drafted incredibly early by one of the new guys in the league. So, faced with a slew of positional guys after Stanton on the Yahoo chart who all under performed last year (Beltre, McCutchen, Wright) and therefore were not worth the draft position, I took a gamble on Stanton. Personally I think this guy is going to be one of the biggest names in the game; a 45 homer guy who helps bring his team back to relevance. Unfortunately I wasn’t aware that he’s been dinged up in Spring Training and now may miss opening day. That’s not good drafting. But i’d rather have him and miss a couple weeks than be frustrated with an injury prone guy.
Tim Lincecum: (Yahoo #28, ADR #24)
Cole Hamels: (Yahoo #32, ADR #29): After 22 more picks, drafting with the 48th and 49th overall pick I was stunned to see two NL heavyweight starters sitting there available for the taking. According to ADR both these guys should have been long gone. Lincecum struggled last year clearly, but Hamels overperformed based on his Yahoo ranking (#21 performer in 2011) and fit my profile of an NL starter with good stats. No argument here; I took the two leading starters available. Its like a repeat of 2011: I had both these starters last year and I’m looking forward to having them both again this year.
Brett Lawrie (Yahoo #45, ADR #53): With the 72nd overall pick I again got great value in Lawrie. At this point I had not drafted either a 3B or a 1B, having missed out on the first couple of tiers of both. I had a 1B targeted (see pick #8) so I went for an upside pick. Lawrie had 9 homers in just 150 ABs in 2011 and based on his minor league production he seems set to be a monster hitter in this league. Based on who was left on the board at that position at this time (Mark Reynolds, David Frese, Martin Prado) I went with the best available guy. That being said, Lawrie is a risk. I’m slightly worried that 2 of my top 4 hitters are relatively young guys who could go south; this strategy failed me last year (when Jason Heyward and Pedro Alvarez both underperformed so badly that I had to drop them).
Alex Gordon; (Yahoo #66, ADR #61): Right after Lawrie with the 73rd overall pick, I was scanning down the available hitters, with an eye on 2011 performance, I was amazed again to find a near top 20 guy from last year. Gordon was ranked #23 in 2011 performance but was still on the board. I grabbed him. 23 Homers, 87 rbi along with 17 steals and I think this is a halfway decent pick. He takes my last OF spot.
Lance Berkman: (Yahoo #86, ADR #95); With the 96th pick I nabbed Berkman. Waiting until the 8th round to find a first baseman is not usually a good strategy … but it has served me well in the past. Instead of overpaying for one of the top 1Bs, I like to wait and get nearly as good a player but many rounds below. Last year it was Paul Konerko (who I would have loved to get again but Jamos snapped him up a few rounds earlier) so this year I targeted Berkman. Another undervalued pick (his 2011 yahoo ranking: 32) who qualifies at both OF and 1B but who will be playing the far less taxing 1B position fulltime in 2012. Because of this shift to the infield, i’m hoping for a healther season and more ABs. Berkman proved last year he can still hit, and with a relatively decent lineup still around him he should still see pitches to hit despite the Cardinals losing Pujols. 31 homers last year in just 488 ABs; he could broach 40 if he gets 600 Abs like he should.
Jimmy Rollins: (Yahoo #73, ADR #88). 97th overall, still continuing to get value. Rollins isn’t the best SS out there, but by the 9th round he’s as good as you’re going to get. He was a decent producer in 2011 but is a far cry from his 2007-2009 numbers (when in consecutive seasons he was the 5th, 9th and 12th ranked fantasy player). He has some power, 30 SB capability and a decent bat. With the Phillies injury concerns, perhaps more RBI opportunities will fall to Rollins.
Joe Mauer (Yahoo #95, ADR #82). At the 120th pick, I was missing two positional players: a catcher and a utility guy. I’ve been burned in the past drafting catchers too high, and frankly am happy to roll the dice with the recovering Mauer. Mauer has positional flexibility of qualifying for 1B if needed but what I really need is for him to be in the lineup and hitting. If Mauer returns anywhere close to his 2009 form (#12 fantasy producer) this will be the steal of the draft.
Josh Johnson (Yahoo #101, ADR #99). More value, but also more risk, with the #121 pick. Johnson fits my profile of high K NL starters … but of course is coming off of a major arm injury. Is he ready to go? If he’s healthy, this is a 4th or 5th round talent way down in the 11th. If not … well there’s always the waiver wire.
Drew Stubbs: (Yahoo #92, ADR #79). With the 144th pick I needed one last hitter to supplement my bench and noticed the huge number of SBs that Stubbs had last year (40). He was decently ranked for value and I think this is a pretty decent pick. The ADR of 79 probably is skewed higher because in a 5×5 league steals are more important. But Steals are important here as well, and looking at this team i’ve got a ton of them. Big fan of this pick here.
Mike Adams. Pick #145 and the beginning of my main 2012 strategy; focus on setup guys who get holds and have good peripherals. By the 13th round the top Holds guys from 2011 (Clippard, Venters, Robinson, and Marshall) were all gone; I was most disappointed to have missed on Robinson in particular, who went just a few picks before I went. I grabbed Adams as the best holds guy available. (note from here on out I won’t bother with Yahoo ranks or ADRs for Holds guys since they doesn’t make any sense).
Ricky Romero: (Yahoo #109, ADR #86): At this point in the draft I was targeting a few more starters and a few more setup guys and went for best players available. but getting a guy of Romero’s caliber with the 168th pick is great. Romero isn’t entirely my kind of starter; he’s AL, and more importantly he’s AL East. But his K/9 is improved and he’s a good pitcher on a team that will get wins. He had 15 wins last year with a sub 3.00 ERA; imagine if he pitched in the NL. Regardless, he’s a good pickup at this point in the draft.
Francisco Rodriguez: I like K-Rod because, well, if Milwaukee’s closer (John Axford) falters or gets hurt, suddenly I’ve got a pretty good closer getting saves. As it stands, Rodriguez will get a ton of Hold opportunities and has all the incidentals I want in a back-end reliever (good K/9, good holds from 2011). The only downside on him is his ERA; its a bit high for an 8th inning guy.
Fernando Salas: Salas was St. Louis’ closer for most of 2011 but got demoted after a couple of blown saves in August. He didn’t get demoted because his numbers were bad; in fact his 2011 numbers were great. Unfortunately for Salas, Jason Motte lit it up in the post season and enters 2012 with the job clearly in hand. Which means, like Rodriguez, he’ll get save opportunities as the former closer and would be the presumptive replacement in case of injury or ineffectiveness.
Jeremy Hellickson (Yahoo #183, ADR #127); Going against my better judgement, I picked up yet another AL East pitcher, but once again went for value. Hellickson was my 193rd pick and despite being Yahoo ranked 183, he was 86th in performance in 2011. Lots of people think Hellickson will regress in 2012 because of his amazingly low BABIP (.223 in 2011). However not all of Hellickson’s BABIP variation is attributed to “luck;” He’s a flyball pitcher. And flyball pitchers will have more of their balls in play caught, keeping BABIP low. Hellickson had only 35% of balls in play be grounders in 2011. Roy Halladay, by way of comparison, has been 50% or more groundballs every year of his career. Where this should be catching up to Hellickson is in homers given up (more fly balls should lead to more homers), but his home ballpark helps. Either way. I’ll take him with the 193rd pick.
Mark Melancon: Another deposed closer in Melancon, who got 20 saves for Houston last year but joins Boston as the presumptive 8th inning guy behind Andrew Bailey. Remember; Bailey missed 2 months in 2011 with a forearm strain; Melancon ably fits into the closer spot. This pick may be affected by recent news that Daniel Bard will be returning to the bullpen, but holds guys don’t have to be 8th inning guys.
Greg Holland: What a find here; Holland has fantastic numbers and could be another steal since KC closer Soria has blown out his elbow. I don’t think Holland gets the call as the closer immediately, but if new acquisition Broxton doesn’t step up Holland will.
Alexi Ogando (Yahoo #227, ADP #208); Looking for two more starters I went for best names on the board. Ogando may not be the best but he’ll get Ks and he has a big arm. And at the 240th pick of the night I’m happy to get a 13 game winner on a playoff team.
Josh Collmenter (Yahoo #312, ADP #305): I don’t understand why Collmenter is so low; he plays in the weaker NL West, is in the NL, and won 10 games with good numbers last year (#140 ranked yahoo fantasy in 2011). Oh; just found out why; he’s got a 14.00 ERA in Spring Training thus far. Ouch. We’ll keep an eye on his first couple starts (perhaps sitting him if he’s going against a touch lineup) and see how he goes.

Team analysis

Hitters: I’ve got a ton of power, but also a ton of SB capability. Kemp is 40/40 guy, Kinsler and Lawrie project to be 30/30 and Gordon a 20/20 guy. Rollins and Stubbs both get a ton of steals. I’ve got 5 guys with 30+ homer capability. Homers lead to runs and RBIs. What may hurt me is AVG and OPS: Kinsler, Stanton and Stubbs all seem to be .250 hitters. Rollins and Stubbs both are < .800 OPS guys. So we’ll take the good with the bad. But I do like my hitters.

Name	Team	Pos	O-rank	2011 Actual	Owned	H/AB	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	OPS
Lance Berkman	StL	1B,OF	86	32	97%	147/488	90	31	94	2	0.301	0.959
Ian Kinsler	Tex	2B	20	22	99%	158/620	121	32	77	30	0.255	0.832
Brett Lawrie	Tor	3B	45	771	97%	44/150	26	9	25	7	0.293	0.953
Joe Mauer	Min	C,1B	95	820	97%	85/296	38	3	30	0	0.287	0.728
Matt Kemp	LAD	OF	2	1	99%	195/602	115	39	126	40	0.324	0.985
Giancarlo Stanton	Mia	OF	25	66	99%	135/516	79	34	87	5	0.262	0.893
Alex Gordon	KC	OF	66	23	98%	185/611	101	23	87	17	0.303	0.878
Jimmy Rollins	Phi	SS	73	67	97%	152/567	87	16	63	30	0.268	0.737
Drew Stubbs	Cin	OF	92	103	93%	147/604	92	15	44	40	0.243	0.685

Pitchers: I’m less liking my starters versus what I had last year. I have three good NL guns but then have three #2/#3 AL starters. And I have a big injury risk in Johnson to go with spring dismal performances out of Collmenter. I may be playing some waiver wire games.

Name	Team	Pos	O-rank	2011 Actual	Owned	IP	W	SV	K	HLD	ERA	WHIP
Tim Lincecum	SF	SP	28	49	99%	217	13	0	220	0	2.74	1.21
Cole Hamels	Phi	SP	32	21	99%	216	14	0	194	0	2.79	0.99
Josh Johnson	Mia	SP	101	183	97%	60.1	3	0	56	0	1.64	0.98
Ricky Romero	Tor	SP	109	46	95%	225	15	0	178	0	2.92	1.14
Jeremy Hellickson	TB	SP	183	86	86%	189	13	0	117	0	2.95	1.15
Alexi Ogando	Tex	SP	227	131	68%	169	13	0	126	0	3.51	1.14
Josh Collmenter	Ari	SP,RP	312	140	21%	154.1	10	0	100	0	3.38	1.07

The middle relief/holds strategy should be interesting; with a transaction limit in place we’re going to have to monitor the 5 RPs closely. I’m not after saves (clearly; having not drafted a single closer) but I wouldn’t mind getting a few here and there. I have tried the no-closer route in the past; it didn’t work exactly as I wanted. I had too many mediocre starters and got killed in ERA and WHIP. This time around is slightly different; by focusing on middle relievers who generally have great stats, I’m hoping to keep ERA and WHIP down and continually add Ks and holds.

Name	Team	Pos	O-rank	2011 Actual	Owned	IP	W	SV	K	HLD	ERA	WHIP
Mike Adams	Tex	RP	305	83	32%	73.2	5	2	74	32	1.47	0.79
Francisco Rodriguez	Mil	RP	374	149	33%	71.2	6	23	79	17	2.64	1.3
Fernando Salas	StL	RP	371	73	31%	75	5	24	75	6	2.28	0.95
Mark Melancon	Bos	RP	379	138	14%	74.1	8	20	66	3	2.78	1.22
Greg Holland	KC	RP	383	135	11%	60	5	4	74	18	1.8	0.93

That’s your fantasy team. What do you think?

Written by Todd Boss

March 23rd, 2012 at 3:23 pm

At this point, what really is the Fielder FA market?

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I swear, I wasn't looking for the obvious pun photo of Prince Fielder eating. Photo: The Onion

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know by now that Prince Fielder is looking for a 9 figure contract, that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of suitors for him, and that he keeps being linked to the Washington Nationals, despite sources saying we’re not interested.

So I thought to myself; what *really* is the market for Fielder right now? Who wants, or more importantly needs, a big-money, big-time hitting, trip-over-his-feet defending at first base Fielder? Here’s each of the 30 teams organized into categories to help get some clarity:

1. Teams that have long-term, major money commitments to established 1B stars, right now.

These teams are absolutely not in the market for Fielder. Team and current 1B:

Boston: Adrian Gonzalez
Chicago WS: Konerko/Dunn
Detroit: Miguel Cabrera
LA Angels: Albert Pujols
Minnesota: Justin Morneau
NY Yankees: Mark Teixeira
Cincinnati: Joey Votto
Colorado: Todd Helton (not that he’s a major committment, but he did just re-sign thru 2013).
Miami: Gaby Sanchez (not really a major star, but he was a 2011 all-star and is pre-arbitration)
Philadelphia: Ryan Howard

You could quibble with the selection of Miami as not being in the market; after all they were throwing money at Pujols and have committed something in the range of $165M in heavily back-loaded contracts already this off-season. But I havn’t read a single sentence indicating any interest with Fielder.

You could slightly quibble with Colorado, but if so I’ll say that Colorado also falls into one of the “No” categories below. Read on.

2. Teams that are so bad, right now, that I couldn’t imagine Fielder actually going there

Baltimore

Baltimore. That’s it. Anyone that signs in Baltimore is essentially saying, “I want to play for the worst organization in baseball and guarantee myself 5th place finishes for the entirety of my contract.” Who would possibly go to play there unless they’re a lower-tier FA who wants to guarantee himself a starting job? Such a shame; this was the highest payroll team in the game in the mid 90s. We talk about how Bud Selig needs to take away the Mets … how about forcing Angelos to sell this former jewel franchise to someone who actually wants to see them win?

3. Teams that are aren’t in the market for financial reasons

LA Dodgers
NY Mets
SF Giants
St. Louis

Obviously the situation with the Dodgers and Mets prevents them from doing such a franchise-altering commitment. Plus both teams have half-way decent options playing at 1B for them now (James Loney and Ike Davis). The Giants were at $118M in 2011 and seem tapped out; they have $84M committed prior to their Arb cases, including a potentially record-setting arbitration case with Tim Lincecum. They’ll easily be above $100M once these cases are said and done. Lastly St. Louis: if they were willing to pay $25M/year, they would have re-signed Pujols. So clearly they’ve reached a financial threshold themselves.

I’d also put Colorado in this category; they aren’t exactly a small-market team but they also don’t seem like they’re in the mood to increase payroll $25M/year.

4. Teams that have waved the white flag and are in 100% rebuilding mode

Oakland
Houston

Both these teams should be obvious just by their mention. Oakland is going to try to field a $20M payroll team, and Houston has bottomed out and clearly is starting over.

5. Teams that have big-name prospects currently installed at 1B and who don’t seem like they’re in the market

Cleveland (Matt LaPorta); also arguably in the “Small Market” category
Kansas City (Eric Hosmer); also in the “Small Market” category
Seattle (Justin Smoak); also in the “Teams that are really bad” category
Atlanta (Freddie Freeman): also in the “Teams that are tapped out financially” category
San Diego (Yonder Alonso); also in the “Small market” category
Chicago Cubs (Anthony Rizzo): probably more in the “rebuilding mode” category; Epstein likes Rizzo, just re-acquired him and I’d be shocked if they blocked him by getting Fielder.

Most of these teams could fit into multiple categories. Lots of rumors out there saying that Seattle is a natural landing spot for Fielder but I don’t see it: Smoak is the reason Seattle agreed to trade Cliff Lee, and you don’t just give up on guys like that. Meanwhile Seattle is now miles behind their divisional rivals and may not compete for a decade. Why would Fielder go there?

Meanwhile, the Cubs seem like an interesting case. NL team, NL central team, storied name. But they didn’t hire Theo Epstein to just make the leap; their ownership clearly realized that their franchise was on the downside both at the MLB level and in the farm system. Bad contracts, bad clubhouse. They’re rebuilding for a renewed run in a few year’s time.

6. Small Market teams that certainly don’t seem to be in the market for a $25M/year player

Tampa Bay
Arizona
Milwaukee (else he’d be looking at re-signing there)
Pittsburgh

All these teams seem to be pretty self-explanatory. Maybe Arizona gets into the market, but they’ve gone to great pains to lose payroll, paring it down to just $56M last year while somehow winning the division. Their highest paid player in 2011 was just $5.8M. A $25M/year guy doesn’t fit with their team.

So, after all that, Here’s the teams Left: This is the actual Market for Fielder, right now. Teams listed with their current starting 1B

Texas: Mitch Moreland
Toronto: Adam Lind
Washington: Adam LaRoche

And here’s arguments for and against each team:

Pro Texas: they are getting a massive amount of money influx in. They may or may not win the Yu Darvish sweepstakes, meaning they may or may not have an “extra” $120M or so sitting around in a couple weeks. Moreland isn’t exactly lighting the world on fire and wouldn’t be an impediment.
Con Texas: They don’t NEED more offense; they’ve bashed their way to two consecutive AL pennants by having an offense ranked in the top 3 in pretty much every category. They had a guy who hit 29 homers batting 7th for them in the off-season (Nelson Cruz).

Pro Toronto: they have payroll room. They can let Fielder DH some of the time. They have a good young pitching staff they can build on. Lind hit 26 homers but isn’t blocking them from acquiring someone better. They do need to improve their offense and he’d fit naturally behind Jose Bautista, giving him even better pitches to turn on.
Con Toronto: they’re the 4th best team in the AL East and havn’t made the playoffs since the Wild Card era. What makes you think they’re going to catch the 3 teams above them, no matter how much they spend? This has to come into Fielder’s thought process, doesn’t it? They also don’t have the pitching right now to really compete in the AL East, having traded away their main studs for prospects in recent years.

Pro Washington: This team needs offense; we’ve declined in runs scored 3 years running. Plain and simple.
Con Washington: he can’t DH. We’d be lighting the $8M we owe to LaRoche on fire. He doesn’t fit Rizzo’s pro-defense concept of finding players. He may expose a payroll ceiling that the team hasn’t broached before, resulting in the team possibly losing franchise players in the future because “we can’t afford them.”

In the end though, if Texas signs Darvish I’d think they’d be out of the running. And Toronto hasn’t really shown an inclination to spend Fielder kinds of money, and seem more in a rebuilding phase than a “go for it now” phase.

Which means the Fielder market may be …. just Washington.

What do you think? Are there any teams besides Texas, Toronto and the Nats that are *really* in the conversation? Or is Boras negotiating against himself right now?

Written by Todd Boss

January 12th, 2012 at 9:30 am

Ask Boswell 1/9/12 edition

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Tired of Prince Fielder rumors yet? Photo: AP/Morry Gash

Here’s Tom Boswell‘s weekly Monday chat on 11/28/11. Of the baseball questions he took, here’s how I’d have answered them. With the Wizard’s 0-8 start there’s a lot of kvetching about NBA.

As always, questions are edited for clarity and I write my own answer prior to reading his.

Q: What is your “take” on Ross Detwiler and could he become a better pitcher than Gio Gonzalez?

A: My “take” on Ross Detwiler is that he’s too frail to stay healthy long enough to be counted on for heavy-duty innings, and that he throws too much across his body to get his breaking stuff to work properly. Now, throwing across your body isn’t a bad thing (see Johnson, Randy) but Detwiler’s never been consistent long enough to be anything more than an emergency/late season starter for this team. Can he be better than Gio Gonzalez? Not really; Gonzalez is only a year older but has 60 more MLB starts, an all-star appearance and the talent to win 20 games in the AL. If Detwiler was really that promising … we wouldn’t have acquired Gonzalez in the first place. Boswell says the team likes Detwiler, but Johnson likes a lefty heavy rotation in this division. But the team already has 5 starters signed to major league contracts, so I can’t see how Detwiler wins anything more than a bullpen spot.

Q: Is Prince Fielder really coming here? Why is there so little market for him?

A: I’ll answer the 2nd part first; there’s so little market for Prince Fielder for several reasons.

If you look at the top payroll clubs, basically every team either has a long-term 1B commitment (names like Mark Teixeira, Ryan Howard, Adrian Gonzalez, Albert Pujols, Paul Konerko, Justin Morneau, and Miguel Cabrera) or is dealing with topped-out payroll or financial issues (Mets, Giants, Dodgers) that are preventing them from purchasing a big-money star. So lots of your usual suspects are out. He’s left trying to convince mostly 2nd-tier payroll clubs to spend like first tier clubs.
His agent Scott Boras is generally the “lets wait and try to build a crescendo of rumors” type of agent. It has clearly worked in the past … but it doesn’t seem to be working now. I think Boras’ strategy has run its course to a certain extent and teams are wary of the “mystery team” in on these major players.
Fielder isn’t exactly an adonis of a physical specimen. He’s got a bad body, hasn’t really shown that he can control his weight, and has a pretty good barometer of his future physical condition in the form of his MLB playing father Cecil Fielder. Prince may be young and may clearly be a top5 hitter in the league, but teams are not going to want to put up 8 year commitments for a player who may be washed up by the time he’s 34. To make matters worse, Prince is a below-average first baseman AND only a handful of teams have available money and available DH spots.

Frankly, I think Prince needs to sign a shorter term deal with high AAV, get a team like the Nats to commit and then re-hit the FA market at age 30-31 when he’ll still have value.

Now, is he coming to the Nats? If I was Mike Rizzo i’d sign him in a heartbeat for 3yrs/$75M. I’d balk at an 8-year deal. But, the rumors persist and have been swirling for more than 2 weeks. So where there’s heat, there’s likely fire. Boswell says that the key date is Jan 18th, the day that the Rangers either sign or cut bait on Yu Darvish. If the Rangers suddenly have $120M that they didn’t think they’d have yesterday, they will sign Fielder.

Q: Baseball is set to announce their HOf inductees for 2012 today. Anyone you feel strongly about that should get in? What are your thoughts on Dale Murphy and Don Mattingly?

A: (note that I’m writing this BEFORE the 3pm announcement, so by the time you read this we’ll know who got in and who didn’t)

Who I believe WILL get elected: Barry Larkin

Who I believe SHOULD be in the Hall: Jeff Bagwell, Jack Morris, Barry Larkin, Tim Raines, Mark McGwire, Edgar Martinez.

What do I think about Murphy and Mattingly? Both suffer from more or less the same issue: they were both great players for very short amounts of time. Murphy was a better player all in all than we remembered and for four seasons (82-86) was probably THE best player in the game. Mattingly retired at 33 and was solid but had the same 4-year excellence followed by less flashy seasons. They’re good players who weren’t transcendent enough to get their own plaques in Cooperstown. Boswell mostly agrees with the above.

Q: What do you think of this scenario: Fielder signs elsewhere, LaRoche starts out hot, we flip him to Tampa for Upton as Harper takes over in RF and Morse moves to 1B.

A: Sounds great. Except that this scenario really only serves the perfect world desires of the Nationals. In reality LaRoche is a slow starter and we may really hear the boo-birds early. Morse was great in 2011 but most predict a sliding back. Harper probably needs some MLB adjustment time. We’ll see what happens. Boswell likes this scenario. Sure, who wouldn’t? But it does sound a bit too convenient.

Q: Is there ANY chance Boras goes for something like 3yrs/$75mil for Prince?

A: Yeah, I think there is a chance, as described above. He’ll push for longer though until the last possible minute, so this won’t play out for a while and we’ll continue to hear rumors for weeks. Boswell says it’ll “never happen.” And lays out a doomsday payroll scenario for the team. Which I don’t entirely buy; we’ve been at $60-65M in payroll for 6 years … despite being in a very wealthy market. At some point, this team will be good, will draw fans to the park and will increase revenues. And the payroll should rise to reflect that.

Q: Where are the Nats finding the (approximately) 60 runs they’ll need to add (assuming pitching stays constant) in order to go from 80 to 90 wins?

A: A good question. Some from Zimmerman, some from LaRoche, some from natural improvements from Desmond, Espinosa, and Ramos, and some from a rebound year from Werth. That’s a LOT of assumpions. Fielder would *really* help in the run creation department (he created 35 more runs than Morse last year … that’d be 5-6 wins all by himself). Boswell echos much of the above.

Q: Where do you (as an assumed HoFame voter) draw the line between admitted and suspected when it comes to steroids and the HOF?

A: If it were me, I’d go based on existing evidence. That’s all you can do. And the Mitchell Report is not really “evidence,” but more heresay and he said-she said. So Palmeiro and McGwire have some warts. Bagwell does not and it is generally unfair to lump him into the steroid-poster boy club. Boswell agrees with the above … too bad he doesn’t have a vote to defend year after year.

Q: Given what we now know about the Steroid era, is there any reason to suspect Cal Ripken of using?

A: (The allegation also being that Ripken was friends with Brady Anderson, whose 50 homer season seems awfully suspicious in hind-sight). Nobody’s ever said a word about Ripken and PEDs. You have to think he was well aware of his legacy the closer he got to 2130 games. I’d be shocked if he was shown to be a user. Him and Derek Jeter would be probably the two most shocking PED revelations in the history of the game, if they turned out to be true. Boswell doesn’t think Ripken profiled to a typical user.

Q: Why isn’t there more narrative about how the Werth contract is really killing this team, when considering the future payroll implications of having Werth, Zimmerman and Fielder potentially signed to long term, $20M+ AAV contracts?

A: I’m sure it is internally. It certainly is everywhere else in the blogosphere. The Werth contract is pretty indefensible, certainly was at the time it was signed and is even more so now. I just hope the guy has a bounce back season and really contributes.

Q: How does the TV money rise so much in the MASN deal? Aren’t viewer numbers abhorrent?

A: Good question. I don’t know. Boswell has the answer; the contract is tied not to revenues or ad money, but to comparable RSN sizes in other markets. And right now Houston and Dallas (our two closest sized cities) get 2-3 TIMES the money out of their RSNs. I cackle at watching Angelos have to write checks to the Nats, but really wish they’d cancel the contract altogether. I hate the fact that we’re enriching Angelos day after day.

Q: Why do the HoFame voters suddenly agree to induct a player? If he’s good enough on the first ballot, he should be good enough on any ballot.

A: Because there’s a cache to being a “First Ballot Hall of Famer” and LOTS of voters exclude guys on the first vote as a result. There’s never been a unanimous selection, and there never will be. But there’s plenty of guys who were very good players who got in on #2 or #3 ballot. Guys like Blyleven and Rice who languish for a decade on the ballot are rare. Boswell agrees.

Q: Is Toronto a more likely landing spot for Fielder, since they were all-in for Darvish and lost out?

A: Makes sense frankly. They could be sensing weakness in the Boston and Yankees lack of activity this off-season … Boswell says it makes sense but makes a good point; does Fielder want to commit to Toronto, knowing they’ll get outspent year after year by Boston and New York? Does he commit to a team that hasn’t made the playoffs since the divisions split? Would you?

Q: How similar is Harper’s call-up situation to Mickey Mantle’s situation?

A: Not very. Completely different baseball climates. Harper has his millions already, and there’s very specific service time implications. Mantle played under the reserve clause, there was no service time issues, no arbitration, no free agency. So the Yankees could do whatever they wanted with him year after year. Boswell doesn’t really comment.

Q: Does Fielder make sense if the Nats are planning on building a cost-controlled dynasty? The 1998 yankees didn’t have any 30-homer players, let alone a big bopper at $25M/year.

A: Fair. Lots of Nats bloggers keep coming back to the payroll implications of Werth, extending Zimmerman and buying Fielder. And they’re fair. That doesn’t even talk about what to do with other big-time stars we have to deal with potentially. But i’ll respond by saying this; we don’t KNOW what the owner’s payroll limits are. All we have to go by is the past payroll figures. What if this team is just biding its time before blowing out payroll to $120M? Boswell says this is well put and signs off.

Written by Todd Boss

January 11th, 2012 at 10:22 am

What will Dunn do? (updated)

A dose of reality for the Nats off-season upcoming

one comment

Strasburg's Elbow Injury. Photo LarryBrownSports.com

In the past few weeks, we are hearing news reports linking the Nats to such luminary names as Cliff Lee, Matt Kemp, and Zack Greinke as off season targets. We are willing to go $125M/5years for Lee, we’d be “interested” in Kemp and we think we can put together a package of prospects for Greinke.

Now, I don’t mean to come off as a grumpy old Nats fan. Because I’m not; I follow this team intently, I have a rather unhealthy obsession with the minor league pitching rotations (hence the name of the blog), and I truly want the team to do better. But each of these rumors seems more ridiculous than the last and we (along with my fellow Nats bloggers) probably should have a bit of restraint when talking about the possibilities of actually acquiring these guys.

Zach Greinke is under contract to KC through 2012, has a limited no-trade clause and will probably cost (by various accounts) at least two young MLBers plus one or more additional prospects. I use the Roy Halladay-to the Phillies deal as a comparison. Halladay still had an entire year on the contract and Philly had to give up two high end prospects plus a third good young player in Kyle Drabek. If Greinke was in the last year of his contract (ala Cliff Lee this year) the price would be far less (indeed, the Rangers gave up their #1 prospect Justin Smoak but the other players were lesser ranked prospects).

Matt Kemp apparently is irritated with his club’s management, leading to spurrious trade rumors. But Kemp is even further away from free agency than Greinke, currently on a 2 year deal and then facing one more arbitration year before being cut loose by 2013.

Here’s the rub; the Nationals really don’t HAVE the kind of prospect depth that is required to make a deal for either player. Baseball America’s Jim Callis ranked his top 10 Nats prospects in a recent chat and he listed them in this order:

BA’s Jim Callis’ top 10 Nats prospects (the comments are his’)
1. Bryce Harper, of: Has monster power, though he won’t match Strasburg’s immediate impact.
2. Wilson Ramos, c: Matt Capps trade freed Ramos from being blocked by Joe Mauer with Twins.
3. Derek Norris, c: Still needs to polish bat and defense, but he has power and on-base ability.
4. A.J. Cole, rhp: First-round stuff earned him $2 million as a fourth-rounder.
5. Sammy Solis, lhp: Don’t be surprised if the $1 million second-rounder outperforms Cole.
6. Danny Espinosa, ss: Solid defender has cannon arm and surprising pop (40 HR in 2009-10).
7. Chris Marrero, 1b: Best proven all-around bat in system, though little defensive value.
8. Brad Peacock, rhp: Runs his fastball up to 95, flashes solid knuckle-curve and changeup.
9. Michael Burgess, of: Power potential remains impressive, but will he make enough contact?
10. Yunesky Maya, rhp: Former Cuban national team ace got $8 million big league contract.

Note he doesn’t mention our Minor leaguer of the year Tyler Moore, or our 12th round steal Robbie Ray.

Of this list, who is really trade-able? Probably not a single one of the top 6 right now, nor Maya or Ray. Perhaps Norris, if we find out that Jesus Flores is indeed healthy and we decide we can cash in one of the three of our young catchers. That leaves Marrero (who can barely play 1B and doesn’t hit nearly well enough to be a DH prospect), Peacock (22 and probably the best experienced minor league arm we have), Burgess (who now has 3 full pro seasons and still can’t hit a curveball), and Tyler Moore (great season but he did it as a 23-yr old in high-A). Our cache of early to mid 20s arms is good (Chico, Martis, Atilano, Stammen, Balester, Detwiler, Martin, Mock to start) but not one of them has proven they can produce at a sustained level without an ERA ballooning into the 5.00 era. Who wants to trade for a middle-relief right handed pitcher?

Lastly, there’s the Cliff Lee question. I just finished a blog posting showing how $125/5yrs is almost guaranteed to be an albatross of a contract. But ask yourself; why would Lee come here even if offered more money than Texas or New York will throw at him? Why did Mark Teixeira not come to Washington despite being (allegedly) offered more money than the Yankees? Simple reason: we’re not good enough yet. The team needs build its farm system and thus build its product on the field, while improving in the records and begin to attract better and better free agents. Yes, some players will just take whoever offers the most money, but most players want to get paid AND have a chance to win championships, pad their legacy, etc. If Ryan Zimmerman played for a winning team, he’d not only have more All Star appearances by now but he’d also probably have some MVP votes.

Now, if Strasburg was healthy next year, AND we had a legitimate #2 guy (could be Zimmermann, could be someone else), AND we knew that Marquis and Livan Hernandez would serve as good back-of-the-rotation innings eaters, and we resigned Dunn to preserve a pretty fearsome 3-4-5 lineup … well that sounds a lot more promising to a marquee Free Agent, right?

Now, think about how we’d possibly look 2 years from now at the beginning of 2012. Harper has torn through a year in the minors, Solis has made his mlb debut and looks like the 2nd coming of Madison Bumgarner. Strasburg looks great in rehab starts in Florida and in Potomac. Espinosa and Desmond are settled in to their roles, Zimmermann has bounced fully back from TJ surgery and looks great, and we’ve added an outfield bat to augment what we had in 2009. That’s an enticing story, a good young up and coming team that should be able to attract a serious FA starter to augment what is already here.

Written by Todd Boss

October 21st, 2010 at 3:32 pm

Dunn a type B free agent??

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So, the entire principle behind NOT signing Adam Dunn during the summer was the 2 draft picks we would acquire (the signing team’s 1st pick and a supplimental) after he declines our arbitration offer.

Check out this link at mlbtraderumors.com. If this site is correct, and the analysis is accurate, then Dunn has fallen just below the threshold and is now a Type B Free Agent.

From a Nats standpoint, this is an unmitigated Disaster. Now not only is there more incentive for other teams to sign him,there’s even LESS incentive for him to take a deal from us. And, we’ll get merely a supplimental 1st pick.

Unless the entire 2010 season was just a charade and we plan on signing him anyway. Per Boswell there’s a 3-year deal on the table now. But if you’re Dunn, you HAVE to see what is out there right now, right?

Assuming that he does not consider AL teams, as he has stated he wants to continue to play the field, here’s a quick rundown on NL teams and their 1st basemen situation:

NY: Ike Davis; up and coming prospect
PHI: Ryan Howard: long term contract
Fla: Gaby Sanchez (doesn’t matter, they’re not FA buyers)
Atl: Derrick Lee, who is a FA. Troy Glaus also a FA but was awful this year. Could be a buyer.

Stl: Pujols
mil: Prince Fielder
Cincy: Joey Votto
Chi; it was Derrick Lee til they traded him. Possible FA buyers.
Hou; it was Lance Berkman til they traded him. But are they FA buyers? I don’t think so.
Pitt: Garrett Jones (doesn’t matter, they’re not FA buyers)

LA: James Loney: cost contained and home grown. plus no FA $$ spent until ownership divorce settled.
SD: Adrian Gonzalez
SF; Aubrey Huff: a FA and SF desperately needs hitters.
Col: Todd Helton; not the greatest hitter anymore but signed through 2013.
Ariz: Adam LaRoche who is a FA but I sense Ariz is rebuilding and not FA buyers

So, if he goes anywhere I think it could be either Atlanta, Chicago or San Francisco. Chicago already has some serious payroll issues and an underperforming team. SF may not have the payroll flexibility to buy Dunn despite really needing him. Atlanta only has $60M committed next year and has a bunch of arbitration cases … but they’ve spent over $100m on payroll as recently as 2 years ago and may expand it out again.

Adding in AL teams, looking at 1B solutions (I can’t see him signing up for a team that will ONLY DH him, so we have to look at teams where he splits time between 1B and DH).

Bos: Youklis/Victor Martinez
NYY: Teixeira
Tampa: Carlos Pena, a FA who will be allowed to walk. However, Tampa won’t buy Dunn
Tor: Lyle Overbay, a FA who is 34. Can’t see Toronto buying an aging FA w/ new GM in town.
Balt: Ty Wiggington: another aging mediocre FA. But are Orioles buyers?

Det: Cabrera
CWS: Paul Konerko, a FA coming off a fantastic season; i see him resigning here.
Minn: Justin Morneau
KC: Billy Butler
Cle: Matt LaPorta, the future of this team right now and bounty from the CC Sabathia trade.

LAA: Kendrys Morales;
Oak; Daric Barton: up and coming hitter, only 24.
Sea: Russell Branyon/Casey Kotchman but they have Justin Smoak coming up (bounty for Cliff Lee).
Texas: Jorge Cantu/Chris Davis; rotating door post Smoak trade, but Mitch Moreland is prospect of the future.

So, from what I can tell there’s only really 4 AL teams that even have FA spots at 1B. Chicago (resigning Konerko), Tampa (not FA players), Toronto (are they FA buyers?) and Baltimore (why would Dunn go to a WORSE team than Washington?)

I still see him focusing on the NL. Based on this … Dunn seems like he may have options in the NL, which means our chances of having him accept a 3 year deal with us less likely. Not good news for us in 2011.

Written by Todd Boss

October 6th, 2010 at 1:53 pm

Nationals Arm Race

Archive for the ‘mark teixeira’ tag

Ranking Baseball’s General Managers

Ask Boswell 2/18/14 Edition

Possible 2013 WBC Nationals participants?

Roster Construction Analysis of 10 Playoff Teams; 2012 edition

My 2012 Fantasy Baseball Team

At this point, what really is the Fielder FA market?

Ask Boswell 1/9/12 edition

What will Dunn do? (updated)

A dose of reality for the Nats off-season upcoming

Dunn a type B free agent??

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