Moustakas agrees to deal with Royals

[NOMAAM]

Nobody in contention really needs a 3B right now and the big markets are all officially sitting this out. I think the last handful of free agents are going to get less than what they wanted but Moustakas’ situation was the worst out there.

 

This is absolutely a fact. Moustakas was projected to get 5/85 at the beginning of the offseason and got almost 80 million less than his projection. Nobody except the pitchers were even within range of that. And every team needs pitching, those starters and Holland aren't going to go for pennies on the dollar like Moustakas. My guess is lucroy/walker take a 1 year deals and try to reset for next year. But even if they sign similar deals to Moustakas, they weren't expected to get the gobs of money Moustakas was projected for. Going from 3/36 or 2/24 to 1/6 isn't all that drastic, and neither player has a QO attached which shoudl help them a bit.

 

Walker will get a deal. Not sure Luc will get a major league deal thou. People are paying for what you are not what you were.

[KeithStone53151]

Sign Lucroy and Voght goes, sign Walker, and who goes? Sogard is a CC guy, and I think they are going to give Villar a fair shot at regaining his value.

 

Villar goes. No brainer. Walker >>>>> Villar

 

You could keep Villar and Sogard, and jettison Perez. His contract is not fully guaranteed as an arb guy. Sogard is better defensively and can cover most of what Perez could cover except CF, and we'll have 2 guys capable of CF on the roster(Cain/Yelich) with Villar as an emergency option.

 

And in all fairness, I don't really care about wasting 2 million on Sogard if we sign Walker. It's highly likely someone else picks up sogard either on a waiver claim(paying his full salary) or after he is cut...in which case I believe they'd have to pay a portion. Regardless, the upgrade to walker on the roster vs sogard is well worth 2 million of wasted money.

[SeaBass]

Sign Lucroy and Voght goes, sign Walker, and who goes? Sogard is a CC guy, and I think they are going to give Villar a fair shot at regaining his value.

 

Villar goes. No brainer. Walker >>>>> Villar

 

You could keep Villar and Sogard, and jettison Perez. His contract is not fully guaranteed as an arb guy. Sogard is better defensively and can cover most of what Perez could cover except CF, and we'll have 2 guys capable of CF on the roster(Cain/Yelich) with Villar as an emergency option.

 

And in all fairness, I don't really care about wasting 2 million on Sogard if we sign Walker. It's highly likely someone else picks up sogard either on a waiver claim(paying his full salary) or after he is cut...in which case I believe they'd have to pay a portion. Regardless, the upgrade to walker on the roster vs sogard is well worth 2 million of wasted money.

 

Sogard just had a career season at age 31. I'd rather keep the soon to be 27 year old run producer in Perez who's regression year last year is on par or better than what Sogard has done prior to last season.

 

I like Sogard, I feel I'm just more prepared than most to see him as the player he has been most of his career rather than the one he was last season.

[coolhandluke121]

I still say Cain is fine. He's going to be one of the best athletes in baseball for a few more years. This is not Corey Hart or Rickie Weeks we're talking about. I trust the front office implicitly and I believe they did their homework.

 

He also has a rare combination of skills. Past WAR does not capture changing markets, but what we're seeing is that guys who aren't that much better than the myriad alternatives are no longer routinely getting paid as if they were just because they're more established. Is Walker going to be that much better than Villar? Lucroy over Pina? Moustakas over Valencia? Mark Reynolds over Aguilar? And don't even get me started on some of the $5m+ relievers that signed early on in free agency. Teams are finally wising up, but Cain is MUCH better than most of the alternatives so the trend doesn't extend to him.

 

Lastly, I would make the case that WAR above 2 or 3 is more valuable than the first couple WAR you get from a roster spot. Walker, Villar, Perez, and Sogard could each get you about 2 WAR, but at the cost of 4 roster spots. The 5 WAR you can get from Cain is worth a lot more than the combined WAR of those 4 players just because he only requires one roster spot. If you're going to be a favorite to make the playoffs, getting 6-8 WAR from those 4 is not worth as much as getting 5 WAR from Cain at a little higher price. And that's assuming WAR fully captures Cain's value, which I don't believe it does because I think WAR systematically undervalues speed.

[bill hAll Star]

Nobody in contention really needs a 3B right now and the big markets are all officially sitting this out. I think the last handful of free agents are going to get less than what they wanted but Moustakas’ situation was the worst out there.

 

This is absolutely a fact. Moustakas was projected to get 5/85 at the beginning of the offseason and got almost 80 million less than his projection. Nobody except the pitchers were even within range of that. And every team needs pitching, those starters and Holland aren't going to go for pennies on the dollar like Moustakas. My guess is lucroy/walker take a 1 year deals and try to reset for next year. But even if they sign similar deals to Moustakas, they weren't expected to get the gobs of money Moustakas was projected for. Going from 3/36 or 2/24 to 1/6 isn't all that drastic, and neither player has a QO attached which shoudl help them a bit.

 

Walker will get a deal. Not sure Luc will get a major league deal thou. People are paying for what you are not what you were.

 

I think in most offseasons, Lucroy would. I get that teams are getting smarter, but this trickle-down from the big markets setting hard caps on themselves is huge. Guys will still get some silly "what you were" contracts in coming years.

 

Boston got their one guy and went over the threshold with him, but they seem to be at their cap now. Yankees, Cubs (after Darvish), Giants (after their trades), Dodgers are all completely done due to luxury tax concerns. Nats are only set on maybe one pitcher. Angels/Rangers seem to be around their cap. Toronto is tearing down, Philly is cautious and only looking at maybe 1 guy as they build, Houston is happy and know they have a huge bill coming up in the next 2 years.

 

Point being, almost all of the large markets are out of the bidding. Therefore, someone like Arrieta cannot say, "I have 4 offers from the Yankees, Cubs, Dodgers, and Nats" and then get mid markets to also step in and drive it up further.

 

I think next year we'll see somewhat of a return to the norm. Huge markets will get the big players, mid or the big markets that missed out on the top dogs will overpay the next level, and the bottom level will pick up the scraps.

 

In this year's case, the mid/small markets got some bargains like Cain and Hosmer (not a "bargain" but they got a guy they otherwise might not have). The rebuilding/lower markets cleaned up some of the 3rd tier scraps on one year deals like Carlos Gomez, and now the music has stopped and nobody's bidding. Almost everyone is happy with where they're at so the last 3 or 4 bigger free agents and the 10-15 over the hill MLB vets class are waiting for something that probably won't come. It's a buyer's market.

[Brewer Fever]

Cain seems to be a pretty bad deal at this point. The OF was mostly fine but even if they wanted to add an OF Dyson, Jackson, Jay, etc on one year deals could have given us just as much this year when platooned right and not committed big, long term, money to a 32 year old who depends on athleticism to be good. Could’ve had 1 of Dyson/Gomez/Jackson/Jay, Lucroy or Avila, Walker and Chatwood or likely Cobb for what we gave Cain and for way less years

 

Looks like everyone let you off easy for this one so I'll refrain as well. Cain is far more valuable than you realize and I'll leave it at that.

[tmwiese55]

Villar goes. No brainer. Walker >>>>> Villar

 

You could keep Villar and Sogard, and jettison Perez. His contract is not fully guaranteed as an arb guy. Sogard is better defensively and can cover most of what Perez could cover except CF, and we'll have 2 guys capable of CF on the roster(Cain/Yelich) with Villar as an emergency option.

 

And in all fairness, I don't really care about wasting 2 million on Sogard if we sign Walker. It's highly likely someone else picks up sogard either on a waiver claim(paying his full salary) or after he is cut...in which case I believe they'd have to pay a portion. Regardless, the upgrade to walker on the roster vs sogard is well worth 2 million of wasted money.

 

Sogard just had a career season at age 31. I'd rather keep the soon to be 27 year old run producer in Perez who's regression year last year is on par or better than what Sogard has done prior to last season.

 

I like Sogard, I feel I'm just more prepared than most to see him as the player he has been most of his career rather than the one he was last season.

 

 

 

If not for the financials I'd agree. However, management has a clear emphasis on good ABs and OBP these days. Sogard does that to a T, Perez is the exact opposite. Combine that with saving 1.5 million and I think Perez is the one to go.

 

We talked about this in another thread too. But the issue does become that all your guys are Lefty besides Villar, who is better as a lefy. So platoons or planned days aren't as easy without Perez

[A Swing and A Drive]

I wonder how the Phillies feel right now about giving 20M a year to Carlos Santana.

 

The Padres gave $140 million to Eric Hosmer. Just a really dumb move.

 

I don't even feel that Hosmer is a substantially better player than his former teammate Moose.

 

One could even argue that good 3B are harder to find than 1B.

 

1B Eric Hosmer (28 years old)

Career Majors OPS=.781

Career Minors OPS=.887

 

3B Mike Moustakas (29 years old)

Career Majors OPS=.730

Career Minors OPS=.841

 

Hosmer gets $18 a year for 8 years.

Moustakas gets $6.5 one year deal.

 

This has got to be a joke.

[FVBrewerFan]

They've both been in MLB long enough that numbers in minors don't mean anything. In fact, their first 2-3 years in MLB don't mean whole lot. Look at the last three years OBP.

 

Moustakas: .321

Hosmer: .359

 

That's almost a 40 point spread in OBP, huge. And apparently teams are all over OBP and discount slugging more than ever.

 

That said, yea, still seems like way too big of a gap between those two players.

[danzig6767]

And he turned down a 17 million dollar QO for this year.

 

That said, it didn't seem like he had any other suitors so at some point he had to bite the bullet and accept the situation he really was in, not what he wanted to be the case.

Wonder if it was his agent Boras that advised him to turn down the QO. If so, his agent has lost him a lot of money.

 

I think Boras must be getting desperate, his old ways don't work anymore, and he still has several unemployed clients. I can now see Arrieta and Holland signing for much less, maybe this could be a buying opportunity for the Brewers.

From what i've read, Holland very foolishly turned down 3yr/52 million from Colorado because they wanted a 4th year and the Rockies turned around and gave that 52 million to Wade Davis instead.

 

Now Holland looks like he's gonna have to eventually accept a one or two year deal from someone and won't get near the 52 million he and Boras turned down from Colorado.

[coolhandluke121]

 

We talked about this in another thread too. But the issue does become that all your guys are Lefty besides Villar, who is better as a lefy. So platoons or planned days aren't as easy without Perez

 

People keep saying that. Villar is not better as an LHB. He is better as an RHB for his career. He only had ~120 pa's as an RHB last year. That is not nearly enough evidence to refute his career numbers, which are still much better as an RHB.

[KeithStone53151]

 

We talked about this in another thread too. But the issue does become that all your guys are Lefty besides Villar, who is better as a lefy. So platoons or planned days aren't as easy without Perez

 

People keep saying that. Villar is not better as an LHB. He is better as an RHB for his career. He only had ~120 pa's as an RHB last year. That is not nearly enough evidence to refute his career numbers, which are still much better as an RHB.

 

If you pull his career stats, 253/325/384 or 260/323/423. Seems to be fairly similar from both sides of the plate based on career numbers(FWIW, the latter set is as RHB). Looking at 2016, he was 309/385/545 as a RHB vs 276/363/422 as LHB. So when things are going optimally, he's better as a RHB. I think that's the best gauge for him.

[Outlander]

Sometimes career numbers don't tell the whole story though. If looking at career numbers Villar is better against lefties than Perez but I think the last couple of years is a better representation of what Perez is against lefties and I would much rather have Perez facing lefties than Villar. Villar still has a better chance of being a starter vs Perez who I think is better suited as an utility/platoon type player.

[KeithStone53151]

Sometimes career numbers don't tell the whole story though. If looking at career numbers Villar is better against lefties than Perez but I think the last couple of years is a better representation of what Perez is against lefties and I would much rather have Perez facing lefties than Villar. Villar still has a better chance of being a starter vs Perez who I think is better suited as an utility/platoon type player.

 

Every single year from 2013-2016 he was better against LHP or roughly equal against both. In 2017(a terrible year for him) he hit RHP better and you argue that he's better against RHP? This would be like going into 2016 after Will Smith posted 545 OPS against RHB and 786 against LHB in 2015 and trying to argue he should be a specialist against RHB. Yes, it is that illogical.

[danzig6767]

 

We talked about this in another thread too. But the issue does become that all your guys are Lefty besides Villar, who is better as a lefy. So platoons or planned days aren't as easy without Perez

People keep saying that. Villar is not better as an LHB. He is better as an RHB for his career. He only had ~120 pa's as an RHB last year. That is not nearly enough evidence to refute his career numbers, which are still much better as an RHB.

 

Plus, i don't know how much we can read into what happened last year with Villar.

 

It sure seemed like his struggles early on got into his head and maybe combined with his turning down the 25 million dollar extension, Villar often looked completely lost at the plate.

 

I can see many fans not believing Villar will have another year at the plate like 2016 with a .370 OBP, 38 doubles, and 19 homers, but i don't think he's as bad as he was last year either.

 

Hopefully he gets off to a good start of the season and his confidence gets back.

[markedman5]

Misreading the market this badly is a bad look for an agent.......

 

[danzig6767]

Misreading the market this badly is a bad look for an agent.......

 

Same thing with Holland and Boras where they reportedly turned down 3yrs/52 million from Colorado, only to see the Rockies pivot and give that money to Wade Davis. Now Holland is still unsigned and won't get anywhere near that 52 million whenever he does get picked up.

[LouisEly]

Boras used to play the owners against each other. His MO was to call the owners and talk the owners into making the decision. Now the owners are telling him to go talk to the GM.

 

Lynn at one year would have been perfect for the Brewers. Would rather have that than Cobb for 3/$42M.

[tigerbrew]

Misreading the market this badly is a bad look for an agent.......

 

Same thing with Holland and Boras where they reportedly turned down 3yrs/52 million from Colorado, only to see the Rockies pivot and give that money to Wade Davis. Now Holland is still unsigned and won't get anywhere near that 52 million whenever he does get picked up.

 

Boras and his clients are too greedy, and now they got burnt for their greed, they have only themselves to blame. It's ridiculous for the union to blame the league when the players had rejected very reasonable offers from teams.

[tigerbrew]

Another Boras cilent loses money due to greed, rejected a 3 year $45M extension only to end up signing 1 year $8M in free agency.

 

Mark Feinsand

@Feinsand

 

According to a source, the Rockies and Carlos Gonzalez discussed an extension last spring that could have been as much as three years/$45 million. He ended up playing out his deal, then signed a one-year deal to return to Rockies. @BNightengale reports it's an $8 million deal.

[TURBO]

I can only hope that this leads to the downfall of Boras, but that isn't realistic. He'll get his, and his players will get theirs, but to see this happening to so many of his guys leaves me feeling happy. Nothing against his players, but I like seeing Boras look like an idiot.