Off-Season Summary: The Future of MLB is Bright
Posted by Alan Hull on February 14th, 2008
One of the things I enjoy the most about following baseball is that it really is a 365 day-a-year activity with the season and off-season accounting for a lot of time well spent. This past off-season has been an interesting one, marked by an incredibly weak free agent class that had a two-pronged effect on the baseball economic market: 1) Teams either shelled out huge contracts to “desirable” players (that definition varying), or they gave incentive-laden, one-year deals to less desirable players; 2) Teams were then forced to explore improving their teams through creative trading and contract extensions to pre-arb players.
I’ve read a lot of people say that this off-season was a bad one–some have even said one of the worst in recent memory–but I haven’t seen it that way at all. With the new collective bargaining agreement that was signed by Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Player’s Union in the 2006-2007 off-season, the available money in the pool was getting crazy, as Cleveland from Family Guy put it: “I haven’t seen pandemonium like this since Ridiculous Day down at the deli, where prices were so low, they were ridiculous,” only substitute low and high and you pretty much get the idea.. With the free-agent class as weak as it was, heading into 2007-2008, I was really worried that this off-season would be an even more retarded version of 2006-07.
Then, something inexplicable happened: baseball got real smart real fast. Baseball market economy is a very dynamic thing–it changes so quickly, from season to season, often without reason or rhyme. There are peaks and valleys of what I would call Baseball IQ, meaning teams either tend to do a lot of stupid things, all teams following one another like lemmings off a cliff, or teams tend to act intelligently, but usually together.
Who can forget the 2001 off-season when Alex Rodriguez (TEX), Derek Jeter (NYY), Mike Mussina (NYA), Kevin Appier (NYM), Mike Hampton (COL) and Manny Ramirez (BOS) were receiving contracts the likes of which had never been seen before. Then, the market fluctuated and saw some rise in the Baseball IQ as teams like the Oakland Athletics, Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees began exploiting inefficiencies.
This past off-season, some interesting and exciting trends have started to gain popularity. Here’s a look at the most significant:
- Upper-echelon talent exchanged hands. I have never seen an off-season where so many top-tier players were traded. It was only a season ago that teams began to realize the importance of retaining their youth, once free agent asking prices got out of hand. Now, up is down and down is up and young players have become expendable as long as the return is worthwhile. Just think, Miguel Cabera, Johan Santana, Dan Haren, Miguel Tejada, Erik Bedard, Nick Swisher, Delmon Young, Troy Glaus, Scott Rolen, Lastings Milledge will all go into 2008 playing for new teams. This list would make one hell of a fantasy baseball team.
- Young players got extended. I’ve covered the importance of this trend in great detail on this site, but simply put, nothing is better for a franchise than securing their young, homegrown talent. This is something that the Oakland Athletics and Cleveland Indians have been very mindful of for a while now, but other teams are starting to catch on. This off-season, we’ve seen Jake Peavy, James Shields, Troy Tulowitzki, Curtis Granderson, Robinson Cano, Justin Morneau, Michael Cuddyer, Freddy Sanchez, Dontrelle Willis and even Johan Santana get extended. In the case of some of these younger players, their teams have been able to reward young guys for their performance while also preventing them from hitting the free agent market and that is good for the franchises, the fans and the players.
- Japanese players got paid. It was only last off-season that Japanese players were considered to be an inefficiency in the market as they could be signed for nothing and immediately make an impact. Consider this: In the past two off-seasons, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Takashi Saito, Hideki Okajima and Akinori Iwamura were all signed below market value. Now consider that this off-season, Kosuke Fukudome, Hiroki Kuroda, Masahide Kobayashi, Kazuo Fukumori all received deals much closer to market value. Is that necessarily a good thing that we’re no longer pillaging Japan of its talent? Well, it depends on who you ask, obviously, but this trend is a good one as I see it because teams are identifying talent and procuring it at market value. Again, this is good Baseball IQ.
- Crap players had to settle for less. Somehow, going into this off-season, I was very concerned that guys like David Eckstein, Paul Lo Duca and Kyle Lohse were going to get PAID, but it never happened. A lot of crappy players got crappy contracts and this is definitely good for franchises as talent is now being recognized better than it ever has. Where will Bartolo Colon end up? I’m not sure, but it probably won’t be on a guaranteed deal or certainly a three-year deal (remember Adam Eaton? I’m sure Phillies fans do).
- Young players are being given a chance. There was a time, more recently than we care to believe, when players were considered to be in their primes starting at about the age 27 all the way through age 35. I think that notion is what allowed Neifi Perez to have a career. Now, teams are realizing that if a player is ready, they may be ready as early as 19 years-old, such as the case in man-child Justin Upton. This trend really took off in 2005 when probably the biggest influx of young talent hit the major leagues in the history of the game. Remember the National League Rookie of the Year polling that went 1) Hanley Ramirez, 2) Ryan Zimmerman, 3) Dan Uggla, 4) Josh Johnson, 5) Matt Cain, 6) Andre Ethier, 7) Prince Fielder/Takashi Saito, 9) Russell Martin/Scott Olsen/Anibal Sanchez/Josh Willingham? Wow, looking at that now only emphasizes the point even more. Young players play the game better than the old. This season, we have a full season of Justin Upton and Philip Hughes, among others and the emergence of Jay Bruce, Evan Longoria, Clay Buchholz, Joba Chamberlain, Cameron Maybin (I could go on and on) to look forward to. This game is fast becoming a young man’s game and we have some historically good players on the cusp.
- General Managers are being held accountable. This may be the most important of all developments for the game. How many seasons did the Pittsburgh Pirates and their fans languish as General Manager Dave Littlefield sat on his hands and did nothing to improve the team? Littlefield has finally been canned and replaced with a very bright new General Manager in Neil Huntington. Although Huntington has yet to make a major move, he has said that he is going to wait and make the moves when the time is right and I agree with this assessment given the low stock on Jason Bay and relative lack of valuable commodities in that franchise. They need to approach their rebuilding efforts carefully and they will. It must be an exciting, yet excruciating time for that fanbase. Also, the St. Louis Cardinals, Houston Astros, Atlanta Braves, Minnesota, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim will all enter 2008 with new General Managers and these decisions took place for various reasons, but in any event, the organizations felt, for one reason or other, that change was needed. Moving forward, other teams may also look to replacing their head-honchos but in such a competitive field, unless a team is actively taking steps forward, they are in effect losing ground as others pass them.
With all these developments coming on faster than ever before, the evolution of the game, that can sometimes be painfully slow (think how long it took for people to realize on-base percentage matters–it still hasn’t happened fully) and yet, this off-season was a revolution of new ideas coming to the forefront. It is a very exciting time for the game.
What does the future hold?
Obviously, I am not a baseball executive, but there are still some frontiers that have yet to be crossed. Perhaps the most significant is overpaying for fewer guaranteed years. This is a strategy that the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers, under General Manager Ned Colletti, have used with great success and the Padres used this strategy wisely with Jake Peavy. The biggest lesson that has yet to be grasped is that more years are infinitely worse than more dollars. If Major League teams, particularly the larger market teams were more open to this strategy, they would find so much more success.
The Los Angeles Dodgers really have been the best example of this at work. Remember that Colletti was able to give Rafael Furcal a three-year $39 million deal, covering his age 28-30 seasons. Sure, that was the same length and value that Yankees gave Gary Sheffield in 2004, but in Furcal’s case, with his age, he was sure to be worth the money over the life of the contract. Same goes for the more recent acquisition of Andruw Jones. Although it seems his value was down based on his poor performance last season, a two-year deal for a future Hall of Famer in his age 31-32 seasons was a downright steal.
Once teams become more aware of this method, fewer teams will be on the hook for old, bad players getting paid heavily in long-term, back-loaded contracts. What if the Minnesota Twins had offered Johan Santana a three-year $75 million deal. Honestly, that wouldn’t have been a bad move for them and he may well have accepted. That is obviously just a random example but it applies to almost any free agent.
Remember, there is no such thing as a bad one-year deal. Unless, of course, someone decides to bring Roger Clemens for one more go-around, but that’s a whole different story and one you’re not going to hear here.
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February 13th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Chamberlain is fine for now with just the fastball and slider (both are incredible pitches) but once he joins the rotation this summer he will need to have at least one of his other pitches (change or curve) vastly improved to be effective. I think the Yankees will make sure of this.
I can’t wait to see what he can do when he joins the rotation in June.