Hot Stove 2023-2024

BREAKING: The San Francisco Giants and Seattle Mariners are in agreement on a trade that will send former Cy Young winner Robbie Ray to the Giants for outfielder Mitch Haniger and right-hander Anthony DeSclafani, sources familiar with the deal tell ESPN.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) January 5, 2024

Super busy at work but just heard about this. The Giants got a steal?

Robbie Ray is coming off Tommy John and he’s out for at least half the season. They did return two bad contracts to the Mariners though.

*taps dipoto is secretly an idiot sign*

He’s such a freak. Managed to extract $6m from SF as well. What a non-move.

Posnanski wrote about Sale today. Paywalled, but here's the gist of it:

I can’t predict the future--but would it surprise me if teams started using their aces once a week, 22 starts a year, in order to protect them for October? Of course not. Would it surprise me if teams started resting their star players 25 or 35 or more games a year to keep them fresh for October? Of course not. Would it surprise me if teams played for 92 wins instead of 100 or 105 or 110, because 92 wins is enough to get you in the playoffs and that’s all that matters anymore?

Of course not.

This is where the game has been going for a while now, sure, but it’s there now. I, personally, am not a huge fan of it--I’ve long been more of a regular-season guy than a playoff guy--but as I’ve written before, I just love baseball, so I’ll go wherever the game takes me. And the game is taking you and me into a new era, I think, one where soon enough 16 teams will make the playoffs, and the regular season will be mostly for entertainment purposes, and there won’t be very many important games played between April and September.

In other words: I suspect that the Braves believe that if Chris Sale gives them two good starts in October and those help the team go on to the World Series, he will be worth every penny.

i mean, i get it, but how are you going to feel in late august when you’re 3 games out of the wild card because two of your guys got hurt a month ago and one of your priciest pitchers has missed five starts because you’re “resting” him? i’m not sure a baseball season lends itself to basketball style load management

He's a little prone to overstatement--I take his general point, especially as applies to Sale. (People said as much here about the deal.)

Part that's missing (that may or may not be true): that Atlanta fans probably consider 2021's 88-win/WS-winner a triumphant year, and 2022/23's 100-win/early-exit teams comparative disasters.

i don’t think his general point is valid and i don’t think managers will be managing that way but i do think you could possibly make an exception for Sale, who appears to be constructed entirely out of tracing paper

You don't think teams more and more view postseason success as a barometer of their year than ever?

You can make an exception for the 2024 Braves as well who will somehow go 120-42 while playing bullpen games every day.

I hear but yeah, this strategy definitely is only viable for very confident super teams and as much as I don’t like it, it seems like it could be a very smart move for these Braves

I understand the logic of that Joe P post but I really don’t think a single team in the league has enough pitching, combined starters and relievers, to do that.

Sale deal is good if healthy but part of the benefit to the Braves is he doesn’t have to be the ace on that team. He can just be (a very valuable) guy!

I agree that his general point only applies to upper echelon teams--somewhere between the top third to the top half--and not those where simply making the playoffs, maybe even being in a race for the playoff, is enough. Even I'm prone to that kind of thinking, and I'm on here regularly saying the playoffs don't determine the best team, that you have to give proper weight to the regular season. But even with that as my mindset, I didn't care that the Jays won 89 games and made the playoffs last year--they made another early exit, so the season felt like a failure. (And will feel like even more of one if they were to repeat that.)

Taking sides: Chris Sale Braves deal vs. Dodgers Tyler Glasnow deal

Kinda nice that the Braves when all in on a high risk high reward pitcher too. Makes me think maybe the Dodgers aren’t being too silly with Glasnow. High high high upside is always worth a punt I guess

The Sale move makes sense in the context you’re saying, as a high risk potentially high reward win now move. It’s not like the kid they traded was some loser - he is going to be a starting player next season.

just too many variables in a very long season to try to game it in the way joe p describes. a few extra losses in april, a few in july, and suddenly you're scrapping for contention. we've seen it happen to the very best teams. and idk even with sale if he's healthy i think you gotta pitch him, who knows how much you'll get out of him, it's like, he might sneeze and break his collarbone

I think the trade was a good move for the reason you stated: may as well trade a valuable asset that will get no use for potentially valuable asset that could get much much use. But I’m not so bullish on that extension, lotta commitment to give an old man with low innings pitched and non-faltering ERA’s the past 3 seasons

Flattering

just too many variables in a very long season to try to game it in the way joe p describes. a few extra losses in april, a few in july, and suddenly you're scrapping for contention. we've seen it happen to the very best teams. and idk even with sale if he's healthy i think you gotta pitch him, who knows how much you'll get out of him, it's like, he might sneeze and break his collarbone

I fully intended to write “two words: Barry Zito” and my diseased brain inserted the year

Also Sale won’t not pitch, like he’s excited to be healthy for the first time in forever, but they might run him for five instead of six in that theory. Like I said l don’t really agree because you never know when injuries/starter meltdowns happen and there’s never been a team with too many innings for arms, but it has a certain logic to it.

Meanwhile, if anyone wants to purchase a Chris Sale rookie card, I'm your one-stop shopping destination--think I bought about five of them when he was at his peak (and they were surprisingly cheap).

Ha. This reminds me TH kindly sent me a box (!) of my first baseball cards in the post a while back and I’ve been thinking about collecting a few favourites. My people may get in touch with your people, clemenza. 😎

look maybe you guys are right and atlanta will manage him that way, all i'm saying is baseball has a way of punishing you like an o. henry story if you start getting cute like that

besides which idk how sale would be able to stand it he's such a proud, ornery mfer

(xpost) I will go through some of my '90s stash and retrieve some Giants/Red Sox/Mariners duplicates for you.

I’m kind of into the lore of the Braves GM now, he’s got some dark magic on his side to pull these trades off and get those contracts for the young players

xp !!! I would actually die, please webmail me if you find anything interesting!

I think the biggest countervailing force to Posnanski's model is the players themselves, specifically the ones who'd presumably be given most of this extra rest, the superstars. Players of Mookie Betts' caliber, even though they never say this, aren't just playing for the team or a big contract: they're also playing for awards, for career milestones, and for an eventual place in the HOF. So if the Dodgers take him aside and say, "Mookie, we want to rest you 25 or 30 games so you'll be well rested for the playoffs," I don't see his response being "No problem, whatever you think is best."

Change that to "in the neighborhood of Mookie Betts' caliber."

Good point but very different story batters to hitters. Yes Sale seems like a cranky old man who wouldn’t bite for this at all, but considering the general case I think if a manager showed a pitcher their last three seasons where they pitched 10/50/100 innings and said “uuuuhhhh hey look buddy, we’d prefer you to pitch those innings in October rather than April so none of this “push through the pain for the team” or “this year is different, at the age of 36 now I will pitch 200 innings no injuries for sure for sure” business…. You’re not going to go over your 100 innings pitched last year whether you like it or not because we want to get a ring and you being healthy will play into that…. Seems like maybe a strategy that could get some buy-in?

*Batters to pitchers

Being traded from a “long shot” to a “literally top mlb ranked team” a big factor too. It honestly doesn’t seem like a hard sell for the Braves at all. “Hey Chris, wanna pitch for the Red Sox, probably pitching no more than 100 innings based on your recent track record let’s all be honest here? Or want to pitch for us, we’ll cap you at that 100, and win a World Series together”. The risk of “what if I could have pitched 150+ innings this season” to the reward of “get a ring, be the post season superstar, have a lower stakes/lower stress regular season, don’t ruin my finite aging body…. I’d take that deal

Analyzing this Seattle/San Francisco trade a bit.

Don't know Robbie Ray and was good in the past but is out for most of this year. This is for '24 and '25 and who knows if he will bounce back. This one is a gamble but the Giants have the money so why not?

For the Giants, Mitch Haniger and Anthony DeSclafani provided nothing as they were never healthy. Giants needed to clear the outfield log jam too. But these were expiring contracts next year and this year.

Meant '25 and '26, we are in the new year apparently.

BREAKING: Outfielder Teoscar Hernández and the Los Angeles Dodgers are in agreement on a one-year, $23.5 million contract, sources tell ESPN. Hernández joins Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow on the new-look Dodgers, who add another All-Star bat to the lineup.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) January 8, 2024

Deferrals strike again!

Of the $23.5 million in Teoscar Hernández's deal with the Dodgers, $8.5 million will be deferred, to be paid out from 2030 to 2039, sources tell ESPN. The corner-outfield market is tough, and Hernández opted for a big one-year deal with the best team over other multiyear offers.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) January 8, 2024

it would be so amazing if the dodgers keep losing in the playoffs and then all these bills come due

The sour grapes bite again!

On the bright side for non dodgers fans, I think this takes them to the Steve Cohen tax so you can expect the rest of this off season to be Dodger-free

Also makes it slightly more unlikely that Kershaw comes back…. Though I can see the Dodgers willing to pay the tax for him

I cannot imagine him landing anywhere else.

why not have kershaw, as a little treat

Every year there’s talk about the Rangers. He’s a Texas boy and seemingly wants to retire there. I feel the same but that can mostly be chalked up to wish fulfilment; it could happen

you’re a texas boy?

That last sentence was in response to Thermo Thinwall

FG released updated LAD ZIPS this am and projected the entire pitching staff at 18.4 fWAR for 2024:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2024-zips-projections-los-angeles-dodgers/

If backdating to 2023, 18.4 fWAR would rate them as the 6th best staff in MLB behind PHI, TBR, SEA, MIN & TOR. 2023 LAD pitchers were 10th at 16.8 so that is a slight improvement.

2024 LAD offense projects to 29.3fWAR (#5 in MLB) which is a significant decrease from 2023 (34.4, #2 behind ATL).

If backdating to 2023, 18.4 fWAR would rate them as the 6th best staff in MLB behind PHI, TBR, SEA, MIN & TOR

i would say if the mean projection (what zips gives you - the median/mean projection out of all the millions of projected seasons it runs) for the dodgers would rank 6th in baseball, that is a very very good pitching staff. if they perform at their projected level, their 50th percentile projection, they'll be one of the staffs in baseball, and in 50% of the projected seasons, the 51st through 100th percentile projected seasons, they do even better than that.

(same with offense - a 50th percentile projection of having the #5 offense in baseball is very excellent - that means they have a 50% chance of having the #1-#5 offense in baseball

another hilarious thing with team projections is that so much depends on how the team is doing at the trade deadline. if they're already good, they'll likely get even better by loading up for postseason. if a team is already sucking badly, they might get even worse if the team goes full rebuild