The numbers in the contract offers this winter are going to be shocking for a lot of free agents, reflecting how far team payrolls will be scaled back for 2021. Club officials can't change the terms of existing long-term deals, so it will be the veterans in the open market who will take the biggest hit. This will be especially true for those players who happen to play a position that bears a high volume of available options.
There are a ton of catchers among the free agents, and a massive count of relief pitchers and corner slugger types -- right fielders and left fielders and first basemen and designated hitter candidates. Most teams use metrics to formulate offers in this era -- those stories of an owner like George Steinbrenner impetuously drawing up proposals on the back of a napkin are relics of the past -- and given that the clubs generally use similar systems to evaluate contract terms, a lot of the offers for players will be in the same ballpark. (Some agents also believe that in some cases, club executives are made aware of what other teams have bid -- collusion, which, to date, has only been mused about privately, but not proved).
In this strange winter, there will be some players bound to be the targets of a high volume of interest -- getting lots of offers but likely without the broad range of terms. For example:
• Charlie Morton: Everybody loves Morton, who turns 37 in the next week -- he's a veteran pitcher with a great track record, and once the Tampa Bay Rays declined to exercise a $15 million option for 2021 on the right-hander, broader interest quickly evolved. Given the understanding that Morton would prefer to play near his Florida home, most contenders in the Eastern half of the country probably checked in.
The Braves, the team that originally drafted Morton, have had a lot of success with one-year deals, and Morton would be an excellent candidate for something like that. Morton could fit well with the Braves, the Mets, the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Phillies, the Tigers (now managed by A.J. Hinch, who gave the ball to Morton to wrap up the Astros' title in the 2017 World Series), and yes, the Rays, who would like Morton back, but at a lower salary.
Morton has mused about retirement, so the parameters for the contract offers are seemingly in place -- a one-year deal, for something less than $15 million.
• Darren O'Day: He's 38 years old, with 13 years of big league experience, and pitched effectively for the Braves in 2020, posting a 1.10 ERA and striking out 22 in 16 ⅓ innings, with five walks. But Atlanta declined a $3.5 million option on O'Day for next year, another clue about how dramatically the salary numbers will be in retreat for next season. Every big league manager would love to have O'Day, and because a lot of clubs might have interest in a one-year deal with him, he'll probably have a lot of choices about where he could play in 2021 -- just not for a lot of money.
• Tommy La Stella: The longtime infielder doesn't swing and miss at a time when it seems like everybody strikes out a ton: He had 27 walks and 12 strikeouts while playing for the Angels and Athletics, and posted a .370 on-base percentage. But he doesn't hit for power and will turn 32 in January, so he's not going to get whopper offers, either. His ability to put the ball in play is so unusual that he'll presumably draw a ton of interest -- with the enthusiasm not necessarily found in the dollars.
• Andrelton Simmons: I remember talking with Braves staffers at the time Simmons got to the big leagues, and they raved about his makeup and -- of course -- his defense, with Terry Pendleton comparing him favorably to Pendleton's former teammate, Ozzie Smith. His offense? Well, there wasn't a lot of optimism that he would develop into an impact hitter. Now, at 31 years old, he is what he is: He's an excellent defender and hit .297, but generated zero homers and eight walks in 30 games. Most teams would love a shortstop like Simmons, and maybe some of those clubs would move an established shortstop to make room for Simmons at the position. But he had an adjusted OPS+ of 95.
It could be that Simmons wants to park himself somewhere as an everyday shortstop. But something that might be worth thinking about for him: If Simmons wants to play on an elite contender, he could probably begin to position himself as a super-utility type who plays regularly, finishing games at shortstop but also being open to moving around to facilitate other needs day-to-day.
• Adam Wainwright: He has been a free agent before and always seems to find his way back to the Cardinals, and maybe that will happen again. But given his age and the fact that most teams would probably not be comfortable offering him more than one year in a contract, Wainwright could look around. He'd be an excellent addition for the Braves, for example, working alongside Cy Young candidates Mike Soroka and Max Fried.
• Jackie Bradley Jr.: He provided good offensive performance on a bad Red Sox team in 2020, generating a .364 OBP and seven homers. If the Mets take a run at him, to find a true center fielder, then Bradley could wind up with a nice multiyear offer. But because of his past inconsistency at the plate, some teams might shy away from the big, big offer, leaving Bradley to sort through more modest proposals. But his defense is so good that he'll likely draw a high volume of interest.
• Corey Kluber: He's coming off a major injury that will limit the scope of dollars he is offered. But between his track record and his knowledge, he'll probably have a lot of teams ready to invest in a Kluber lottery ticket for 2021.
• Nelson Cruz: Over the past two seasons, Cruz has 57 homers in 173 games, with an OPS of 1.020, and he is widely regarded as one of the true leaders in the sport, so he has a lot of good stuff that makes him attractive to any bidder.
But he is 40 years old, and for all practical purposes, he is limited to the DH position. Regardless of whether the universal DH is again negotiated for use in 2021 -- the safe bet is that it will, unless the MLB and players' union animus erupts to the point of complete dysfunction -- Cruz might get a lot of teams' interest, but probably not big, big dollars. There are a lot of DH types available, and Cruz has reached the age when teams are leery of players breaking down and being unavailable. Everybody would love to have someone like Nelson Cruz, but there might not be a lot of willingness to pay good money for a DH.
Others in the same boat: Mark Melancon, Blake Treinen, David Phelps, Jake McGee. Teams love relievers like this, but with dozens and dozens and dozens of relievers available, club officials are going to be picky about what they pay.
News from around the majors
So in the end, the Brodie Van Wagenen experiment failed for the Mets, and given the track record the longtime agent had in two years as general manager, he might not get a similar opportunity again. Van Wagenen tried to do too much too quickly with too little information, which is how he wound up giving up too much for a player he knew, Robinson Cano, while swapping some of the team's elite prospects. Every time Jarred Kelenic creates a highlight for the Mariners, Van Wagenen's name will come up.
But it's important to recognize the nuance in Van Wagenen's time as GM:
1) He's hardly the first GM to make the kind of mistakes he did. Plenty of baseball lifers have gone too fast, too soon -- most notably A.J. Preller, who went all in in his first winter with the Padres, before bailing and then taking the next five years to rebuild the organization. Van Wagenen, working in New York for a team up for auction, didn't have the luxury of time that Preller did, and who's to say he wouldn't have learned.
2) He tried to win. You shouldn't necessarily get extra-credit points for that, but over the past decade a lot of teams have tanked a lot of seasons. In contrast, Van Wagenen was aggressive in attempting to augment the team.
3) The team was relentlessly interesting during his tenure. And again, there's good in that. Van Wagenen drew a lot of attention among his peers for how he used social media, for the seeming brashness in what he posted. But over time, he got some of his peers thinking about if they should consider doing more to connect with fans.
4) Ultimately, the problems with the Mets' operations stemmed back to the Wilpons, such as athe unwillingness (or inability) to spend like a big-market team, and some of the unusual decisions, including cutting Travis d'Arnaud, a move executed by Van Wagenen but not driven by him.
There is a lot of curiosity in the industry about what's next for Van Wagenen, who has time to think about it -- he'll be paid for two more years, under his contract -- but he'll move to his next gig with the good wishes of some peers who weren't sure what to think when he took over.
• Some teams are still waiting for their respective owners to set budgets for 2021, and there are a lot of questions among agents and club executives about how many teams will actually be aggressive buyers this offseason. But there is an assumption that the White Sox will be among those, after the surprise hiring of Tony La Russa to manage at age 76. La Russa has a really good roster of players to work with, but there are some holes, and the expectation is White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf will want to do everything to augment the roster after hearing a lot of criticism about La Russa. "He almost has to win next year," said one rival official.
• Through Derek Jeter's age-27 season, he had played in five World Series, with the Yankees winning the championship in four of those five years. It wasn't until Jeter was 34 that he and the Yankees failed to reach the playoffs. With all of those opportunities in the playoffs and World Series, he stacked a prolific postseason resume: 158 games, 111 runs scored, 32 doubles, 5 triples, 20 homers, a .308 average. He leads in a number of counting stats, by a wide margin:
Most hits: Jeter with 200, followed by Bernie Williams with 128
Most runs: Jeter with 111, followed by Williams with 83
Plate appearances: Jeter 734, followed by Williams with 545
This is a roundabout way of explaining that if Walker Buehler stays healthy, he seemingly has a chance to dominate all-time postseason pitching records the way Jeter is preeminent among position players. Buehler is only 26 years old, and yet as a member of the perennial NL West champion Dodgers, he already he has 11 postseason starts, with 83 strikeouts in 61 ⅓ innings.
While Clayton Kershaw is 32 now and Justin Turner turns 36, the core of L.A.'s roster remains remarkably young -- Mookie Betts just turned 28, Cody Bellinger and Will Smith are 25, Corey Seager is 26. Buehler could have many, many years of playoff and World Series compilation ahead of him.
• Buehler's college coach, Vanderbilt's Tim Corbin, has stories about Buehler's confidence. For example:
"During Buehler's freshmen fall, I brought him into my office to talk about his academic performance, or lack thereof," Corbin recalled, in an email. "I told him to go back to his room, call his mother and ask her what junior college he would like to transfer to for the spring semester, because this situation is obviously too much for him. He left and came back several hours later and told me this... 'I called my mother and I have come to these two conclusions. Number one, I am going to stay here because I know that I am equipped to be a Vanderbilt student. And secondly, if I leave, you guys aren't going to be as good because you are going to lose your best pitcher.'
"Buehler is only player who would come into my office, sit in a chair and cross his legs and get comfortable. No other player would do this."