With just three weeks before spring training is scheduled to start, the free-agent market has finally headed up -- well, for some teams at least -- but one true ace remains unsigned.
Here's the latest MLB offseason buzz Jeff Passan is hearing about the teams who haven't spent at all this winter, how Trevor Bauer's free agency could play out, an All-Star pitcher drawing trade interest and if spring training will actually start on time.
1. Now that the free-agent market has finally thawed and teams are taking shape for a 2021 season scheduled to start on time (for now), trends about spending are starting to emerge. And if Opening Day were tomorrow, one-third of the league would sport payrolls under $80 million.
There is, of course, time left to spend, bargains to be had, and that's the strategy many of the frugal 10 took into this market, which was saturated with players: wait, wait some more, wait a little more after that, wait again, wait on top of that, pounce with lower-than-expected offers players feel forced to take. It is almost pounce time.
The 10 teams -- from highest to lowest by estimated payroll: Texas, Milwaukee, Detroit, Oakland, Seattle, Baltimore, Miami, Tampa Bay, Cleveland and Pittsburgh -- have combined to guarantee less than $50 million to free agents this winter. The A's and Pirates haven't signed a single major leaguer.
In recent seasons, perhaps two or three teams found themselves in sub-$80 million territory on Opening Day. The last time this many teams started the season there: 2013, when leaguewide revenues were around $7 billion. While the pandemic is threatening MLB's return to a revenue number that topped $10 billion, teams' spending habits are essentially making the argument that the current environment is like eight years ago all over again.
Pittsburgh is gutting itself in a most traditional fashion -- perhaps as close to a full-on Astros-circa-2013 tank job as MLB has seen since. The Pirates' payroll is around $40 million, and they're primed to move Adam Frazier and would love to shed Gregory Polanco's $11.6 million if only there were suitors.
Here's how much Pittsburgh has committed to players in 2022: $0. Not a single simoleon.
At least they're rebuilding. What is Cleveland's excuse? The team, which made the playoffs last year, which had the Cy Young winner and MVP runner-up, traded star shortstop Francisco Lindor and had made up for the loss by spending exactly nothing until it re-signed Cesar Hernandez. Cleveland's current payroll is around $42 million. It has all of $2 million on the books for next season -- the buyout on the contract option of the aforementioned runner-up, Jose Ramirez, which it's almost certain to pick up.
Tampa Bay, the reigning American League champion, is around $54 million and has spent the offseason discussing deals to ship out its highest-paid player, Kevin Kiermaier. Miami, another playoff team, is at $55 million and has guaranteed only $5 million this winter, to reliever Anthony Bass. On and on it goes, and with the collective bargaining agreement expiring Dec. 1, the market in too many places reflects players' fears of anti-competitiveness. For every team like the Toronto Blue Jays or San Diego Padres or Chicago White Sox or New York Mets, aggressively pursuing a better 2021, there are two or three that aren't.
2. The question of whether the season is delayed at all will come down to a very difficult needle to thread: Can Major League Baseball incentivize the players to pause the beginning of spring training and push back the regular season?
Players are not fundamentally opposed to the idea. They are cognizant that COVID-19 rates in Arizona, where half the teams in baseball train, are the worst in the country. They also see other sports leagues playing games and believe any effort not to forge ahead with spring training and the season is an effort by the league to cut players' pay. The union wants players to be paid for 162 games because the collective bargaining agreement entitles them to that. Period.
Complicating matters is the inclusion of expanded playoffs and a universal designated hitter in discussions. Players are reticent to accede to expanded playoffs this year, fearful that they would be giving up a bargaining chip in collective bargaining talks and that the consequence would be for teams to target 85 to 88 wins a year instead of, say, 90 to 92. The lower the bar for playoff entry, the less motivated teams may be to spend in free agency. See item No. 1 to understand why that's problematic.
Leaders from the MLB Players Association and MLB met Thursday, a positive sign considering the relative coldness of the sides' relationship. There are perhaps paths to a compromise, but they're perilous. Even if MLB were to do something like agree to pay players for a full season while shortening the regular-season schedule and delay spring training, owners would want a revenue generator to make up for those missed games. Expanding playoffs from 10 teams to 14 and adding extra wild-card games would achieve at least some of that, but it's not a trade, even with the universal DH included, players are inclined to make.
With spring training set to start in less than three weeks, players, on-field staffs and executives find themselves in limbo -- some not having bothered to book travel plans yet because they're convinced that a mid-February start isn't happening. Every day that goes by without a deal makes it likelier that it is.
3. With the free agency of Trevor Bauer primed to reach a conclusion in the near future, the New York Mets find themselves where they have been with every high-profile, big-dollar player this winter: in the middle of things.
Think about it: The Mets had a nine-figure offer to George Springer before he signed with Toronto for $150 million; were in on J.T. Realmuto before signing James McCann to catch; pursued DJ LeMahieu, even though they thought he was going back to the Yankees, which he did; and traded for Lindor.
The question now is whether Bauer's outcome better resembles Springer's, Realmuto's or Lindor's.
In Springer's case, the Mets served as a good foil to raise the price on Toronto. Springer was targeting a deal in the $150 million range and received it. Realmuto's reported ask was far higher: above the record deal for a catcher, Joe Mauer's $184 million. With a market that was going to have trouble expanding well beyond the Phillies, the Mets were a godsend -- a team with money and a hole at catcher. They soured on Realmuto's asking price, pivoted to McCann and, without the threat of the Mets' involvement, the Phillies waited out Realmuto and his price dipped to $115.5 million.
The Lindor calculus was very simple: The Mets wanted him, the Mets got him.
If the Springer comparison is to take, a team that has money to spend needs to join the Mets in the fray. Perhaps one exists. The Los Angeles Dodgers are always capable of it but have rotation depth already and prefer a shorter-term deal. The Blue Jays are lurking but after giving Marcus Semien $18 million for 2021, they may tag out on Bauer. If this is an analogy, who is the X in Springer : Bauer :: Blue Jays : X?
If there isn't an X, Bauer could find himself in a situation closer to Realmuto's, where the Mets not only have no incentive to heighten their offer but could yank it and spend that money elsewhere. Granted, the reason the Mets want Bauer is because he's excellent and because adding the reigning Cy Young winner to a rotation that already includes Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Marcus Stroman, Carlos Carrasco and David Peterson would be gross. But what happened with Realmuto, who is regarded as the best at his position in baseball, certainly can happen to others, too.
Bauer's best hope is the Lindor track, that the Mets just say they want him, they need him and they're going to do what it takes to get him. Even as they've been at the center of all the Bauer conversation, they've yet to do so. Remember, though: They were patient with Lindor. They've been even more so waiting out Bauer.
4. The Milwaukee Brewers are listening to offers for Josh Hader because of course they should listen to offers for Josh Hader. He is a great relief pitcher. He is also a relief pitcher. And while no offense is intended toward the fine non-starters of the world, Hader's greatest attribute -- his ability to dominate for more than an inning at a time -- didn't exist last year.
In 2020, Hader pitched more than an inning once -- a four-out save against the Cubs. Hader made 23 four-or-more-out appearances in 2019 and 33 in 2018. He was an old-school fireman. Last season, he looked every bit the new-school closer.
It's why teams are asking themselves what exactly they'd be getting in Hader. He turns 27 in April. He isn't a free agent until after the 2023 season. His fastball velocity has held, even if he did throw significantly more sliders last year. He has been homer-prone over the past two seasons, his walks spiked in the limited sample of 2020. All that said, the book on Hader remains: He is one of the best relievers in baseball, and regardless of his usage, he'll bring back a boatload in return.
A couple of potential matches, sources said: Tampa Bay and San Diego. While spending big money on relievers isn't the Rays' style -- and Hader could cost more than $30 million for the next three seasons -- they have the deepest farm system in baseball and a manager in Kevin Cash who has proved deft with his bullpen touch. (Save the Game 6 cracks. It's true.) San Diego, on the other hand, could use a traditional closer, and general manager A.J. Preller could dip into his rotation depth to land a reliever of Hader's caliber. The Padres could create a package around one of their young starters -- or perhaps even someone like Joe Musgrove, whom they acquired in a trade from Pittsburgh last week.
5. With a finite amount of money left, the pitching market sorting itself out should be fascinating. One casualty: Masahiro Tanaka, in whom interest was tepid enough that he simply returned to Japan.
Starter Jake Odorizzi will do well. Same with reliever Trevor Rosenthal, who is being eyed by contenders as a possibility at closer. Starter Chris Archer will find a team willing to place a reasonable-sized bet on his talent. Reliever Alex Colome will do fine, though he's the perfect example of teams' desire today to pay less for performance and more for stuff.
Others still available: starters James Paxton, Brett Anderson, Matt Shoemaker, Rick Porcello, Mike Leake and Jake Arrieta, and relievers Jake McGee, Justin Wilson, Brandon Workman, Sean Doolittle, Ken Giles, Roberto Osuna, Shane Greene and Joakim Soria, among many, many -- did I say many? -- more.
More than 170 players who logged time in the big leagues last season remain jobless and more than 90 of them are pitchers. Here's the sad reality about a large swath of the group: There simply isn't a roster spot for them, and they're going to need to go to spring training -- whenever it starts -- on a minor league deal and earn their way onto a team.