Predicting MLB Offseason's All-Bust Team for 2016
This offseason, Major League Baseball clubs have spent roughly $2.5 billion on free agents and pulled off a handful of big-ticket trades on the side.
Well, as much as we hate to be the bearers of bad vibrations, some of this excitement is inevitably going to result in buyer's remorse. There will be busts, and we're here to try to sniff them out ahead of time.
Rather than spill out a random list of busts, though, we're going to make things interesting by assembling a whole team of them. This all-bust squad will feature a catcher, players from all four infield positions, three outfielders, one starting pitcher and one relief pitcher. That's a total of 10 players, because round numbers are always good.
In choosing this not-quite-fantasy team, we disregarded guys who were signed to small contracts or involved in largely inconsequential trades. Beyond that, players were chosen by weighing performance and health-related red flags going into 2016. We also had a bit of help from some projection systems.
Now that everyone's clear on the ground rules, we shall commence this frown-fest behind the dish...
Catcher: Matt Wieters, Baltimore Orioles
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By accepting the Baltimore Orioles' qualifying offer, Matt Wieters signed up to play for $15.8 million in 2016. That's nearly $11 million more than the second-biggest contract given to a catcher this winter ($5 million to St. Louis' Brayan Pena), and there has yet to be a star catcher moved in a trade.
If it's any consolation to Mr. Wieters, that means he's here by default. But since he is here, we might as well talk about why expectations for his 2016 season should be held in check.
At first, $15.8 million doesn't sound too bad for a three-time All-Star who was once counted among the game's great catchers. But Wieters is now a few years removed from his 2011-12 heyday, and he's going into 2016 with a veritable laundry list of question marks.
One is his health. A 2014 Tommy John operation has limited Wieters to just 101 games over the last two seasons. Even if he proves to be fully recovered from that, his soon-to-be 30-year-old body may not respond well to squatting every game for six months.
Another is Wieters' bat. He's only been a league-average hitter throughout his career with an OPS+ of exactly 100, and he's been a slightly below-average hitter since 2012 (98 OPS+). He also had issues with whiffs and soft contact in his return in 2015, in which his .742 OPS equated to a perfectly average 100 OPS+.
Given all this, the ZiPS projection system is right to not expect more than a .735 OPS and 1.3 wins above replacement (WAR) from Wieters in 2016.
First Base: Adam Lind, Seattle Mariners
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Chris Davis is the only first baseman to sign for big money this winter, and his Ryan Howard-esque profile makes him a tempting candidate for a hard-punching analytical takedown.
But let's punch Adam Lind instead. Analytically speaking, of course.
The .702 OPS that the Seattle Mariners got out of their first basemen in 2015 tied for second-worst in baseball, making it hard to blame them for shipping three minor league pitchers to the Milwaukee Brewers for Lind. He's coming off an .820 OPS and 20 dingers in 2015.
But with nearly a 300-point gap between his career OPS against righties and his career OPS against lefties, Lind's big shortcoming is that he can't hit southpaws. And as U.S.S. Mariner pointed out, that could be more of an issue in the AL West than it was last year in the NL Central. The AL West has tended to feature a lot of left-handed pitching, and it is in for more of the same in 2016.
The new surroundings will also challenge Lind. After calling the Rogers Centre and Miller Park home, he's not accustomed to producing at an extreme pitcher's park like Safeco Field. The fact that he's been a below-average hitter away from home in four of the last six seasons suggests this could be an issue.
All this helps validate ZiPS' projection that Lind's OPS will fall to .737 in 2016. Throw in his typically subpar defense, and it's entirely possible that Seattle's first base situation won't be getting much of an upgrade.
Second Base: Daniel Murphy, Washington Nationals
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With a $56 million contract in hand, Ben Zobrist is this winter's big-money second baseman. But because he's about as reliable as they come, we're going to pick on Daniel Murphy instead.
Fresh off a history-making power display in last year's postseason, Murphy jumped ship from the New York Mets to the Washington Nationals for $37.5 million and three years. When he did, even he was reluctant to say he could keep the dingers coming.
“I don’t know if I can keep hitting home runs, but I sure hope so," he said at his introductory press conference, per Dan Martin of the New York Post.
The power Murphy showed off last year didn't materialize out of nowhere—he helped himself by pulling the ball a lot more—and it helped lead to a .770 OPS that was his best in years. But few things reek of unsustainability like a power surge at the age of 30. And as FanGraphs can vouch, Nationals Park isn't as friendly to left-handed power hitters as Citi Field is.
Murphy will go back to being a singles hitter if his power dies down, leaving him to pad his overall value with baserunning and defense. But after stealing only two bags in 2015, his days of stealing double-digit bases are likely over. And at his age, he's likely not going to improve his typically poor defense, either.
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Third Base: Yunel Escobar, Los Angeles Angels
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Not many third basemen have changed addresses this winter, but Yunel Escobar would probably be the choice here even if that wasn't the case.
The Los Angeles Angels gave up Trevor Gott, a hard-throwing right-hander with six more years of club control, to get Escobar from the Nationals. With Escobar coming off a bounce-back year that saw him hit .314, maybe this doesn't sound like such a bad idea.
But Escobar may not pull his weight even if he hits .314 again. His defense has become a problem, as well-below-average defense at shortstop in 2014 ended up translating into well-below-average defense at third base in 2015. Thanks to that, he was nowhere near the top of the third base totem pole.
But while we're on the topic, there's no way Escobar is hitting .314 again.
A huge spike in Escobar's batting average on balls in play (BABIP) accounted for his high average. That alone sets off flashing red lights, and they only get flashier as you dig deeper. Escobar didn't hit the ball any harder than usual, and he got away with an elevated ground-ball rate by blowing away his career norm with a .268 BABIP on grounders.
There are no ZiPS projections for the Angels yet, but there are Steamer projections. Those see Escobar regressing to hit .266 and generally returning to his status as a subpar regular.
Shortstop: Asdrubal Cabrera, New York Mets
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There are slim pickings at shortstop, too, but that only makes it easier to notice that the Mets have given Asdrubal Cabrera a two-year contract that will pay him at least $18.5 million.
We'll let ESPN.com's Keith Law explain one reason why that's not such a great idea: "The Mets signed Asdrubal Cabrera to play shortstop, which would be great if, well, he could still play shortstop."
After Mets shortstops were arguably the worst in baseball on defense last year, it sure would be nice if Cabrera turned out to be their defensive Huckleberry. But that's not his thing. There was a time when he was known for being a regular on web-gem highlights, but the metrics have pretty much made up their minds that he's a lousy defensive shortstop.
That means Cabrera is going to have to hit to justify the Mets' investment. Because the .744 OPS he posted in 2015 easily outpaced the .677 OPS the Mets got out of their shortstops, this is presumably the whole idea.
But Cabrera's offensive performance in 2015 looks curiously like an anomaly. He OPS'd just .697 across the prior two seasons, and the fact that he improved his production so drastically despite posting his worst hard-contact rate since 2010 really gets one's skepticism gland going.
Outfield: Yoenis Cespedes, New York Mets
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Major league clubs have dropped nearly $550 million on free-agent outfielders, over $450 million of which has gone to just the top four guys. Clearly, they want us to have options for our all-bust team's outfield.
But we're only going to pick one: Yoenis Cespedes.
Cespedes' total contact guarantees him $75 million over three years, but the part that really matters is the $27.5 million he'll make in 2016. With a salary like that, the Mets are effectively rolling the dice on Cespedes repeating his huge 2015 season.
One reason they're bound to get snake eyes involves Cespedes' position switch. Rather than play him in left field, the Mets are giving that position to Michael Conforto and stashing Cespedes in center field. The defensive metrics say his defense suffers in center, and the eye test agrees.
It'll be up to Cespedes' bat to recoup whatever value he loses on defense in 2016, and it may not be as up to the task as his huge 2015 season would suggest.
Though his .870 OPS was a career best, we've gone over how it was really only Cespedes' power that improved in 2015, and how the best fit for him would have been with a team that played in a small ballpark. The Mets don't have one, and they also happen to play in a division where only the Philadelphia Phillies play in a power-friendly park. Over a full season, Cespedes is likely to feel the effects of that.
Outfield: Gerardo Parra, Colorado Rockies
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While Yoenis Cespedes will earn $27.5 million in 2016 alone, Gerardo Parra is set to earn $27.5 million total in a three-year deal with the Colorado Rockies. Like that, we just made his contract sound like pennies.
It would sound a lot better, though, if Parra was actually a good fit for the Rockies.
There's no ignoring how much the defensive metrics have soured on Parra over the last two years. He used a tractor-beam glove and a laser-rocket arm to rate as a defensive genius in 2013, but his defense declined to mediocre in 2014 and to downright bad in 2015.
This could be just noise, but August Fagerstrom of FanGraphs presented some eyebrow-raising evidence that it's the result of Parra's speed and arm strength declining. If that's the case, the last place he should be calling home is a park that, as Cork Gaines of Business Insider noted, has baseball's biggest outfield.
Parra's bat, on the other hand, surely welcomes the move to Coors Field. But even with the help of Colorado's thin air, he may be lucky to repeat last year's .780 OPS. That's much better than what he did over the prior three seasons, and he didn't hit the ball well enough in 2015 to earn either his BABIP or power spikes.
ZiPS sees Parra giving the Rockies below-average offense and mediocre overall production in 2016. So do we.
Outfield: Denard Span, San Francisco Giants
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After the San Francisco Giants dropped more than $200 million on Jeff Samardzija and Johnny Cueto, investing merely $31 million in Denard Span is arguably the least risky thing they've done this winter.
In terms of dollars, sure. But in terms of likelihood of success? Not as much.
Where the concerns with Samardzija and Cueto lie in the struggles they experienced in 2015, the concerns with Span have more to do with his age and health. He's a soon-to-be 32-year-old who underwent three significant surgeries between December 2014 and August 2015, and those limited him to just 61 games last season.
The Giants obviously believe Span can put all that behind him. And if they're right, they do stand to get a good hitter. Even with all his health troubles, Span hit .301 with a .796 OPS last year. With a strong eye, an excellent contact habit and good bat control, he could well do so again.
But even if Span can stay healthy, what he can bring on defense is a good question. He's been declining there for two years, and his age and the size of his new home ballpark likely won't change that despite the fact he's moving from center field to left field.
Those two things also aren't going to make it any easier for Span to avoid the mandibles of the injury bug. And if he has to fill in for Angel Pagan in center field—a near-certainty given Pagan's injury troubles—the likelihood of a physical setback would only be increased.
Because Span is a relatively cheap outfielder who at least brings a good bat to the table, he might have the smallest bust potential of anyone on this list. But as long as we're predicting busts, he can't be ignored.
Starting Pitcher: Jordan Zimmermann, Detroit Tigers
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Over $1 billion has been spent on starting pitchers this winter, and we also saw the Arizona Diamondbacks stop just short of sacrificing a few limbs to get Shelby Miller in a trade. All this makes it hard to choose just one starting pitcher for our all-bust team.
But since we can only pick one, we better go with Jordan Zimmermann.
Zimmermann was quick to sign a five-year, $110 million contract with the Detroit Tigers, which is actually less than he was projected to get in free agency. And for a guy with a track record as an ace-like pitcher, $110 million is arguably a steal.
However, Zimmermann's days as an ace-like pitcher are probably over. His ERA rose from 2.66 in 2014 to 3.66 in 2015, and what caused that is likely to lead to another step back in 2016.
The soon-to-be 30-year-old simply wasn't as overpowering in 2015, as he missed fewer bats and gave up more home runs. This can be traced back to a velocity decline that, as Brooks Baseball can show, made Zimmermann's fastball easier to hit and easier to hit hard.
If all that could happen in a National League setting, things aren't going to get any better in the American League. After years of Zimmermann being a great pitcher, ZiPS may have the right idea in projecting he will be only slightly better than average in 2016.
Relief Pitcher: Ryan Madson, Oakland Athletics
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Among the weirdest things to happen this winter was the Oakland A's spending $22 million on Ryan Madson. With them being the A's and all, that means they either know something we don't, or that Billy Butler won't be the only free-agent mistake on the club's 2016 roster.
As far as that goes, well, here's a gold doubloon to anyone who can guess which way we're leaning.
To his credit, Madson's comeback was one of the cooler stories of the 2015 season. After missing three years recovering from Tommy John surgery, he returned to post a 2.13 ERA in 63.1 regular-season innings before going on to win a World Series ring with Kansas City.
But whether Madson was actually that good is debatable. He was only a slightly above-average strikeout artist, and his effectiveness wavered away from the huge dimensions of Kauffman Stadium. He'll also be hard-pressed to repeat his ground-ball spike, as Brooks Baseball can show that was largely due to his four-seam fastball magically becoming a ground-ball magnet.
Madson is also an injury risk. Him coming back to throw a whole bunch of major league innings after not throwing any for three years is a cool story, but his 35-year-old arm may not be up to the task again in 2016.
We're with ZiPS on this one, which has Madson posting a 3.34 ERA in just under 30 innings.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.
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