Picking MLB's Best and Worst 2018-19 Offseason Moves
Rather than sit around and wait for Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Dallas Keuchel and Craig Kimbrel to find work, let's take a moment to consider what has happened in the 2018-2019 Major League Baseball offseason.
Among the moves that have gone down to this point, we've pinpointed five we really like and five (one of which is a package deal of sorts) we really don't, and on which we're willing to bet our opinions won't change.
In both cases, our focus was on value and potential postseason impact. As in, the best deals involve contenders paying relatively cheap prices for extremely useful players. For the worst deals, pretty much the opposite.
For the sake of setting some standards, we'll start with our five best moves of the winter so far.
Best: Milwaukee Brewers Sign Yasmani Grandal
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Contract: 1 year, $18.25 million
Though the Milwaukee Brewers entered the offseason with a clear need behind the plate, Yasmani Grandal seemed to be out of their price range until, all of a sudden, he wasn't.
Per Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times, the New York Mets discussed a pact with Grandal that would have paid him $60 million over four years. Once the Mets closed that door by signing Wilson Ramos for two years and $19 million (a good deal in its own right), a window of opportunity opened for Milwaukee.
Granted, an $18.25 million guarantee is a lot for a one-year deal. But in this case, it should massively improve a catcher spot that produced 1.0 wins above replacement in 2018, according to Baseball Reference.
Grandal averaged a .799 OPS, 24 home runs and 2.7 WAR for the Los Angeles Dodgers between 2016 and 2018. And that third figure probably understates the 30-year-old's impact. Per Baseball Prospectus' version of WAR, Grandal was the best catcher in MLB last season.
The Brewers should benefit from Grandal's presence on both offense and defense in 2019. That can only help them build on a 2018 season that featured 96 wins and a trip to the National League Championship Series.
Best: Houston Astros Sign Michael Brantley
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Contract: 2 years, $32 million
At the start of the offseason, MLB Trade Rumors, FanGraphs and Jon Heyman of Fancred all landed in the three-year, $42-45 million range in predicting Michael Brantley's free-agent contract.
The Houston Astros signed the three-time All-Star for significantly less than that in December. There aren't many scenarios in which they'll ultimately have cause to regret it.
Certainly, the scariest scenario is the one in which Brantley falls prey to the injury bug again. He played in a total of 101 games across 2016 and 2017, and he hasn't played in over 150 games in a season since 2014.
The 31-year-old did manage to play in 143 games in 2018, however. All the while, he put up an .832 OPS with 17 homers and 12 stolen bases, which is more or less the norm for him. From looking at his fly ball spray chart, he should gain a little extra from the Crawford Boxes at Minute Maid Park.
Brantley should thus have little trouble upgrading a left field spot that produced 1.3 WAR in 2018. That would straighten the Astros' path to a second World Series title in three seasons.
Best: Oakland Athletics Trade for Jurickson Profar
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Trade: Oakland Athletics get INF Jurickson Profar; Texas Rangers get INF Eli White, RHP Yoel Espinal and LHPs Brock Burke and Kyle Bird and international bonus money; Tampa Bay Rays get RHPs Emilio Pagan and Rollie Lacy and competitive balance pick
At least as far as the Oakland A's are concerned, the complex three-team trade that went down in December can be summarized like so: "We get Jurickson Profar, and they get none of our top prospects."
Mind you, Profar would seem to be a cautionary tale of how top prospects don't always pan out. He was once thought of as the very best prospect in baseball. Now he has little to show for his five major league seasons.
But Profar, who's under club control through 2020, finally broke with a .793 OPS, 20 homers, 10 steals and 2.0 WAR last season. Most of his good work was done in the second half, when he rode a wave of hard contact to an .846 OPS and 11 homers in 61 games.
The A's should capitalize not just on Profar's warming bat, but also on the reality that second base is his best defensive position. He should prove more than capable of filling Jed Lowrie's shoes, which bodes well for Oakland's chances of building on last year's surprise 97-win campaign.
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Best: New York Yankees Trade for James Paxton
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Trade: New York Yankees get LHP James Paxton; Seattle Mariners get LHP Justus Sheffield, RHP Erik Swanson and OF Dom Thompson-Williams
The New York Yankees' trade for James Paxton isn't completely skepticism-proof.
They needed to find an ace for a starting rotation that wasn't always reliable in 2018. Paxton certainly has ace-level stuff, but not so much ace-level durability. He's yet to top either 30 starts or 200 innings.
On the plus side, Paxton's durability is trending up, not down. He set career highs in starts (28) and innings (160.1) in 2018. From there, he can reach the 200-inning plateau before free agency beckons him after 2020.
Otherwise, Paxton has little to prove. The 30-year-old has settled into a style in which he goes right at hitters with a mid-to-high 90s fastball, a filthy cutter and a sharp curveball. The rapid ascension of his strikeout rate is evidence of how well it's working.
Justus Sheffield, MLB.com's No. 43 prospect, was the biggest sacrifice the Yankees made to get Paxton. But even if Sheffield isn't undone by his faults (e.g., poor control), the Yankees won't regret it if Paxton helps deliver an American League East title and/or World Series championship No. 28 within the next two years.
Best: St. Louis Cardinals Trade for Paul Goldschmidt
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Trade: St. Louis Cardinals get 1B Paul Goldschmidt; Arizona Diamondbacks get RHP Luke Weaver, C Carson Kelly, INF Andy Young
There is a perspective from which you can look at the Paul Goldschmidt trade and see a bad deal for the St. Louis Cardinals.
In Luke Weaver and Carson Kelly, the Cards gave up two former top prospects who both have major league experience and 11 combined seasons of club control left. For his part, Andy Young is a talented hitter who's quickly approaching major league readiness. In return, St. Louis got a single player who'll earn $14.5 million in his final season before free agency.
But then there's the simpler perspective: The Cardinals gave up three players they didn't need for one of the sport's biggest superstars.
Since 2013, Goldschmidt has accumulated a .947 OPS, 181 homers, 102 steals and 36.3 WAR, which is far and away the best among first basemen. He's joining a team that won 88 games last season, not to mention slotting into a lineup where his right-handed thunder fits perfectly with Matt Carpenter's left-hander thunder.
This is a trade the Cardinals made to get better now. They're not going to be disappointed.
Worst: Texas Rangers Sign Lance Lynn
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Contract: 3 years, $30 million
Lance Lynn's contract is a notable exception to this winter's rule of players signing for less than expected. To wit, he was projected by FanGraphs for $24 million and by MLB Trade Rumors and Heyman for $16 million.
The Texas Rangers had a reason to stretch their budget for Lynn. They insist on not tanking, so they naturally needed to address a starting rotation that posted a 5.37 ERA and 4.9 total WAR last season.
Lynn, 31, owns a 3.57 ERA over seven major league seasons, and he's joining the Rangers fresh off a stint with the Yankees in which he struck out 61 and walked only 14 in 54.1 innings.
Yet the American League clearly doesn't agree with the longtime St. Louis Cardinal. Lynn began 2018 with a 5.10 ERA with the Minnesota Twins, and even his strong finish with the Yankees couldn't prevent a 4.14 ERA. On the whole, his talent for avoiding hard contact abandoned him.
Unless Lynn drastically defies expectations to become a savior for their rotation, the Rangers won't shake their long-shot status in a tough AL West. The end result would be $30 million down the drain.
Worst: Los Angeles Dodgers Sign Joe Kelly
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Contract: 3 years, $25 million
Joe Kelly appeared in all five games of the 2018 World Series for the Boston Red Sox, whiffing 10 batters with zero walks and runs allowed.
This, of course, was against the Dodgers. Though they didn't seal the deal until December, perhaps it was in October that they concluded they needed to have Kelly.
The 30-year-old has the stuff to make his World Series dominance a regular occurrence. His fastball sat at 98.1 mph and got as high as 101.2 mph last season. He also boasts a slider, curveball and changeup, each of which can be lethal at any given moment.
For the most part, though, Kelly is a monument to inconsistency. He's been unable to get his walk rate below the league average, and he doesn't avoid contact as well as he should. As long as this remains the case, his results will remain about as unpredictable as his ERA.
The Dodgers might have signed Andrew Miller ($25 million) or David Robertson ($23 million), or perhaps stretched a little for Adam Ottavino ($27 million). Any of them would have brought what the Dodgers can only hope Kelly will bring to their bullpen as they chase an elusive World Series title.
Worst: Atlanta Braves Sign Josh Donaldson
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Contract: 1 year, $23 million
Josh Donaldson entered the winter as a candidate for a one-year "pillow" contract. When the Atlanta Braves signed him to one last November, it was for only $3 million more than MLB Trade Rumors envisioned.
Even at $23 million, the 2015 AL MVP could prove to be a massive steal in 2019. If healthy, he might return to what he was between 2013 and 2017, when he averaged a .901 OPS, 33 home runs and 7.2 wins above replacement per season.
Trouble is, counting on Donaldson to stay healthy requires a much bigger leap of faith than the one required for, say, Brantley. Issues with his right calf limited him to 113 games in 2017. Last season, it was his left calf that limited him to 52 games. And at 33, he's not getting any younger.
It would have been best if Donaldson had signed with an American League club that could have given him occasional or even regular duty at designated hitter. The Braves obviously can't do that. Other things to worry about include the veteran's escalating strikeout rate and his significant power outage in 2018.
It all adds up to a real possibility of the Braves wishing they'd saved Donaldson's $23 million for in-season trade upgrades, and third base for top prospect Austin Riley.
Worst: Los Angeles Angels Sign Matt Harvey and Trevor Cahill
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Matt Harvey's Contract: 1 year, $11 million
Trevor Cahill's Contract: 1 year, $9 million
With Matt Harvey, the Los Angeles Angels are making an $11 million bet on a once-great pitcher who was last seen reclaiming his once-outstanding fastball velocity. With Trevor Cahill, they're betting $9 million on a guy who put up a 3.76 ERA for an AL West rival in 2018.
Though neither deal is overly risky on its own, together they add up to a perilous $20 million gamble.
At this point, Harvey is reminiscent of Tim Lincecum circa 2012-2016. There's still some stuff there, but it's a far cry from what it was at its peak. His strikeout rate and ERA have suffered accordingly.
Cahill, meanwhile, hasn't been a true workhorse starter since 2012. So it went in 2018, as he logged only 110 innings. Moreover, he struggled mightily (6.41 ERA) away from Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, where huge dimensions and the A's stellar defense maximized his potential.
Harvey and Cahill are nice depth pieces for the Angels rotation, but likely no more than that. It's fair to question why they didn't take the $20 million earmarked for them and put it toward somebody like Charlie Morton or even Dallas Keuchel.
Worst: Cleveland Indians Trade Yan Gomes
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Trade: Washington Nationals get C Yan Gomes; Cleveland Indians get RHP Jefry Rodriguez, OF Daniel Johnson and INF Andruw Monasterio
Good help at catcher is extraordinarily difficult to find right now, yet that didn't stop the Cleveland Indians from trading Yan Gomes in December.
The 31-year-old is coming off an All-Star campaign in which he played 112 games and put up a solid .762 OPS and 16 homers. Factoring in his strong all-around defense, he was a top-five catcher, according to Baseball Prospectus' version of WAR.
In theory, the Indians' decision to trade Gomes would make sense if they were rebuilding, or if they at least got a good return for him. In actuality, this is a team coming off a third straight division title, and all they got for Gomes was two low-level prospects (Daniel Johnson and Andruw Monasterio) and a pitcher whose good stuff is counterbalanced by lousy control (Jefry Rodriguez).
The real benefit for Cleveland was relief from the $7.08 million salary Gomes will make in 2019. Following subsequent trades of Edwin Encarnacion and Yonder Alonso, it now looks like they could have held on to him and come in under budget for 2019. They're bound to find themselves wishing they did.
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus and Baseball Savant. Payroll data courtesy of Roster Resource.
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