Predicting the 2019-20 MLB Offseason Decisions That Will Crash and Burn
The 2019-20 Major League Baseball offseason isn't over yet, so it's a little soon to say "told you so" in response to some of the more questionable decisions.
And yet we're here to do exactly that.
There are eight choices teams have made this offseason that we think have the potential to crash and burn. Some involve decisions made regarding individual players. The bulk of them, however, concern the general strategies teams have deployed.
We'll count these decisions down from least egregious to most egregious.
The Milwaukee Brewers Non-Tender Travis Shaw
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The Milwaukee Brewers began their offseason with a thorough house-cleaning in which they non-tendered Travis Shaw and four other players.
Shaw, in particular, fell flat in 2019 with a .551 OPS with seven home runs and minus-0.9 wins above replacement, according to Baseball Reference. Such numbers gave the Brewers license to doubt whether he'd be worth a projected $4.7 million salary in 2020.
Alternatively, the Brewers could have rolled the dice in hopes that Shaw would revert back to the form of his 2018 and 2019 seasons. In those, the 29-year-old mustered an .844 OPS, 63 homers and 8.0 WAR while working at third base, second base and first base.
Rather than reinvest the savings from Shaw's non-tender into major infield upgrades, the Brewers picked up Eric Sogard and Justin Smoak for a total of $8 million. The former works best as a utility infielder, while the latter is strictly a first baseman who might play second fiddle to Ryan Braun in 2020.
Letting Shaw go certainly helped the Brewers get cheaper. But competitively speaking, their infield mix would look better with him in it.
The Cincinnati Reds Sign Mike Moustakas as a Second Baseman
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Elsewhere in the National League Central, the Cincinnati Reds added a much-needed bat when they signed Mike Moustakas to a four-year, $64 million contract in December.
The Reds came in well under the National League average by scoring only 4.3 runs per game in 2019. Moustakas, 31, should help boost that figure with his power. His 101 home runs since 2017 make him one of only 15 players to cross the century mark.
The catch here is that Moustakas will have to play out of position in Cincinnati. With Eugenio Suarez and Joey Votto entrenched at third base and first base, Moustakas will have to play second base.
The Reds can and almost certainly will try to accommodate him with a steady diet of defensive shifts. But between his age, his relatively large frame (6'0", 225 lbs) and his shortage of experience at the position, there may be only so much they can do to make him playable at second.
The Reds could still succeed in the short term despite Moustakas' defense. In the long term, however, their only opt-outs in the event of a spiraling disaster will be to bench him or hope against hope that they can trade him and his contract.
The Cleveland Indians Trade Corey Kluber
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At least until Nolan Arenado, Mookie Betts or Francisco Lindor is moved, none of this offseason's trades stand out as much as the one that sent Corey Kluber from the Cleveland Indians to the Texas Rangers in December.
That is partly because of how petty Cleveland's return for Kluber still seems. They offloaded a two-time Cy Young Award winner, and all they really did was cut a $17.5 million salary and gain two less-than-spectacular talents: outfielder Delino DeShields and right-hander Emmanuel Clase.
Granted, the Indians' end of the deal doesn't look as bad in the context of the trade value Kluber had at the time. Despite his credentials, he entered the offseason as a 33-year-old who'd made only seven starts in 2019 because of arm and oblique injuries.
But rather than take what they could get for Kluber, Cleveland might have kept him and taken a chance on a bounce-back season in 2020. For that, his salary wouldn't have constituted an outrageous gamble.
The Indians might otherwise have done the trade and reinvested their savings in another veteran pitcher. But they haven't done that, and the best options in free agency have since been claimed.
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The Philadelphia Phillies Bet It All on Upside
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Nobody can accuse the Philadelphia Phillies of being cheap.
They've spent $610 million in free agency over the last three years. After 2017, there was Jake Arrieta. After 2018, there was Bryce Harper, Andrew McCutchen and David Robertson. And now, there's Zack Wheeler and Didi Gregorius.
If all goes well, the $132 million the Phillies have poured into Wheeler ($118 million) and Gregorius ($14 million) will be money well spent. Wheeler has always had ace-caliber stuff, while Gregorius was a steady power supply at shortstop from 2016 to 2018.
From another perspective, however, Wheeler has been a merely league-average pitcher, and Gregorius never got on track after returning from Tommy John surgery in 2019. Their upside is therefore countered by very real downside.
The Phillies were likewise betting on upside when they signed Arrieta, Harper, McCutchen and Robertson. Because none of those bets fully panned out as they went 161-163 as an also-ran in the National League East in 2018 and 2019, it would have been safer for them to pursue surer things in Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg, Anthony Rendon, Josh Donaldson or even Madison Bumgarner and Hyun-Jin Ryu.
By sticking to their guns, they've arranged a roster that's as volatile as it is expensive.
The Los Angeles Angels Neglect Their Starting Rotation
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The Los Angeles Angels have not sat idly this offseason, and their biggest move is difficult to criticize.
In December, the Angels surprisingly won the Anthony Rendon sweepstakes by signing the third baseman to a seven-year, $245 million contract. With him now alongside three-time American League MVP Mike Trout, the core of their lineup looks as strong as anyone's.
Yet it wasn't necessarily a lack of offense that did the Angels in during their 90-loss season in 2019. They were much more so undercut by a starting rotation that produced an MLB-low 0.8 WAR.
That was the Angels' cue to go all-in on Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg, Zack Wheeler, Madison Bumgarner, Hyun-Jin Ryu or Dallas Keuchel. Even after signing Rendon, they still had a shot at the latter three.
In actuality, the only new additions to their rotation are right-handers Julio Teheran, Dylan Bundy and Matt Andriese, none of whom resembles the top-of-the-rotation starter they needed. Maybe a healthy Shohei Ohtani should also be counted, but his two-way duties will prohibit him from working a full slate as a starter.
So while the Angels should be applauded for nabbing Rendon, their weak rotation will keep them from entering 2020 as favorites in the American League West.
The Boston Red Sox Neglect Their Bullpen
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The Boston Red Sox probably didn't envision needing a new manager in January. But that's the position they're now in after letting Alex Cora—a key figure in both of the sign-stealing scandals roiling baseball right now—go on Tuesday.
In the meantime, there's also the reality that the Red Sox haven't used the offseason to repair their biggest on-field weakness from 2019.
A multitude of things went into their falling hard and fast from a 108-win season in 2018 to a mere 84-win campaign and third-place finish in the AL East last year. But there was perhaps no issue more persistent than their leaky bullpen, which converted only 51.6 percent of its save opportunities.
Now, new chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom is basically trusting that the classic definition of insanity won't apply to the pen in 2020. Apart from right-hander Austin Brice and left-hander Jeffrey Springs, neither of whom boasts much of a track record, all the same members of last year's relief corps are returning for 2020.
In Bloom's defense, the blame for this may rest with team owner John Henry. Though Henry told Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe there is no directive for Bloom to cut payroll, the available evidence points firmly toward the contrary.
The Los Angeles Dodgers (Basically) Sit out Free Agency
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The Los Angeles Dodgers could have and indeed should have been a major player in free agency.
After getting knocked out of the first round of the 2019 postseason by the Washington Nationals, the Dodgers had a strong incentive to fortify themselves for 2020. And while they never figured to return their payroll to its nearly $300 million peak, they entered the offseason with plenty of money to spend.
Several months later, however, the Dodgers' activity on the free-agent market amounts to $15.3 million worth of contracts for pitchers Blake Treinen, Alex Wood and Jimmy Nelson.
The Dodgers haven't arrived at this spot by way of a lack of interest in bigger acquisitions. They were linked to Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg and Anthony Rendon as well as Madison Bumgarner and Josh Donaldson. At the least, it seemed like a given they would re-sign Hyun-Jin Ryu.
That they ended up with none of those guys signals that their preference for risk aversion under president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman has outstayed its usefulness. Of course, that's assuming they're at least as interested in winning as they are in padding their profits.
The Dodgers might still pull off a blockbuster trade for Mookie Betts, Francisco Lindor or Nolan Arenado. But if they do, they'll salvage the offseason rather than win it.
The Chicago Cubs Do...Nothing
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Elsewhere in the National League, the Dodgers aren't the only team that's had a massively disappointing offseason. Heck, they aren't even the worst offender.
That would be the Chicago Cubs.
The Cubs stood atop the baseball world after winning 103 games and the World Series in 2016. Yet the three ensuing seasons brought nothing but diminished returns, culminating in an 84-win campaign in 2019 that left them short of the postseason.
Sans a deep farm system to put to work on the trade market, spending in free agency was the most practical way the Cubs could have used the winter to fix what ailed them in 2019. Yet rather than go hard after the market's top players, they've spent just $1.7 million on the open market.
If anything, the Cubs' winter may be marked not by a big addition but a big subtraction. Several of their core players have been popular figures on the trade rumor mill, up to and including 2016 NL MVP Kris Bryant.
Even if none of those rumors come to fruition, it seems that the Cubs' plan for 2020 merely involves keeping their payroll where it is and hoping that new manager David Ross can spin straw into gold.
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference. Payroll data courtesy of Roster Resource (via FanGraphs).
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