Today is the first day of the rest of the Guardians' Life

 Yeah, way overdramatic, to be sure.

This confluence of events (40-man roster lockdown, free agency opening, general manager meetings, hot stove rumors heating up) makes it feel like more than just another day.

Truth be told, little has to really happen today to make it acceptable:

• Adding Angel Martinez and Joey Cantillo to the 40-man (assuning Cantillo is not hurt so badly that he requires surgery or a long rehab that puts into question his addition to the 40-man) and the concomitant removal of Anthony Gose and Luke Maile.
• Don't make any more stupid Tobias Myers trades (BTW, Junior Caminero is the 18th ranked prospect for Tampa Bay in MLB Pipeline) just because "intriguing" prospects are available for trade today.

That's really it.   Hey, I think Petyon Battenfield has a chance to be a good ML pitcher, especially as a reliever, and I think his dip in velocity in the second half of the year was due to the biggest workload of his life in his first full season as a starting pitcher.  But if we lost him, it wouldn't be the end of the world as Guardians' fans know it.  Hey, maybe Tampa Bay would trade Caminero back to us if we don't intend to roster Battenfield.

All the things that I want to see happen don't have to happen today:

• Owen Miller being traded
• Sean Murphy being traded for
• Jose Abreu being signed
• Us acquiring a lefty reliever with some closer potential and at a reasonable prce

We just have to lock down the roster and Abreu has to remain unsigned and Murphy has to remain with the A's for this to be a good day.

Now, for it to be a GREAT day...

More once this day has settled down and we can look back at what has happened with the Guardians and around the league.  Have a good and peaceful day everyone.

Ya gotta love us bloggers!!!

 I saw a post by a San Diego Padres website about what his team would have to give up to get Sean Murphy in a trade.  It was a hilariously low cost, trading a .189 hitting centerfielder who Padres fans want to get rid of anyway and 3 middling prospects to get Murphy.  Typical stuff: you take guys we don't want for a guy everybody wants.

So, it made me think.  What are the bloggers saying about trade packages they think their team could put together to get Murphy.

San Diego

Trent Grisham (.189 hitting CFer, Gold Glove Winner),  sam Zavala (#4 SD prospect), Adam Mazur (#6 SD prospect), Jackson Wolf (soft tossing lefty not listed in Padres top 30 prospects.

Analysis - SD has only 2 prospects in MLB Pipeline's top 100 prospects in baseball and they rank #89 and #93.  Thus they have a weak system.  Grisham is a great fielder but what would the A's want with a .189 hitting CFer who is arbitration-eligble?  This sounds like the Padres dumping their mediocre excess on the A's.

Cardinals

Murphy and Nick Allen for Matthew Liberatore (#80 prospect in baseball), Nick Hence (#91 prospect in baseball) and Nolan Gorman.

Analysis:  This blogger did a worth vs salary projection analysis and his logic seems sound to me but remember, Mark Twain said there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics.  Still, this is a reasonable package for Murphy, in my opinion.  I love Murphy but he improves a team incrementally that already has an average catcher (Andrew Kizner).  Plus, he is coming off a career year.   Liberatore and Gorman are coming off sub-par years in the majors and while highly rated, the A's are taking some risk in this trade.  Nevertheless, I think this is a fair trade for both teams.

Yankees

Oswald Peraza (SS, #3 Yankees prospect, #50 in baseball), Austin Wells (C, #5 Yankees prospect, #80 in baseball), Will Warren (RHP, #8 Yankees prospect), Elijah Dunham (OF, #19 Yankees prospect).

Analysis: This trade, on paper, looks pretty good for a rebuilding team.  You get an infielder, and outfielder, a catcher and a RHP pitcher, all of whom are good prospects both within their own system and within baseball.

Guardians

So, looking at the three trades above two of them represent reality of what Murphy is worth as the A's have to get that they are selling high on Murphy, who is coming off a career offensive year, and, after being burned at the deadline because their request was over-the-moon in terms of what a Murphy trade would bring back, 

So, looking at the packages above what would the Guardians have to give up to get Murphy?

OF: George Valera (#2 Guardians prospect, #31 in baseball)

IF: Brayan Rocchio (#4 Guardians prospect, #69 in baseball)

P: Gavin Williams (#3 Guardians prospect, #53 in baseball)

First, I think this beats the other 3 trades above hands down.  Second,this seems heavy compared to other trade proposals so I would have to get AJ Puk back in this trade, as well and throw in Owen Miller (preferred) or Richie Palacios to sweeten the deal for the A's.  Still, this would be a high price to pay for the Guardians who could just re-sign Maile or Hedges as a backup and throw Naylor in the fire and I would only do this if I could sign Jose Abreu and, maybe, Mitch Haniger.   Murphy and Puk simply do not bring us THAT much closer to the WS by themselves, especially not with what we are giving up, which is an importnat piece in 2024 (Williams) and potential 2023 pieces or trade chips (Rocchio and Valera).  However, with the other free agent additions I believe this team could compete for the WS next year if Haniger is healthy.  

So we will see what happens but with all the interest I see a Murphy trade happening sooner rather than later.  I don't know whether we will get Murphy but I hope we don't look at the players some other team trades for him and say to ourselves that we could have easily beaten that return.  

Long Game or Short Game?

That is always the question for teams in the off-season, isn't it?

Will your team go out and make a big splash by making the first big trade or first free agent signing of the winter?  

Teams last winter that went big 'early' (i.e., before the lockout) had some or all of their heavy lifting done before March.  Others, who routinely let the market develop (the Guardians seem to always fall in this category) were locked out (pun intended) from doing that.

So, in a 'normal' off-season, what will the Guardians do?

It comes down to what moves you want to make early and which ones you want to hold back on. Let's take a look at what the Guardians need to do now and what they can wait on.

FINALIZE THE 40-MAN ROSTER - SHORT GAME

This is definitely a short game situation as rosters have to be locked down by Nov. 15th in preparation for the Rule 5 draft in December.  So let's take a look at the roster situation and potential additions and subtractions:

The pool of prospects who both are eligible for the Rule 5 draft AND who are likely losses in that draft is as small this winter as ever.  The major reason for that is that the Guardians, knowing which players were locks to be protected this winter, brought those players to the majors during the season.  As a more secondary reason, the Guardians protected so many prospects (11) last winter there weren't a lot of guys left unprotected last year who had good seasons this year.  With the 40-man roster now full here are the things I think will happen over the next week

• The Guardians will protect: Angel Martinez, Joey Cantillo and Peyton Battenfield.    These three would likely be selections as they are high end prospects and could easily play in the majors this season for rebuilding teams.  Plus the brain trust should see that Battenfield was really in his second year as a starting pitcher in his career AND exceeded his previous high watermark of innings (103) with 153 innings.  It is easy to see how his drop in fastball velocity later in the season could be due to the increased workload.   Plus it is pretty easy to see how a team could draft Battenfield in the Rule 5 and place him in the bullpen, especially since he pitched exclusively in relief in college and a lot in his pro career..  
• Owen Miller, Anthony Gose and Luke Maile will either be traded or designated for assignment
• Prospects Ethan Hankins, Lenny Torres Jr., Alexfri Planez, all of our eligible minor league relievers will be left unprotected.
• Things that should NOT happen, but might, are Richie Palacios. Kirk McCarty, Bryan Lavastida, Will Benson and/or Konnor Pilkington being DFA'd.  While we have an abundance of prospects and young players you just don't give away good prospects for nothing.   Guys like Miller, who have failed multipl opportunities, Gose, who likely won't pitch in 2022 or Maile, who plays at replacement level, make sense.  Prospects who haven't shown their true ceiling make much less sense to just discard, especially when you have just added them to the 40 man this year and they have performed at acceptable levels in the majors, and minors, so far.

Just doing these things by Tuesday will give the Guardians breathing space to play the long game in other areas. 

FREE AGENT SIGNINGS - SHORT GAME AND LONG GAME

While we don't normally see the Guardians get involved in early free agent frenzy, I anticipate that this year will be the exception.  The Guardians need to be aggressive to get the starting position players they need and the ideal players they want may be gone if they don't act and don't act aggressively.  At the same time, given the contracts being given out to relievers, I see the Guardians going bargain basement/late in this area similar to what they did last year.  FOr the first time in my memory, the Guardians don't really need to add many minor league free agents except for relievers and a catcher or two as they will have plenty of rookies already on the 40 man who will be at AAA and can be brought up to fill spots on the roster if injuries pop up.  Note that any free agent signing(s) may result in a player on the 40-man being DFA'd as the roster should be full after Nov. 15th.  That is a concern to me as you don't like to lose prospects for nothing just to sign free agents.

TRADES - LONG GAME

I don't think that the player they might go after (Sean Murphy) will be traded any time soon as I see the A's letting a bidding war develop into and maybe past the winter meetings in December.  I am pretty sure we will see a lot more trading this winter than last winter for the Guardians as they attempt to cash in on their glut of quality major leaguers to get quality, controllable assets like Murphy.  This will also lose guys off the 40 man which, in turn, will allow more flexibility in other free agent signings and additions to the roster during the season, if needed (e.g., Gavin Williams, Logan Allen, Tanner Bibee or Daniel Espino).  It will be surprising if the Guardians make any trade before January 2023 as they may wait for teams to come back to reality about how their tradeable assets are actually valued on the market compared to what they THINK their own players are worth.

And we're off and running

 The free agent frenzy is off and running.  

• Teams are massaging their 40-man roster in preparation for Tuesday's deadline.  
• Fringe players/prospects are changing hands, some through trades but most through the waiver wire.
• Options are being executed or refused
• General managers are meeting and, at the very least, setting the groundwork for trades at the upcoming winter meetings next month.
• Starting today free agents and all teams can start having financial discussions and exchanging figures.
• MLB Trade Rumors suggests that JD Martinez may end up with the Guardians, acknowledging that it is not really a good fit.
• MLB Trade Rumors also suggests that Jose Abreu might be had for 2 years, $30 million.   I am thinking we get him for 3 years + 2 option years ($18, $16, $14, with options for $12 million and $10 million with $1 million buyouts for each option year).  Total of $50 million guaranteed).  Expensive but I think he is a major key to our success. He fits so well at 1B, which he wants, as a right handed power hitter, as a professional hitter and as a clubhouse guy.   I think you overpay for him somewhat and hope his power comes back which, to me, is where he becomes a bargain. He also takes the pressure off of Naylor playing every day.
• MLBTR also says Mitch Haniger may get 3 years at $39 million.   I would give him 3 years (($14,13, 13) with two option years at $12 million with $1 million buyouts) for a total of $42 million guaranteed.
• Obviously the Cardinals will be in the market for catching (Molina retired) so Sean Murphy could be in play for them.  Just hope the Guardians jump on that deal.  The only way they don't make that deal is if they are willing to commit to Bo Naylor for the entire year next year.   The roster doesn't work with placeholders for when Naylor is ready and his history shows that he would need anohter 1/2 at AAA to be minimally ready for the majors.
• Wow, the Edwin Diaz and Robert Suarez (and maybe an upcoming Nick Martinez) deals shows what a great bargain we got with Clase.  No amount of rationalization of us paying him excess in his pre-arbitration years makes up for his performance vs those of these two (three) and what they are being paid, relievers being so up and down with year-to-year performance.  I don't get these cotracts but I want to say that while these contracts may make us feel better about the bargain for Clase, they can cause the Guardians nothing but grief going forward, both in our relatonship with Clase and in our upcoming (this year and next) arbitrations with Karinchak, Hentges, Stephan, etc.  I fail to remember enough that good, young, cheap players too soon become good, young, expensive players and that you really can't have a WS-competitive team full of arbitration/long-term contracts unless you are willing to go to a payroll at least $120 million.
• Hard to believe that Franmil Reyes was DFA'd again and that Bobby Bradley doesn't have a job for next year.   Shows again tenuous nature of young position player performance, not even mentioning young pitching/performance/injuries 

What if you had $30 million a year for the next 3 years to spend on free agents?

 Let's say that the Guardians see what I see: the window to contention is wide open and now if the time to spend money.  New minority partner, cheap roster, coming off the best season in years.

That really means two things:

(1) Don't trade players (e.g., Rosario and Beiber) just because they are getting expensive and approaching free agency.

(2) Dive feet first into the free agent market as now would represent 'the right time' to do that when we have been told up to this point that no time in the recent past was that 'right' time.

Going through the arbitration process with Rosario, Beiber, Naylor, Quantrill, Karinchak and even Zach Plesac and Aaron Civale (more on this in an upcoming post) should be a given and, in my mind, totally disconnected from free agent spending.  Although that is not how it is likely to be looked upon by the Guardians it is, to me, the cost of doing business for a competitive team.

So, then, the premise of this post is that you and I, as paper tiger GMs, have $90 to spend on free agents spread out over the next 3 years with the goal being to get as much value possible to help this club compete.

Looking through the available free agents here is what I am thinking on how to spend that money, some of which you have heard from me before.

Goal #1: Sign Jose Abreu to a 3 year free agent contract with two option years:

2023: $19 million

2024: $16 million

2025: $13 million

2026: $10 million club option with a $1 million buyout

2027: $10 million club option with a $1 million buyout

So, out of our $90 million I have spent $48 million, leaving $52 million

Goal #2: Sign Mitch Haniger to play RF

2023: $10 million

2024: $11 million

2025: $12 million

2026: $15 million

2027: $14 million club option ($1 million buyout)

2028: $13 million club option ($1 million buyout)

I know this is an unpopular one but I think if Hanger is available, which I doubt as I don't see him coming to Cleveland from Seattle (maybe NY if they lose Aaron Judge, but not Cleveland), he is a clear veteran upgrade over Gonzalez and allows us to use Gonzalez as trade bait and sell high.  We also increase our projected power numbers as I don't see Gonzalez delivering more HR/AB next year compared to this year.  .

Now we are up to $82 million of our $90 in free agent capital for the next 3 years

We have $8 million left.  I have looked through all the other available free agents and our roster and I don't see a fit unless we sign a lefty reliever.   Still there I don't see a real fit and I would rather add a quality, controllable power lefty via a trade (see my Murphy/Puk trade proposal).  Also, we could wait until the deadline to spend that $8 million in a selloff trade with a team that is out of contention at that point.

So, there it is.  Not really heavy into the free agent market. No free agent catchers, not even Hedges, as I think he is too expensive for what he brings to the field.  If we have re-sign Hedges that is a real negative for this club, unless we sign him to a minor league deal with an opt out in May.  

Next up - A real, hard look at the roster: who should be here and who should go before spring training starts.

A way too early look at our record next year

 OK, we are REALLY into the off-season if I am doing a posting like this.  But, with the revised schedule, I was thinking our record would likely not be as good next year.  So I did a projection.  Here goes:

1. @Seattle 1-3    2. @Oakland 3-0    3. Seattle 1-2    4. NY Yankees 1-2    5. @Washington 2-1   

 6.@Detroit 2-1    7. Miami 2-1    8. Colorado 3-0    9. @Boston 1-2   10. @ NY Yankees 0-3

11. Minnesota 2-1    12. Detroit 3-0    13. LA Angels 2-1    14. @White Sox 1-2 15. @Mets 0-3

16. White Sox 2-1    17. St. Lous 2-1    18. @ Baltimore 0-3    19.@Minnesota 2-2    20. Boston 2-1  

21. Houston 1-2    22. @ San Diego 1-2    23. @Arizona 2-1    24. Oakland 3-0    25. Milwaukee 2-1

26. @KC 2-1    27. @ Chicago Cubs 2-1    28. Atlanta 1-2    29. KC 3-1    30. @Texas 1-2

31. @Pittsburgh 3-0    32. Philadelphia 1-2    33. KC 3-0    34. @Chicago WS 1-3    35. @Houston 0-3

36. Chicago WS 2-1    37, Toronto 2-2     38. @Tampa Bay 1-2    39. @Cincinnati 2-0    40. Detroit 3-1

41. LA Dodgers 1-2    42. @Toronto 1-2    43. @Minnesota 1-2    44. Tampa Bay 2-1    45. Minn 2-1

46. LA Angels 2-2    47. San Francisco 3-0    48. Texas 2-1    49. @KC 2-1    50. Baltimore 2-2

51. Cincinnati 2-0    52. @Detroit 3-0

If you total that all up it comes out to be 91-71.

So, if I did this math correctly, we essentially will have the same record as this year.  While we won't be playing KC and Detroit as much, we will be playing other rebuilding teams more and so it looks like it will balance out.  Whether the White Sox and Twins do better with this schedule than we do is another question entirely.  

Obviously, a lot can change before and during the 2023 season that can impact our 2023 results. Trades and free agent signings this winter, injuries next year, underperformance, overperformance, rookie prospects coming out of nowhere, career minor leaguers having a career year.  All of these can change the landscape not only for the Guardians but for their opponents.  Facing a team that is not a contender but who is hot when you play them or catching a contender in a slump when you play them can also skew the results.  That being said, I feel that these things all average out during the season and so the projections above have a good chance (NOT a certainty) of holding up in general, if not specifically as predicted above.

Thoughts for a Wednesday - 11/2/2022 Edition

 1) Congrats to the Guardians for their 4 Golden Glove awards.   There was a lot that went into this but here are the keys that I think led to this. The Guardians prioritized Rosario at SS and Straw, with his contract extension, in CF.  This led to them being able to put Kwan in LF and Gimenez at 2B.   Kwan can play CF and Gimenez was touted as a slick-fielding SS.  Thus, Kwan and Gimenez were set to become above average at their positions which have evolved in the majors to be offense-first positions.  While I won't say LF and 2B are defensive black holes, the competition for Gold Gloves at those positions is less than at SS, CF, 3B and catcher.  Then Kwan and Gimenez produced offensively, making them solid starting players, giving them more reps than if they were light-hitting players.   Not to minimize the defense Gimenez and Kwan played, which was fantastic, but if you can have a SS play 2B and a CFer play LF, your defense is going to be pretty good.  As far as Bieber, fielding awards are n the eye of the beholder.  I saw him as being solid but the analytics and the naked eye of voters said he was much better than that.  As far as Straw, he could be the best defensive centerfielder I have ever seen.

Being able to have defensive-minded players play offense-first positions and still produce offensively at a high level is one important way to build a solid, competitive major league roster. 

2) I am not rooting for either team in the WS but the Phillies leading this series is problematic for me as it reinforces two things I don't want reinforced (a) if you get into the playoffs anything can happen and (b) bringing in high-priced players is the way to go to win the WS.  

I think (a) causes teams to make bad trades at the deadline whereas (b) causes teams to overpay for free agents, both in dollars and years.   Both of these are really death to small market teams like Cleveland and it is how teams in those markets end up going into long, painful rebuilds.

Hey, I am not saying that the model I want to see emulated is having the Tampa Bays of the world win the WS.  I think that model is bad as it gives cheap owners the ammunition to continue to be cheap and, somehow, expect their management to build good teams from spare parts.

I am for organic growth followed by selective addition of quality people who are also good veterans.  Basically, this is the model the Indians employed in the mid-90s to go from a good, young team to a WS contender.  In fact, the Houston (cough! cheaters! cough!) roster is more along the lines of how I think a roster should be built.  

So, as much as I hate to root for cheaters...Go Astros!

3) I will talk in depth about our minor league players later but right now the two position players we need to make huge jumps next year are George Valera and Brayan Rocchio.  I think the Guardans' management team is smart enough to know that neither of these two are at their highest trade value and that selling low on them would be a mistake.  I don't know if it is a good thing but Valera, Rocchio, Tena and Martinez are playing winter ball.  I guess it can't hurt to get that extra experience and hopefully it translates into hot starts next year at Columbus and important contributions to the Guardians major league team next year.

4) I am a little concerned that I haven't heard anything about Nolan Jones.  I hope he, along with Will Benson and Tyler Freeman are still being prioritized as important assets by the Guardians.  With the wealth of riches in prospects the Guardians have it would be easy to see the warts on their games and just consider them second-rate prospects.  I think Jones and Benson are still on the steep upward part of their development.  Freeman was the top prospect in our postion this past winter and had most of his 2022 season lost to getting back to form from his shoulder surgery.  I am for holding onto these guys this winter as I think throwing them into trades would be selling way too low.  

5) Talking about Gold Gloves, Christian Walker's Gold Glove goes not impress me.  In fact, I think it is more piling on for the sucker's bet that bringing him in via trade will be.  He is a soon-to-be 32 year old who had a career year at 31.  As I said, a sucker's bet that I don't want to be part of.  Bring on Jose Abreu!

6) Sean Murphy or Bo Nayler?  I still am prioritizing Murphy.  The odds that Naylor could be the next Francisco Mehia or Carson Kelly is just too great for me.  Hey, Bo Naylor could turn out to be great.  In this case, the bird in the hand, given where we are as a franchise, is worth SOOO much more that the two in the bush.