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Tag Archives: Báez
MLB free-agent frenzy: Catch up on flurry of moves as Javier Báez, Marcus Stroman, more find new homes
The Major League Baseball hot stove heated up this week ahead of a lockout. MLB’s current collective bargaining agreement (CBA) expired on Wednesday night at 11:59 p.m. ET, and the owners announced a lockout a few minutes later. The work stoppage means all free-agent activity will be halted until the players’ union and the league can come to a new agreement — a process that could take months.
But many players and teams rushed to get deals in place after Thanksgiving and before the lockout, leading to a hectic free-agent frenzy. As of Wednesday, seven of the top 10 free agents have signed:
- SS Carlos Correa: Unsigned
- SS Corey Seager: 10 years, $325 million with Rangers
- 3B/OF Kris Bryant: Unsigned
- IF Marcus Semien: 7 years, $175 million with Rangers
- 1B Freddie Freeman: Unsigned
- LHP Robbie Ray: 5 years, $115 million with Mariners
- RHP Max Scherzer: 3 years, $130 million with Mets
- RHP Kevin Gausman: 5 years, $110 million with Blue Jays
- RHP Marcus Stroman: 3 years, $71 million with Cubs
- OF Starling Marte: 4 years, $78 million with Mets
The Rangers and Mets have been the most active teams in free agency and it’s not particularly close either. In addition to Seager and Semien, Texas also signed righty John Gray and outfielder Kole Calhoun. The Mets signed infielder Eduardo Escobar and outfield Mark Canha in addition to Scherzer and Marte. The two clubs have committed over $800 million to free agents.
Although free agency has been very active the last few days, the Marlins have been one of the few active teams on the trade market. The Marlins acquired catcher Jacob Stallings from the Pirates and infielder Joey Wendle from the Rays this week and sent catcher Jorge Alfaro to the Padres.
Miss any of the action? Here’s a look at the notable deals that were signed ahead of MLB’s lockout:
Notable hot stove deals
- Corey Seager and the Rangers have agreed to a 10-year, $325 million pact (full story here).
- Max Scherzer and the Mets have finalized a three-year, $130 million deal (full story here).
- Robbie Ray agreed to a five-year, $115 million deal with the Mariners (full story here).
- Marcus Stroman reached a deal with the Chicago Cubs, he announced on Twitter (full story here).
- James Paxton and the Red Sox agreed to a unique one-year deal for the left-hander (full story here).
- Marcus Semien agreed to a seven-year, $175 million deal with the Rangers (full story here).
- Javier Báez agreed to a six-year, $140 million contract with the Tigers (full story here).
- Chris Taylor reached an agreement to return to the Dodgers (full story here).
- Corey Knebel signed a one-year deal with the Phillies (full story here).
- The Marlins and Avisaíl García agreed to a four-year, $53 million deal (full story here).
- Kevin Gausman and the Blue Jays agreed to a five-year, $110 million deal (full story here).
- Jon Gray and the Rangers agreed to a four-year, $56 million deal (full story here).
- Rich Hill signed a one-year, $5 million deal with the Red Sox.
- Leury Garcia signed a three-year deal with the White Sox, per MLB Network’s Jon Heyman.
- Corey Kluber signed a one-year deal with the Rays after spending 2021 with the Yankees (full story here).
- Reliever Kirby Yates signed a two-year, $8.25 million deal with the Braves, the team announced.
- Reliever Daniel Hudson is nearing a one-year, $7 million deal with the Dodgers, per ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
- Catcher Yan Gomes agreed to a two-year, $13 million deal, reports Craig Mish.
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MLB rumors: Live updates from free-agent frenzy as Javier Báez, Corey Seager, Max Scherzer find new homes
The Major League Baseball hot stove is heating up ahead of an impending work stoppage. The current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) expires Wednesday night, and free-agent activity will be halted until the players’ union and the league can come to a new agreement — a process that could take months.
Many players and teams are getting deals in place before the lockout, and it’s led to a free-agent frenzy in the last two days. As of Tuesday morning, six of our top 10 free agents have signed:
- SS Carlos Correa
- SS Corey Seager: 10 years, $325 million with Rangers
- 3B/OF Kris Bryant
- IF Marcus Semien: 7 years, $175 million with Rangers
- 1B Freddie Freeman
- LHP Robbie Ray: 5 years, $115 million with Mariners
- RHP Max Scherzer: 3 years, $130 million with Mets
- RHP Kevin Gausman: 5 years, $110 million with Blue Jays
- RHP Marcus Stroman
- OF Starling Marte: 4 years, $78 million with Mets
The Rangers and Mets have been the most active teams in free agency and it’s not particularly close either. In addition to Seager and Semien, Texas also signed righty John Gray and outfielder Kole Calhoun. The Mets signed infielder Eduardo Escobar and outfield Mark Canha in addition to Scherzer and Marte. The two clubs have committed over $800 million to free agents.
Although free agency has been very active the last few days, the trade market has mostly gone cold, at least for the time being. The Pirates sent catcher Jacob Stallings to the Marlins for three players on Tuesday, and that’s about it as far as notable trades go. My guess is teams will focus on free agency before the CBA expires, and worry about trades later.
For what it’s worth, Tuesday will serve as a “soft” deadline for free agent signings because teams and players will need time to work out the contract details and review medical information prior to the CBA’s expiration. The two sides can’t agree to a deal at the last minute and put pen to paper. Here’s a look at the notable free agent deals to happen since Sunday night.
Notable hot stove deals
- Corey Seager and the Rangers have agreed to a 10-year, $325 million pact (full story here).
- Max Scherzer and the Mets have finalized a three-year, $130 million deal (full story here).
- Robbie Ray agreed to a five-year, $115 million deal with the Mariners (full story here).
- The Marlins acquired catcher Jacob Stallings in a four-player deal with the Pirates, the teams announced.
- Marcus Semien agreed to a seven-year, $175 million deal with the Rangers (full story here).
- Javier Báez agreed to a six-year, $140 million contract with the Tigers (full story here).
- The Marlins and Avisaíl García agreed to a four-year, $53 million deal (full story here).
- Kevin Gausman and the Blue Jays agreed to a five-year, $110 million deal (full story here).
- Jon Gray and the Rangers agreed to a four-year, $56 million deal (full story here).
- Corey Kluber signed a one-year deal with the Rays after spending 2021 with the Yankees (full story here).
- Reliever Kirby Yates signed a two-year, $8.25 million deal with the Braves, the team announced.
- Reliever Daniel Hudson is nearing a one-year, $7 million deal with the Dodgers, per ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
- Catcher Yan Gomes agreed to a two-year, $13 million deal, reports Craig Mish.
We’ll be providing live updates throughout Tuesday as teams push to get more deals done. Follow along below.
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MLB rumors: Live updates from free-agent frenzy as Javier Báez, Corey Seager, Max Scherzer find new homes
The Major League Baseball hot stove is heating up ahead of an impending work stoppage. The current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) expires Wednesday night, and free-agent activity will be halted until the players’ union and the league can come to a new agreement — a process that could take months.
Many players and teams are getting deals in place before the lockout, and it’s led to a free-agent frenzy in the last two days. As of Tuesday morning, six of our top 10 free agents have signed:
- SS Carlos Correa
- SS Corey Seager: 10 years, $325 million with Rangers
- 3B/OF Kris Bryant
- IF Marcus Semien: 7 years, $175 million with Rangers
- 1B Freddie Freeman
- LHP Robbie Ray: 5 years, $115 million with Mariners
- RHP Max Scherzer: 3 years, $130 million with Mets
- RHP Kevin Gausman: 5 years, $110 million with Blue Jays
- RHP Marcus Stroman
- OF Starling Marte: 4 years, $78 million with Mets
The Rangers and Mets have been the most active teams in free agency and it’s not particularly close either. In addition to Seager and Semien, Texas also signed righty John Gray and outfielder Kole Calhoun. The Mets signed infielder Eduardo Escobar and outfield Mark Canha in addition to Scherzer and Marte. The two clubs have committed over $800 million to free agents.
Although free agency has been very active the last few days, the trade market has mostly gone cold, at least for the time being. The Pirates sent catcher Jacob Stallings to the Marlins for three players on Tuesday, and that’s about it as far as notable trades go. My guess is teams will focus on free agency before the CBA expires, and worry about trades later.
For what it’s worth, Tuesday will serve as a “soft” deadline for free agent signings because teams and players will need time to work out the contract details and review medical information prior to the CBA’s expiration. The two sides can’t agree to a deal at the last minute and put pen to paper. Here’s a look at the notable free agent deals to happen since Sunday night.
Notable hot stove deals
- Corey Seager and the Rangers have agreed to a 10-year, $325 million pact (full story here).
- Max Scherzer and the Mets have finalized a three-year, $130 million deal (full story here).
- Robbie Ray agreed to a five-year, $115 million deal with the Mariners (full story here).
- The Marlins acquired catcher Jacob Stallings in a four-player deal with the Pirates, the teams announced.
- Marcus Semien agreed to a seven-year, $175 million deal with the Rangers (full story here).
- Javier Báez agreed to a six-year, $140 million contract with the Tigers (full story here).
- The Marlins and Avisaíl García agreed to a four-year, $53 million deal (full story here).
- Kevin Gausman and the Blue Jays agreed to a five-year, $110 million deal (full story here).
- Jon Gray and the Rangers agreed to a four-year, $56 million deal (full story here).
- Corey Kluber signed a one-year deal with the Rays after spending 2021 with the Yankees (full story here).
- Reliever Kirby Yates signed a two-year, $8.25 million deal with the Braves, the team announced.
- Reliever Daniel Hudson is nearing a one-year, $7 million deal with the Dodgers, per ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
We’ll be providing live updates throughout Tuesday as teams push to get more deals done. Follow along below.
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Tigers in talks with Javier Báez, per report
The Detroit Tigers search for a shortstop appears to be taking all kinds of twists and turns. First it was Carlos Correa. Then there was reported interest in Trevor Story and Marcus Semien. General manager Al Avila has mentioned on several occasions that a trade would be difficult, but that going that route is still an option. On Friday, it was Javier Báez’s turn.
The defensive wizard reportedly turned down an extension worth $168 million back in the spring of 2020, and was traded by the Chicago Cubs to the New York Mets this season. Overall he put up a pretty good season, though there are some markers that have to raise concerns about impending decline.
The Tigers had talked to Marcus Semien, Carlos Correa before recently focusing on Javier Baez, who likely will be less expensive than what Correa, Semien seeking. Baez was offered 8/$168m by Cubs in March 2020 and his camp said no…but COVID hit, interrupted those negotiations.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) November 26, 2021
Javy Báez 2017-2021
| Season | PA | wRC+ | K% | BB% | ISO | HR | OBP | fWAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | PA | wRC+ | K% | BB% | ISO | HR | OBP | fWAR |
| 2017 | 508 | 98 | 28.3 | 5.9 | 0.207 | 23 | 0.317 | 2.4 |
| 2018 | 645 | 131 | 25.9 | 4.5 | 0.264 | 34 | 0.326 | 5.4 |
| 2019 | 561 | 112 | 27.8 | 5.0 | 0.250 | 29 | 0.316 | 4.3 |
| 2020 | 235 | 55 | 31.9 | 3.0 | 0.158 | 8 | 0.238 | -0.1 |
| 2021 | 547 | 116 | 33.6 | 5.1 | 0.229 | 31 | 0.319 | 3.6 |
Profile
Javy Báez needs little by way of formal introduction. Owner of one of the great defensive and baserunning highlight reels of our time, El Mago, the Magician, regularly does things that thrill and astonish on the baseball field. The Puerto Rican born infielder has spent the past eight seasons alternately frustrating and blowing the minds of Chicago Cubs fans.
The statistics back him up defensively as well. Báez consistently grades out above average defensively, and on a few occasions has put together some outrageously good defensive numbers, both at second base and at shortstop. Great hands, a great arm, and jaw-dropping awareness and body control allow him to make plays few others can, and he is an absolute artist with the tag around second base, no matter where he’s coming from to get to the bag. It’s like having prime Jose Iglesias with better range and much better arm strength.
On the bases too, Báez is extremely aggressive. Sometimes this leads to mistakes, but overall he goes first to third well, will steal you 10-15 bags a year with a solid success rate, and has a knack for incredible slides around tags and weird instinctual plays that cause meltdowns by his opponents.
You can’t expect something like this to happen again, but the example below illustrates Báez’s ability to sometimes make the truly inexplicable happen. On the one hand, the Pirates make one of worst series of plays you’ll ever see. On the other hand, these things happen when Javier Báez is on the field.
Ok, so Báez is obviously talented and generally an entertaining force defensively and on the bases. The aggression leads to more mistakes than you’d like, and so in both regards he grades out worse than Trevor Story, for example. For further context, Carlos Correa typically grades out similarly to Báez defensively, though he doesn’t offer anything extra on the basepaths. The place where these three players diverge quite a bit is at the plate.
Báez has plenty of power, but quite miserable plate discipline, with a lot of swing and miss. He destroys left-handed pitching, but is pretty pedestrian overall against right-handers. Earlier in his career, his hands and overall ability to get the barrel on the ball made up for the free-swinging nature and he was on a path to stardom. However, the last two years have seen his strikeout rate soar to pretty awful levels well beyond 30 percent. The power numbers were enough to make him a well above average hitter in 2021, while his 2020 season was a disaster. Presumably, we can write that one off, and expect that he’ll post a weighted runs created (wRC+) mark of around 15 percent better than league average next year.
Despite being of pretty average stature at six-feet tall and a listed 190 pounds, Báez does have exceptional batspeed and raw power. His maximum exit velocities put him in the tier below the Aaron Judge’s and Giancarlo Stanton’s of the world. Of course, this is partly because he features a big leg kick and sells out for power to the pull field most of the time. As a result, he makes a ton of weak contact on the ground even when he isn’t whiffing. His speed allows him to beat out more than his share of infield grounders and turn the odd flare into a double, but he doesn’t walk and he’s never going to hit for enough average to post good on-base marks.
Even at his best, it’s a very all-or-nothing approach, with Báez ambushing enough fastballs and hangers to do plenty of damage, but otherwise being a target for pitchers with good breaking and offspeed stuff and the command to use it. Unlike Story, Correa, or Marcus Semien, Báez is a guy you want hitting a little further down in the batting order, rather than in the heart of your lineup. He has a knack for heroics, seems to feed off the crowd—in both good and less endearing ways—and the big moments, but is often a non-factor for weeks at a time offensively.
Should the Tigers bite?
Javier Báez is a very good baseball player, despite the flaws at the plate. He would radically improve the Tigers’ defense, add another burst of speed with which to pressure pitchers, catchers, and defenders, and potentially contribute more home runs than we’ve seen from a Tigers’ hitter in a half decade. The question is whether he’s worth the likely cost, and whether there is any chance he can still improve versus the likelihood that his skills start to degrade within a few seasons.
On the latter question, the odds seem quite poor. Joe Maddon’s coaching staff in Chicago no doubt tore their hair out trying to convince Báez to see more pitches and be more selective at the plate, but it never took. Heading into his age 29 season, expecting him to play anything other than Javy Báez-style baseball is almost certainly a mistake.
The problem is that there is almost no approach of any sort at the plate. He depends entirely on his superb hand-eye coordination and batspeed to foul off the pitches he can’t lay off of until he hopefully gets something he can drive. The power should hold up, but hand-eye coordination even at this freakish level can degrade significantly in a player’s thirties. If Báez starts finding the barrel less often, his production could crater to a degree well beyond what we’d expect from a decline phase for Story and particularly Correa.
It’s possible that decline may already be underway. Báez isn’t just chasing out of the zone a lot over the past two seasons. He’s missing fastballs over the plate more often. From 2017-2019, Báez crushed fastballs in the strike zone, producing a .423 wOBA against those pitches. In 2021 that number was down to .391. As those are the pitches he made his bones by crushing, that is a little bit scary. On the other hand, Báez absolutely demolished breaking balls in the zone this year, posting a .492 wOBA against those pitches.
So, at the moment, Báez can be described as a flawed, but extremely talented, three-to-four win player. That’s on par with Story, who also has arm trouble that is a cause for concern. Correa is on another tier as more of a five-to-six win type player who is coming off one of his best seasons.
FanGraphs estimated a contract of four years, $80 million for Báez. That feels rather light to convince him to come to Detroit over a return to the New York Mets, who are also still interested, but we’ll run with it. As Story is pegged at something like $24 million a year for five seasons, and Correa expecting roughly a 10-year, $300 million deal, Báez certainly would leave them more payroll flexibility to add help this offseason. Maybe, just maybe, he can also give them everything they need at the shortstop position at reasonable cost.
There’s a fair amount of risk in the profile, but if the deal is reasonable enough, Báez makes for a fallback plan that should allow the Tigers to add more help this offseason while still keeping a roughly league average payroll and seriously boosting the production from the shortstop position. This still doesn’t feel very likely, but the Tigers do appear to be casting a wide net and exploring every possibility, as they should.
Why Mets didn’t start Francisco Lindor, Javier Baez in nightcap
Francisco Lindor was the Mets’ hero in their 11-9 win in the opener of Saturday’s doubleheader against the Nationals, and Javier Baez contributed offensively as well. The two were then kept out of the lineup in the 4-3 nightcap loss, a move manager Luis Rojas said was precautionary with their injury history.
“Guys have been playing a lot, and they just played the nine innings there and we’ve got to be careful,” Rojas said in between games. “Our next day off is not on the horizon yet, we got to make sure that guys are fresh and can come back tomorrow and play.”
It wasn’t until a last-ditch effort in the top of the seventh of the nightcap, when the Mets were trailing 4-3, that Lindor and Baez pinch hit. Replacing Luis Guillorme, Lindor grounded out, while Baez struck out for starting pitcher Tylor Megill.
In addition to losing Brandon Nimmo to a hamstring injury in the second inning of Game 1, the Mets lineup struggled through a four-hit performance in Game 2.
“It’s hard, you want those guys every game,” Rojas said. “Going into this doubleheader and all the innings that we played in that first [game], there was a pretty good chance at one point that we were going to have the guys play both games. But you don’t want things like what happened to Nimmo happening.”
Lindor saved the Mets from the embarrassment of blowing a 9-0 lead in the opener with a two-run home run in extra innings to extend the Amazin’s winning streak to seven games.
Leading off the ninth inning with two hits and two RBIs on the day already, Lindor blasted a 93.7 mph sinker from Nationals pitcher Kyle Finnegan into the second deck of Nationals Park to ultimately secure the Game 1 win. Albert Almora Jr., who replaced Nimmo in the lineup, scored after starting the inning on second as the ghost runner.
Lindor finished the Saturday matinee 3-for-4 with two runs and four RBIs, including a sacrifice fly all the way to the warning track in the Mets’ four-run second inning to score Jonathan Villar for the 6-0 lead. Lindor did commit a throwing error in the sixth, when the Nationals closed the gap to two runs.
“[It was a] long one, but very, very rewarding,” Lindor said after the Game 1 win. “A lot of the guys got a lot of hits, which always makes it fun. A little bit frustrated with my error that led to the beginning [of the Nationals’ rally]. I’m defense first and I wasn’t pleased with that one.
“Thank God with the group of guys we have, they pick us up, they picked me up, and gave us a chance to win.”
It has been an eventful week for Lindor, who signed a 10-year, $341 million extension with the Mets in April after getting traded from the Indians in January. The 27-year-old shortstop recently had to apologize, along with Javier Baez, for a “thumbs-down” gesture that was intended to be a dig at the fans — something owner Steve Cohen publicly condemned as “unacceptable.”
Lindor, a four-time All-Star, has largely underperformed in his first season in Flushing. In 98 games with the Mets, he has posted a career-low .224 batting average with an on-base percentage of .313 and 12 homers — just four more than he hit during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season with Cleveland.
Mets lineup awakens, Javier Baez returns in win over Dodgers
LOS ANGELES — The Mets lineup went from in the hole to almost whole Sunday, bringing much-needed offense and respite against a powerful opponent.
Javier Baez returned from a two-week injury absence and contributed to two important rallies, helping the Mets to escape Southern California with a 7-2 victory over the Dodgers. The Mets snapped a three-game losing skid and finished their West Coast jaunt 2-5. Their NL East deficit is seven games to the Braves, who have seized control of the race by winning nine straight.
J.D. Davis delivered the key blow — a two-run homer in the seventh after Baez’s second double of the game. It was redemption for Davis, who twice in the series struck out with the bases loaded to help crush rallies in one-run losses. Davis finished the day with four RBIs.
Baez, who went 2-for-4, raised his arms to taunt the sellout crowd of 52,749 after his double in the seventh. Davis then unloaded against Phil Bickford to give the Mets the big hit with a runner in scoring position they have lacked.
Francisco Lindor is still the missing link to the lineup. The shortstop is close to a return from an oblique strain that has kept him sidelined for over a month, but he wasn’t deemed ready for action Sunday. His activation is expected early on the next homestand, which begins Tuesday against the Giants.
Marcus Stroman, the team’s de facto ace in Jacob deGrom’s absence, gave the Mets a second straight solid performance against a formidable lineup. The right-hander allowed two earned runs on four hits with six strikeouts and two walks over six innings. In his previous start, against a dangerous Giants lineup, he allowed three earned runs over seven innings.
The Mets got frisky right from the start. Baez, in his first plate appearance off the injured list, smashed an RBI double after Brandon Nimmo had walked leading off the game against David Price. Davis’ ensuing double brought in another run and Jonathan Villar’s RBI single gave the Mets a 3-0 lead.
If the first-inning lead seemed strange, consider the Mets’ only other scoring this month in the opening frame came on Aug. 10 against the Nationals.
After that lead shriveled to 3-2, the Mets had an opportunity to add on in the sixth, but wasted Jeff McNeil’s pinch-hit double that put runners on second and third with nobody out. Villar struck out and manager Luis Rojas stuck with Kevin Pillar — with Dominic Smith as an option off the bench — against right-hander Brusdar Graterol. Neither Pillar nor Stroman (with an intentional walk to Patrick Mazeika sandwiched in between) delivered. But the Mets made it a moot point with Davis’ homer in the seventh before they added two runs in the ninth.
Stroman dented in the fourth, allowing a two-run single to Cody Bellinger with two outs that sliced the Mets’ lead to 3-2. But before the Dodgers could take another shot, with runners on the corners, Bellinger was caught in a rundown attempting to steal second and tagged out.
Justin Turner and Chris Taylor each singled in the inning before Stroman walked AJ Pollock to load the bases.
Jeurys Familia, Trevor May and Edwin Diaz each pitched a scoreless inning of relief behind Stroman. The closer Diaz hadn’t appeared in a game since Wednesday, when he fired two scoreless innings in San Francisco.
NL Notes: Bryant, Cubs, Mets, Baez, Lindor, Longoria
The blockbuster trade between the Mets and Cubs on deadline day was almost even bigger, as The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal writes that Kris Bryant was also part of talks between the two clubs. The actual trade saw Javier Baez and Trevor Williams go to New York in exchange for top prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong, but Rosenthal reports that the larger version of the swap would’ve also seen the Mets land Bryant and another player off of Chicago’s big league roster. In exchange, the Cubs would have received not only Crow-Armstrong, but also “a prospect they regarded even more highly and a major leaguer under multi-year club control.”
However, the Mets learned of Jacob deGrom’s injury setback on deadline day, which likely made the team wary of making too big of an all-in move. Given how the Cubs were very busy in reshaping their team at the deadline, it’s possible the mystery player could have been any of the players instead dealt elsewhere (i.e. Craig Kimbrel, Jake Marisnick) or possibly someone who is still in a Cubs uniform today. It’s probably safe to guess that one of Francisco Alvarez, Brett Baty, Ronny Mauricio, Matthew Allan, or J.T. Ginn was the blue-chip Mets prospect in question, unless the Cubs were intrigued by someone outside of the upper tier of New York’s prospect rankings.
More from around the National League…
- The Mets could have a new middle infield as soon as tomorrow, as manager Luis Rojas told Newsday’s Tim Healey and other reporters that one or both of Baez and Francisco Lindor could be activated off the 10-day injured list. Sunday marks Baez’s first eligible day to return after being (retroactively) placed on the IL August 12 due to back spasms, while Lindor has been sidelined since July 17 due to a right oblique strain. The Mets have Monday off before beginning a series at home against the Giants on Tuesday, so it is possible the Mets could hold Lindor and/or Baez back to give them another two full recovery days before returning them to the active roster. Baez, at least, seems likely to return by Tuesday at the latest.
- Evan Longoria is day-to-day after being hit on one of his right fingers by a pitch in Wednesday’s game. The third baseman has missed the Giants’ last two contests and manager Gabe Kapler told reporters (including Susan Slusser of The San Francisco Chronicle) that Longoria also wouldn’t play on Sunday. Combined with the Giants’ off-days on Monday and last Thursday, that would give Longoria at least five full days of recovery time. On the plus side, Kapler said that an MRI showed no signs of a fracture in Longoria’s finger. Longoria returned only a week ago from a 60-day injured list stint due to a sprained shoulder, and this finger injury serves as the latest interruption in a very strong comeback season (.289/.382/.526 in 199 PA) for the 35-year-old veteran.
MLBTR’s TC Zencka also contributed to this post
Cubs’ Jed Hoyer implies Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Javier Báez are to blame for extension talks falling apart
The Chicago Cubs had one of MLB’s busiest trade deadlines, moving franchise staples Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, and Javier Báez to the Yankees, the Giants, and the Mets, respectively, last week as part of a rebuild. (The Cubs also traded reliever Craig Kimbrel to the White Sox.) All three of those individuals are scheduled to hit free agency this winter, which has inspired media members to ask Cubs president of operations Jed Hoyer why he couldn’t get extensions done.
Hoyer addressed the topic during a radio appearance on Monday morning with ESPN 1000. “That will probably be my greatest source of frustration from this era. I put my head on the pillow every night knowing we put our best foot forward,” Hoyer said, per ESPN’s Jesse Rogers. “The extensions we offered these guys will hold up exceptionally well against the open market.
“I don’t know why guys didn’t want to sign. I don’t know why guys didn’t want to even counteroffer, oftentimes. Every one of these guys would say they wanted to stay in Chicago, ‘we wanted to be a Cub,’ but then we would sit down and do negotiations, that wasn’t how they acted.”
Hoyer presented no material details on the Cubs’ offers to those players.
A spring report indicated Chicago had presented Rizzo with a five-year extension worth $70 million — or, a little over half of what Paul Goldschmidt received from the St. Louis Cardinals in 2019. Goldschmidt’s contract made for a logical guidepost in Rizzo’s negotiations because of their shared position and similar ages and production levels. There’s enough fairway between the Cubs’ reported offer and Goldschmidt’s deal to envision Rizzo’s next pact splitting the gap.
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Without any additional information on what the Cubs offered to Rizzo, Bryant, or Báez, Hoyer’s intent with his comments are as transparent as the carbon dioxide he expelled to utter them: it’s not our fault, folks, the players are just greedy. Perhaps all three are and were seeking more than they will receive, but so what? That’s how negotiations work, with teams offering less and both parties attempting to find a suitable compromise. The act of not issuing a counteroffer is, in a sense, a counteroffer itself; one that can lure the other party into raising their offer by more than they would if an actual counteroffer was presented. That’s business.
Of course, there’s a line of demarcation in baseball for what constitutes “smart business” and what doesn’t, and that line is contingent on whether it’s the player or the team that is acting within their collectively bargained rights. When Hoyer and the Cubs manipulated Bryant’s service time, leaving him a day short of qualifying for free agency a winter earlier — an act that was met with an unsuccessful grievance — that was smart business. When the Cubs signed Rizzo to a long-team extension and never corrected the terms as he outperformed (to the extent that FanGraphs estimated he was worth $170 million more than he received), that was smart business. But when the players want their cut, be it by negotiating or by electing to hit the open market to improve their leverage, then it’s no longer smart business; it’s greed.
This has always been true in baseball, but Hoyer’s comments are the latest reminder that nothing — not playing well, not being a fan favorite, and not winning a championship to break the sport’s longest running drought — can protect a player from being called greedy the minute they’re betrothed to a commitment to “smart business” decisions of their own.
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