Newsletter Excerpt, January 31, 2019 -- "CF Ketel Marte and the Diamondbacks"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

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"The Diamondbacks have had a strange offseason, a hard one to explain. They’ve spent some money, but in ways that make it hard to see why. They’ve let one of their best players go and traded another. They’re sort of into a rebuilding process, but with a team that projects to be in the vicinity of .500 and with a $130 million payroll. They’re making internal personnel decisions, aligning their talent, in ways that don’t make a lot of sense. It feels like they’ve both wasted an opportunity to build on two winning seasons, alienated the locals, and still not done anything to make the 2020-22 Diamondbacks a threat in the NL West."

Newsletter Excerpt, January 29, 2019 -- "Bryce Harper and Manny Machado"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

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 "Look, the biggest reason why these two players have found surprisingly limited demand is the Collective Bargaining Agreement. The penalties for exceeding the luxury-tax threshold have been ratcheted up to the point of being a severe deterrent, especially for teams already projected over 90 wins, especially for teams who are already net losers in the revenue-sharing process. The last CBA was designed to keep the Dodgers, the Yankees, the Cubs from taking their baseball revenues and using them on baseball players. It’s working. Under a different rule set, we would not be having these conversations.

"However, there do seem to be baseball reasons as well. Harper and Machado, whatever their skills, are not Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez. They don’t have the track records of sustained MVP-level performance. They didn’t have walk years that create great demand. They each come with questions about their defensive performance. Both play in an era where we don’t necessarily expect their next few seasons to be their peaks, followed by a slow decline."

Newsletter Excerpt, January 28, 2019 -- "Stasis and the Red Sox"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

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"There’s a strain of thinking that these large-market teams can afford the taxes and should accept these relatively small amounts -- approximately one win’s worth -- as a cost of doing business, but the costs are higher than they seem. There are monies not collected, kickbacks for large-market teams being under the tax threshold. There are the draft-pick penalties. The money itself may seem a pittance, but MLB tax dollars aren’t like your tax dollars, going to roads and schools and the military. There’s no greater good being financed, just additional cash being distributed first to players, then to teams under the threshold.

"So I can understand Boston’s quiet winter. It helps to have won the World Series, which tends to deflect fan and media criticism for a few months. That explains why Sox fans have been mostly quiet and those long-suffering Dodger fans so loud. Mostly, though, the Sox have explored the outer reaches of what a club can be expected to pay for a baseball team under the current rule set."

Newsletter Excerpt, January 25, 2019 -- "A.J. Pollock and the Dodgers"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

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"Even with all of these caveats, though, this seems like a strong signing. Pollock will average $14 million a season over the first four years of the deal, which means if he’s a two-win player, the Dodgers are ahead of the game. Having Pollock for center is insurance should Chris Taylor be needed at shortstop as Corey Seager returns from Tommy John surgery. The Dodgers went full Team Pretzel last year, and swapping out two non-center-fielders for Pollock makes it that much easier for Dave Roberts to do so again in 2019."

Newsletter Excerpt, January 23, 2019 -- "The Coming PEDocalypse"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

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 "There is a very real chance that an entire two-year Hall of Fame cycle will be consumed by talk of sports drugs and magic pills and what is cheating, anyway? The only player outside that conversation projected to be on the 2021 ballot who got more than 25% of the vote this year (or projects to get that much in the intervening years), is Omar Vizquel. The 2021 ballot could be Clemens, Bonds, Manny Ramirez, Vizquel and then a bunch of players who haven’t made much noise like Scott Rolen, Jeff Kent and Todd Helton. Unless there’s a change of heart on those three, it’s likely that no one is elected in 2021.

"Then it gets horrifying, as Rodriguez and Ortiz join the mix in ’22. I could see a scenario in which voters, used to filling out deep ballots and struggling to do so, under pressure to elect someone after whiffing in 2021, push Omar Vizquel up the line ahead of three of the best players who ever lived. I’m unclear as to whether we’re still considering David Ortiz as a sports-drugs guy, but if enough people are, at least in his first season of eligibility, the 2022 election will probably be Vizquel or no one."

Newsletter Excerpt, January 22, 2019 -- "Sonny Gray and the Reds"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

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"As I’ve said before, if you put the Reds in a different competitive environment, I would see them differently. The NL Central, though, is a bear, as is the rest of the middle tier in the National League. In the AL, the Reds wouldn’t look that much different than the Twins and Rays and Angels. Here, even building a .500 roster, which they still may be short of doing, is just an afterthought, and at that, just getting their best players on the field at the same time projects to be a challenge."

Newsletter Excerpt, January 21, 2019 -- "The Padres' Money"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

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"The Collective Bargaining Agreement effectively rebates teams for spending money on their ballparks, while penalizing them for spending money on baseball players. Every day that Tony Clark wakes up with his job is a miracle. It’s an absolute miracle."

Newsletter Excerpt, January 17, 2019 -- "Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Blue Jays"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

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"I can build a case for the Jays as a surprise team. There’s some talent here, and in a different competitive context, I might be arguing that Rogers Corporation is going cheap and not adding to a good team. In the AL, and specifically the AL East, it does the Jays no good to build an 85-win team that has upside. At best, they’d be playing for a spot in the wild-card game, and at that, behind the Rays, Angels, A’s, and probably Twins in doing so."

Newsletter Excerpt, January 15, 2019 -- "Louie Belina and the Rangers"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

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"The Rangers seem to have decided to wait for their new ballpark. They could use a superstar like Bryce Harper or Manny Machado, and the latter fits beautifully on their roster. Instead of chasing players like that, though, they’ve slashed payroll, projected at $116 million, their lowest since 2011. They will finish under .500, and most likely last in the AL West. They’ll be watchable, playing a lot of 9-6 games, serving up the occasional Gallo moonshot, but Globe Life Park I has seen its last playoff game."

Joe Sheehan Newsletter, January 14, 2019 -- "Kyler Murray"

This is the latest edition of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with Joe and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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The Joe Sheehan Newsletter
Vol. 10, No. 142
January 14, 2019

Six months ago, Kyler Murray was a baseball prospect locked in a battle for the Oklahoma quarterback job with Austin Kendall. He won that job, and went on to win the Heisman Trophy, leading OU into the Big XII title and a national semifinal. Murray’s incredible season, topped by that hardware, has opened the door to a pro football career that seemed unlikely just half a year ago.

With the deadline to declare for the NFL draft at 4 p.m. Monday, Murray is reported to have reached out to the A’s to negotiate a deal that would keep Murray playing baseball, and out of the NFL. Murray, the ninth pick in the 2018 MLB draft, signed for a $4.66 million bonus on the condition that he be allowed to play football for the Sooners last year. Reports on what Murray is looking for are all over the place, from $15 million to no financial demands at all. What we know is that Murray has the kind of leverage a baseball prospect hasn’t had in a long time.

What is Kyler Murray? As a baseball prospect, he’s a lottery ticket, a toolbox who can run and hit for power who is years behind his peer group in just about every way. Murray is 21 now, will be 22 in August, and he hasn’t played a pro baseball game yet. He played 78 baseball games at Oklahoma, vaulting into the first round by hitting .296/.398/.556 in 51 games last year, albeit with a 25% strikeout rate. He was worked in the Cape Cod League two seasons ago, with just shy of a 40% strikeout rate. There’s a range here from “All-Star outfielder” down to “never reaches Triple-A,” but in either case we’re five years and 2000 PA from knowing what end he’s heading for.

On the gridiron, Murray is a very, very short quarterback, listed at 5’11” and probably at least an inch shorter than that. Advocates for Murray will point to Russell Wilson, also listed at 5’11”, as a comp, which is like a baseball fan saying all 5’6” infielders can be Jose Altuve. The NFL is so desperate for quarterbacks -- 320 million people in this country, football its most popular sport, and we can’t produce 32 good quarterbacks -- that there will be a demand for Murray even if he needs to carry a ladder out to the pocket. Tempted to bring up Lamar Jackson, another recent two-way threat who won the Heisman? Jackson is listed at 6’3”, and is far bulkier than Murray is.

Murray isn’t a sure thing in either sport, which is why this could be the most important moment of his financial life. There’s a reasonable chance, I would say better than 50%, that Murray will never be in a better position to turn his considerable athletic talent into money.

As a baseball player, Murray has banked about 40% of his signing bonus, and he’d have to return that money if he walked away from the A’s. The thing is, that’s the last baseball money he’s going to see for a long, long time. Murray hasn’t played a pro game yet, and like all minor leaguers, he’s going to be paid a vanishingly small salary until he reaches the majors. Then he’ll make the minimum or a tick above it until he becomes eligible for arbitration, if he ever does.

Consider the fate of Francisco Lindor, a baseball prospect of stronger pedigree who was the eighth pick of the 2011 draft. Lindor took almost four years to reach the majors, then made a total of $2 million across his first 3 1/2 seasons. Now, nearly eight years after being drafted, he’ll play for $10.6 million in 2019. Mind you, that’s the case of one of the best players of his era. If Murray follows Lindor’s path to a T, he’ll be arbitration-eligible after the 2025 season, when he’s 28 years old, and a free agent at 31.

The rewards for just being drafted as a football player are greater. The NFL has draft slotting, but the numbers are far higher than they are in baseball’s pseudo-slotting system. The last pick in the first round of the 2018 NFL draft was, coincidentally, Lamar Jackson. Jackson is guaranteed just over $8 million for the four years of his deal. That about matches the assigned slot value of the first overall pick in the 2018 MLB draft, $8.1 million. I don’t know where Murray will be drafted, but a scan around the Web shows him as a first-round pick in most places, from 13th down to 27th. Even if his floor is a low-end first-round draft pick, Murray can make more money just by being drafted by an NFL team than he can by playing baseball for the next seven or eight years. 

Kyler Murray is using his football skills to get baseball money, but so what? In a fair system, Murray would be able to offer his services to 62 companies across two industries, play them against one another, build demand and accept the best offer. Because we’ve decided that sports are the one area in which wildly successful billionaires shouldn’t have to compete for talent, though, Murray has had his options proscribed. He was allowed to negotiate with just one baseball team. He will be allowed to negotiate with just one football team.

Murray has leverage hundreds of young men should have, and if he can use it to squeeze more money out of the Oakland A’s, all the better. The A’s are part of a system that caps what talented young men can earn for the benefit of the operators of a $10 billion industry. If they want to employ this particular young man, they can make the best offer, which is the way we expect corporations to make hires in every area outside of professional sports.

Get yours, Kyler Murray. Get yours for all the young men who can’t.

Newsletter Excerpt, January 11, 2019 -- "Jed Lowrie and the Mets"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

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"Even at that, I don’t dislike the signing. The price is incredibly cheap, valuing Lowrie as a one-win player off of a pair of four-win seasons. If he’s a bench bat who makes 60 starts, he’ll be worth the investment. I do think the Mets have created a high-maintenance roster for Mickey Callaway, and that could be a challenge for the second-year manager. Still, it’s hard to beat up the Mets, or any team, for trying to win in the short term. We need more of these signings, not fewer."

Newsletter Excerpt, January 10, 2019 -- "Gary C. and the Indians"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

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"I mention all of this because the Indians have, by and large, tried to do it right. I am pretty aggressive about going after rich owners who won’t invest in their teams, but the Indians’ payroll went from $87 million to $134 million over three seasons, all of which ended in division titles. Their payroll last year was in the middle of the MLB pack, a big number given the limitations on what they can earn locally. If the Cleveland market is going to roll its eyes at that kind of investment, and on-field success, by going to fewer games, I’m not sure what more you can ask of Larry Dolan."

Newsletter Excerpt, January 9, 2019 -- "For Entertainment Purposes Only, 2019 v.0.9"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

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"Last night, Caesars Palace released season win-total lines for MLB. It’s the first post-PASPA season for these numbers, which are now also available in New Jersey and Mississippi, and will be in a dozen other states over the next few weeks."

My early recommendations:

Cubs over 89 wins
Tigers under 67 wins
Brewers over 83.5 wins

Newsletter Excerpt, January 7, 2019 -- "Projection"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

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"Britton is an example of a player helped by the reliance on projection in valuing and signing free agents. Nathan Eovaldi is another. Eovaldi missed all of 2017 after his second Tommy John surgery and threw 111 innings in 2018 with an ERA of 3.81. Eovaldi’s new cutter, however, helped his fastball, which has always been impressive, and Eovaldi closed his season with some impressive relief work in October, of course, but his four-year, $68-million deal is maybe the first Statcast contract."

Newsletter Excerpt, January 3, 2019 -- "Bob Nutting and the Pirates"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

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"We focus on the Yankees and Cubs, the Phillies and Dodgers, but a team like the Pirates can not only sign Manny Machado without risking a loss, they are positioned to get more from the signing, based on the marginal wins he would add, than almost any other team. It’s teams like the Pirates refusing to take themselves seriously that is grating. The 2019 Marlins shouldn’t be spending money. The 2019 Royals shouldn’t be spending money. The 2019 Pirates should. That they’re just accepting 81 wins and fat checks should be more an embarrassment to MLB, and frankly to Bob Nutting, than it is."

Newsletter Excerpt, January 2, 2019 -- "A Potential Mariners' Edge?"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with me and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

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"Yusei Kikuchi was ten years old when Ichiro Suzuki moved across the Pacific and won the AL MVP award in 2001, and Suzuki, the greatest Japanese MLB player ever, was a superstar as Kikuchi was growing into a star in his own right. How many young Japanese ballplayers grew up wearing Mariners gear, following Ichiro’s career Stateside, and by extension, growing an affinity for the Mariners? No one’s making a move like this to fulfill the dream of their tween self, but on the margins, will the Mariners be able to exploit an edge they earned by signing Ichiro 20 years ago?"