Using Analytics to examine the top 3 players on the MLB Free Agency Market
The 2020 MLB Season was a wild ride. The COVID-19 Pandemic upended the baseball world, as it did for much of life, causing the final two weeks of Spring Training to be canceled, and ultimately postponing the start of the regular season by nearly 4 months from March 26 to July 23. Broken down negotiations between the Players Union and the MLB Owners added to the drama of the season, as the proposed length of the season declined from 120 games to 114 to 96 to 80 to 60 over the course of the summer, as the two sides negotiated for weeks, unable to broker a deal. Once the 60 game campaign finally commenced, it was marred by COVID-related issues, as 2 teams, the Miami Marlins, and St. Louis Cardinals had full-scale outbreaks that caused the postponement of multiple games, and almost threatened the survival of the season itself. In the end, though, baseball made it through, staging most of the Postseason in a “bubble” format, and crowning the Los Angeles Dodgers as World Series Champions for the first time in 32 years. Now the baseball world moves its eyes to the next part of the calendar: Free Agency and the Offseason. Several impact players are hitting the open market this offseason and their decisions will certainly impact the baseball world in 2021 and beyond.
- CIN SP Trevor Bauer — Los Angeles Angels. 2 years, $64M ($32M AAV)
Trevor Bauer is the cream of the crop in this year’s free agency class. The 29-year-old right-hander dominated in the shortened 2020 season with Cincinnati, finishing with a 1.73 ERA, 0.795 WHIP, and 100K’s in 73.0 innings en route to the NL Cy Young Award. The advanced stats also show Bauer’s season was no fluke, as his 2.88 FIP, 3.25 xFIP, 2.94 SIERA, and 5.88 K/BB rate all ranked within the top 8 in the MLB. Above all else, Bauer generated 2.7 and 2.5 WAR(Wins Above Replacement) according to Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs respectively, indicating his immense value to Cincy in the 2020 campaign. There is no denying that Bauer’s 2020 season was fantastic, but the larger question remains: Was Bauer’s dominance the result of the oddities of 2020 and its 60 game campaign, or is Bauer really one of the elite arms in the majors?
The sample size is always the key to evaluating Major-League players, and 2020 just isn’t a large enough sample size to make a determination on the kind of player Bauer is. Bauer became a full-time starter in 2014 with the Cleveland Indians, and his first four seasons as a starter were inconsistent at best, and mediocre at worst. Out of the 45 pitchers with enough innings pitched to qualify for statistical leaderboards in these four seasons, Bauer ranked in the 42nd percentile for xFIP, 36th percentile for SIERA, and 36th percentile for fWAR. On one hand, Bauer was good enough to be included amongst a handful of pitchers on this list, but on the other, compared to these other pitchers, he didn’t hold any water, finishing below average in almost every major statistical category. However, 2018 was a breakout season for Bauer as he was named to his first All-Star team and finished within the top 10 in ERA, FIP, xFIP, SIERA, and fWAR. Bauer had an excellent year and seemed primed to repeat his performance in 2019, but it never materialized, as he had near career lows in almost every major statistical category, even being dealt from Cleveland to Cincy along the way.
That brings us to right now. Bauer has finally hit Free Agency and teams must make a determination on what kind of pitcher he will be once he signs his new deal. I’m inclined to believe that he will continue to build off of his 2020 success and blossom into one of the elite arms in the game for the next 5–7 years, but the very real possibility exists that he will revert to his 2014–17, 2019 form. With that being said, starting pitching is at a premium in today’s MLB, and regardless of the financial effects that COVID-19 had on the league’s 30 teams, each and every one of them would love to have the incumbent NL Cy Young winner on their roster. Bauer is going to get paid and he is going to get paid big time.
There is a shortlist of teams that Bauer has been linked to including the Reds, Mets, Blue Jays, Yankees, White Sox, Red Sox, Dodgers, Padres, and Angels, but I think the Angels should be the clear favorite to sign him. LA has the best player in the world in Mike Trout, another top 15 hitter in Anthony Rendon, and several other important role players in the lineup. However, the one thing that has held them back for the past several years is a lack of quality pitching. Since 2018, Angels pitching has ranked 27th in the majors in total fWAR generated, and so Bauer would represent a massive upgrade to this rotation. Bauer is from Los Angeles, and Angels owner Arte Moreno is among the league’s wealthier, indicating that he may be more willing to empty his pockets in this offseason than others. Bauer has stated his desire to maximize his value and leverage by signing shorter-term deals, which is why I think his contract will map out to the 2y/64m type range.
2. PHI C J.T Realmuto — Washington Nationals. 5 years, $130M ($26M AAV).
J.T Realmuto of the Philadelphia Phillies is one of the elite players in all of Major League Baseball, not to mention, the best catcher in the world. Realmuto is a dual-threat player: he can not only wreak havoc at the plate but also control the game from behind the plate, on the defensive end. His numbers were slightly down in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, but since 2018, he has slashed .274/.336/.489 with an .825 OPS, on top of 57 HRs and 189 RBIs. That puts him in the 70th percentile for BA, 71st percentile for OPS, and 66th percentile for Home Runs among all 164 qualified batters in that span. Realmuto’s 118 wRC+, .348 wOBA, 41.6% Hard Hit Rate, and 20.8% K rate also rank within at least the 50th percentile, with his numbers in the former three categories being in the 70th percentile or higher. Realmuto’s stats clearly stack up nicely when compared with all other position players, but they appear even better when compared to just catchers. Out of the 44 catchers with at least 500 PA’s from 2018–2020, Realmuto ranks within the top 3 in almost every offensive category including HRs, RBIs, BA, SLG, OPS, wRC+, and wOBA.
On the defensive side, Realmuto has developed into an elite pitch framer in the past two seasons. In 2019, he created a 50.4% Strike Rate, which accounts for the number of extra strikes he created by keeping pitches in the strike zone. He was able to build off of this success in 2020, by posting an even more impressive 51.9% Strike Rate. By this stat, Realmuto has been a significantly above-average framer, as these two marks put him in the 67th and 92nd percentile in 2019 and 2020 respectively out of all qualified catchers. Realmuto also has an elite arm, as his 88.2 mph and 87.8 mph arm speed in 2019 and 2018 respectively, both ranked within the top 3 of all qualified catchers. Moreover, his average pop time to second base of 1.89 and 1.9 seconds in both ’19 and ’18 respectively were the fastest out of all qualified catchers. Realmuto can frame, he can throw, and he’s an overall excellent defender, as he ranked 4th out of the 52 catchers with at least 850 innings caught from 2018–20 in Fangraphs’ all-encompassing defensive metric (abbreviated “Def”). Most importantly, Realmuto has generated 12.3 fWAR from 2018–20 placing him within the top 15 of all players, and ahead of all other catchers.
Several teams have a hole they would like to plug at catcher, but only a few have the money to acquire a player of Realmuto’s caliber. The Washington Nationals had a disappointing, below .500 season in 2020, just one year after winning the World Series, meaning that owner Mark Lerner will likely be even more hungry to revamp his squad for the 2021 season. The Nationals used a platoon of catchers in 2020 with both Kurt Suzuki and Yan Gomes spending time behind the dish, and the results were not very good. Nats catchers generated a total of 0.2 fWAR in the 2020 season ranking 19th in baseball, and they also ranked 29th in baseball with a total defensive production of -3.6 runs according to FanGraphs. In totality, The Nats should have money to spend, and have been linked to Realmuto all offseason, making the match all the more likely.
3. NYY 2B D.J LeMahieu — New York Yankees. 3 years, $66M ($22M AAV).
Yankees’ second baseman D.J “LeMachine” LeMahieu has blossomed into one of the elite hitters in baseball during his two seasons in the Bronx. The Yanks took a flier on LeMahieu, doling out a 2y/$24M contract in the 2018 offseason after striking out on big time FA target Manny Machado. Since then, all LeMahieu has done in a Yankee uniform is produce, and he has developed somewhat of a cult following amongst Yankee fans, the likes of which have only been seen a few times throughout Yankee lore with players such as Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, and Derek Jeter. The pressure on Yankees GM Brian Cashman to re-sign LeMahieu is immense, and if he fails, the contempt he will receive will be off the charts.
In his two year stint with the Yankees, LeMahieu has slashed .336/.386/.536 with a .922 OPS on top of 36 HRs and 129 RBIs. LeMahieu’s .336 mark is the highest batting average in all of Major League Baseball in the past two seasons, and his OBP, SLG, and OPS all rank within the top 20 of the league. LeMahieu also has a 146 wRC+ and a .388 wOBA during that time frame, which both rank 10th in the majors. LeMahieu is also extremely disciplined at the plate, as his 12.7 K% is the seventh-best in the entire MLB. LeMahieu is an extremely unique hitter in this era, as he has an exceedingly high batting average while not hitting a lot of home runs or striking out all the time. He also can spray the ball all over the field, as he has only been shifted on twice since 2015, the lowest shift rate in all of baseball by a large margin.
LeMahieu’s glove isn’t as good as his bat, but he certainly is not a liability in the field. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of LeMahieu’s glove is his versatility. While LeMahieu has played the majority of his Major League career at 2nd base, he has demonstrated the ability to play both 1st and 3rd base, and play those positions at a relatively solid level. In fact, due to the Yankees’ crowded infield in 2019, LeMahieu started all 9 postseason games at first base, and then seamlessly transitioned back into the every-day second basemen role for the 2020 season. Out of all 2B with at least 800 innings played from 2018–20, LeMahieu ranks 2nd with a 9.5 UZR/150(Ultimate Zone Rating per 150 games), an all-encompassing defensive metric that is standardized to measure how many runs a player saved through his defensive prowess(or lack thereof). His 17 DRS(Defensive Runs Saved) also rank within the top 5 of all 2nd basemen from ‘18-’20, as does his 81.6% RZR(Revised Zone Rating), a measure of the percentage of batted balls in a fielder’s zone that were converted into outs. LeMahieu’s defensive stats clearly stack up very nicely at second base, and they signal the lethal dual-threat that he has developed into in the Bronx.
As good as many of LeMahieu’s stats look, there are some caution signs to heed. For starters, one common knock on LeMahieu is the fact that he has played the majority of games throughout his career in Coors Field(Colorado Rockies) and Yankee Stadium, two ballparks known to be extremely hitter-friendly. If LeMahieu is to sign elsewhere, without the benefit of a hitter-friendly park, will he regress towards an average hitter? The answer is not exactly, although he could. As aforementioned, LeMahieu’s wRC+, a hitting statistic that does adjust for park-effects, ranked within the top 25 of Major League Baseball in the past two seasons. LeMahieu’s 134 AVG+, another statistic that takes park effects into account, also tops the majors from 2019–20, and his OBP+ is also within the top 10 in that span, meaning that LeMahieu isn’t necessarily too much of a beneficiary of the stadium that he plays in. Also, there are some theories out there that suggest that LeMahieu was an average to slightly above average player in Colorado, and magically became a star in New York. That’s simply not true, as, from 2014–2018 in Colorado, he ranked within the top 3 of all 2B in BA and OBP, and was within the top 12 of all 2nd basemen in fWAR. While his numbers in other statistical categories like wOBA and wRC+ certainly improved with the move to the Bronx, that kind of progression is not an anomaly for a baseball player entering his 8th and 9th MLB seasons. However, one thing that is actually a significant problem for LeMahieu is the batted-ball luck he experienced in the 2020 season. LeMahieu’s .370 BABIP ranked 10th in all of Major League Baseball, indicating unsustainably high production on balls in play(the league average BABIP is around .300). Moreover, LeMahieu was only expected to hit .315 in the 2020 season and expected to hit for a wOBA of .355 per Baseball Savant, far lower than the .364 and .429 that he actually hit for. LeMahieu also rarely hit the ball hard, as he ranked in the 9th percentile for Barrel % in 2020. Moreover, LeMahieu is 32 years old, and will likely command a 3–5 year contract, forcing a team to pay him big time dollars in perhaps his age 35 or 36 seasons. Elite 2nd basemen like Chase Utley, Robinson Cano, and Roberto Alomar, among many others, have fallen apart without much notice in the past, and so the team that signs LeMahieu will definitely have to weigh the risks of him not performing at a high level for the entirety of this contract.
Regardless of some of the problems that persist with his age and his batted ball luck, LeMahieu’s production is still elite, and he is by most estimations, the best overall 2nd baseman in all of baseball. His inflated stats in the small sample size 2020 season may lead to a team overpaying slightly for LeMahieu, but nonetheless, most of the money given to him will be money well-spent. Every single team in Major League Baseball would love to have LeMahieu on their roster due to his versatility and his uniqueness as a hitter in the modern era. As previously mentioned, LeMahieu will likely receive a 3–5 year contract somewhere in the range of $20-$22 million in AAV. The Blue Jays, Nationals, Dodgers, Astros, Mets, and Cardinals, in addition to the Yankees have all been floated around as possible suitors for LeMahieu. LeMahieu has developed a strong connection with the Yankees fan base in his two seasons in the Bronx, and everyone in the organization loves what he brings to the table both on and off the field. The Yankees have made it clear that re-signing LeMahieu is their “number one priority” this offseason, and so expect Brian Cashman to go all-in on bringing him back. LeMahieu has previously stated multiple times, including most recently at the AL MVP presentation ceremony, that he would love to be back in Pinstripes in 2021, and so I think the mutual interest will ultimately cause the Yankees to bring back LeMahieu, locking up their team MVP for the near future.
