Otto von Ballpark

Also, in regards to your "fluid contracts" example, Rodriguez and the MLBA would gladly let the Tigers convert $50 mil of future salary to an immediate $50 mil payment, although judging by the Baez signing, I doubt the Tigers (or most teams in that position) would want to do that. You could let the player get paid normally, but just use the "fluidity" as an accounting gimmick on the league side to determine annual team payrolls for cap purposes. Although I'd be concerned about teams finding and exploiting more loopholes with such gimmicks, like the NHL has faced with long contracts and long-term injured reserve. MLB teams already have the option to include cash or "dead" salary in trade, negotiate buyouts/deferments, and front- and back-load contracts too.

I appreciate the creativity and enthusiasm, but I think this makes the issue more complicated than it actually is. Once you have a salary floor, and the accompanying salary ceiling/cap/luxury tax threshold, calculated to give the players and owners each the share of total revenue they desire, that pretty much takes care of everything. Of course, getting both sides to agree on that is difficult, but that negotiation isn't made any easier by instituting "fluid contracts" or targeted anti-tanking measures. It's still the same underlying problem. FWIW, I suspect a salary floor could be like the NHL's -- no punishment for going below it, but teams just have to pay the difference, to be split evenly among that team's players according to days on the roster.

Here are current wild card odds (playoff odds minus division odds), per 538: Rams 78% 49ers 72% Vikings 47% Saints 22% Washington 21% Eagles 15% Eagles are still hanging in there, but it's hard for them to be too optimistic about an upcoming "easy schedule" after just losing to the Giants. Eagles and Washington still play each other twice too, which has the potential to eliminate one or both teams from the race. Saints have lost 4 in a row since Winston went down for the year. If the Vikings can just get to 8 wins, they will also likely be in good tiebreaker position (conference games, then common games) vs each of the Eagles, Saints, and Washington.

I think it's a solid deal for Miami too, they should be ready to compete and they needed a catcher. Although to be fair to Pittsburgh, they are nowhere near ready to compete and may not really need Stallings. Also, a lot of pitchers are likely future back-end starters or relievers. That doesn't mean every team will view them all as interchangeable. I don't think Dobnak and Strotman are doomed to forever repeat their difficult 2021 seasons, but it seems pretty clear they would be buy-low trade targets right now, rather than adding positive value to a deal like this.

Reported 6 years, $140 mil for Baez, with an opt-out in there somewhere....

Power hitting catcher? Stallings has a career ISO of .116, with a .123 last year -- league average for catchers last year was .163. His projected 2.5 WAR for 2022 is good, but Garver posted 2.1 WAR in just 61% of the PAs last year. (And even Jeffers projects for 1.9 WAR for 2022, prorated to the same number of PAs as Stallings.) And the return isn't so bad for Pittsburgh either. Thompson is old but he's already had success as a MLB SP with a sneaky good debut in 2021 -- that may not continue in Pittsburgh, but the Twins don't really have anyone equivalent right now. Beyond that, Connor is a speedy CF almost 2 years younger than slugging RF Wallner -- they may have some similarity in draft position, current level, and prospect grade, but guys like Connor tend to be the more attractive trade targets.

Stroman (Marcus), not Strotman (Drew). Although I suppose it could have both.

Since that "Plays" column follows the "BIZ" (Balls In Zone) column, I suspect it is just plays in zone. But Fangraphs definitely needs to update their glossary (or better yet, add mouseover definitions to each column). There's a later column "OOZ" which I know is plays out of zone and it has been gradually increasing (which makes sense, with the increase in shifting). If you add "Plays" plus "OOZ" to get total balls fielded, you get an innings-adjusted drop of 8.6% which corresponds pretty well to the B-Ref numbers I shared above. Also corresponds to the (innings-adjusted) drop in total balls in play of 7.5% over the same time span. Season Inn BIZ Plays OOZ Plays + OOZ BIP 2011 43527.1 12285 10087 2212 12299 124820 2012 43355.1 12274 9850 2344 12194 122248 2013 43653.1 12256 9843 2275 12118 123203 2014 43613.2 12206 9544 2491 12035 122520 2015 43407.2 12351 9685 2643 12328 121670 2016 43306.1 11489 8859 2950 11809 119565 2017 43257 11293 8702 2973 11675 117955 2018 43489 10448 8041 3307 11348 117499 2019 43423.1 10334 7748 3608 11356 115910 2020 15468.2 3399 2469 1408 3877 41542 2021 42615 9534 7142 3868 11010 112983 Edit to add: Statcast also shows an 8.0% drop in (innings-adjusted) batted balls to shortstop since 2011.

Just curious about your source for these numbers? After correcting for fewer innings in 2021, B-Ref shows a 12.7% drop in chances for shortstops between 2011 and 2021, and an 8.9% reduction in balls fielded.

Franco just put up a 3.5 bWAR in 70 games. No flukey BABIP or peripherals either. And this after a dominant-at-every-stop minor league progression. If you have a 20 year old, legit superstar like that, and they're willing to sign a deal like this, you pretty much have to do it, regardless of what team you are or what market you play in. They're pretty rare players, though.

White Sox buy another reliever: Kendall Graveman, 3 years, $24 mil.

Franco's deal is 11 years for $185 mil guaranteed.

Reports are saying 12 years, $223 million for Franco. I'm guessing it's fairly backloaded since it includes 3 pre-arb years. And if it doesn't have any no-trade protection, the Rays could easily move it at any time -- Franco is still only 20 years old. The Rays previously gave Longoria what was essentially a 9 year, $130 mil contract (6/100 extension on top of guaranteeing 3/30 in remaining team options) before the 2013 season, when he was already 27 years old.

Notably, after the younger Tiant left Cuba for US baseball in 1961, he had to go 14 years without seeing his parents, due to US-Cuba relations at the time. The 1975 family reunion features prominently in part 5 of the documentary above:

Here's a 2009 documentary about Tiant, "The Lost Son of Havana"

It’s an untapped baseball market!

All Blue Jays contracts are in USD.

Finally, the Twins are linked to a free agent starting pitcher this offseason.

One common trade target looks to be unavailable, at least for a few months until the Marlins change course again: Report: Sandy Alcantra, Marlins near 5-yr. extension "north of $55 million"

I did find this report on Wisler, from December 2019: Ehire Adrianza also agreed to a arb-avoiding deal around that same time that was specifically reported as "guaranteed" in the press. But I haven't seen any reporting that Cave's deal is guaranteed yet (the automated entry at Spotrac notwithstanding). And I've found other contract reports from this time of year about non-guaranteed deals for arb-eligible players too, so a guarantee doesn't seem universal to contracts signed before the non-tender deadline / arbitration process. It wouldn't surprise me if the Cave deal was guaranteed, because it's a fairly trivial amount and I don't think he will get cut before opening day anyway.

I'm not sure this is correct. If you look at the 2017-2021 MLB CBA, termination pay is defined on page 36 with no mention of arbitration. Termination pay can be available to anyone on a "Uniform Player's Contract" which I believe is the standard 1-year contract for pre-FA players, regardless of how that single year salary is determined (whether by an arbiter, an agreement avoiding arbitration, pre-arb renewal, etc.). Spotrac is obviously just using an automated template for Cave's contract details here -- after all, they are reporting the "average annual salary" of a 1-year contract . So it's quite possible they simply entered/coded it incorrectly.

What you've all been waiting for... Thanks to our participants jharaldson (Debater A: Puckett) and Brock Beauchamp (Debater B: Mauer).

Another interesting thing I found is that Mauer and Puckett actually had fairly similar chances to swing their first postseason games late. Both came up against the starting pitcher in the bottom of the 8th, with their teams down by 1 run, and the potential tying run on base. And you might be surprised to hear that they both swung at the first pitch! But where Puckett's first-pitch swing produced a one-out double to left-center that scored the tying run all the way from first (and chased the starter from the game), Mauer's first-pitch swing produced a lineout to left which ended the inning, stranding the potential tying run at second. Their respective postseason narratives probably started diverging in those early moments. I haven't been able to find video of Mauer's out, but I found Puckett's hit:

I didn't mean to make it part of the debate, I just thought it was interesting and probably contributed to the view of Puckett at the time.

Mauer still got +.082 WPA from that plate appearance, as he hit a leadoff single after the "foul" double. A double would have netted him an additional +.090 WPA, although that still leaves him slightly negative in WPA for his postseason career to that point (and overall). (Scoring later would have had no bearing on his WPA.)