MLB: 5 Ways SPENDING during a rebuild can be a successful strategy

MLB teams should embrace spending more during rebuilds. Not necessarily handing out mega deals, but some moderate spending can pay dividends.

There isn’t a one correct way to rebuild a MLB club.

Or rather, a team can’t just put all its eggs in one basket in terms of player acquisition. There has to be some variance.

For the teams who generally pull off a rebuild that results in winning—think the Cubs and Astros—it generally starts with and consists of some combination of drafting well, signing quality young players in the international amateur market, making shrewd trades and developing well.

There’s a lot of moving parts and variables, but one aspect that should be considered and become more of a regular occurrence during rebuilds is spending.

Not so much spending in the sense that your team is pushing $160+ million in salary commitments and is in the bottom third of the league where wins and losses are concerned, but strategic spending.

In no particular order, here’s how rebuilding clubs can succeed with some spending and don’t necessarily have to cut all expenses in a rebuild.

Sign and (eventually) trade

The name of the game with flipping veterans is, essentially, prospect hoarding. Look at what Tigers did with Leonys Martin and Mike Fiers. They signed both last offseason, received quality production and flipped them for prospects. Three prospects (Willi Castro, Logan Shore and Nolan Blackwood) that they didn’t have at the beginning of the year.

Detroit also signed Alex Avila two offseasons ago and flipped him to Chicago with Justin Wilson for Jeimer Candelario and Isaac Paredes.

The Tigers had visons of contending when they signed Avila and things simply didn’t work out that season. But, in trading the catcher, Detroit added Candelario (3.2 fWAR since joining Tigers in 2017) and Paredes, who as a 19-year-old, reached Double-A Erie for the first time. Against competition that was on average 5.2 years older than him, Paredes hit .321 with a .388 wOBA and a 142 wRC+ in 155 plate appearances.

And Fiers, Martin and Avila weren’t bank-breaking signings. All were moderately-priced signings.

Per Spotrac, Detroit paid Fiers $4.193 million, Martin $1.166 million and Avila $1.1311 million.

All were traded by the end of August. All netted prospects.

It hasn’t just been the Tigers either.

Kansas City re-signed Mike Moustakas to a one-year deal last winter despite Eric Hosmer and Lorenzo Cain departing. With little chance of contending, the Royals still brought back Moose.

They watched him slug 20 home runs on the way to 1.7 fWAR before trading him to Milwaukee for MLB-ready pieces Brett Phillips and Jorge Lopez.

Phillips and Lopez both fit Kansas City’s plan for an accelerated rebuild. Whether that actually works is another story, but the Royals were able to nab (at the very least) two regular contributors for a half season of a player they signed to a one-year contract.

The Royals, per Spotrac, paid Moustakas $3.577 million in 2018.

Kansas City pulled off a similar maneuver with Jon Jay, signing the outfielder and then flipping him to the Diamondbacks for prospects Elvis Luciano and Gabe Speier, following a .363 on-base percentage and a 1.1 fWAR in 266 plate appearances from the ex-Cub.

Back in the offseason before the 2016 campaign, the Padres—then coming off a 72-90 campaign—signed Fernando Rodney to a one-year deal.

Rodney, himself coming off a largely forgettable 2015 (-0.7 fWAR, 4.92 FIP in 62.2 IP), remarkably allowed just one earned run in a Padres uniform.

Never mind that his BABIP (.210) was .081 points below his career norm of .291. The production sold.

And it netted the Padres a handsome return on their investment in Rodney, who had a 0.9 fWAR in his 28.2 innings with San Diego.

The National League West organization traded him on June 30 and acquired right-handed starter Chris Paddack.

High upside

Paddack missed 2017 due to Tommy John surgery, but bounced back in a significant way in 2018 with a 2.10 ERA and 120 strikeouts compared to just eight walks and four home runs in 90 innings split between Advanced-A and Double-A.

MLB.com’s MLB Pipeline currently rates him as the Padres’ fifth-best prospect, as well as the 35^th-best prospect in all of baseball in their end-of-season rankings. The 22-year-old ranked 53^rd on FanGraphs’ mid-season list of the top 131 prospects. The same publication’s The Board! Ranked Paddack at 35^th among MLB prospects at the time of this writing.

Among the prospects ranked below Paddack on both lists include Alex Reyes, Yordan Alvarez and Triston McKenzie.

San Diego ended up paying Rodney just $769,384 in 2016, per Spotrac.

So, while MLB teams don’t have to break the bank on free agents if they’re rebuilding, they don’t exactly have to stick to waiver claims and MiLB signings with Spring Training invites.

There’s value out there.

Signing and trading free agents after a half season’s worth of production isn’t an exact science. It doesn’t always work. At worst, if the team signing the player can’t find a taker at the deadline, they’re stuck with a veteran placeholder who can relieve some pressure off younger players.

At best though, teams can snag prospects they didn’t have before in exchange for a player—who if productive—might be a better bet to sign with a contender.

Plus, those prospects that change hands could develop into something notable down the road.

Just look at Paredes and Paddack.

Salary dumps—and the prospects that come with them

The better strategy, still though, is to facilitate salary dump trades by absorbing contracts and taking on a prospect or prospects as payment from other teams.

The Rangers pulled this off to perfection, taking on the deals for both Austin Jackson and Cory Gearrin in a swap with the Giants, who were looking to create some financial flexibility.

Jon Daniels and friends surrendered a player to be named in the trade, while also adding former fifth-round pick Jason Bahr.

Per Spotrac, Texas ended up paying Jackson $1,370,965 and Gearrin $765,425 in 2018. They’re also on the hook for his 2019 salary of $3 million, per the same publication.

Texas cut Jackson, but immediately plugged Gearrin into the bullpen.

After a month-plus of good showings, the reliever was sent to Oakland for two more prospects in Abdiel Mendoza and Teodoro Ortega.

At the end of the day, the Rangers had three more prospects to show for it, got 21.1 quality innings (2.53 ERA, 3.63 FIP, 11.8 SwStr%) out of Gearrin, who also helped ease a bit of the pressure on the bullpen.

Mendoza and Ortega don’t rank among Texas’ best prospects at the moment, but Bahr does. MLB.com’s MLB Pipeline has the starting pitcher as the 14^th-best minor league prospect in the Texas organization.

Daniels and the Rangers, again, seemed to pull off a similar feat earlier this winter when they added Drew Smyly from the Cubs.

Chicago needed to clear out some money to keep Cole Hamels, and Texas obliged by takin on the former Tiger. He didn’t pitch in the Majors 2018 due to recovery from Tommy John surgery. But, if he can return to the form he showed in Tampa Bay and Detroit, he’ll be one of the better rentals available at the 2019 deadline.

Texas—who like the rest of us saw Toronto extract Brandon Drury and Billy McKinney for J.A. Happ, and saw Nathan Eovaldi traded for Jalen Beeks over the summer—could be in a position to net even more long-term assets for Smyly.

Going back a few trade deadlines, relatively high-priced players traded in the previous offseasons were flipped by the rebuilding teams that acquired them for prospects.

The Pat Neshek and Bronson Arroyo trades

In November of 2016, Philadelphia took on Pat Neshek’s expiring contract from Houston in exchange for a PTBNL as the Astros moved money to make way for financial commitments to free agents Josh Reddick, Charlie Morton, Carlos Beltran and trade addition Brian McCann.

Neshek finished third among Phillies pitchers in fWAR in 2018 with a 1.5 metric despite pitching just 40.1 innings for the club. He earned All-Star honors before being flipped and was paid $4,120,227 by the Phillies (per Spotrac).

The right-hander was traded to Colorado for three prospects, including Jose Gomez, J.D. Hammer and Alejandro Requena. FanGraphs ranked Gomez as the 26^th-best prospect in the Philadelphia system to start the year. All three added even more depth to a relatively deep Phillies’ prospect pipeline.

But perhaps the most notable example of a team taking on a prospect to facilitate a salary dump is the Bronson Arroyo trade.

Atlanta acquired the veteran, who never threw a pitch for the organization, and his salary in order to acquire pitching prospect Touki Toussaint. Arizona acquired infielder Phil Gosselin in the deal, but it was largely about unloading Arroyo’s contract.

The starter only made 14 starts for the Snakes before he went down with Tommy John surgery.

While he was useful for Arizona (4.08 ERA, 4.32 FIP in 86 innings), Arizona evidentially wanted to get out of his contract.

Per a tweet from ESPN’s Buster Olney in February 2014, Arroyo’s contract was reportedly as follows:

Arroyo's deal with Arizona: 9.5m in 2014, 9.5m 2015, 4.5m buyout on an $11m option on 2016

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) February 7, 2014

Atlanta would later flip the hurler the next month in the 13 player, three-team blockbuster that also involved Alex Wood, Jose Peraza, Mat Latos, Mike Morse and Jim Johnson.

But the real prize for Atlanta was acquiring Toussaint.

The right-hander was in Single-A at the time of the trade but made his Major League debut last season. He’s ranked in-and-around Paddack in both MLB.com’s MLB Pipeline (40^th) and FanGraphs’ The Board (57^th).

Along with Mike Soroka, Kyle Wright, Ian Anderson, Bryse Wilson, Luiz Gohara and Kolby Allard (among others), Toussaint is one of a new wave of young Atlanta hurlers with upside. Toussaint has the upside to be a frontline hurler.

And Atlanta acquired him simply for taking on some of Arroyo’s contract.

While it wasn’t cheap, the transaction is ultimately giving Atlanta considerable flexibility in terms of roster construction now that the organization is a legitimate contender again.

Atlanta can either keep Toussaint and develop him alongside Mike Foltynewicz atop the rotation, or they can package him with a variety of other young players and prospects in order to acquire a more proven frontline starter to pitch after Foltynewicz.

Signing free agents to expedite the rebuild

If you’re an MLB general manager or president of baseball operations for a rebuilding club (let’s say, for kicks and giggles, the Orioles), you probably aren’t going to go out and hand someone like Happ or Eovaldi a three or four-year contract worth north of $10 million a year.

That simply doesn’t make sense for teams like the O’s, or the Marlins or Royals who are still watching their future cores come together in the low minors.

But, it does make plenty of sense for other rebuilding clubs.

Clubs that are a bit further down the road of rebuilding. Or rather, teams that can see the light at the end of the tunnel—however great or small that light is.

The White Sox are a perfect example of this.

They’ve suffered through losing since moving Chris Sale, Adam Eaton and others. But, they’ve hoarded prospects to the point where they now possess one of the league’s best farm systems.

Chicago already made a rebuild-expediting move of sorts when they inked Welington Castillo to a multi-year deal last winter.

Per Spotrac, the catcher made $7.25 million last year and will take home the same amount in 2019. He has a 2020 team option for $8 million that comes with a $500,000 buyout.

Castillo had a 2.7 fWAR in 2016 and ranked sixth in total fWAR among backstops from 2013 to 2017.

Initially, he looked like a bridge to the likes of Zack Collins and Seby Zavala given Chicago’s dearth of options behind the dish.

Castillo will help hold the position down until either of the duo are ready for a starting role in the Majors before making way from a playing time standpoint. Additionally, Castillo’s contract expires in and around the time that both Collins and Zavala will be ready for their respective Major League debuts.

Tanking doesn’t necessarily result in better draft picks

This is not the NBA.

Franchise-changing talent isn’t necessarily available every year atop the MLB draft. Sure, there have been surefire, bonafide starts like Bryce Harper, Carlos Correa and Stephen Strasburg who have gone first overall.

There have also been 5+ fWAR (in a single season) performers like David Price, Justin Upton and Gerrit Cole. But there have also been number-one overall picks who haven’t panned out in terms of achieving superstar status.

From Tim Beckham and Mickey Moniak to Mark Appel and Luke Hochevar, there is a similarly long, if not longer, list of players who simply haven’t lived up the billing of a top pick.

Sprinkled in between are players who developed, or who look like they’ll develop, into very good players like Dansby Swanson, Casey Mize and Royce Lewis.

It’s not even a slam dunk that talent taken in the top 10 will make it. There’s talent to be found elsewhere in the draft.

In 2010, the year when both Bryce Harper and Manny Machado were drafted, the player to date with the highest fWAR is not the longtime Nationals outfielder or the 26-year-old infielder, but rather Chris Sale, who went 13^th overall.

Sale’s 41.8 fWAR outstrips Harper’s 30.7 metric and Machado’s 30.2 number. Elsewhere, 23^rd-overall pick Christian Yelich isn’t far behind with a lifetime 25.9 fWAR.

The next year’s draft even more so illustrated the fact that there’s top-tier talent available outside the top 10.

George Springer (11^th), Brandon Nimmo (13^th), Jose Fernandez (14^th), Sonny Gray (18^th) and Kolten Wong (22^nd) were among the players taken after the 10^th-overall pick.
Jackie Bradley Jr. (40^th), Michael Fulmer (44^th), Trevor Story (45^th) and Blake Snell (52^nd) were all taken late into the supplementary section of the first round.

The draft seemingly got deeper from there, with Mookie Betts spearheading a talented group of players taken after the end of the first round. Said group included Marcus Semien (sixth round), Ken Giles and Blake Treinen (both in the seventh round), Kyle Hendricks (eighth round), Travis Shaw (ninth round), Cody Allen (23^rd round) and Kevin Pillar (32^nd round).

Are some of those players impact performers like Cole, the first-overall pick? No, but Betts certainly is, if not more so. The reigning American League MVP is one of baseball’s elite players. He tops the fWAR from the draft class.

The rest of the top 10 in terms of fWAR among active players are as follows:

172^nd (5^th round) Mookie Betts: 30.5
6^th Anthony Rendon: 25.8
8^th Francisco Lindor: 22.8
1^st Gerrit Cole: 22.3
11^th George Springer: 18.2
3^rd Trevor Bauer: 15.1
264^th (8^th round) Kyle Hendricks: 15.0
18^th Sonny Gray: 13.7
40^th Jackie Bradley Jr.: 12.0
970^th (32^nd round) Kevin Pillar: 10.3

Flash forward to 2012, and there was even more fWAR disparity after the first pick.

1^st Carlos Correa 15.3
18^th Corey Seager 14.9
85^th (2^nd round) Alex Wood 14.1
22^nd Marcus Stroman 11.9
4^th Kevin Gausman 11.7
19^th Michael Wacha 11.5
41^st Lance McCullers Jr. 10.2
11^th Addison Russell 8.9
568^th (18^th round) Matt Duffy 7.8
3^rd Mike Zunino 7.6

What’s more, you have to scroll through seven more players (and seven really good ones at that) to find the next lottery pick in terms of fWAR.

38^th Mitch Haniger 7.4
36^th Stephen Piscotty 6.7
213^th (6^th round) Jake Lamb 6.7
98^th (3^rd round) Edwin Diaz 6.4
32^nd Jose Berrios 5.7
39^th Joey Gallo 5.7
47^th Matt Olson 5.4
2^nd Byron Buxton 4.6

It’s true, number one picks tend to pan out, some develop into All-Star caliber players.

Of the 10 first-overall picks since 2004 (which right there shows you the volatility of the draft) that have reached the Major League, the average among them fWAR is 19.4.

But there are a number of extremes on either end of the spectrum. Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg have identical 30.7 fWARs and David Price’s metric is a sparkling 40.7. But Luke Hochevar, Tim Beckham, Matt Bush and the still developing Dansby Swanson all have career fWARs south of 10.0.

To be fair, one of the advantages of having the first-overall pick is having one of, if not the largest draft pool. Which, admittedly, does help when signing players who were projected to go higher but slipped due to concerns over teams being able to sign them. But it’s harder to have a successful draft when you are able to sign quality prospects later after whiffing on the first-overall pick.

Coincidentally, the second pick in the draft actually has a higher average fWAR—since 2004—then the first pick. Number-two overall selections have an average career fWAR of 21.1.

After that though, the average fWARs per draft position since 2004 are—shall we say—all over the shop.

The first round of professional sports drafts have tended to loosely resemble crap shoots at one point or another.

And, in some instances, Major League Baseball’s draft isn’t any different.

Considering the first and second overall picks—although not in that order—have the two highest average fWARs since 2004, logically, you’d think the third overall pick would be next. Afterall, it’s produced players like Manny Machado, Trevor Bauer and Evan Longoria in the last 14 years.

But for all that star power, the third-overall pick has produced an average career fWAR of 12.8. That actually checks in below the fifth overall pick (average career fWAR of 13.4), seventh overall pick (average career fWAR of 16.7) and the 11th overall pick (average career fWAR of 15.39).

There are aspects of the math here that should be pointed here. Since 2004, 10 first overall picks have, as of writing, made the Majors. It’s the same number for second-overall picks and 11^th overall picks. Eleven number seven-overall picks have already reached the Majors, while nine fifth-overall picks have also made it. So that impacts the math somewhat. Additionally, recent first-rounders like Casey Mize, Royce Lewis and Jonathan India have yet to debut with the big-league clubs that drafted them. What’s more, younger players already in the Majors like Dansby Swanson and Andrew Benintendi will only see their fWARs rise from here on out.

So, this is essentially a long, roundabout way of saying that unless you’re the holder of the first or perhaps second overall pick in the draft, it can be extremely unpredictable.

If recent history is any indicator, you may actually have better luck finding impact talent slightly further down the draft at the back end of the top 10 or slightly outside it.

Because that’s what teams are looking for in the first-round of the draft, impact talent.

And you can get it with the first or second overall pick, but after that the need to be as high up the draft order isn’t as high.

We’ll get back to tanking in a moment, but for now on to the next key point.

70+ wins is better than a win total in the high 50s

Unless a team’s goal is to have the largest bonus pool, they could be better suited trying to make nominal upgrades in pursuit of a few more wins.

If you’re a rebuilding club this winter, that doesn’t necessarily mean signing someone like Patrick Corbin, or even Dallas Keuchel.

It means making low-risk moves that make the Major League team slightly better in the interim while prospects develop. Whether they are waiver claims, acquisitions for a PTBNL or a moderately priced, short term free-agent deal.

Claiming the recently-claimed on waivers (by the Twins) C.J. Cron would have qualified as one such move. Minnesota added a player in Cron who logged a 2.1 fWAR, a .240 ISO, 30 home runs and a .347 wOBA in 560 plate appearances for Tampa Bay last season.

He’s not a perfect player. He still strikes out a bunch and isn’t the most dependable with the glove. But the Twins didn’t send the Rays anything for Cron. They simply claimed him on waivers.

That’s not to say that the Twins are in the position to make these kinds of moves, but a team with a worse record than Minnesota (hello Detroit, Kansas City, Texas, Miami and the Mets) could have added Cron, been slightly better for a few months and then move him in July.

Signing Lonnie Chisenhall would also have qualified as one of these moves. Pittsburgh signed the outfielder to a reported one-year, $2.75 million per a pair of tweets from The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal.

Source: #Pirates sign free-agent OF Lonnie Chisenhall to one-year, $2.75M contract.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) November 27, 2018

Chisenhall’s deal also includes a series of performance bonuses: $250K each for 250 plate appearances, 300-350-400, $500K each for 450-500-550-600. https://t.co/BwBDMjdE0q

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) November 27, 2018

The Pirates, like the Twins, don’t qualify for our line of thinking. And perhaps Chisenhall prioritized signing with a team with their sights on contending rather than a rebuilding situation. Maybe no “rebuilding” club even offered him contract.

But the point is that a player who, when on the field since 2016, has a .346 wOBA and a 113 wRC+ in 783 plate appearances, signed for a reported $2.75 million.

That’s well within the budget of just about every organization. And if Chisenhall can stay healthy and produce at the rate he has in the past three years, that contract could be one of the bargains of the offseason.

These players don’t have to be long-term fits. They can simply be place-holders for prospects.

And for teams who are in the midst of rebuilding, finding place holders for prospects is essential. The Padres coughed up Enyel De Los Santos so Freddy Galvis could man shortstop for a year as Fernando Tatis Jr. develops. It’s why the reported signing of Matt Moore makes sense for the Tigers, who are waiting on a host of exciting starting pitching prospects (Matt Manning, Casey Mize, Beau Burrows, Alex Faedo and others) who could debut in the Majors in the next season or two.

Because the reality of the situation is that having somewhere in the neighborhood of 70+ wins—say 75—is much better than having somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 or 60+ wins—say 55 or 65.

That might seem rather obvious at first glance, but the closer a team creeps to .500, the more contending seems a realistic possibility.

Because if you’re hovering around .500 and a few breaks go your way, a team can find themselves in the midst of a playoff chase.

Whether they run that playoff chase to completion and make the postseason or not, it advances the team’s rebuilding time line exponentially.

Speaking of wins, and to circle back to tanking all in one elegantly-crafted transition, let’s talk about what happens if a team in 2019 tries to bottom out and shoot for that first-overall pick.

The Baltimore Orioles

Good luck out-tanking the Orioles who won 47 games last year and return just four of their top eight position players in terms of fWAR—for reference, those four returning players are Jonathan Villar, Renato Nunez, Joey Rickard and D.J. Stewart.
Baltimore will also trudge forward without their top starting pitcher from 2018 in terms of fWAR Kevin Gausman and could very well trade their reliever in Mychal Givens before the offseason is through.

The Miami Marlins

Or out-tanking the Marlins, a franchise that could finally trade J.T. Realmuto and his 4.8. Miami, with a mere 63 wins, had the second-worst run differential (-220) in baseball and the worst in the National League.
The good news is that they’ll likely keep outfielder/third baseman Brian Anderson (3.4 fWAR, .333 wOBA), starting pitcher Trevor Richards (1.4 fWAR, 4.05 FIP) and promising young outfielder Lewis Brinson.
The bad news is that there could be a consistent stream of departures. Justin Bour and Cameron Maybin were traded during the season, and Derek Dietrich and Kyle Barraclough are among the notable departures already this winter. Starlin Castro (2.3 fWAR, .315 wOBA), Jose Urena (1.8 fWAR, 4.17 FIP, 174 IP), Dan Straily (122.1 IP, 0.1 fWAR, 5.11 FIP) and Drew Steckenrider (0.5 fWAR, 3.62 FIP, 64.2 IP) could follow.

The Kansas City Royals

A third and final obstacle for likely tanking teams is the Kansas City Royals.
Only the aforementioned Orioles and Marlins had a worse run differential than Kansas City. And while the Royals didn’t reach the -200 mark in run differential, they came this Ned Yost’s team finished with a -195 run differential and were last place in baseball’s worst division, the American League Central. With the rebuild well and truly on, lean times could be ahead for the American League Central club.
Kansas City could, and probably should, trade Whit Merrifield. Mike Moustakas, who finished third on the team in fWAR despite being traded mid-season to Milwaukee, is gone while previous stalwarts Salvador Perez and Alex Gordon continue to falter at the plate.

So, let’s say you’re not one of those teams and want to try and out-tank them for a top-three pick.

Once, again, good luck.

And two, if you try and come up short in trying to finish below the O’s, Fish and Royals (teams that would surprise no one if they finished with the Majors’ three worst records in 2019) then you could be stuck with the fourth-overall pick.

Which, for whatever reason has been a veritable minefield for selecting teams in recent years.

The likes of Nick Madrigal, Brendan McKay and Riley Pint have a chance to change things, but of the 11 fourth-overall picks since 2004 to make it to the Majors, their average fWAR is an anti-climactic 6.7.

6.7!

And the unfortunate thing too is that that number is largely propped up by Ryan Zimmerman’s 38.4 career fWAR. Take the longtime Nationals stalwart out of the equation and the average fWAR of the fourth-overall pick spits out to 3.5. And that math also includes the perfectly-acceptable lifetime fWARs of Gausman (11.7) and Kyle Schwarber (6.6).

In Conclusion

Of course, each MLB franchise is different. Ownership may not want to spend much if at all (relatively speaking) in a rebuild. That’s an entirely different situation and each owner or ownership group’s call to make.

Again, it’s each owner or ownership’s call, but with all the money coming from television deals and other factors, a little reinvestment could go a long ways.

If both ownership and the front office are game for spending some money, then it can significantly expedite rebuilds.

Spend money to make money—which tends to happen when teams are successful on the field. And spending some cash can help that occurrence arrive sooner rather than later.

Know Hitter

MLB: 5 Ways SPENDING during a rebuild can be a successful strategy

MLB teams should embrace spending more during rebuilds. Not necessarily handing out mega deals, but some moderate spending can pay dividends.