My dream 26 (bust the tax!): 2B Altuve SS Pena LF/DH Alvarez 3B Bregman RF Tucker 1B Abreu CF Nimmo (20M) C Contreras (18-20M) LF/DH Benentendi, Conforto or Brantley: (8-14M) BN Maldanado BN Dubon BN Chas BN Hensley SP Valdez SP Javier SP McCullers SP Brown SP Garcia SP Urquidy RP Maton or Martinez RP Stanek RP Rogers or Chafin (10-15M) RP Pressly RP Abreu RP Montero RP Neris Realistically I’d be happy with as many of these additions as possible.
If he was going to be getting that... he would have already signed. They're still trying to drum up a market.
Benintendi getting more than that.... close to Nimmo money... I also don't think Contreras is good value. We'd be blocking two young catchers to justify playing him at catcher because Contreras would be a below average DH.... I think we need Lee or Diaz to be the guy in a year so we have more money to retain Tuck, Valdez, or Javier.
Fanduel is projecting Benentendi for 14/per. At this point in our system, we cant rely on 2 rookies with less than 70 innings to assume 50+ games behind the plate. We can take extensions as they come. Im not banking on being able to extend guys that want big $.
Yeah, we wouldn't want another Jeremy Pena situation where we have a good young player on the cheap holding it down a few years... Spotrac has Benintendi at 17.5 and Nimmo at roughly 21. In all fairness i did use a subjective term... i was thinking a few million less... You may not bank on signing guys to extensions but having bad contracts on the books makes it a lot harder to replace them. If you are signing a free agent it should be because there's nothing coming in the pipeline. Brantley signing didn't block a leftfielder coming up... I'm also suggesting Lee or Diaz serve as a backup and let Maldy work with them, so no they would have more than 70 innings and not be rookies by the time they would be relied on. If Maldy gets hurt they can trade for someone. If Lee and Diaz both struggle as backups they can still trade for someone. They don't need to commit a 4 or 5 year deal on a veteran who only has value as a catcher offensively. If Contreras hit like prime Victor Martinez then you could argue some time at DH too and greater flexibility.
If they signed Contreras and Benintendi (or another good hitting LF capable of playing RF/CF), the 11th, 12th, and 13th position players would be little-used. Contreras would likely effectively serve as the backup at C, 1B, DH, LF, CF, and RF (since he can play LF/1B and Benintendi could slide over to cover RF/CF). So the 11-13 guys would only need to be the primary backups for 2B, SS, and 3B. Assuming everybody stays healthy, Dubon would only play ~60 games as the 11th position player. The other 2 guys would be pure pinch-runners, defensive replacements, or injury replacements.
Contreras hits the ball VERY well. He would easily upgrade our DH with Alvarez in LF. Lee already had some time in MLB and struggled. Its hard to trade for a quality C in the early months of the season. Even if Lee begins to produce like an average MLB catcher, we still need someone else for 2024 and beyond. Contreras fits that profile.
Fyi, not trying to be harsh. I have an opinion as do you. It's ok to disagree. The Contreras move to me only works as a full time catcher. As a part time DH or LF/1B etc. his bat is very mediocre. People like fwar a lot for some reason as a catch all. I think it's just a piece to consider but Contreras is showing a 3.0 for 2023. Here are some at the same last year: Brandon Drury Gavin Lux DJ LeMahieu 30 million over 2 is fine. Doing 4 or 5 years at 20 per is too much to me... Contreras gets you 3 to Maldy's 1.2 fwar. So if you're talking 2 WAR difference, give me Nimmo over McCormick. Nimmo is a 4.5 and McCormick is a 1.4. Just my preference...
Totally agree. The whole point of dialogue is thinking through things together. WAR is based on time played. Its not the best stat for comparison for a guy only getting 110 games a year. Ive shown a lot of advanced stats that show him as a top 40 hitter for any position.
We have McCormick, Meyers and Leon who can cover this season. It is my understanding our best prospects in the OF are still a couple of years away.
Contreras had an offensive war in 2022 of 3.7. That was 45th in baseball. Contreras had an ops+ of 128. Here are some others in that ballpark who would be cheaper dh options: Josh Bell Eugenio Suarez Hunter Renfroe Teoscar Hernandez Christian Walker Bryan Reynolds I know some of them have been traded...point was they could have gotten Hernandez or Renfroe very cheap in trade as they were salary dumps. Even so, they are cheaper than paying 4 years 80 to Willson to be a DH. They could pursue a Walker trade still. I would take Bell on a one year deal for 15-20 before Contreras. It's the years that concern me, not the aav... Contreras as a catcher has value. To me Contreras as a DH is just a guy. Evan Gattis as a DH in 2016 (and small time catcher) posted a .826 ops with an ops+ of 125. He didn't cost 80 over 4 years. Contreras is obviously better than Gattis... lifetime ops of .775 v .808... Gattis was done at 31, the age Willson will be next year, so it's a fair comparison for age purposes. I'm coming at this as a value question which takes into account salary and talent to acquire. Gattis at 4-7 million is better value than Contreras at 20 purely from an offensive standpoint. Defensively night and day which is where I've said Contreras' value lies.
If you're comparing catchers, most of them miss 20+ games for rest. I still like OPS which tells me Contreras is a good bat, but not an elite one. I would prefer Nimmo and the .400 ob% over Contreras.
When looking at WAR, it needs to be adjusted to a typical players year. My favorite adjustment is 600 PA. So using this, here are Baseball Reference WAR/600 PAs: McCormick 407 PA 1.3 WAR = 1.9 WAR Benintendi 521 PA 3.2 WAR = 3.7 WAR Nimmo 673 PA 5.1 WAR = 4.5 WAR Meyers (2021) 163 PA 1.2 WAR = 4.4 WAR Meyers is a small sample and no one disputes he was not the same player in 2022. But it shows his potential. Many forget anything longer than his terrible year trying to come back from surgery.
If Gattis was putting up those numbers coming into a FA season he would be getting at least 15 million per year in 2022.
Doing a quick scan it looks like the only remaining free agents with a higher OPS than Contreras last year are Correa, Bogaerts, and Judge. None of which will be Astros. So exactly who do you want taking half the games at DH when Yordan is in LF? Personally, I am sick of Maldy being treated as the catching whisperer in this organization. I give Contreras 60 plus games behind the plate this year and 70 at DH. Allow him to learn the catching duties under Maldy and then Contreras is the starting catcher in 2024. Hopefully the electronic strike zone is around soon and his framing abilities won't matter anymore.
I'm curious, If we re sign Brantley and Yuli We have Abreau. If we sign Contreras and Bennitendi We already have Alvarez who when not playing LF is the best DH in the league. How do we get all of these guys at bats? There is only a finite amount of DH starts to around. I'm not smart enough to do the math, I was a Ross Perot era high school graduate.