Keri's argument has a number of points and it would be silly to go through a point-by-point refutation he has good things to say and the piece is worth reading His argument, in bullet form, is this:
- There is no reason why the Jays should not have bid on the name brand free agents (Machado and Harper) because they could have gotten players that would be good for the next decade.
- The distinction between rebuilding when you don't sign free agents and contending when you do is artificial and there is no good reason not to sign a high priced free agent as part of the rebuilding process. Even if you don't "win now" (my quote), you have the player for years and because baseball is so unpredictable ... why would management not do whatever it is they could do to increase the chances of winning both now and over the next decade?
Keri sees the not signing high priced free agents as so much financially motivated BS shovelled up by owners to increase profit margins. Here is a quote:
"But the biggest reason to call BS on not signing impactful free agents during a rebuild is that the entire concept of rebuilding is at its core just an elaborate cover that sports owners can use to pocket tens of millions of dollars in savings when they choose not to spend real money on salaries. If a team opts not to spend money while rebuilding, it’s not as though all that money saved is going to suddenly get spent two or three or five years from now; it’s simply going to end up in some rich guy’s bank account, or as a tiny speck of cash in a mega corporation’s balance sheet.
Fans should hold owners’ feet to the fire and demand that owners spend money every year, regardless of what the projection systems say. There’s no valour in being intentionally terrible."
Thus, to put a fine point on it, not signing a high priced free agent like, say, Harper is an effort to be intentionally bad.
This is a good argument. It is much better than other arguments about free agency that I've tried to assess in other posts. And, it has the merits of recognizing (although not correctly) the economics of sport that play a central role in signing free agents.
Let's even say I accept this argument on a general level, but it runs into problems when we start to look at the players involved and at the specifics. Let's address a few points.
First, we are not talking about nameless free agents who are really really good and will catapult a team to victory by themselves. We are talking about specific players with strengths and weaknesses. Because of this, there are a range of reasons (other than cheapness) that one might or might not want a specific player on your team. One might, for instance, judge a player to be a "head case" and that might run against the grain of the type of team one is trying to build. Both Harper and Machado might fall into the category. (I honestly don't know but both seem to have had their share of run-ins). One could, then, legitimacy decide that the media circus and locker room politics are not what one wants on a particular team and take a pass. That strikes me as more than fair. Why would one sign a free agent if it might end up blowing up in your face (or, you had good reason to think it might)?
Second, one might not want a player because there is a young player that you want to play at that position. It is difficult to know precisely how a player will pan out, but let's think about Machado. He plays either short or third. The Jays don't want a third baseman, really at any price, because ... well ... Vladdie. What about short ...? Bichette will arrive sometime this season or early next year. Well, OK, let's move him or someone else over top 2B? Biggio is playing there so you can't move either Bichette or a hypothetical Machado there.
And, young players need playing time. If Bichette is going to be good for the Jays (or, Biggio), they are going to need to play and not back up someone else. Since these are the guys you have cast your lot with for the future of the team -- spent years in some cases developing them -- it makes little sense (sunk cost fallacy aside) to sit them. And, you have Tellez at 1B so no room there. So, you'd sign Machado to be, in effect, a DH. Would he go for that? Would he play the outfield (which is not as jammed but with Gurriel playing left and a longer term contract to Grichuk, there is less room room there than one might think).
In this way, signing Machado might make your team better but that comes not at just a financial cost. It comes at a player development cost that, ironically, could limit the growth of the very players one might be counting on to make the Jays good in the near future. Thus, to be better in the near future, signing Machado (just as an example) might actually have the odd reverse effect.
But, third, would signing Machado make the Jays better now? The short answer is yes, but not as much as you might think, at least on the basis of the evidence we have. Even allowing for the unpredictability of baseball, signing Machado would not have made the jays into a contender and, so far this year at least, would not have even gotten them close to the .500 mark. The truth of the matter is that neither Machado (nor Harper) have been setting the world on fire.
They are good! I did not say they aren't so don't hear what I am not saying. The issue is not just is a player good. The issue is do you have a place to play that player? Do they, for any number of reasons, fit into the team you are building for the future?
The more important question is: how good are they? I commented on this before with regard to Harper. I argued that he was a really good player and that part of this really good-ness involved his age. He was particularly young for a free agent of his quality. But, and this is a big but, I argued that to date, the evidence did not demonstrate that Harper was as good as people were saying he was; he was not as good as the money he was asking nor the length of contract. On a good team, he really helped. But, I argued, he had not been the best player on his own team over the last several years. He defensive metrics were shaky, he had an injury record, and his offensive numbers were really good but inconsistent and not superstar level.
What is going on this year? Well, for Harper, same thing so far this year. He has a negative dWAR (which means he is slightly worse than a replacement level player) and an overall WAR (wins above replacement, a measure of how much better a player is that the person who would have replaced them), is less that 1. Of the players on his own team, Realmuto, McCutcheon, Hernandez, and Hoskins are having better years (so far) in terms of WAR. (Note, I didn't include pitchers in this list but if I did, we would add another name to it).
Now, I am not arguing any of these players will be better over the next five years than Harper or that they are, by some sort of measure, better than Harper; or that I would trade any one of them for Harper (although, btw, I think Hoskins is really good).
What I am trying to say is that we cannot say that Harper is the reason for the Phillies dramatic improvement and assume that he would bump the Jays up in the same way. It is important to note that the Phillies were not a really bad team last year. They were middle of the pack, mediocre, whereas the Jays were bad. The Phillies finished 2 games under .500; the Jays finished 16. Said differently, not only is Harper not doing it by himself but the Phillies had much less distance to go to contend because they were virtually contenders last year.
The Padres, on the other hand, were truly horrible, much worse than the Jays (30 games below .500) and they had not been a good team for, it seems, ages. They are currently playing .500, mediocre. Almost in contention, where the Phillies were at the end of last year.
Machado is contributing to his team (and, btw, I have not argued Harper wasn't contributing, I just argued it was not as much as people thought it was nor as much as other players on his team). Machado's WAR is 1.2, third best for position players on his team. And, a good hunk of that is dWAR (his defensive value viz a replacement) so he is making a contribution both at the plate and in the field. Even allowing that he does not have an evident position on the Jays, one can see a bit more value here. Except ... who would he replace? Right now, perhaps Galvis (.3 WAR, most of which is defensive -- 0.7). So what this means is that we would be adding offence if he played short but taking away defence. Might be a good trade but the overall difference to this point in the season is less that 1 win. Here is the math:
Machado 1.2 WAR - Galvis 0.3 WAR = Difference 0.9 WAR
Thus, to add Machado to the Jays instead of Galvis would amount to a total improvement of less than one win. The Jays would go from 23-38 to 24-37. That is, at least, how I am reading it. What if he played 3rd? Well, Vladdie would be sitting down and I cannot think of anyone who would argue that that is a good idea. But, if the Jays followed the sign the free agent now logic and had signed Machado, the difference would be 0.6 (as Vladdie's WAR is 0.6, with a break even dWAR).
The numbers might be slightly higher for Harper because the Jays outfield has been a problem -- to which they seem to be limping toward an answer -- but you see the issue. The issue for the Jays may have been saving money. I don't know but I'll write another blog on that. And, there are intangibles to weigh. But, you see the point. Even if we include intangibles, it is difficult to argue that the these two free agents would have made a significant difference this year. They would have taken playing time (in the case of Machado) away from the next generation and we cannot find the evidence to show how they would have brought significantly more wins to the Jays. (Cody Bellinger, by contrast has a WAR of 5.5; Mike Trout has 4.2, neither Machado nor Harper and in the top ten).
In the abstract, Keri makes a good argument. He is a thoughtful commentator and I am glad he made. For the Jays, however, the argument simply did not make sense last year.
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