Terminator

How bad of shape is the dome in? Sounds like this one might be in jeopardy?

^ESPN Insider article where the writer estimates what he thinks the top FA will sign for. 5 years, 135 mil for Donaldson.

Projecting paydays for next year's top free agents 7:15 AM CT Dan Szymborski Special to ESPN.com While the 2017-18 offseason may long be notorious as one of the slowest baseball winters ever -- at least when it came to free agents -- the next one ought to be a good deal more exciting. Legitimate superstars will hit free agency, many from teams in contention right now, which means that even though it's only the middle of April, these players affect how teams are and will be run for the rest of the season. Because projections are fun, I instructed the ZiPS projection system to project the contract figures for the best free agents set to hit the market (and the ones that may). Few teams have unlimited payrolls, even with reset luxury tax penalties, so there's a real difference between a $15 million and a $25 million player. This winter provided one of the challenges when gauging the market interest going forward: How much are teams willing to pay for a win? This is a figure that has gone up steadily in baseball history, but for the first time in the 15 years of projections I've run, that number went down this offseason. For the 2017 season, ZiPS estimated that teams valued free agents as if they were worth $7.1 million above replacement level (the number that makes the projected contracts the most accurate). Going into the offseason, ZiPS projected that number to grow, as it usually does, by 5 percent to $7.6 million. It didn't. In fact, with the offseason behind us, ZiPS gets an implied value of $6.8 million per win above replacement, with values all over the place (for the teams at least, the players not so much). Note that I'm not counting Shohei Ohtani, who was essentially a restricted free agent. So how 2019 plays out is anyone's guess, but I'm still going to project 5 percent growth, but from 2017-2018's lower figure, getting us to $7.2 million. With that in mind, what does that mean for projecting the deals for next winter's top free agents? Manny Machado: Eight years, $300 million priced as a shortstop, or $264 million over eight years as a third baseman. Before you accuse me or my projections for wearing orange- and black-colored glasses, remember that I've said about two nice things about the Orioles in the past year and a half. Manny has never had that 2015 Bryce Harper season, but since his leg injuries early in his career he has been durable and steadily performed at the superstar level, even his "disappointing year" of 2017 landing him in the above-average category. What ought to give Machado an edge is the positional flexibility. While it's a tough market for third basemen, Machado's ability to play shortstop gives him a signficant edge, potentially putting more employers into the bidding. With more teams with the potential to bid and the Orioles facing an uphill climb to reach the playoffs, there's a non-zero chance that Machado never actually hits free agency, possibly signing with a team that trades for him midseason. The Orioles won't admit it, but it's extremely unlikely they could put together a package that could both keep Manny and also keep them competitive otherwise. Bryce Harper: Eight years, $258 million. This might seem a bit disappointing, if there is such a thing as a disappointing contract for a quarter billion dollars. But there's a reason that Harper may not get that $300 or $400 million contract with record-setting numbers: He's just not Mike Trout. That's probably about the mildest insult you can make, but as phenomenally talented a player as Bryce Harper is, how young he hits free agency, and what he has shown he can do at his best, we've still gotten only a single crazy year in which he has been both awesome and healthy: his 10.0 WAR season in 2015, which featured a 1.109 OPS and a 198 OPS+. This is still a monster deal, but I think there's a limit on just how high a team will chase Harper unless 2018 turns out to be his second insanely great season. Josh Donaldson: Five years, $135 million. Donaldson right now is as good a player as Machado or Harper are. Or even better. After all, if you ranked all position players in baseball by WAR from 2013-to-2017, Donaldson either ranks an easy second (via FanGraphs) or an easy second (Baseball-Reference), well ahead of Machado and Harper. (You're not really going to make me identify who's in first place, are you? I just mentioned him. Hint: He's an Angel. In center field.) But you can't forget the age. Were he at the same age as Harper or Machado, ZiPS would project Donaldson to clear $300 million. But seven years is a long time in baseball and starting the first year of free agency at age 33 is a different story than 26. Stars tend to start off at a high enough level that they remain contributors into their late 30s, but even that's not foolproof. See Albert Pujols and possibly Miguel Cabrera, among many others. (Ryan Howard and Prince Fielder simply weren't as good as Donaldson at any point, so I won't saddle him with their albatross deals.) Dallas Keuchel: Six years, $124 million. At this price, it might be hard for the Astros to let Keuchel go. But with Jose Altuve already given an extension for $30 million a year, a deep rotation, and a Carlos Correa megadeal starting to peek around the corner, they might just do that. Keuchel has expressed that he doesn't want to negotiate once the season has started -- and unless you're in Minnesota with its endless winter, the season has started -- and all bets are off when a player actually hits free agency. What's keeping this contract from going north of $150 million is the simple fact that Keuchel's peripherals have jumped nearly a run a game from 2014-2015 to 2016-2017 and he has been less healthy since his 20-8, 2.48 ERA, Cy Young-winning season in 2015. And it's a small sample so far, but he is off to a weak April 2018. Craig Kimbrel: Five years, $92 million. Yes, Greg Holland's offseason can best be described as Mr. Holland's Oops, but Kimbrel re-established himself in 2017 as a true elite closer, a clear step above the second tier. He did it in style, too, cutting his walk rate from 5.1 walks per nine to 1.8, something I literally can't remember anyone doing who didn't have a major injury in the first year. Kenley Jansen got five years, $80 million, and hit the market at a similarly established quality, so this doesn't feel like a stretch. Though it would be fun to see Kimbrel be that first $100 million closer rather than some dude the Rockies overpay in 2021. Andrew Miller: Five years, $80 million. Miller has only a single 20-save season in his career, but fortunately for him he'll hit free agency in an age where pretty much every team in baseball stopped actually treating save totals as something relevant to their compensation decisions. Successfully escaping that LOOGY (lefty one-out guy) role that so many left-handers find themselves typecast into -- Miller has unusually small platoon splits, at only 23 points of OPS for his career -- Miller will humiliate batters in whatever inning you use him in. Just, at least by the projections, a dash less humiliation than Craig Kimbrel is projected to dish out. Brian Dozier: Five years, $77 million. If only the sabermetricians could figure out how to include his arbitrary application of baseball's unwritten rules into wins above replacement, Dozier could clean up this winter. Though that's unlikely to happen, ZiPS projects Dozier to retain his power and his defense, hitting 25-30 homers a year in his next deal while providing defense that still stays roughly around league-average. The batting average projects to slip as he accelerates into his 30s and while being Extra Good Neil Walker is a valuable thing to be, Dozier doesn't get to the $100 million mark. Honorable mention Clayton Kershaw: Seven years, $252 million. No, Kershaw isn't a free agent, but he could be, the prospect of which makes next winter even more fascinating. For those unaware, Kershaw's contract, which runs through 2020, allows him to opt out after the 2018 season. Remember when there was no way Zack Greinke would opt out of his deal with the Dodgers and even if he did, the Dodgers would totally just pay whatever to keep him? Well, Greinke opted out, the Dodgers wanted to keep him, and they lost a bidding war to Arizona. Now, Greinke has been unusually blunt about finances, once reportedly saying that money was the No. 1 thing and that he would happily go to the worst team if they paid the most. So it doesn't mean that Kershaw is automatically going this route, or leaving L.A. But baseball is a business.

Tomorrow's game doesn't look good either.

Meteorologist Spanky called it a couple of days ago.

Maybe the rain will make for a sloppier game which injects some more randomness and allows us to beat Kluber.

Basically you get players for 6 years of team control before they hit FA. It has to be a full 6 years, can't round up much . So if we hold him out for a month next year, 6 seasons after that he'll have 5.5 years of service time or whatever and we get him for a full extra year.

That wouldn't be great asset management. We'd basically lose a year of control. Just have Solarte start at 3rd for a month and then bring him up.

We need to screw with Vlad's service time. I also highly doubt that his defense is MLB ready anyway. I think May of next year is the time to call him up.

My hope is that they think a short DL stint will simply take care of it and he'll be back to normal.

Oh please a 10 day DL stint announcement proves nothing. I guarantee you that feelers were put out on Donaldson but in a market where Moose got a one year deal for 6.5 mil I wonder how much Donaldson would have even have fetched. We still have the deadline to move him anyway.

The way he does his lineups is funny sometimes. Teoscar isn't good enough to make the opening day roster but he comes up and bats 2nd. Pearce is mostly a bench/platoon player but when he plays Gibby bats him cleanup.

I pray it's the minimum amount of time. In the meantime that leaves us with a starting infield of Smoak, Travis, Diaz and Solarte with Gift being the only backup. Yikes. Martin and even Pearce need to get their infield gloves out.

None of those are bad thoughts. I don't think Axford has been THAT bad. Mayza has options and Barnes has an option as well. Or like you said maybe an OF is hurt and we don't know it.

Well we only had a 3 man bench so it could be a reliever.

That is true. I guess really large amount of fans from which there is a lot of enthusiasm that the franchise can draw from in terms of ticket sales, print media, etc.

That definitely could happen. I'm not guaranteeing that his Ks won't be an issue and that he's guaranteed for stardom. But given what I've read about his defense and arm, coupled with his power-speed profile, he should be a solid player. Won't ever have a high average or OBP but could be a 30 homer, 20 steal guy with solid corner OF defense.

Yeah he shouldn't be this bad. He'll get it going.

According to Fangraphs he has a career low hard hit % of 30.8%.

Why do you guys think Teoscar is so swing and miss that its untenable? Based on 100 ABs last year in September? His minor league numbers certainly don't suggest it. Steamer projects him for a very playable 26% K-rate, a fair amount lower than Grichuk. I'm not even sure Steamer fully takes into account his 2016 swing changes and from then on it's been much lower.

Well it's partially a product of who we have. Pillar, Grandy, Pearce and Grichuk isn't terrible but none of them are standouts. Teoscar could be a poor man's Grichuk as you describe him (though he appears to be a lot faster as he's averaged over 30 steals a year since 2013).Or he could be the player we all want Grichuk to become. I think strikeout concerns are a lot less of a concern with Teoscar who's K's dropped after adjustments in 2015 than they are with Grichuk (who has become a 30% k guy). Grichuk is also the rare player who gets worse and worse as he hits his prime.

Yeah that is weird. Can't wait for Teoscar to come up though. Might be our best OF right now.

We have a stupid cheer song we sing during the 7th inning stretch and we have cute cheerleaders sing it. We play on turf with a retractable dome. Only team in Canada is fun. We have a huge fanbase of casual fans to draw from, when the team is good we have some of the best fans in the league. They travel to Seattle like crazy. Travel elsewhere pretty well too.

The rare moment where Jonn is the one telling people to relax.