My watchword for the 2020 season’s managers: Beware of free agents.
Think back to the last off-season. The three players who signed the biggest contracts were two free agents, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, and a player who was a year away from free agency, Mike Trout.
Harper signed with Philadelphia for 13 years and $330 million, Machado with San Diego for 10 years and $300 million. Trout, who could have waited until now when he could have been a free agent, opted to remain with the Angels, signing a 12-year contract for $426.5 million.
That’s a lot of money – more than one billion dollars – but the clubs didn’t immediately benefit from their expenditures. The Phillies (81-81) and the Angels (72-90) finished in fourth place in their divisions and the Padres (70-92) were fifth.
The players, of course, will not pay the price for their teams’ poor performances, but their managers did. The Angels fired Brad Ausmus, the Phillies did the same with Gabe Kapler and the Padres likewise with Andy Green.
Also fired were Clint Hurdle of the Pirates, Mickey Callaway of the Mets and Joe Maddon of the Cubs. Bruce Bochy (Giants) and Ned Yost (Royals) are gone, but they have retired.
In a departure from usual practice, three executives have also been dismissed. The Red Sox relieved Dave Dombrowski of his position as president of baseball operations, and the Pirates fired Frank Coonelly as club president. President of baseball operations is a relatively recently created glorified title for general manager, but club president is a long established and the men who hold that position are seldom fired. The Pirates also fired general manager Neal Huntington who had been in his position for 12 years, the same time as Coonelly was in his position.
The Pirates named Travis Williams, a former chief operating officer of the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins, as replacement for Coonelly. The Red Sox have replaced Dombrowski with a 36-year-old Yale University graduate, Chaim Bloom, who was a Tampa Bay Rays executive and a finalist for the Mets’ general manager’s job a year ago.
The new managers are Maddon with the Angels, Carlos Beltran with the Mets, Joe Girardi with the Phillies, Mike Matheny with the Royals, Jayce Tingley with the Padres and David Ross with the Cubs. The Giants and Pirates jobs remain open.
Coonelly got his job in 2007, and it was never clear why. A labor lawyer, Coonelly was the No. 2 man in the labor department of the commissioner’s office, serving as the assistant to Rob Manfred before Coonelly became the Pirates’ president.
At the time Coonelly got the Pirates job he had no front office experience, and many in baseball found it curious that the Pirates put him in that position. Nevertheless he lasted in it for a dozen years. Now, with Williams’ hiring, the Pirates have an executive with front office experience, but no baseball experience.
As a passionate childhood and teen-age Pirates fan, I also find it appalling that the Pirates’ media guide virtually ignores the great Pirates of the past, including Clemente, Stargell, and Mazeroski. But the budget for the media guide was obviously treated as poorly as the player payroll.
But the Pirates’ miserly policy isn’t going to change with the club president or general manager. The Pirates haven’t spent on players for years, and they’re not going to start now. In fact, they have been caught in recent years pocketing their revenue-sharing funds instead of spending it on players.
The Red Sox dismissal of Dombrowski was a move that has become typical of that organization. The Red Sox won two World Series under Manager Terry Francona and then fired him as their manager. It was an unreasonable act, just as their dismissal of Dombrowski was, and just as pushing out Larry Lucchino as chief executive officer was. With John Henry and Tom Warner in charge, your chances of surviving are slim.
Managers, however, apparently have little chance of surviving, if any, if their team doesn’t win after it has signed a free agent for a few hundred million.
Will there be any such free-agent signings this off-season? Gerrit Cole is likely to be one, but the 29-year-old pitcher could be the only one.
In fact, the owners are always looking for ways to keep salaries down, and they might have found one last off-season without colluding.
Harper and Machado did not overwhelm the National League last season. Harper batted .260 with 35 home runs and 114 runs batted in. Machado batted .256 with 32 home runs 85 runs batted in.
With future free agents, some clubs could say they don’t want to pay a .256 hitter $30 million a year. Could you blame them? However, someone will be willing to pay that amount.
Watch developments in the next few weeks and see who is willing to pay what to these free agents:
PITCHERS: Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strausburg; Madison Bumgarner; Hyun-Jin Ryu; Jake Odorizzi; Zack Wheeler; Dallas Keuchel; Aroldis Chapman; Dellin Betances
HITTERS: Josh Donaldson; Anthony Rendon; Marcell Ozunat; Didi Gregorius; Mike Moustakas; Yasiel Puig