Both by deal and free agency, baseball talent is flowing freely from the West Coast eastward during the 2018-19 MLB hot stove season
If you’re the general manager of the Colorado Rockies or San Diego Padres, you got an early Christmas present in MLB hot stove season. The two biggest threats to your improvement in the NL West, the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks, are charting self-destructive courses.
Recently, the Dodgers traded two of their marquee outfielders plus a perfectly competent pitcher out of the division in exchange for a player they appear to have every intention of releasing plus a couple of Class A prospects. They are not expected to re-sign either their top catcher or their shortstop, both of whom are prominent free agents.
The D-Backs have already traded away their franchise first baseman, Paul Goldschmidt, to St. Louis. They have lost their No. 2 ace to free agency, they will soon watch their former center fielder sign elsewhere, and they are open to moving their No. 1 starter.
In the case of the Dodgers, of course, some of those losses may yet be offset. There are rumors linking LA to the bidding for – well, almost everybody, including, but not limited to, Bryce Harper and one of the big-name D-Back refugees, A.J. Pollock.
Those moves, however, may not occur. Halfway through the off-season, all we know is what has already taken place…which is a talent migration of substantial proportion from the West Coast eastward.
With the personnel care packages they’ve sent to Cincinnati and St. Louis, the Dodgers and D-Backs have been part of that trend. Even larger players in the eastward-ho! talent migration have been the AL West’s Seattle Mariners. They’ve dealt Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz to the Mets, James Paxton to the Yankees, Mike Zunino to the Rays and Jean Segura to the Phillies. Atop that, free agency has claimed the centerpiece of their offense, DH Nelson Cruz, who recently signed with the Minnesota Twins
In fact, measured by 2018 Wins Above Replacement, the division-by-division talent movement is at this stage lopsided. That might change when the remaining free agents sign, but as of today here’s the breakdown. The table shows the post-season gain or loss in 2018 WAR to date:
- NL East: +16.2
- NL Central: +0.9
- AL Central: -3.8
- AL East: -12.2
- AL West: -28.5
- NL West: -38.2
The numbers are substantially negative because so many free agents, including most of the best, remain at least nominally on the open market. Their ranks obviously began with Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, but they also include Dallas Keuchel, Yasmani Grandal, Mike Moustakas and several others who produced strong WARS last season.
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Anyway, most of the talent movement hasn’t occurred due to free agency signings but due to trades. In the NL East, both the Mets and Nationals spent December virtually acquiring WAR. With the pickups of Cano, Diaz and a few other players, the Mets have added 9.4 games of WAR since the 2018 season ended, the second most in baseball.
The only team ahead of them is their divisional rivals, the Nats. In free agent signees Patrick Corbin and Matt Adams plus trade acquisitions Kurt Suzuki and Yan Gomes, the Nationals have added +10.0 games of WAR.
Obviously, those figures don’t factor in the prospective losses of still-unsigned free agents such as Harper. But even weighing him and Washington’s other off-season losses, the Nats have so far still improved their profile by a net of 5.2 games of WAR, a better net than any team except the Mets and Reds.
Seattle (-17.3), Arizona (-16.1) and LA (-14.7) are the biggest losers to date, although as noted earlier there remains time for teams to change that profile between now and March.
But the movement to date does suggest this is an opportune time for teams such as the Padres or Rockies to strike while their opponents are vulnerable. To a small degree, San Diego did so this week with the signing of free agent Ian Kinsler.
The same concept holds in the AL West, where the Astros lost heavily to free agency. The cumulative impact of the departures of Keuchel, Marwin Gonzalez, Charlie Morton and a couple of lesser lights cost Houston 11.4 games of WAR. The Astros have made some moves to offset that, signing Michael Brantley and Robinson Chirinos while trading for Aledmys Diaz. However, both they and the division runner-up Athletics remain measurably weaker than they were when the season ended.
That could present an opportunity for usually mid-pack AL West teams such as the Angels. Indeed, the Angels have already made modest improvements, bringing in Matt Harvey and Trevor Cahill in the hope of boosting their rotation.
Halfway through free agency this MLB hot stove season, the data suggests this at least: There is a window of opportunity open for an AL or NL West team willing to boldly seize it.