Why not ? With a couple opt outs and an NTC

I leave my card with an open $135m offer (5*$27m or 6*$22.5m, seven if you want, whatever works) and don't wait for a call back. Some auctions you don't want to win.

Totally nuts. The guy has 16.6 bWAR lifetime - he'd have to do that again plus more to be worth it. Entering age 30 he might pull it off, but I'd not be wanting to be the GM who bet on it. $30 per for 3, sure. $25 for 5? Probably worth the risk. But 7 years at $30 per? Heck no. Can't blame a guy for trying I guess.

That 16.6 bWAR lifetime is boosted by 10.5 in the last two years, pretty evenly split. I’d think with that sustained success 5 for 125 is far too low, but agree that 7 for 210 is too much. He’ll probably end up splitting the difference. 6 for 160 sounds right (given how contracts are going).

I don't know that a pitcher will get a 7th year, but it's hard to be surprised any more. 30 clubs are typically run by incredibly intelligent individuals...and then a few start behaving completely irrationally. Which is weird, except it happens every year (or so it seems). The median crowdsource over at fangraphs is 5/135. Bogaerts AAV was right, but years were off (understatement, much?). Verlander's contract length was right, but AAV off substantially (2/70 v 2/86). Like Bogaerts, deGrom's AAV was correct but length wrong (5 v 3). Trea Turner right on AAV, well wrong on years (11 v 7) and Judge was wrong on both (7 at 37.5 per v 9 at 40).

I can definitely see 6/168 (28 per) or 4/120.

Unrelated note, I wonder what Nolan Arenado and Tyler Anderson might be thinking right now. Arenado especially.

We are talking about a guy who for his last 300+ innings has been near the best, maybe the best, pitcher in baseball. Obviously the 500+ injury-riddled innings before those are a concern. I haven't come up with anybody with quite the profile of "top prospect, mediocre start, injuries then huge breakout" yet but the breakout bit is not unlike Cole or Kluber or deGrom or even Scherzer (who didn't really start being Scherzer until 28). Of course, like Strasburg and others, he might head right back to the doctor's office at any moment.

310 innins is just 310 innings and caution is warranted. But Cole had just 400 outstanding innings in Hou (and a healthier but uninspiring period before that) and he landed 9/$324. Further I'm not sure there's really any difference between Rodon and Bauer who got his huge 2-3 year deal. 7/$210 looks a lot less crazy than 9/$324 and not much crazier than 2/$80-3/$100. I'd be reasonably comfortable offering Rodon something along the lines of the Bauer contract.

And given where the reliever market is, three top relievers of different classes** will run you $30 M for (you hope) 150-180 innings of about 130-140 ERA+. That's Rodon and, in his case, there's zero probability that there's some guy lurking at AAA who could do the same job for "free."

** "classes" as in one 9th inning guy, one 8th inning guy, one 7th inning guy or however you want to classify them.

Teams spending or trying to spend: NYY, Boston, Phil, Houston, NYM, Texas, CHC, LAA, SD, SF, STL

Teams dipping there toes in but not spending a ton: TBR, Cle, Det

Teams not spending, cutting, dumping salaries: LAD, Mil, CHW, Oak, Cin

Teams not doing much yet: orioles, Braves, wash, col, Arizona, minn, KC, Seattle, TOR, Miami

Most of the spend has been concentrated in the top half of teams. Looking at it, the guys who still have money to spend are LAD, SF, CHC and maybe a couple teams from the bottom of the list like Tor, Minn, Atlanta. I would add the Yankees too because Judge is simply a re-sign.

So Rodon and Correa will land somewhere in this group I think. I could see SF or CHC signing both. Rodon to LAA seems possible. Rodon to NYY looks possible.

5 arenados biggest mistake was not asking for another opt out. There aren't many on the free spending list that need Arenado. But it seems logical he would have added $50-75 million or more to his haul. Still it's a risk. He's got 6/145 that takes him to age 36. That's $24 AAV. So maybe left 2 years maybe 3 years of $25 AAV.

Or not. 6/145 is a lot to leave.

One thing I keep hearing is, teams aren't as afraid of signing older players because "training is so much better now". Now that may be true but until we start seeing a LOT of players actually playing well into their late 30's I wouldn't be willing to assume the added risk.

Another thing I've been hearing a lot lately is, availability should be considered as an important component of player value. If you aren't in the lineup enough, it's difficult to generate value. Until some incredibly smart analyst can combine biomechanics and DNA into a perfect predictor of future health, teams are left with past injury history, the quality of their medical staff to evaluate medicals, and soothsayers to predict future injury risk.

Teams are certainly extending contracts to lower AAV. It's really smart for many of today's GMs because the odds are the bad portion of the contract will be some other guy's headache.

It's certainly fun to see your team go out and grab a high-priced free agent. It's not our money and, because so many fans are short-sighted, who cares about five-plus years from now?

Of course, it's instructive to watch what the Dodgers have been doing. Despite having some holes and nearly as much money as the Yankees, they haven't lost their heads and let their most panicked and spoiled fans push them into doing something stupid.

I'm not surprised because the team's management is smart, experienced, disciplined, STABLE, culture-driven, and always considerate of the impact of each decision on their open-ended competitive window.

As for Rodon, why aren't the Giants in on him?

Rodón rumors get started, they're started by the baseball people and
They get mad seein' somethin' they had and somebody else's pitchin'
Tell me that cool fastball is very hard to resist
But these wicked GMs, ooh, they just persist
Maybe you think it's cute, Yankees, I'm not impressed
I tell you one time only with those pitchers please don't mess

Carlos Rodón rumors surroundin' me every day
I just need some time, some time to get away from
From Rodón rumors, I can't take it no more
My best friend said Carlos Rodón, he's gettin' six for one-five-four

The Dodgers have won a lot of games. That kind of puts less pressure on the FO to go out and hand out crazy stupid contracts.

Another thing I've been hearing a lot lately is, availability should be considered as an important component of player value. If you aren't in the lineup enough, it's difficult to generate value.

ah, the "Eli Manning Example."

The extent to which he is overrated - some people think he was more than a decent QB and so "Clutchy McClutcherson" - dovetails nicely with the extent to which he was underrated for said "availability."

For a dozen years or so - if we call Eli a "slightly above average QB" - the Giants were the only NFL team that had a QB playing at that level in every single game due to his durability. they sort of took advantage (won 2 SBs) and sort of didn't (he never won a playoff game outside of those two seasons).

it's not just baseball that has underrated availabilty, is what I mean....

Playing time is an important component of value -- that's why it's accounted for in every measure of value. Any argument that a WAR-type measure might undervalue playing time is an argument that replacement level is set too high.

Still, of course value is quantity times quality. In FA decisions, the question is to what extent does past durability predict future durability. Presumably there's some predictive power there but it's far from clear that it's a lot. Griffey and Mantle were very durable until they weren't. Molitor and Edgar were very un-durable until they were.

In an offseason when the biggest position player contract will take a OF who has missed over 1 full season out of the last 6 through age 39 and the biggest pitcher contracts are 5 years for 35-yo with 26 starts over the last 2 years and 2/$87 for a 40-yo who missed all of 2021 and last year's big contract was 10/$320 for a SS who missed about 1.5 out of the previous 6 seasons ... I'm not seeing a lot of concern for durability.