The Cycle, Issue 111: Western Division Hot Stove Previews
The top offseason needs of the teams in the AL & NL West, a quick run through the BBWAA awards finalists, reactions to the first two free-agent signings of the offseason, Pedro Feliciano, and more
In this issue of The Cycle . . .
Hot Stove Previews: AL West and NL West
BBWAA Awards Finalists
Pedro Feliciano (1976–2021)
Transaction Reactions: FA lefties Andrew Heaney and T.J. McFarland sign one-year deals
Injured List: Alex Bregman has wrist surgery
Feedback
Closing Credits
My apologies for the delay in this issue. I got my COVID-19 booster on Monday and, though I had no issues for the first 24 hours, I got a little woozy Tuesday night when in the middle of work on this issue. That only lasted a few hours, and I got most of the below written after, but I couldn’t quite push through the way I usually do and had a few other obligations earlier today. All good now, and very pleased to have had that third shot. Thank you for your patience.
Hot Stove Previews
Our tour of the majors to assess each team’s top offseason needs continues today with the Western divisions (see Issue 110 for the Eastern divisions), starting with the AL Champion Astros and an American League West that could be right in the thick of things this winter, with the Mariners and Rangers expected to be big spenders and the A’s looking to scale back.
Again, Deserved Winning Percentage, which was provided by Robert Au of Baseball Prospectus, is the “deserved” stats equivalent of the old third-order wins. It starts by determining how many runs each team deserved to score and allow over the course of the season, after correcting for a myriad of external factors, then calculates that team’s deserved winning percentage by applying the Pythagorean formula to those run totals (I have taken the additional step of translating those winning percentages into a 162-game record to make the comparison to the team’s actual 2021 results more intuitive).
Also, for the second year in a row, National League teams are heading into the offseason, and likely to spend a significant portion of that offseason, not knowing if they will have a designated hitter in their lineup in the coming year or not. My general impression is that NL teams are assuming that the universal DH will be in place in 2022, so I have included mention of potential designated hitters in the write-ups for the NL teams, where appropriate, but I have not gone as far as to suggest an NL team add a player with the explicit intention of filling the DH role.
American League West
Houston Astros
2021 record and result: 95-67 (.586), 1st in AL West, lost World Series to Braves
Deserved Winning Pct.: (94-68) .582
Runs per Game (AL Rank): 5.33 (1st)
Runs Allowed/G (AL Rank): 4.06 (3rd)
Free Agents: SS Carlos Correa, UT Marwin González, RHPs Justin Verlander, Zack Greinke, Kendall Graveman, and Yimi García, LHP Brooks Raley
2022 Goal: Win the World Series, for themselves and for Dusty Baker
Biggest Need: Shortstop
When the consensus best free agent on the market comes from your team, it leaves a giant hole in your roster. That’s something the Astros know well from losing George Springer to free agency a year ago. They compensated for the loss of Springer with the return from a year lost to injury by Yordan Alvarez, but the only way they are going to compensate for losing one of the best shortstops in baseball in Carlos Correa is to re-sign him or to replace him with a comparable player.
The bad news is that the signals the Astros have sent thus far continue to suggest that Correa has played his last game for Houston. First, there was the surprising send off for Correa in the final home game of the regular season. Then, over the weekend, came the report of a $160 million, five-year offer. That sure sounds like a lot of money, but it’s far short of what an elite all-around shortstop heading into his age-27 season is expecting to land as a free agent in 2022.
MLB Trade Rumors, which is pretty accurate with these things (and, full disclosure, is now an employer of mine), projects Correa to land a contract with exactly double that offer’s terms ($320M/10yrs). Correa would be just 36 in the final year of such a deal, and the average annual value of that projected deal matches that of the Astros’ offer and would barely crack the top 10 all time. If the Astros aren’t willing to swim in those waters, they’ll have to look elsewhere.