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How far are you looking ahead? To today’s nine-game slate, the postseason or even the offseason?
In this week’s mailbag, today staging a Windup takeover, I let my mind wander into the latter. I focused on answering questions regarding contracts, targets, extensions and what it will take to get that one player your team really wants.
Below are a few highlights. (Submissions were edited for clarity and brevity.)
And as a reminder: Levi is out for the next two weeks, playing sandlot baseball at the Field of Dreams, among other spots.
MLB Mailbag: Let’s answer your contract questions
Jazz Chisholm Jr. free agency: Is he back in the Bronx on a 1-year prove-it deal? — Nick B.
It sure doesn’t feel like it right now, but Chisholm is still on pace for a three-win season, which is not bad to consider while enduring the worst slump of your career. Trevor Story signed for six years and $140 million off that kind of season.
The question for Chisholm will be how teams balance the one-year sample versus the larger one. If he finishes this year around 3.0 WAR, he’ll have 11.5 WAR over the last three years — more than Cody Bellinger had when he signed his $162 million deal with the Yankees last winter and close to the number Corey Seager had when he signed his $325 million contract with the Rangers.
However, I’ve generally found that teams heavily weigh the season entering free agency. Bellinger was close to a five-win season; Seager was at 3.6 but had been hurt.
I would expect teams would be interested in multi-year deals for Chisholm, but probably in the four-year range (and maybe between $20 million and $25 million per year). That means that, yes, a team with the Yankees’ resources should absolutely extend him the qualifying offer. (This entire paragraph, I should acknowledge, does require Chisholm to break out of this slump sometime between now and the end of the Yankees’ season.)
If Chisholm wants to bet on himself to reel in a huge deal, well, there’s a blueprint. The last second baseman whose numbers resembled Chisholm’s did take a one-year, prove-it deal. Marcus Semien proved it in Toronto, setting a new record for home runs by a second baseman, and he signed for seven years and $175 million one winter later with Texas.
How will both existing contracts and ones signed between now and Dec. 1 be affected by the new CBA? I understand that no one knows what the new deal will include for salary constraints, but GMs must be thinking about how past and future contracts will be impacted. — Rosemary P.
Yep, nobody knows.
If a salary cap and floor are instituted, they could be phased in over a few years and could include amnesty provisions that allow teams to get out of one onerous contract that would otherwise count against the cap, etc.
One dynamic we haven’t seen in other sports is the institution of a floor that so many teams lag significantly below. You could see some teams well over the cap trading big contracts to teams well below the floor to make it work for both sides.
More Mailbag: Neto out West? Players going international?
How much would it take for the Halos to extend Zach Neto? — Jose R.
First, the Angels have to decide their timeline for competitiveness and whether Neto fits. If they’re trading away Reid Detmers this winter with two years of team control remaining, I’m going to assume they’ll also listen on Neto and his three years of control.
If L.A. (or an acquiring team) wants to extend Neto, the deal that stands out the most is in the division: Seattle’s 2022 extension of J.P. Crawford. Like Neto, Crawford was a SuperTwo shortstop with three years of remaining team control when he signed his extension.
Crawford was set to make $4.85 million in his second year (of four) in arbitration. He likely would have made about $21 million over the following two seasons had he stayed in arbitration. Instead, he signed a five-year, $51 million extension that bought out two years of free agency for $13 million per season. In today’s money, that would be closer to $15 million.
Neto is starting from a higher point than Crawford, since he’s making $4.15 million in his first year of arb. (Crawford had been at $2.05 million.) And Neto’s somewhat down season this year still looks solid in the counting stats that get you paid in arbitration. I’d project him to make about $32 million over the next three years in arb.
Buying out free-agent years at $15 million apiece only gets you to five years and $62 million, or six years and $77 million. That feels awfully low for Neto, who’d be in a much better position coming off his 2024 or 2025 seasons than this 2026.
Just reverse the order of his last three seasons, and he’s closer to guys who earned more than $20 million per free-agent season in their extensions. That would mean five years at more than $70 million or six years at close to $90 million.
Given that it’s a near certainty that a lockout will shut down MLB for much of the 2027 season, what are the chances that one or more players who are eligible for free agency decide to take their talents to Nippon Professional Baseball, the Korean Baseball Organization or the Chinese Professional Baseball League (not to mention signing with the Savannah Bananas)? — BW R.
Well, I doubt we’ll see any Savannah Bananas out of this year’s free-agent group. Jefry Yan is under team control, after all. I haven’t gotten the sense that players are so pessimistic about a 2027 season that we’ll see a real-name player sign internationally.
For more mailbag answers, including what Cam Schlittler, Justin Steele and Gabriel Moreno extensions could look like, click here.
Handshakes and High Fives
August history watch is here! Yordan Alvarez is chasing a record (for lack of a better word) unbroken for 104 years, meanwhile Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is still trying to hit a home run at home …
X-factors for every team vying for an MLB wild-card spot.
“Some people like to knit. Some people like to throw perfect games with Roy Oswalt.” One man’s mission to livestream the video game “MVP Baseball 2005” until he — and Oswalt — had a flawless outing.
How Ketel Marte’s absence left the Diamondbacks to weather the storm.
Brewers prospect Sawyer Strosnider’s dad caught his first pro homer with High-A Wisconsin yesterday … after predicting it was going to happen. “The people on the party deck were like, ‘You know, this is a private party.’ I was like, ‘Well, my son’s about to hit a home run that I’m going to catch.’”
Dr. Neal ElAttrache, one of professional sports’ top surgeons, remembers the “introspective” Tommy John.
In a needed move, the Phillies (70-58) bolstered their pitching depth by signing left-handed pitcher Nestor Cortes to a major-league deal.
What would’ve been Pete Alonso’s 30th home run of this season was instead called foul. Alonso was stunned, and the Orioles felt robbed.
Most-clicked in our last newsletter: Julio Rodríguez forgetting how many outs there were and throwing a ball into the stands.
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