PORT ST. LUCIE – Freddie Freeman’s seven-year, $135 million contract was by far the largest ever given by the Braves, and when an organization invests that kind of money it wants to make sure it examines the commitment from every angle.
So the Braves naturally tried to figure out – for example – how Freeman might age and where the ever-climbing market for middle-of-the-order hitters might be going. Atlanta definitely did not want to lose the face of the franchise to free agency after the 2016 season, particularly not when it wants good will while opening a new stadium in Cobb County in 2017.
But just to show how granular these issues can become, there was another matter about free agency that Braves officials recognized: Yep, Mark Teixeira’s eight-year contract ends after the 2016 campaign. That means the Yankees – among others, obviously – would be in the market for a first baseman. And Atlanta knows well what the Yankees might be willing to do to sign a lefty power hitter, since Brian McCann – the previous face of the Braves – agreed to a five-year, $85 million pact this winter.
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The Mets targeted Jhonny Peralta as their No. 1 option to play shortstop, but offered just two years in a face-to-face meeting in which they came to believe he already had his four-year offer from the Cardinals.
St. Louis tends to solve its shortcomings internally. But there was no obvious shortstop upgrade. And GM John Mozeliak said the organization saw two issues, in particular, that were vexing: The Cardinals were relatively certain they would lose Carlos Beltran’s bat to free agency (which they did, to the Yankees). And with Matt Adams at first, rookie Kolten Wong potentially at second and Matt Carpenter shifting from second to third, St. Louis had three lefty bats projected for its infield. That made the Cardinals want to find a righty bat.
“We wanted to address the offense and that was the place to do it,” Mozeliak said.
The Cardinals – one of the most stable organizations – will have changes at every position from its NL title team except Yadier Molina at catcher and Matt Holliday in left.
Allen Craig is shifting from first to right to replace Beltran, with Matt Adams taking over at first. Either Wong and/or Mark Ellis will succeed Carpenter, who returns to his natural position at third in place of David Freese. Freese was traded to the Angels for Peter Bourjos, who will at least share center field with incumbent Jon Jay.
And Peralta will play third. There have been questions about whether Peralta has the range to hold up at short, though advanced defensive metrics are generally kind to him. The Cardinals did front-load his $53 million deal, paying him $30.5 million in 2014-15. Thus, if they have to put him on the trade market him after the 2015 campaign as a third baseman – a position the Yankees were willing to give him a three-year contract to play – they will do so with Peralta owed just two years at $22.5 million.
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Yankees fans, do you remember Arodys Vizcaino? He was the key player the Braves wanted along with Melky Cabrera and Michael Dunn to deal Javier Vazquez to the Yankees in December 2009.
Vizcaino made it to the Braves bullpen at age 20 in 2011, but needed Tommy John surgery the following spring and follow-up elbow surgery last May. In between, he was traded from the Braves to the Cubs for Paul Maholm and Reed Johnson.
Well, Vizcaino is healthy again and hitting 98 mph this spring with a power breaking ball as a candidate for the Cubs bullpen. In fact, despite all the big-picture concerns the organization has about pitching, Chicago does think it has a chance to form a power bullpen with Vizcaino among those dialing it up to 95-plus in camp with Alberto Cabrera, Justin Grimm, Neil Ramirez, Hector Rondon and Pedro Strop.
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In Sunday’s Post, I wrote a column on how MLB has a moment in time to try to recapture the baseball attention of youth in the inner city, with so many parents fretting about letting their kids play football (due to concerns about brain trauma) and high-profile athletes such as Jameis Winston, Russell Wilson and Tracy McGrady showing their affinity for the sport.
A few items that did not make it into the piece that I found interesting:
— McGrady told me MLB must be willing to market its individual stars in a fashion akin to basketball because “every kid knows who LeBron, Kevin Durant and Kobe are.” McGrady noted the 2012 AL Cy Young winner, David Price, and 2013 NL MVP, Andrew McCuthchen, are African-American, but said, “If we did a poll in the inner city, I wonder how many kids know them? I wonder how many kids even know what the Cy Young Award is.”
— One executive brought up a point I had never considered, saying, “In general, youth baseball is horribly organized. The ‘Little League’ corporation forces most kids to stop playing baseball in late May/early June so that ‘All-Stars’ can enter an elimination tournament that ensures that a tiny number of kids are playing in July and August. Kids don’t play in baseball leagues in the actual summer due to this awful concept.”
Especially because the summer leagues that have cropped up generally cost money, and that excludes many poorer, inner-city kids.
–MLB is working harder at trying to bring the sport back to the inner city. One way is seeing if it could give out scholarships to get more inner-city kids to play college baseball. There would be many benefits to this, notably getting better athletes in the game.
But one executive mentioned another thing I had never thought of: If college programs were better and delivered more finished players to the pros, it might allow MLB clubs to cut back on some of its 240 minor league affiliates. Thus, spend money on the front end to save it on the back by using colleges more similarly to how the NFL and NBA do.