Who’s here for a little Friday afternoon market shake-up?
Yesterday, Jon Heyman and Mark Feinsand hinted that the Rockies and Carlos Gonzalez were close to a one-year reunion deal, and today, news of that agreement finally trickled out:
Carlos Gonzalez gets $8 million from#Rockies
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) March 9, 2018
Gonzalez is 32-years-old and was worth a -0.2 WAR last season, but was arguably still expected to get a bit more than $8M over one season. According to MLB Trade Rumors pre-season rankings, Gonzalez was projected to land a one-year deal, but it was supposed to be worth as much as $12 million, which is a 50% increase over what he’s now being paid in 2018).
Moreover, Feinsand later reported that the Rockies and CarGo had previously discussed an extension as recently as last spring that would’ve paid the outfielder $45 million over three years. Obviously, he decided to play out his current contract instead and it cost him.
Even still, Gonzalez hits well at Coors Field. Maybe he’ll have another solid late-career season and turn it into a multi-year deal next winter.
Since joining the #Rockies in 2009…
Carlos Gonzalez at home:
.329/.391/.607
Carlos Gonzalez on the road:
.253/.310/.434— Jeremy Frank (@MLBRandomStats) March 9, 2018
That’s not all that happened today, though.
About an hour ago, Jane Lee (MLB.com) dropped this little tease on Twitter:
To clarify, A’s have been in talks about either trading for Matt Wieters or signing Jonathan Lucroy. Sources indicate they will get one of them.
— Jane Lee (@JaneMLB) March 9, 2018
And immediately followed it up with confirmation that the A’s did, in fact, land Lucroy on a one-year deal (Jon Heyman has since confirmed).
The specifics of Lucroy’s deal are not yet out (I’ll update this post as soon as I see them), but MLB Trade Rumors projected a two-year deal worth $24 million at the outset of the winter. Of course, that was before they knew how this offseason would go and that Lucroy would be signing in March.
Last season, Lucroy slashed .265/.345/.371 (82 wRC+), which made his 4.6 WAR 2016 campaign seem more like the outlier than his 1.1 WAR 2015 campaign.
Neither move really moves the market too much, as far as I can tell – especially not for guys like Jake Arrieta or Alex Cobb, but we’ll continue to monitor, because signings have a way of following each other.