Have These 9 MLB Teams Strengthened Their Biggest Weaknesses This Winter?

As the legendary Bill Veeck once said, there are only two seasons: winter and baseball.

When there is no baseball being played, we still get to talk about it because of free-agent signings, trades and rumors during the winter. Thankfully, this is what gets us through the lonely months until pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training. Then, all will be right with the world once again.

While we sit around and wait for baseball to make its triumphant return, the Hot Stove gives us topics to talk about, but it seems a little colder than normal at this time of year. Sure, there are already three players with new contracts in excess of $150 million (Jason Heyward, Zack Greinke and David Price) along with a few major trades happening (Craig Kimbrel, Andrelton Simmons, Shelby Miller and Todd Frazier), but there’s still a lot of work to be done.

Top free agents looking for lucrative pay days like Chris Davis, Yoenis Cespedes, Justin Upton and Alex Gordon (among others) are still without a home. So, there will be plenty of negotiations to be had and rumors to start to keep us occupied until the middle of February.

For now, though, it’s fun to evaluate what teams have done to improve their respective clubs before anyone gets a chance to physically prove whether those moves were worth the risk. Every team sits down in a room either toward the end or immediately following the season to form an offseason strategy to identify what the club’s biggest needs are and which available – or potentially available – players can help turn that weakness into a strength.

Depending on the organization, you’ve either already seen most of their plan, or are still trying to figure out what they intend on accomplishing.

For example, Dave Dombrowski obviously felt the Boston Red Sox needed to upgrade the bullpen (trading for Kimbrel and Carson Smith), as well as dropping an ace at the front of the rotation (signing Price). On the other hand, not much has gone the way Andrew Friedman and the Los Angeles Dodgers have hoped so far, and we need a little more time to figure out what exactly they want to do:

From an NL East official:"Friedman has a plan. Give him time to unveil it." https://t.co/GIVsUpVb2y

— Peter Gammons (@pgammo) December 17, 2015

Instead of hypothesizing how potential moves could improve certain teams and weaken others, we’re going to focus on the major deals that have been finalized to this point. Outside of on-field performance, there are many factors that go into a team pursuing certain players, like character, health and age. Whether we like it or not, though, baseball is continuing to move toward being driven by statistics and analytics.

With that in mind, we’re comparing the 2015 stat lines of players with new homes with the 2015 stat lines of the positions they will attempt to strengthen and see if it appears to be a substantial upgrade on paper.

Again, these numbers aren’t the “bottom line” when it comes to teams ultimately making decisions to acquire certain players, but it’s interesting to see what kind of a difference they could make to their new organization based on recent performance.

Not all players who moved to the below nine teams are included. All statistics are courtesy of FanGraphs.

Arizona Diamondbacks

We’ve already talked about how the Diamondbacks have overhauled their starting rotation at a very steep price, but the front office felt this was necessary to get over the hump while having one of baseball’s best offenses. Arizona committed $200 million to Greinke and gave up a bunch of promising players to acquire Miller via trade, but it’s tough to argue their projected impact for 2016.

Between Greinke and Miller, they produced a higher WAR than the entire Dbacks starting staff did. That speaks to how much of an upgrade these deals appear to be.

Boston Red Sox

Signing Price and acquiring Kimbrel were two moves the former regime with Ben Cherington at the helm would’ve never done. Boston tried the whole “we don’t need a real ace” thing and it didn’t work out well, so Dombrowski went out and got this team an ace. Did he overpay? It’s hard for anyone to justify a $217 million investment for a pitcher, but it appears it’ll pay dividends in the immediate term.

A big knock on Dombrowski during his days with the Detroit Tigers was he couldn’t build a bullpen. Inheriting a group that produced a negative WAR in 2015, he did what any executive would want to do — he went out and acquired two hard-throwing relievers to call upon in the eighth and ninth inning every night.

Chicago Cubs

This, my friends, is what it looks like when the Cubs go all in. For the first time in a while, Theo Epstein and co. were in position to execute a bunch of “win-now” moves, and they grabbed all the targets they wanted. On the surface, it appears that trading Starlin Castro in favor of Zobrist is an upgrade, but Castro did hit pretty well after moving from shortstop to second base. Plus, he’s much younger than Zobrist and the best could be ahead for him.

Heyward was the top outfielder in the open market this winter despite his general lack of home-run power. He earned that $184 million contract because he also brings so much to the table on the defensive side, but he did most of his work in right field for the St. Louis Cardinals last year.

Bringing in Lackey as a no. 3 behind Lester and Jake Arrieta appears to strengthen what was already a strength for Chicago, but it’ll depend on whether the 37-year-old continues performing at a high level.

Chicago White Sox

When asked about the White Sox offense in 2015, it was pretty much just Jose Abreu and a bunch of other guys. Acquiring Lawrie from the Athletics was certainly an upgrade at either third base or second base, but the move looked 10 times better once Chicago also brought Frazier into the mix.

As you can see from the table above, second base and third base both produced negative WARs for Chicago last season. As long as Lawrie and Frazier perform to the career norms they’ve set for themselves, Abreu not only gets some protection in the lineup, but also more chances to drive runs in.

Detroit Tigers

Before Price and Greinke agreed to deals that broke records, Zimmermann was the first major hurler to come off the board. It was interesting for Detroit to strike so quickly and get a relative bargain ($110 million is a bargain?) for his projected production. Let’s not forget that the starting pitching numbers for the Tigers also includes a half-season with Price in the rotation. Imagine what it’d look like without him.

What’s even more encouraging for Detroit is Zimmermann actually took a slight step back in performance last year compared to prior seasons. Even with that, he appears to be a pretty substantial upgrade for this staff.

Los Angeles Angels

The Angels swapped shortstops with the Atlanta Braves, and the triple slashes between Simmons and Erick Aybar don’t look much different, but we all know the biggest advantage Simmons has over virtually every shortstop in baseball is his glove. He’s young, has the potential to keep growing into his offense (especially with some weapons around him in the lineup) and he’ll quickly become best friends with the pitching staff. 

Acquiring Escobar from the Nationals was a move that provides flexibility. Earlier this winter, LA was in talks to bring free-agent third baseman David Freese back, but nothing has happened yet on that front. Escobar is already an upgrade for the Angels at the hot corner, but if Freese returns and he shifts over to second base, the upgrade becomes even greater.

San Francisco Giants

The Giants took two calculated gambles in free agency this winter, and we’ll soon find out if they’ll pay off. Samardzija and Cueto went through rough patches in 2015 — one was longer than the other — but there are reasons to believe both will bounce back in 2016. One is they’ll be pitching in the National League again, and the other is getting a positive park shift to AT&T Park, one of the most pitcher-friendly parks in the MLB. 

Still, it’s interesting to see these stat lines because you’d never guess that San Francisco committed $220 million to these two guys over the next few seasons.

Seattle Mariners

Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto was been the busiest man in baseball since taking over in Seattle a couple months ago. On the surface, bringing Miley in doesn’t seem like a great move, but he gets a positive park shift to Safeco, has thrown 190-plus innings in each of the last four seasons and mostly pitched well in 2015 outside of a couple very rough months.

Prying Karns away from the Tampa Bay Rays gives Seattle a young, team-controlled arm that will surely perform better in his new home and with some more offensive support.

Lind provides a huge upgrade over Logan Morrison and whoever else played first base for the Mariners last year, but it doesn’t come without questions. Sure, he’s got pop, which is what Dipoto was looking for, but Lind has only played in hitter-friendly environments during his career (Rogers Centre in Toronto and Miller Park in Milwaukee).

Just as the park shift favors Miley and Karns, it stands to be a disadvantage to Lind. However, he’s only signed through 2016, so if it doesn’t work out, Seattle can cut bait and go in a different direction next winter.

St. Louis Cardinals

They wanted Heyward and Price, but instead settled for Leake. As you can tell from the numbers for those guys above, the 28-year-old right-hander doesn’t really compare to them, but came at a much more manageable five-year, $80 million commitment. That still seems steep for the kind of pitcher Leake is, but that’s how baseball works today.

He’s not just replacing Lackey, though. Lance Lynn will also be absent from the rotation this year after undergoing Tommy John surgery. The Cardinals had one of the best performing staffs from the past few years, but there are plenty of questions marks heading into 2016. Leake brings a consistent presence in the middle of the rotation, but St. Louis must find production from other places to make up the difference.

Despite the general lack of action compared to past offseasons, this winter has still been rather entertaining. The above nine teams all made moves they felt would strengthen the roster and help them perform better than last season. As some of the numbers show, some players stand to potentially be a huge upgrade in their new homes, and some don’t.

However, recent statistics don’t take a lot of things into consideration, such as team chemistry and being in a new environment, so it will be interesting to see which of these acquisitions succeed, and which fall short of expectations in 2016.

Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter so we can get through a winter without baseball together: @mmusico8.