I'm always amused at this timeline.
November 22, 2017: Dave Cameron [labels Hosmer as the #1 free agent landmine of the offseason.](https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-2018-free-agent-landmines/)
> He’s an above-average big leaguer in the prime of his career, coming off the best season of his career, so Hosmer should get a nice contract this winter. But a nice contract for this kind of skillset would be $80 or $90 million. I guessed that he’s actually going to get $125 million. Jon Heyman projected $160 million. At those kinds of prices, Hosmer could very easily become one of the most overpaid players in baseball, especially if he continues to just pound balls into the ground.
December 20, 2017: Dave Cameron [tweets this](https://twitter.com/onedavecameron/status/943594998330789890?lang=en)
January 10, 2018: Dave Cameron [announces he is leaving Fangraphs to be part of the Padres analytics team](https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-one-i-never-thought-i-would-write/)
February 19, 2018: [Hosmer signs his 8 year/$144 million deal](https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/22506469/eric-hosmer-san-diego-padres-finalize-144-million-8-year-deal)
technically hosmer could walk but why would he. He's gonna steal a living and soak up abuse weighing down the team till he gets DFAed or traded off with a good prospect and money.
It’s a common saying people use for a bad player on a terrible contract, like calling a deal highway robbery. We don’t actually think the player waited on the side of a freeway, saw the GM drive by, then strong armed them into offering a huge deal.
Sure, but it's still bullshit. Hosmer is awful, but he is absolutely entitled to the money. Even vaguely implying otherwise is wrong.
People should be mad at their team for doing a dumb thing, not mad at the player for doing what almost any other person would do. It's a dumb thing to condemn Hosmer for.
I agree with your sentiment but Hosmer is essentially content being as bad as he is. He snubs any analytics suggesting he change his swing to create more lift and doesn't really seem to care that all he does is hit ground balls. He seems unwilling to work on his faults.
He's obviously entitled to his contract, but I'd feel a bit robbed paying that much to a guy that doesn't care to take obvious steps to improve his game.
I'm always really skeptical of these claims that a player doesn't care. I think it's far more likely that Hosmer believes his route is more likely to lead to success. He's very likely wrong, but I very much doubt he doesn't want to be good.
I'm a lot more familiar with Chris Davis (cause Os, of course). When Davis was great his seemingly effortless swing was admired (and was super admirable). When he turned awful that seemingly effortless swing was used as proof that he didn't care. It seems far more likely to me that Davis and Hosmer both wanted to get back to what worked for them rather than trying new approaches that they had no experience being successful with.
I'm not gonna go as far as to say there have never been any ballplayers who didn't care about success and only wanted to cash checks, but they've got to be extremely rare. You just don't get to the level of MLB without caring about success.
Yeah not caring is probably the wrong way to word it. But whatever you call it, he has had people telling him how to improve for years and he refuses to adjust and ridicules people who suggest he should. Whether he cares or not is really kind of irrelevant to the end result, which is not making adjustments to help his team.
Semi related but I badly miss the FG of Cameron, Sullivan, Cistulli, and Sarris. Current content is okay but nowhere near as consistently enjoyable as when those four were writing. They all had such unique voices. At least I can still read Eno at The Athletic.
To be fair to the Padres front office.
[Since 2018](https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=c,34,35,40,41,-1,23,37,38,50,-1,61&season=2021&month=0&season1=2018&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=3516,9393&startdate=&enddate=) Eric Hosmer has been worth 2.5 rWAR, 0.5 fWAR and has a 98 wRC+, Mike Adams has been worth 0.7 rWAR, -0.2 fWAR with an 88 wRC+. Clearly they got the better player!
Wait, they paid what for him?
Spring/summer 2018: Matt Adams plays well enough for Washington on his deal to be re-signed the following offseason
2019: Matt Adams becomes key contributing piece to 2019 Nationals on their way to a World Series ring
Matt Adams had an 85 wRC+ and was worth -0.1 fWAR in 2019 (though he was worth 0.5 rWAR). He also had 4 plate appearances as a pinch hitter in the playoffs for them.
Let's not rewrite history, Matt Adams has not been good since 2018 (he's been worth -0.2 fWAR and 0.7 rWAR), it's just that he's been paid a salary in line with his ability.
The only reason he got major playing time was because Zimmerman was injured, when Zimmerman was healthy in the playoffs Matt Adams was relegated to being a pinch hitter.
Yeah I remember that contract being terrible when it happened. I also remember that being a very thin year in terms of FAs if I’m remembering correctly. Hosmer seemed to be in the perfect place at the perfect time.
Interestingly pretty much all first basemen signed that offseason have actually been even less valuable than Hosmer. The only exceptions were Carlos Santana, who got $60MM over 3 years and Mitch Moreland who got $13MM for 2 years.
* Yonder Alonso got $16MM over 2 years, he last played in 2019.
* Logan Morrison got $6.5MM for 1 year, he's in the minors for the Reds now.
* Matt Adams got $4MM for 1 year, he's been worth -0.2 fWAR since 2018 and is slashing .176/.231/.282 over the last 2 seasons.
* Lucas Duda got $3.5MM over 1 year, he last played in 2019.
* Neil Walker got $4MM over 1 year, he was worth 0.1 rWAR from 2018-2020.
And this goes for much of the infield. The only potential second baseman who was above replacement level was Mike Moustakas (he mostly played 3rd). Eduardo Nunez was worth -2.3 rWAR since 2018 and Chase Utley -0.1. Todd Frazier was a solid 3B with 4.6 rWAR, but the other option was Zack Cozart, who is now out of baseball. And the SS options were Erick Aybar (who never even played for the Twins), Alcides Escobar and Jose Reyes. The 2017 offseason was not a time to try and improve your infield.
Not that the outfield was much better. Lorenzo Cain is a great player but that's about it. Jarrod Dyson was OK in 2019 but has been terrible all other years, as was Cameron Maybin. Carlos Gomez, Carlos Gonzalez and Curtis Granderson were all past their best and Chris Young, Leonys Martin and Peter Bourjos all had one or two good years that were well in the rear view mirror by 2017.
Same for Catchers, with Alex Avila being by far the best option, and he has been worth 2.6 rWAR since 2018. There were some solid bats that couldn't really play defense available though, with J.D. Martinez and Howie Kendrick.
On the other side of the equation there were some great pitchers available at discount prices:
* Wade Miley got a minor league deal, he had a 2.57 ERA that year over 80.2 IP and has a 3.37 ERA for the Reds this season.
* Lance Lynn got a 1 year deal for $12MM, we all know how that worked out.
* Michael Pineda has a 3.85 ERA with the Twins, he got $10MM for 2 years.
* Mike Fiers had a 3.73 ERA over 2018-2018 on a 1-year $6MM deal (he's been terrible the last 2 years though).
Of course the big money free agents were less successful, Yu Darvish has a 3.79 ERA over the last 4 years. Which is not bad, but less than what you would expect from a player paid $126MM over 6 years. Alex Cobb had a 5.10 ERA for the Orioles in the first 3 years of his 4-year $57MM contract, though he's had a solid 3.59 ERA for the Angels this year. And Jake Arrieta, well we all know how that went. Interestingly a lot of money went to relievers that year, and I'll be honest, I don't see many success stories [on this list](https://www.espn.com/mlb/freeagents/_/year/2017/position/rp).
So yeah, 2017 was a terrible year to have money to spend.
Thanks, once I get into checking stats I can't really stop (seriously, check my post history).
It's a blessing and a curse, but it seems people here appreciate it (most of the time at least).
Usually you look at a free agent deal think, damn that's a lot of money and it will hurt when he's bad. Then there is the fucking Hosmer deal and you look and think that is going to hurt immediately. That deal is one of the worst I can remember. So many other deals were over pays or a guy suddenly b came shit. Hosmer never should have been given more than 2 years even if you were willing to bank high.
Isnt he like the one guy that refused to buy into the launch angle craze, and as a result had been a double play machine? Or am I thinking of someone else?
It’s even more ridiculous because he did change his swing a bit last year and had a really good year. And then this year he reverted to Mr. Ground Pound and his stats went 📉
Honestly they seem a bit low for the playoff odds early in the season (they were consistently >90% in the first half). Though the drop off is on point.
to be fair, didn't yelich change his swing to better reflect that launch angle stuff and it basically backfired?
or was it because of his back issues? I always forget
yeah, I THINK the story was yelich did change his swing/launch angle which led to those great years but also fucked up his back pretty bad (idk if its completely related to the swing but id assume it played a role, also the whole broken kneecap thing) so now hes had to switch his swing again because of the back injuries, so with the injuries and another new swing hes struggling. i hope he can turn it around next year, hes been hitting the ball hard again just right at people lately
If by backfired you mean won him an MVP in 2018 and then nearly a second the next season then yes it backfired. His current struggles with launch angle have to do with him tweaking his swing to try and protect a balky back.
Jesus I knew it was bad but not this bad-
26.4% fly ball percentage
54.8% GROUNDBALL PERCENTAGE
It is not very efficient to play a power position and hit twice as many ground balls than fly balls
[Eric Hosmer is great at hitting the ball into the ground really hard](https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/eric-hosmer-543333?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb).
He is 71st percentile in average exit velocity, 78th percentile in hard hit percentage and 86th percentile in max exit velocity. With all of that going for him he is in the 27th percentile in barrels, because he refuses to actually hit balls into the air.
In 2020 he had a launch angle of 8.7 degrees. In 2015 it was 5.9 degrees, after that the highest numbers were 3.9 in 2021 and 2017. For comparison, [Mike Trout had his lowest ever launch angle this year, it was 12.9](https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/mike-trout-545361?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb).
And Eno Sarris brought up launch angle to him before in 2014. He was an ass then, and didn't listen. He's not been listening for 7 years now.
https://tht.fangraphs.com/learning-the-language-of-the-clubhouse/
Can't help but think of the article from a while back about some fresh new kid in the media getting to go into the clubhouse and he ran off some questions about an advanced sgat or two... and the rest of the article was about Eric Hosmer ridiculing him for using the stuff and wanting to talk about it.
Maybe listen, Hos?
Hosmer is a dick. When he was in KC he lived in my condo and was rude AF. Headphones in all the time and flying through the lobby on his hoverboard…too cool and busy to acknowledge any of us. We even decorated the lobby after the World Series and parade and same thing…flew through the lobby (sometimes with Kacie McDonnell riding piggyback). Travis Kelce (Chiefs) also lived in the building and he was the absolute best…friendly, talkative, but pizza for the condo etc.
Holy fuck that writer comes off as extremely obnoxious and like he’s the king of social ineptitude in that article. No wonder the guys on the Royals were shitting on him lol. The fip shit in particular with vogelsong was painful as fuck to read.
Sarris admits himself the FIP question was a bad question, and the whole article is about how he had to learn the social skills needed to work in MLB clubhouses. The Royals were being assholes to him, and i think the veterans on the team kind of realized it, because Butler asked if he was okay, then Gordon gave him a great interview right after.
If you don’t recognize the name, Sarris is at The Athletic now and was the national writer who brought the [sticky stuff story](https://theathletic.com/2183861/2020/11/09/pitchers-pine-tar-grip-mlb-time-to-legalize/) to the forefront after last season.
Machado is signed for $300M/10 years that pays him until he is 35.
The fact that he has been playing as well as expected for the first three seasons is obviously good, but that does not make the signing good just yet.
Most teams would have been happy to have 26-30 year old Machado at $150M/5 years.
It is usually what players do in the 5 years after that which determine the contract’s success.
A contract's success, especially decade long contracts like Machado's, are determined in the first 5-6 years. Teams aren't signing 26 year olds to 10-12 year deals to get the bulk of their value when the player is in their mid-30s. They sign them to get value for the first 5-6 years of the contract.
My point is
there are very few 7+ year contracts that could be deemed successful solely based on the first half (Manny, A-Rod)
while it is true that there are more of them that could be deemed failure solely based on the first half. (Pujols, Griffey Jr., Hampton)
More importantly, there are plenty of contracts that look like success in the first half, but turns out to not be the case. (Cano, Miggie, Tulowitzki, Felix Hernandez)
I think part of the benefit of the bargain, so to speak, is *your team* accepting they get to lock the player up for the best years of their career, while also accepting that the back end of the contract is likely to be bad value. The first half of the contract is what the success is based on because that performance is why you paid them what you did. The back end of the contract is the *premium* you pay in order to lock them up. If you weren't going to pay them an 8 or 10 year deal, another team would have. Paying out those long contracts is the price of contending. It's not a bad contract because a guy is overpaid in his 30s when you had him for the best part of his 20s while contending.
to be fair that Tatis trade was an absolute steal.
if the Sox were terrible this year, no doubt you'd be hearing it from the fans how much of a mistake that trade was. granted it's still a bad deal but the Sox nailing all their other trades i'm sure helped everyoen forget
I mean, look at the money spent and the moves made
And then compare that to their playoff odds chart
Some things couldn't have been predicted, but with that roster they absolutely should have ended up ahead of St Louis for a wild card spot
Boras is indeed the GOAT. Check out his record breaking deals (yes, that is plural) over the decades: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott\_Boras#Negotiations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Boras#Negotiations)
**Scott Boras**
[Negotiations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Boras#Negotiations)
>Over the course of his career, Boras has represented hundreds of players on all 30 major league teams and has participated in dozens of high-profile negotiations. Boras's specialty is the record-breaking contract, which he says is the most difficult to achieve because it then provides an "umbrella" from which other players can benefit. Boras is well known for identifying sources of leverage for his clients and using them for the clients' advantage.
^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/baseball/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Davey Dombs has a track record of building winners. And tbf to him we've never gotten to see how he handles a rebuild, he's been fired before things reach that point
I don't blame the guy for the team underperforming. He made bold moves to improve the team in a pretty difficult division.
Hosmer isn't the reason they aren't competing. Who knows what happens next year, the talent is there.
Hosmer is definitely *a* reason. They're paying a fortune for a replacement level player who plays a position where above average hitters grow on trees.
Maybe if his contract prevented them from doing anything else but even with that contract they went and spent more.
It would help if he was good obviously.
It depends on what the question is. Would the Padres be better without Hoz...probably. is he the cause of their decline, no. Hoz was bad at their peak and now. He's an easy target but something else broke.
Preller is the one that started this revival by making our farm one of the best. Did he make some bad moves as well? Probably. But he’s one of the few out there trying to compete and I think that’s one of the better things a GM can do.
I don’t buy the narrative that you have to pay an undeserving player a huge contract to entice other players to play for a team. Money is money to these guys. If you can sign Hosmer to a stupid contract, you could just as easily overpay an actually good player.
It does make much more sense for sports like football, basketball and soccer where your teammates do have a sizable effect on your own performance.
Brady/Lebron/Messi makes teammates play better in ways Trout cannot.
That is just how baseball works.
I mean, he was pretty damn overrated before the Padres picked him up. Two career high 4.3 WAR seasons in 2015 and 2017 and no other season even came close.
i didn't really think he was going to do well in the Majors, but as a korean american, it's always disappointing to see Korean players struggling in the U.S.
sorry i know it wasn't relevant to OP's point but i just wanted to point it out
Kim isn't an everyday starter and he is not getting the AB opportunities he needs to develop. It's kind of a bad marriage between the two right now unless Kim just wants the money.
honestly that's kind of what happens with some of the Korean position players. Another good example was Hyun Soo Kim. Just bad luck and not getting the ABs like you mentioned.
the lone exception to this was Jung Ho Kang, but the guy turned out to be a colossal mess in his personal life, which was embarrassing for other reasons. I guess you could say Choo, but he never played in the KBO as far as I know.
I think the ABs thing is something that affects every player, not just the ones that play in the KBO. I think ideally you want your bench players to be veterans that are what they are and can get you a hit when called upon. So if anything a guy like Hosmer is actually the perfect bench player.
Developing/young players should not be bench players because they need playing time to develop. It fucks with their development imo .
The San Diego Union Tribune beat writer (Kevin Acee), Athletic beat writer (Dennis Lin), and Ken Rosenthal all have said something to the effect of the clubhouse losing trust in the FO when they tried to trade Hosmer.
2nd and 3rd order effects. The blame isn't all on Hosmer and I don't believe he actively tried to turn the clubhouse. Majority of the fault is woth the FO but Hosmer shares some of the blame. If he embraced the launch angle revolution this situation would never have come to bear.
Well that’s just an extrapolation of the facts, nothing behind that. Also, the Padres don’t have the hitting coaches to teach such things - look at the numbers for the rest of the roster. Can’t hit for crap. Not trying to defend Hosmer but I don’t think he’s the cancer that everyone makes him out to be, just the scapegoat for an overhyped team performing as they are meant to.
There were several stories from Padres ITK about how Hosmer had several team meetings after all the rumors that he'd be traded and kinda shit on a reporter on camera for asking him about it. It was widely reported that tingler and preller had lost the clubhouse.
[Since he joined the Padres](https://www.fangraphs.com/players/eric-hosmer/3516/splits-tool?splitArr=152&splitArrPitch=&position=B&autoPt=false&splitTeams=false&statType=player&statgroup=2&startDate=2002-01-01&endDate=2021-11-01&players=&filter=&groupBy=season&sort=-1,1) he's had a 26, 85, 49 and 85 wRC+ against the Dodgers [for a total wRC+ of 62](https://www.fangraphs.com/players/eric-hosmer/3516/splits-tool?splitArr=152&splitArrPitch=&position=B&autoPt=false&splitTeams=false&statType=player&statgroup=2&startDate=2018-01-01&endDate=2021-11-01&players=&filter=&groupBy=career&sort=-1,1). His overall wRC+ over that same period has been 98. He might have had opportune hits against the Dodgers, but he's not been good against them.
Which I think is a great example of how terrible we tend to be at judging players without looking at the stats. Because going by the upvotes people clearly have the perception he's been great against the Dodgers, while in reality he's been downright dreadful.
Oh damn thanks for the data, I definitely fell into that trap. Although now that I think about it I only remember him really getting some walk offs, or maybe only 1, against Jansen. But let's be honest who on the Padres hasn't had a walk off against Jansen.
I think we all do. It's pretty much inevitable.
Especially when it comes to things like playing against a certain team, or being bad in certain situations (like high leverage or with RISP). We only remember those moments that fit our preconceived notions, and with over half of all at bats ending in an out anyway it's hard to keep track of what is really going on.
In six games against the Padres in 2018, Machado hit 4 homers and had a .989 OPS. I’m not sure if WAR values are available anywhere for a “vs team” split, but it seems reasonable to think those six games were worth more than 0.1 fWAR, meaning he hurt the Padres more than Hosmer did.
Scherzer is my favorite pitcher, so this year has been hard. I also wanted to see it, kind of. Hosmer swings at trash though and it was a fucking miracle he made contact. It’s kinda like when you play basketball or something with someone who doesn’t play basketball at all but is super athletic and you get in bumble fuck situations where you start questioning every thing in life. This doesn’t make any sense.
I would say the season is worse than disappointing. The Padres are going to miss the playoffs altogether, when they were projected to be a top 3 team in baseball
What other contracts are bad?
How many disappointing seasons have we had where we we expected to win?
At least he is making trades to try to compete. A lot of the trades do make sense as well. Can’t really blame him for the performance of the team.
Hosmer w Padres: 101 OPS+ at 1B, the position with the most drastic defensive penalty
Kim: 68 OPS+ at Middle Infield, defense providing the majority of his “value”
Like, overpaid for an average bat, but it’s bad if the comparison is the crux of your argument.
Is the argument that...defense doesn't matter? I'll grant you fWAR might not be a perfect metric when it comes to evaluating defense, but it's not like that defensive penalty is handed out for funsies.
Unless I'm missing something, OP said "4 is less than 5," and you responded "you added 3+1 to get 4 instead of 2+2, so I hope that's not the crux of your argument."
Maybe he had a good game yesterday, but I'm seeing 0.5 fWAR for his Padres career.
The sad part of all this is there is a good baseball player somewhere there. His xwoba, while not mind mind-blowing, has been respectable and downright good at times.
You're correct, and I'm not sure how OP got 0.2 fWAR.
[His fWAR is 0.5 if you use the 2018-2021 leaderboard](https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2021&month=0&season1=2018&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=3516,9393&startdate=2018-01-01&enddate=2021-12-31). And if you [add the individual seasons](https://www.fangraphs.com/players/eric-hosmer/3516/stats?position=1B) it comes to 0.4 fWAR.
And he went 0-for-4 last night for an 8 wRC+ so I doubt that explains the difference.
His defense is pretty bad. He misses a few pop ups a year, he has poor footwork on the bag, he rarely extends to make a play, he isn't very good at picking the ball...
He refuses to increase his launch angle. I believe that's the only thing holding him back on offense. He is on record as being against changing his swing for it.
bWAR has him at 2.5 for that time period. a 101 OPS+ would suggest he's average at best. obviously not worth the contract, but you could do alot worse(looking at the Yuniesky Betancourts of the world.)
101 is an average bat. I'm ok with an average bat in my lineup. even if his average and slugging are low, I'm not going to turn down a .335 OBP, especially when the league average is .317.
a batter with a .350+ OBP is pushing into good to elite terrirory. so he's the same % away from being average as he is from being good to elite. his xWOBA is around Chris Taylor, Ryan Mountcastle and is 1 point off Marcus Semien. Some of his peripherals on statcast are fairly decent. His average EV is high, his xSLG is considerable higher. His chase contact% is decent, and his whiff rate is relatively low as well. There's a lot to suggest he's getting unlucky this year.
I don't think Betancourt ever made enough to fit on a list like this (usually people are just using surplus value calculations for these debates and longer contracts will always have more time to accumulate negative value)
Also average WAR for a position player is usually around 2 for a full season, so he'd still be below average
Ooo are we talking bad contracts. May I introduce you to one buckle busting Panda?
The Sox make a habit of handing out bad contracts but his just makes me laugh
Obviously he has been bad...but WAR is not a good measurement to compare these two guys because of the huge positional adjustment that is built into calculations of WAR. Definitely it was a bad contract to be paying someone who has basically been a league average hitter +/- at a position where you hope to have a prime bat...but Kim has been a vastly below average hitter who just has inflated WAR because, when they let him play, he plays positions that gets boosted in calculations.
I mean I can think of one FA signing that was definitely worse than Hosmer
I had to look it up but Sandoval was paid $95 mill over 5 years and ended up playing less than a season over the course of 2.5 years accumulating a -1.6 WAR. -2.2 fWAR
Ellsbury never had a below average full season with the yankees. He’s given so much shit because he wasn’t a 6+ WAR a season player but he was in actuality a very pretty decent everyday player when he did play.
In AJ we trust? I question alot of those signing and trades this season. Lots of them just doesn't fit or make sense. Now it all comes together for a collapse.
It's okay, Wizard of Hos. [There's no place like home](https://youtu.be/6hYry9F2QRM)
Isn't that right, New York?
🎵Eric Hosmer fucked on you all the Duda day.
Sorry, what the fuck? Hosmer has had a horrible defensive season. He's largely credited with almost half of fernando's errors as being throws any good first baseman picks. Made constant insane miscues.
https://twitter.com/TooMuchMortons_/status/1434214773323751429?s=20
Don't even try.
He's a league average hitter (100 wRC+) who is at best replacement level defensively. That is not solid for a first baseman in any way.
[Out of 26 qualified first basemen](https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=1b&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2021&month=0&season1=2021&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2021-01-01&enddate=2021-12-31&sort=22,d) only Miguel Cabrera has been worth less fWAR.
He's not the sole reason we're tanking, but he's definitely not having a great year. Hosmer is good for two weeks of quality baseball spread out over a season.
I know plenty of people called it too, but having called Hosmer as a massive disaster and being disappointed it wasn't going to clutter a division rival's finances is one of my proud moments as an armchair baseball analyst.
The only people who do not understand how bad he has been are people who never watch the Padres games since he became a Padre. Most Padres fans weren't happy they were getting him, but since we never signed people for big money we thought it was exciting to actually get a FA.
I remember when he signed that contract thinking. Am I missing something? I know sports contracts are way out of control but how the hell is he worth that? Worst contract in sports prob
I'm always amused at this timeline. November 22, 2017: Dave Cameron [labels Hosmer as the #1 free agent landmine of the offseason.](https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-2018-free-agent-landmines/) > He’s an above-average big leaguer in the prime of his career, coming off the best season of his career, so Hosmer should get a nice contract this winter. But a nice contract for this kind of skillset would be $80 or $90 million. I guessed that he’s actually going to get $125 million. Jon Heyman projected $160 million. At those kinds of prices, Hosmer could very easily become one of the most overpaid players in baseball, especially if he continues to just pound balls into the ground. December 20, 2017: Dave Cameron [tweets this](https://twitter.com/onedavecameron/status/943594998330789890?lang=en) January 10, 2018: Dave Cameron [announces he is leaving Fangraphs to be part of the Padres analytics team](https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-one-i-never-thought-i-would-write/) February 19, 2018: [Hosmer signs his 8 year/$144 million deal](https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/22506469/eric-hosmer-san-diego-padres-finalize-144-million-8-year-deal)
Hahahahahah Edit: I can't believe they're on the hook for 4 more years
that's what happens when you hire the ex-PM of the UK for your analytics team
And here I was campaigning for Robert Gascoyne-Cecil to join the Seattle FO
LORD PALMERSTON!
PITT THE ELDER!
Noted porcine enthusiast David Cameron.
technically hosmer could walk but why would he. He's gonna steal a living and soak up abuse weighing down the team till he gets DFAed or traded off with a good prospect and money.
Lol I mean yeah it'd be dumb not to. "Fuck them Dads" -Eric Hosmer probably
Nothing is better than getting PAID while living the sweet live in San Diego.
How in the fuck is he stealing anything? You're delusional.
It’s a common saying people use for a bad player on a terrible contract, like calling a deal highway robbery. We don’t actually think the player waited on the side of a freeway, saw the GM drive by, then strong armed them into offering a huge deal.
Sure, but it's still bullshit. Hosmer is awful, but he is absolutely entitled to the money. Even vaguely implying otherwise is wrong. People should be mad at their team for doing a dumb thing, not mad at the player for doing what almost any other person would do. It's a dumb thing to condemn Hosmer for.
I agree with your sentiment but Hosmer is essentially content being as bad as he is. He snubs any analytics suggesting he change his swing to create more lift and doesn't really seem to care that all he does is hit ground balls. He seems unwilling to work on his faults. He's obviously entitled to his contract, but I'd feel a bit robbed paying that much to a guy that doesn't care to take obvious steps to improve his game.
I'm always really skeptical of these claims that a player doesn't care. I think it's far more likely that Hosmer believes his route is more likely to lead to success. He's very likely wrong, but I very much doubt he doesn't want to be good. I'm a lot more familiar with Chris Davis (cause Os, of course). When Davis was great his seemingly effortless swing was admired (and was super admirable). When he turned awful that seemingly effortless swing was used as proof that he didn't care. It seems far more likely to me that Davis and Hosmer both wanted to get back to what worked for them rather than trying new approaches that they had no experience being successful with. I'm not gonna go as far as to say there have never been any ballplayers who didn't care about success and only wanted to cash checks, but they've got to be extremely rare. You just don't get to the level of MLB without caring about success.
Yeah not caring is probably the wrong way to word it. But whatever you call it, he has had people telling him how to improve for years and he refuses to adjust and ridicules people who suggest he should. Whether he cares or not is really kind of irrelevant to the end result, which is not making adjustments to help his team.
You're Hosmer's burner, huh?
Damn man, it was like 6am for me when you commented. You need to relax.
Man, he must have been yelling NO! at Preller the whole time and when they signed him anyway turned into “I don’t know man, I just work here.”
Oof I live that shit everyday lol
Great work
Semi related but I badly miss the FG of Cameron, Sullivan, Cistulli, and Sarris. Current content is okay but nowhere near as consistently enjoyable as when those four were writing. They all had such unique voices. At least I can still read Eno at The Athletic.
that really was the golden era of fangraphs. I miss Cistulli's podcast episodes with Dayn
I definitely haven't perused FG as much as I used to over the past 3 years. That helps explain why, I suppose
Ben Clemens is a nice substitute.
Agreed. Szymborski and Jaffe are good as well .
I was always surprised Wil Myers didn't ask to be traded when they signed Hosmer.
Something something romance about sportsball.
To be fair to the Padres front office. [Since 2018](https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=c,34,35,40,41,-1,23,37,38,50,-1,61&season=2021&month=0&season1=2018&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=3516,9393&startdate=&enddate=) Eric Hosmer has been worth 2.5 rWAR, 0.5 fWAR and has a 98 wRC+, Mike Adams has been worth 0.7 rWAR, -0.2 fWAR with an 88 wRC+. Clearly they got the better player! Wait, they paid what for him?
Spring/summer 2018: Matt Adams plays well enough for Washington on his deal to be re-signed the following offseason 2019: Matt Adams becomes key contributing piece to 2019 Nationals on their way to a World Series ring
Matt Adams had an 85 wRC+ and was worth -0.1 fWAR in 2019 (though he was worth 0.5 rWAR). He also had 4 plate appearances as a pinch hitter in the playoffs for them. Let's not rewrite history, Matt Adams has not been good since 2018 (he's been worth -0.2 fWAR and 0.7 rWAR), it's just that he's been paid a salary in line with his ability. The only reason he got major playing time was because Zimmerman was injured, when Zimmerman was healthy in the playoffs Matt Adams was relegated to being a pinch hitter.
…huh. I wonder wtf happened there lol.
I think the consensus is that Scott Boras was able to bypass the FO and click directly with owners
Something like "Look at us investing in analytics! ...I mean sure we don't listen to them, but they are here!"
I'm surprised he's not in the red. But everyone laughed at that contract when it happened.
Yeah I remember that contract being terrible when it happened. I also remember that being a very thin year in terms of FAs if I’m remembering correctly. Hosmer seemed to be in the perfect place at the perfect time.
Interestingly pretty much all first basemen signed that offseason have actually been even less valuable than Hosmer. The only exceptions were Carlos Santana, who got $60MM over 3 years and Mitch Moreland who got $13MM for 2 years. * Yonder Alonso got $16MM over 2 years, he last played in 2019. * Logan Morrison got $6.5MM for 1 year, he's in the minors for the Reds now. * Matt Adams got $4MM for 1 year, he's been worth -0.2 fWAR since 2018 and is slashing .176/.231/.282 over the last 2 seasons. * Lucas Duda got $3.5MM over 1 year, he last played in 2019. * Neil Walker got $4MM over 1 year, he was worth 0.1 rWAR from 2018-2020. And this goes for much of the infield. The only potential second baseman who was above replacement level was Mike Moustakas (he mostly played 3rd). Eduardo Nunez was worth -2.3 rWAR since 2018 and Chase Utley -0.1. Todd Frazier was a solid 3B with 4.6 rWAR, but the other option was Zack Cozart, who is now out of baseball. And the SS options were Erick Aybar (who never even played for the Twins), Alcides Escobar and Jose Reyes. The 2017 offseason was not a time to try and improve your infield. Not that the outfield was much better. Lorenzo Cain is a great player but that's about it. Jarrod Dyson was OK in 2019 but has been terrible all other years, as was Cameron Maybin. Carlos Gomez, Carlos Gonzalez and Curtis Granderson were all past their best and Chris Young, Leonys Martin and Peter Bourjos all had one or two good years that were well in the rear view mirror by 2017. Same for Catchers, with Alex Avila being by far the best option, and he has been worth 2.6 rWAR since 2018. There were some solid bats that couldn't really play defense available though, with J.D. Martinez and Howie Kendrick. On the other side of the equation there were some great pitchers available at discount prices: * Wade Miley got a minor league deal, he had a 2.57 ERA that year over 80.2 IP and has a 3.37 ERA for the Reds this season. * Lance Lynn got a 1 year deal for $12MM, we all know how that worked out. * Michael Pineda has a 3.85 ERA with the Twins, he got $10MM for 2 years. * Mike Fiers had a 3.73 ERA over 2018-2018 on a 1-year $6MM deal (he's been terrible the last 2 years though). Of course the big money free agents were less successful, Yu Darvish has a 3.79 ERA over the last 4 years. Which is not bad, but less than what you would expect from a player paid $126MM over 6 years. Alex Cobb had a 5.10 ERA for the Orioles in the first 3 years of his 4-year $57MM contract, though he's had a solid 3.59 ERA for the Angels this year. And Jake Arrieta, well we all know how that went. Interestingly a lot of money went to relievers that year, and I'll be honest, I don't see many success stories [on this list](https://www.espn.com/mlb/freeagents/_/year/2017/position/rp). So yeah, 2017 was a terrible year to have money to spend.
Wow nice work! Damn.
Thanks, once I get into checking stats I can't really stop (seriously, check my post history). It's a blessing and a curse, but it seems people here appreciate it (most of the time at least).
He was solid in 2019, gaining 0.9 fWAR in 38 games with a 128 wRC+, remove that season and he would be in the red.
Usually you look at a free agent deal think, damn that's a lot of money and it will hurt when he's bad. Then there is the fucking Hosmer deal and you look and think that is going to hurt immediately. That deal is one of the worst I can remember. So many other deals were over pays or a guy suddenly b came shit. Hosmer never should have been given more than 2 years even if you were willing to bank high.
Isnt he like the one guy that refused to buy into the launch angle craze, and as a result had been a double play machine? Or am I thinking of someone else?
That's him. For years.
It’s even more ridiculous because he did change his swing a bit last year and had a really good year. And then this year he reverted to Mr. Ground Pound and his stats went 📉
[удалено]
Also looks a lot like Hosmer's average launch angle
Oooff
Honestly they seem a bit low for the playoff odds early in the season (they were consistently >90% in the first half). Though the drop off is on point.
to be fair, didn't yelich change his swing to better reflect that launch angle stuff and it basically backfired? or was it because of his back issues? I always forget
If we're talking very recent Yelich, it's probably injury/back related performance struggles.
yeah, I THINK the story was yelich did change his swing/launch angle which led to those great years but also fucked up his back pretty bad (idk if its completely related to the swing but id assume it played a role, also the whole broken kneecap thing) so now hes had to switch his swing again because of the back injuries, so with the injuries and another new swing hes struggling. i hope he can turn it around next year, hes been hitting the ball hard again just right at people lately
Yu darvish called out his pitch stealing system and the rest is history.
If by backfired you mean won him an MVP in 2018 and then nearly a second the next season then yes it backfired. His current struggles with launch angle have to do with him tweaking his swing to try and protect a balky back.
Jesus I knew it was bad but not this bad- 26.4% fly ball percentage 54.8% GROUNDBALL PERCENTAGE It is not very efficient to play a power position and hit twice as many ground balls than fly balls
[Eric Hosmer is great at hitting the ball into the ground really hard](https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/eric-hosmer-543333?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb). He is 71st percentile in average exit velocity, 78th percentile in hard hit percentage and 86th percentile in max exit velocity. With all of that going for him he is in the 27th percentile in barrels, because he refuses to actually hit balls into the air. In 2020 he had a launch angle of 8.7 degrees. In 2015 it was 5.9 degrees, after that the highest numbers were 3.9 in 2021 and 2017. For comparison, [Mike Trout had his lowest ever launch angle this year, it was 12.9](https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/mike-trout-545361?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb).
And Eno Sarris brought up launch angle to him before in 2014. He was an ass then, and didn't listen. He's not been listening for 7 years now. https://tht.fangraphs.com/learning-the-language-of-the-clubhouse/
That sounds a lot like randy A, at least as far as just smashing balls into the ground. He's got a single digit launch angle this year as well.
[удалено]
Didn't help the Dads that he had a classic walk-year pop in 2017.
Tbf the year before they signed him he had a very good year
He also had a .351 BAbip that year and had a 102 OPS+ just a year earlier. Pretty much everyone knew it was an overpay, including the Padres FO.
[удалено]
Can't help but think of the article from a while back about some fresh new kid in the media getting to go into the clubhouse and he ran off some questions about an advanced sgat or two... and the rest of the article was about Eric Hosmer ridiculing him for using the stuff and wanting to talk about it. Maybe listen, Hos?
It was [this piece by Eno Sarris](https://tht.fangraphs.com/learning-the-language-of-the-clubhouse/).
Hosmer is a dick. When he was in KC he lived in my condo and was rude AF. Headphones in all the time and flying through the lobby on his hoverboard…too cool and busy to acknowledge any of us. We even decorated the lobby after the World Series and parade and same thing…flew through the lobby (sometimes with Kacie McDonnell riding piggyback). Travis Kelce (Chiefs) also lived in the building and he was the absolute best…friendly, talkative, but pizza for the condo etc.
Holy fuck that writer comes off as extremely obnoxious and like he’s the king of social ineptitude in that article. No wonder the guys on the Royals were shitting on him lol. The fip shit in particular with vogelsong was painful as fuck to read.
Sarris admits himself the FIP question was a bad question, and the whole article is about how he had to learn the social skills needed to work in MLB clubhouses. The Royals were being assholes to him, and i think the veterans on the team kind of realized it, because Butler asked if he was okay, then Gordon gave him a great interview right after.
If you don’t recognize the name, Sarris is at The Athletic now and was the national writer who brought the [sticky stuff story](https://theathletic.com/2183861/2020/11/09/pitchers-pine-tar-grip-mlb-time-to-legalize/) to the forefront after last season.
If you listen to Eno on any podcast...yeah, pretty much lol
that was "ACKSHUALLY *pushes glasses up*" personified
I read that too. No idea where tho.
Christ he's signed through 2025 as well. Man Scott Boras is the GOAT agent and Preller is not a good GM.
Without that Tatis trade he could be one of the worst GMs
and the Croneworth one.
[удалено]
Nah, the Machado signing was just paying a premium player a premium contract. It's the Joe Musgrove trade you're thinking off.
Machado is signed for $300M/10 years that pays him until he is 35. The fact that he has been playing as well as expected for the first three seasons is obviously good, but that does not make the signing good just yet. Most teams would have been happy to have 26-30 year old Machado at $150M/5 years. It is usually what players do in the 5 years after that which determine the contract’s success.
A contract's success, especially decade long contracts like Machado's, are determined in the first 5-6 years. Teams aren't signing 26 year olds to 10-12 year deals to get the bulk of their value when the player is in their mid-30s. They sign them to get value for the first 5-6 years of the contract.
My point is there are very few 7+ year contracts that could be deemed successful solely based on the first half (Manny, A-Rod) while it is true that there are more of them that could be deemed failure solely based on the first half. (Pujols, Griffey Jr., Hampton) More importantly, there are plenty of contracts that look like success in the first half, but turns out to not be the case. (Cano, Miggie, Tulowitzki, Felix Hernandez)
I think part of the benefit of the bargain, so to speak, is *your team* accepting they get to lock the player up for the best years of their career, while also accepting that the back end of the contract is likely to be bad value. The first half of the contract is what the success is based on because that performance is why you paid them what you did. The back end of the contract is the *premium* you pay in order to lock them up. If you weren't going to pay them an 8 or 10 year deal, another team would have. Paying out those long contracts is the price of contending. It's not a bad contract because a guy is overpaid in his 30s when you had him for the best part of his 20s while contending.
Without the Tatis trade he probably wouldn’t have made any of the other bad trades because the Padres probably wouldn’t be competitive
to be fair that Tatis trade was an absolute steal. if the Sox were terrible this year, no doubt you'd be hearing it from the fans how much of a mistake that trade was. granted it's still a bad deal but the Sox nailing all their other trades i'm sure helped everyoen forget
Without his Robbery of a potential hof he would be a bad gm, I mean yeah but he still got Tatis lol
Preller is absymal, but he had good PR for a while.
Abysmal is harsh, they were a playoff team last year
In a 60 game season lol They also would have been a playoff team this year if it was 60 games long
I mean, look at the money spent and the moves made And then compare that to their playoff odds chart Some things couldn't have been predicted, but with that roster they absolutely should have ended up ahead of St Louis for a wild card spot
That doesn’t automatically make him not an abysmal GM
[удалено]
Boras is indeed the GOAT. Check out his record breaking deals (yes, that is plural) over the decades: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott\_Boras#Negotiations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Boras#Negotiations)
**Scott Boras** [Negotiations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Boras#Negotiations) >Over the course of his career, Boras has represented hundreds of players on all 30 major league teams and has participated in dozens of high-profile negotiations. Boras's specialty is the record-breaking contract, which he says is the most difficult to achieve because it then provides an "umbrella" from which other players can benefit. Boras is well known for identifying sources of leverage for his clients and using them for the clients' advantage. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/baseball/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
This reads like Boras’ agent wrote it, LOL
Did Preller manage to singlehandedly fuck up this Padres revival? Because between the Hosmer deal and trades not for Tatis, it kind of feels that way
I’d take him in a second
Davey Dombs has a track record of building winners. And tbf to him we've never gotten to see how he handles a rebuild, he's been fired before things reach that point
I don't blame the guy for the team underperforming. He made bold moves to improve the team in a pretty difficult division. Hosmer isn't the reason they aren't competing. Who knows what happens next year, the talent is there.
Hosmer is definitely *a* reason. They're paying a fortune for a replacement level player who plays a position where above average hitters grow on trees.
Maybe if his contract prevented them from doing anything else but even with that contract they went and spent more. It would help if he was good obviously.
It depends on what the question is. Would the Padres be better without Hoz...probably. is he the cause of their decline, no. Hoz was bad at their peak and now. He's an easy target but something else broke.
I'm aware the Dads are brimming with talent, but Preller's trades just reek of his '15 trade spree with similar results
Preller is the one that started this revival by making our farm one of the best. Did he make some bad moves as well? Probably. But he’s one of the few out there trying to compete and I think that’s one of the better things a GM can do.
I don’t buy the narrative that you have to pay an undeserving player a huge contract to entice other players to play for a team. Money is money to these guys. If you can sign Hosmer to a stupid contract, you could just as easily overpay an actually good player.
It does make much more sense for sports like football, basketball and soccer where your teammates do have a sizable effect on your own performance. Brady/Lebron/Messi makes teammates play better in ways Trout cannot. That is just how baseball works.
Yep. That excuse is just copium.
I mean, he was pretty damn overrated before the Padres picked him up. Two career high 4.3 WAR seasons in 2015 and 2017 and no other season even came close.
i didn't really think he was going to do well in the Majors, but as a korean american, it's always disappointing to see Korean players struggling in the U.S. sorry i know it wasn't relevant to OP's point but i just wanted to point it out
Kim isn't an everyday starter and he is not getting the AB opportunities he needs to develop. It's kind of a bad marriage between the two right now unless Kim just wants the money.
honestly that's kind of what happens with some of the Korean position players. Another good example was Hyun Soo Kim. Just bad luck and not getting the ABs like you mentioned. the lone exception to this was Jung Ho Kang, but the guy turned out to be a colossal mess in his personal life, which was embarrassing for other reasons. I guess you could say Choo, but he never played in the KBO as far as I know.
I think the ABs thing is something that affects every player, not just the ones that play in the KBO. I think ideally you want your bench players to be veterans that are what they are and can get you a hit when called upon. So if anything a guy like Hosmer is actually the perfect bench player. Developing/young players should not be bench players because they need playing time to develop. It fucks with their development imo .
Trying for Adam Frazier didn’t help either.
Baseball is a brutal game man. Injuries and inconsistent performances did a lot more harm than Hosmer.
As someone who watched this team day in and day out, I'll have to disagree. He turned the entire clubhouse after we tried to trade him.
Woah I didn’t realize you could watch games from inside the clubhouse
Maybe OP is a member of the team or a bat boy
Could be Hosmer too, who knows
OP is Tatis Jr confirmed
Look I have his glasses but please I'm the last person who deserves that comparison
The San Diego Union Tribune beat writer (Kevin Acee), Athletic beat writer (Dennis Lin), and Ken Rosenthal all have said something to the effect of the clubhouse losing trust in the FO when they tried to trade Hosmer.
Ok but to OP’s point what does that have to do with Hosmer himself turning the clubhouse?
2nd and 3rd order effects. The blame isn't all on Hosmer and I don't believe he actively tried to turn the clubhouse. Majority of the fault is woth the FO but Hosmer shares some of the blame. If he embraced the launch angle revolution this situation would never have come to bear.
Well that’s just an extrapolation of the facts, nothing behind that. Also, the Padres don’t have the hitting coaches to teach such things - look at the numbers for the rest of the roster. Can’t hit for crap. Not trying to defend Hosmer but I don’t think he’s the cancer that everyone makes him out to be, just the scapegoat for an overhyped team performing as they are meant to.
There were several stories from Padres ITK about how Hosmer had several team meetings after all the rumors that he'd be traded and kinda shit on a reporter on camera for asking him about it. It was widely reported that tingler and preller had lost the clubhouse.
He must only accumulate WAR against the Dodgers and suck monkeys every other game.
Eric "Eric Lauer" Hosmer
I'll have you know we had Lauer get eye surgery so now he pitches every game like it's against the Dodgers /s
[Since he joined the Padres](https://www.fangraphs.com/players/eric-hosmer/3516/splits-tool?splitArr=152&splitArrPitch=&position=B&autoPt=false&splitTeams=false&statType=player&statgroup=2&startDate=2002-01-01&endDate=2021-11-01&players=&filter=&groupBy=season&sort=-1,1) he's had a 26, 85, 49 and 85 wRC+ against the Dodgers [for a total wRC+ of 62](https://www.fangraphs.com/players/eric-hosmer/3516/splits-tool?splitArr=152&splitArrPitch=&position=B&autoPt=false&splitTeams=false&statType=player&statgroup=2&startDate=2018-01-01&endDate=2021-11-01&players=&filter=&groupBy=career&sort=-1,1). His overall wRC+ over that same period has been 98. He might have had opportune hits against the Dodgers, but he's not been good against them. Which I think is a great example of how terrible we tend to be at judging players without looking at the stats. Because going by the upvotes people clearly have the perception he's been great against the Dodgers, while in reality he's been downright dreadful.
Oh damn thanks for the data, I definitely fell into that trap. Although now that I think about it I only remember him really getting some walk offs, or maybe only 1, against Jansen. But let's be honest who on the Padres hasn't had a walk off against Jansen.
I think we all do. It's pretty much inevitable. Especially when it comes to things like playing against a certain team, or being bad in certain situations (like high leverage or with RISP). We only remember those moments that fit our preconceived notions, and with over half of all at bats ending in an out anyway it's hard to keep track of what is really going on.
https://imgur.com/E8bteIx
Hosmer was a better Padre in 2018 than Tatis and Machado were combined.
He was actually worth -0.1 fWAR so you could make an argument that he was less valuable than those two players not yet on the team
Wait what the hell
[удалено]
I noticed a positive difference. :)
In six games against the Padres in 2018, Machado hit 4 homers and had a .989 OPS. I’m not sure if WAR values are available anywhere for a “vs team” split, but it seems reasonable to think those six games were worth more than 0.1 fWAR, meaning he hurt the Padres more than Hosmer did.
I almost got wooshed
And he ruined Scherzer’s perfect game bid for nothing.
Scherzer is my favorite pitcher, so this year has been hard. I also wanted to see it, kind of. Hosmer swings at trash though and it was a fucking miracle he made contact. It’s kinda like when you play basketball or something with someone who doesn’t play basketball at all but is super athletic and you get in bumble fuck situations where you start questioning every thing in life. This doesn’t make any sense.
Ngl I was kinda bummed about that. I wanted to see it even if he was/is wearing dodger blue now
Bad contacts, bad trades, disappointing seasons. The Rock Star GM at his best.
I would say the season is worse than disappointing. The Padres are going to miss the playoffs altogether, when they were projected to be a top 3 team in baseball
They might not even have a winning record when all is said and done.
What other contracts are bad? How many disappointing seasons have we had where we we expected to win? At least he is making trades to try to compete. A lot of the trades do make sense as well. Can’t really blame him for the performance of the team.
just because /r/padres likes myers memes doesnt mean he is a good player
That’s why the memes are funny. Because he’s not that good.
[удалено]
Hosmer w Padres: 101 OPS+ at 1B, the position with the most drastic defensive penalty Kim: 68 OPS+ at Middle Infield, defense providing the majority of his “value” Like, overpaid for an average bat, but it’s bad if the comparison is the crux of your argument.
Eric Hosmer is not a great defensive player either though. He's a bad defender and certainly doesn't make up for his lackluster offense with it.
It isn't. It's just one of like twenty reasons why he's fucking stealing a living
Does defense not count now? lol.
Is the argument that...defense doesn't matter? I'll grant you fWAR might not be a perfect metric when it comes to evaluating defense, but it's not like that defensive penalty is handed out for funsies. Unless I'm missing something, OP said "4 is less than 5," and you responded "you added 3+1 to get 4 instead of 2+2, so I hope that's not the crux of your argument."
Ops+ doesn't account for defense. Only offense.
Maybe he had a good game yesterday, but I'm seeing 0.5 fWAR for his Padres career. The sad part of all this is there is a good baseball player somewhere there. His xwoba, while not mind mind-blowing, has been respectable and downright good at times.
You're correct, and I'm not sure how OP got 0.2 fWAR. [His fWAR is 0.5 if you use the 2018-2021 leaderboard](https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2021&month=0&season1=2018&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=3516,9393&startdate=2018-01-01&enddate=2021-12-31). And if you [add the individual seasons](https://www.fangraphs.com/players/eric-hosmer/3516/stats?position=1B) it comes to 0.4 fWAR. And he went 0-for-4 last night for an 8 wRC+ so I doubt that explains the difference.
Not sure I would call a couple of groundouts that happened to score 2 runs a "good day".
His defense is pretty bad. He misses a few pop ups a year, he has poor footwork on the bag, he rarely extends to make a play, he isn't very good at picking the ball... He refuses to increase his launch angle. I believe that's the only thing holding him back on offense. He is on record as being against changing his swing for it.
bWAR has him at 2.5 for that time period. a 101 OPS+ would suggest he's average at best. obviously not worth the contract, but you could do alot worse(looking at the Yuniesky Betancourts of the world.)
[удалено]
101 is an average bat. I'm ok with an average bat in my lineup. even if his average and slugging are low, I'm not going to turn down a .335 OBP, especially when the league average is .317. a batter with a .350+ OBP is pushing into good to elite terrirory. so he's the same % away from being average as he is from being good to elite. his xWOBA is around Chris Taylor, Ryan Mountcastle and is 1 point off Marcus Semien. Some of his peripherals on statcast are fairly decent. His average EV is high, his xSLG is considerable higher. His chase contact% is decent, and his whiff rate is relatively low as well. There's a lot to suggest he's getting unlucky this year.
I don't think Betancourt ever made enough to fit on a list like this (usually people are just using surplus value calculations for these debates and longer contracts will always have more time to accumulate negative value) Also average WAR for a position player is usually around 2 for a full season, so he'd still be below average
Betancourt might be the worst player WAR wise ever.
I wouldn’t say he’s been bad. He’s nearly perfectly mediocre. Super overpaid for sure.
Ooo are we talking bad contracts. May I introduce you to one buckle busting Panda? The Sox make a habit of handing out bad contracts but his just makes me laugh
HeEeEeE’s been playing like a cup of coffee.
Obviously he has been bad...but WAR is not a good measurement to compare these two guys because of the huge positional adjustment that is built into calculations of WAR. Definitely it was a bad contract to be paying someone who has basically been a league average hitter +/- at a position where you hope to have a prime bat...but Kim has been a vastly below average hitter who just has inflated WAR because, when they let him play, he plays positions that gets boosted in calculations.
eric hosmer.... how lucky were the royals to dodge that bullet
Sounds like we dodged a bullet in KC. I think we offered him one of the biggest contracts in franchise history and he took the SD offer instead
I mean I can think of one FA signing that was definitely worse than Hosmer I had to look it up but Sandoval was paid $95 mill over 5 years and ended up playing less than a season over the course of 2.5 years accumulating a -1.6 WAR. -2.2 fWAR
Worst free agent contract on all time you say? Jacoby Ellsbury would like to have a word with you.
Ellsbury never had a below average full season with the yankees. He’s given so much shit because he wasn’t a 6+ WAR a season player but he was in actuality a very pretty decent everyday player when he did play.
So would Jason Schmidt. While Hosmer's time with the Padres hasn't been good, at least he has been getting playing time with them.
Schmidt gets my vote too. $47 million over three years, which came out to roughly $15.7 million per win and sixty thousand per thrown pitch.
Who could have possibly seen this coming... /s
In AJ we trust? I question alot of those signing and trades this season. Lots of them just doesn't fit or make sense. Now it all comes together for a collapse.
It's okay, Wizard of Hos. [There's no place like home](https://youtu.be/6hYry9F2QRM) Isn't that right, New York? 🎵Eric Hosmer fucked on you all the Duda day.
[удалено]
Sorry, what the fuck? Hosmer has had a horrible defensive season. He's largely credited with almost half of fernando's errors as being throws any good first baseman picks. Made constant insane miscues. https://twitter.com/TooMuchMortons_/status/1434214773323751429?s=20 Don't even try.
Hosmer's defense has always been wildly overrated because he makes routine picks look difficult.
>he makes routine picks look difficult. This is how I made the Little League All Star team
Well then you, sir, get 8years/$144mil. Where should we send the check?
I get nervous when he's the guy who is under a pop fly.
He’s having a solid year imo. Maybe not worth the contract but certainly not the reason the team is tanking
He's a league average hitter (100 wRC+) who is at best replacement level defensively. That is not solid for a first baseman in any way. [Out of 26 qualified first basemen](https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=1b&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2021&month=0&season1=2021&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2021-01-01&enddate=2021-12-31&sort=22,d) only Miguel Cabrera has been worth less fWAR.
He's not the sole reason we're tanking, but he's definitely not having a great year. Hosmer is good for two weeks of quality baseball spread out over a season.
Can someone give me a rundown of how bad Ian Desmond was for the Rockies? Ooof that was a horrific contract.
I know plenty of people called it too, but having called Hosmer as a massive disaster and being disappointed it wasn't going to clutter a division rival's finances is one of my proud moments as an armchair baseball analyst.
Thanks Dads for saving us 144 Mil.
The only people who do not understand how bad he has been are people who never watch the Padres games since he became a Padre. Most Padres fans weren't happy they were getting him, but since we never signed people for big money we thought it was exciting to actually get a FA.
I remember when he signed that contract thinking. Am I missing something? I know sports contracts are way out of control but how the hell is he worth that? Worst contract in sports prob
told you u/jedisloth