MLB classifieds: GMs in search of premium offense

The baseball world woke up to its new reality in July.

Now we get to watch it play out in earnest in an offseason that should be significant — but how?

The takeaway come next spring training could range from utter boredom to a frenzy of trading as shocking as what happened before most of us had breakfast July 31.

That's when Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane admitted with his actions what's happening to baseball — offense is at a premium like at no other time in the memory of anyone making decisions in front offices.

And it's scarce, no matter how you choose to acquire it.

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Beane was looking for pitching in his push for the World Series. But to get it, just as St.Louis Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak would admit with his moves before that day was over, the landscape had changed.

"It's hard to find 30-homer power," Houston Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow says. "So you have to make some compromises."

Compromises when building your team, as Luhnow was addressing while straying from some of his most favored sabermetric principles of plate discipline in an effort to build a competitive offense.

Compromises when making trades, the market in July showing that established offense was more valuable than the traditional trade-deadline currency of prospects.

Compromises now, as each free agent class comes along with fewer offensive impact players worth wooing with piles of money.

That's why talk of Hanley Ramirez, Pablo Sandoval, Victor Martinez, Nelson Cruz, Russell Martin and Melky Cabrera — the top of this year's free agent class on offense — quickly could take a back seat to names such as Troy Tulowitzki, Matt Kemp, Yoenis Cespedes, Justin Upton, maybe even Giancarlo Stanton and Ryan Howard.

Any of the second group easily could be trade bait for various reasons. For instance, Kemp as part of the Los Angeles Dodgers' crowded outfield; Upton from an Atlanta Braves team looking to change its approach; Howard because his power potential could outweigh his huge contract to a potential buyer; and Stanton because he's so good the Miami Marlins could get an offer too enticing to refuse.

"It's not a particularly strong free agent class in terms of offense," Boston Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington said in July when he was able to pry Cespedes from Oakland and Allen Craig from St.Louis while dealing pending free agent pitchers Jon Lester and John Lackey.

"So that did become a priority for us, to see if we could get a little bit of a jump start on adding to the offense at the deadline."

And it's not like this is some kind of one-year aberration.

The potential 2016 free agent class?

The best possibilities are Cespedes, Upton, Jason Heyward, Chris Davis, Dexter Fowler and Ian Desmond.

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No hoarding offense

Want offense now?

Prepare to pay or get creative.

That's why the likes of Tulowitzki — who seemed a Colorado Rockie for life when the shortstop signed a 10-year, $157.75million deal after the 2010 season — is as high-profile a name this offseason as even reigning major league home run champ and free agent Cruz.

Even with a significant injury history, Tulowitzki is an impact player at a premium position, currently with a foundering team that could take care of a major portion of the rebuilding it needs with one well-calculated trade.

But, oh, those calculations.

Despite Beane's stubborn suggestions his team wasn't hurt by removing Cespedes from the middle of its batting order, the Athletics barely hung on for a playoff spot and were a quick out in the American League wild-card game.

Trying to hoard offense isn't a guarantee of success, either.

"No question, there are not as many top-notch offensive performers available on the market year in, year out," says Frank Wren, who was ousted as Atlanta Braves general manager in September, at least in part because he was caught up in sorting out a changing game.

Wren thought he was beating the system by moving to the forefront of a growing movement to tie up young players to long-term deals.

First baseman Freddie Freeman is signed through 2021, shortstop Andrelton Simmons through 2020. Wren tried to extend Heyward, who would only take a two-year deal through 2015, inherited a contract via trade that takes Justin Upton through 2015 and signed his brother B.J. through 2017.

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Defensive shifts rob hits

The Braves missed the playoffs, and Wren's bosses concluded the principles that once made the franchise a powerhouse had been compromised in the search for runs.

Atlanta hardly was alone with its declining offensive efficiency. Consider:

Major league batters struck out in 20.4% of plate appearances in 2014. That never happened before for a full season, and this was the ninth consecutive season the strikeout rate has increased.

The overall .251 batting average and .314 on-base percentage were the lowest since 1972. Players are swinging and missing more often than they have in a decade, swinging at more pitches out of the strike zone than ever.

And when they hit the ball, more often it goes exactly where a fielder is standing, no matter how unconventional his positioning might seem.

"All the technology people put all their elbow grease into getting the hitters out," Baltimore Orioles general manager Dan Duquette says. "They measure everything. Every pitch is measured. All the tendencies are catalogued. The video resources, the aggregation of the data and the proliferation of the technology make it more challenging for the hitter."

New Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon was one of the instigators of the increased use of defensive shifts during his time with the Tampa Bay Rays. Asked what he tells his hitters who face shifts, he laughs and says, "I got nothing."

While managing the financially challenged Rays, Maddon insisted for several years his club had a better chance of competing with richer opponents now that drug testing has legislated some of the emphasis on power out of the game.

But the remaining — and scarcer — power hitters are only likely to cost more.

And, grudgingly or not, teams admit those fly-ball guys are a necessity, even if they're often among the most guilty at stretching the acceptance of strikeouts.

"You want to have a balance," Luhnow says. "You want to have those guys who are big-rewards type of guys vs. just the consistency guys. You want speed guys."

***

Speed over power?

The Kansas City Royals' postseason success surely will create copy-cat action toward speed, especially if some general managers sense a market that deems it less expensive than power.

That remains to be seen.

While Cruz was the majors' sole 40-homer man this year, only four players had more than 40 stolen bases — Dee Gordon of the Dodgers, Billy Hamilton of the Cincinnati Reds, Jose Altuve of the Astros and Ben Revere of the Philadelphia Phillies. Eleven players hit 30 or more homers in 2014; 15 stole 30 or more bases.

Can anyone, especially GMs looking to make effective long-term investments, really predict where the trends go from here?

"We've always seen cycles," Wren says. "Sometimes, like back in the '60s, it took a rule change (lowering the mound) to change that cycle. But I think we're seeing some good young talent coming to the big leagues. Look at some of those kids who have come up with the Cubs recently. So we're seeing some offensive performers. Like everything else, it has a way of working itself out."

As much as hitters lament the shifts, the fireballing relievers and wipeout sliders and cutters, they're not about to give in.

"I don't know about the whole numbers thing coming down," 19-year veteran Raul Ibanez says. "Mike Trout seems to be doing all right. Guys are still doing it."

But Trout also led the AL in strikeouts, one of 17 major leaguers with 150 or more. Before 2009, only once in major league history had as many as 10 batters reached 150 strikeouts in a season.

Meanwhile, teams try to balance their sense of where the game is headed with the realities of payrolls, many of which are products of a time before offensive changes became so drastic.

"We are a top-heavy team, but I don't know how that's going to change," Detroit Tigers President and general manager Dave Dombrowski says. "We have the most generous owner in baseball you could possibly have in sports. But we're in a situation where $200 million payrolls aren't what is common.

"It's a situation where we're really in a spot that if you're going to have four starters being paid and you're going to have a couple superstars in the middle of your lineup, that means there's not as much availability to do some other things. And you have to determine what you're going to do."

One thing fewer teams seem inclined to do is throw money at the situation.

"We'll be more trade-focused early on and let the market develop," Texas Rangers general manager Jon Daniels says of his offseason approach. "From my early conversations, there are some teams we match up well with."

Some of those matchups could be the key to a lively offseason.

No matter what, as Duquette says, "The guys who can hit the long fly balls, they're always good."

And increasingly rare.

And increasingly expensive.

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