Oakland Extends Nick Swisher

[Geech]

26.75 million over five years, with a $10 million club option. Details here.

 

Some with better contract knowledge might want to chime in, but it looks like the deal includes at least 2 free agent years. Seems like Swisher gave Oakland something of a hometown discount.

[tkenm356]

He's Adam Dunn redux of the AL. Seems like a good contract

[Tracer Bullet]

Just over $5m/year for a guy that hit 35 HR with a .370+ OBP last season that won't turn 27 until this November? Yeah, that's a good deal.

[SouthSideRyan]

26.75 million over five years, with a $10 million club option. Details here.

 

Some with better contract knowledge might want to chime in, but it looks like the deal includes at least 2 free agent years. Seems like Swisher gave Oakland something of a hometown discount.

 

Buys out 1 FA year, the option would be the second. All these long term deals for pre-arb players have looked like great values for the team.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

pretty good. pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.

[soccer10k]

Great move by the A's.

[Mephistopheles]

and its moves like this that makes me want billy.

[jjgman21]

the good thing about this for the A's is it locks up one year after he'd become FA eligible. other than that, it's like any long term contract to a young player, it's a slight bargain if he doesn't get hurt or flame out, in which case it's a bad contract. you can't just look at the raw numbers like a FA contract. you have to keep in mind that the player would have gone to arbitration, not the open market, to determine his salary over the next three years.

[TruffleShuffle]

Oh man, imagine if the A's built around Kurt Suzuki at catcher, Dan Johnson at 1B, Swisher in CF and Jack Cust at DH? Walks bonanza, baby.

[Post Count Padder]

Billy Beane loves Nick swisher, almost as much as Kevin Youkilis. Good deal for the A's.

[jersey cubs fan]

the good thing about this for the A's is it locks up one year after he'd become FA eligible. other than that, it's like any long term contract to a young player, it's a slight bargain if he doesn't get hurt or flame out, in which case it's a bad contract. you can't just look at the raw numbers like a FA contract. you have to keep in mind that the player would have gone to arbitration, not the open market, to determine his salary over the next three years.

 

If he didn't suffer any major setbacks, and went to arbitration every year, he'd have made much more.

[jjgman21]

the good thing about this for the A's is it locks up one year after he'd become FA eligible. other than that, it's like any long term contract to a young player, it's a slight bargain if he doesn't get hurt or flame out, in which case it's a bad contract. you can't just look at the raw numbers like a FA contract. you have to keep in mind that the player would have gone to arbitration, not the open market, to determine his salary over the next three years.

 

If he didn't suffer any major setbacks, and went to arbitration every year, he'd have made much more.

 

no he wouldn't. he'd make slightly more. look at Morneau for instance. coming off the MVP and a 140 OPS+, he asked for 5M, the twins offered 4M, and they settled on the middle ground, 4.5M in his first year of eligability. Swisher will get 3.5M for his first year of eligibility. so if Swisher gets his stats to Morneau's level at the end of the season, and wins the MVP, it will save the A's about 1M. that's a big if. if Swisher matches or slighly improves on his stats from last year, he'd probably get about 4M. subtract the extra 300K they gave him for this year, and that's a grand savings of about 200K.

 

you have to remember that the people that determine arbitration are not the people on this board and not people who appreciate the same things Billy Beane does. the panelist are traditional stats people. OBP doesn't mean much to them when his average is in the .250's. 35 HR is diminished by 95 RBI. no stolen bases is a ding against him.

 

as I said, slight bargain. more pay than Jason Bay will get through his years of eligibility, with worse track record of production, yet I didn't see anyone declaring Littlefield a genius when that contract was signed.

[jersey cubs fan]

the good thing about this for the A's is it locks up one year after he'd become FA eligible. other than that, it's like any long term contract to a young player, it's a slight bargain if he doesn't get hurt or flame out, in which case it's a bad contract. you can't just look at the raw numbers like a FA contract. you have to keep in mind that the player would have gone to arbitration, not the open market, to determine his salary over the next three years.

 

If he didn't suffer any major setbacks, and went to arbitration every year, he'd have made much more.

 

no he wouldn't. he'd make slightly more. look at Morneau for instance. coming off the MVP and a 140 OPS+, he asked for 5M, the twins offered 4M, and they settled on the middle ground, 4.5M in his first year of eligability. Swisher will get 3.5M for his first year of eligibility. so if Swisher gets his stats to Morneau's level at the end of the season, and wins the MVP, it will save the A's about 1M. that's a big if. if Swisher matches or slighly improves on his stats from last year, he'd probably get about 4M. subtract the extra 300K they gave him for this year, and that's a grand savings of about 200K.

 

you have to remember that the people that determine arbitration are not the people on this board and not people who appreciate the same things Billy Beane does. the panelist are traditional stats people. OBP doesn't mean much to them when his average is in the .250's. 35 HR is diminished by 95 RBI. no stolen bases is a ding against him.

 

as I said, slight bargain. more pay than Jason Bay will get through his years of eligibility, with worse track record of production, yet I didn't see anyone declaring Littlefield a genius when that contract was signed.

 

You're talking about one year of arbitration. First year arby awards don't even compare to the following seasons. Good players can easily make $10+ million now if they go to arbitration every year. Those base numbers are only going to go up as well.

 

And that doesn't even take into account locking him up in his first free agency year and controlling his 2nd. They have potentially saved themselves $15-20m here, depending on how his career progresses.

[jjgman21]

the good thing about this for the A's is it locks up one year after he'd become FA eligible. other than that, it's like any long term contract to a young player, it's a slight bargain if he doesn't get hurt or flame out, in which case it's a bad contract. you can't just look at the raw numbers like a FA contract. you have to keep in mind that the player would have gone to arbitration, not the open market, to determine his salary over the next three years.

 

If he didn't suffer any major setbacks, and went to arbitration every year, he'd have made much more.

 

no he wouldn't. he'd make slightly more. look at Morneau for instance. coming off the MVP and a 140 OPS+, he asked for 5M, the twins offered 4M, and they settled on the middle ground, 4.5M in his first year of eligability. Swisher will get 3.5M for his first year of eligibility. so if Swisher gets his stats to Morneau's level at the end of the season, and wins the MVP, it will save the A's about 1M. that's a big if. if Swisher matches or slighly improves on his stats from last year, he'd probably get about 4M. subtract the extra 300K they gave him for this year, and that's a grand savings of about 200K.

 

you have to remember that the people that determine arbitration are not the people on this board and not people who appreciate the same things Billy Beane does. the panelist are traditional stats people. OBP doesn't mean much to them when his average is in the .250's. 35 HR is diminished by 95 RBI. no stolen bases is a ding against him.

 

as I said, slight bargain. more pay than Jason Bay will get through his years of eligibility, with worse track record of production, yet I didn't see anyone declaring Littlefield a genius when that contract was signed.

 

You're talking about one year of arbitration. First year arby awards don't even compare to the following seasons. Good players can easily make $10+ million now if they go to arbitration every year. Those base numbers are only going to go up as well.

 

And that doesn't even take into account locking him up in his first free agency year and controlling his 2nd. They have potentially saved themselves $15-20m here, depending on how his career progresses.

 

one player in the history of baseball has received a 10M award, and that's just because Bowden is stupid. the second highest in history was 8.2M.

 

like I said, locking up the first year of FA elig. is the big benefit, but Swisher will most likely be on the downside of his career at that time. whether or not he will be worth 10M is a big question mark. at one time, Hank Blalock's deal looked great too.