Soto

[davearm2]

You gave each $18.5M. I'd say they should be damn happy, and you should be looking for a new job.

 

well carlos pena and john lackey were worth about $37M last year alone, so if i'm understanding your analysis, you're extremely wrong.

You're not understanding the analysis.

 

It's not about what their on-field performance was worth.

 

It's about what they would've gotten paid if, instead of giving them 6 years and $31M after one year, just as the Rox did with Tulowitzki, you went year-to-year instead.

 

In both cases, going year-to-year would've been far cheaper, as I've illustrated.

[TruffleShuffle]

You gave each $18.5M. I'd say they should be damn happy, and you should be looking for a new job.

 

well carlos pena and john lackey were worth about $37M last year alone, so if i'm understanding your analysis, you're extremely wrong.

You're not understanding the analysis.

 

It's not about what their on-field performance was worth.

 

It's about what they would've gotten paid if, instead of giving them 6 years and $31M after one year, just as the Rox did with Tulowitzki, you went year-to-year instead.

 

well i think you would be right on pena (though the story probably would've been different if he's not been sent to the minors and bounced around), but lackey has easily been worth more than $18.5M or $31M or whatever the number is.

In both cases, going year-to-year would've been far cheaper, as I've illustrated.

[davearm2]

well i think you would be right on pena (though the story probably would've been different if he's not been sent to the minors and bounced around), but lackey has easily been worth more than $18.5M or $31M or whatever the number is.

The argument isn't over what the player's on-field production has or hasn't been worth.

 

The argument is over which contract path leads to the higher payment stream, the early extension or the year-to-year.

[SouthSideRyan]

Wrong

 

I'd be damn happy to have Carlos Pena or John Lackey at those salaries for last year and this year.

Carlos Pena made $800K in '07, and will make $6M in '08. $6.8M total.

 

Lackey made $5.5M in '07, and will make $7M in '08. $12.5M total.

 

You gave each $18.5M. I'd say they should be damn happy, and you should be looking for a new job.

 

I'm pretty sure Lackey was signed to an extension paying him that. You're the one who came up with the # we had to pay all these guys.

[SouthSideRyan]

 

You price a guy as though he stays healthy and productive for the next 6 or 7 years. If he does exactly that, it's basically a wash -- he'll be getting paid about what the arb process would've awarded him anyway. If he blows up and overperforms expectations, you've landed a bargain. But if he regresses, gets hurt, loses interest, etc. etc., you're left holding a large bill for a lot of years. Small upside, large downside, comparatively.

 

This is wrong. On pretty much every one of these contracts, save Longoria, if the player merely maintains their current rate the team is getting them at a cheaper rate than they would going year to year.

[davearm2]

Carlos Pena made $800K in '07, and will make $6M in '08. $6.8M total.

 

Lackey made $5.5M in '07, and will make $7M in '08. $12.5M total.

 

You gave each $18.5M. I'd say they should be damn happy, and you should be looking for a new job.

 

I'm pretty sure Lackey was signed to an extension paying him that. You're the one who came up with the # we had to pay all these guys.

What I did was pose the question, how many of these other ROY vote-getters would you like to have at the prices Tulowitzki and the Rox agreed to after one season.

 

FWIW, I like the Lackey deal for the Angels. The dollars were modest (3/$17M) and the guy had a nice strong track record at the time it was offered -- 3 seasons of 30+ starts and ~200 IP.

[davearm2]

 

You price a guy as though he stays healthy and productive for the next 6 or 7 years. If he does exactly that, it's basically a wash -- he'll be getting paid about what the arb process would've awarded him anyway. If he blows up and overperforms expectations, you've landed a bargain. But if he regresses, gets hurt, loses interest, etc. etc., you're left holding a large bill for a lot of years. Small upside, large downside, comparatively.

 

This is wrong. On pretty much every one of these contracts, save Longoria, if the player merely maintains their current rate the team is getting them at a cheaper rate than they would going year to year.

Not very much of one, if any. And not enough for my liking.

[SouthSideRyan]

Carlos Pena made $800K in '07, and will make $6M in '08. $6.8M total.

 

Lackey made $5.5M in '07, and will make $7M in '08. $12.5M total.

 

You gave each $18.5M. I'd say they should be damn happy, and you should be looking for a new job.

 

I'm pretty sure Lackey was signed to an extension paying him that. You're the one who came up with the # we had to pay all these guys.

What I did was pose the question, how many of these other ROY vote-getters would you like to have at the prices Tulowitzki and the Rox agreed to after one season.

 

FWIW, I like the Lackey deal for the Angels. The dollars were modest (3/$17M) and the guy had a nice strong track record at the time it was offered -- 3 seasons of 30+ starts and ~200 IP.

 

But you're looking at it in current dollar terms. When that Lackey deal was signed, it was a similar deal to what's being signed now. Saying "how would you like for Lackey to be getting paid 18.5M over the past 2 years?" is disingenious because those guys signing those contracts aren't getting paid 18.5M these past 2 years, they're getting it paid in future dollars which are obviously worth less than current-past dollars.

[SouthSideRyan]

Kinda back to the topic davearm, what would you put together for a contract for Soto let's say in May of '09 after putting up a 900 career OPS?

[davearm2]

Kinda back to the topic davearm, what would you put together for a contract for Soto let's say in May of '09 after putting up a 900 career OPS?

Well as I've said, I'd need to be looking at a smoking good deal.

 

09: $500K

10: $750K

11: $2M

12: $4M

13: $6M

14 thru whenever: team options in the $8-$13M range

 

That'd be very similar to Longoria's deal, which he received after what? A week in the bigleagues? I'd be fine with offering that to a guy with 600 or whatever bigleague ABs of 900 OPS. I wouldn't expect Soto to accept, but that'd be my comfort zone on this thing.

[SouthSideRyan]

Kinda back to the topic davearm, what would you put together for a contract for Soto let's say in May of '09 after putting up a 900 career OPS?

Well as I've said, I'd need to be looking at a smoking good deal.

 

09: $500K

10: $750K

11: $2M

12: $4M

13: $6M

14 thru whenever: team options in the $8-$13M range

 

That'd be very similar to Longoria's deal, which he received after what? A week in the bigleagues? I'd be fine with offering that to a guy with 600 or whatever bigleague ABs of 900 OPS. I wouldn't expect Soto to accept, but that'd be my comfort zone on this thing.

 

Soto could fall to a 650 OPS and you're not even overpaying by more than 1 or 2M, unless you're worried about Geo stumbling into a woodchipper, there's no risk for the team.

[TruffleShuffle]

offer him a tim wakefield deal, $4M per year until he retires. see if he bites :P

[nilodnayr]

Kinda back to the topic davearm, what would you put together for a contract for Soto let's say in May of '09 after putting up a 900 career OPS?

Well as I've said, I'd need to be looking at a smoking good deal.

 

09: $500K

10: $750K

11: $2M

12: $4M

13: $6M

14 thru whenever: team options in the $8-$13M range

 

That'd be very similar to Longoria's deal, which he received after what? A week in the bigleagues? I'd be fine with offering that to a guy with 600 or whatever bigleague ABs of 900 OPS. I wouldn't expect Soto to accept, but that'd be my comfort zone on this thing.

 

Tulo's deal really isn't far off from that:

 

2nd pre arb: 750K

3rd pre arb: 750K

1st arb: 3.5M

2nd arb: 5.5M

3rd arb: 8.5M

1st FA: 10M

2nd FA: 15M club option (3M buy out)

 

And maybe an even more appropriate comparion would be McCann (need to adjust for inflation):

 

2nd pre arb: 500K

3rd pre arb: 800K

1st arb: 3.5M

2nd arb: 5.5M

3rd arb: 6.5M

1st FA: 8.5M

2nd FA: 12M club option (0.5M buy out)

 

Hell, lets look at VMart's (more inflation adjustment needed):

 

2nd pre arb: 500K

3rd pre arb: 800K

1st arb: 3M

2nd arb: 4.25M

3rd arb: 5.7M

1st FA: 7M (250K buyout)

 

If you adjust for 10% basebally salary inflation, all of these deals would roughly be 17-18M for arbi in Soto's years.

 

Even guys who go year to year in arbi and stink up the joint like Joe Crede get roughly 13M in arbi (unadjusted for inflation). After your first arbi year the WORST you can do is take a 20% pay cut. Pretty good hitters (in non-defensive positions) make $4M in their first year of arbi (like Atkins and Hawpe). Meaning, even at the worst (well worst is you could non-tender them) you'd be paying them roughly 10M a year in arbi. And that doesn't even happen all that often, hell Prior resigned at 98%. So realistically, you are looking at a minimum of $12M in arbi.

 

But the most important thing about most of these contracts is that it locks up the first couple years of free agency, which are the peak performance years of the player. Typically, if you let a player go through arbi and don't control him going into FA, then you have to shell out a large long term contract that covers a players decline years. And you are paying them the most $ during those decline years taboot.

[Jehrico]

He's a catcher, and he doesn't have a long track record of success. I wouldn't look to give him a 6 or 7 year deal, but after this season, I'd strongly consider signing him through arbitration if at all possible.

Signing him through arbitration would be the worst option of all.

 

You've got him controlled through arbitration already. The only thing you'd gain is cost certainty. As I've illustrated, that's a game in which you can win a little, or lose a lot.

 

Buying a few free agent years is the most reasonable motivation for these early extensions, and that shouldn't be a major concern for a team like the Cubs, who have a track record of keeping their guys anyway.

 

This regime has never had a good position player so there's no way they could have a track record of keeping their guys anyway.

They kept Santo, Banks, and Williams.

 

Or sorry, you meant after the reserve clause was amended.

 

Yea, I don't know anyone besides Grace who they've kept around.

Sandberg, Sosa off the top of my head. We haven't had many good position players worthy of discussing until recently. However, I can't think of a single player that left the team via free agency that we really wanted to keep since Maddux bolted for Atlanta. We also have all of our core pieces locked up for the forseeable future.

 

As far as extending Soto, there's risk in offering the extension and there is risk in not offering it. If you offer it, the risk is he gets hurt or doesn't perform, and you are overpaying. The risk of not offering it is it costs the Cubs more money in the long run. Considering the Cubs are a big-budget, big-market team, I'd prefer they took risk on the side of paying more for players who are deserving than overpaying players who get hurt or suck. The other part of that risk is that players can leave via FA (once they hit that point) if you don't lock them up. Considering we haven't lost a player we wanted to keep to FA in 17 years, I'm not too worried about that.

 

Another thing to consider is that Geo's a catcher. That's the second riskiest position to be doling out unnecessary contracts to besides pitchers. I'm not worried about loosing Geo to FA, let the Cubs pay him more than they otherwise would have after he continues performing like an All-Star.

[davearm2]

Well as I've said, I'd need to be looking at a smoking good deal.

 

09: $500K

10: $750K

11: $2M

12: $4M

13: $6M

14 thru whenever: team options in the $8-$13M range

 

That'd be very similar to Longoria's deal, which he received after what? A week in the bigleagues? I'd be fine with offering that to a guy with 600 or whatever bigleague ABs of 900 OPS. I wouldn't expect Soto to accept, but that'd be my comfort zone on this thing.

 

Tulo's deal really isn't far off from that:

 

2nd pre arb: 750K

3rd pre arb: 750K

1st arb: 3.5M

2nd arb: 5.5M

3rd arb: 8.5M

1st FA: 10M

2nd FA: 15M club option (3M buy out)

Tulo's deal is miles off from that. I'm guaranteeing something like $14M, depending on the buyout on the option(s), and Tulo's guaranteed more than double that ($31M)

 

And maybe an even more appropriate comparion would be McCann (need to adjust for inflation):

 

2nd pre arb: 500K

3rd pre arb: 800K

1st arb: 3.5M

2nd arb: 5.5M

3rd arb: 6.5M

1st FA: 8.5M

2nd FA: 12M club option (0.5M buy out)

If that $8.5M was an option, I'd like it a whole lot better.

 

Hell, lets look at VMart's (more inflation adjustment needed):

 

2nd pre arb: 500K

3rd pre arb: 800K

1st arb: 3M

2nd arb: 4.25M

3rd arb: 5.7M

1st FA: 7M (250K buyout)

This I like. A second option year would be even better.

 

If you adjust for 10% basebally salary inflation, all of these deals would roughly be 17-18M for arbi in Soto's years.

 

Even guys who go year to year in arbi and stink up the joint like Joe Crede get roughly 13M in arbi (unadjusted for inflation). After your first arbi year the WORST you can do is take a 20% pay cut. Pretty good hitters (in non-defensive positions) make $4M in their first year of arbi (like Atkins and Hawpe). Meaning, even at the worst (well worst is you could non-tender them) you'd be paying them roughly 10M a year in arbi. And that doesn't even happen all that often, hell Prior resigned at 98%. So realistically, you are looking at a minimum of $12M in arbi.

$12M may be the minimum. But you're shelling out 50% more than that. There's no bargain there.

 

But the most important thing about most of these contracts is that it locks up the first couple years of free agency, which are the peak performance years of the player. Typically, if you let a player go through arbi and don't control him going into FA, then you have to shell out a large long term contract that covers a players decline years. And you are paying them the most $ during those decline years taboot.

Are we seeing guys like Lee and Ramirez and Zambrano in their decline years?

 

Anyway, Jehrico's second paragraph above pretty well captures my opinion on this thing. These sorts of deals make sense for some clubs, and for them guaranteeing the money early on represents a necessary risk. The Cubs aren't really one of those clubs. They've got the money to pay up for the guys that prove themselves through their arb years, and historically these guys have wanted to stay. That creates a situation where bearing the risk of injury or underperformance in the pre-arb and arb years isn't really a very good idea, IMO.

[Tracer Bullet]

So you're looking to sign guys to contracts that pay them equal or just above what they'd likely get in arbitration with 1 or 2 team options for their FA years?