Miguel Cabrara Extended

[LeftCoastCubFan]

CBS Sports' Jon Heyman reports that Miguel Cabrera's extension including two vesting options worth $30 million apiece.

 

That means the extension could ultimately be worth $308 million over 10 years. When combined with his current deal that expires after next season, Cabrera could wind up earning a max of $352 million over the next 12 years. It's hard to blame Detroit for wanting to make Cabrera a Tigers for life, but they might be going a little overboard here.

 

http://www.rotoworld.com/player/mlb/3702/miguel-cabrera

[neely crenshaw]

Hope we have plenty of cash available when Trout becomes a FA. After this how do you even consider signing an extension for anything less than 300m?

[Careless]

How could you not sign a 31 year old to a deal like that?

 

edit: wait, he had two seasons left on his contract before this extension?

[RynoRules]

Interesting post by a reader over at Deadspin that cross-references the Cubs' approach:

 

The last couple of years, you've heard "Pay for future contributions, not past performance" out of the mouths of GMs of all the major sports, yet they continue to throw out terrible contracts like this.

 

What's especially interesting about baseball in regards to this is that it's arguably the sport that first developed metrics that allowed GMs to project future contributions. Of the four major US sports, baseball should be the one least likely to throw insane money at players in their upper 30s... yet some teams (Angels and now Tigers come to mind) just keep doing it.

 

I'm not terribly confident that the Cubs will be contenders anytime soon, but at least their braintrust is open about their plan: they're not going to overpay for free agents. It's refreshing to hear and it pisses off idiot Cubs fans and, let's be honest, few things in the world are more fun than that.

 

I largely agree. Do I wish the Cubs would shell out a bit more towards objectively productive free agents so I could at least get some short-term enjoyment out of this team? Yeah. But am I broken-hearted that we aren't locked into the deals that Bourn and Cano (as examples) received? No.

 

As for Cabrera, ESPN is reporting that GM's and owners across baseball are pissed about the deal. I have to think most of that anger is centered in Anaheim, but if guys like Baez and Bryant turn out to be what we hope / think they will, it doesn't help us either.

 

Really the deal is loco - the kind of thing that Steinbrenner would have done in his 80's heyday. I know that Miggy is a once in lifetime player -if he keeps this up he will finish as one of the Top 5 of all time. But if they want him to be productive (not great - just productive) until the end, he probably needs to be a nearly full-time DH by age 34, IMO. Turn him into Edgar Martinez.

 

EDIT:

And is this now the worst trade of all-time?:

 

December 4, 2007: Traded by the Florida Marlins with Dontrelle Willis to the Detroit Tigers for Dallas Trahern (minors), Burke Badenhop, Frankie De La Cruz, Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller and Mike Rabelo.

[A New Era]

$300 Million for Baez if he becomes a superstar, starting at his age 25 season? Sure. But this is ridiculous when they already had him til age 33.

 

Of course our situation won't come up because we will lock Baez up long before that, and for less than $100 mil. Our situation is unique because we have our prime guys coming up and really good scouting so we will predict their performance and pay them BEFORE they become insane stars. It's a risk to do that, but I would way waaaaaaay rather do that than wait until they are stars and pay the $300 million dollar contracts.

[XZero771679666304]

Interesting post by a reader over at Deadspin that cross-references the Cubs' approach:

 

The last couple of years, you've heard "Pay for future contributions, not past performance" out of the mouths of GMs of all the major sports, yet they continue to throw out terrible contracts like this.

 

What's especially interesting about baseball in regards to this is that it's arguably the sport that first developed metrics that allowed GMs to project future contributions. Of the four major US sports, baseball should be the one least likely to throw insane money at players in their upper 30s... yet some teams (Angels and now Tigers come to mind) just keep doing it.

 

I'm not terribly confident that the Cubs will be contenders anytime soon, but at least their braintrust is open about their plan: they're not going to overpay for free agents. It's refreshing to hear and it pisses off idiot Cubs fans and, let's be honest, few things in the world are more fun than that.

 

I largely agree. Do I wish the Cubs would shell out a bit more towards objectively productive free agents so I could at least get some short-term enjoyment out of this team? Yeah. But am I broken-hearted that we aren't locked into the deals that Bourn and Cano (as examples) received? No.

 

As for Cabrera, ESPN is reporting that GM's and owners across baseball are pissed about the deal. I have to think most of that anger is centered in Anaheim, but if guys like Baez and Bryant turn out to be what we hope / think they will, it doesn't help us either.

 

Really the deal is loco - the kind of thing that Steinbrenner would have done in his 80's heyday. I know that Miggy is a once in lifetime player -if he keeps this up he will finish as one of the Top 5 of all time. But if they want him to be productive (not great - just productive) until the end, he probably needs to be a nearly full-time DH by age 34, IMO. Turn him into Edgar Martinez.

 

We're probably not going to see many more of these megadeals given to post prime players as more and more of the best young players are given semi-megadeals that take them into their mid-30s. For that reason, I don't think this is going to have a huge effect on the market, along with the fact that very few players will ever have quite the resume Cabrera does.

 

Clearly this deal is going to be paying Miggy primarily for past production, and odds are he will play most of it out as a DH. Between he and Verlander, Detroit is going to have a lot of money tied up in post prime players.

[Guest]

Interesting post by a reader over at Deadspin that cross-references the Cubs' approach:

 

The last couple of years, you've heard "Pay for future contributions, not past performance" out of the mouths of GMs of all the major sports, yet they continue to throw out terrible contracts like this.

 

What's especially interesting about baseball in regards to this is that it's arguably the sport that first developed metrics that allowed GMs to project future contributions. Of the four major US sports, baseball should be the one least likely to throw insane money at players in their upper 30s... yet some teams (Angels and now Tigers come to mind) just keep doing it.

 

I'm not terribly confident that the Cubs will be contenders anytime soon, but at least their braintrust is open about their plan: they're not going to overpay for free agents. It's refreshing to hear and it pisses off idiot Cubs fans and, let's be honest, few things in the world are more fun than that.

 

I largely agree. Do I wish the Cubs would shell out a bit more towards objectively productive free agents so I could at least get some short-term enjoyment out of this team? Yeah. But am I broken-hearted that we aren't locked into the deals that Bourn and Cano (as examples) received? No.

 

As for Cabrera, ESPN is reporting that GM's and owners across baseball are pissed about the deal. I have to think most of that anger is centered in Anaheim, but if guys like Baez and Bryant turn out to be what we hope / think they will, it doesn't help us either.

 

Really the deal is loco - the kind of thing that Steinbrenner would have done in his 80's heyday. I know that Miggy is a once in lifetime player -if he keeps this up he will finish as one of the Top 5 of all time. But if they want him to be productive (not great - just productive) until the end, he probably needs to be a nearly full-time DH by age 34, IMO. Turn him into Edgar Martinez.

 

EDIT:

And is this now the worst trade of all-time?:

 

December 4, 2007: Traded by the Florida Marlins with Dontrelle Willis to the Detroit Tigers for Dallas Trahern (minors), Burke Badenhop, Frankie De La Cruz, Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller and Mike Rabelo.

the post you quoted is mostly full of [expletive]. The dollars/WAR calculation cannot be taken seriously. Aside from that, really great players are going to get paid more than they are theoretically worth by somebody. The smart management teams will recognize this fact and manage a roster to accomidate the overpaid player.

 

I'm so sick of hearing "boy, they overpaid for that guy. I'm glad the Cubs didn't do that."

[Sammy Sofa]

Interesting post by a reader over at Deadspin that cross-references the Cubs' approach:

 

The last couple of years, you've heard "Pay for future contributions, not past performance" out of the mouths of GMs of all the major sports, yet they continue to throw out terrible contracts like this.

 

What's especially interesting about baseball in regards to this is that it's arguably the sport that first developed metrics that allowed GMs to project future contributions. Of the four major US sports, baseball should be the one least likely to throw insane money at players in their upper 30s... yet some teams (Angels and now Tigers come to mind) just keep doing it.

 

I'm not terribly confident that the Cubs will be contenders anytime soon, but at least their braintrust is open about their plan: they're not going to overpay for free agents. It's refreshing to hear and it pisses off idiot Cubs fans and, let's be honest, few things in the world are more fun than that.

 

I largely agree. Do I wish the Cubs would shell out a bit more towards objectively productive free agents so I could at least get some short-term enjoyment out of this team? Yeah. But am I broken-hearted that we aren't locked into the deals that Bourn and Cano (as examples) received? No.

 

As for Cabrera, ESPN is reporting that GM's and owners across baseball are pissed about the deal. I have to think most of that anger is centered in Anaheim, but if guys like Baez and Bryant turn out to be what we hope / think they will, it doesn't help us either.

 

Really the deal is loco - the kind of thing that Steinbrenner would have done in his 80's heyday. I know that Miggy is a once in lifetime player -if he keeps this up he will finish as one of the Top 5 of all time. But if they want him to be productive (not great - just productive) until the end, he probably needs to be a nearly full-time DH by age 34, IMO. Turn him into Edgar Martinez.

 

EDIT:

And is this now the worst trade of all-time?:

 

December 4, 2007: Traded by the Florida Marlins with Dontrelle Willis to the Detroit Tigers for Dallas Trahern (minors), Burke Badenhop, Frankie De La Cruz, Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller and Mike Rabelo.

 

It's ridiculous for pretty much any other team to be mad over this deal (ESPECIALLY the Angels) given the monster deals given out left and right by teams across the leagues. Bemoaning that someone isn't giving the Cabrera the deal he deserves based on precitive metrics is pointless because there will ALWAYS be MULTIPLE teams willing to pay out the ass for someone like this. It's a lock he still would have gotten paid at least through 40 in a couple of years if he hadn't re-upped with the Tigers.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

The fact that someone would have done it doesn't make it OK to do it.

 

Zell was always going to find his sucker, but that doesn't make it OK for Ricketts to be that sucker.

[Sammy Sofa]

The fact that someone would have done it doesn't make it OK to do it.

 

But it's going to keep happening, so rending the clothes and gnashing the teeth every single time it does is like whining every time something goes wrong for the Cu-OH MY GOD, NOW I UNDERSTAND.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

The fact that someone would have done it doesn't make it OK to do it.

 

But it's going to keep happening, so rending the clothes and gnashing the teeth every single time it does is like whining every time something goes wrong for the Cu-OH MY GOD, NOW I UNDERSTAND.

 

And the fact that people always whine doesn't mean that they aren't occasionally right. I have no problem with most of the big contracts. This one was dumb. Ryan Howard's was dumb.

[Sammy Sofa]

Very different kinds of dumb, but sure.

[Guest]

the post you quoted is mostly full of [expletive]. The dollars/WAR calculation cannot be taken seriously. Aside from that, really great players are going to get paid more than they are theoretically worth by somebody. The smart management teams will recognize this fact and manage a roster to accomidate the overpaid player.

 

I'm so sick of hearing "boy, they overpaid for that guy. I'm glad the Cubs didn't do that."

 

The most common addendum to that argument is that even if overpaid, those players are still good, so your team benefits even if it's not hyper-efficient. Here's the biggest FA deals(75 million and greater) of the Epstein tenure, with their age in the first year of their deal and the fWAR of their performance so far:

 

Player   Age Yrs  AAV  Year 1   Year 2
======================================
Pujols    32  10   25    3.7      0.7
Fielder   28   9   24    4.8      2.2
Greinke   29   6   25    2.9
Hamilton  32   5   25    1.9
Reyes     29   6   18    4.1      2.2
Sanchez   29   5   16    6.2
Wilson    31   5   16    2.1      3.3
Upton     28   5   15   -0.6

 

So that's 12 seasons of performance. Three of those seasons are greater than 4 WAR, and all of them came during seasons when the player was still in their 20s. Six of those seasons, a full half, have 2.2 WAR or less. For comparison, Valbuena and DeJesus were both 2 WAR players as Cubs last year, in 391 and 318 PA respectively. I don't think it's out of order to question the notion that you're even guaranteeing "good" performance when paying for "great" performance since the new CBA has cut down on those who make it to free agency even further.

[davell]

Morbidly, this one was brilliant. Illitch is 84. He gets to keep Cabrera and its certainly plausible to think he might not be around or paying for the bad years.

[Sammy Sofa]

I'd still love to have Greinke or Wilson.

[Guest]

Heh. The best one on that list is the one we pretty much had signed.

[XZero771679666304]

the post you quoted is mostly full of [expletive]. The dollars/WAR calculation cannot be taken seriously. Aside from that, really great players are going to get paid more than they are theoretically worth by somebody. The smart management teams will recognize this fact and manage a roster to accomidate the overpaid player.

 

I'm so sick of hearing "boy, they overpaid for that guy. I'm glad the Cubs didn't do that."

 

 

Smarter management teams won't let things get to that point, which is the developing trend. Cabrera is a bit of an exception because he got started so young, but lock up your own guys from their mid twenties through their mid thirties and you avoid having to give out the post-prime megadeals at all.

 

Having to take it in the ass for the last 4-5 years of a huge deal to derive some value from the first 3-4 is going to become a price only desperate teams have to pay.

Edited March 28, 2014 by XZero77

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Heh. The best one on that list is the one we pretty much had signed.

 

If you look at who we've been connected with, we've been really good at identifying undervalued/ready-to-break-out pitching. We were nearly there on Sanchez, heavy on Liriano, and supposedly interested in Jimenez for his bounceback potential before he actually did it.

 

Of course, good thing we only got participation ribbons on all of them, otherwise we might not be picking fourth in the upcoming draft.

[A New Era]

Picking 4th is a nice consolation prize. But I would like to hope this offseason we actually land one of those, predict future success pitchers.

[Guest]

the post you quoted is mostly full of [expletive]. The dollars/WAR calculation cannot be taken seriously. Aside from that, really great players are going to get paid more than they are theoretically worth by somebody. The smart management teams will recognize this fact and manage a roster to accomidate the overpaid player.

 

I'm so sick of hearing "boy, they overpaid for that guy. I'm glad the Cubs didn't do that."

 

 

Smarter management teams won't let things get to that point, which is the developing trend. Cabrera is a bit of an exception because he got started so young, but lock up your own guys from their mid twenties through their mid thirties and you avoid having to give out the post-prime megadeals at all.

 

Having to take it in the ass for the last 4-5 years of a huge deal to derive some value from the first 3-4 is going to become a price only desperate teams have to pay.

I think that is a best case thing. Those mid 30s guys are going to be there. If there is a guy on the market that Theo wants I hope he's willing to overpay. Also locking up guys to reasonable contracts early allows a team to overspend.

 

But really for me, I just want them to win. If they overspend to do it I don't really care. I don't take any satisfaction in the Cubs having surpluses value contracts and winning 70 games. When they start winning it won't make me any happier knowing the payroll is - dollars from the Yankees etc.

Edited March 28, 2014 by CubinNY

[RynoRules]

the post you quoted is mostly full of [expletive]. The dollars/WAR calculation cannot be taken seriously. Aside from that, really great players are going to get paid more than they are theoretically worth by somebody. The smart management teams will recognize this fact and manage a roster to accomidate the overpaid player.

 

I'm so sick of hearing "boy, they overpaid for that guy. I'm glad the Cubs didn't do that."

 

The most common addendum to that argument is that even if overpaid, those players are still good, so your team benefits even if it's not hyper-efficient. Here's the biggest FA deals(75 million and greater) of the Epstein tenure, with their age in the first year of their deal and the fWAR of their performance so far:

 

Player   Age Yrs  AAV  Year 1   Year 2
======================================
Pujols    32  10   25    3.7      0.7
Fielder   28   9   24    4.8      2.2
Greinke   29   6   25    2.9
Hamilton  32   5   25    1.9
Reyes     29   6   18    4.1      2.2
Sanchez   29   5   16    6.2
Wilson    31   5   16    2.1      3.3
Upton     28   5   15   -0.6

 

So that's 12 seasons of performance. Three of those seasons are greater than 4 WAR, and all of them came during seasons when the player was still in their 20s. Six of those seasons, a full half, have 2.2 WAR or less. For comparison, Valbuena and DeJesus were both 2 WAR players as Cubs last year, in 391 and 318 PA respectively. I don't think it's out of order to question the notion that you're even guaranteeing "good" performance when paying for "great" performance since the new CBA has cut down on those who make it to free agency even further.

 

I don't recall seeing a direct dollars/WAR argument before that guy's post, but I don't get why it shouldn't be taken seriously. It makes sense to me, at least on a surface level, and the numbers TT cites bear that out for the most part.

 

Again, I'm not saying that it wouldn't be more emotionally satisfying for the Cubs to sign more expensive players with better track records. It clearly would be. I'm also not arguing that the approach we have taken has been anything less than frustrating considering the size of our market, team revenue, etc. (though I was somewhat swayed by the BN article about the team's debt load, Zell, etc.)

 

From a cold-hearted logic standpoint, however, I don't want Hamilton, Reyes, Bourn, etc. at the numbers they command. What I would like is to be more aggressive in the trade market. When teams make ML or ML-ready players who are under team control for the foreseeable future available, we should be jumping all over that [expletive]. Adam Eaton comes to mind in this regard - that will be a steal for the Sox, IMO. Arb eligible in 16' and FA in 19'.

[XZero771679666304]

I think that is a best case thing. Those mid 30s guys are going to be there. If there is a guy on the market that Theo wants I hope he's willing to overpay. Also locking up guys to reasonable contracts early allows a team to overspend.

 

But really for me, I just want them to win. If they overspend to do it I don't really care. I don't take any satisfaction in the Cubs having surpluses value contracts and winning 70 games. When they start winning it won't make me any happier knowing the payroll is - dollars from the Yankees etc.

 

You're not going to sign guys to big deals that are already in their mid-30's. These megadeals are being given to guys in their early 30s, and while there will always be some of them on the market, the number of great ones will dwindle as more and more teams lock their guys up early, and through the end of their prime years.

[Guest]

I think that is a best case thing. Those mid 30s guys are going to be there. If there is a guy on the market that Theo wants I hope he's willing to overpay. Also locking up guys to reasonable contracts early allows a team to overspend.

 

But really for me, I just want them to win. If they overspend to do it I don't really care. I don't take any satisfaction in the Cubs having surpluses value contracts and winning 70 games. When they start winning it won't make me any happier knowing the payroll is - dollars from the Yankees etc.

 

You're not going to sign guys to big deals that are already in their mid-30's. These megadeals are being given to guys in their early 30s, and while there will always be some of them on the market, the number of great ones will dwindle as more and more teams lock their guys up early, and through the end of their prime years.

I agree. But, I guess my point is that there will always be really good players who will be overpaid. I hope Theo doesn't write a potential target off out of hand simply because of his age and cost.

[A New Era]

I think that is a best case thing. Those mid 30s guys are going to be there. If there is a guy on the market that Theo wants I hope he's willing to overpay. Also locking up guys to reasonable contracts early allows a team to overspend.

 

But really for me, I just want them to win. If they overspend to do it I don't really care. I don't take any satisfaction in the Cubs having surpluses value contracts and winning 70 games. When they start winning it won't make me any happier knowing the payroll is - dollars from the Yankees etc.

 

You're not going to sign guys to big deals that are already in their mid-30's. These megadeals are being given to guys in their early 30s, and while there will always be some of them on the market, the number of great ones will dwindle as more and more teams lock their guys up early, and through the end of their prime years.

I agree. But, I guess my point is that there will always be really good players who will be overpaid. I hope Theo doesn't write a potential target off out of hand simply because of his age and cost.

 

Theo will continue to target guys like Anibel Sanchez and Masahiro Tanaka who become available. There will be more guys like that. They are not as common but when they do hit you have to strike hard.

[Sammy Sofa]

Well, it'll be great when they can actually do that.