EE isnt going to get albert type of contract so your comparison isnt on point. Fangraphs didnt predict EE to have the type of season he had, you guys get way to caught up in stats and predictions.
hes not getting 10 years so whats your point? Pujols wouldve been worth a 5-6 contract at 20mil per season
First off, we'd have him from ages 34-38. While EE could have 4 good years left, the odds heavily favor a decline, we just don't know when. Only a few players have defied the aging process. Thriving at ages 36, 37, and 38 is the exception, not the rule. And while having a DH slot will help, history suggests a decline is inevitable. So, the question basically boils down to: is the benefit of EE's first 2.5 seasons worth the baggage of his last 2--hopefully not 3--years? 100%. Adding EE and subtracting Springer or Bregman seems like one step forward and another step back. I love Sale, but we can make strides in the rotation without hindering what looks like the best offense in baseball.
The 34-36 range is a scary age in the post PED era. Not everybody falls apart, but quite a few examples of players hitting 34, and starting a steep and quick decline (El Caballo was just mentioned). The Encarnacion contract will be a time bomb in which nobody has any clue when it will go off. He may be good throughout, he may not even make it through this year. When teams give those 10 year deals out, they do so knowing there are basically guaranteed safe prime years at the beginning, so they pay the premium on the back end. EE is already in the age danger zone, so no year is truly safe. But if he can maintain his recent production for even 3 years, he will be a bargain.
He'll get 4-5 years at $25-30M per year for his age 34-38 seasons. You don't build winning teams overpaying for a players decline is my point.
Player aging curves strongly disagree with that statement. 34/35 is around when accelerated drops in productivity typically occur. He could be one of the recent few stars who have bucked the trend (Big Papi/Beltre/Beltran), but those guys are exceptions that prove the rule.
I wonder if the rule should be amended to include older players who clearly benefit from playing in a league with a DH option. The fact that EE is a DH-only NOW is also something to consider. Less risk of wear/tear/injury from playing the field (as opposed to Pujols/Beltran).
Dave Cameron over at Fangraphs published a great article today on the marginal upgrade of acquiring Chris Sale at the cost of current major league talent (i.e Alex Bregman). Link
Completely agree with all of this. Giving up Bregman + a few prospects doesn't really seem to me like that much of an upgrade. I'd rather stick with an average to above average rotation (maybe even go after Hill and have a "good" rotation) and have a killer lineup with EE included.
I agree with it definitely for the regular season, but you most definitely would rather have Sale than Bregman in the playoffs.
For the Astros or the Nationals, they’d be swapping out a +3 WAR player for a +5 WAR player, which has roughly the same effect on the team’s expected record as, say, signing Josh Reddick. Except that a +2 WAR (in probability) will replace the +3 WAR player you gave up. Even if we signed Sale and gave up nothing, the previous logic could say that the $$$ we pay him would prevent us from signing another player with a 3-4 WAR. Bad logic. You give up a 3 to get a 5 any day of the week, especially when the 5 is a pitcher and the 3 is a position player.
Front-loaded contracts make baseball sense because they pair diminishing production to decreasing salaries but they definitely don't make financial sense because of net present value. Think of Cespedes's contract: 4 years at $110 million. Imagine it front loaded, equally weighted, or backloaded. a) 35/30/25/20 b) 27.5/27.5/27.5/27.5 c) 20/25/30/35 In scenario A the team would be paying significantly more because of the time value of money.
Exactly, this is baseball not basketball. No salary cap, therefore present value of money definitely comes into play.
No, he wouldn't have been. If he has been there 5 years and put up $74M dollars worth of value, that is $15M/yr over 5 years. Coming off a 0.9 WAR season, hard to see him being worth much more than $5M in what would be a 6th year. That isn't wholly true because: 1) It assumes the replacement for that player is merely replacement level. 2) It ignores there are limited number of PAs and innings to go around. I'm not advocating trading Bregman (or Springer), but Bregman would be replaced by more Gurriel & Marwin most likely, which could easily make up 2 of the 3 outgoing wins.
Sure, but it's Crane's money: if he doesn't/wouldn't care, why should we? It also lessens future obligations when it's time for extensions to other guys. But really I was just throwing that out there, I couldn't care less what his contract is. I know Crane and Luhnow have a financial plan in place and they've done nothing to really erode my trust in them.
You frontload as an incentive to sign (really operating like a signing bonus) and to make the player more attractive as a trade chip at the end of the contract. Of course GMs also do it sometimes to better fit into the owner's budget.
