On December 15th, 2006, Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi signed center fielder Vernon Wells to a seven-year, $126MM extension. The heavily-backloaded contract included a full no-trade clause and an opt-out clause after the 2011 season. At the time of the signing, Wells was a year away from free agency.
With five years and $105MM remaining, the Wells extension is now widely regarded as the worst contract in baseball. I thought it’d be interesting to see what sportswriters were saying at the time of the signing.
Peter Gammons, ESPN: “If you’re going to give $18 million to somebody, you want them to be as diligent and as reliable as Vernon. If he went out in the market next year, with Andruw Jones, and Ichiro, and Torii Hunter, I really believe that at his age he might be #1.”
Jeff Blair, Globe and Mail: “The dollars involved in Wells’s extension are an accurate reading of a system flush with cash because of new media riches, labour peace and solid attendance in big markets. Wells would have received $20-million a year as a free agent next year without breaking a sweat. His on-field production - a Gold Glove, .300 batting average, 30 home runs and 100 runs batted in - would not be replaced in time to compete this year in the hypercompetitive American League East.”
Nate Silver, Baseball Prospectus: “Toronto did a good job of assessing Wells’s value in the short term. As for the risks associated with a contract that stretches past the player’s 35th birthday? Consider it a necessary evil for securing a premium player who likely would’ve fetched at least $150 million in next year’s market.”
Tripon
Posted: November 16, 2009 at 06:38 PM |
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"I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."
I guess if some team in the 20s had signed a deal which backloaded into the 1930s, that would kinda suck.
This is an exchange from that link. If Larry Mahnken only knew how prescient he was!
Two thoughts -
- It made me sad to see Brattain in that thread.
- Vaux's prediction about housing prices towards the end of the thread is hilarious, in retrospect.
Szym notes in that post that Wells' weight might become an issue; does anybody know if it has? I haven't noticed, but it would seem reasonable, given what's happened to him. It's really been the decline of his defense that's been horrific, though he's had bad years at the plate, too -- he's had one reasonably good year at the plate since then, but he now seems to field (at least to the naked eye) like a RF on temporary assignment. If he could still cover the ground, you might hope that he'll have a few more years like 2008 and make this thing seem reasonable. As it is, it's ugly.
That was a completely accurate statement and I believe all three of those guys signed for $18 M a year.
I'm surprised how little I had to say in those two threads. I've never been a big fan of Wells (his hitting was always inconsistent) and I hate 7-year contracts generally ... but I come out neither in favor nor dismissal of that contract. All I really said is that if you're going to have an opt-out clause, at least set it up such that you get a huge bargain if the guy performs well enough to leave and are no more screwed than you would be anyway if he doesn't perform well and stays. Unfortunately for the Jays, they're in the latter category.
I find it very unlikely (at least in the context of the uncertainty surrounding teams) that the Jays would have trouble trading Wells at any point of this contract without having extracted proper value from the deal, which is basically the best you can hope for in a long-term contract.
Also, Alex Gordon's #1 Fan got one thing right:
I think this will be a very good deal from 2007-2010, and then an albatross afterwards, but hey, JP probably won't be around for that, so let someone else clean it up!
From the owner's perspective, if you have to pay 120 million, better to pay it later than now. From the GM's prespective, if it helps me to win now it's good. If it doesn't work out and becomes an albatross in later years, I'll be out of a job anyway and it's somebody else's problem.
I'd make a terrible GM because the list of players I'd consider handing 7 year contracts to probably starts with the under-30 A-Rod, ends with the under-30 Pujols --- and there's probably nothing in between.
I don't think I'd even give Mauer a 7 year deal because he's a catcher.
No doubt, this means whatever team I fronted would be light on stars... but when handing out a 7 year deal, is there a GM in the world that isn't secretly, in his the back of his mind, thinking "Well, this is sure going to be a real headache for my successor".
Also, Alex Gordon's #1 Fan got one thing right:
I think this will be a very good deal from 2007-2010, and then an albatross afterwards, but hey, JP probably won't be around for that, so let someone else clean it up!
I'm pretty sure that is more than offset by my endorsement of the Jose Guillen signing.
>Squirms a bit, shrugs shoulders, mouths "2005 . . ."<
I'm right there with you. As a general rule, never more than 5. For a really good player, if I had to go to 6 to get it done, I might do that. Certainly the 25-year-old AROD is the only guy I'd have ever given a 10-year contract to. I can imagine Jeter might have talked me into a 7-year deal (back in the day) ... but then maybe Nomar could have as well!
And I'd have left Sabathia's agent laughing for days I'm sure.
Mauer ... he might be one, figuring I could slip him over to DH or 1B or 3B if necessary.
And I'd be more inclined to more than 5 years if it's something like buying out 3 years of arb and 4 years of FA, especially if I think I'm getting a fair discount.
I've taken a lot of heat in Sox Therapy for a similar stance. My list might be a little longer than yours, but you'd still be able to count it on one hand.
But I'm guessing that's not really the same thing as you guys are discussing.
To hand out a 7 year deal, you absolutely must plan on getting what you think is value well above what you're paying for the first few years, because nobody can tell you with the least amount of certainty that a guy is going to be worth $15 million 5 years from now. Hell you don't know if $15 million will be worth $15 million five years from now.
Just to provide the numbers, Wells' career numbers (thanks to bR's nifty little tool) at the end of 2006 were .288/.336/.492 with a 112 OPS+. Since they have been .265/.317/.426 with a 96 OPS+. So it's not that big of a difference. The batting average is most of the difference.
Soriano (career through 2006): .280/.325/.510, OPS+ = 114. Soriano (since): .275/.328/.508, OPS+ = 109. Soriano was the worse deal at the time (due to age and playing position), and probably has worked out somewhat similarly despite Soriano hitting roughly what could be expected and Wells underperforming expectations.
To state the somewhat obvious, it matters somewhat whose money I'm playing with here. Brian Cashman can hand out 7-year deals because the Yankees can thrive even if one or more of them goes belly-up. Playing the Home GM Game is actually kind of more fun if you assume that you can't just buy your way to a quality team despite your mistakes, and thus have to carefully consider if Joe Mauer is THE ONE, or if you just won't hand out a $150M contract to any catcher because ... hey, catchers break down, and once they do, even if you move them to 1B they ain't Joe Mauer any more.
Well, the 40 point drop in ISO shouldn't be scoffed at. :-)
even if you move them to 1B they ain't Joe Mauer any more.
If you're handing out long, big-money contract, I guess I side towards the notion that what you really need to avoid is the absolute disaster. Now injuries and such you don't have much control over (other than avoiding long-term deals to pitchers). But for Mauer, even if between age-related decline and moving to 1B he's "pretty average", at least I'd still be getting value out of him 6-7 years down the road.
Of course I suppose other than the Wells and Sorianos of the world, teams only hand out 7+ year contracts to guys who can probably move to other positions and hold their own so I'm not really saying anything brilliant.
Anyway, I probably still put Hampton at the top of my worst contracts of all-time list (and, yeah, I pretty much said so at the time, again not a sign of brilliance) ... though if Gonzalez had accepted Detroit's offer, it would be a contender. Zito and Soriano might be next on the list and I'm deeply disappointed the Carlos Lee contract hasn't exploded in the Astros' face yet.
I stand by my comments.
Wells Extension
- It made me sad to see Brattain in that thread.
what makes me sad/upset is that nobody ever talks about him/thinks about him around here
it is like he never existed unless we look up an old thread or someone (ahem) brings him up talking about non-baseball topics
Remember, it's mostly guys here, and we tend not to talk about those who've gone. Doesn't mean we don't think about them.
Sorry for the tangent; the Facebook-afterlife is weird. I get that my buddy's page (not John Brattain) is Facebook's property, but it's really annoying to be robo-asked "Are you smarter than Your Dead Buddy?" every couple months.
What should we be saying about him? I can't think of anything.
- i guess that about sez it all
it's funny - you guys talk to each other on this here internet board, talk about stuff that is really personal and intimate, talk to each other like i have never heard males talk to each other in real life - or even talk to females. you even talk about stuff that us females don't never talk about (and i don't mean about having a penis/testicles and your adventures with them)
it is hard for me to believe that with all the endless talk, that john wasn't part of anyone's life in any substantial way. except for me.
or maybe you deal with your friends dying like you deal with a dream you vaguely remember but is basically gone now
- but why can't all yall males talk about someone who is gone/miss them? i mean, unless it is your parent/child? even Yew Peeple can do that one
Welcome to my #### list, bigot.
This is a real problem for sites like this. Facebook allows people to "memorialize" a profile, so it won't keep showing up in suggestions, etc.
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