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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Thursday, February 20, 2014
No yearly breakout, but it buys out two of his free agent years in 2019-20.
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1. Khrushin it bro Posted: February 20, 2014 at 01:24 PM (#4659718)also, the tag of white flight field is excellent, but not quite "centaur beat" excellent. then again, what is? c'est la vie.
seeing as he doesn't stand to really lose out on considerable cash short of a career ending/de-railing injury, i'd guess it's a pretty prudent move to risk the security to bet on himself in the wake of all of these extensions. if he comes out and hits .290/30/100/15 or something this season he could then cheekily turn around and say "...so about that extension" =D
Seems to be a little bit of both. I suspect Heyward would sign a long-term, market-level extension, but the Braves aren't willing to offer it based on Heyward's injury history. And I suspect the Braves would sign a long-term, below-market extension, but Heyward's not willing to do that coming off an injury-plagued year when his value is not where it could be, especially when the injuries were pretty flukish.
They couldn't agree on a long term deal this year, but next year...
He can definitely put a charge in a pitch if it's elevated; he hit 17 homers and picked up a total of 50 extra-base hits last year, so he's got some pop. He can run a bit and he never strikes out (55 Ks in 606 at-bats).
His swing is also long and loopy, and he was pretty much a pop-up machine last year. His plate discipline is predictably rather poor, and he seemed to have a ton of at-bats where he just said, \"#### it, I'm swinging on the next pitch." So he's got a long way to go offensively.
He's never going to be A-Rod, but I can see him pretty routinely hitting at, say, a .270/.320/.430 level year in and year out.
Wait, what? There's a new ballpark in the offing in Atlanta?
Nope. $1M, $3M, $6M, $8M, $11M, $13M and $15M with a $1M signing bonus. No option years.
Simmons had a 750 OPS last year and was 760 this year batting out of the 8 hole and 840 out of the 2, 6 and 7 combined. That'll do.
No. In Cumberland.
Schuerholz is a heckuva GM.
ETA-Of course there is that pesky BJ Upton issue
John Schuerholz is not the GM. He is the President of Baseball Operations and a member of the Board. (Bobby Cox also still sits on the Board last I checked.)
Frank Wren is the GM.
Of note given 2014's spate of young player contract extensions, in November of 2013 the Braves hired John Hart as a special assistant as well.
I'm still stuck in the KC days.
Thanks
If I'm remembering correct, about half of Simmons HRs were of the just barely made it variety according to hit tracker. Doubt he gets that kind of luck again. The last 3 young ATL SS have all had really young power surges. Weird.
Not to mention that some of those guys are going to have to be better than average offensively or its the Freddie Freeman show on the offensive side...
That's an OPS+ of about 105 -- not impossible but substantially above average for a starting SS. (And if he fills out, he'll likely lose some on defense ... probably still a worthwhile trade.)
Nope. $1M, $3M, $6M, $8M, $11M, $13M and $15M with a $1M signing bonus.
So I was $1 M too low in years 1 and 7 and $1 M too high in years 4 and 5. I am blushing with embarrassment.
Anyway, it's hard to know how an arbitrator (or other teams) will treat defensive superstars through their arb years at this point. It's hard to think even who to comp him to. Franklin Gutierrez got 4/$19 for 2010-13 and he was also much older. Brendan Ryan got squat but he was never full-time and also older. Gomez got squat but wasn't a starter and hit really poorly. Yadier's 4 arb years and first FA year seem to have been bought out for about $22 M ... then the big extension at about the same price as Simmons' FA years here. Aaron Hill's arb years cost about $12 M then he was signed for 5/$46 but his Rfield had faded by then. Parra signed his 2nd arb year for about $5 M. Of course only Yadier and Ryan are real defensive comps here.
Tulo is a good recent "awesome young defensive SS" comp but he also hit. His first contract bought out 3 arb and 2 FA years (plus 2 pre-arb years) for $45. (Tulo had 6.8 WAR at 22, Simmons 6.8 WAR at 23.)
Andrus is an OK comp -- $14 M for his 3 arb years, his big extension is $15 M at the start .... that's quite close to this contract. He does have 13.4 oWAR through age 24 so a better offensive player than Simmons.
Guys like Machado, Arenado, Lawrie will be interesting to keep an eye on but also not SS.
By the way, I'm not trying to question Simmons defense but clearly his +41 last year is not something we can rely on. Nor do I consider this a bad contract on a $/WAR context -- he just has to be an average SS for this to be a good contract. It's only possibly bad in comparison with other contracts that comparable players have signed -- i.e. does the market reward this type of player and, if not, no reason for the Braves to. But Simmons as Elvis Andrus is more than reasonable. His oWAR to date has been that of an average SS so even at +10 in the field, he'll provide a good return.*
*Of course it will almost certaintly be a great return in strict $/WAR terms but that's a function of the salary structure in MLB. His arb and early FA years look roughly like what an "average or slightly better starter" gets.
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