That’s ~ $26,923,076.92 per year through Correa’s age-40 season, with the lengthy contract for a lower average annual value reducing the luxury tax impact. Reportedly, MLB was prepared to nix the 14-year/$400M deal the Padres offered Aaron Judge for too blatantly reducing the luxury tax by going to his age-44 season. I suspect Correa’s deal is inside the lines of what would be OK with MLB, but maybe not by much.

The rumor is that the Twins offered 10/285 and that sat on the table for 1-2 weeks. If that's the case, I'm pretty disappointed that they wouldn't bump that offer to 300-310. I think the Twins could win the Central with some better injury luck, but not without Correa or someone who can approximate his value. Finding a starting-caliber SS for this year is going to be pretty difficult at this point.

This is a bit more expensive than I expected, but they probably signed the right player; at least it fills a position of real need.

His one year deal paid off. He got 35 last year and now 350. It's better than Seager but I guess there's a non-zero chance that Seager could make 75 more million after his contract expires

In the past, we've divided teams into the "have's" vs the "have-not's".

I'm starting to think there are now three categories:

1) The Cannots
2) The Will Nots
3) The Wills

Oakland, Pittsburgh, etc cannot do these kind of deals unless they get owners who (like Steve Cohen of the Mets) genuinely don't mind losing money on the team on an operating basis, because they have that kind of money, and because they know they'll get it all back and more in the value of owning a franchise, anyway.

Boston appears to be one of the teams that (either because the ownership is pulling back, or because they philosophically can't get there) could do these contracts...but will not.

The Mets, Padres, Giants, Phillies and some others are able to do these deals...and will do these deals, looking at the last 2-4 years as dead money meant to smooth out the AAV.

It is becoming less about the market size, and more about the nature of the ownership. I mean, did you really think a decade ago that San Diego would be one of the biggest players in paying these kind of contracts?

Here in Boston, the Red Sox have already felt the consequences of the "sign it now, deal with it later" if ownership pulls back afterwards. Boston has had one of the biggest payrolls in baseball the last several years, even as we've finished last some seasons. Last year, we finished last - and still went over the luxury tax penalty threshold! Why? Because of all the money that wasn't playing ($16m to not have David Price; $27m for Chris Sale to pitch a few innings; $10m for Paxton to not pitch). If you're spending over $50m on guys who literally don't play for you, unless you're Steve Cohen, eventually you will pay the price on the field. But if you do have owners like SD, PHI, and the NYM...maybe you don't pay a price for it?

I like those categories. The Cubs briefly gave us some hope they'd actually spend this offseason - not at the beginning of the offseason when Jed dragged out his "intelligent spending" line again, but a little before the winter meetings there were lots of stories about how the Ricketts were opening the purse strings - however they have made it abundantly clear since winning the World Series they are team 100% Will Not. They can sign all the Stromans and Taillons they want, but they're conceeding any advantage of their big market status. And it ####### sucks.

Given the length of these contracts, if one of these guys dies before the end of the contract, does the deal get invalidated? There obviously be no services rendered.

The Cubs have been 100% WILL NOT!!!! for a while now.

Thoughts on this vs. Turner's deal? They're (basically) the same AAV, both run through age 40. The Giants get a couple more years of Correa because he's a couple years younger. The offensive difference between the two isn't as big as you think: 129 to 122 OPS+ in favor of Correa, and Turner makes four of those runs back on base running. Correa is the better fielder, a seven run difference on average. I'm talking myself into liking this deal, at least in comparison to Turner's, despite my initial shock at the top line number.

Looks like the new way of deferring salary is exceptionally long deals. Helps with the Luxury Tax as well as the NPV of the cash flow.

Given the length of these contracts, if one of these guys dies before the end of the contract, does the deal get invalidated? There obviously be no services rendered.

It depends on the provisions in the contract. Yordano Ventura's contract had a clause that specifically voided the contract if he was injured or killed while driving intoxicated, which is what happened.

Thoughts on this vs. Turner's deal?

I don't know as much about Turner, but the local press and such have been endlessly on the Correa is a great leader and great in the clubhouse for a while now, even those who are typically pretty cynical about those sorts of things.

I like those categories. The Cubs briefly gave us some hope they'd actually spend this offseason - not at the beginning of the offseason when Jed dragged out his "intelligent spending" line again, but a little before the winter meetings there were lots of stories about how the Ricketts were opening the purse strings - however they have made it abundantly clear since winning the World Series they are team 100% Will Not. They can sign all the Stromans and Taillons they want, but they're conceeding any advantage of their big market status. And it ####### sucks.

True and I wonder what the dynamic of the FO really is these days. Is ownership willing, but Hoyer isn't willing/able to get these deals done? Is ownership killing these kinds of deals, or is Hoyer talking them out of it?

No doubt a combination of all the above, but I've been suspicious of Hoyer for a long time, just because he constantly talks like someone who thinks he's just too damn smart to need big free agent deals. I'm sure that to some extent, he's acting under pressure from ownership, but all his talk about "intelligent spending" sure sounds like a guy who's working really hard to outsmart himself - a guy with a million rationalizations for why each contract isn't the right contract for the time and place, and meanwhile, what do you mean we're cheap, we signed Jameson Taillon!?!

I guess the way I'd put it is that it seems like if ownership want a lackey to act like a small-market GM in a big-market town, they picked the right guy.

I feel like Turner has extra value long-term in that he could be moved to CF due to his speed. Whereas Correa's aging rightward move would be to 3B where there are a ton of heavy hitters out there in NL. So WAR-wise, Turner's future rightward move on the defensive spectrum is more valuable to a team.

I like those categories, although the Cardinals are in between will not and will putting them at will within stretchable reason.(although missing out on Quintana and Bassit makes me question that rating) I wanted Correa the most of any of the shortstops on the market, and in fact would have been the only one of the group I would have been ecstatic to have (I would of course been happy with the others, but not really sure it would have been a long term improvement without hurting the teams flexibility)

The price of poker sure has gone up! I'm not sure that $/WAR feels this inflation. I like Correa, but 13 years for a middle infielder seems like it won't end well. Correa's expected wOBA last year was top 20 overall, though I would expect that to trend downwards as he continues the journey to 30. Not sure about predictive value of defensive metrics, though per stat cast, his OAA were in the bottom 18% last year, and his career UZR numbers seem perfectly well, adequate?

In fairness, I'm not sure that many of the contracts signed this off-season are likable.

The Cubs are really the only large market team in the division. The Pirates and Reds are trending to minimum payroll. The Brewers are a small market team willing to spend a little but not a lot. The Cardinals are one of the best run orgs in baseball. Can the Cubs spending advantage overcome the Cardinals advantage identifying and developing talent?

The Cubs are really the only large market team in the division. The Pirates and Reds are trending to minimum payroll. The Brewers are a small market team willing to spend a little but not a lot. The Cardinals are one of the best run orgs in baseball. Can the Cubs spending advantage overcome the Cardinals advantage identifying and developing talent?

Same can be said about the AL Central also, Chicago is the only team really capable of spending money, but unlike the NL teams, at least Cleveland does a good job of developing talent, and Minnesota gets the best out of their players pretty consistently (no matter how they got the players) I know the fans of the coast teams make fun of the central teams because they are pretty frequently the weakest division. But as many have pointed out, you just need to be good enough to win the division, then anything can happen. (Some might argue that the Central teams haven't made the world series since 2016... but from 2011-2016 a Central team was in the world series with 2 in 2016, so I stand by the comment that making the playoffs, anything can happen)

I think Correa is a really good player who is overrated on the basis of prospect pedigree and early career performance that augured a level of value that was never quite reached. The same goes for Corey Seager. By fWAR, from 2020 - 2022, Correa, was 65th, 9th and 30th. On an aggregate basis, he was 15th. I don't see how that guy is a $350 mil player, for however many years. By way of comparison, Brandon Nimmo was 21st in fWar over the past 3 years (1.4 behind Correa), 1 1/2 years older, and just signed a contract for 46% of the aggregate value of Correa's deal.

If you're going to drop $300M on the rest of a shortstop's career, I guess I like Correa being 15 months younger than Trea.

#5 ... there are no "cannots." Every team gets well over $200 M in common/shared revenue and keeps half of their local revenue (tix, TV rights, concessions, etc.) Those numbers are probably higher after all the deals MLB signed last year but every team is bringing in a min of $250 M in revenue now. Market size only affects that 50% of local revenue they get to add to that. Outside of payroll, the cost of running a MLB team are pretty low -- probably pretty high relative to corporations of similar size in other industries but I still can't see how that tops $50 M outside of any loan payments. So maybe the Pirates can't run a $200 M payroll but they can run a $150 M payroll and make money. Maybe they can't afford a Correa but they can afford a a set of Nimmo/Taillon/Stroman types, enough to compete in the NLC.

The Pirates 2022 payroll was $55 M. Where does that remaining $200 M go?

Franchise values per Forbes:

16. Mariners 1.7 B
17. Padres 1.58 B
18. Tigers 1.4 B
19. Twins 1.39 B
20. Rox 1.385 B
21. DBacks 1.38
22. Orioles 1.375
23. Pirates 1.32
24. Guardians 1.3
25. Brewers 1.28

So ahead of the Guardians and Brewers, not far off the Os, DBacks and Twins ... not all that far behind the Padres.

Forbes puts the Pirates revenue at $258 M. That is among the lowest in the league but that whole end of the market is roughly $240 to $280 M (the Ms are an outlier at $310 but the poor #15 White Sox don't do any better than the Pirates). The Pirates revenue is $24 M below the Padres which is roughly the AAV of X's contract. But where are the Pirates' Soto, Machado and Tatis? Heck, where was their Hosmer?

The Pirates were purchased in 1996 for $92 M.

I feel like Turner has extra value long-term in that he could be moved to CF due to his speed. Whereas Correa's aging rightward move would be to 3B where there are a ton of heavy hitters out there in NL. So WAR-wise, Turner's future rightward move on the defensive spectrum is more valuable to a team.

I don't know that speed ages any better than power. A hamstring tear or an ankle injury takes away any speed edge. Injuries sap power, too, I'll grant.

In fairness, I'm not sure that many of the contracts signed this off-season are likable.

"Likable" for whose benefit, though? Teams need to acquire good players to win games. If they have to "overpay" by some standard to get them, then why should we care as fans - especially fans of big-market teams that basically print their own money?

It seems like there's a strain of sabermetric thought that has devolved from "don't overpay for players who are actually not very good" to "be very careful that you're maximizing value at every turn." It's like we've deputized ourselves junior accountants on behalf of the owners. It's ridiculous.

If MLB was a hard salary cap league like the NFL or NHL, well, that's different. There are real tradeoffs involved with every contract in those leagues. But if MLB owners have to pay a little extra in luxury tax in order to win more games, that's just not my problem.

I’d think a general, age-related loss of athleticism that makes Turner unable to play short would also mean he should be going to center field either. If that happens a few years down the road, how many people become center fielders in their mid 30’s? I guess there’s Biggio, who did it at 37, but wasn’t very good defensively and after one year moved to left. Turner could certainly lose some athleticism and still be a decent corner outfielder.

A more specific injury, like Robin Yount’s shoulder, could force a player off short and into center.

I like Correa, but 13 years for a middle infielder seems like it won't end well.

I wouldn't focus on the years. It's a $350 million deal for the rest of his career value.

Lindor got $341 million for ages 27-36. Correa is getting $350 million for ages 28-40. Neither is likely to provide much value at ages 37-40 so basically the Giants are paying $9 million more for one fewer prime season (nevermind that age 27 ended up being a down year for Lindor). And the Giants have effectively deferred some of the money by spreading it over more years, so the NPV of the Correa contract may actually be less than Lindor's.

With these super-long deals essentially covering the rest of a player's career, it seems to me that the place to start is with a simple projection of $ per total projected WAR remaining.

We have a ZiPS projection for Judge at about 36 WAR, so $10/WAR. To be clear, 30 of that 36 WAR is projected for the first 5 years so yes the last 4 years of the contract are a "disaster" but then they'll get 30 WAR for a mere $200 M in those first 5 years. Since Judge wasn't gonna sign for 5/$200 we all know the last 4 years are deferment.

The ZiPS Correa projection at fangraphs (thanks again!!) Those extra 3 years get Correa a 16-WAR head start ... then from 31-36, it's only 18 WAR, 12 short of Judge. But, rightly or wrongly, ZiPS expects Correa's late 30s to be a good bit better as well. That end period doesn't really matter for valuation (it's obviously pretty much guesswork at that point and Judge could be putting up Ortiz numbers for all we know) but better to have the positive projection. Add it all up and ZiPS figure the Giants get 41 WAR for their $350 M also conveniently spread out over more years.

If memory serves, my NPV calculation the other day on X came out around $230 (3%, assuming equal AAV). This Correa deal is about $290; the Turner deal about $250; Judge about $310. That strikes me as the right ordering.

I'm not sure who the other 14 players I should be preferring to Correa are. Ohtani of course but that's a whole extra stratosphere of money. Judge probably. Soto but again, other than his 2 arb years, that's gonna be a much bigger deal than this one. Somebody like Acuna can't be comped financially because of the pre/arb/FA structure. There are some pitchers I'd rather have over the next 3 years or so but the injury risk tilts in favor of Correa the farther out we go.

In the first 6 years of this deal, Correa will make about $50 M more than Tatis; for 2029-34, Correa will make about $58 less; then Correa still has 2/$54 left. At the time Tatis signed that deal, obviously you'd much rather have that contract because you got his entire prime and his cheap pre-FA years. Given all that's happened to Tatis, I'm not sure which of those deals I'd rather have -- it probably still tilts towards Tatis because of the pre-FA years and that extra 2/$54 at the end but I'm much less confident that Tatis has 40 WAR ahead of him now.

Back to who I'd rather have -- I might rather have Arenado over the next 5 years; maybe Machado; maybe a couple of other guys. That's something of a misleading question though because those guys aren't available. Like Tatis or Acuna, I might rather have JRod but that's only because of his age advantage and the financial advantage built into the system. The only team that had that opportunity was the Ms. Any advantage in baseball value that JRod has over Correa has no relevance to Correa's value.

Anyway, if they're now going to sign everybody through their late 30s then comparisons are pretty much reduced to "total expected WAR/$" with some sort of NPV correction. That's always worked just fine but we may no longer have to worry about "would you rather have Freeman for 31-36 or Cabrera for 32-40?" type questions.

If memory serves, my NPV calculation the other day on X came out around $230 (3%, assuming equal AAV). This Correa deal is about $290; the Turner deal about $250; Judge about $310. That strikes me as the right ordering.

I guess based on those numbers, Correa needs a projection around 6-8 WAR more than X, 4-6 more than Turner and only 2-3 short of Judge. We've already seen that he's actually a bit ahead of Judge in ZiPS. As somebody noted, Turner is a very young 29 (born one day later and he'd be "28") and is only 15 months older than Correa, still treat them as only one year apart and one extra prime season of Correa should be worth around 4-6 WAR. X is just over 2 years older than Correa so 6-8 WAR in 2 extra prime years even allows for some injury time. Give or take, those 3 SSs are all priced the same, maybe Turner "should" have gotten about $10 NPV more.

For Judge relative to these players then, it's about the "time value of wins" -- 30 wins in 5 seasons is a lot and, even if followed by two years of nothing, is worth more than 30 wins spread evenly over 6-7 seasons assuming the team is geared towards winning now. But beyond the time value of money already built into the contract, I don't know that we need any additional correction for that. If anybody here is overpaid relative to the others, it appears to be Judge (but not by much). Of course all of that was assuming all of the contracts are equal payments, no further deferments or signing bonuses on the front end.

If memory serves, my NPV calculation the other day on X came out around $230 (3%, assuming equal AAV). This Correa deal is about $290; the Turner deal about $250; Judge about $310. That strikes me as the right ordering.

What does the first sentence of this mean?

One of the cool things I stumbled across is that ZiPS/Dan now values the first win at $5.3 M then each subsequent win at $9.3 M. I've been speculating that somethig like this has been going on -- bench players clearly weren't getting $8/WAR. I have no idea if Dan's numbers are right (or even if they are Dan's numbers or one of the other fg guys just working with ZiPS projections) but I think it's probably a step in the right direction. It doesn't matter a lot for the star contracts where it can probably be more easily handled as the difference where, say, one contract seems to value it at $8.8/WAR and another at $9. But it suggests a 2-WAR player is $14 M, a 3-WAR guy around $23 which sounds about right these days.

That might put something like the Contreras contract at, give or take, being worth 12 to maybe 15 WAR ... for example, 3.5, 3, 2.5, 2, 1.5 WAR would be someething like $26 M for the first 5 WAR and $69 M for the last 7 WAR. Note, for a 400 PA C that 1.5 WAR would still be average production so probably a bit optimistic for a 35-yo Contreras. Alternatively, maybe for Cs it's closer to $5.3 M for the first 0.75 WAR.

What does the first sentence of this mean?

I'm not sure which bit is confusing. NPV = net present value. If you took $230 M today, put it in some investment that returned 3% per year, you could pay out $25 M a year for the next 11 years. There are a number of NPV calculators out there. It provides a method for comparing contracts of different lengths or with defereed payments. It's similar to using inflation-adjusted dollars (e.g. how much does X earn in 2031 in 2023 $?)

MLB/MLBPA occasionally use NPV for CBT calculations on contracts with a lot of deferred money -- maybe they only apply it to contracts where salary is deferred until after the end of the contract -- although they apply a very conservative rate of return. For example, the Cot's entry on the Betts contract notes that "deferrals reduce present-day value to $306,657,882 (per MLBPA)" while the headline number is 12/$365. Nearly 1/3 of the Betts money is paid out after the contract expires.

I can no longer scroll to page 2 of the articles - it's seems to stop after the Sean Murphy article. Anyone else having this issue ? There's been a lot of glitches in the matrix lately

If that happens a few years down the road, how many people become center fielders in their mid 30’s? I guess there’s Biggio, who did it at 37, but wasn’t very good defensively and after one year moved to left. Turner could certainly lose some athleticism and still be a decent corner outfielder.

FWIW, Turner played CF when he was first called up. It was an outfield emergency, and he got about a week or so of experience at AAA before being called up. Did OK, IIRC.

I can no longer scroll to page 2 of the articles - it's seems to stop after the Sean Murphy article. Anyone else having this issue ? There's been a lot of glitches in the matrix lately

Yes! It looks to me that there is some mixup with comments and tags in the Murphy trade story. I wanted see the reactions from A's fans about that deal, maybe it's for the best for them.

Oh, I have no doubt Turner could be a good CF tomorrow. If say, the Phillies decide to sign Swanson too and play him at short. But if they wait a few years down the road and make a move in response to Turner losing a step, then CF probably won’t be a real option anymore.

What does the first sentence of this mean?

I'm not sure which bit is confusing.

X = Xander Bogaerts. For a while, I thought X was some sort of variable I was unaware of (which, I guess, in a way it was). Not sure if that was Dave's confusion.

X = Xander Bogaerts. For a while, I thought X was some sort of variable I was unaware of (which, I guess, in a way it was). Not sure if that was Dave's confusion.

Exactly, thank you. I figured it was a placeholder for someone whose name Walt had to look up the spelling of, or something like that.

I assumed 3% was the discount rate but wasn't positive (that seems a bit low to me when 10-year treasuries yield 3.5%, but ok for back of the envelope purposes).

Ah yes, for no good reason, I've decide Bogaerts is too much typing. That does get confusing given I do use "X" as a variable often.

I wouldn't focus on the years. It's a $350 million deal for the rest of his career value.

Agree. I've started looking at them as deferred payments. Teams don't really expect them to be performing at 40, maybe not even playing, but they'll still get their "deferred" salary. Not literally like Bobby Bonilla, but in a sense.

The ZiPS Correa projection at fangraphs (thanks again!!) Those extra 3 years get Correa a 16-WAR head start ... then from 31-36, it's only 18 WAR, 12 short of Judge. But, rightly or wrongly, ZiPS expects Correa's late 30s to be a good bit better as well. That end period doesn't really matter for valuation (it's obviously pretty much guesswork at that point and Judge could be putting up Ortiz numbers for all we know) but better to have the positive projection. Add it all up and ZiPS figure the Giants get 41 WAR for their $350 M also conveniently spread out over more years.

I agree with the idea that these contracts are all paying for the first 7-8 years of the deal, but I wanted to point out how optimistic ZIPS seems to be about 40 year olds remaining generally valuable and capable of playing defense.

Age 40 ZIPS projections:

Judge 386 PA, +3 DR, 1.1 WAR
Turner 273 PA, -4 DR, 0.3 WAR
Bogaerts 379, -7 DR, 0.9 WAR
Correa 302, -2 DR, 0.8 WAR

Is this the average likely outcome for any of these guys? Does anyone think Judge, Bogaerts, and Correa will be averagish players at age 40? That Judge will be an above average defender and Correa will still be playable at SS?

The Giants didn't get Judge, but Correa is probably a better investment for them in the long run. Three years younger, plays a more central defensive position. Durability is his main question.

Yes/no/maybe ... a model like ZiPS enforces a linear (or nearly so) function onto what, for an individual, is a sloppy process. All ZiPS is really projecting there is the average 40-year old production, averaged over all 40-year-olds (or even potential 40-yos). As an extreme example, Ortiz put up 5.2 WAR at 40 and 11 WAR over 38-40. Miracle of miracles, Pujuls put up 2.2 WAR with 0 dWAR in 170 innings at 1B at "42" (although he also put up 0 WAR for 37-42). The recent signees total 3.1 WAR over 4 guys or .75 WAR per ... One Ortiz covers for another 6 40-yos who put up 0 WAR or don't play. In essence, at most, I'd view those age 40 projections as "probably 1 of these guys will still be a solid player at 2-3 WAR but I have no idea which one."

That "enforced regularity" carries through the entire projection. If it projects Judge to, say, 620 PA and 8 WAR in 2023 then 2024's projection assumes he did that. (At least I think that's how Dan is doing it; otherwise it could take much longer.) If he actually put up 700 PA and 10 WAR then ZiPS would project a much better 2024; and obviously much worse if he put up 300 PA and 1.5 WAR. This at fangraphs has Dan's projection for Judge last offseason -- about 18 WAR for 2023-27. So 2022 added about 12 WAR and $100 M to that projection. In 2022, Judge added as much WAR as Dan expected for 2022-23.

Finally all models are off in the extremes, to an extent for these reasons. Oddly, that will especially be true if the model is a bit non-linear. If you assume a player declines 10% a year after age 33, they will in fact never reach 0 WAR much less negative. To achieve negative WAR, you have to put in something like "drop 10% or 0.3 WAR whichever is greater." (Or drop a component like OPS 10%).

That's all one reason why I'll often essentially dismiss those later years. Yes, obviously it is worse for the Giants if they end up paying Correa $100 M for 0 WAR over the last 4 years of that contract than if he actually puts up 7 WAR. But it's not what the Giants are paying him for, I assume they see any production at that end as nice to have and they're looking at it in the sense that as long as 1 in 5 ridiculous ends of contracts actually turn out well, then it comes out in the wash.

Thoughts on this vs. Turner's deal? They're (basically) the same AAV, both run through age 40. The Giants get a couple more years of Correa because he's a couple years younger. The offensive difference between the two isn't as big as you think: 129 to 122 OPS+ in favor of Correa, and Turner makes four of those runs back on base running. Correa is the better fielder, a seven run difference on average. I'm talking myself into liking this deal, at least in comparison to Turner's, despite my initial shock at the top line number.

The real question between Turner and Correa is, will Turner's higher availability continue to be a thing as they both age. Turner has played 160+ games twice and usually is good for most of the season (he's had some HBP broken fingers and such cost him time), at least recently. Correa has topped 150 once, 140 once, and 130 once. Rate stats are less useful when comparing superstars because you hope they're out there 155+ games every year. Correa has already missed half a season due to broken ribs from a home massage apparently. I'm not sure he's massively more durable than his teammate in MIN, Buxton (or even if he is, he's still below average -- Buxton sadly is made of glass......or perhaps imported crystal)

The forced linearity as you describe it seems like a weird way of modeling this sort of thing. But I’m sure Dan has thought about it more than I have.

I understand the output is almost always going to be somewhat linear or monótononic. But the whole “assume he delivered the forecasted performance” seems strange.

"Likable" for whose benefit, though? Teams need to acquire good players to win games. If they have to "overpay" by some standard to get them, then why should we care as fans - especially fans of big-market teams that basically print their own money?

I agree with this sentiment and it's why I have been so frustrated with the Twins. This front office has been solid at building an average-ish foundation on a tight budget. They haven't drafted and developed like Atlanta, but they have a good homegrown core and some cheap, pre-arb guys who look ready to add value. When you can build an average team through development and trades while maintaining flexibility, that's when you pay at market or slightly above market for a star player to take you from being average to being a contender. Among the available players, the rest of Correa's career has to be the best investment to that end and he seemed willing to be in Minnesota of the money was even, which probably wasn't true of guys like Judge or Turner. Whether the problem starts with the owner or the GM, this inaction signals to me that they're not serious about competing and would prefer to deflate the payroll and build an average team.

The length of these contracts helps avoid luxury tax today (and creates a problem in the future). A couple questions

1. Do deferrals like Bobby Bonilla count in luxury tax either now or when they were granted ? Or maybe the question should be, does salary paid to people not on the 40 man roster count towards luxury tax?
2. Can a player be sent to the minor leagues post-free agency against his will ? That is, can Carlos Correa be forced in the last three years of his deal to play at AAA or not receive his money ?
3. Doesn't this create the awkward situation where a player may want to retire but has tons of money still outstanding - he can't retire without losing the money, right ?
4. If Correa gets DFAd with three years left and a team like Oakland picks him up, he has to go, right ? Oakland could have Turner, judge, Correa, Harper all playing for them in their final years - great way to field a cheap team that the fans would love to watch.

Is this the average likely outcome for any of these guys? Does anyone think Judge, Bogaerts, and Correa will be averagish players at age 40? That Judge will be an above average defender and Correa will still be playable at SS?

If my math/BBRef search is correct, there were either 7 or 8 active 40+ year olds this season. Total. So no, we probably shouldn't expect the guys quoted here to be averagish players at age 40, they likely won't even be playing.

I think this is hard to quantify (though maybe it has been, somewhere?), but with all these contracts, one effect is the likely event that a 38-39-40 year-old is on the 26-man roster for 1-3 years (with very little contribution to the team--simply because the team doesn't want to cut bait and release them with $50-$75 million left on their contract that they then have to pay (perhaps while the player has a dead cat bounce year for someone else). I'm not sure that has a huge effect, but it might around the margins.

I think in general a player signed to play at age 40 is likely to actually play, whether or not he’s still any good. If Albert Pujols had been doing one year contracts, he probably would have been forced to retire after 2017. But since he’s got money coming, a team will try to figure out if there’s any way he can be useful.

These guys might be part time DHs at the end of their deals, but my guess is they are more likely than not to at least still be around.

Yeah I think people here are way too dismissive of the points raised in 47/48. We've seen that teams don't, in fact, always just say "well we were really paying for the first few years so this is fine," they'll actually keep running those guys out there well past the point of being good and productive players, because they still take up a significant chunk of their present day payroll. Maybe Pujols is too convenient of an example for this point, but his presence in several of the latter years of that deal actively made the team worse on the field, and it wasn't easy for them to just walk away.

EDIT: My post in 46 was meant to imply they'd be retired, but I'm probably wrong about that, why the hell would you walk away from guaranteed money? Instead they'll likely just be bad players.

I understand the output is almost always going to be somewhat linear or monótononic. But the whole “assume he delivered the forecasted performance” seems strange.

This is what I was driving at above. Obviously, forecasting out 9+ years is likely to be very difficult for a lot of reasons. But if we're going to just agree that anything past year 7 (or whatever) is basically useless, why include those years in your evaluation of the deal? Why not say, "through year 7, Correa should put up 32 WAR (or whatever), which is worth X dollars. ZIPS cannot really project beyond that, so we'll have to guess at his value the rest of the way."

For defense, it seems like it could be a sort of easy fix. 40-year-olds are not going to be +3 OFs or -2 SSs. If ZIPS says they are, it's projecting defensive dropoff too kindly. Make it meaner.

The real question between Turner and Correa is, will Turner's higher availability continue to be a thing as they both age.

Meh. Correa 8 years 888 games, Turner 8 years 849 games. Neither of them has been particularly adept at staying on the field, but Turner certainly doesn't have any big edge on Correa.

Omar Vizquel was +16 at SS at age 40.

Just looking at some 9+ year contracts from the past to see how a couple more years might have affected them.

Votto - If not for the contract I'd imagine he'd have retired after 2022. Another year wouldn't be fun, but it's not like the Reds are trying.

Pujols - Obvously the worst possible scenario... but year 11 was better than years 6-10.

A-Rod - Opted out before the end of the first one, but that one could have been 14 years and still been fine. He wasn't done-done until year nine of the second one anyway.

Jeter-Wouldnt start hurting you until year 13.

Buster Posey-Retired at the end, but was quite good that last year and probably would have had his option picked up.

CC Sabathia - pitched for two more years, not a star, but obviously rosterable.

Verlander - Yeah you would love to have those extra years at $22 million

Obviously SSS here - but there's been a reasonable chance that the guys getting lengthy contracts will still be rosterable at the end, and in the case of Verlander, and maybe Posey too, you'd have liked to have an extra year or two at the end.

Sorry if these were already answered above ... didn't we go over most of these for you a couple of weeks ago? Anyway....

1. Do deferrals like Bobby Bonilla count in luxury tax either now or when they were granted ? Or maybe the question should be, does salary paid to people not on the 40 man roster count towards luxury tax?

If a player signs a 10/$300 M contract then for CBT purposes, it is counted as $30 M each year for 10 years. It doesn't matter when the money is paid. If they guy is no longer on the 40-man, it still counts (this was the Rusney Castillo loophole that was closed). If team A trades the guy while agreeing to pay half his salary then half his salary counts against the CBT for Team A and half for Team B.

This is why contracts are given a deferred structure by adding years of control. You want the players next 8 years but those 8 years will cost you $320 but you don't want a $40 M hit on the CBT for the next 8 years. The only way to reduce that CBT hit is to give him a 10/$340 contract. Somebody mentioned a rumor that the Padres tried to sign somebody (Judge) through age 44 and MLB told them they couldn't do that -- so, before you ask, no you can't sign somebody for 40/$400. (Although I won't be shocked if some future Tatis gets 20 years.)

They've been doing this a long time. All of the obvious loopholes were closed from day 1; the less obvious loopholes have been gotten away with once or twice before they were closed. They'd already seen salary caps in all of the other sports before applying this lux tax scheme so they weren't flying blind.

To my memory this is the first time we've seen contract lengths this crazy. $25 M for 11 years (Bogaerts give or take) is kinda extreme. It's one thing to give Harper or Stanton 13 years but a guy like X at his age has never been able to command those sorts of years before.

You sometimes get contracts that are so heavily deferred (Betts) that MLB and MLBPA have agreed to count it at its "NPV" value for the CBT. In the 10/$300 example, if 40% of it is paid out after 10 years then it's not counted as the 10/$300 headline number but maybe more like 10/$285.

The almost Bonilla situation that I don't know how it works for sure is a case like Arenado's. Rather than opt out, he accepted an extra year on the end that is cheaper than the AAV. I suspect that leaves the CBT hit of the original contract in place then the additional year is treated separately but I don't know for sure. Also sometimes a full-blown multi-year extension replaces the last 2-3 years of an existing contract, I assume that is charged to the CBT as a new contract. But that suggests to me that in an opt-out case like Arenado's you could replace (say) the remaining 5/$160 with a "new" 6/$175 and reduce the CBT. I don't think MLB would go for that.

As to Bonilla specifically -- who remebers what the rules were back then, I don't think there was any form of CBT yet. But if the deferment schedule is part of the original contract, it doesn't affect how the CBT is calculated; if it is negotiated mid-contract then it either doesn't affect how the CBT is calculated or it falls under that Arenado situation. Given the interest rate that the Wilpons guaranteed Bonilla, I think it's a rare case where the NPV of the contract turned out to be higher than the headline value.

And you get weird situations like Andruw and the Dodgers -- I have no idea how that worked regarding the CBT.

2. Can a player be sent to the minor leagues post-free agency against his will ? That is, can Carlos Correa be forced in the last three years of his deal to play at AAA or not receive his money ?

Players with no remaining options cannot be sent to the minors. Players with 5+ years service time (and options remaining, e.g. Correa) can only be optioned with their consent. That's regardless of contract status.

But yes, Correa has to be available to play baseball for the Giants until such time as he is traded or released/DFA'd by the Giants. (Or he can pull an Operation Shutdown and hope he wins a settlement.) If he is released by the Giants prior to the end of his contract then, unless some team claims him on waivers, the Giants owe him the remainder of his contract even if he is playing for somebbody else.

But also yes, the Giants can option him with his consent (I think Giambi did this once) or they can DFA him, see him clear waivers then assign him to AAA, an assignment he can either accept or refuse (becoming an FA). But the Giants still owe him all that money and it's still charged against the CBT. I suppose he might be screwed if he consents to the option then changes his mind -- he probably does have to keep playing at AAA to get paid.

3. Doesn't this create the awkward situation where a player may want to retire but has tons of money still outstanding - he can't retire without losing the money, right ?

Yes we talk about this all the time. The player cannot officially retire without losing his money. This most famously occurred with a pitcher named Gil Meche who essentially faced the choice of (pointlessly) going through more rehab (to satisfy the last year of his contract) or retiring, choosing the latter. (He said he didn't think it was fair to the team to make them pay him.) Other than that, it's not clear this has been any sort of problem -- if the team doesn't want the guy around, they release him (and usually somebody at least gives him an NRI), nobody claims him and he announces his retirement after the contract expires. Meanwhle players like to play and, if anything, take a lot of convincing they don't have anything left to offer. The dilemma is pretty much limited to the injured guys -- they have to make a good faith effort to be ready to play every remaining year which means doing whatever the team asks in terms of surgery/rehab. If Verlander's arm breaks again, he might walk away.

4. If Correa gets DFAd with three years left and a team like Oakland picks him up, he has to go, right ? Oakland could have Turner, judge, Correa, Harper all playing for them in their final years - great way to field a cheap team that the fans would love to watch.

If he is DFA'd and Oakland (or whoever) claims him on waivers, then Oakland also takes responsibility for money owed. This nevver happens. Once Correa clears waiver, he is free to sign with any team (or nobody). That new team will pay him the league minimum and the Giants will pay him the rest.

In theory I suppose here's one spot where contract structure can come into play. For example, I think Arenado is paid only $15 M in the last year of his contract. It's conceivable the Cards could put him on waivers and some team might think he was worth $15. But the way most contracts are structured, that player is, if anything, being paid higher than the AAV in the final year and/or there is a team option for $10 M that would be owed at season's end.

Nm

Emphasis added:

3. Doesn't this create the awkward situation where a player may want to retire but has tons of money still outstanding - he can't retire without losing the money, right ?

Yes we talk about this all the time. The player cannot officially retire without losing his money. This most famously occurred with a pitcher named Gil Meche who essentially faced the choice of (pointlessly) going through more rehab (to satisfy the last year of his contract) or retiring, choosing the latter. (He said he didn't think it was fair to the team to make them pay him.) Other than that, it's not clear this has been any sort of problem -- if the team doesn't want the guy around, they release him (and usually somebody at least gives him an NRI), nobody claims him and he announces his retirement after the contract expires. Meanwhle players like to play and, if anything, take a lot of convincing they don't have anything left to offer. The dilemma is pretty much limited to the injured guys -- they have to make a good faith effort to be ready to play every remaining year which means doing whatever the team asks in terms of surgery/rehab. If Verlander's arm breaks again, he might walk away.

And yet the way player news is often presented makes these points unclear. For example, Troy Tulowitzki. Released by the Jays after 2018 with two years remaining on his deal. Yankees sign him in the spring, thus picking up the league minimum portion of the money Tulo is owed. Tulo being Tulo, he only needed a few games into the season to get injured. Couple months pass, July rolls around, and we get this news:

Veteran shortstop Troy Tulowitzki has announced his retirement after 13 Major League seasons. [...] Tulowitzki earned slightly less than $164MM over the course of his career, as per Baseball Reference. This includes the remainder of his current contract, which runs through the end of the 2020 season and the bulk of which is being covered by the Blue Jays after their release of the shortstop.

So we get guys publicly saying they're done, presumably not filing the formal paperwork with MLBPA/MLB, and thus continuing to receive the remainder of the money owed [ETA:] without making any attempt to heal/rehab/be able to play.

In that case, he had already been released by the team with the contract. At that point, they basically agreed to pay him the rest no matter what.

This is what I was driving at above. Obviously, forecasting out 9+ years is likely to be very difficult for a lot of reasons. But if we're going to just agree that anything past year 7 (or whatever) is basically useless, why include those years in your evaluation of the deal?

Who does? I mean it obviously affects the $ total because 33 projected WAR will cost you more than 30 ... if you want to pay 8/$240 for those 30 WAR but you want to spread out the CBT hit, you don't just get to sign the guy for 11/$240 or even the 11-year NPV equivalent of 8/$240 -- i.e. he doesn't give you those years for free. So somebody has to put a predicted value on those late years and you end up at 11/$280. But I think all the serious analysts understand these late years are primarily a deferred payment mechanism and evaluate the deal on that basis.

I mean, if one thinks these years don't matter, why would one bother questioning the accuracy of thoee projections? But I don't imagine Dan would have any objection if you wanted to summarize his projection as 32 WAR through 36 then anywhere from 0 to 10 WAR after that.

And while it may be a one-time blip, these late career projections are becoming more important. We went from almost nobody but your ARod-Pujols-Cabrera level player (and Cano for some reason) signed long-term into their late 30s. Now it's four guys in one offseason and it might have included Arenado if he had opted out; it might add Machado if he opts out.

As to the "forced linearity" (a term I made up) -- it depends on what you're trying to model and how much effort you are willing to put into each individual projection. If Dan's goal was "project what Judge will produce at age 39" he wouldn't use this 9-year projection, he'd likely go for a model that first predicted, given he just finished his age 30 season, how likely he was to play at 39 at all then, conditional on that, how well he would play. But here the question is "what's the most likely production pattern over the next 9 years" which is a very different question.

You also have the issue of how to present the results for a general public. For all I know Dan does have a model that combines a projection of the probabiility of playing at 39 with the conditional expected production. But is it useful to present those results as: there is only a 25% chance Judge will exceed 50 PAs at age 39 but, if he does, he will (on average) produce 2.5 WAR. If we combine those we come up with an exected value of about 0.6 WAR but bear in mind that 75% of the time that will be 0 WAR and the other 25% will range anywhere from -1 WAR to 4 WAR. Those conditional WAR values may seem high but, in general, Judge will only get substantial playing time at 39 if he has been productive at age 38 and, even at 39, a player is not likely to collapse completely in one year.

Arguably Dan could present these projections not on a year-by-year basis but as total WAR with a (I suspect rather large) confidence interval around it. I'm curious whether ZiPS has any capability for separating early decliners from late decliners. I wonder if the yearly presentation gives a misleading sense of precision to the projection.

But it's not what the Giants are paying him for

Not sure how much this mattered, but Farhan was taking a beating in the local sports press after not signing Judge. People were calling for him to be fired if he failed to get Correa. At the same time, this was a couple days ago, it was revealed that Farhan had made some disparaging comments about San Francisco in an interview with Susan Slusser during the winter meetings, suggesting free agents didn't want to come to SF due to crime/homelessness/filth, and apparently even referred to the Mayor as being part of the problem. I still haven't seen that interview in writing, not sure where the radio jocks got it from.

So let's take the Pujols contract which was something of a disaster. But it wasn't a disaster because he stank in the last 4-5 years, it was a disaster because he was "supposed to" put up something like 25-30 WAR in the first 5 years but put up only 15. Who knows what $/WAR was back then but let's say it was $6. They paid him $120 and were expecting $150-$180 in return those first 5 years; instead the got $90. The contract was never going to recover from there.

Now maybe we can show that was an unrealistic expectation or maybe it was due to injury (or underestimating the effects of the plantar fascitis which I believve was already known). But once you know that ages 32-36 was a 3-WAR average, you can be pretty certain 37-41 are not going to be good -- maybe not as bad as they turned out but not good.

But was he "hurting the team" in those years. The overall production lord knows was terrible at -2 WAR so, sure, he could have been easily replaced. But it's also just -0.4 wins per year and these are the Angels. We saw repeatedly that, no, they did not have above-replacement level players just lying around the organization. How often does that -0.4 win actually matter? It was clear that Pujols retained the respect of his fellow players, both on the Angels and elsewhere. Possibly he was good with younger players. Possibly although he hurt slightly in the baseball sense, releasing him was considered too big of a PR hit for the Angels ... or possibly the reverse and too many fans saw him as evidence of continued blundering by the team.

But at the end of the day, I don't give much credence to the criticism along the lines of "this contract makes sense except the risk that the team will act irrationally in the later years and the player will actually hurt the team is high." The problem there obviously is the team's irrationality, not the contract. If the Angels preferred paying Pujols $24 M for 0 WAR rather than Pujols and a kid $24.5 M for 1-2 WAR because the latter would be embarrassing then the Angels were f'ing idiots.

Still, certainly, paying Correa (or whoever) good money for their age 40 season is (likely) a waste of those future resources. The deferment of money he (likely) will earn from ages 28-36 has a cost -- of course it does. I get (understandably) criticized here for being too flip about the 2nd half of contracts. Dan's trying to quantify that cost -- folks seem disappointed he's coming up with positive WAR estimates. The Giants (or whoevver) will regret not having that $28 M/yr to spend elsewhere. But as long as you enjoy the first half of the contract more than you regret the second half, you've done just fine.

The Cano contract was a great example. Seattle got 23 WAR and a roids suspension for about $108 M. What's not to like about that? The Mets, understandably, didn't want to pay Cano the deferred payments for that Seattle production so the Ms had to eat about half the contract (some via dead contracts, some via cash). Still that's 23 WAR for about $168 M (and a Kelenic-Diaz swap) which is just fine. Now the Mets needed 7-8 WAR over 5 years, hardly an impossibility for a guy who'd just put up 3 WAR in a half season (or 6 WAR in the last 1.5 if you prefer) but, sure, PED uncertainty. That turned out badly.

I don't mean to defend these super long-term contracts for the guys who aren't all-time greats. I've tended towards it being a bad idea to sign a guy past 36 and it seemed that MLB had come to the same conclusion long before I did. I'm not sure what's happened -- maybe it's just the realization that they are indeed gonna have to pay Ohtani and Soto (maybe) half a billion dollars but the CBT is still set up as if they won't.

Meh. Correa 8 years 888 games, Turner 8 years 849 games. Neither of them has been particularly adept at staying on the field, but Turner certainly doesn't have any big edge on Correa.

I'm nitpciking, I agree with the conclusion that there's no evidence of a big edge here. But it so happens I almost made this same post a couple of days ago but noticed that Correa's edge is entirely their rookie seasons when he was called up in early June and Turner in late August. If we look over the last 5 years, Turner has a 124 game lead, about 1 month per season and that's not even correcting for 2020 -- potentially two whole seasons over the length of these contracts, essentially negating the age difference. (Of course there's nothing magical about 5 years either.) Where Correa comes off best is that his last 5 are ages 23-27 and if we compare that to Turner's 23-27 then Correa is a smidgen ahead. Both guys missed a lot of time at 23-24, both were pretty durable for 25-27.

Yeah I think people here are way too dismissive of the points raised in 47/48. We've seen that teams don't, in fact, always just say "well we were really paying for the first few years so this is fine," they'll actually keep running those guys out there well past the point of being good and productive players, because they still take up a significant chunk of their present day payroll. Maybe Pujols is too convenient of an example for this point, but his presence in several of the latter years of that deal actively made the team worse on the field, and it wasn't easy for them to just walk away.

The thing is, though, "sign him to a very long term deal" and "play him even though he sucks at the end of the deal" are independent decisions - the latter doesn't necessarily follow from the former and in a lot of cases aren't even made by the same people. When we're longing at a decade-plus timeframe, managers almost always change, front offices usually change, and even ownership changes are reasonably possible. They don't have to play a guy just because he's being paid a lot, they just often decide to anyway - although I think it's probably just as much out of hoping that a star can play at a star level again if he just gets right or whatever, as much as it is the money per se.

The thing is, though, "sign him to a very long term deal" and "play him even though he sucks at the end of the deal" are independent decisions - the latter doesn't necessarily follow from the former and in a lot of cases aren't even made by the same people.

Sure, but taking up like 15% of a team's payroll sure seems to inevitably lead to such things. I don't think it makes sense to pretend otherwise.

Sure, but taking up like 15% of a team's payroll sure seems to inevitably lead to such things. I don't think it makes sense to pretend otherwise.

I think it will be more like 8-10% of a team's payroll in 10-13 years. If you look at the historical revenue/CBT growth and assume that teams signing big free agents now will continue to spend somewhere close to that threshold, then the share of the payroll becomes less onerous as the revenue grows.

Where Correa comes off best is that his last 5 are ages 23-27 and if we compare that to Turner's 23-27 then Correa is a smidgen ahead. Both guys missed a lot of time at 23-24, both were pretty durable for 25-27.

True, it depends on how you slice it.

The NBA long ago addressed the situation where a veteran was approaching the end of a contract, but was no longer really heling the team (and/or the team was lousy, so the season wasn't going anywhere, anyway). This is where the NBA buyout comes in.

If a team owes a guy $10 million for the last year of his contract, the player and team can agree to an amount of cash that the player will take to be released from the rest of the contract, and then be free to sign with another team for whatever he can get.

The full $10m still counts against the "releasing" team's cap, but they save money. It frees up roster space, and gives (typically) younger guys more minutes to develop.

Meanwhile, the veteran being released can sign with a contender looking for a certain role player, and they can negotiate a figure for the remainder of that season. Typically, the player doesn't seek a buyout unless he knows there are one or more teams willing to pay him at least the amount he is foregoing by taking the buyout. In fact, the player often ends up making more money, total, for that year.

Why can't baseball do this? How was anybody - Pujols, the Angels, the Angels' fans, or MLB overall - strengthened by forcing the Angels and Pujols to do this dance from about 2018-2021 where the team felt like they had to play him because he was making so much money, even as he clearly was no longer an everyday player?

If the Angels and Pujols could have done an NBA buyout-type deal, the Angels could have taken the last $90m they owed him, offered to give him $60m of it immediately, saved $30m, and let Pujols play the kind of role he ended playing in St. Louis (or elsewhere, if he wished).

In effect, these mega-long contracts are an imperfect response to the current MLB system - the Giants are paying $350m for about nine years of quality performance, spread out over 13 years. If Correa is still a quality player in years 10-13, then good for San Francisco! They get bonus years. If he is below-average by then, they'll have to figure it out, like the Angels did with Pujols. I predict that by the end of the 2020s, teams will treat at a Pujols-like situation very differently.

If the Angels and Pujols could have done an NBA buyout-type deal, the Angels could have taken the last $90m they owed him, offered to give him $60m of it immediately, saved $30m, and let Pujols play the kind of role he ended playing in St. Louis (or elsewhere, if he wished).

Pujols was being used as a starter at the time. Would he have really have given up $30m and become a bench player just to get on a possible contender?

Seems to be a bump in the road - Giants Postpone Correa Intro Due To Medical Issue:

The club was going to introduce him today but the scheduled news conference was postponed due to a medical concern, reports Ronald Blum of the Associated Press. Earlier today, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the postponement was related to the fact that the club was “awaiting test results.” At this point, it isn’t known what exactly is causing the holdup, with Blum’s report simply stating that “a medical issue was flagged.”

Could end up a nothingburger, but might be significant. Lots of $$ at stake.

Do players get a thorough physical before deciding to opt out? They should.

The club was going to introduce him today but the scheduled news conference was postponed due to a medical concern,

Awesome. This is precisely the moment the no longer brilliant, but now sort of cheap Red Sox FO swoops in with their 6/200 deal and lands this guy!

It would be really funny if the Twins swoop in, sign him for their previous offer, and then early next year his ankle explodes.

I can no longer scroll to page 2 of the articles - it's seems to stop after the Sean Murphy article. Anyone else having this issue ? There's been a lot of glitches in the matrix lately

Yes! It looks to me that there is some mixup with comments and tags in the Murphy trade story. I wanted see the reactions from A's fans about that deal, maybe it's for the best for them.

I think there's a problem with how the Newsstand page is rendering with multiple embedded tweets (that story plus the Chaim Bloom interview further up the page). I've tried moving the tweet into the thread rather than in the Newsstand excerpt, but I think it takes a little time for changes to make their way into Newsstand. I'm hoping this will clear up page 2.

In the meantime the Murphy thread is here. The other way there is to find any other article with a tag of "Braves", click on that tag and you'll end up in the Braves Newsbeat page where the Murphy thread is more accessible.

EDIT: Looks like moving the embedded tweets did clear up the immediate problem in the Newsstand.

Heyman tonight reporting that the Mets are chasing Liam Hendricks (37 SV, 2.86 ERA in 2022). he'd be a bullpen stablemate of EDiaz, Robertson, and - as of today - Ottavino.

maybe they also can grab Correa now at a slight discount, too, lol.

#billions

Apparently a slight discount means one year, 35 million.

Mets sign Correa 12y/315 million

I am shocked, confused, and concerned. This is crazy for a piece that doesn’t quite fit, and ridiculous if there’s a medical concern. Only money I guess…

It was nice while it lasted.