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Tuesday, November 23, 2021
Shortstop Wander Franco quickly emerged as one of MLB’s best players this season and the Tampa Bay Rays are wasting no time locking him up. The club is inching closer to signing Franco to a record-setting contact extension, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. The deal is expected to be in the 10-year, $200 million range. The team has not yet confirmed the news.
The current record contract for a player with less than one full year of service time is Ronald Acuña Jr.‘s eight-year, $100 million contract with the defending World Series champion Atlanta Braves, a record Franco is poised to smash.
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1. Moses Taylor loves a good maim Posted: November 23, 2021 at 01:06 PM (#6054261)First 20 games, he hit .200.
The last 50 games? .323/.382/.502
Then in the postseason he had an OPS of 1.158.
Unreal how good this kid is.
I would be curious about no trades or opt outs.
Of course the 20 year old kid just guaranteed himself $185 million so it's not really a bad deal for him.
Worst case, it's like the Cardinals signing Garry Templeton for 10/$4M in 1976-77 (high but not absolute top money for that era). Although inflation in salaries in the 1980s makes it hard to draw a parallel. Ten years later, Templeton was actually making $1.1M. He also wasn't very good anymore, but his salary was only modestly high; $400K would have been a bargain for Templeton's better years in his early 30s.
I guess we can't imagine that top salaries in 2031 are going to be ~$100M/yr, though.
Plus, teams have had 45 years to learn about the risks of massive superlong contracts. Free agency was in its infancy in 1976-77, and teams were doing things like signing Wayne Garland for 15 years or whatever.
Steamer already has Franco projected to be roughly the 10th best position player in the league for 2022
There doesn't seem to be one to revenue generated by owning a baseball team.
Further from Passan: 11/$185 guaranteed and the 12th year option is actually only $25 M but increases by $3 M for each year he finishes top 5 in MVP voting starting in 2028 so a maximum of a $38 option (seems it should be $40). I don't imagine many folks other than Trout/Pujols/Bonds types manage to finish top 5 for 5 straight years but if he's good there's a more than reasonable chance he'll do it a couple of times. He says there is no NTC but Franco gets a $3M bonus when traded.
Not many comps:
Robert 6/$50 + 2/$36 on 0 service time, max $20, front-loaded
Acuna 8/$100 + 2/$24 on <1 service time**, max $17
Tatis 14/$340 on 2 service time, $140 over the first 9 years, $176 for 10 years (max $25, $36 in year 10)
So, Franco's covers the first 11 years of his career (by service time). Tatis had 2 years already so the first 9 years of the contract takes him through 11 years. Compared in that way, this contract is substantially more expensive than Tatis. Of course Tatis has another $200 M guaranteed after that so that's clearly not a fair comparison but gives a bit of perspective.
vs Robert -- Franco gets an additional 3/$100 + the option so that's pretty expensive.
vs Acuna -- Franco gets an additional 1/$60 + the option so that's very expensive.
Acuna vs Robert -- Acuna gets an additional 2/$36 which seems like a steal for the Braves.
Another way to comp them is the pre-FA portion. Robert gets $50, Acuna $56.5, Tatis $35, Franco ??
One of the articles pointed out that the Rays did this with Longoria back in the day. Back in 2008, that was 6/$17.5 + 3/$27.
** Acuna's first option year is for $17 but has a whopping $10 M buyout, so I've listed the "marginal" option ... technically $7 then $17. There's almost no chance Acuna won't be worth $7 M. Robert has two $2 M buyouts which I've also deducted although I'm not sure if the 2nd is guaranteed. His max salary in the guaranteed years is $15.
So they probably had Franco at a maximum cost around 6/$70, maybe an expected cost of 6/$60 and had protection against disappointment and injury. They've traded that for an additional 5/$125 + option ... which will save them probably $60-$85 M (over 12 years) if he's a super-duper star and about half of that if he's a regular star.
In short, this contract is like pretty much any of these -- it's great for the team if the player is great; it's probably about a break-even swap of long-term security for $ if the player is good; the player "wins" if their career gets sidetracked.
Cal Ripken gave the Orioles 35.5 WAR from ages 27-31. Even production akin to Robin Yount (21.3 WAR) or Derek Jeter (20.5 WAR) would be worth about $5/140 in today's dollars on the open market. Carlos Correa, entering his age-27 season, is going to get more than that.
and to repeat...he's 20 years old.
I'm 56, have 5 kids....and all of them are older then Wander.
Which would have been a really bold move.
They've locked in young players before -- Longo, Kiermaier and Brandon Lowe -- but this, to us, is huge.
Franco put up 3.5 WAR in 70 games last year, as a rookie. Just spitballing here, but if he averages out as "only" a 5 WAR player, the Rays have a hell of a bargain-- 1 WAR = ~$7M, right?
$223M is a lot of money for any team, especially the Rays, but that’s what it takes to sign such a player. The alternative is to content yourself with his minimum-salary years, maybe a few record arbitration years, and then trade him before free agency, alienating the fans and consigning the team to endlessly repeating the same cycle on their better players. Maybe the signing will even help the stadium negotiations. An attractive ballpark where fans can watch a potential inner-circle Hall of Fame player might just turn the franchise around.
The downside is that if Franco somehow flops, the franchise is doomed, but everyone in MLB seems to think he’s the real deal, so go for it.
Outside of the otherworldly development and stats he's put up thus far, the fact that the Rays are willing to do this deal tells me it's about as close to a sure thing as you can get in MLB. The Rays don't make a lot of analytical mistakes so if their guys think it's worthwhile, then that's good enough for me.
As Duke points out in 25, if he's anywhere close to what we think he can be, then it becomes far and away the most valuable and tradeable contract in MLB. It really is pure genius on Tampa's part.
Do the Rays usually trade early on their big signings? I know they haven't had many, but they are a pretty smart organization and like winning, they aren't the Marlins who give up every time the payroll reaches the cost of paying 25 McDonald's employees $1 over minimum wage.
Roughly right, but I take first 200 pa as mostly meaningless. His track record in the minors, scouting expectations and other things matter and they are all good, but very few players average 5 war over the course of their first 10 years. Over the course of his contract, based upon what you get from pre-arby years, arby years and locked in years, you have to look at the break even point based upon those numbers.
Assuming $7 mil per year is 1 war, and that is based upon free agent cost... you are looking at he needs to produce 3 war per year in the last 5 years of the contract for it to be break even just in those years.(100 mil where he might be underpaid in those years) (note: Not talking about the nature of the contract, just looking at the raw money and no inflation or anything) So you have 5 years where the team had a say in his contract, the first two they could have dictated any price they wanted, so what he does in those first two years is utterly meaningless in any analysis of this contract from a business perspective. In his fourth year he becomes arby eligible, the record for a first year arby eligible player is 11.5 mil (Cody Bellinger) so assuming he earns enough to make that amount, he is still 10 mil over paid for that season (basically they have paid 60 mil for a guy that if the team wanted to, could have paid 13mil) . The record for an arbitration eligible player is 27 mil (Mookie Betts) Basically if he equals the record for arby eligible players he still is on average being overpaid for those years.
For this to be a 'bad contract' for Franco, it means he would need to be a plus 5 war player in the last two years of his arby years, healthy and a free agent to be, while at the same time he more than likely would have thrown away 30 to 70 mil in salary that he wouldn't have had. This feels like one of those things that is great for the player, good for the team, with the team actually taking the risk this time, and I'm happy for that.
And marketing on this is great. My friends know I'm a Cardinal fan, and pretty much every year I get asked "what uniform with a name on it should I buy so it has lasting power" (and no I'm not kidding, that is the spirit of the comment)
In the 50th-percentile projection, with near-minimum salaries in 2022 and ’23, arbitration projections, and free-agent contract projections, ZiPS estimates $297 million over the next 12 years. This is well above the $223 million he can max out at, but that’s not the whole story, either. The upside isn’t tremendously high, with the 90th-percentile projection going up to $360 million. And the downside is significant. His 10th-percentile result ends up with him making less than $20 million over his career, and in 35% of the simulations, he falls short of $182 million.
At the same time... I would love to have guaranteed money... And if you give me a few mil today instead of the 800k.... I might be interested.....
Sure, when you cherrypick, everybody looks good. :-)
Amazing stuff. It's interesting that he didn't hit THAT well during that streak, "just" 337/392/506. It is actually kind of poor on-contact production.
Do the Rays usually trade early on their big signings?
As far as I know, Longoria's the only thing they've had close to this. The original deal was for 6 years plus 3 option years. AFter year 5 of that deal they exercised the 3 options and extended him for another 6 years beyond that, taking him through 2022. They dealt him with 5 years left on that extension which are the most expensive. They also had to eat a bit of money in that deal (maybe ... it's such a complicated deal, the amount they paid seems similar to the amount of salary deferred so maybe that's more an accounting thing as to who pays that off. That they had to add money suggests that wasn't necessarily a "too rich for our blood" deal as much as a "he's not worth even the meager amount he's owed" trade.
They traded ARcher with 2.5 years left on his buyout which were the most expensive but also less than $10 M each -- either they are very cheap or they really liked the deal ... or both.
Now, back to being a downer ... the downsides for Franco
Vada Pinson: 6.5 WAR in his age 20 season. He put up 44 WAR over the next 11 seasons which would be excellent obviously. But 34 WAR were in the first 6 years, the years Tampa already controlled. Over 27-31, he put up just 10.5 WAR -- hardly a disaster for $125 M, maybe especially in 2028-32 prices, but not a bonanza.
Jim Fregosi: He wasn't that good at 19-20 but was a 4-WAR player at 21 then really took of. From 21-31, he put up 46 WAR. But again, 32 WAR in the first 6 years then 14 WAR -- solid for 5/$125. He had nearly 13 WAR at 27-28 then all the injuries ruined him.
Cesar Cedeno: Just 1.9 WAR at 20 then nuts. From 21-31 was 47 WAR in a 36/11 split.
Grady Sizemore: Not amazing at 21 but pretty amazing at 22. 28 career WAR
Tulo: 17 WAR from 27-31, about break-even for $125 M.
McCutchen: 17 WAR from 27-31.
Hanley: 10 WAR from 27-31.
Those are all guys who were really good at 21-26 although almost none were as good as Franco at 20 or (presumably) 21. And while that's a fairly long list, the list of those who were amazing for 21-26 were still more than good enough from 27-31 to justify 5/$125. One big difference of course is that I generated a list of guys who were really good from 21-26 and Franco hasn't done that yet.
Which is how such a deal is supposed to work. I wouldn't be surprised if Franco's projected value over the next 11 years would have an expectation of, say, $225 M. But you're not going to commit for 11 years when having 6 of them already under control unless you get a discout on the expected value. Similarly it's one thing to turn down $2.50 guaranteed when the expected return is $3, it's a whole other thing to turn down $185 just because, in years 7-11, maybe your expected outcome is $30 M more.
Realistic cautionary tale: Gregg Jeffries. Even then, Wander's glove is much better, so he probably is worth or nearly worth the contract even if his offense trends that way.
Generally speaking if you are looking at mlb players who had anything close to a full season at 20 years old, you are going to automatically have a list of good to great players.
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