Cardinals - Signed Holliday

St. Louis Cardinals - Signed OF Matt Holliday to a 7-year, $120 million contract.

A big one and a big risk.  The latter isn’t because of any ability foibles but simply because the Cardinals absolutely must sign Pujols as well.  Now, the team isn’t cheap, but with $40 million (at least) tied up in 2 players, the organization is going to have to start developing more players that usual in-house and even more Dave Duncan Specials, because this will make it harder to bring in Lohses and Pennies for $10 million per.  On the plus side, there is at least some cost certainty in a lot of places, with Wainwright and Carpenter locked up for the next few years, but the team’s going to have to eventually choose one (I’d choose the former, given their ages and injury histories).

No doubt comparisons will be made between the Bay and Holliday signings, but honestly, I feel (and ZiPS agrees) that Holliday’s a better player.  If you give Bay a break on his defensive stats because of Fenway, he’s still likely 10 runs or so below-average and if you knock off 5 of Holliday’s combined UZR/RTZ/Dial range numbers of recent years because you think they overrated Holliday, Holliday’s still 5-10 runs a year better than Bay in the field.  There’s also the additional year and the fact that Holliday is a more well-rounded hitter than Bay, with less of an emphasis on old players’ skills.  Bay’s certainly not slow, but he’s had quite a dropoff in singles and doubles in recent years (Fenway being an incredible doubles park has obscured the fact that Bay’s more reliant on home runs).

There’s an 8th year in this contract, but Holliday has to finish in the Top 10 in the MVP voting in 2016 for it to vest at $17 million.  If he’s still good enough that he’s doing that in the 8th year, he’ll certainly be worth a 1-year, $17 million contract at the time.

More signings to come, but I need to finish Giants ZiPS first.

ZiPS Projection - Matt Holliday (LF)
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              AB   R   H  2B  3B  HR  RBI  BB  SO  SB   BA  OBP  SLG  OPS+   DEF
————————————————————————————————————————-

2010         562 104 173  38   4  26  125  66 112  10 .308 .387 .528  143    AV      

2011         543  99 165  35   3  25  120  64 110   9 .304 .384 .517  139    AV 

2012         539  97 163  35   3  24  119  62 113   9 .302 .381 .512  137    AV

2013         534  95 158  33   3  24  117  61 116   9 .296 .375 .504  133    AV

2014         503  88 146  30   3  22  109  57 112   8 .290 .370 .493  129    AV

2015         468  80 133  27   2  19  100  53 107   6 .284 .364 .472  123    FR 

2016         422  71 118  24   2  16   91  46  99   5 .280 .358 .460  118    FR

2017         381  62 105  21   2  14   82  41  92   3 .276 .354 .451  115    FR 
————————————————————————————————————————-

Top Near-Age Offensive Comps:  Larry Hisle, Bernard Gilkey, George Foster
   

Dan Szymborski
Posted: January 06, 2010 at 06:32 PM | 47 comment(s) 



 

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