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Transaction Oracle — A Timely Look at Transactions as They Happen Wednesday, January 06, 2010Cardinals - Signed HollidaySt. 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.
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1. Drew (Primakov, Gungho Iguanas) Posted: January 06, 2010 at 08:18 PM (#3429973)No kidding. I thought this was a pretty good signing - but if Holliday ages to those comps, wow. Foster was worse than mediocre by age 33. Hisle was done by 32. Gilkey was Gilkey.
I think Holliday will be fine, but any sort of Dale Murphy cliff dive and the Cards are looking at a Soriano situation.
No, although some newspapers refuse to let their writers vote on these awards for precisely for this reason.
While we're all making wishes for Szymborski Claus, I'd love to see what Kelly Johnson's projection is for the D-Backs . . .
Kung Fu Panda .330/.370/.512
Edgar Renteria .240/.250/.260
Everyone else .270/.310/.405
He's as good a Teixeira. I'd have been thrilled if the Yankees gave him this deal.
Holliday is something like a 5-6 WAR player.
This is the attitude I don't understand. I've heard/seen a lot of Yankee fans echo this sentiment, but it makes no sense to me given that I view them as essentially the same player and Holliday's contract is friendlier than Teix's. I can see not wanting both on the same team, but in a vacuum, who wouldn't take Holliday? 5 years of 129 or better with average or better defense at 17 per? The last 2 years may not be as fun, but I feel the last 3 or 4 years of the Teix deal could be worse.
Agreed. It seems like a lot of people are convinced Teixeira is a great defender (I think he's good) and Holliday a terrible defender (I think he's also good) for no apparent reason.
Either that, or they're heavily discounting Holliday's Coors stats. Although, I'd have thought the StL performance would have layed that to rest.
He got hit in the nuts by a batted ball. Of course, so did Adrian Beltre.
Anyway, I think Teixeira is a somewhat more valuable player than Holliday -- they're the same age and Teixeira's been a slightly better hitter over 1,000 more PA. But Teixeira's offense gets compared to a better group of hitters at 1B than Holliday's peers in LF. Holliday's been a better baserunner, but I don't expect him to ever steal 28 bases again.
Isn't that evidence of Holliday's superiority?
I'm just not seeing the superiority. OPS+ Tex 136 Holliday 133, wRC+ Tex 138, Holliday 139
They're equivalent offensive players, unless you don't think the park adjustments for Coors are sufficient (i.e. Holliday took more advantage of Coors than the park factors suggest).
No. I think it's more than reasonable to group 1B with LF.
I'm just not seeing the superiority. OPS+ Tex 136 Holliday 133, wRC+ Tex 138, Holliday 139
They're equivalent offensive players
I said "slightly better" and I also said "hitter." Plus, I think the fact that one of them was good enough to play regularly in MLB when he was a year and a half younger is meaningful. Also, OPS+ by season:
Holliday: 151, 139, 138, 137, 114, 103
Teixeira: 152, 149, 149, 144, 131, 126, 102
That said, I thought Tex's contract was crappy, too, though the Yankees, unlike the Cardinals, can afford to absorb the hit, both in terms of $ and in terms of being able to stick him at DH.
It's not just that the last two years of Holliday's contract are likely to be stinkers. It's that MORE THAN HALF of it could very well turn out crap. He's not a superstar. Seven years is much too long for a player of his caliber.
I am so, so, so sick of people saying this. If Holliday's not a superstar, then the number of superstars in MLB can be practically counted on one hand.
Yeah.
.000/.000/.000
2002: 227/369/574 (141 AB)
2003: 211/357/533 (90 AB)
2004: 169/294/437 (71 AB)
2005: 175/306/425 (40 AB)
2006: 148/281/370 (27 AB)
2007: 167/286/333 (18 AB)
2008: 182/308/455 (11 AB)
2009: 125/222/500 (8 AB)
2010: 200/333/200 (5 AB)
1-1, 4.44, 24.1 IP, 24 H, 3 HR, 10 BB, 19 K, ERA+ 100
I'll stop saying it when it stops being true. The idea that the number of players better than Holliday in baseball -- the number who you would take over the next few years -- is less than five is silly on its face. I suppose we could get into semantics, but it's not like there's a rule that there has to be one superstar per team or anything. He's a 30-year-old late bloomer. Going forward -- starting next season -- I could probably name a dozen guys off the top of my head that I'd rather have. And that's without putting any particularly deep thought into the matter.
Look, I'm not saying that Matt Holliday is not a good player. Or that he's not a very good player. I'm saying he's a guy you don't want to be paying for the next seven seasons. He's a good hitter, but not a great one. He's on the far left end of the defensive spectrum. He's not as bad a fielder as the ball-to-the-#### footage would make one think, but I have grave doubts about the likelihood that he's a significant asset with the glove. He most emphatically is not a superstar. The idea that he is seems to me to be built on an overconfidence in junky catchall stats and an overestimation of the efficacy of the humidor.
Let's think about it like this: Suppose Holliday experiences a significant deterioriation in his defensive skills over the next few years, which is a near certainty. Even given the shaky assumption that he remains a 300/400/500-type hitter, he ceases be "very good" and falls down to "good". If his offense slips, which it definitely could as soon as next season and almost certainly will over the next 4-5 seasons, AND his defense slips, well, then, he's not particularly good anymore.
I'm not so dim as to base my assertions on something like his career road splits, by the way, which I think is something that really gets under the skin of Holliday's backers. Those are slightly worrying but not something to put one's faith in. I'm basing my assertions on a fairly basic application of the inexorable logic of age to the skillset of Matt Holliday. It requires no contortions or gyrations to get to this evaluations; it takes a realistic eye for his skills and abilities and how they're likely to fare over the next seven years.
Matt Holliday is a good player. He's not worth this contract, which strikes me as so clear as to be borderline obvious.
Teixeira and Holliday are pretty interchangeable, though a reasonable case for Teixeira can be made. Cabrera and Fielder are better hitters, but both of them come with uncertainty and questionable defense. Dustin Pedroia if you love his defense, maybe. David Wright if last year was a fluke. Grady Sizemore, if he's healthy. Can you explain why Holliday's VORP and wOBA numbers fail to capture his quality? I'm skeptical of BIS-UZR part of WAR, but all of the aggregate context-neutralized offensive number have Holliday as something like the 5th-15th best hitter in the game over the last several years, accounting for position. What are they missing?
Wait, what? You think a 900 OPS hitter is just "good"?
He's a 30-year-old late bloomer.
He was an above average regular at 24, that's not really a "late bloomer".
He's on the far left end of the defensive spectrum.
No. He's an above average LF. He's still got 1B and DH further left.
The idea that he is seems to me to be built on an overconfidence in junky catchall stats and an overestimation of the efficacy of the humidor.
wOBA, OPS, OPS+, BA, SLG, OBA. Are those the junky catchall stats?
Over the last 5 years Holliday is 322/393/553/946 137 OPS+ (16th in MLB), 139 career wRC+, .400 career wOBA
That's just a fantastic hitter.
Part of what makes this a hard contract to get excited about is that he better not have those options. The contract says stud but the NL rules and the STL roster say that he's already as far left as he can go. Giving him that kind of money for that many years puts him in Carlos Lee territory if his performance falls off. Of course there's risk when signing top players to top contracts, but usually the guy is the best player and you are in a position to move things around to accommodate him. That's not where STL is right now. (Plus I think seven years is just a lot in general for mostly anyone, and doubly so in the NL.)
I'm not even sure I'd take A-Rod over Holliday--he's 34 years old, in offensive decline, probably less valuable defensively than Holliday (a bad 3B's about on par with a decent corner OF), and he's missed 62 games over the last two years.
Well, you can always trade him if he can still hit and needs to DH or play 1B. I doubt that happens before year 6 or 7 of the deal.
Arod the last two years: 262 games 1129 PA .295/.397/.553 148 OPS+
Holliday same two years: 295 games 1293 PA .317/.401/.526 139 OPS+
The fact that there's a discussion pretty much show's that Holliday is a super-star.
Holliday same two years: 295 games 1293 PA .317/.401/.526 139 OPS+
There's not much difference there, when you consider Holliday's extra playing time--over those two years, Holliday has a VORP of 120.4, while A-Rod's at 115. Now, A-Rod was better in '07 and plays in the AL, but he's also older and a weaker defensive player. As Snapper more or less says, if Holliday's not a superstar, then A-Rod's certainly not either.
But yes, on the numbers alone it's ridiculous to claim that Holliday isn't one of the top 10-15 position players in all of baseball right now. As snapper says, the fact that you can reasonably compare him to A-Rod is itself sufficient evidence for that proposition.
I don't think the hesitation you speak of is purely subjective. The numbers show that Holliday had a great 270 PA in St. Louis, but they also show a pretty-good-but-no-superstar 400 PA in the American League. The REAL league. Everything else took place in Coors, and even there he broke a 140 OPS+ exactly once.
I'd like to see him hit like a superstar for more than 1/3 of a season someplace other than Coors before I declare him one of the top 10 players in baseball.
That's true. It's also true that he broke a cumulative 140 OPS+ over the course of the last three years he played there.
Are you kidding me? The higher OPS+ from a 3rd baseman in the tougher league? A guy who posted a post 9.0 WAR 4 times?
1) A-Rod's OPS+ advantage is wiped out by his inability to stay on the field.
2) He's a 3B, yes, but by all indications a pretty lousy one, which puts his overall defensive value about on par with an average corner OF.
3) I assume you're being deliberately disingenuous here, as those 9 WAR seasons have very little to do with the sort of player A-Rod is today. (Heck, two of them came when he was still a shortstop.) But if WAR's your tonic, then you might note that Holliday and A-Rod have the exact same cumulative WAR over the last three seasons (and that's entirely due to A-Rod's superior 2007--Holliday was better in both '08 and '09.)
We could all make guesses at how particular players will or will not age, but that is going foward and not what has already happened.
I would be worried about Holliday with those set of comps , his BR comps are similarly riddled with some guys who flamed out before their early 30s or couldn't play full time (Fred Lynn) his ZIP comps are also a bit better. is there something to this? time will tell.
Don't tell me what I do and don't think, okay?
The A-Rod discussion largely ignores the fact that Alex Rodriguez plays third base, which is a much more difficult position than LF. He doesn't do it terribly well anymore, but Holliday can't do it at all, and would almost certainly be a disaster if you asked him to. Furthermore, Rodriguez isn't a player I'd give this contract to, either, not this year or last year or the year before.
Without thinking too hard: Miguel Cabrera, Matt Kemp, Adrian Gonzalez, Mark Teixeira, Dustin Pedroia, Justin Upton. On top of the guys you already named. That took me a good twenty seconds. With a little actual mental exertion I could probably come up with several more -- and that ignores pitchers entirely, and soon-to-arrive prospects like Jason Heyward.
I conceded that Holliday is, today, a very good player. There's no shame in being the 25th-best or so player in baseball. If this contract were for one, two, three, four years, it would be a very good deal. For seven years it's very likely to be a flat bomb, because the odds are reasonably high that he won't be a particularly good player for as much as half of it.
My skepticism of this contract is built mostly around my belief that a player must be truly exceptional -- way more exceptional than Matt Holliday -- to get a 7 year contract when they're 30 years old.
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