Should We Have the Melk-Man Delivered?

The rumour mill (or in this case The Oakland Press' Matthew Mowery) reported a 'real' interest on the part of the Tigers for free agent Melky Cabrera. Cabrera has most recently been playing in HomerDome North, where the Blue Jays take flight.

By now, the pattern should be familiar. Out comes the Brock2 projection spreadsheet, and in goes the data. However, I would like to briefly digress to take a look at the pattern of Cabrera's career.

Through age 25 (2010), Melky's career slash line was .267/.328/.379. He had mostly been a CF for the Yankees up to then, with his most recent season being at all three outfield positions for the Braves. From age 26 through age 29, he has a slash line of .309/.351/.458. It's not surprising for a player to peak at this period, but that is quite a jump, adding 42 points of BA, 23 points of OBP and 79 points of slugging. He brings doubles power, rather than home-run power. Brock2 suggests his walk rate is going to improve noticeably over the next four years, with his doubles power staying about the same. We've probably seen the best of his home-run hitting. This is a player who was suspended for violating Major League Baseball's policy on doping.

His Runs Created over the next four years are 58, 78, 66 and 72. Not the greatest for a corner outfielder, but there is definitely a spot for production like that where Tigers' outfield corner positions are concerned. He would likely be a noticeable upgrade over Torii Hunter's hitting production, and thus would improve the Tigers' lineup straightaway.

The stumbling block is money. Beyond the Box Score's free agency calculator suggests an annual average value of around $9 million, which is not a great improvement on his last contract, for which Toronto paid him $8 million.

That said, Melky potentially offers a long-term (four-year) fix of a fielding position, and is not coming off a career year. If I'm going to overpay for 274 runs created over the next four years, I think I would rather do it for a left-fielder than a DH.

Victor Martinez: Four More Years?

It seems the market for Victor Martinez' next contract has been set at four years. If I were GM of the Tigers, would I go after him? He is possibly my favourite Tiger hitter, so my initial reaction would be to get in the bidding, post-haste.

Once again, I turn to the Brock2 spreadsheet to consider this. Let's look at his Fangraphs' WAR and RC for his four seasons with the Tigers:

Season      WAR    RC
2011        2.5    97
2012         0      0
2013        0.9    93
2014        4.4   122

Right away, there is a problem. V-Mart was injured in 2012, which makes projections a little bit difficult. Then, we see that being a DH means one has to be an exceptional hitter to show any real WAR impact. (DHs don't field, which hurts them, in the WARverse.) Basically, a .301 average garnered few WAR. A DH needs to hit somewhere between .320 and .330 to start to be worth the kind of salaries a full-time DH can command. Let's also note that V-Mart's 32 home runs in 2014 is a career high. That's not likely to happen again. Here's his projections in those categories for the next four years, plus what Brock2 thinks his Runs Created will be:

Season     BA     HR    RC
2015      .297    14    67
2016      .289    19    78
2017      .314    16    82
2018      .277    14    67

That 2015 RC value is, I think, too low on account of his missing 2012. I would expect a figure more like 2017's 82 is probable. However, all those numbers are below his previous four-year established performance. That is a very large red flag.

Turning to the Beyond the Box Score free agency calculator, and adding a generous estimate of 1.7 WAR for his injured 2012 season, I get an average annual value for a 36-year-old DH of 14.9 million. But I don't think I want to use that value, because of the career-high home-run total for 2014. ZiPS, Dan Szymborski's projection system, forecast only twelve home runs for 2014, while Steamer had him with fourteen. These projections worked out to a 0.9 WAR (ZiPS) and a 1.3 WAR (Steamer). I would prefer to use a WAR number closer to these than to his actual 4.4 WAR in projecting how much I want to pay Victor Martinez.

Adding them together gives a 2.2 WAR, which leads to a far more realistic annual average value for a 36-year-old DH coming off a career year of $9.7 million. That works out to a 4/$38.8 contract, and that would be my ceiling. But we can't do that, because that is a pay cut relative to his 2014 salary of $12 million. So despite his MVP-worthy heroics for 2014, I would say goodbye to Victor Martinez, and many thanks for a great effort.

The problem for the Tigers is the uncertainty over the expensive contracts for Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera, both of whom had seasons below expectations in 2014. The last thing the Tigers need is to tie up $20.8 million in excess realistic-market-value for an aging designated hitter. I tend to think the new-fangled sabermetricians are laughably cheap in paying for quality players, but in this case I think they are probably right.

What to offer Giancarlo Stanton?

Yesterday, one of my favourite sites, MLBTradeRumors.com, mentioned that contract talks between Giancarlo Stanton and the Miami Marlins were underway.

Earlier this year, I wrote a post about how much Ian Desmond might actually be worth on the market, based on what the Washington Nationals suggested he might be worth in their contract offer to him. I am going to use some of the information discussed there, combined with Beyond the Box Score's recent post on estimating free-agent contracts, to see just what kind of price the Marlins might need to pay. Stanton, who won a Silver Slugger award for his performance in 2014, is going to be an expensive proposition, but signing him would do a lot to challenge the 'fire-sale cheapskate ownership' reputation of the Marlins franchise that began after 1997.

Projecting careers is a fool's errand, especially after the kind of traumatic injury experienced by Stanton. Some comparisons have been made to Tony Conigliaro, making projecting just next season somewhat problematic. How much will that experience affect Stanton's ability to stand in the box and attack the ball? Worse still, I don't have a super-sophisticated projection model like ZiPS or Steamer. I do, however, have a Brock2 spreadsheet, based on a system that Bill James devised about thirty years ago. This lets me work out a basic Runs Created value for each of Stanton's seasons, which we can compare to his FanGraphs WAR for the same season:

Season      WAR      RC
2010        2.3       59
2011        3.2       97
2012        5.6       97
2013        2.3       74
2014        6.1      118

There is a big difference in relating WAR to RC in 2010 and 2013 and in relating 2011 to 2012. Examining FanGraphs' breakdown of WAR values between batting, fielding and base-running in more detail, what one sees is that 2011 is suppressed by poor base-running and a lower fielding score. In 2013, Stanton fielded a lot worse than he did in 2010. So we have to be a little bit careful here. Stanton's 6.1 in 2014 for a 118 RunsCreated is probably the benchmark to use, as his base-running and fielding numbers fall around the medians for his career.

Stanton has two arbitration years remaining. What we need is to estimate the value of his next two seasons by WAR, and then guess what they might lead an arbitrator to award. Using that 118 RC = 6.1 WAR value for 2014, for 2015 Brock2 projects Stanton at 121 RC and for 2016 a projection of 126 RC. These work out to 6.3 WAR and 6.5 WAR respectively. MLB Trade Rumors has already projected a $13 million salary for 2015, a doubling of his 2014 salary. Despite the injury, Stanton played quite a bit, making 639 Plate Appearances, and playing time is an important component of arbitration raises. One probably ought to anticipate a similar doubling of salary based on his 2015 projected Runs Created, so let's say Stanton can expect something like $35 million over the next two seasons, allowing him to underperform his projection a little, a possibility after such a horrific injury.

When one gets to Stanton's free-agency years, the problems begin because at this moment we have almost no idea how many years the Marlins might offer, nor how many Stanton might be looking for. There are effectively three broad-based options here. The obvious first two are a long contract that basically ties up Stanton's most productive years, or a short contract that allows Stanton to return to free agency with a prime year or two left giving him a chance at a second monster contract. Based on his Brock2 projection, Stanton would probably want a short contract to end after his age 29 season (2019), the Marlins might want to keep him through age 31 (2021). A longer-term contract would probably see the Marlins wanting him through age 38 (2028), although they might want to curtail it at age 35 (2025) in order to reduce the risk of carrying a high-salaried underperforming player. Stanton probably wants to go right to age 40 (2030), which would still give him a chance to sign a one-year deal with a contender needing veteran leadership from a proven winner.

A third option could be a longish deal with an opt-out. This has the advantage from Stanton's point of view of putting pressure to contend on the Marlins or whatever team they may trade him to after agreeing to an opt-out. Stanton has made it plain he wants to get to the post-season, and he wants to see Marlins' ownership show a similar commitment.

The Beyond the Box Score free agency calculator suggests that, after three 6+ WAR seasons, a free agent right-fielder can expect an annual average value salary of $39.2 million. Since this is based on a 2014 season, we can only expect this sum to go up. I suspect the actual figure might be between $42-45 million, given that MLB player wages rise somewhere between 5 and 8 per cent per annum. That kind of annual salary equals the Marlins' entire estimated payroll for 2014, according to Baseball-Reference. It is also double what the Marlins were estimated to have offered Albert Pujols in 2011.

The only way this deal is going to work for the Marlins, I believe, is with a substantial chunk of deferred money, the technique Jerry Colangelo and Joe Garagiola, Jr used to build the 2001 World Champion Diamondbacks. I suspect Stanton's willingness to sign with the Marlins is going to depend on his willingness to accept a substantial number of deferred payments.

What kind of proposal might open the negotiations? I think I would copy Alex Rodriguez' contract with the Texas Rangers, signed during the 2000/01 off-season. That was a ten-year deal with an opt-out after the seventh year, with an average annual value of $25.2 million and about 20 per cent of the pre-opt-out salaries deferred. I would add together two arbitration years at a value of $35 million, and eight years at $40 million to give a total of $355 million. That gives an annual average value of $35.5 million, and an estimated actual in-season value during the first seven years of about $30 million after the deferrals. (I actually would prefer to defer a lot more, ideally as much as 50 per cent.) I'm honestly not sure I'd go much above $355 million simply because I'm not convinced the South Florida market can sustain a large payroll for an extended period. The evidence is that Floridians are not even particularly good about supporting even winners over the long haul. Sometimes it is better to work around one's shortcomings, than to pretend they don't exist.

The immediate problem, though, is that such an offer means finding an additional $17 million for 2015, before adding any other payroll. At the moment Cot's says that the Marlins have about $18 million in commitments for 2015. Adding $30 million for Stanton will take that up to $48 million, before anyone else's arbitration raise or salaries for pre-arbitration players. For 2015, the Marlins might be looking at a payroll in the $70-80 million range to be as competitive as Stanton would like. That's almost a doubling of payroll in one season. Is that really affordable right now? It's hard to say given Mr Loria's history of tight control on the team's spending.

Is Ian Desmond Worth $90 Million?

So it has been leaked that Ian Desmond may have been offered a deal at least in the vicinity of $90 million over seven years. That's an average annual value of $12.8 million. What should that buy a ball-club in today's market?

According to Dave Cameron at Fangraphs.com last November, the value of a projected Win Above Replacement (WAR) based on early contracts is around $6 million, so this seven-year contract is projecting Ian Desmond to be a 2-WAR player for the next seven years. According to his Baseball-Reference page, Desmond has beaten that level the past two seasons, being worth 3.4 WAR in 2012 and 3.7 WAR in 2013.

Now, this blog is strictly 'old-fashioned' sabermetrics, so I don't have a super-sophisticated projection model like ZiPS or Steamer. I do, however, have a Brock2 spreadsheet, based on a system that Bill James devised about thirty years ago. This lets me work out a basic Runs Created value for each of Desmond's seasons, as follows:

Season      WAR     RC
2010        1.1     63
2011        1.5     62
2012        3.4     87
2013        3.7     89

It looks like one needs an offense worth at least 70 runs created to be in the vicinity of 2 WAR, based on Desmond's baserunning and defence. How does Brock2 forecast the next seven years of Ian Desmond?

Season     RC
2014       80
2015       86
2016       84
2017       78
2018       72
2019       69
2020       65

The answer is that based on his previous performance, there is a good chance that Ian Desmond would be worth most of the value of his contract over the next four or five years, and the remaining two or three are the now traditional overpay for a club stalwart. Except I haven't yet taken into account the fact of wage inflation in major-league baseball. The value of a single Win Above Replacement been escalating over the past few years by around ten per cent a year. Let's assume a slight slowing, and say it will in fact be around eight per cent. What does that mean for the value of an offer to Ian Desmond (data in millions of dollars)?

2014 $12.8
2015 $13.8
2016 $14.9
2017 $16
2018 $17.3
2019 $18.7
2020 $20.2

If the Nationals seriously think that Ian Desmond will be worth an average of 2 WAR per season over the next seven years, which may be a little optimistic, then assuming that wage inflation will continue, one is looking at a contract value of around $110-115 million. Realistically, I think it is fair to the club that the last couple of years should allow for a decline phase, so let's hold it at 17.3 for the final three years. That's $109.4 million. It looks like the Nationals might be about $20 million short. How much would you pay for seven more years of one of the last Expos?