The Deciding Factor
Yesterday, we looked at what the M’s needed to do this off-season in order to get themselves into a spot where they could line up in April and call themselves legitimate contenders. It’s not an easy path – they need to add a bunch of wins without a ton of money to spend or a lot of obvious upgrades to make. But before they decide on any particular course of action, there’s one issue that has to be resolved, because it is the domino that drives the rest of the decisions all winter long.
I speak, of course, of Felix Hernandez. You all know the situation – 23-years-old, two years away from free agency, and just established himself as one of the game’s premier pitchers. His talent is unquestionable, and if he was a position player, you’d hand him a blank check for as many years as he would sign for. But he’s a pitcher, and the risk of giving long term, big money contracts to pitchers is remarkably high. The M’s don’t have the luxury of time anymore. This is the winter where they have to decide whether they’re going to give Felix a massive contract or not.
If they’re willing to accept the risk associated with a 4-6 year deal for a pitcher, then they have to make every effort to get him signed now. The opportunity to get a big discount has passed. He’s going to be a rich man whether he signs an extension or not, as he’s looking at a salary of around $10 million for 2010 even if he decides not to sign a long term deal here. In order to get him to give up the potential jackpot he’ll hit if he makes it to free agency in two years, the team will have to make him an offer that compensates him as one of the game’s premier pitchers for years to come. They’re going to have to set a new precedent, shattering every record for a contract given to a pitcher who isn’t yet eligible for free agency. Or else Felix will just take the risk and wait, and once he’s decided to do that, he becomes an asset with declining value the longer the M’s keep him.
In all likelihood, the choice will come down to giving him something like $100 million over 6 years or trading him.
Both paths have their risks and rewards. If you sign him to something like 6/100, you’re trying to win immediately. At that point, you’ve risked enough of your franchise’s future that you’re committing to trying to make it pay off with a division title starting in 2010. Now, instead of focusing primarily on finding young players to build around, the M’s would be in a position where the future takes a bit of a back seat to the present. Practically every pitcher is a time bomb headed for surgery, with the only question being when they go under the knife. Once you’ve guaranteed a massive paycheck to a starting pitcher, you’re running on borrowed time – you can’t sit around and try to build around that pitcher, because there’s a pretty decent chance that he’ll be hurt by the time the guys from your farm system get to the big leagues.
So, if you sign Felix, you’re looking for guys who can help you win right away. You’re putting Morrow on the block and looking for a more reliable #2 starter. You’re sending Mike Carp back to Tacoma and going with two veterans at 1B/DH. You’re in it to win it, because the clock is ticking, and if Felix’s arm blows up before you win anything, you’re going to have a hard time contending with a $17 million albatross on the books every year.
On the other hand, if you decide that you just don’t want to be the kind of organization that bets its future on a pitcher, and you’re not willing to meet Felix’s demands, you have to start taking offers for him, and no matter how good Jack Zduriencik is as a GM, the Mariners aren’t winning anything in 2010 without Felix Hernandez. You can try to get some major league ready players back in any Felix deal, but there’s no replacing a +5 win pitcher. You might get enough talent back to put together another .500 season with encouraging performances from a new young core, but you’re not winning the AL West without Felix.
That, obviously, leads to an entirely different kind of off-season plan. In a post-Felix world, you probably listen to offers for David Aardsma too, because the team can afford to not have a “proven closer” if they’re playing for the future. You give long looks to Saunders, Tui, Carp, and Moore next year rather than displacing them with better players who have less future value. You probably cut payroll again and try to create enough flexibility to make a big splash in 2011. But in this scenario, you’re admitting that nothing short of a miracle will lead you to the playoffs in 2010.
There is potentially a third option, but I’m not much of a fan of it and I hope it doesn’t come to pass. Theoretically, the team could keep Felix without signing him to a long term deal, put a team around him to try to win in 2010, and then shop him at the deadline if they’re not contending, but that plan requires too many assumptions for my liking. The Blue Jays just found out how tough it can be to try to extract premium pricing at the trade deadline when the Yankees don’t need pitching, the Mets aren’t in the playoff race, and the Red Sox realize they’re bidding against themselves. By waiting until July, you’re letting teams who will be interested this winter drop out of the race, creating a depressed market for his services. The “teams pay crazy prices at the deadline” theory has been mostly eradicated – if you want top dollar, you trade in the off-season.
So, before the team starts pursuing their off-season agenda, they have to figure out Felix. Are they willing to take the risks that come with huge contracts for pitchers? If so, go into winning mode. If not, then we’re still building for the future, and going after a very different type of player.
Felix’s future in Seattle needs to be determined before the team begins to make too many changes. It’s decision time. Pay up or trade him.
I know there are HUGE risks for signing pitchers long-term and normally I am against it but I think Felix is such a rare pitcher that I say pay up and sign him. Plus, let’s face it, I just love watching that guy pitch and I love the emotion I saw out of him this year. He seems to really care about winning and I don’t perceive that he is the kind of player that will get lazy once he gets a big contract. Those are all assumptions on my part but it’s just my opinion.
6 years, $100 mil I would do that deal in a second to guarantee another fun 6 years of watching Felix pitch. I do like that he is only 23 so hopefully he is young enough that he will be durable for a good chunk (hopefully all) of that contract.
Lastly, Felix has a chance to be a hall of fame pitcher. We’ve seen plenty of hall of famers leave Seattle in their prime, it would be really cool to see one stay. Luckily Ichiro stayed, would love to see Felix stay. Let’s face it, it’s just a ton of fun watching this kid pitch every five days.
“There is potentially a third option, but I’m much of a fan of it and I hope it doesn’t come to pass”
I’m guessing we’re missing a “not” in there.
I agree with you 100% on everything. I think the only place where opinions may split on this is whether or not people think we can win with Felix in 2010. Like you posted in your previous article, it’s tough getting to a 90-or-so win team from our current position.
So in my case, I absolutely LOVE Felix and want to see him in Seattle the rest of his career. But I don’t think we have a good chance to win in 2010 without some serious GM magicking. So the way I see it, trading Felix seems kind of like the “responsible” thing to do because winning in 2010 will be very difficult with or without him.
nickwest1976, I agree with everything you said. If this where a democracy, I would vote: sign Felix.
As completely rational and understandable as this all is: The casual fan would not understand trading Felix.
This goes beyond Mariners fans; this would be Pacific Northwest sports fans getting the short end of the stick yet again. After seeing the Seahawks implode, the Mariners implode, the Sonics explode, this just would not be understood.
Attendance and revenue would be destroyed for years. They’d never trust that a true superstar could stay in Seattle again (the counterexample of Ichiro notwithstanding). Even building a winning team again in 3 – 4 years would be met with skepticism, wondering if the Ms would simply blow it all up a la the Marlins.
Every effort must be made to keep Felix here. The other options aren’t options at all if you want to see a profitable franchise.
I realize absolutely nothing of that has to do with practical realities of how pitchers age, on average, or of how payrolls and contracts work. But the majority of people who filled the stadium on Sunday, the “Ken Again in 2010″ crowd, likely don’t think the way most people do on the local blogs.
I understand the injury risk of signing a pitcher long-term, but I don’t believe the decision should be limited to 2010. Felix will be 24 years old next season and is physically mature. The mechanics issue which led to injury problems have been solved. I just don’t think the risk of re-singing Felix is all too high and we can look toward 2011 and 2012 to make a playoff run.
I am in the re-sign Felix camp. I say do a 4-year, $60 million deal. This buys out the last two arbitration years, the team is not stuck with an expensive/risky long-term contract, and Felix will be primed for a mega-contract at age 28 (for his benefit). It is a good middle ground deal where if we fail to be in position to compete in 2012/13, we can still extract huge trade value from Felix.
I agree with CFB. Individually trading King Felix, Lopez, Morrow, and Aardsma each has some merit, and I see how we can’t afford to re-sign Beltre and Wilson (or Wilson and Branyan) both. However collectively doing all of those moves is gutting the team and will drive the fan base away. No fans => no $$ for payroll => no wins => no fans.
I’d sign Felix to 6/100 or whatever. It’s a huge risk but trading him is just the wrong direction to go. I’d also play to win in 2011 and simply hope to get lucky in 2010.
On the bright side, after the Batista/Silva/Johjima/Sexson contracts, the M’s have lots of experience with albatrosses. So just sign the deal already, Jack…
Seriously, I agree with Chris from Bothell. “Trade him and rebuild another year” would go over like a led balloon full of neutronium pellets on a high gravity world. Since 2003, the M’s have been:
04: awfull
05: bad
06: mediocre
07: good (with caveats)
08: slightly worse than awfull
09: fun
if 2010 goes into the awfull bucket, Safeco will be a tumbleweed farm. Even if 2011 is another “hey, not bad” year afterwards, people will have an expectation that 2012 would be another crapfest. Not very good to establish a pattern that every decent year is followed by a stinker. “We Don’t Suck in Odd Years” is an even worse slogan than “Get All of It.”
Plus, we can’t count on Ichiro forever. Sooner or later, the Galactic Patrol will discover that he’s hiding out on Earth and force him to return to his homeworld of Zargoss IV. (NB: it will of course be simply reported that he retired, or perhaps tripped on his luggage).
The M’s really need to go all-in. It ain’t going to be easy, but playing it safe is not safe at all.
As much as I see the logic, imagining myself as Armstrong/Lincoln I would need to have a very compelling case presented for trading Felix – a case that is so strong that it’s something I can reasonably sell to the fans. Lacking that I think there are some significant credibility issues for the team if Felix were traded.
Factoring everything together, I believe that I would go for the long term deal, including taking my chances that Felix is one of the pitchers that does not have a major health issue. I know that I’m taking a chance, but in the circumstances I think it’s a chance that I’m willing to take.
*****
At a fundamental level, we are fans of a team because we are wedded at a deep level. If that weren’t the case, we would have abandoned the Mariners years ago. If that weren’t the case Rany Jazayerli and Rob Neyer would long ago have cut their ties with the Royals.
But we can’t do it, because we’re tied in a way that isn’t at all rational. And really, isn’t that the beauty of it – that something as fundementally silly as baseball can engage so fully and completely?
So this becomes more of an issue of WAR and FIP and RZR or whatever. To operate successfully the team must engage. To a great extent a team engages by winning. But it also engages by bonding with it’s fans. And a key part of that bonding involves iconic players.
Felix is in position to be the next iconic player for the Mariners. Consequently, as a team CEO I look at Felix a bit differently.
This isn’t just a matter of the teams W-L record during the contract. It goes deeper than that. If Felix does stay healthy, the return isn’t just the team W-L record; it includes the connection with the community. It encompasses credibility. It provides a foundation for continuing to build connections into the ever-increasing Hispanic community in the Northwest. (The Mariners have already been featuring Felix in ads on Univision.)
People said this when Randy Johnson was traded.
People predicted this when Griffey left.
People were sure this would happen post-A-Rod.
My god, the sky is falling, the seas are boiling, and there’s nothing but crickets in Safeco.
People turn out to see baseball. Most of the people in the stands weren’t even sure who Felix was a couple of years ago. The team was absolutely horrid last year, and people still showed up for opening day. Yeah, if Felix was traded there would be wailing and gnashing on talk radio, but all those people together might fill up the Hit It Here Cafe. Life goes on, the team rebuilds, and the fans come out. It’s spring, there’s always some more prospects, and hope springs eternal.
You’re assuming Felix (and his agent) would settle for that. Why would they? They can take the arbitration money for two years (with the M’s or wherever), then sign a six year contract for more money somewhere else. Six years from the M’s still primes him for another payday elsewhere, and would seem to be the minimum they’d be willing to accept.
If Z isn’t going to break the bank in free agency and a Felix trade doesn’t bring in a top of the rotation pitcher, I don’t see how the Mariners win in the next few years without him. If Snell and Hyphen are fighting for the #1 spot in spring training, the team isn’t going to do much damage.
Felix is 23 years old, one of the best pitchers in baseball, and still has considerable upside. Jack Z should make the deal happen and work some more of his magic with the smaller moves he makes this offseason. We know what we have in Felix. Lock him up.
In the interest of full disclosure, I live in Connecticut and plan on relocating to Seattle within a few years. I’d like to watch the King pitch.
It’s of course a coincidence that in the third year after we traded both Randy and Freddy at midseason, they were wearing rings. I am not saying the M’s would have if they hadn’t made those trades (by 2006 we were a rotting hulk of a club), but once, just once, you have to be that team that makes the leap of faith on a pitcher. Felix was our boy from his not-so-late teens, unlike those other two. By all accounts he’s happy here–not hometown discount happy here, but happy enough to stay if shown the money. He’s 23 years old and a prince of a person. If we are ever going to make that leap of faith, it’s hard for me to see there will ever be a better candidate for it.
Another point: you can make mistakes with the position players, too. Billy Beane let every impending free agent leave or traded him, except Eric Chavez. Epic fail.
While pitchers may be ticking time bombs in general, I don’t see Jack Z and our ownership going into “win now” mode just in case Felix gets a major injury. They’ll continue to play young guys and mix in some cheap veterans and hope that, through trade or in-grown talent, we make the leap to contender.
I know Felix said that he wants to be here his whole career after the emotion of that final game but I always got the impression that he is frustrated with the losing. If we neglect to keep his big brother Beltre around and don’t prove to Felix that we’re serious about winning, I think there’s a very real chance that Felix will price himself out of a long-term deal with us.
If signing Felix would require both a 6 yr/100 million deal “plus” signing Beltre, is it still worth it? Will Beltre even want to come back with his agent whispering in his ear that Safeco kills his financial potential?
This whole thing is a house of cards but I’m confident that Jack Z can rationally consider all sides before making moves for our future.
Personally I want Felix as a Mariner. It would be seriously depressing watching him in Boston or New York.
Sign him.
That’s all I have to say.
What if we bring in his actual big brother, Moises Hernandez?
If, the M’s trade Felix for a package that includes a pitcher with top end potential, there is no guarantee that pitcher will stay healthy. Felix isn’t 28 or 29, he’s 23. He’s young and strong. He has great mechanics. He is one of the safest bets out there for a staff ace.
And how many more times can this franchise do that before fans give up? The state of Pacific Northwest pro sports, the state of the economy, and the number of previous successes and departed superstars were all different then.
So?
Because of Griffey.
This isn’t just a talk radio crowd position.
Most of the Seattle Mariner blogosphere regulars together, based on LL/USSM event attendance and traffic on the Times blogs, might fill up a couple suites.
People showed up for previous opening days w/o Griffey. Were they mis-informed?
Judging “regulars” by event attendance doesn’t make much sense, and neither does comparing relative traffic (if you have those #s) between two blogs and the website of the only remaining daily paper in a metro area. There’s an argument to be made there, but that’s not it.
And how many times before fans give up?
Please. Every player eventually leaves, one way or another, and the fans go on. And every time it seems like it’s going to be a world-ending event to some people, and it isn’t.
There is another option. Keep Felix for 2010 and 2011, try to win in those years, and then let him go to free agency for the draft picks (unless the team is out of it in 2011 and someone offers a lot at the deadline, not a likely scenario).
As this option defers the really hard decision, it is the option that is easiest. I sort of don’t expect Z to do the easy thing just because it is easy. He sort of strikes me as the opposite of lazy.
People showed up for previous opening days w/o Griffey. Were they mis-informed?
Yes. Every year from 2000 to 2008 we heard from certain writers that the Mariners should bring Griffey back, how it was the right thing to do. It was obviously such a good idea, people just assumed the Mariners would go out and do it.
This was in response to calling something a “talk radio” opinion. Characterizing and dismissing something as coming from a relatively small % of the fanbase, when the Seattle M’s fan blogosphere itself is a small % of the fanbase, didn’t make much sense.
That is taking the long view, and yes, it is the view the front office would need to take if they conclude for financial or roster reasons that trading Felix is the only option left. But those intervening few years would be pretty dismal, and the Ms would need to be perennial contenders to get people back.
Felix isn’t 28 or 29, he’s 23. He’s young and strong. He has great mechanics. He is one of the safest bets out there for a staff ace.
If you think Felix isn’t a huge risk, you’re just fooling yourself. Every pitcher is a huge risk, and trying to determine which ones are going to stay healthy and which ones are going to get hurt isn’t something that anyone can predict.
In 2003, this was the list of best pitchers in baseball. Which of them would you have wanted to give a six year, $100 million contract to for their 2004-2009 performances?
Pedro Martinez, Mark Prior, Jason Schmidt, Curt Schilling, Kevin Brown, Esteban Loaiza, Roy Halladay, Javier Vazquez, Brandon Webb, Andy Pettitte, Mark Mulder, Tim Hudson.
Halladay for sure. Webb, yeah, but he still broke down at the end. And that’s it.
The attrition rate for any pitcher is remarkably high. If you sign Felix for six years, you might as well just go ahead and prepay for the surgery, too. The risk may be worth it for the reward, but let’s not pretend that the risk isn’t massive.
The Bavasi years were almost entirely dismal, but the fans kept walking through turnstiles and Griffey wasn’t there.
Now certainly, the problem is going to be that if you trade Felix, you have to win, and win soon. But trading him isn’t in itself going to break the back of fandom.
I would wager there was a good portion of the fanbase that still thinks of Felix as that chubby kid pitcher …
Javy Vazquez would have been acceptable for 6/100 too.
One thing that always bothers me about WAR analysis is that it seems to ignore any effects of synergy. Aren’t there situations where you put two +1 guys together and the result is a net +3, or that sort of thing? I am not really talking about the “clubhouse chemistry” stuff, more like two batters that complement each other or two SP that are really beneficial to be consecutive in the rotation.
How do we think that Felix is in this regard? Are there other pieces (a particular kind of a #2, for example) that would achieve some nice synergy? Is he the best kind of pitcher to benefit from our excellent defense – which I hope remains a priority?
This is a complicated enough decision that it might really help to look at the nuances.
Please. I’m a regular here. I love Felix. And if Zduriencik traded him and got appropriate value back, I’d be ecstatic. Saddened, of course, both because I wouldn’t get to see Felix every five days and because it would signal the team was probably in for a slightly longer rebuilding process. But still very happy to see those players who came back in the Felix trade. Because they’d be good. And at least a couple of them would undoubtedly play more frequently than once every five days.
I don’t think I’m alone in this. Not at all. People understand how this works. The fans aren’t stupid. (Why do you think they are?) The fans aren’t like children who insist they’ll hold their breath until they pass out if their favorite toy is taken away. (Why do you think they are?) Yes, there will be few who stop buying season tickets and who call into Brock and Salk and rant all over the Times website — there always are (about everything). But that’s the group that wouldn’t fit into the Hit it Here Cafe. The vast majority, including right here in the middle of hard-core fandom, won’t stop going baseball games because Felix isn’t there. The vast majority right here in hard-core fandom didn’t leave over Bavasi’s bad moves, and there were a lot of those; why would they leave now when Zduriencik is making good ones (including, potentially, getting value back for Felix)?
I’ll say it again: Griffey was a bigger deal than Felix, by far, and baseball in Seattle survived his loss. ARod was a bigger deal as well, and ditto. There’s only one player on the M’s right now whose trade would have a significant imapct on attendance, and that’s Ichiro. And even that wouldn’t be all that huge. The simple fact is that a lot of the people in the stands are turning out to see baseball, and they’ll turn their affections onto whichever new face excites them (ladies and gentlemen of Seattle, may I present to you Death to Flying Things). They’re not “Felix” fans or even “Ichiro” fans, they’re baseball fans and Mariner fans. Most of the fans I know — the people I regularly watch games with in bars, none of whom frequent any of the blogs with any regularity as far as I know — go out to Safeco to see baseball. They don’t go once every five days to see Felix. They go when they have tickets, or they go because it’s a day game, or because it’s on the weekend. (Or, in a couple of ugly cases, because the M’s are playing the Yankees or the Red Sox). They go to more games when the team is winning. Some of them don’t even start paying attention to M’s games until Memorial Day or so, when they look up and ask “How are they doing this year?” and if the M’s appear to not be stinking up the joint, they start going to games because it’s summer and it’s a nice day for baseball and hey maybe there’s a good chance they can cheer for a winning squad.
The fans are not camels. There’s no straw that breaks their backs. When the team sucks, they stay away; when the team wins, they show up and find players to love. They’re baseball fans and Mariners fans, and they want the Mariners to win, and they’ll cheer whomever is doing the winning — whether it’s Felix, or the guys the M’s got in a trade for Felix. Because you know even Bavasi would get some good guys back for Felix, and Zduriencik would get some great ones.
This is baseball, and these are baseball fans. Baseball offers regular lessons in disappointment. Baseball offers regular lessons in mortality. But most of all baseball offers hope. If the latter didn’t outweigh the former, we would’ve quit the sport a long time ago. One player either way, even a great one, isn’t going to make a difference.
It’s a pity the Twins have never recovered from trading Johan Santana.
Javy Vazquez would have been acceptable for 6/100 too.
Not really. In theory, he should have been, but his remarkable inability to strand runners has resulted in his value being less than his underlying performance.
I am not really talking about the “clubhouse chemistry†stuff, more like two batters that complement each other or two SP that are really beneficial to be consecutive in the rotation.
If you have any evidence of situations where this occurs, feel free to provide it. There is none that I’m aware of.
Is he the best kind of pitcher to benefit from our excellent defense – which I hope remains a priority?
If you’re arguing for Felix being more valuable to the M’s than WAR would suggest based on some kind of synergy, well, sorry, but no. Safeco favors LH pitchers – Felix is RH. The M’s outfield defense is better than their infield defense – Felix is a groundballer. Having a great defense favors contact pitchers – Felix is a strikeout pitcher.
If anything, you could try to argue that Felix might actually be less valuable to the M’s due to their specific situation. You certainly can’t argue that he’s a perfect fit for the park and team.
Wow, Dave. You’re right. Those clutch numbers are obscenely bad.
Yes, but you’re glossing over the fact that attendance at Safeco has been steadily declining and would almost certainly continue to do so if Felix was traded as part of a long-term rebuilding plan.
The Orioles traded away Bedard to us in a horribly one-sided trade that will pay dividends to them for years to come and their record has only gotten worse. Even if we get top value for Felix in a trade there’s a good chance we’ll be battling to stay out of the cellar for the next couple of years and that will continue to bleed support for the team, especially if there’s a feeling that the team can’t or won’t try to keep its young talent once the price gets too high.
It may be a tough call either way, but I think a rare young talent like Felix is worth the risk.
You know, people really need to stop talking about what other people will do as if they had some magic power to foresee the future.
It’s getting rather tiresome to see the same “but the fans will do X if you do Y!” arguments over and over again, without any factual basis whatsoever.
You have no idea how the fanbase will react if a certain move is or isn’t made. Zero. None.
If you’re arguing for Felix being more valuable to the M’s than WAR would suggest based on some kind of synergy, well, sorry, but no
Actually, I was hinting at exactly what you have said – that Felix is less of a fit with today’s M’s than he might be with another team.
That said, I love to see him pitch, and part of me hopes that the Mariners do what might be the unwise thing – sign him long-term.
I’m not glossing over anything. People haven’t been showing up because the team sucked, not because Griffey wasn’t here. Griffey was here, they didn’t all come back. If the team traded Felix and did great, tickets would sell.
In nearly every instance (with Oakland being the big exception) teams that win draw more fans, whether or not they’ve traded away player X or Y or whatever two three years before.
“You certainly can’t argue that he’s a perfect fit for the park and team.”
I’d like to argue any starting pitcher who puts up a 3.09 FIP is a perfect fit for any team or any ballpark.
The only thing I can think of is where 1 + 1 2.
For example, in 2007 and 2008, Ibanez’ WAR was positive overall because of his hitting. His poor UZR hurt our flyball pitchers. So would that be an example where, say, a Raul and a Washburn would be less valuable together than if they were on different teams?
(Oddly enough, I just checked and Raul had a positive UZR this year. What’s up with that?)
OK, that was suppoed to say “1 plus 1 is less than 2, rather than where 1 plus 1 is greater than 2).
Tried to use the greater than or less than signs. Sorry.
Dave, how do you assess the specific injury risk for Felix? Does his delivery put unusually high stress on his arm, elbow or shoulder, in your opinion? Or does he have a comparatively clean, stress-minimizing delivery?
I agree.
Not everything about baseball, and not every opinion in general, needs to be backed up with reams of statistical data.
Fair point. Well, assuming that the Twins fanbase and the Mariners fanbase are equal in size, loyalty, reasons for following their team specifically, reasons for enjoying baseball in general.
Well done again, Dave.
You’ve encapsulated just about every thought I have on the matter in one post.
You also had one that I hadn’t had. But I agree with totally. The Mariners will not win anything of relevance in 2010 without Felix Hernandez.
And therein I think lies where I stand on this.
(I should preface the following with admitting that I’m a gambler by nature anyway.)
It’s a correct thing to say that every pitcher is a risk to get horrifically injured. Pitching is a delicate craft that science always threatens to betray- the human arm was not designed by nature to unleash 95-mph projectiles constantly.
But you still need pitching to play baseball, let alone win it. Okay, so since gambling is just going to be par for the course, make your bets as smart as possible.
Since every pitcher, and ipso facto every pitch thrown is a roll of the dice that must be undertaken, you have to go forward with that which gives you the best opportunity to win.
I think “best opportunity” is represented most wholly by Felix Hernandez.
I can’t think of another pitcher in baseball who I’d rather have as my lead horse in the years to come. I can’t think of “smarter money” (a term that has nebulous accuracy) in pitching to go ahead and try and win with.
Six years, somewhere in the 100-mil neighborhood?
Sounds good to me, I can sleep easy on that.
Roll ‘em, Jack.
Aren’t we all being a little too zero-sum about the attendance argument? If the team is winning a lot, and in the hunt for the playoffs, then tickets will sell themselves. If the team is mediocre, giving a reason for people to go to games would probably matter. Playing games against certain teams increases attendance, and you’d think having a better starting pitcher on the mound would increase attendance. And yeah, some people went to games to see Griffey, I don’t need magical powers to make that assumption. The overall effect can be debated, but people make individual decisions on whether they’re going to a game or not.
Baseball Prospectus has an article on ace’s and attendance
I’m prepared to let Felix remain a Mariner and enter free agency two years from now. I enjoyed ARod in 2000, and it was one of the great Mariner seasons thanks largely to him. I wish we’d signed him after that season, going head to head with Texas, and I’m happy to go head to head with the Yankees or whoever else is bidding for Felix in 2012. We’ll probably lose, but life goes on.
Toronto should have had a similar 2000esque season with Halliday this year. The pieces were there – Scutaro, Hill, Lind, Romero. They were just playing in an absurdly good Division. Toronto would have won the Central going away this season.
If we keep Felix at Silva-esque dollars and try to win pennants the next two years, then if an offer comes along that blows us away, make the trade. If not, enjoy the greatest pitcher since Randy, enjoy pennant races, and move on.
I thought that the gist of Dave’s argument was that the team wouldn’t do great if they traded Felix, at least not in the immediate future. It sounds like its more about avoiding being hamstrung by Felix’s salary if he gets hurt than building a great team with whatever pieces we get for him. I know that winning will bring more fans to Safeco than devotion to Felix Hernandez will, the question is which option gives us the better chance of winning.
Trading Felix is safer and provides Z with the financial flexibility and prospects to help the team win down the road. I get that. But that’s not without its own risks and the bleeding of fan support continues for at the least the next year while we get to watch Felix Hernandez pitching for the Yankees or Red Sox. The M’s become another Have Not trading its young talent to the Haves once the price tag becomes too high in the hope that enough cheap prospects eventually pan out to make a run.
I’d rather take my chances with Felix.
Fair point. Well, assuming that the Twins fanbase and the Mariners fanbase are equal in size, loyalty, reasons for following their team specifically, reasons for enjoying baseball in general.
Actually, their attendance the last few years is fairly comparable, and they are based out of similarly-sized metropolitan statistical areas.
That being said, I am not arguing that if the M’s trade Felix, they’ll be fine just like the Twins, though, since I can’t tell the future, and even if Zduriencik has done well so far, we can’t be 100% certain of doing well in the future: more like “The Twins are an example of a franchise that’s had to trade stars and be choosy on free agents/long term signings because of salary constraints and risk management, and they have done just fine, so there is a potential model for the Mariners to follow here”. I would actually argue they are an excellent model to follow, even if they don’t get half the press Billy Beane does in Oakland- 5 division championships in 8 years is something we’d kill for in Seattle.
If you’re trading Felix, you’re basically emulating the Twins (Johan Santana) and the Indians (Bartolo Colon).
Oddly enough, the Indians got the significantly superior talent package for their deal, but the Twins have come out better in terms of overall record and ability to compete in their division since making the trade, which just goes to show you.
The Ms would be buying high if they signed Felix long term. If they try to trade him they’d likely be selling low given his contract status and the current value attached to prospects (though it’s not certain if the Ms would be trying to get major leaguers in return).
We’re all assuming, joser.
Oakland is an interesting comparison. As a Bay Area resident and friend to many Oakland fans, I have been following the A’s pretty closely. I have noticed that there is a definite sense of fatigue around the fan base. People are tired of watching all their good players get traded away. Parents don’t want their kids to get too attached to players because they know the players will just get traded if they become too good. On an intellectual level, fans around here know the prospects the A’s are getting have a lot of potential, but they’re tired of having to say every year “just think how good we’ll be in a year or two”. This type of hope is wearing extremely thin.
However, I have no idea whether or not this feeling has anything to do with the fact that the A’s aren’t drawing enough fans.
It’s also frustrating to know that your team is being run well and making the right decisions, but still finishing behind those rich kids across the bay that have their shiny stadium and bumbling GM.
Oakland didn’t draw well when they were winning, either. I think it is more the stadium and location than the particular moves by the GM.
Minnesota is a better comparison to Seattle in that they draw well when the team is winning.
I think this argument remains too abstract unless we fill in the blanks on what kind of return Felix would bring.
Specifically, which teams have a sufficiently talented farm system or list of young major league players to be viable trade partners?; and secondly, which of those teams would be willing to part with those assets in return for Felix?
Oakland didn’t draw well in the Reggie Jackson/Catfish Hunter/Vida Blue era, either, when they were REALLY good.
The phrase “elite pitcher” is used way too loosely with guys like Jason Schmidt and Barry Zito. Felix has the opportunity to be an “elite pitcher” like Randy Johnson, Padro Martinez, Roy Halladay, Curt Schilling.
I am fine with paying big money for a guy you know going into the game you have a 90% chance of winning, and if you lose it won’t be his fault.
I am fine with giving him whatever he demands if he truly wants to stay.
Dave,
From age 23:
Pedro pitched 194 innings at 23 then over 200 for 5 years.
Prior pitched 118 at 23, 166 at 24 then was done. No history like Felix.
Schmidt threw 96 innins at 23 then 2 years of 200.
Brown didn’t reach 200 innings until 26.
Loaiza never threw 200 innings.
Halladay was rocky early not reaching 200 innings until age 25.
Vazquez pitched 217 at age 23 then averaged over 200 innings thru age 29.
Webb didn’t reach the majors until he was 24. He pitched 24 innings that yaer then over 200 innings in all but one of the next six years. He pitched 180 at age 28.
Pettitte pitched 23 innings his first year (23) then had 7 years over 200 innings.
Mulder pitched 154 innings at 22 then had 5 straight years over 200+. Hudson threw 136 innings at 23 then had 8 years of 200+ innings.
Of the 12 names you threw out, only Prior was a complete failure. Schilling and Halladay were the only other 2 that missed significant innings from the age of 23 to 29.
We’re talking about age 23 to 29 not age 29 to 35 here when most of these pitchers started having their issues.
Are you really trying to argue that a 6-year, $100 million contract for a 23-year-old pitcher who’s already thrown over 1,200 professional innings (minors + majors) isn’t risky?
If so, you’re wrong.
From age 23:
If you want to do the age 23 comparison, that’s an entirely different group of pitchers. I just went back six years ago to show you the group of pitchers who could have been considered elite enough to argue for a huge paycheck.
If you want to look at all pitchers who have put up similar performances to Felix through age 23, then you can compare historically. But you’re not going to like the results.
Pitchers break down. You can’t get around this.
And, if interested, here’s that list of pitchers who have accumulated at least 800 innings before age 23.
There are some great pitchers on the list, and then there are guys like Joe Wood, Gary Nolan, Bret Saberhagen, Fernando Valenzuela, Don Gullett, etc…
We can have a good discussion about the trade-off between risk and reward, but you can’t pretend that the risk isn’t there.
Dave’s previous post leads me to believe that signing Felix to a long term deal and then going for it in 2010 is not an acheivable strategy anyway.
In short we need to add 15-20 wins through talent to have make it to the postseason. There is a limited amount of payroll – about $25 million to do that with. That assumes Felix’s salary for 2010 will be about $10 million after arbitration. There is no logical reason to believe Felix will extend at that salary. Dave’s guess of $16 – $17 million per year for a long term contract is more plausible. That means the Mariner’s $25 million improvement fund is reduced to $18 or $19 million – and that is before we replace or re-sign Beltre, Jack Wilson or Branyan.
So, locking up Felix means we have to find 15-20 wins worth of $1 million per win talent when the market rate is $4 million per win. I think it is unlikely even Zduriencik can do that.
If, on the other hand, we trade Felix, we have $35 million to make up 20-25 wins (which assumes we get no major league ready talent back for Felix). If you make the other team take Silva as a condition of getting Felix, then you have $46 million to make up 20-25 wins.
I think trading Felix is the more likely path to the 2010 postseason for the Mariners. The sad thing is that Silva essentially costs us the postseason or Felix, and maybe both.
There is another consideration that needs to be factored into their decision. Is the team ready to go into winning mode? As has been covered ad nauseum, this team doesn’t have the resources to put productive veterans at every position where they have holes. They will need inexpensive quality young players to cover several positions on their roster. The main question is: do they have enough of these quality young players to support a winning team in the next couple years, and therefore justify giving Felix the contract he deserves? It requires a good, hard, honest look at the upper levels of their farm system, their recent promotions (Carp, Tui, Saunders, Moore), and the players still under club control. Do they currently have the core required to win? Will they have the high level players required to fill in for the inevitable injuries that occur? As Dave pointed out in the previous post, it appears that they are still a few significant pieces short, with no easy route to acquiring those pieces. There doesn’t appear to be a significant wave of help coming from the farm system for a couple of years.
So, if the decision about whether to offer Felix a contract or trade him really hinges on whether or not this team is likely to be in a position to win the division within the next year or two, it appears that the logical choice would be to trade him.
As much as I’d hate to see a once-in-a-lifetime talent like Felix go…I think the smart strategy is to trade him.
This team needs a serious infusion of cheap young talent, and trading a player like Felix is probably one of the few ways you could actually pull that off. I’d also rather see the team build around an awesome young position player than an awesome young pitcher, all other things being equal. They’re (in general) less likely to explode.
A couple of more potential scenarios:
1. Sign Felix to a big, long term deal, then say you’re unable to do anything else because of the payroll. Ride him and a few likeable teammates to 85-win, highly profitable seasons where you fall just short of the playoffs.
2. Sign him to a big, long term deal and bring in maybe one more high salaried player, say a Jason Bay, then go big after next year’s albatross contracts expire.
#1 seems entirely plausible to me, given the FO’s previous behavior.
Dave’s guess of $16 – $17 million per year for a long term contract is more plausible. That means the Mariner’s $25 million improvement fund is reduced to $18 or $19 million – and that is before we replace or re-sign Beltre, Jack Wilson or Branyan.
Any contract Felix signs will almost certainly be backloaded. It would probably be something along the lines of 10-15-18-18-19-20, or something to that effect. The team isn’t going to give Felix $17 million for 2010.
On the other hand if Felix is traded, Silva could be part of the deal to a deep-pocketed team. But how likely would even the Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, et al bite on that?
What stands out in that list Dave posted is Felix’s 7 CG compared to the next fewest of 23 and Dwight Gooden’s 52.
I can’t recall, has there been a study on whether pitchers are more injury prone now than they were previously? Everyone brings up the old days where you see Walter Johnson go out and throw 370 innings and these days even 200 can wear someone out.
Any insight into that would be appreciated.
Or, at least, so we hope. A while ago over on Sons Of Sam Horn, there were a few chowderheads who were so blatently drooling over the prospect of getting Felix to pad out their precious dynasty that they were ready to offer up the mighty Clay “No Hit” Buchholz in return — who, besides being older than Felix already, hasn’t really accomplished a whole hell of a lot career-wise since that no-hitter.
I’d be interested in seeing the results of such a study as well. Having grown up watching HOF greats like Ryan, Palmer, Seaver and others who were still throwing lots of effective innings until their late-30’s or older, it drives me absolutely nuts to see some of these younger guys nowadays start looking over the shoulder if they have two baserunners on in the fifth or sixth inning to see who’s warming up behind them in the bullpen.
It takes two to tango. Felix and his reps have to want to sign now. Has anyone seen any evidence that they want to? I have not. More often than not these situations play all the way out to free agency for the player….. Even when traded.
I believe Felix will be on the team for the entire season. Maybe the correct obsession is who JZ is going to place in the rotation behind him. PLEASE NOT SILVA!
Dave’s list is very intriguing. There are a lot of guys from the Christy Mathewson “Pitching in a Pinch” era, i.e., guys who had to throw hard to only selected batters in a lineup. And there are a lot of guys from the “Blow out their arms if you can” era (Joe Coleman threw 280+ innings each of the next four years after the years listed). And then there’s Saberhagen, Gooden and Valenzuela, who are Exhibits A, B and C that led to the way we started to look at pitcher abuse. And then there is not one soul until Felix Hernandez, who has been under a pitch count since an age where most of us were playing on sandlots.
Which is not to say that there isn’t risk to a long term deal, but only that the list doesn’t say a lot about Felix’s situation.
I think I’ve seen Tom Tango mention studies (don’t know if they were done by him or someone else) which showed that pitchers nowadays pitch more seasons and more games — but fewer innings per season and fewer innings per game. So about the same number of innings in a career.
Which doesn’t directly answer your question about injuries, but suggests that injuries have not become more, nor less, of a factor over the years.
Check out #9 on that list.
If Felix does hurt his arm, maybe we just turn him into a power hitting outfielder.
Hey, it worked for Rick Ankiel…oh, wait.
The landscape was different then but we signed Junior to four-year contracts twice, 93-96 and 97-00, if I remember right. His first contract probably was 89-92 or something, I don’t remember. I remember Gillick had this weird thing about three years max no matter who it was. Anyway, can’t we just sign Felix to two four-year deals or something instead of one six-year deal?
Mr. Ankiel’s “injury” was not in his arm.
There are 2 extreme options and some middlegrounds:
1) Extreme option 1 – pay Felix top $ now or trade him NOW (this is what is primarily explored here)
2) Extreme option 2 – let Felix play for next 2 years here, try to win WITH him and then deal with him later (compete with other teams to sign him, chances are less we will win the bid, thats okay; may change IF we have encouraging results in the next 2 years with him) – most likely this will not happen for sure because of the risk of losing him without getting anything in return.
Middlegrounds:
#1 – trade him at the deadline next year – you have explored this a bit
#2 – try to win with him next year, consider the same options at the end of next season (since you still have him for 1 more year)
#3 – dont worry about it till trade deadline of 2011; at that point, the returns may be less, but as an organization you tried to win WITH Felix in 2010 and 2011. It may not happen, but the organization can try their best.
I think Jack will seriously need to look at the middleground options and try to win in 2010 and 2011 – this club has not been to the playoffs since 2001. Attendence is declining every year. The need to generate excitement and make it to the playoffs is now more than ever. So my guess is, we will try to WIN with Felix in 2010 and attempt our best to do the same till trade deadline of 2011. (one scenario which might change this is our team tanking in the 1st half of 2010 when people may want to revisit the same question)
Does it not all come down to what exactly can be gleemed for Felix in said trade? If we could get what Bavasi gave up to get Bedard or better It might just be worth it. A young allstar player a closer and your best 3 pitching prospects. Hmm
Winning soon is the key thing, whether it’s with or without Felix (though with is probalby easier).
Some teams have great support even in down years. I think that comes from a track record that tells the fans better times will come, and the guys you watch struggling through a 90 loss season will be part of those good times, so it’s worth watching ‘em. The M’s haven’t earned that yet, and they’ve already squandered the support 2000-2003 built. Man, were those good times, new stadium, pennant races, playoffs, 116 wins… Coulda made this a baseball town if Zduriencik had come in after 2004 and done what he did after 2008…
I think the key stat to use in assessing injury risk is the POS stat. On Felix’s page, it says POS: SP. That indicates a high risk of injury.
Funny, I’m listening to the Twins-Yankees game, and Miller was babbling on about Lirano, how he was projected to be great before the TJ surgery. He, along with Bedard, are good reasons for Felix to consider a 6/100 deal.
I’d sign him. Just because we know there is risk doesn’t mean you must avoid risk at all cost, and especially when the reward is what Felix represents.
It’s been done here before, in a different way, but my guy reaction to Dave’s comment listing the best pitchers in baseball in 2003 was to say “yeah, but how many of them were 23 at the time you would’ve been contemplating signing them for 6 years?” I decided to test that reaction using B-R’s Play Index.
I looked for all pitchers who had a season up to and including their age 25 year, in which they (a) qualified for the ERA title, (b) their K/9 was at least 8.0 and (c) they had an ERA+ of at least 150 (and yes, I know ERA+ is not a good stat but for this purpose it is a rudimentary proxy for a great season, only).
There were 23 such seasons by 22 pitchers, including Felix (Sam McDowell did it twice). I then looked at what they did over the next six seasons after their “breakout” great year.
You know what? Yes, there is risk, but for the most part the injuries were not career-threatening (Herb Score and Mark Prior being clear exceptions). Here they are:
Sam McDowell, 1965
5 AS appearances over next 6 seasons
Averaged 250 IP
Pedro Martinez, 1997
4 AS appearances & 2 Cy Youngs over next 6 seasons
Averaged 194 IP; lost significant part of one season to injury
Vida Blue, 1997
2 AS appearances over next 6 seasons
Averaged 242 IP
Hal Newhouser, 1946
2 AS appearances over the next 6 seasons
Averaged 219 IP
Was starting to break down toward the end of that 6-yr period, but really didn’t completely break down until after
Dwight Gooden, 1985
2 AS appearances over next 6 seasons
averaged 203 IP; 2 seasons with time missed
Tim Lincecum, 2008
incomplete, but was an AS in 2009 and CY candidate with 225.1 IP
Johan Santana, 2004
over next five seasons, 4 AS, 1 CY
averaged 219 IP; no significant injury time missed until this year (missed about 9-10 starts)
Ben Sheets, 2004
2 AS in next 4 seasons, missed fifth entirely but is expected back fo #6
Never was over 200 IP in any season after
Herb Score, 1956
Was never the same after being hit in the face with a line drive.
Roger Clemens, 1987
4 AS and 1 CY over next 6 seasons
averaged 243 IP
Mark Prior, 2003
Clearly the prototypical downside risk personified
Never really the same again
Zach Greinke, 2009
We’ll see; incomplete
Steve Carlton, 1969
3 AS and 1 CY over next 6 seasons
Averaged 285 IP
Kevin Millwood, 1999
No AS over next 6 seasons, 1 top 10 CY
Averaged 184 IP; two seasons with injuries, not career-threatening
Carlos Zambrano, 2004
2 AS over next 5 seasons
some minor injuries; averaged 202.2 IP
Jake Peavy, 2004
2 AS and 1 CY in next 5 seasons
Some minor injuries, including end of season five, this year
Averaged 180 IP
Brandon Webb, 2003
3 AS 1 CY (and 2 #2 CY finishes) in next 6 seasons
Broke down in year 6; averaged 227 IP over first 5
Juan Guzman, 1992
Had more significant injuries in two years, and nagging injury problems more or less throughout
Averaged 160 IP
Jose Rijo, 1988
1 AS and 2 Top 10 CY finises over next 6 seasons
averaged 192 IP
I like this comparison more than 800 IP by 23 because it has a component of greatness that I think you need. Really, the 800 IP thing is important, too, because of the “wear-and-tear” factor, but the list I compiled is important too, because it better demonstrates the upside reward that players like Felix possess, as well. Both the risk and reward sides are important considerations here.
So what do you see? I would gladly have signed the bulk of these guys to a six-year deal, and would have been rewarded nicely in most of those cases.
The Winners
Sam McDowell
Pedro Martinez (even with 1 year mostly hurt)
Vida Blue
Johan Santana (even with this year’s breakdown)
Roger Clemens
Steve Carlton
Brandon Webb (even missing one full year)
Hal Newhouser
Fair to Middlin’ for various reasons
Dwight Gooden (probably could go either here or above)
Jake Peavy (same)
Carlos Zambrano (same)
Kevin Millwood (injuries, + just not that good)
Jose Rijo
Busts
Ben Sheets (could be in middle category if he comes back)
Herb Score (fluke injury)
Mark Prior
Juan Guzman
Incompletes
Tim Lincecum
Zack Greinke
Felix Hernandez
Generally speaking, the rewards for pitchers of this caliber is so strong, and the risk of catastrophic injury relatively smaller (I’d guess because of their younger age), that I would absolutely take the risk and sign Felix to a 6-year deal. That is, if he’ll take it….
While it’s rare for pitchers to avoid going under the knife over the course of their career, it’s more rare for a pitcher to have Felix’s resume by age 23. Since integration, you’re talking about a group that includes the following pitchers (in addition to Felix): Bert Blyleven, Doc Gooden, Frank Tanana, Larry Dierker, Fernando Valenzuela, Don Drysdale, Gary Nolan, Dennis Eckersley, Catfish Hunter, Don Gullett & Milt Pappas.
That’s three Hall of Famers, one that should be, one that wasted HOF talent and still had a better career than probably 90 percent of pitchers, and the rest had very solid careers. Would we be disappointed if Felix’s career ended up like Frank Tanana’s? Probably, but that’s still a career any young pitcher would take.
I think this is one instance where a small sample size is a good thing. Felix turned a corner this year. He’s a special talent and should be treated as such. Is it a sure thing? No, of course not—nothing is. But, is it worth the risk? Absolutely.
Right. The reward is massive too. Relative to the population of baseball players, Felix is about as high risk/high reward as it gets.
I think the bottom line is that as big as last off-season was, this one is going to be even more important!
To further demonstrate Felix’s company, look here (and the list is the same if you set it to “before 26″ and 800 IP) or here (numbers requirements relaxed a bit).
The kind of pitcher Felix is, at the age he is, is a remarkable and reasonably durable group. He has HoF upside, and though the sample size is very small, those who’ve started their careers as he has have not shown risk that would make you think twice before signing them to a six-year deal at 23.
The fact that Dave’s earlier list (800 IP by 23) also included poorer pitchers is a less apt comparison group because nearly all of those pitchers were not of comparable ability to start with. If you weed out those who were durable but just not that good, and focus on those who broke down in the next six years, that would be a better list. And the lists I just linked to makes one wonder if the kind of mechanics it takes to be that good also tend to decrease the risk of injury at 23-29, 24-30, or 25-31….
I am not trying to dismiss the risk, or minimize it. I just think the risk has possibly been overstated here, or at least overemphasized as compared to that massive reward.
Just worth noting – that’s only $5 million harder than contending with Carlos Silva on the books every year.
[off-topic]
Two things that I don’t think is being considered in the discussion:
The fact that, according to b-r.com, Felix has been paid $1.3 mil so far his playing career. I’m too tired (lazy?) to look up his aggregate career WARP, or what his VORP is for 2009, but undoubtedly it surpasses the 33.8 BP had projected for him this season.
Obviously, that’s pennies on the win, provided by Felix. The Rays locked up Longoria and the Brewers locked up Braun. Granted, their position players, but they’re the cornerstones of the respective franchises. And besides, I understand the weighing of risk/ reward is high with pitchers, but its not as if all risk is completely diminished because a player takes the field every day. In fact there are more chances for injury risks to occur- twisting knee running base, concussion with other fielder, whatever happened to the entire Mets roster, etc.
Point being, Braun & Longoria were singular talents that the Rays & Brewers’ brain trust realized it was necessary to lock-up long-term ASAP. It’s hard for me to fathom why Felix is any different simply because he’s a SP. In fact, because he’s one of the highest marginal SP’s is argument enough that his arbitration years not be bought out, and long-term contract offered, the sooner the better.
Yes, Felix may flame out, just as some pitchers mentioned here have. But perhaps an ethical argument could be made that even if he does, Felix has earned a good portion of that nine-figure contract all ready, and in spades. And if he doesn’t flame out? Even better. We’d be getting Doc Gooden’s best years- just not with Doc Gooden.
And, other point I think is being addressed, how is the ‘with Felix/ without Felix’ scenario for 2010 in context with the rest of the division. How are the other teams going to change from this year to next? Some parts of the Angels’ games are suffering attrition (i.e. Vlad) while others have taken a big step forward (Morales). Is the Rangers’ pitching under Ryan going to continue to improve by quantum leaps, or will it plateau and/ or even falter? Is it to be assumed that the A’s will be division doormats again?
These variables should be considered. If they can only win with Felix, and that’s with 85 wins, could that possibly win the division?
My .02
The fact that Dave’s earlier list (800 IP by 23) also included poorer pitchers is a less apt comparison group because nearly all of those pitchers were not of comparable ability to start with.
It’s a tough sell that pitchers of differing quality get hurt at different rates. We can cut up the sample a whole bunch of ways and eventually find a “comparable” group with guys who didn’t get injured, but that doesn’t make the injury risk of the total population smaller. It just gives us a non-representative sample.
I just think the risk has possibly been overstated here, or at least overemphasized as compared to that massive reward.
What do you think the odds of Felix sustaining a significant injury that would short circuit his career at some point in the next 3-4 years are? 25%? 40%? 60%? At some point, we all have a probability in our head. If your number is lower than, say, 25%, you’re probably just too optimistic about pitchers in general. If your number is more than 75%, you’re probably too pessimistic.
In between 25% and 75%, there are cases to be made. No one knows the real number. It’s somewhere in there, though.
The fact that, according to b-r.com, Felix has been paid $1.3 mil so far his playing career.
Felix made $3.8 million in 2009 alone.
The Rays locked up Longoria and the Brewers locked up Braun.
The Rays gave Longoria a nine year contract while he was still a rookie. He was looking at 3 years at the league minimum when he signed his deal. Braun signed his contrat less than one year after his major league debut. Again, like Longoria, he traded in a league minimum contract for long term security.
It’s not even apples and oranges. It’s apples and chocolate cake.
In fact there are more chances for injury risks to occur.
Come on – the total quantity of plays doesn’t outweigh the massive probability of injury. Pitchers get hurt at a rate 5-10 times higher than hitters.
It’s hard for me to fathom why Felix is any different simply because he’s a SP.
Because pitchers have career arcs that are downward sloping and attrition rates that are through the roof. Seriously, you can’t compare pitchers and hitters.
But perhaps an ethical argument could be made that even if he does, Felix has earned a good portion of that nine-figure contract all ready, and in spades.
The Mariners aren’t a charity.
s the Rangers’ pitching under Ryan going to continue to improve by quantum leaps
The Rangers pitching sucked as always. It was their defense that made a massive improvement.
Point taken, Dave.
These are all just semi-educated guesses, but I think the risk of Felix being injured to the point that he misses a month or more sometime in the next 6 years is probably quite high – 60% or more. I think the risk that he misses more than half of any year within the next 6 years is probably 30-40%. But the risk of catastrophic, multiple-season injury, or that he will miss more than half of more than one season is smaller – maybe 20-25%. And his ceiling is so high that that risk is worth it for what he’ll give you when healthy, and even that if an injury saps some of what makes him special, he’d still be better than 90-95% of pitchers out there.
I get it that even 1 in 5 is a very significant risk when you are talking about an average annual salary in the $15-$20M range, but I would absolutely, without even blinking, offer him a 6-year contract.
If he won’t consider a generous offer for six years, and gives you no indication that he’d be willing to talk again after next year, OK, trade him. I’m not sure I agree that it is a bad idea to hold onto him into next year. What you say on that subject makes sense, but the deadline isn’t the only time to make a deal that gives you enough trade partners to create a decent market, while still giving you a chance to see how you’re doing with your new acquisitions (and with Felix). I’d sure be listening to ALL offers this offseason, though, even while negotiating, but my first and preferred priority would be to sign him.
And actually, if he hadn’t have thrown his career away, how much better could he have been?
We’ll never know. Fun fact, according to B-R his age 25 and 26 best comps are both Denny McLain. In 1969, McLain tied for his second straight Cy Young. In 1970, he was suspended for much of the season and was basically washed up. Gooden was a comp for both years.
What’s more important to us? A team that is a lot of fun to watch all year long or a World Series champion? Maybe we could trade Felix and land the prospects that help us put together a 2001-type season – winning a bunch of games and losing in the ALCS. The players who seem to deliver rings are ones like Beckett, Johnson, Hamels, Schilling, Clemens, Pedro, and so on.
Do the Mariners without Felix become “contenders”? Sure. But do they reach the postseason and trot out elite pitchers who deliver a championship? Probably not.
There is a risk in signing Felix to a long term deal. The Red Sox took a risk in trading Hanley Ramirez for a talented pitcher with a history of injury problems. The moment they put rings on their fingers after 2007, it was worth it. Take the risk and lock up the greatest pitcher of his generation.
Silva would disagree with that statement.
But seriously, while locking in long-term money for Felix is a risk, so is trading him for prospects. We could end up with a bunch of mediocre major league players. You never know with prospects. We “know” that Felix is one of the best at his position.
speaking of which, could someone write something up disproving the oft-repeated broadcaster belief that it was Nolan Ryan outlawing pitch-counts?
I’m always happy to way in this far down a thread where my comment will be overlooked and forgotten, so here goes!
Every time I see Babe Ruth on a pitching list, I am reminded of why he was probably the best player in baseball history. Mays, Mantle, and whomever else can disagree when they hop on the mound and throw some innings!
It takes two to tango on trades or extensions. I think the FO would be foolish to not at least explore both possibilities at this time. If Felix is amenable to an extension and the trade prospects aren’t good enough, then sign him. If he isn’t really that interested in a reasonable extension and their are good trade options, then trade him. The only reason this decision becomes hard is if there are some knock-out trade possibilities and Felix has serious interest in an extension. Start talking with teams and Felix’s agent to gauge interest before heading down one road or the other.
If the M’s do extend Felix, I am intrigued by the following two possibilities (which I mentioned over a month ago in other 2010 threads). For simplicity, I’ll use 6 years, $105M contract ($10M, $15M, $20M for 4 years):
(1) Player option for last 2 years that must be exercised or declined by the trade deadline of the 4th season.
(2) Mutual opt-out after 4th season where the decision to exercise the opt-out affects salary going forward.
* Felix opts out, M’s do not – his salary bumps up (likely scenario if Felix stays healthy and productive);
* M’s opt out, Felix does not – his salary goes down slightly (likely scenario if Felix has big injury issues).
* Both parties making same decision seems less likely and are self-explanatory.
Some people absolutely hate the idea of a player option and think it is always a bad idea. For ace pitchers, I disagree. They aren’t optimal and obviously a team option, a mutual option, or a shorter contract are vastly preferable. But I think a player option is better than just the long-term contract.
No evidence an no way to know for sure, but I think almost everyone would agree that the pitcher’s risk of injury (or decline) goes up a little every year (more pitches thrown, body getting older, etc.). So the pitcher is more likely to get injured during the last couple years of the contract than the preceeding years.
If the player opts out of the contract before the riskiest years, then the contract ends up being 4/$65. I think everyone would be fine with that possibility.
So to me, if you are willing to go 6/$105 with Felix, then you should be willing to add a player option for the last 2 years. There are just very few scenarios where this is worse that a straight 6/$105 contract. It is definitely worse than a 4-year contract, but that just doesn’t seem like a possibility.
Having the date for exercising the option before the trade deadline of that year (1) makes the player take some risk of injury if he opts out and (2) gives the team some trade flexibility (or the opportunity to run him into the ground if in the playoff hunt).
Again, for those who hate player options, I agree that it is worse than a shorter contract, a mutual option, or a team option. But if the choice is between 6/$105 with an option, or without, I like the option. Those last two years for $20M per are the riskiest. People might cry if he stayed healthy for the first 4 years and opted out, but that doesn’t make the final two years any less risky. Moreover, that kind of thinking is retrospective, not prospective. Prospectively, 4 years of a healthy Felix for $65M would be a fantastic deal for the M’s.
Why not keep him 2 years in arb to keep our team competitive, get Type A comp (or a trade deadline deal if someone blows us away) and then sign (or trade for) another (probably lesser) pitcher to a 4/75 contract that Felix would’ve been earning.
Then you’re only risking a 4 year contract instead of 6 and you still get the reward of Felix for 2 years, compensation for him and signing another guy to fill that gap (in which you’d lose some of your compensation).
You’d probably lose picks for any pitcher you are signing to a 4/75 contract.
A 4/75 contract seems pretty unlikely unless you are getting an ace pitcher who is getting up there in age. Younger aces require more years, lesser pitchers require less money. Hard to imagine the pitcher who gets a 4/75 contract. A Loweianesque pitcher fits the bill. But still, you would be surrendering a draft pick, and any pitcher you signed for 4/75 would still have risk.
We have to sign him, regardless of whether we “go for it” next year or not. I don’t know that it’s as black and white as it’s been laid out in the post. This team is headed in the right direction and signing Felix to a long term deal is going be a key part of keeping this team moving that way. It was bad business at the time to hand out long-term deals to Joh, Silva, Batista, etc but that shouldn’t mean that long-term deals themselves are flawed unless you’re “going for broke.”
Why should this team and this fan base be punished by the long-term deals of past administrations? The team has money to support big $$ contracts so it can (as its proved) be a middling team despite a higher payroll. We are not the Marlins. We don’t need all the planets to align and them make a big strike. And I’m not sure the fans will tolerate a rebuilding process with so little to show from the past 5 years.
I’d like to see a deal in place to make Felix the anchor of this team as long as his arm will allow. This was NOT the case with the Washburn and Silva signings, and it would be foolish to let this opportunity pass. In three years, this team will not have Silva, may not have Ichiro, and all the bad contracts with be off the books. Beginning this fall, the new regime has a chance to start spending some money and they should be allowed to see if they can spend it wisely. I don’t believe they need to have Felix taken away from them in order to do this, but could instead be able to let him and a shrewdly negotiated deal, but the centerpiece of “their” payroll moving forward.
I’m not a crazy newbie fan drunk on the optimism over sneaking over .500. This team won’t win next year with or without Felix, but it’s making steady improvement and I don’t see how losing one of (if not the only one of) their premier assets could be considered improvement. We can absorb the risk, but we need to take it first. And this is a safer risk than the last several pitching contracts we’ve handed out.
If Felix’s arm dies in year 3 and he’s done for his career, how exactly does the player option benefit the team?
The player option only benefits Felix because he’ll opt-out if he’s worth more than the 2/20 that’s left and opt-in if he’s worth less than 2/20 (injury issues).
So you might as well leave the player option off the table completely because the only way he stays for the last 2 years is if it’s beneficial to the team.
“So you might as well leave the player option off the table completely because the only way he stays for the last 2 years is if it’s beneficial to the team.”
I meant to say detrimental if he stays the last 2 years on a player option.
Dobbs, that assumes that Type A comp and whoever you’d get for 4/75 would be a rough equivalent for Felix. I don’t think that is so.
First, the only guys in any way comparable to Felix in terms of ability, experience and age are Greinke, Lincecum, and maybe Lester. Those guys are very unlikely to be available two years from now, and even if they were, they are just as unlikely to want to sign for 4/75 years as Felix will be now.
Second, Type A compensation assumes that Felix doesn’t get hurt in the next two years, and furthermore, is FAR from the kind of compensation you’d demand (and get) in any trade for Felix. You are much more likely to get a guy like the 4/75 guy you want, and more/better prospects, if you trade Felix.
That plus Dave’s point about not letting the size of your market (and the perceived value tied to how long the acquiring club will control Felix) diminish by hanging on to him too long is the crux of the “trade him this winter” argument. And it is a pretty compelling argument.
At the risk of repetition, though, the only way I’d trade Felix is if he makes it very clear he won’t sign here, or that he won’t consider a deal here until he first tests the market. I’d make him a strong enough offer (6/100+) that he’d have to consider abandoning that strategy because of the secuirty it offers, and the chance to get a second big payday before 30. If he likes that, I don’t think there is a trade package out there that might realistically be offered that would make me bite. Maybe, but I doubt it.
If that doesn’t work, I am fully on the trade him bandwagon, and I would consider the window to do it through about June 15 of next season, maybe longer if there are lots of big money contenders out there lacking pitching.
I truly believe that the upside reward with Felix is so great (Seaver, Pedro, Clemens type great) that even with maybe a 1 in 4 or 1 in 3 chance of losing him for a year somewhere in that contract (and maybe a 1 in 5 or 1 in 6 chance of a Mark Prior type flameout) must be taken.
You simply do not get many chances to lock up an elite ace. You get remarkably fewer chances to do so when they are 23. This isn’t about whether we contend in 2010 or 2011 – Felix is your chance at long-term contention, and to build on what was great about this year. Don’t give up on that until you’ve exhausted every possible strategy and offer to get him to sign.
I’m definitely in the “offer him a 6/100-ish contract” camp and accept the risk, but the risk is very real. However, like Dave said in a previous post, the M’s need to take some risks. They need to be smart risks (e.g. if Felix demanded 8/200 to stay, I’d say no) but they will be risks. Trading Lopez and handing Tui the 2B job for the next couple of years is one type of risk. Counting on 400 quality innings out of some combination of Silva, Snell, Vargas, Fister and Olson next year is another. Committing significant money to Felix is a third type.
Roll the dice! The M’s need to take several risks, of different kinds. There’s no guaranteed path to winning a World Series.
The risk is real, but we also have to be realistic about what the risk is. It’s been mentioned by a few others, but I think a lot of people still respond to the risk discussion as if it were binary. Catastrophic injuries that end seasons and careers are not the only possibility, or even necessarily the most likely.
I can understand the objective argument of trading Felix.
However, if we trade Felix isn’t the organization basically saying that we will never have a game changing dominant pitcher on our team. Or, if we luck out and do get one it will only be for a one or two year time frame?
Its my understanding that in the minors Felix was considered one of the best prospects in baseball. Even then, he only pitched for us four years and exceptional for us one year. Seems to show that even “developing” pitching doesn’t get you all that much time as a fan.
Obviously, if Felix wants something that is far and above market level (say 10 years for $350 million) and New York is willing to pay I can get that. However, if Seattle isn’t even willing to pay market level for such a talent…then I have a really hard time understanding why I should invest my energy into supporting the team.
- There is a big difference. When Jr. and A-Rod left the team was a playoff contender, including winning a season record number of games. On top of that they built a new stadium to attract fans.
Based on Dave’s plan you are trading Felix specifically to rebuild (give Carp/Saunders/Tui more playing time). Not sure how you can call that a similar situation.
If we trade Felix are we targeting a top level position player prospect? Why trade for a young pitcher if we’ll most likely (best case scenario) be in the same position with that pitcher in 5 years?
So the downsides of keeping Felix are obvious: a) he gets hurts, and b) he takes up too much of the payroll to allow us to fill in the requisite surrounding parts.
But I still think we’re understating the opposing risk–we simply don’t get enough back to make the trade make sense. For example, we gave away the farm to get Bedard–but would that be enough of a return for Felix?
And more to the point, the risk in Felix transfers to whomever trades for him. He’s going to be exactly as expensive. But unlike the simple monetary cost to us, the trade partner also has to surrender considerable player value.
There are a few teams (Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, and maybe the Cubs, Angels or Phillies?) who may believe they have enough cash flow to simply paper over their mistake if Felix gets hurt. I don’t remember the Pavano contract preventing the Yankees from contending.
But do these teams have the players either on their rosters or in the systems to make the deal palatable to us? Just anecdotally, it seems like those are the same teams who’ve already had their farm systems pretty well picked through.
So I come down in favor of keeping Felix simply because I don’t think we could come close to fair talent in exchange.
If the Brewers said ‘here’s Escobar and Fielder’, I’d say yes in a heartbeat. But they aren’t going to do that.
As long as make a legitimate attempt to sign him to a fair contract, I’m not going to criticize the M’s for trading Felix. The casual fan might not understand how we can let him go but if Felix wants 8 years/160 million or something, then so be it.
Market level for a team like the Yankees is completely different than market level for the Mariners. For good or bad, we have a budget. We can’t afford to pay what the Yankees pay to players. But the reality is, if the Yankees or one of those teams don’t want you as a player, you’re “market level” collapses. We see this every offseason once the cream of the crop gets picked over by the “haves” and the then the “have nots” can finally pick up the scraps for peanuts.
Unfortunately for us, the “haves” have a boner for Felix and we simply can’t compete. Our only negotiating leverage is that our contract protects Felix financially from an injury over the next two years.
Personally I don’t think Felix will sign with us. A few reasons:
1) Felix is young and confident in himself and his body. He’ll think he’s indestructable. So the risk of injury won’t seem that significant to him.
2) Felix wants to win. Despite our 85-win team, he has to realize that we aren’t really that close to the playoffs and further away from the world series.
3) I’m not familiar with Felix’s agent, but the type of contract that Felix can get in 2 years would be a HUGE feather in the agent’s cap. He could get a lot more business if he was the agent who signed Felix to the biggest pitching contract ever.
4) Beltre leaving. From Beltre’s comments, his number one criteria this offseason is to get to the world series. That pretty much means that Beltre won’t be coming back. That’ll make it easier for Felix to cut ties with the M’s.
5) “The grass is always greener” & “You don’t know what you had until you lose it”
Felix will likely think that he can have everything by signing with teams like the Red Sox or Yankees. Those jobs are thought of as the dream jobs in the major leagues. Maybe once he gets there, he might realize what he lost (teammates, clubhouse atmosphere, small market love, etc) but he’ll make the decision thinking that everything will be perfect once he gets “the dream job”.
The sort of people prone to this sort of histrionics are going to find a reason to freak out no matter what you do; thus, they can be safely ignored.
It doesn’t benefit the team. But it isn’t any worse than a 6/105 deal without a player option. Same result either way.
The benefit to the M’s is that if he opts out, they get out of the riskiest 2 years of the 6/105 contract. The benefit is if he gets injured in years 5 or 6 of the contract, which we already agreed are the riskiest years.
Fail. You are missing the whole point by asking (and answering) the wrong question. You need to look at the possible results from today forward, not just the option part of the contract.
I’ll try and break it down a different way. The two most likely results are:
(1) Felix stays relatively healthy and productive and declines the option. The end result is that the M’s signed Felix to a 4/65 contract. Looking prospectively from today (rather than retrospectively from sometime in 2014), this would be a fantastic result for the M’s. Less risk than the 6/105 contract and they net tons of value.
(2) Felix breaks down in some way and sticks out the whole contract at 6/105. This is no worse than the 6/105 contract because it has the same end result.
There are obviously other possible scenarios, like what happened with Burnett and the Blue Jays. Everyone seems to perceive that as some great tragedy for the Blue Jays.
Burnett signed a 5/55 deal in the 2005/06 offseason. Personally, I thought this was a little overpayment ($11/year was OK, but I thought 5 years on Burnett was too risky). Dave was big about the M’s pursuing Burnett at the time, but I sense he thought 5/55 was probably a little too much, though I never saw any comments where he outright said he thought it was more than the M’s should have paid.
Anyway, Burnett opted out after 2008, making the deal 3/31. Analysing the contract from THE TIME IT WAS SIGNED rather than at the time Burnett opted out, the Blue Jays got $46.3 million worth of value from Burnett, but only paid him $31 million. Sure, the Blue Jays probably would have liked to have him at 2/24 to finish out the contract. But they got fantastic value for him. That contract was a huge win for them. Maybe it could have been an even bigger win without a player option, but why complain when it ended up being a very good deal. And if Burnett had blown out his arm this year (or even early next year), everyone will realize why a player option can be beneficial to a team.
If Burnett had signed a 3/31 contract instead of a 5/55 contract, everyone would have thought he should fire his agent. The Blue Jays got a good deal and would have taken that over 5/55 at the time if they had the choice.
- Why? If they trade Felix because they don’t believe in a long term contract for a picther, then why would that suddenly change with the next pitcher?
You’d be assuming that’s why they trade Felix, and you’d be wrong.
Jeff, are you saying the only reason (in your opinion) the M’s will trade Felix is because he won’t sign a market-value deal here? Because otherwise, I don’t see that BLYK is wrong….
Felix at 23 is as good a risk for a long term contract for elite pitching as I think you can ever expect to see. Sure, it’s one thing if they trade him because he simply isn’t interested in buying out those last two arb years and is dead set on testing free agency (too much risk in keeping him, then – I agree). But it’s another if they just don’t offer him the kind of money that it obviously will take to at least tempt him.
There’s this thing called “context”.
If the Mariners trade Felix, it says NOTHING about what they will do the next time they have a similar decision to make about a player, because the circumstances will be entirely different.
Is the inherent risk of a long term contract to a pitcher part of the equation? Sure. But saying things like “this team will never have a top-quality pitcher omgggggg” is exactly what I said it was, useless histrionics.
I agree with that, mostly. BUT, economy aside (and as “context” goes, that’s a pretty big one), as I said before, it’s hard to imagine a future context where signing an elite pitcher to a long-term contract presents less relative risk (because of age, mostly) or greater relative reward. It is not completely unreasonable to draw some inferences from a decision like that – if they make a lackluster run at extending him before pulling the trigger on a trade.
I guess I should add the unstated condition – it may say something about how this front office feels about long-term contracts for pitchers. That is another fairly big contextual factor, I would agree.
This is a team that is talent-starved aside from Felix, with a few notable exceptions. If the team says “you know, Felix is awesome, but we have so many holes to fill and so little budget to do it with, that we’re not going to be able to compete even with him on the roster; however, a smart trade involving him could let us completely reshape the roster for sustained success”, then you know what? That’d be a smart decision. It’s certainly not the ONLY way they could go, but honestly I’d rather see that than have this team go down the dangerous road of paying for wins on the free agent market again.
That’s the context I was talking about; this team is still probably only a mid-80s win team even with Felix unless Zduriencik is able to pull off another miracle trade. Don’t get me wrong, I’d hate to see Felix go; but saying things like “trading Felix would prove that this team won’t pay to keep its stars” is ridiculous.
“Dobbs, that assumes that Type A comp and whoever you’d get for 4/75 would be a rough equivalent for Felix.”
Actually it doesn’t assume that at all. I’m just saying you could use Felix the next 2 years with little to no risk and still get value from letting him go. Then sign someone else using that money that would’ve been spent on a risky value.
“The benefit to the M’s is that if he opts out, they get out of the riskiest 2 years of the 6/105 contract. The benefit is if he gets injured in years 5 or 6 of the contract, which we already agreed are the riskiest years.”
Here’s where you strayed. All years are equally risky, however a catastrophic injury towards the end of the contract is less problematic as one would be at the beginning. If he’s healthy the first 4 years, we’d gladly give him a 2 year 40 mill deal that you suggest he could opt out of.
The problem is, what if he’s not healthy after 4 years and we’re stuck with 2 years and 40 million left?
There is absolutely no benefit to the team with a player option and they’d be silly to include it without negotiating more favorable terms.
.
Felix may be young, but I don’t see any evidence he’s an idiot. Even if he is, he has what appears to be a competent agent who will make sure Felix understands the injury risk (and point to his teammate Eric Bedard). The fact that he’s pretty much guaranteed $10M or so next year regardless of what happens works against the M’s, because even if he suffers a career ending injury on Opening Day next year, Felix will have made enough money to live comfortably and take care of his family. So to a certain extent he’s playing with house money if he gambles on FA, but I’ll guess that he’s still going to consider the risk and make an informed decision.
Glad you know what he wants.
Yeah, but Alan Nero (that’s his agent) has his paycheck riding on the same golden right arm. If they opt for FA and Felix blows his arm up, Nero isn’t going to see 10% of $200+ million. He’s going to be taking the exact same gamble, just at a lower percentage cut of the gross.
Arooo?
Yes, this is the way everybody thinks, and that’s why Ichiro and Edgar signed those big contracts with the Yankees after a couple of good years in Seattle.
Look, he might sign, he might not. I’m sure the M’s will offer him something, whether it’s close enough for him to seriously consider or not, I have no clue. If the ZOPA is non-zero, there’ll be a deal.
Trading Felix may end up being the correct thing to do if the right deal can’t be done and/or all signs point to him being more valuable in trade than he is contributing to the team himself.
It may end up bringing back a group of players, some of whom might form the core of a pennant-winning or wild-card-winning team in 1 – 3 years.
It would also have been, literally, a conscious decision to not pay to keep one of its two main stars. Just as with Randy Johnson and A-Rod.
These things aren’t mutually exclusive.
You believe that the team in both those cases simply asked “should we pay to keep one of our two main stars?” and that was that?
That seems like a pretty dramatic over-simplification of two entirely different situations, neither of which is analogous to what they face now.
Wait, you mean sometimes situations like this can be nuanced and a lot of factors can come into play?
Surely you jest!
Well, you know, just to throw this out there, Randy had that whole beef with the team president. And Alex had previously signed an extremely lucrative extension with the team during his arb years and had previously refused to seriously discuss a number of really heavy extension offers in the years leading up to free agency, and was also going to be the best free agent ever in a market flush with cash.
Whereas none of these things are at all true of Felix.
Not to mention that Alex was probably always destined to wind up either in NY or LA anyway, since, between here and the DFW metroplex, there were simply not enough rock stars or movie stars for him to date.
It’s always a gamble to sign a pitcher to a long-term deal – the upside is locking in a dominant force on the mound; the downside is the historically-common risk of injury.
At just 23 years old, Felix is in line for an enormous payday, but that’s assuming the 2010-11 version of Felix is as good or better than the 2009 version, i.e. 200+ IP, 200+ K, 17+ W, sub-3.00 ERA, ~3.00 FIP, etc… there’s no guarantee he can repeat his 2009 work, and there’s little chance he can do so by losing the best defensive 3B in the game.
Pay him, sure, but don’t break the bank to retain him when he very well may be more valuable on the trade market than on the roster.
Lots of decisions left to be made…
I did some hypothetical calculations, just to see what one way of analyzing the decision might look like. Here are the assumptions (play with these as you wish):
-Felix, if he stays healthy, will be worth an average of 6 WAR per year over the next 6 years.
-Each year, there is a 10% chance of a serious injury that reduces his value to 1.0 WAR for the remainder of the contract
-$4 to 5M per win is the range the M’s should be willing to pay
So:
2010: 90% x 6 WAR + 10% x 1 WAR = 5.5 WAR expected
2011: 81% x 6 + 19% x 1 = 5.1 WAR
2012: 73% x 6 + 27% x 1 = 4.6 WAR
2013: 66% x 6 + 34% x 1 = 4.3 WAR
2014: 59% x 6 + 41% x 1 = 4.0 WAR
2015: 53% x 6 + 47% x 1 = 3.7 WAR
Total: 27.1 WAR
gives a range of $108 to $135M over the next six years for his risk adjusted expected value.
Just to play with things a bit, if you change the injury percentage to 20% cumulative per year (74% chance over the life of the contract) you get 20.8 expected WAR ($83M to $104M). If you assume 5% per year injury change (overall 25% for the contract) you get 31.4 expected WAR ($126 to $157).
But here’s the thing – even if you took the 10% number and said “look, Felix is going to be worth $100 million over the next six years”, you’d still want him to sign for less than that because he’s not a free agent.
The M’s have surplus value from Felix for 2010 and 2011. If they pay him market value, they’re forfeiting an asset. If you have to pay the market rate in order to keep him, then you’re probably better off trading him for the bundle of players you can get and then spending the market rate on someone else.
That’s why this is going to be a tough negotiation. The point at which it makes sense for Felix to sign is not the same point at which the M’s get maximized value. In fact, those two points are probably tens of millions of dollars apart.
This is a brutally tough decision. In my heart, I know I’ll be thrilled if the M’s announce they’ve locked him up. As a fan, I don’t want Felix to leave. I love Felix. But, Jack can’t be a fan, and if it’s going to take a market rate contract to sign him, then the organization is probably better off trading him.
Oh, yeah, this is a doozy of a case study in negotiating. There are I think three evaluations that play into it. One is what’s the value of that bundle of players the M’s could get in return for Felix. We haven’t even talked about that, and it would be pure Wild-Assed speculation. But that value has to be the WAR value of the players themselves over the period of club control plus whatever WAR the M’s could buy with the money not spent on Felix’ contract. If that delivers more WAR than any contract with Felix, then it’s no deal and good luck kid. Even if Felix was willing to sign a below-market contract, if Zduriencik had a deal on the table that brought more Wins in house through trades, then trade it is.
And if the two sides have wildly different assumptions about injury risk, then there’s no ZOPA and no deal either. But if they have relatively compatible risk assumptions, I do think there’s overlap. I did some calculations from Felix’s POV, and the interesting thing is, the higher the assumed injury risk, the better the chance of a deal. Felix’s expected future salary drops much faster as the injury risk increases than does his expected delivery of WAR to the team. If both sides assumed a 25% chance of injury, there’s just no chance of a deal. If both sides assumed a 75% chance, it seems almost automatic – Felix could sign a contract $10M below market and still be happy.
How can that be? A big part of it is the second contract, the one he signs after his first one ends. If he stays healthy through the duration of his first big contract, then he can sign another big one at the end. But only if he stays healthy, if he gets hurt, that payday goes away too.
Now, the asymetry is that the M’s don’t bear the team-side risk of that second contract – whoever signs Future Felix does – so it doesn’t factor into the M’s calculations. But Felix still bears the player-side risk since it’s his arm. So a high assumed attrition rate means Felix wants to pull in the year of that second contract, he wants to sign it when he’s 29 and not 31, because there’s a greater chance he’ll still be healthy and command big dollars. So the value of letting the M’s buy out his last two arb years is higher.
At this point, I’m probably not making sense any longer (if I ever was).
Is this case really any different than Junior’s case in the early/mid 90’s?
Looking at the obvious differences, Griffey was a position player and Felix is a starting pitcher, but the timetables for their breakouts into national prominence and league-wide respect is roughly the same.
Didn’t Seattle buy out Griffey’s final year of arbitration eligibility in the same way we’re discussing how the M’s might try to do with Felix? Yes, it appeared as though Griffey was consistently accepting less money to stay in Seattle than was speculated he could get on the open free agent market. Yes, we’re kind of all hoping Felix does the same.
I’m curious, though – with all the hooplah being stirred surrounding Felix and his future in a Mariners uniform, what affect will Griffey’s presence on the 2009 team have on Felix staying? What about 2010 – if the M’s bring Junior back for next year, will that be a little incentive to Felix to ink a deal sooner instead of later? Then there’s the Beltre question, of course, and the fact that Felix and Adrian are close friends on and off the field.
I think we can all agree that 2009 was surely a breakthrough campaign for Hernandez, but what makes everyone so absolutely certain he’ll be as good or better in 2010, 2011 and beyond?
I did some calculations from Felix’s POV, and the interesting thing is, the higher the assumed injury risk, the better the chance of a deal.
How many healthy young men playing sports do you think are going to overestimate their risk of injury?
Just some final thoughts on my player option suggestion.
I am more concerned about risk aversion than maximizing return. Huge contracts for starting pitchers scare the bejesus out of me. I would certainly consider a long contract for a pitcher under the right circumstances, so I’m not totally risk averse. There has to be some balance.
If the team isn’t willing to accept the risk of the 6 or 7 year deal, then there is zero reason to consider a player option.
I don’t think they make sense unless the contract is 6 or 7 years. Maybe 5 years if the player is in his low 30’s when he signs.
I would only advocate a player option for pitchers or batters with “old player skills.”
There is no reason to have a player option only for the final year of the contract. At that point the team has already assumed too much of the risk to make it worth it. This might even be true for a 2-year player option, so maybe I agree with Dobbs a bit.
I like it more the longer the contract, and I like it early in the contract. The option I described above (6/105 with player option after 4th year) is probably around where I would draw the line as a team. It might make a little more sense to have it after the 3rd year in a 6 year deal. Sabathia has a 7/161 contract with the opt out after the 3rd year. If I’m the Yankees, I’m perfectly fine if he opts out of the last 4/92 because that is a heck of a lot of money for an aging guy with a bad body and lots of mileage on his arm.
For Felix, a player option makes more sense under a Sabathia-like contract. So if the M’s were willing to go 7/125 on Felix, a player option makes sense after 3 years, might make sense after 4 years, and makes no sense after 5 years (for the reasons argued by Dobbs).
If I were trying to figure this out, I’d ask these questions:
1. How long do I think Ichiro can perform at a high quality level?
2. When do I think Dustin Ackley will be a major league star? Same for Truinfel.
3. Will there be a period when all three of those players are in the majors at a high level together? If so, is it also a period when Gutierrez will still be with the team?
Then I’d see if I could budget Felix into one of those years. If I can’t, then I want to get back for Felix players who could be important parts of a team by then. If I can, then I want to keep Felix.
Well, if we’re going to err on the side of caution or underestimation, let’s say through 2011.
Ackley – 1-1/2 seasons from now; Truinfel – never.
Possibly, but the window looks pretty narrow.
He’s under club control through 2013, I believe.
Im trying to figure out how much exactly JZ has to spend this winter, can sombody help out? Ive heard everywhere from $50m to $15m…..Are the lower ends based on free agent resignings going back on the books? Also, how much is The King on the books for untill his contract is up, even taking into factor his arb. increases?
This will give us a good idea on how much we can flash in front of The King come extension talk time! It sounds to me like the M’s have plenty of money to get this done quickly and for a long time!
Before I figuratively “signed on” to the idea of trading Felix this off season, I would want to see some type of objective analysis of trade value of a young star at 2.0, 1.5, 1.0, and 0.5 seasons prior to his free agent date. The trade value to time remaining under team control line would have to have a pretty steep downward slope for me to want to see Felix traded prior to 2011.
It is a pretty steep downward slope. Compare what the Braves gave up to get Mark Teixeira and what they got in return when they traded him.