1
How much would be covered by insurance? 50 percent? Does that mitigate some risk?
Felix is going to be 50% of a verrrry sweet "Player Pair"
Feelin' like Abraham Lincoln there, #34?
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It turns out that Felix' contract is a 5/$135 extension, not a new 7/$175 deal that tears up the old contract. As Baker points out, this means that the 2013 and 14 payrolls won't be affected (much).
This in effect backloads the contract, always an advantage from the team's standpoint. Now the deal is worth less than the $134M in Net Present Value that we calculated yesterday. Without running it again, we'd guess 5/$128.
People will emphasize "richest contract ever for a pitcher", as the Times did yesterday with its "KING'S RANSOM!" headline. But this is in fact a poor assessment, because Felix is very shortly going to be way behind other Aircraft Carriers in average salary. At Boeing we used to use the term "True But Not Accurate" ... you can use random facts to give a misleading impression.
SSI originally guesstimated the absolute best-case for the Mariners as a 5/125 extension; turns out it was 5/135 but backloaded/discounted. I guess Felix WAS feeling like Abraham Lincoln.
M's fans couldn't have made out better on this one.
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=== Roster Agility ===
The only argument against this contract is an argument that you don't like having HOF free agents at all, an argument that you want to play Pat Gillick's 25 Honda Civics rather than the Angels' Stars & Scrubs.
Other playoff teams do have their CC Sabathias, their Justin Verlanders and their Albert Pujolses. It's been uniquely Seattle to own a half-billion-dollar stadium, paid for by the taxpayers, and still refuse to "gamble" on superstar contracts. Seattle has been bringing knives to gunfights.
Which other AL contender has refused to bid for HOF free agents? None of them. Fangraphs has frequently argued that HOF free agent contracts -- typically given to 30-year-olds -- are insane. They haven't noticed much that the insane teams are the ones always in the World Series, and that the sane teams lose 95 games.
What would happen if you misfired on a superstar contract? You'd have $25M in dead payroll dollars and this might cause you to ... um ... lose 90 games?
The passive approach is also risky. It's just that the aggressive approach, when it misfires, makes you look rash. When you sit on your hands and things go wrong, people are a little confused as to whose fault it was.
Right, it was much safer to spend $10M each on Miguel Batista, Carlos Silva and Jarrod Washburn. In 2007 dollars, you got Silva and Washburn at 50% each of Felix' 2015 dollars.
Stars and Scrubs is about player pairs:
- Silva and Washburn, vs
- Felix and Paxton, or Felix and Erasmo, or keep swapping the tag-team partner until some young pitcher proves he can overperform his contract
Dr. D can't fathom why ANYBODY would have a problem seeing why the second player-pair is the one you want. He'll take a superstar, and a talented young player, over two 2-3 WAR players any day of the week.
Of the above 4 players -- Felix, Silva, Washburn, Rookie - only the rookie can (reasonably) overperform his contract. And the rookie WILL overperform his contract, by the time you find the right one.
Erasmo being the right one, by the way.
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Even supposing that Felix misses a year or two, in Carpenter / Santana style -- even the DISASTER scenario -- you've still got the "hedge" that a young, talented player can come up to Silva or Washburn in his 2-3 WAR performance.
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The M's were ready to give Josh Hamilton $25M a year, the next four years. Now they give Felix Hernandez $27M a year, in the five years that are deferred.
As G said, a sweetheart deal. It positions the M's to play Stars & Scrubs for the next seven years.
Think I'll go ahead and get that #34 jersey,
Dr D
Comments
2
I was hoping for Felix and Stanton for a pair of stars, and a bunch of kids for the scrubs. Well, at least until they become the next stars.
3
There has to be some way to reward Moe for such a great piece of writing! I have yet to read a Mariner related article spun so deeply with not just a nautical theme, but with a battle fleet flavor. cPoints!!!!
4
Now I want our Amphibious Assault Ship with its full load of Marines to be declared battle-ready (our infield lineup and catcher) and to get our boomer(s) (Morse, Saunders, Morales, then maybe Brown, and (please, please) Stanton) to go on patrol. I want Tirpitz, Doenitz, and Gorshkov (Daniels, DiPoto, and Beane) trembling in their boots.
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Thanks Lonnie. And cPoints!!! to you for not mentioning my several hurried typos (now corrected, I hope)!
moe
6
As per MLBTR...Felix is not getting his extension yet though they're still working on "protective language" - there's evidently something wrong with his elbow that isn't going to prevent him from pitching in the immediate near future but is a concern for down the road.
Yay.
7
1. We have our aircraft carrier.
2. We have two heavy cruisers (Erasmo and Iwakuma, if you were wondering)
3. We have two destroyers, one that could be retrofit to cruiser status (Beavan and Saunders)
4. We have a bevy of deadly fast attack craft and stealthy subs, in our well-armed pen.
5. We have two hulls nearing completion in the dry docks of Tacoma. Naval secrecy has yet to reveal if they are of the carrier, battleship or cruiser class. Expect to see their shakedown sailings earlier rather than later.
Alfred Thayer Mahan and Admiral Raymond Spruance would be quite pleased.
BTW, admirals from Horatio Nelson to David Farragut to George Dewey would argue that when you have ships of the line such as Paxton and Hultzen completed, you don't have the luxury of waiting to iron out every kink before you send them off into harm's way. First of all, you can't iron out every kink. They will have flaws, but their guns and armour are needed in battle now. Beyond that, such heavy vessels are designed to blast the enemy, not run coastal patrol in Puget Sound.
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.
moe
8
1. Extend Felix 2. Over pay for and get Hamilton 3. Attempt to trade for Upton