Yes. A better way to look at it is that they are paying $27M for $35-40M of production in the first 6 years of the contract. So when they are paying $25M for little/no production at the end of the contract, they've already received fair value for it.
X Leaves the Spot for San Diego: 11 years, $280M
- Thread starter TimScribble
- Start date
Of course they spend money. They make a ton of it and need to spend to keep the fans coming.
For me, it’s not whether they’re willing to spend money, but whether they are willing to spend money to lock up elite talent in this market. I think back to the Lester negotiations when the rumor coming out of the FO was “we are not doing long term deals for pitchers over 30.”
Lester was great, not elite. But I took from that they had a real line-in-the-sand aversion to paying players for certain ages.
That’s probably the correct approach most of the time. My concern, though, is that mindset causes them to get too cute. Is Mookie going to be as good when he’s 38, 39? Of course not. But they’re in the elite class of franchise value and can’t play everything like they’re too smart for the rest of the league.
I have to say, combined with Nimmo getting 8/162, this deal might suggest that our dollar/WAR expectations are going to need a bit of recalibrating in this new CBA. MLBTR had Nimmo getting 5/$110. They had Bogaerts getting 7/$189.
This all makes some of the huge deals that players like Betts and Machado and Harper have signed look downright reasonable.
This all makes some of the huge deals that players like Betts and Machado and Harper have signed look downright reasonable.
You left out a key few words. It should be "they hope they are paying $27m for $35-$40m of production".
They've telegraphed their strategy of multiple guys, not just one big name. Which Astros players are big stars with enormous contracts? Not that the Sox can just morph into the Astros like that, but the point is, if you want to win, you need depth. Lots of it. Especially in the pitching staff.
I've been mulling this over, and guess I have a bit to add about the final negotiations:
Focusing on the 6/ $160M offer is a bit misleading. The Sox looked poised to come back with something in the $180 -190M range, and I think anyone getting upset that they weren't even at $200M like several other teams are missing the point that X wanted to come back. If Preller hadn't nuked the entire negotiation I'm fairly confident that the narrative would've been that another player on the FA market has taken a bit less to play where was most comfortable to them (along with Judge, Turner, Hanniger, and Eflin).
Now if you're of the opinion that if they had offered him something close to the Story contract, we never would've got here, I won't fight you over that. If the Sox bring that to X at some point maybe he signs it, or maybe he lets his really good agent use that offer as a base for negotiations and continue to try to get to negotiate to get the most he can for not only X, but also to push the SS market upwards as well.
For me the issue is much more that there doesn't seem to be an actual long term plan. Bloom and Ownership seem to be zig-zagging between building the farm system and being competitive this year and getting flexible with payroll and roster spots. The train of events that starts with trading Renfroe and adding salary to get what look like fairly mediocre prospects, while starting JBJ in RF, and then not being able to dump JDM to get under the CBT threshold at the deadline so that the team is limiting it's talent acquisition now is a pretty bad turn of events. Getting a worse comp pick for X and also surrendering better picks if they do sign a FA with a QO attached makes it that much harder to zag back to competitiveness this year.
Focusing on the 6/ $160M offer is a bit misleading. The Sox looked poised to come back with something in the $180 -190M range, and I think anyone getting upset that they weren't even at $200M like several other teams are missing the point that X wanted to come back. If Preller hadn't nuked the entire negotiation I'm fairly confident that the narrative would've been that another player on the FA market has taken a bit less to play where was most comfortable to them (along with Judge, Turner, Hanniger, and Eflin).
Now if you're of the opinion that if they had offered him something close to the Story contract, we never would've got here, I won't fight you over that. If the Sox bring that to X at some point maybe he signs it, or maybe he lets his really good agent use that offer as a base for negotiations and continue to try to get to negotiate to get the most he can for not only X, but also to push the SS market upwards as well.
For me the issue is much more that there doesn't seem to be an actual long term plan. Bloom and Ownership seem to be zig-zagging between building the farm system and being competitive this year and getting flexible with payroll and roster spots. The train of events that starts with trading Renfroe and adding salary to get what look like fairly mediocre prospects, while starting JBJ in RF, and then not being able to dump JDM to get under the CBT threshold at the deadline so that the team is limiting it's talent acquisition now is a pretty bad turn of events. Getting a worse comp pick for X and also surrendering better picks if they do sign a FA with a QO attached makes it that much harder to zag back to competitiveness this year.
I sgree that Xander wanted to come back. I disagree that if you want the player and are willing to get close to $200M that you open with $160M and certainly not if you think there are going to be a bunch of teams in the $200M+ range. The Judge example is pretty on point - Judge wanted to go back to New York; New York wanted to get it done. When they realized they were 20% below top bid; they went to him and upped their offer.
Players that want to stay in a city are often willing to work at the margins, but is there any elite free agent who went to the market and took 20% less than prevailing market to return to their prior team? Elite guys rarely return to their teams to begin with.
There are two options: (1) $160M was close to the top they were willing to go; or (2) they really didnt think that Xander was going to get a number of offers that were in the $200-$225M range.
Put another way, if you listed your house for $1M and got four bids between $1.1M and 1.2M and one at $900k. Is anyone meaningfully engaging with the $900k bidder? Id seriously doubt it; the $900k bidder is not a serious party. Obviously Xander has a prior relationship that complicates it, but the point is that a large valuation difference that is going to make it really tough for a player to ever accept.
TLDR - The overlap of guys who get to free agency and the guys who are willing to take 20-30% discounts to prevailing offers approaches zero. If the team wants someone they should never let their bid be that low, unless that really is a hard line valuation.
We got excellent production out of Story?
Even if we concede that to you --- are you just going to accentuate the hits and not mention the outs?
Be fair, each of those guys you mentioned are complimentary pieces to a contender. Don't you agree?
Did you just ignore the part where I explained that my expectation based on the reporting is that the Sox would've gone to $180-190M within the normal dialog of the negotiations? Bloom/ the Sox knew that X wanted to come back, so it seems like a good stance to take to leverage that desire/ comfort that the player wants as something that should bring the price down.
We also have no real concrete info on what those other offers "around $200M" really were, so I don't think you can draw such hard distinctions based on that.
I didnt ignore it. Its irrelevant when you're so far apart from a group of 3-4 serious bidders. Thus the example of the Yankees approaching Judge - they didnt wait for him to come them- they went to him when they realized they were 20% under the Padres. And the housing offers - the $900k bidder never gets another chance - now if they were never going to go to $1.1M its irrelevant, but if they were they blew it because they misread the market.
There's material risk you never get a second chance when youre that low. That's why you never hold back that much unless you think the market isnt trending in the $200-$225M range and is in the $175 range instead.
They wont sign an elite talent until they change their approach and risk appetite and that's depressing because teams rarely win without elite talent market rate deals.
Edit: The report was offers above $200M. The best inference is its at least a 20% discount.
Maybe to make my point really clear: My experience watching the FA market as well as what I see in my professional experience in corporate and commercial deals - opening offers are important (and more important than people here seem to give them credit for( - parties move on to a group they believe is serious and an offer 20% lower doesn't make the cut to ever get to a point where they can negotiate. Obviously if you weren't going to offer a higher amount it's irrelevant, but if Bloom thought the market was $200 and offer $160, but was willing to pay $190, then thats a terrible decision and something I cant believe anyone would do. I think it more likely that he thought the offers were going to be in the $150-$180 range based on their optimism the day before he signed.
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IMO, the AAV is important only for luxury tax considerations, not to the player. If X suffers a fundamentally career ending injury (think Pedroia) on opening day, he still gets $280 million over time. While we don't have accurate details on the other offers over $200M, they were likely not close to the SD figure. If I were a player, the important number would be the total bottom line, not years, not AAV.
And oh BTW, San Diego is a very pleasant place to live in.
And oh BTW, San Diego is a very pleasant place to live in.
Yes, Story was on pace for a ~3.5 fwar season, had he played career norms in innings. I'd call that excellent.
Of course there are misses, but I'd argue that the hit rate is high, and Chaim has also showed an ability to turn misses into hits (Diekman/McGuire).
I think last year showed pretty well that complimentary pieces can make you a contender. Schwarber, Iglesias and Shaw of all people carried us down the stretch while the team was dealing with injuries and slumps.
Frankly no, however, the deal shpould have been made a year ago for far less money than San Diego paid
Trevor Story displayed a .303 OBP and struck out in 31% of his plate appearances, The day "that" performance is collectively embraced as "excellent" is the day baseball has driven over the cliff.
Iglesias and Shaw had 112 plate appearances combined in '21 (64 and 48 respectively). Saying they "carried us down the stretch" is a major overstatement.
BTW - Schwarber is "not" a complimentary piece. He is a hitting machine that should have been retained to be a bedrock of a solid lineup (as he displayed in Philly).
So much of Story’s ‘22 value came from defense, though. Are folks concerned about his offense? He was just a 238/303/434 guy overall, but quite a bit worse against RHP (233/294/407 and on the road (226/298/344). K rate up, EV, Hard hit, LD all down and below career norms. Now it was a weird year for him for a variety of reasons so hopefully there’s a bounce back but offensively, he was pretty mediocre and the Sox will need a lot more if they hope to be competitive.
I am very concerned about Story's offense based on his road numbers last year. He was awful. Not ruling him out but I view him more as a well-paid supporting guy vs. a foundational piece.
At 9 million a win (the going rate last year), thats worth about $30M. Of course, he didnt actually do that and put up 2.5 or about the $23M that he was paid. That isnt a good first year.
As others have mentioned the bat is concerning - his strikeout rate materially increased and guys who start striking out 30%+ of the time without elite power are generally in for bad results. His value last year was almost entirely tied up in defense that rated out at prime Dustin Pedrioa level at second so unless you think that he can maintain best defensive second basemen in the league (I do not), then hes not likely to be some significant under value guy, which is fine, but isnt some great example of good talent judgement.
Kind of annoyed by the "his best years are already behind him" takes. He just finished third in the AL in batting and played the best defense of his career. I don't think there is a good chance he is having great seasons in his late 30s, but I also think there isn't any evidence to suggest he is past his peak.
In the same post you disparaged a guy for .303/31% & complimented a guy for .323/30%... even though only 1 of those 2 players can actually play defense & run bases & it's not the 2nd guy.
We should probably put aside statements like "Story was on pace for...." He was injured the vast majority of the year and missed a ton of time. He didn't even play in 100 games. Until he's more durable we shouldn't count him in for 3.5 WAR or whatever.
Well there's definitely SOME evidence that at least some parts of his game are in decline. 2019-2022 stats...
1 HR in every X AB:
2019: 1 in every 18.6 ab
2020: 1 in every 18.5 ab
2021: 1 in every 23.0 ab
2022: 1 in every 37.1 ab
ISO:
2019: .246
2020: .202
2021: .198
2022: .149
Hard Hit Rate:
2019: 47.3%
2020: 37.0%
2021: 43.1%
2022: 39.6%
Avg. Exit Velo:
2019: 91.1 mph
2020: 89.0 mph
2021: 89.6 mph
2022: 88.1 mph
As for the increase in OBP, look at his BABIP:
2019: .338
2020: .329
2021: .333
2022: .362 - an abnormally high BAPIP, despite a big drop in hard hit rate
K rate:
2019: 17.5%
2020: 18.2%
2021: 18.7%
2022: 18.7%
BB rate:
2019: 10.9%
2020: 9.3%
2021: 10.3%
2022: 9.0%
So he's striking out a little more, hitting the ball softer, hitting for way less power, but walked less. He's got on base more, however, because of an abnormally high BABIP, even though that's been on significantly softer contact. Which screams "luck", unless he's just gotten better at placing the ball on purpose, which I can't speak to.
So yeah, I mean, he's still terrific and I'd much rather have him than not. But it's not like there's "no" evidence that he's past his peak, at least as a hitter.
I just think it's silly to use stats that way when you clearly don't mean it.
Do you think his durability is a concern? Last year was the first time he's played fewer than 142 games since his rookie season.
Yes I think his durability is a concern. He played in only 94 games last year and he's 30 years old. I think it will be concern until he can demonstrate that he can stay on the field again. If he does so in 2023 then my concerns will be alleviated.
Story has always hit. If he keeps showing lingering issues from his wrist and heel this year then I’ll be worried about his production, but I wouldn’t rule out a big year from him this year if healthy and can play a full year after transitioning to a new position. It genuinely wouldn’t surprise me to see an MVP type year out of him with Fenway and no Coors hangover on the road.
ZIPS projection for Xander Bogaerts in…
2023: .269/.347/.428
2024: .266/.345/.433
2025: .261/.341/.423
2026: .256/.337/.413
2027: .253/.332/.408
2028: .247/.326/.392
2029: .243/.323/.381
2030: .243/.322/.381
2031: .243/.320/.373
2032: .241/.320/.367
2033: .240/.318/.365
If you believe that that .764 OPS line can only play 2B/3B/LF/DH in 2025 and not shortstop, then even the 7/$200M contract would seem pretty tough to swallow.
2023: .269/.347/.428
2024: .266/.345/.433
2025: .261/.341/.423
2026: .256/.337/.413
2027: .253/.332/.408
2028: .247/.326/.392
2029: .243/.323/.381
2030: .243/.322/.381
2031: .243/.320/.373
2032: .241/.320/.367
2033: .240/.318/.365
If you believe that that .764 OPS line can only play 2B/3B/LF/DH in 2025 and not shortstop, then even the 7/$200M contract would seem pretty tough to swallow.
I just read that piece you linked to and it basically made the case for X getting the deal he did. I mean the headline is "The Red Sox Will Miss Bogaerts Soon and for the Rest of Their Lives".
They also said "ZiPS see Bogaerts aging extremely well, both offensively and defensively." and "ZiPS projects this deal as “worth” $261 million, so $280 million isn’t a wildly high number for Bogaerts’ services."
Why are you positioning these numbers as a negative re: Xander and the deal?
He's been a league average bat by OPS+ and wRC+ over the last two season comprising 1000 PAs. I'm not saying hes fried, but thats not a player who "has always hit"
Yes, I know the angle of the story. I think the writer's assumption that he'll "age extremely well...defensively" is fairly suspect.
My point is that the Sox probably don't believe that that's true. Defensive metrics are innately fuzzy, but DRS and OAA are generally better than ZIPS, which does not pick up the fact that most of Bogaerts' defensive gains came when he was positioned to the first-base side of second base, a defensive positioning that isn't possible anymore.
ZIPS isn't regarded for its defensive projections. I wasn't even sure that system made defensive projections. Szymborski, the writer, developed ZIPS and has to stand by it. But my argument is that the Sox probably don't see him as a shortstop even though this analyst apparently does, which puts his overall offensive projections in a different light.
I still feel pretty good about my Ortiz jersey. I hope it holds up, because I don't see the next player jersey purchase on the horizon!
Got it. I'll be upfront, I don't spend any time looking at advanced metrics, so I'm in no place to judge their validity.
I'm also not super well-versed in advanced metrics or valuing contract. That said, seems to me we've come a long way when a writer argues a $280 million deal is a good deal based off projections where the highest OPS in 11 years is 0.778. I get a decent amount of the value is based off position scarcity but as many have noted (aside from the writer), Xander will likely need a new position in a few years. I also wonder how far the scarcity argument goes when the Padres already have multiple guys at SS, including a superstar.
I love Xander as a player and the Sox will miss him (assuming no Correa) but I'm not exactly jealous of the Padres' deal (ignoring whether the Sox could have extended him last offseason).
I love Xander as a player and the Sox will miss him (assuming no Correa) but I'm not exactly jealous of the Padres' deal (ignoring whether the Sox could have extended him last offseason).
A .292 career hitter who just had seasons of .309, .300, .295, .307 is going to turn into a .260-.270 hitter overnight? Those projections seem rather, um, pessimistic, at least for the first few seasons.
The thing about predictions is that they're always wrong. Honestly, the game is played on the field, not on paper...
Career .312 hitter at Fenway, .271 everywhere else makes that projection make more sense.
I wouldn’t bet against him, but Xander’s expected BA last year was .259, per Savant.
The projections don’t expect the volume of infield hits to carry over, which seems reasonable. Plus the Fenway bump is gone.
Probably not quite that bad, but over the 2 seasons, X's slugging on the road has been: .438 then .407
Dumb questions... does Zips go back and apply their projection model historically to see what they got right? Like, what was Zips forecasting for Jeter's next 10 years in the winter of 2004?
Fair point on the home vs. road split. Maybe my brain is struggling to visualize X with BAs that low. He should also be sandwiched in between some elite hitters so he should be seeing a ton of quality pitches to hit.
Somehow Schwarber and his 2-2.5 war is not a complimentary piece, but guys who put up far better seasons than that with the Sox are complimentary pieces?
[QUOTE="mikcou, post: 5313048, member: 32678"
Players that want to stay in a city are often willing to work at the margins, but is there any elite free agent who went to the market and took 20% less than prevailing market to return to their prior team? Elite guys rarely return to their teams to begin with.
[/QUOTE]
Jose Ramirez? (though not sure he was a FA when he signed his new deal with Cleveland)
Players that want to stay in a city are often willing to work at the margins, but is there any elite free agent who went to the market and took 20% less than prevailing market to return to their prior team? Elite guys rarely return to their teams to begin with.
[/QUOTE]
Jose Ramirez? (though not sure he was a FA when he signed his new deal with Cleveland)
Bogaerts' intro press conference is on the Padres website. Don Orsillo is the host and starts out with saying "Welcome to Xan Diego". I now think I want to puke.
AJ Preller: Talked to Scott after Thanksgiving about all of his FA's. Not expecting to talk Xander. Asked front office employees Allen Craig and Ian Kinsler about his character. Met with Xander a week later in Newport Beach, CA. Met with him again. Owner closed the deal.