I'm not saying you're wrong, but most of us understand the empirical reality that the vast majority of the baseball owners are going to operate within financial constraints.
Yeah, and they aren't saying bubkis. I guess we will know if/when they blow past the LT, and until then no idea.
These posts seem to go together.
To look at it another way, it's 0.026% of the apron this year, which will only go down, for the next 8 years.
They're gonna make him wear an apron as a part of the contract? Do you have a source for this?
And this is coming from me…a guy who wanted ship Refsnyder out of town all offseason!
I think you're over reading a SSS here. He had two hits yesterday and brought his season line from 49 wrc+ to 85; it's still just super early. Also, 40% of his games so far have been facing pretty electric starters; his K rate is somehow slightly below the team average.
Casas yes. Duran I'm less sold on. He seems to be in the process of proving me wrong for two consecutive years, but we also control him through age 31 already; I don't think he fits the extension mold for that reason alone.
lol did I mislabel the $233 tax level that apparently ownership wants to stay under? I thought it was called the tax apron
This is a bit silly - I mean, they just played opening day. The sample size is ridiculously small.
If he doesn't hit well enough to start his arbitration numbers would end up super low- and of course they still could keep him on the team as a backup. So they wouldn't have to sign anyone else to play that role. To be clear, I don't think this is a deal that will be too damaging if it turns out to be a mistake, but it also seems like a move that easily could fail without anything surprising happening. Most importantly, it's too early to know if Rafaela can hit at a major leave level, even at a "good enough because his glove is so good" level. I certainly don't expect Rafaela to fail but I also wouldn't be shocked if he ends up a guy who struggles to put up a .600 OPS. If he does turn out to be unplayably bad with the bat, this will look like a significant (though not overly damaging) waste of money.
Agreed. Especially since the extra years aren't team options (as has been seen with similar players).
I would have far preferred that Keith contract. 3 years added and all of them are options.
True, but it just seems like the standard is for club option years, and they gave guaranteed ones and it does not appear they got smaller $$ in the first 6 years to compensate.
What sort of player do you think $6.25 mil will buy 8 years from now? It seems likely that Rafaela can already play plus defense at any outfield spot, and scouts have said he could do the same at any infield spot. That is worth a lot even if he puts up a .600 OPS. I think it makes anything that happens with his hitting a bonus. He may not hit enough to lock down a regular starting spot, but a defensive supersub who can fill a need at any position if there is an injury is pretty valuable.
I just don't think the market values defense as much as you think it does. Yu Chang, for example, has been a great defensive player throughout his "barely getting a chance to play in the majors" career. Despite that, he's made practically no money in the 5 years since he was first called up, and couldn't get anything better than a minor league contract this offseason. And this is a guy with 15 OAA in 530 career chances - numbers that amount to the equivalent of one full season of gold glove caliber play.
Sure. But they already had control of him for 6 years, and now at least the the first 3 of those are going to be much more expensive than they otherwise would have.
Yes, those years would be more expensive than they needed to be if his bat is no good. But not by all that much, and within the normal range of a bench player. And if he hits enough to be an everyday CF (which has a relatively low bar) he's going to be worth more than they're paying. I think it's worth the risk because it has pretty limited downside. He also has more positional flexibility and upside than Yu Chang does right now.
That's not an unreasonable guess but it really depends on what happens over the next 6 years. If he puts up enough WAR over the next 6 years to give him a likely arb earnings of 37.5mm total, then he just needs like 1.5 wins total in the following years. If his arb totals would hit something like 47.5mm then he could put up 0 WAR post arb and have it work out. Of course this math assumes that the cost of a FA win in 6 years is still 8mm, which it likely won't be.
This is also an organization that has been paying over 4M in total deferred salaries to Manny and Pedroia for some years now. They carried/ate 16M per year over like half a decade with Rusney Castillo. The downside risk on this deal is negligible.
Sure but even in 10 games, 1/16th of the season, his basic tendencies are accumulating value. He’s not off to a hot streak. But his speed makes him valuable, and that’s predictable.
What's enough?
That site says we’re at $222M. If we agreed to a similarly structured contract extension with Casas — for I'm guessing something in the $80 to $120 million range — that would also frontload a lot of his future salary to the 2024 payroll.
If.
He could be BJ Upton - though I haven't seen enough to conclude he is as good defensively. Upton hit enough to make him valuable. To date I don't think he is as good a hitter as Upton was - and Upton fell off a cliff offensively in the end.
He’s being paid at the low end of the outcome distribution, though. If you’re confident that he should still be in the league, even as an OF4/MI defensive specialist, he’s worth this deal. And if he’s an actual starter, there’s a ton of surplus value here.
Once in a great while, the Sox "borrowed" an NL type player for a while, like Billy Hatcher, Otis Nixon or Luis Alicea. Jeff Frye?
He's named after Chipper Jones, so perhaps something of his bat will rub off as well.
FTFY
Yes, exactly. He could be Cameron Maybin, in which case you don’t regret this deal, or he could be Mike Cameron, in which case you made out like a bandit.
