Red Sox meet with James Shields, but really what they want to do is discuss opt-outs with Max Scherz

[selahsean]

He's a Boras client and typically Boras gets the high profile clients the money and as I said he's not leaving 10's of millions on the table for a shorter deal.

That being said I'd rather not pay the cost for Shields as a Scherzer alternative. Feels like the Sox already have a couple of guys who could rise to Shields' current performance level. I'm more interested in doing something at the deadline if we have a real shot or waiting for next year's crop of FA.

 

[geoduck no quahog]

Actually no .. Well possibly I suppose. Scherzer only gets 200m if some team offers that. And I don't see who that's going to be. If the MFY stay out then his market is pretty restricted. I'd guess something in the order of 7/180 is the neighbourhood he will end up in. But I have no clue who might offer that. In fact, I'd bet he ends up back with the Tigers.

 
Teams reported that could be in on the Scherzer bid, at Kershaw levels:
 
Dodgers
Tigers
Yankees
Giants
Angels
Nationals
Cardinals

 

[Cesar Crespo]

You could offer him a 7/180 deal with an opt out after year 4 and hope he takes it regardless of hw he pitched because most likely he'll underperform the last 3 years.

I get opt outs favor the player mostly, but if you just let them walk instead of give them a new contract, you underpaid for their peak years and you let the player bet on himself, opt out, and let another team pay for his declining years.

If Giancarlp opts out after 6 years, the Marlins got his peak years below market rate and get none of the decline. If he sucks, you'd be stuck with him anyway with no opt out. At least with that, there is a slim chance a player overvalues himself and opts out anyway.

I'd normally be against player options but for older players it makes sense. If Max wants to opt out at 34 with 3/80 left, hold the door for him. Maybe he'll defy the odds, but chances are he won't be worth the money and if he's opting out, you got more than your money's worth.

Edit: Arod and CC come to mind. If you let them walk, you got a great deal. Let these 30+ year old ballplayers bet on themselves and give them opt-outs at age 33-34. It wouldn't help with a Pujols or Prince but the teams would be stuck with those players anyway and at least with an opt out, they could hope Pujols and/ or Prince were/was stupid and opted out.

 

[Average Reds]

You could offer him a 7/180 deal with an opt out after year 4 and hope he takes it regardless of hw he pitched because most likely he'll underperform the last 3 years.

I get opt outs favor the player mostly, but if you just let them walk instead of give them a new contract, you underpaid for their peak years and you let the player bet on himself, opt out, and let another team pay for his declining years.

If Giancarlp opts out after 6 years, the Marlins got his peak years below market rate and get none of the decline. If he sucks, you'd be stuck with him anyway with no opt out. At least with that, there is a slim chance a player overvalues himself and opts out anyway.

I'd normally be against player options but for older players it makes sense. If Max wants to opt out at 34 with 3/80 left, hold the door for him. Maybe he'll defy the odds, but chances are he won't be worth the money and if he's opting out, you got more than your money's worth.

Edit: Arod and CC come to mind. If you let them walk, you got a great deal. Let these 30+ year old ballplayers bet on themselves and give them opt-outs at age 33-34. It wouldn't help with a Pujols or Prince but the teams would be stuck with those players anyway and at least with an opt out, they could hope Pujols and/ or Prince were/was stupid and opted out.

 
It isn't that opt-outs favor the player "mostly."  As we've discussed many, many, many times, opt-outs favor the player 100% of the time.  There are no circumstances where an opt-out favors the club.
 
Please stop.

 

[Hank Scorpio]

 
It isn't that opt-outs favor the player "mostly."  As we've discussed many, many, many times, opt-outs favor the player 100% of the time.  There are no circumstances where an opt-out favors the club.
 
Please stop.

 
Opt outs favor the player when the player sucks and/or performs below value.
 
Opt outs provide the player with some benefit if he performs at or above contract level. Even if a player opts out, it isn't especially damaging to the team as the freed up salary mostly compensates for the loss of talent.
 
Opt outs benefit the team AND the player when a player opts out after performing at or above expectations, opts out, signs elsewhere and promptly goes into the tank. 
 
If the Red Sox signed Scherzer to 6/150 with an opt-out after three years, and he exercised it, would you really be upset that we essentially got Scherzer for 3/75 as he departs into another megadeal that'll span his mid-late 30s?

 

[bosockboy]

The Marlins are banking on Stanton opting out, and most certainly are planning to benefit from it.

 

[Average Reds]

 
Opt outs favor the player when the player sucks and/or performs below value.
 
Opt outs provide the player with some benefit if he performs at or above contract level. Even if a player opts out, it isn't especially damaging to the team as the freed up salary mostly compensates for the loss of talent.
 
Opt outs benefit the team AND the player when a player opts out after performing at or above expectations, opts out, signs elsewhere and promptly goes into the tank. 
 
If the Red Sox signed Scherzer to 6/150 with an opt-out after three years, and he exercised it, would you really be upset that we essentially got Scherzer for 3/75 as he departs into another megadeal that'll span his mid-late 30s?

 
The hypothetical scenario you are presenting cannot be forecasted at the time a contract is signed.  This renders the hypothetical worthless.
 
To put it more bluntly:  Show me a team that would include an opt-out on the basis that the player is likely to overperform, opt-out and then go into the tank and I'll show you a team that is run by fools.
 
 

The Marlins are banking on Stanton opting out, and most certainly are planning to benefit from it.

 
Exhibit A.

 

[Oil Can Dan]

Let's say Scherzer has two hypothetical offers in front of him:
 
A) 6 years, $150m, opt-out after year 3
B) 6 years, $170m, no opt out
 
He decided the opt-out is valuable enough that he forgoes the extra guaranteed money and signs with team A.
 
How did the opt-out not "favor the team" in that scenario?  The fact that it helped him choose that teams' offer has no value to the team?  And I don't think it matters if you lower the $170m to $150,000,001.  Or if the money in the offers was equal.
 
If the opt-out plays a meaningful role in the player choosing that teams' offer over anothers, then the opt-out has value to the team.

 

[Morgan's Magic Snowplow]

Not this again.

Hamels is a great example of why the opt out wouldn't favor a club when a player produces at high levels in the first half of a big deal. Do you think the Phillies wish he had the ability to opt out? Obviously not. Guys with 3-4 years left on their deals who are outperforming their contracts are assets in the market.

 

[benhogan]

Edit: Arod and CC come to mind. If you let them walk, you got a great deal. Let these 30+ year old ballplayers bet on themselves and give them opt-outs at age 33-34. It wouldn't help with a Pujols or Prince but the teams would be stuck with those players anyway and at least with an opt out, they could hope Pujols and/ or Prince were/was stupid and opted out.

 
But thee Yankees didn't let them walk. And they ended up signing them to longer and worse deals then the original ones. Anecdotally isn't this telling you something?
 
If we can figure out how much premium the Yankees got paid for writing those opt-outs or how much the Marlins were paid for writing their opt-out for Stanton then we can have an intelligent conversation about options.
 
Otherwise the writer of the option losses 100% of the time...

 

[Average Reds]

Let's say Scherzer has two hypothetical offers in front of him:
 
A) 6 years, $150m, opt-out after year 3
B) 6 years, $170m, no opt out
 
He decided the opt-out is valuable enough that he forgoes the extra guaranteed money and signs with team A.
 
How did the opt-out not "favor the team" in that scenario?  The fact that it helped him choose that teams' offer has no value to the team?  And I don't think it matters if you lower the $170m to $150,000,001.  Or if the money in the offers was equal.
 
If the opt-out plays a meaningful role in the player choosing that teams' offer over anothers, then the opt-out has value to the team.

 
This hypothetical is flawed because it assumes that all parties to the negotiation have perfect information.  
 
In reality, only the player has perfect information.  So when a team adds an opt-out, they are not doing so because it favors them or saves them money.  They are doing it because the agent tells them he needs it.  And they want the player so badly that they are willing to do it.
 
Now, it's true that there is value to the team here.  But that value is recognized at the moment the contract is signed.  The ongoing value of the option accrues to the player (and only the player) and is recognized only if/when the opt-out is exercised. 
 
You can twist logic all you want, but the value of an option resides with the party that has the right to exercise the option.  Any other argument is foolish.

 

[Oil Can Dan]

 
You can twist logic all you want, but the value of an option resides with the party that has the right to exercise the option.  Any other argument is foolish.

Unless not granting the option precludes the team from benefiting from his services at all.

 

[Average Reds]

Unless not granting the option precludes the team from benefiting from his services at all.

 
As I stated, any value to the team from including a player option in a contract is recognized at the moment the contract is executed.  The value of the option itself is held exclusively by the player.

 

[Oil Can Dan]

 
As I stated, any value to the team from including a player option in a contract is recognized at the moment the contract is executed.  The value of the option itself is held exclusively by the player.

I don't care when it's recognized and haven't introduced the timing as a prerequisite or qualifier to my statement.

If including an opt-out clause causes a player to select your offer over another, then the opt-out clause provided value to the team. Period.

And so then, your claim that an opt-out clause only favors the player ever is incorrect. If you want to alter that to say it only favors the player post-contract signing, then fine. Of course. It's a valuable thing for a player to have, which is why a team fighting for a players services may offer it.

 

[Average Reds]

I don't care when it's recognized and haven't introduced the timing as a prerequisite or qualifier to my statement.

If including an opt-out clause causes a player to select your offer over another, then the opt-out clause provided value to the team. Period.

And so then, your claim that an opt-out clause only favors the player ever is incorrect. If you want to alter that to say it only favors the player post-contract signing, then fine. Of course. It's a valuable thing for a player to have, which is why a team fighting for a players services may offer it.

 
You may think this is a semantic argument.  You would be wrong.  You are also moving the goalposts significantly.
 
You gave a hypothetical about a team saving $20 million in signing Scherzer because they included an opt-out.  The purpose of the hypothetical was to demonstrate that teams derive financial benefits from the opt-out itself.
 
This is nonsense.  Because the market for professional ballplayers is inefficient, teams do not derive measurable monetary benefits from including an opt-out in a contract.  The benefit they derive is the certainty of getting the contract done.  Stated differently, the contract itself is the benefit to the team, not the opt-out.  The opt-out itself only has value if it is exercised.  And only the player benefits.
 
All of the other nonsense about long-term strategy and it being "smart" for a team to include an opt-out because they can "save" money if a player opts-out is garbage.  As is the notion that the option itself benefits the team.  No matter how many times you insist that this is not so, it does not change the fact that the option to terminate the contract benefits only the holder of the option. 
 
And with that, I am done with this conversation.

 

[Hank Scorpio]

Furthermore, when you're signing a starting pitcher, especially when signing one into his mid-30s or later, the later years are more freight cost than they are performance cost. Everyone wants Max Scherzer on a three year deal. But they won't get him for that, because someone will give six, seven or eight years. He'll get those last 3-5 year because that's what the market dictates in order to get the first three years. I don't think teams are completely psyched at having 34-38 year old Scherzer at $25M+ ... but that's what it takes to get him for his age 31-33 seasons.
 
Going with this hypothetical for now:
 

 
A) 6 years, $150m, opt-out after year 3
B) 6 years, $170m, no opt out

 
With the opt-out, you have two possibilities:
 
1: Scherzer under performs and doesn't opt-out. No leverage gained by the player because the team would have been stuck with him regardless without an opt-out. Possibly at a higher AAV.
 
2: Scherzer over performs and opts out. The player gets to sign a new deal, and the team just got one of the best pitchers in the game for 3/75. While they lose the player, they gain $25M in payroll flexibility and avoid years they would not have given the pitcher anyway if the market hadn't demanded it.
 
The worst case scenario with an opt out is the same as the worst case scenario without an opt-out, although probably cheaper.
 
The best case scenario with an opt out is getting an elite player on a medium term contract before he begins to decline.

 

[Darnell's Son]

Yeah, but if the player outperforms his contract and opts out, you need to replace that production. Now 3 or 4 years later the $/WAR is going to be greater. So replacing that player's production will cost more. Just look at the A-Rod and CC situations. The Yankees felt they couldn't lose that production so they ended up spending more to retain those players.

 

[Tito's Pullover]

2: Scherzer over performs and opts out. The player gets to sign a new deal, and the team just got one of the best pitchers in the game for 3/75. While they lose the player, they gain $25M in payroll flexibility and avoid years they would not have given the pitcher anyway if the market hadn't demanded it.

If Scherzer overperforms and there's no opt-out, he's on a short term, below market contract and you can get a real asset for him on the trade market (see Hamels, Cole).  You reap all the benefits you would have otherwise in terms of flexibility, plus you get a shiny new prospect or two.
 
I'm amazed this is so hard to understand.

 

[jon abbey]

 
But thee Yankees didn't let them walk. And they ended up signing them to longer and worse deals then the original ones. Anecdotally isn't this telling you something?

 
Not really, Cashman wanted to let A-Rod walk but dumb Hank Steinbrenner overruled him (and hasn't made a meaningful decision since). Bringing Sabathia back just tells you that NY didn't manage to develop much starting pitching in the interim, they were certainly under no compulsion to do so.

I find the ongoing divide on this issue pretty funny, I have argued about it on here endlessly in the Yankee forum (hello glennhoffmania). NY has given three of them so far (A-Rod, CC, Soriano) and every time it ended up being to their benefit that the clauses existed, they just only took advantage of the chance to cut ties once (Soriano). It is real world vs. theory, I don't think either side is budging. 

 

[Oil Can Dan]

 
You may think this is a semantic argument.  You would be wrong.  You are also moving the goalposts significantly.
 
You gave a hypothetical about a team saving $20 million in signing Scherzer because they included an opt-out.  The purpose of the hypothetical was to demonstrate that teams derive financial benefits from the opt-out itself.
 
This is nonsense.  Because the market for professional ballplayers is inefficient, teams do not derive measurable monetary benefits from including an opt-out in a contract.  The benefit they derive is the certainty of getting the contract done.  Stated differently, the contract itself is the benefit to the team, not the opt-out.  The opt-out itself only has value if it is exercised.  And only the player benefits.
 
All of the other nonsense about long-term strategy and it being "smart" for a team to include an opt-out because they can "save" money if a player opts-out is garbage.  As is the notion that the option itself benefits the team.  No matter how many times you insist that this is not so, it does not change the fact that the option to terminate the contract benefits only the holder of the option. 
 
And with that, I am done with this conversation.

If any goalposts are being moved here it's by you, not me.

The purpose of my hypothetical was to illustrate that a player will likely consider an offer that includes an opt-out to be more valuable than one without. Period.

And in fact it may tip the scales from one team to another in deciding which team gets him.

And so it's a valuable tool for the team. It can help a team acquire talent.

So yes -as you say "the benefit they derive is in getting the contract done". Agreed. If the opt-out helps them do that, then yes indeed it's provided value to the team.

 

[glennhoffmania]

 
Not really, Cashman wanted to let A-Rod walk but dumb Hank Steinbrenner overruled him (and hasn't made a meaningful decision since). Bringing Sabathia back just tells you that NY didn't manage to develop much starting pitching in the interim, they were certainly under no compulsion to do so.

I find the ongoing divide on this issue pretty funny, I have argued about it on here endlessly in the Yankee forum (hello glennhoffmania). NY has given three of them so far (A-Rod, CC, Soriano) and every time it ended up being to their benefit that the clauses existed, they just only took advantage of the chance to cut ties once (Soriano). It is real world vs. theory, I don't think either side is budging. 

 
And what you always ignore, and what AR has been trying to say for the 100th time in various threads, is that by opting out the player takes a very valuable asset away from the team.  That asset is a contract that is cheaper than the current value the player provided at that time.  So, for example, they had Sabathia signed to a 4/92 starting in 2012, which at that time was a very valuable deal for NY given Sabathia's production and the pitching market.  After he opted out they lost that premium.  Continuing to argue that the team doesn't lose out in these deals is ignoring a significant economic impact of the decision. 

 

[selahsean]

This thread got cluttered quickly. So where are we at on James Shields? All indications seem to point that he's heading out west. I for one will be glad to see him overpaid by someone else. San Fran seems like a good fit for him.

 

[Oil Can Dan]

I think people can't get past the idea that they're then losing out on having Scherzer for 4/110 from that point onward. They'd rather have that seemingly below-market deal than not. I get that, but I also don't understand why people can't focus on the 3/90 in your example.

 

[djhb20]

The only reason a player would opt (unless he's dumb) is if his market value is higher than his remaining contract.

Thus, if an opt out is exercised, yes the team gets the benefit of a reduction in long term contract obligations. But they also lose out on the benefit of expected player performance that is higher (by definition, because he wouldn't have opted out otherwise) than that long term contract obligation.

This is why everyone is saying that the player opting out is a net loss for the team.

If the team had some foresight that's better than everyone else, they could "win" by an opt out. (If the Yankees had special info that CC would start to fall apart after the opt out, for example.). But even in that case, the Yankees would've been better off if there was no opt out and they could trade him to whoever out there thought he was worth more and get something (instead of nothing) in return.


It's also possible that the opt out allows the team to sign the player. In that case, it has benefit to the team, but it's the same kind of benefit that offering an extra $20 million (or whatever) does if that's what gets him to sign. It's still a cost to the team. The hope is that he outplays the value of what you give him, whether that's just cash or cash plus the value of the option.

 

[jamcass]

Haven't been on for a long while, but seems both sides are correct. Generally, at the end of a contract the player has the benefit. However, at the signing stage the opt out may create an opportunity that would not have existed otherwise. For instance, very doubtful Miami gets to sign Stanton without the opt out provisions. The Stanton contract may be one of the only times an opt out being exercised benefits a team since it's speculated that Miami doesn't have the budget to pay the later years of the contract.

 

[Hagios]

Not to get all Wittgensteiny, but this opt-out debate calls for more precision in our language. We should stop using the nebulous phrase "help the team". Because that conflates "getting a player under more favorable terms towards the team" and "increasing the chance of signing a good player who will make the team better". 
 
If the mods did a search and replace upthread then we wouldn't have this debate. The statement "A player's opt-out never helps the team" would become "a player's opt-out never gets a player under more favorable terms towards the team". And then there'd be no debate.
 
(Of course, I think that a lot of people think about A-Rod and CC and do assume that a player's opt-out gets a player under more favorable terms. And then when called on it they equivocated towards the second definition)

 

[kieckeredinthehead]

Not to get all Wittgensteiny, but this opt-out debate calls for more precision in our language. We should stop using the nebulous phrase "help the team". Because that conflates "getting a player under more favorable terms towards the team" and "increasing the chance of signing a good player who will make the team better". 
 
If the mods did a search and replace upthread then we wouldn't have this debate. The statement "A player's opt-out never helps the team" would become "a player's opt-out never gets a player under more favorable terms towards the team". And then there'd be no debate.
 
(Of course, I think that a lot of people think about A-Rod and CC and do assume that a player's opt-out gets a player under more favorable terms. And then when called on it they equivocated towards the second definition)

In fact if you would go back and read the other long thread about this, you would find that there are people who have identified times when the opt out presents "more favorable terms towards the team." The real sticking point is between the words "never" and "rarely." To wit: if the signing player will have 10-5 rights with the signing team (so that they, the signing player, can not be traded), and if the league as a whole places a higher expected value on a players' later years than the signing team, then it can benefit the team to have the player opt out of the final years of their contract, which contract will somewhat paradoxically be overvalued in terms of the performance the player actually gives, but undervalued in terms of what some shitty front office is willing to pay, this paradox being in fact the greatest signal that the market for free agent superstars is inefficient, forcing teams desperate for a big name to overpay, the perhaps best example coming down the pipe being James Shields, but there also being plenty of historical examples (presented in the other thread) of players who should not have been paid $1 million for their age 35+ seasons, but in fact will be paid 25 times that, and the signing team would have been quite happy to see those players opt out a year early and bury some other team with the burden of dedicating 18.2% of their projected payroll to a guy who may or may not have working hardware in his left elbow, the decline of such hardware being somewhat unpredictable, but the overall aging curve for pitchers being so overwhelmingly negative at about age 32 that you'd be surprised how many GMs, supposedly savvy financial types, are willing to gamble such obscene amounts of money on something that has worse odds than an Arco slot machine outside Winnemucca. The actual willingness to let a player opt out (c.f. Sabathia and A-Rod) is the third sticking point here, but you will find people arguing that an opt out "never" benefits a team and then pointing to these two Yankees as examples of players who, okay, admittedly, would have benefitted the Yankees by opting out had the Yankees actually let them walk, therefore because teams won't be willing to let an opting out player actually walk away kind of seems like a small admission that an opt out can benefit a team if that team is willing to let the player go. So if the argument is an opt out can benefit a team, but "never" will because the team will "never" let that player actually walk away, I guess that's an argument that some people can try to make, but it seems to walk a fine, if not nonexistent, line between the theoretical financial value of an opt out only benefitting the person with an opt out (recognized, agreed), while ignoring the practical value of letting some other team overvalue the opting out player, while also only focussing on the practical situation of the original signing team not wanting to let the player go.

 

[Tito's Pullover]

If an opt-out ever benefits the team, it is purely an accident realized with full benefit of hindsight.  No team will ever be immediately grateful that a player opted out.  They may, a couple years on, realize that they dodged a bullet, but that would be a stroke of luck, not design.  Here's why:

1) If a player executes an opt-out, it is because his agents feel they can get better terms elsewhere for the balance of the contract.

2) If his agents feel they can get better terms, it is because the current terms are more favorable to the team than the contracts of comparable players around the league.

3) If the current terms of a player's contract are favorable to the team, that player can bring a positive return in a trade.

Real life example: if Cole Hamels had a player opt-out after 2014, he certainly would have executed it and would be looking at a Lester-type contract, while the Phillies would be left with nothing.  Instead he's at a favorable deal on relatively short years, and may be traded for someone like Henry Owens or Wil Myers.  In other words, a useful piece rather than nothing.

Another example: J.D. Drew opted out after the 2006 season with 3 years / $33 million left on his deal.  These were team-favorable terms, as evidenced by the fact that he ended up getting 5/$70 from Boston.  If he had no opt-out, and the Dodgers really wanted to rid themselves of that 3/33, they could have easily traded him, and the Sox would have had to give them something of value.

It seems like some of you are framing this as, "if we throw an opt out into the middle of the deal, hopefully the player will execute it, and we'll be off the hook."  The problem is if the player executes it, the team is not going to have wanted him to.

 

[radsoxfan]

Of course, the player only opts out if is good for him. But a disciplined and intelligent organization could still come out ahead and get that short term overpay so many dream about.

 
I understand this line of thought, but it sort of ignores the entire reason people would prefer a short term overpay.  It's about risk management, and people want to avoid a long term deal for an injured/ineffective player.  The 4/110 left on that contract for Scherzer is a pretty tough pill to swallow if he sucks or can't pitch in 3 years, and that's still a real risk in your scenario.
 
Put another way, no one dreams about a short term high AAV contract for a player than keeps performing.  We dream about it for the player that doesn't.  
 
If you put 7/200 "at risk", you want the benefit of having him on a "Cole Hamels in 2014" type deal thats either a useful piece in a trade or useful to your rotation. You don't want Scherzer bailing for nothing in 3 years after taking on all that risk and having it pan out. 
 
Depending on the numbers involved, a player opt out can certainly be a reasonable part of a team-friendly contract.  But it should involve the player giving up something in return compared to what he could get on a more traditional contract. 

 

[LahoudOrBillyC]

The reason teams (and fans) don't like long term contracts is because of the risk of injury or decline. If the player opts out, chances are the first half of the contract has gone great for the player and team, and the risk is the original contract is much less. If the player underperforms, he will not opt out.

Basically if you plot a range of possible outcomes, the players leaves on all the good outcomes and stays on all the crappy ones.

 

[benhogan]

In fact if you would go back and read the other long thread about this, you would find that there are people who have identified times when the opt out presents "more favorable terms towards the team." The real sticking point is between the words "never" and "rarely." To wit: if the signing player will have 10-5 rights with the signing team (so that they, the signing player, can not be traded), and if the league as a whole places a higher expected value on a players' later years than the signing team, then it can benefit the team to have the player opt out of the final years of their contract, which contract will somewhat paradoxically be overvalued in terms of the performance the player actually gives, but undervalued in terms of what some shitty front office is willing to pay, this paradox being in fact the greatest signal that the market for free agent superstars is inefficient, forcing teams desperate for a big name to overpay, the perhaps best example coming down the pipe being James Shields, but there also being plenty of historical examples (presented in the other thread) of players who should not have been paid $1 million for their age 35+ seasons, but in fact will be paid 25 times that, and the signing team would have been quite happy to see those players opt out a year early and bury some other team with the burden of dedicating 18.2% of their projected payroll to a guy who may or may not have working hardware in his left elbow, the decline of such hardware being somewhat unpredictable, but the overall aging curve for pitchers being so overwhelmingly negative at about age 32 that you'd be surprised how many GMs, supposedly savvy financial types, are willing to gamble such obscene amounts of money on something that has worse odds than an Arco slot machine outside Winnemucca. The actual willingness to let a player opt out (c.f. Sabathia and A-Rod) is the third sticking point here, but you will find people arguing that an opt out "never" benefits a team and then pointing to these two Yankees as examples of players who, okay, admittedly, would have benefitted the Yankees by opting out had the Yankees actually let them walk, therefore because teams won't be willing to let an opting out player actually walk away kind of seems like a small admission that an opt out can benefit a team if that team is willing to let the player go. So if the argument is an opt out can benefit a team, but "never" will because the team will "never" let that player actually walk away, I guess that's an argument that some people can try to make, but it seems to walk a fine, if not nonexistent, line between the theoretical financial value of an opt out only benefitting the person with an opt out (recognized, agreed), while ignoring the practical value of letting some other team overvalue the opting out player, while also only focussing on the practical situation of the original signing team not wanting to let the player go.

That is a dizzying sentence, I feel like I've just been "kickerdinthehead".
 
Good thing John Henry runs things, he won't be writing 'opt-out' clauses in big deals.

 

[benhogan]

 
Not really, Cashman wanted to let A-Rod walk but dumb Hank Steinbrenner overruled him (and hasn't made a meaningful decision since). Bringing Sabathia back just tells you that NY didn't manage to develop much starting pitching in the interim, they were certainly under no compulsion to do so.

I find the ongoing divide on this issue pretty funny, I have argued about it on here endlessly in the Yankee forum (hello glennhoffmania). NY has given three of them so far (A-Rod, CC, Soriano) and every time it ended up being to their benefit that the clauses existed, they just only took advantage of the chance to cut ties once (Soriano). It is real world vs. theory, I don't think either side is budging. 

It is rather humorous, and its fascinating to me how bright people get so confused by 'optionality'.  
 
The Yankees didn't take advantage to cut ties. It was never their decision. Soriano/Boras took advantage of the option to cut ties with the Yankees and signed for 2 years at $28MM with Washington.  
 
The Yankees or Dodgers or any team over the Salary Cap could take advantage of an "opt out" if they price the option right and get the overall contract discounted to cover the cost of the option. Then they would save by paying less in luxury tax.

 

[jon abbey]

If an opt-out ever benefits the team, it is purely an accident realized with full benefit of hindsight.  No team will ever be immediately grateful that a player opted out.  

 
Again, not true. NY was immediately thrilled that Soriano opted out, his deal was backloaded, Rivera was coming back from injury, and they got back the first round pick they had given up two years earlier when they signed him. If they had had the chance to get him back for the 1/15 he opted out of, there is no chance they would have done so.

And I highly doubt that Soriano had much trade value, especially as compared to the pick that they got (who ended up as Ian Clarkin, NY's #6 prospect currently). Everyone was surprised when Washington signed him in mid-January, conventional wisdom at the time was that Boras had misjudged the market. 

 

[jon abbey]

It is rather humorous, and its fascinating to me how bright people get so confused by 'optionality'.  
 
The Yankees didn't take advantage to cut ties. It was never their decision. Soriano/Boras took advantage of the option to cut ties with the Yankees and signed for 2 years at $28MM with Washington.  

 
I'm not confused at all, but agreed that I worded that poorly. I meant that they chose with Soriano not to pursue their player who was now a FA like they did with CC and A-Rod. 
 
Basically my point on this is that each situation with an opt-out is different, Soriano on NY as an overpriced setup guy is obviously wildly different from the deal Giancarlo Stanton just signed. It bugs me that people think it always is a bad thing for the team, despite the counterexamples we have all seen in recent years. 
 
To bring this back to Shields/Scherzer, it's pretty unusual that an opt-out by a high-priced SP could be a good thing for the team, but I think it's still possible if the team manages to develop other candidates to take over that spot during the years the SP is under contract. 

 

[glennhoffmania]

 
I'm not confused at all, but agreed that I worded that poorly. I meant that they chose with Soriano not to pursue their player who was now a FA like they did with CC and A-Rod. 
 
Basically my point on this is that each situation with an opt-out is different, Soriano on NY as an overpriced setup guy is obviously wildly different from the deal Giancarlo Stanton just signed. It bugs me that people think it always is a bad thing for the team, despite the counterexamples we have all seen in recent years. 
 [size=3 [/size]

NM. There's no point.

 

[benhogan]

 
I'm not confused at all, but agreed that I worded that poorly. I meant that they chose with Soriano not to pursue their player who was now a FA like they did with CC and A-Rod. 
 
Basically my point on this is that each situation with an opt-out is different, Soriano on NY as an overpriced setup guy is obviously wildly different from the deal Giancarlo Stanton just signed. It bugs me that people think it always is a bad thing for the team, despite the counterexamples we have all seen in recent years. 
 
To bring this back to Shields/Scherzer, it's pretty unusual that an opt-out by a high-priced SP could be a good thing for the team, but I think it's still possible if the team manages to develop other candidates to take over that spot during the years the SP is under contract. 

 
I kind of see where glennhoffmania is coming from.

 

[Yaz4Ever]

 
I kind of see where glennhoffmania is coming from.

And with this, the Internet has finally reached its end point. I never thought I'd see this in my lifetime.

 

[repole]

• Player opts out
  Team Lets Player Walk
  Result: Team would have been better off without player option. Could have dealt that player for value as the player was in all likelihood on a market friendly deal if they opted out of it.

[*]Team Re-signs player for bigger contract.

• Result: Team would have been better off without player option, now have to pay player more.

[*]Player doesn't opt out.

• Result: Team in same situation as if there was no player option.

 
In which of these situations does the team benefit exactly? Only way that happens is if a player foolishly opts out of a deal and isn't able to find that same value on the open market, which happens occasionally, but betting on that or planning on that seems insane.
 
All this talk about avoiding the worst value years of a guy's contract is irrelevant. If a guy opts out, it almost always means those years still have value around the league, and you'd have been better off dealing him for a lottery ticket prospect than having him walk.

 

[jon abbey]

You can't always trade the player, as in the Soriano situation above, also you're not factoring in the draft pick. Why do people insist on thinking about this in the abstract while ignoring the specific examples that we have just seen? Soriano's deal at 1/15 wasn't "market-friendly", Boras pulled god knows what strings with Washington to get them to finally bite on him late in the process. 
 
And again, every deal is different, which is why a general flow chart like above isn't very helpful. Sabathia never signs in NY originally if they don't give him an opt-out, probably the same with the deal Stanton just signed. 
 
Also, happy I could bring together glennhoffmania and benhogan on something. Merry Christmas to all.

 

[Unbearable Lightness]

You can't always trade the player, as in the Soriano situation above, also you're not factoring in the draft pick. Why do people insist on thinking about this in the abstract while ignoring the specific examples that we have just seen? Soriano's deal at 1/15 wasn't "market-friendly", Boras pulled god knows what strings with Washington to get them to finally bite on him late in the process. 
 
And again, every deal is different, which is why a general flow chart like above isn't very helpful. Sabathia never signs in NY originally if they don't give him an opt-out, probably the same with the deal Stanton just signed. 
 
Also, happy I could bring together glennhoffmania and benhogan on something. Merry Christmas to all.

So you are saying if your team is so incompetent in trading a player and that player had a magical agent, an opt-out can prove to be beneficial.  Fascinating...

 

[jon abbey]

So you are saying if your team is so incompetent in trading a player and that player had a magical agent, an opt-out can prove to be beneficial.  Fascinating...

 
I'm saying that opt-outs almost always benefit the player, obviously. I am also saying that they can benefit the team, depending on the specific situation.

And hopefully we all know that agents don't work in a vacuum, it's common knowledge for instance that Houston voided the last year of Chandler Parsons' deal as part of their pitch to Dwight Howard's agent (also Parsons' agent). I wouldn't be surprised if something like this happened with Soriano to Washington (Boras represents Strasburg, Bryce Harper, Werth and Rendon). 
 
http://rockets.clutchfans.net/7680/rockets-honored-dwight-howard-agent-agreement-chandler-parsons-contract/ 

 

[jon abbey]

I would also be happy to stop this back and forth, but I have no idea why people can't grasp that this isn't a zero-sum situation. Just because something benefits the player doesn't mean that it can't benefit the team also, as we've seen play out in real life. 

 

[Unbearable Lightness]

I would also be happy to stop this back and forth, but I have no idea why people can't grasp that this isn't a zero-sum situation. Just because something benefits the player doesn't mean that it can't benefit the team also, as we've seen play out in real life. 

 If you really want to stop this, you shouldn't end your message with a straw man.

 

[MikeM]

As long as the Red Sox are still initially comfortable betting on the default length of a contract in the event Player X (in this hypothetical case, Scherzer) decides not to opt out, the absolute "all or nothing" criteria value people are placing on the post-contract evaluation seems rather silly imo. 
 
In all likelihood Max Scherzer is a better starting pitcher then anybody who is going to take the mound for the Red Sox this season. Considering what's currently projected to come down our pipeline, and the ever increasing money/years being thrown around in free agency, at worst he's also probably as good as anybody we *might* see take the mound for us over the next couple of seasons. If an early opt out after year 2 or 3 is the hypothetical difference maker that would present the possibility of Max signing a 6 year contract, instead of the 7-8 i would otherwise draw the no line at...sign me up.
 
If Max over performs and decides to take the opt out, and even in the event it shoots a big hole (back) into our roster at said time...that does not suddenly negate his contribution and solution value that was provided while he was here. Which is the point i believe John Abbey and others are trying to make. Looking at the roster makeup now, i have a really hard time envisioning a scenario where i am sitting there 3 years from now thinking to myself "one Cy Young plus 50+ wins latter and now this fucker is opting out on me. What a non-beneficial waste of time and team resources that was. Wish i could have that one back".

 

[canyoubelieveit]

Isn't the obvious value of an opt-out to the team the fact that it might convince the player to sign with that team?  Adding $20 million dollars to a contract offer "can only benefit the player" in a similar sense, but clubs do that all the time because it makes their offer more attractive, and that's the objective.
 
What confuses the issue is that, unlike just money, there is a theoretical although unlikely scenario where the opt-out actually does benefit the team (where the player does well, then leaves, then tanks).  To add an opt-out for this reason alone is a bad idea for the reasons argued repeatedly above.  But I think the point that others are trying to make is that the combination of "maybe the opt-out gets the player to sign with our team" (95%) plus "oh, and maybe if we're really lucky he'll do well for us, then leave, then underperform elsewhere when he's older" (5%) has enough value to the team to offer it.
 
Happy Holidays.

 

[djhb20]

The reason people (like me) are being so stringent in this is that if you are the inactive side of an option like this, and it is exercised, that is - by definition in a situation where the decision to exercise is whether a contract is above or below market value - bad for you.

Of course, you can point to a scenario in which, ex post, it looks like you're better off because the opt out was exercised. But in Soriano's case, if that was a win for the Yankees, it's because it wasn't actually a below value contract but Soriano and/or Boras mistakenly thought it was. Counting on it to be a win by having someone make an ill-advised choice is not a winnig strategy.

That said, I think we can all agree that if the opt out is what gets the player to sign - and you want to sign him and view the opt out as a less costly give than more money/years - then sure it's a good thing.

I don't believe anyone here is arguing that opt-outs should never be used and are just harmful, terrible ideas. Just that arguing for including one by saying that it could be good if player X opts out is not the right argument for including one in an offer.

I think we all agree that an option is a negative to the team and a positive to the player (the same way money is). And I think we can all agree that an option might be less costly to the Sox than offering more money or years may be.

 

[inJacobyWeTrust]

I thought this was the James Shields thread? Scherzer has his own thread and there was endless opt-out discussion elsewhere. I read through this whole thing trying to find any news about Shields and was disappointed.

 

[Rasputin]

I thought this was the James Shields thread? Scherzer has his own thread and there was endless opt-out discussion elsewhere. I read through this whole thing trying to find any news about Shields and was disappointed.

 
Shields opted out of the thread.

 

[E5 Yaz]

 
Shields opted out of the thread.

 
Which benefits him more than the thread

 

[NDame616]

FYI I started a thread about opt outs
 
http://sonsofsamhorn.net/topic/87292-click-here-to-opt-in-to-a-thread-about-opt-outs/