Reyes: bigbux longterm contract after 2006 or go with arb.?

[nymr83]

there is no logical reason to sign this guy long term given what he has shown so far. the mets control him for the next few years anyway and would be wise to remember that when offering him contracts. giving a player extra money just to buy out their 1st year of free agency only makes sense if the overall deal is a bargain or if the player is so good that you'll overpay to make sure he is around that extra year (like a Pujols.)

[Zvon]

Bret Sabermetric wrote: The only way he's not a Met during those years is if they no longer want him.It's not about feelings.

Im sure this is true from a business standpoint.
But if they no longer want him (for whatever reason), then isnt that the way that they feel?

Two more questions:
Is it a bad thing for a GM to have feelings of loyalty and fairness in regards to his players?

Why wont the players union and players agents/representatives be more flexible?

I personally believe we have more than balanced out the scales in regards to how players were paid and treated pre-free agency.

But in todays market, the way things stand, 3 million for a healthy annually improving Reyes is not all that much. Its fair and it should keep him happy. Respecting (compared to what other similar players make $$$ wise) and keeping a player happy should be a consideration.

(though I have to admit that in my simulated baseball vid game its 2011 and Im only paying him 1.70 million. And he has posted great all star numbers for a shortstop/leadoff hitter. Why? Because I haggled with the artificial intelligence until it accepted the lowest terms possible. I was prepared to pay alot more because I wanted him to stay on. IRL do you think Reyes would settle for so little, if his career did continue to flourish?)

[nymr83]

the players and their agents take the owners for a ride full of $$$$$$$ signs once they hit free agency, they also take them for a ride after the drafr, at apoint when they arent even likely to ever be good players, it is only "fair" that a team get away with paying a guy "poorly" during the years before free agency.
if MY GM gave a pre-arbitration guy more money than he had to just to be nice i'd fire him on the spot.

[Zvon]

Nymr83 wrote: if MY GM gave a pre-arbitration guy more money than he had to just to be nice i'd fire him on the spot.

lol.
You have a point.
But when will it end?

[nymr83]

when will what end?

[Frayed Knot]

So using Rollins as a guideline, those 2004 & 2005 years are equivelent to where Reyes is going to be in 2007 & 2008 (time served-wise)

2004 Philadelphia Phillies $2,425,000
2005 Philadelphia Phillies $3,850,000

... and it appears that the Phils then bought out the final year of his arb-eligible tenure and made that part of his first "FA" contract. Prior to that they took it on a year-by-year basis.

So that's approx $6.5 for years 4 & 5 combined, then figure on an additional [$5mil? at least] for year 6 ... bringing the total to $11.5 minimum for the 3 -- a number right in the neighborhood of the $10-$14 that was suggested would be a target for dealing w/Reyes after assuming for decent progress this coming year. Adjust things for inflation and there's a good chance that he'd get more than that taking it a year at a time, so an arbi-buyout strategy of about that 10-14 amount would likely give both sides what they want; Reyes gets the security he couldn't otherwise, and the Mets get their "cost certainty" w/o the trials & tribs of arbitration and probably at a lesser total cost.

Of course there always remains the serious injury or massive sucking risk, but I'm betting that's a call they'll feel better about a year from now if things go well. If not, then you stick with a 1-year deal for '07 and re-evaluate things after that.

[Zvon]

="Nymr83"]when will what end?

These rides that players/agents take the owners on.

Many think that A-Rods contract has fueled this.
Short range, it did.
But I personally think that A-Rods contract was
the beginning of the end of it. DING!


Why doesnt Boston want Manny?
Its not because he cant hit, thats for sure.

[Zvon]

I tried to work out afew scenarios where Reyes comes in with a .311 OBP.
In conclusion Id like to go on recoerd saying I predict,...okay....I hope and pray, that he will have a OBP more like .325 in '06, and thats just by matching Rollins in walks alone.

Heres Rollins 2005 numbers with Reyes '05 numbers and '06 projected numbers in parethesis along side.

Rollins played 158 games (161>projected>158)

had 677 at bats, (696>projected>680)

196 hits, (190>projected>191)

115 runs scored, (99>projected>103)

doubles, (24>projected>28)

11 triples, (17>projected>15 )

12 homers, (7>projected>7)

54 RBI, (58>projected>58)

47 walks (27>projected>30)

.338 OBP, (.300>projected>.311)

.290 AVG, (.276>projected>.280 )

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

In Patchy's thread, FK wrote:

"And - contrary to what you keep repeating - there IS a middle ground between a 1-year deal and a deal commensurate with being "a big star". "

Okay, what's that middle ground? I maintain that most of the time, there is a clear market value for a player's services, either LT or on a one-year basis. The middle ground you're describing is nebulous. Can you name me three current Mets, for example, who've got multi-year deals at under a million per year?

Or are you saying that a million a year is just-regular money? To my mind, "big star" money means money that the club is unwilling to eat no matter how far south a player goes. If the Mets owe Chris Woodward 500,000 dollars and he's batting .140 in 200 ABs, they might decide to cut him. If they owe him 5,000,000 dollars, he's not going nowhere.

They've boxed themselves in with too many LT deals designed to lock up mediocre talents over long periods of time at serious money. In a sense, I'm more concerned about their poor judgment in signing these players rather than the money itself, but I'm suggesting that they need simply to allocate a certain proportion of the budget to non-productive salaries paid to players whom the team needs to simply release or, better, to trade at less than their nominal value.

The difference between the Mets and the Yankees chiefly, to my mind, is that the Yankees just sit their big-ticket players down, or swap them out, when they're playing horribly and the Mets insist that these players are slowly coming around. I don't think the Mets are finer human beings for having this policy, I just think they have a hard time accepting the idea that they made a terrible mistake, and this persistent state of denial costs them games and post-season appearances.

[nymr83]

the difference is that the Mets have a budget (even if it is a high one) as of where the yankees don't care if their payroll reaches 250 million

[Frayed Knot]

"Can you name me three current Mets, for example, who've got multi-year deals at under a million per year?"

Of course not. With the minimum salary of approx 1/3 of a mil/per, a starting player will approach that $1mil mark before he ever reaches the arb years so there's no point in him signing such a deal; and if said player is that young and NOT a regular then he isn't about to get offered one.


"Or are you saying that a million a year is just-regular money?"

In today's game, essentially yes. See above.



"To my mind, "big star" money means money that the club is unwilling to eat no matter how far south a player goes. If the Mets owe Chris Woodward 500,000 dollars and he's batting .140 in 200 ABs, they might decide to cut him. If they owe him 5,000,000 dollars, he's not going nowhere."

To my mind. "big star" money is what's given to big stars -- so maybe we're just arguing semantics here. No one's proposing paying him Pujols money. The arb-years proposals made here for Reyes average around $4mil/per ("Stars" are getting twice that at least) and could very well be less than he'll make if taken on a yr-by-yr basis (see the Rollins & Soriano examples).



"If the Mets owe Chris Woodward 500,000 dollars and he's batting .140 in 200 ABs, they might decide to cut him. If they owe him 5,000,000 dollars, he's not going nowhere."

Except that Bonilla was sent packing while owed around $6 (they bought him out via a long-term payout, but regardless, he didn't play or keep a roster spot). Cedeno was also paid to go away with the team paying about $9 of the $10mil they still owed over 2 years. And Rey himself - the example of what Jose could become while we're busy celebrating his stolen bases - was almost all of his final year's near-$6mil to go screw up in Tampa.
So, they're not only apparently willing to eat that kind of money, they already have ... several times.



"The difference between the Mets and the Yankees chiefly, to my mind, is that the Yankees just sit their big-ticket players down, or swap them out, when they're playing horribly and the Mets insist that these players are slowly coming around. "

Except of course when the creature in question is Giambi or Brown who were owed too much for even THAT team to fire their asses when those guys screwed up both on and off the field. So - just as in the joke about whether the lady will sleep with you for a million dollars (we've already established what we think of her morals we're now just negotiating the price) - Giambi & Brown show that ALL teams take money factors into consideration when making those kind of decisions. The difference - as noted - is at what point that kicks in. But seeing as how X million means different things to different clubs for the same reason that X thousand means different things to Bill from Long Island than it does to Bill from Redmond, Washington, I'll let them make their own decisions as to how much is too much to simply write off. Saying; 'oh they got the money - that amount means nothing to them', is kinda dumb IMO until such point that they make one of us their accountant.
What we're discussing here is how much seems to us fans at this point to be too much to commit to Reyes for the years 2007-2009, or indeed if ANY amount is too much if it's for more than the upcoming year only.

At this point, I've specified (even though I don't particularly care if they go long-term or yr-by-yr);
- what I think will be a worthwhile amount to risk in both money & years
- under what circumstances I'd offer it
- why I think that amount may represent a long-term savings
- and how other somewhat similar players have fared in their comparable years
So, unless you want me to get specific about the type and color of the pen to be used during the signing, or whether they should do this in private or make it a catered affair, I think you're grasping at straws by throwing around the "quibbling" label.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

I think 4 mil per year is star money, and big money, and money that Reyes has not begun to show he warrants yet. It's also the range that Soriano and Rollins make, and I suspect what Reyes' agents will be looking for at the end of the projected 2006 season.

In my view, there are simply NO circumstances I would even consider paying Reyes 4 mil a year (or 20 mil for five years, or anything on that order) before showing Rollin- or Soriano-type numbers. If the short-term risk is that some crazy arbitrator decides that Reyes is worth 4 mil for a one-year deal, then you tough it out and pay him. If the long-term risk is that the Mets lose him, then they lose him (after 2009): .311 OBP shortstops grow on banana trees.

What I have trouble believing is that Mets fans (not necessarily you, FK), having gone through the whole Rey-Rey extravaganza, are reading this post and not saying, "Very wise, Bret, very prudent" and instead are saying "But he's Jose Reyes! He's the star of our dreams! He's the Mets future! B-b-b-b-b-but we gotta sign him!" This is the sickness of being a Mets fan.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

]This is the sickness of being a Mets fan.

This also applies to fans of the 29 other teams, in equal measure.

And while Jose Reyes has not shown that he's as good as Jimmy Rollins, he's certainly shown that he's better than Rey Ordonez.

[Frayed Knot]

"I think 4 mil per year is star money, and big money, and money that Reyes has not begun to show he warrants yet. It's also the range that Soriano and Rollins make, and I suspect what Reyes' agents will be looking for at the end of the projected 2006 season."

I don't think he'll be worth $4mil at the end of this upcoming year either -- Rollins didn't make that until his 4th year (2008 for Reyes) while Soriano (MUCH more accomplished at that stage) made $5.5 in his first arb year -- the $4mil is just a projected avg of what he might make over the following 3 years ('07-'09), figuring that if he doesn't fall into the toilet he'll;
a) get that amount anyway with normal progress; (maybe in a $2.5, $4, $5.5 progression?)
OR
get a lot more if his career takes off in the manner that one of the more highly regarded prospects constantly playing above his age level could


If you prefer to opt for the $2-$3 that Reyes will likely make in '07 and risk paying him even more for the 2 years after that rather than committing to $10-$12 all at once that's fine too. You guard against the downside that he plateaus at nothing better than a package easily replaceable at low salary by the time of his 5th/6th seasons like Ordonez did. But Reyes has a lot more going for him than Ordonez: he's 4 years younger than they thought Ordonez was and 6 years younger than he actually was, has better power, MUCH better speed, and apparently a considerably better attitude and aptitude. Much closer to Rollins than Ordonez and therefore much less chance of eventually regretting the outlay.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

But Reyes has a lot more going for him than Ordonez: he's 4 years younger than they thought Ordonez was and 6 years younger than he actually was, has better power, MUCH better speed, and apparently a considerably better attitude and aptitude. Much closer to Rollins than Ordonez and therefore much less chance of eventually regretting the outlay.

And Ordonez had some things going for him that Reyes lacks, primarily in the way of Gold Gloves. As far as aptitude and attitude, some people were claiming that for Rey, right up to the end--in any event, what we're not seeing (I'm not, anyway) is tangible signs of improvement, which you'd think would be the first indication of aptitude and attitude.

I admit he projects "cheerful" rather than "surly" and "team guy" rather than "self-centered egomaniac." I'm just not sure how many millions either of those two traits are actually worth.

[Zvon]

Bret Sabermetric wrote: This is the sickness of being a Mets fan.

Then Ive been ill for 35 years.

Looking at Rollins contract I do believe Reyes merits 3 million, and at least 10.5 for 3 years.
Reyes:
2007: $3,000,000
2008: $3.500,000
2009: $4,000,000

Sure, Im taking a chance. A GM cant be afraid to roll the dice.

[nymr83]

i know this has nothing to do with real life but its just a thought...

i simulated 2005-2008 with the Mets several dozen times in Baseball Mogul 2006, in those seasons in which i started Reyes in 2005 his 2007 and 2008 numbers essentially resembled the numbers he put up this past year, that is he never got any better. however, in 4 simulations i left him in AA for 2005 and AAA for 2006 before starting him in 2007 and 2008...his average OBP in those seasons was about .355...
yes i know its just a game...
but it led me to ask a serious question, assuming that getting on base is a learnable skill, is it better learned at a younger age in the minors or in the majors?

[metsmarathon]

the answer is.. there's really no way to tell.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it ironic seeing all of Bret's posts diplaying the "Jay Satan" avatar (for reaching 666 posts) after his long run with his previously chosen avatar?

[Vic Sage]

]assuming that getting on base is a learnable skill, is it better learned at a younger age in the minors or in the majors?

I question your assumption. I do not think getting on base IS a learnable skill. I think it is, like hitting itself, an innate talent that can be IMPROVED with proper training. The "skill" is actually related to the cognitive ability of pitch recognition, the intellectual ability to read the pitcher and the situation, and the emotional ability to show patience. While situations can be studied and patience developed, and even cognitive recognition improved, all of those abilities have physical dimensions and limitations for each person.

This is why Billy Beane drafts the way he does, and others are starting to follow suit.