A little over a month ago I presented an article about the value teams receive on large contracts given out to position players, and compared that to how teams fared on similar sized contract extensions covering (or largely covering) free agent years. I found that on average, team overpaid the free agents by around 22 to 25% compared to the on-field value they deliver, whereas the contract extensions were more on the order of 4 to 8%. I then looked at the value teams received on large contracts given out to free agent pitchers and contract extensions covering free agent seasons, which revealed a similar trend in that the free agent contracts were even more disasterous, by the extensions more or less delivered fair value.

There were two major differences in how those lists were compiled. First, I compiled the list of position players essentially by starting with Cot's Baseball Contracts list of highest paid players, as well as a few other lists I found by searching, and then added a few others from memory. Of course, this ad hoc method left off a number of players - Mo Vaughn, Albert Belle, and Frank Thomas to name a few prominent players. This introduced bias (when I realized some of the contracts left off, I thought the value would look much worse, but more on this later) which I corrected on the pitcher list by starting with a list of over 300 players who had at least one season of 2 fWAR or more from 1995 to 2011, and checking contract details for each player. Second, with the position players, I established a cutoff of $70-million in total contract value for inclusion on the study. The problem is, in light of 5 to 10% annual salary inflation in baseball, compounded over 15 years, I excluded a number of older contracts that were very large when they were signed. So, for the pitching list, I adjusted the cutoff level depending on the year, so that it stayed around $50-million in real 2010 baseball dollars.

Therefore, I have updated the study to make these two changes. I started with a list of 503 players who recorded at least one season from 1995 to 2011 with 2+ fWAR. The cutoff for inclusion on the list was set to a contract of at least $75-million in 2010 baseball dollars, and I used the same 6.3% average inflation to get the following annual cutoffs:

It should be noted that I did not treat this is a completely hard constraint. In the case of extension contracts which included money for pre-free agent eligible seasons, I used the total guaranteed contract, though I only analyzed the free agent eligible years (Bobby Abreu for example). Also, I'm only looking at completely guaranteed money, but I included a couple contracts that just missed where there was sigificant bonus money or reasonable vesting years.

In the end I came up 31 free agent contracts, and 31 contract extensions. Though I thought that the results might be materially different, the results and result are largely the same. Teams lose about 25 to 28% of the value of free agent contracts (vs. 22 to 25% previously found) and about 6 to 10% of the value of contract extensions (vs. 4 to 8% previously found). Below, I had replicated the same tables found in the previous articles, and since the conclusions are largely the same, I'm not going to bother with a bunch of analysis. If you're not sure what exactly the table or graph is meant to show, check the previous articles via the links above, or here (position players) and here (pitchers). Similarly, I have explained my methodology at length in the previous articles, so there is little point in replicating it here.

Finally, this only covered the truly premium players - roughly 4 position player contracts a year and a similar number of pitching contracts. While these players are generally critical to building winning teams, teams also need players who would be considered more as solid to above average regulars, who command significant contracts, but not nearly this size. Therefore, while compiling these lists, I've also compliled lists of position players and pitchers who got contracts under the respective cutoffs for this lists ($75M and $50M in real 2010 dollars) but got more than half the cutoff value. I will be analyzing the value of contracts as well to see what we can learn about them. The hardest work is done (looking up contracts for 800 payers), so I hope to have that done later this week.

FREE AGENT CONTRACTS

Actual Value Through 2011

Actual and Projected Value

Performance of Contract against Year Signed

Performance of Contract against Contract Size

Performance of Contract against Age of Player at Beginning of Contract

One note here - though the link isn't terribly strong, it would seem that the younger the player is, the better the value received by the value. Theoretically, teams should price in aging and injury risk into their bids, but perhaps they are not doing so to the appropraite extent.

CONTRACTS COVERING (LARGELY) FREE AGENT YEARS

Actual Value Through 2011

Actual and Projected Value

I was thinking of who I would trade for Brett Lawrie and I listed off the stars: Kershaw, Kemp, Pujols etc. But because Brett is Canadian, I just would not trade him for one of those players. But then I realized Votto was also Canadian. I think that Votto right now is a top 10 player in the MLB. Although, Brett is younger and has more potential than Votto (I think). I don't think I would do the trade, for reasons such as age and years under control. So, would you trade Votto for Lawrie?

edit: NOT A TRADE RUMOUR OR SPECULATION, just a fun discussion

Poll

Would you trade Lawrie for Votto?

• Yes
• No
• Only if we got prospects as well
• Unsure
• ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? I WOULD TRADE LAWRIE AND D'ARNAUD FOR VOTTO!!!

  81 votes | Results

So I was wondering, what is the best move that AA has made yet? I thought many different things from the Bautista contract to the Lawrie trade etc. But its not really that simple. You can make a case for many moves and it really is personal opinion. So please vote in the poll and leave a comment as to why you believe that it is the best move AA made. If your choice is not there please tell us what it is.

side note: if this has been done before, I am sorry.

Poll

What is the best move Alex Anthopoulos has made during his tenure as the Blue Jays GM?

• The Doc Deal (includes Wallace and Gose trades)
• Brandon Morrow trade
• Yunel Escobar trade
• Marcum-Lawrie trade
• Vernon Wells trade
• Jose Bautista contract
• Colby Rasmus trade

  343 votes | Results

The last community prospect poll was also #15, but since Nestor Molina was traded, he is removed from the list and everyone is bumped up one spot, so the #15 spot is still open.

Use Rec's to vote and place all comments in the comment area.

The poll will stay open through the weekend and sometime Monday afternoon the next poll will go.

Also, Chad Jenkins is the last pitcher on the original list at the bottom. I'll put a poll at the bottom to determine a new #10 now that everyone below Molina is effectively a spot higher, so vote there as well.

RESULTS:

Joel Carreno - 51.2%

David Cooper - 48.8%

CANDIDATES:

David Cooper - 1B (age 25 on 4/1/2012); Bats/Throws: Left/Left

2010: Class AA - 553 PA .257/.327/.442 110 wRC+ 9.4 BB% 13.4 K%

2011: Class AAA - 545 PA .364/.439/.535 142 wRC+ 12.3 BB% 7.9 K%

MLB: 81 PA .211/.284/.394 82 wRC+ 8.6 BB% 17.3 K%

Chad Jenkins - SP (age 24 on 4/1/2012); Bats/Throws: Right/Right

2010 Class A: 79.1 IP / 3.63 ERA / 2.94 FIP / 7.26 K/9 / 1.47 BB/9 / 0.57 HR/9

2010 Class A+: 62.1 IP / 4.33 ERA / 3.97 FIP / 6.06 K/9 / 2.60 BB/9 / 0.87 HR/9

2011 Class A+: 67.1 IP / 3.07 ERA / 3.10 FIP / 5.88 K/9 / 1.87 BB/9 / 0.40 HR/9

2011 Class AA: 100.1 / 4.13 ERA / 3.63 FIP / 6.64 K/9 / 2.42 BB/9 / 0.72 HR/9

COMMUNITY LIST:

1. Travis d'Arnaud - 90.6%

2. Anthony Gose - 65.9%

3. Drew Hutchison - 56.7%

4. Jake Marisnick - 97%

5. Noah Syndergaard - 74.4%

** Nestor Molina - 75.8%

6. Deck McGuire - 65.7%

7. Justin Nicolino - 55.0%

8. Adeiny Hechavarria - 75%

9. Daniel Norris - 87.9%

10. AJ Jimenez - 55.3%

11. Aaron Sanchez - 79.3%

12. Carlos Perez - 60.7%

13. Adonys Cardona - 65.8%

14. Joel Carreno - 51.2%

NEXT UP:

Pitcher: TBD

Position Player: Marcus Knecht

Poll

Who should be the new #10 pitching prospect?

20%

Kevin Comer

13 votes

4%

Joe Musgrove

3 votes

17%

Roberto Osuna

11 votes

0%

Mitchell Taylor

0 votes

56%

Asher Wojciechowski

35 votes

62 votes | Poll has closed

Well by now I would assume that all of you now how bad the Mike Napoli for Frank Francisco trade worked out for us, you know with almost winning the world series mvp and all. But honestly I dont look back on it that bad, as we go rid of Vernon Wells for Napoli. I know these are different trades but its not like looking back I really regret the trade, unlike the BJ Ryan contract. Wells probably could not hit a beach ball for .300 last year, and we were able to resign Jose Bautista. I view it as that one trade completely offsets the other and more. I really do not think that Alex made a really bad move here. I almost view it as a three-way trade rather than two different trades if you understand what I mean. As I type I find it hard to really convey my message, but I hope you understand.

So, what do you think of the Napoli trade?

I was kinda interested in looking at potential free agents for 2013 and seeing who if any could be of any interest to our team moving forward. Of course the need for a bat and a starting pitcher are still tops of the list. However the batting options are limited with

Lance Berkman who had a stellar year last year is gonna be 36 and didn't have the best time hitting in the AL east

Mike Napoli who I'd love to sign and AA's first mistake. Will probably get resigned by Texas

and David Wright who when healthy is a beast but a liability otherwise.

Now pitching is whats of interest. Matt Cain and Cole Hamels could both potentially be free agents and if you were AA who would you rather sign.

2011 Numbers

Matt Cain 27

SF

12

11

2.88

33

33

1

0

221.2

177

82

71

9

9

63

5

179

.217

1.08

Cole Hamels 28

PHI

14

9

2.79

32

31

3

0

216.0

169

68

67

19

5

44

2

194

.214

0.99

My pick is Hamel, pitches in a tougher division, tougher ball park and hes a power throwing lefty that would be a great compliment to Romero and Morrow

Hello all,

I'm heading down to Dunedin in March to catch a few Jays games. I've been down once before but would like to hear from others to share their experiences at the park, and specific restaurants in the area as I like to eat well too! I'd like to walk back to downtown Dunedin after the game for some pints and food so if anyone has any recommendations, please share!

I'm also going to catch another game in the Tampa area, possibly The Phillies, Yanks, Tigers or Braves (as I'm flying out of Orlando). I've caught a game in Bradenton to see the Pirates last time, and enjoyed their ballpark. Any recommendations or tips to catch another out of town game? For better value, I'm thinking of the Tigers or Braves as I'm sure tickets will be expensive for PHI and NYY.

Thanks all!

Inspired by the extension for pensionplanpuppets.com, the Toronto Maple Leafs sbnation site, where rec'd comments turn blue with a little Maple Leafs logo replacing the thumbs up, I have created an extension for this site to do the same, except with a little Jays logo replacing the thumbs up. Thanks to user Redonred 's comment in this thread, for inspiring me to make the extension.

http://userstyles.org/styles/60688/bluebird-banter-recs-go-blue?r=1328883553
You’ll need to install stylish to enable it:
For firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/stylish/
For chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fjnbnpbmkenffdnngjfgmeleoegfcffe
Instructions for how to on Safari: http://www.nystic.com/blog/?p=303
If you use minimalist for everything for chrome it will also install there:https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bmihblnpomgpjkfddepdpdafhhepdbek
Shots of the extension in action are available in the first link. Enjoy!

Fellow BBBers; I'm not into a keeper league, so I created a standard H2H yahoo league that you're invited to join. It's for 12 teams, H2H, standard 5x5 scoring categories, live draft. The other settings and draft date can be decided by concensus once we have 12 teams. No experience necessary, I just ask that everyone sticks with it through to the end...you know, even if your top 3 picks are DL'd by mid-April. League ID: 6629 Password: lawrie

If you were like me and late for the original party, have no fear!!!. We can make a second fantasy league. A keeper league would be a first for me so it would be awesome if we could do that. Simply state your interest and an email for contact and i'll add you to the league.

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