Zito gets a seven year, $18m/year deal
DMZ · December 28, 2006 at 9:39 am · Filed Under Mariners
Supposedly.
“Sooooo… how about that appeals court ruling?”
“I’m fine.”
“You think between the union, Bonds, and everything else we’ll be able to keep Bonds on the field all year?”
“Sure, why not.”
“It does seem like there’s a fair chance he’s going to jail on perjury charges in the next… year, two years.”
“Nah.”
“That’s a pretty short window of opportunity, between possible retirement or incarceration…”
“Fine, fine, call Boras, tell him we cave.”
Best part: the 2014 option for $18m. Yeaaaaaaah.
Comments
105 Responses to “Zito gets a seven year, $18m/year deal”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
USSM uses and recommends
Boras is a genius.
wow. 18 million a year. just plain wow.
and WE only have washburn for 3 more years
I was one of the few people who regularly read this site that would have been secretly excited at a Zito signing. But at 18m a year over 7 seasons? Hell’s Bells! No thanks. This contract probably also got him an iron-clad no-trade clause and some kind mythical beast, like a unicorn.
Thanks for the new thread. KJR just mentioned that this was bad news to M’s fans. Is there an M’s fan that would have wanted Bavasi to match or exceed this deal?
Even if the contract doesn’t have any trade provisions, he’ll have 10/5 rights before the contract’s up.
3: I admit that I was rooting for a Zito signing as well, thinking it would come in a lot lower. This deal is just nuts and I’m happy the M’s had no part in it.
No, Boras is magic.
Nice description of the Giant’s inept decision-making process.
Nah, best part is Bonds/Roberts/Winn OF. Do you think that alignment may cost Zito a few baserunners a season? It’s possible. Do you think opposing players might be able to take the extra base? Nah…
Why the Giants haven’t nuked that team ans started over is beyond my comprehension. At least they did us a favor.
We may dislike Bavasi as a GM, but he is preferable to Sabean.
I still can’t believe that the Giants, having signed Zito for his year 29-30-31-32-33-34-35 seasons, wanted to make sure they got that option year in there. Because obviously that age-36 season… I mean, what? I guess there’s no additional risk to them: if salaries have doubled another couple of times and teams are paying $30m/win, that’ll look great.
As a dyed-in-the-wool A’s fan, I can’t say I’ll miss Zito. Primarily, for all the statistical reasons that Dave has cited over the last few weeks and, also, because of those all-too-frequent starts where Zito is at 101 pitches by the start of the fifth inning.
I also won’t miss such post-loss Zito excuses like, “I didn’t eat breakfast” or “I was trying to be too passive/aggressive”. And, yes, he used the “breakfast” one either last year or the year before.
Congrats to Zito for cashing in. And, I shudder to think what kind of coin that other Boras clients like Andruw Jones are going to make after next season.
In fairness to the Giants not rebuilding, while the stadium’s great and making them a ton of money, their ownership group is deathly afraid that they’re not going to be able to service the debt, and it’s made them… I don’t even know how I’d describe it. Destructively risk-averse? Erratic, certainly.
From the sounds of it, the Giants were bidding against themselves. The only other known offer was 6 years 80 mil from the Rangers.
Jones is going to report to spring training with severely sprained obliques sustained by cackling evilly to himself from now until he shows up.
11: Perhaps Sabean is working under the theory that Crafty Lefties age 200% slower than all other types of pitchers? Maybe Zito made him a heatfelt promise he would try his damndest not to age? I don’t know.
I hate all of you…. Seriously. Stop rubbing it in… Kenshin runs from the room screaming
There is that. They are getting dangerously close to Baltimore Oriole territory, which will probably cost them money in the long run, particularly once Bonds has retired / been imprisioned. Maybe next year is the year.
I know that there’s no way to defend such an insane contract, but I do suspect that his stats will look better in the NL than they would have in the AL. If the NL can make Chris Carpenter, Jeff Suppan, and Bronson Arroyo look like legit starters, then who knows? It’s still bad anyway you slice it though.
Chris Carpenter does not belong in that group. I get your point though.
Congrats to Zito for taking the cash, unfortunately he did not do his research on the Giants and how they have no future prospects to help out the aging arrangement of ballplayers. 7 years in the Bay? I’ll take the under.
In retrospect, we should have seen this coming a mile away. As I understand, under the new CBA, the only way to lose your first-round draft pick any more is to sign a type A free agent, and finish with one of the best 15 records in baseball. So Brian Sabean needed to find a way to sign a type A free and win now. Zito was the only type A free agent left. (At least, the only one that had been offered arbitration as far as I can tell. Mark Loretta is a type A free agent, but the Red Sox didn’t offer him arbitration.)
And as we all know, Sabean will do just about whatever it takes to get rid of his draft picks. I mean, can’t you see what a terrible financial burden it is to hand out a $1M bonus to a young player with lots of potential?
#19 AQ, Carpenter is a legit workhorse starter, no smoke and mirrors there.
The Jays just gave up on him too soon after his injury.
Meanwhile the Ms finish 4th again.
I’ll gladly finish 4th next year if that means we have a shot at finishing higher the next year. Or the next. Or the next. Or the….
Let SF grossly overpay Zito all they want. We’ll see how they feel about this deal come 2009 when it suddenly becomes clear that Zito is more of a burden than blessing.
I would rather finish fourth in ‘07 without Zito’s contract than second or third with his contract. If the M’s want to finish first, and they probably do, there moves to be made aside from overpaying, drastically overpaying for a #2 or #3 starter.
My Seven Year-Old son is with me at the office today. He’s in second grade, on Christmas Break. When Zito’s contract expires, my son will be in his freshman year of high school, learning to drive a car. That’s a long-ass contract.
honestly, i am better finishing 4th than with the Gary Matthews, Carlos Lee, Danys Baez, Gil Meche contracts.
Bring on Sebastien Boucher & the Wladimir Balentien. Well, eventually.
I’m trying to figure out how any Mariner fan could possible call the San Francisco management inept. We wrote the book on inept management – we have no room to call names.
Yeah yeah, they overpaid for Zito. But they are a better team with him than without him. We would have been, too.
Because it’s true. I know Bavasi is worse but that knowledge doesn’t mean I can’t call a spade a spade. (Can you say this anymore in Seattle?)
Not $18m a year better. The M’s would squander some of that, sure, but that’s $18m to play with every year for seven years, and one of those years it would net somebody valuable (or even more than one somebody). The squirrel, no matter how blind, does sometimes find nuts — but only if it is given a chance to hunt. That’s seven years of hunting with $18m in your pocket.
#29 –
Easy, they’re inept. You seem to be confusing your status as a Mariners fan with your status as a non-member of the M’s management. I can see your point if it were the M’s brass calling SF “inept,” but we fans can say whatever we want.
Well that’s probably too much money.
That said I couldn’t disagree more with the people who say “I’m fine with finishing fourth this year.”
What kind of attitude is that? Fourth stinks. No matter what the year. The goal should be to win the division every year. “Fine with finishing fourth” is the kind of attitude the Mariners had from 1976 through 1989 or so. Believe me, I was at a lot of those games, with about 5,000 friends.
Any rumors about the Mariners chasing a lesser-priced free agent? Tony Armas? John Thomsen? Tomo Ohka? Mark Redman?
It seems they still need another arm, and probably more than that.
This is a strong bold move by the Mariners FO that should quiet all the talk about their bad off-season. By not signing Zito and helping to drive up his price tag, the M’s have now not signed a player who has moved from their division which should give them a couple of wins next year by not having to face him. This cost the team NOTHING!!! And, while they were at it, have handcuffed another team with a seven year ball-and-chain that will keep them out of the market.
BRILLIANT!!
if you want inept, be a royals or pirates fan. or even the devil rays for that matter. then you can really complain. we got some stupid contracts on the books, sure, but you have to feel good about Ichiro, Felix, Lopez-Betancourt, as well as some of the stock in the minors (Morrow, Clement,
Even Beltre is a steal in this market. At least our marquee list doesnt include Ty Wigginton or Xavier Nady or Mike “100 games” Sweeney
I’m still a fan of offering Mark Mulder a contract! Something low-risk but high-reward!
Because the SF front office is, in fact, more or less inept.
Zito’s deal includes a full no-trade clause.
Somewhere Jason Schmidt is kicking himself.
what, you think Seattleites don’t use shovels?
Wow.
Wow.
No. The best part is that the Mariners don’t have to face Zito in games that matter anymore. Now let’s hope Bavasi doesn’t trade Felix for Randy Johnson.
#15– you know who else is really really happy today? Johan Santana.
Somewhere Johan Santana is smiling.
#42: I’m all for facing Zito in games that matter, ’cause we sure haven’t played any of those in a while.
All else being equal, sure, but there are 18 million reasons why all else isn’t equal.
Will Mark Mulder really be good next year? Like, his performance was iffy as it is last year, and how often do guys come back from his type of surgery and perform will, especially in the harder league?
Ye gods. Why oh why wasn’t I born left-handed?
Tek and Goob,
Happy to finish 4th…again, are you? What on earth after this off-season would make you think that this organization would do anything right to get it out of the gutter?
Who’s the next GM after Bavasi? Pelekoudas? Wally Walker?
now that Zito is out of the picture, does Cashman keep trying to move RJ? Is the Yankee offseason goal really (as Larry Stone put it) “to provide organizational depth and payroll flexibility. Granted, those have never been a Yankees priority before, but general manager Brian Cashman seems intent on changing the team’s game plan after six years with no title.”
Only if you ignore opportunity cost. If you spend 18 million on Zito, you can’t spend it on other players. You are arguing as though it’s the same 24 guys filling out the roster whether you have Zito or not, but of course that’s not true. An acquisition like Zito damages the rest of your roster, unless you’re the Yankees or the Red Sox.
I hate to say a deal like this shines on the fact that Bavasi is inept, because really it doesn’t. OTOH how is it that the only free agent starting pitchers he’s been able to entice into playing in a pitcher’s park have been Batista and Washburn. Safeco’s park effects should be enhancing greatness not masking mediocrity.
re: #52
Opportunity cost assumes the M’s would use Zito’s money wisely on other players. They spent millions on old pitchers and DH’s this month that don’t really help the team. Zito would have.
re: #54
It’s not necessarily for this front office, but for the next one that you don’t want to hamper with an 18MM albatross. 18MM would have gotten you Vlad Guerrero or most of the way to “Manny being Manny” which I would MUCH rather have than Barry Zito.
Thank god it wasn’t us. Now we just hold our breath that Bavasi doesn’t do something equally stupid for the rest of the off season.
So, if Zito is worth this much for being — what, ten runs better than average? Twenty? — then how much does Santana get when he comes on the market? $100 million a year?
57: Simple math will help us figure that one out! Barry Zito has won one Cy Young. Johan Santana has won two (should have been three, but that’s another discussion. If Zito is worth 18 mil a year, then Santa will then be worth 36 mil a year. It’s just simple mathematics.
This is why Roger Clemens annual salary is now 2 South American nations per year. Not the GDP of those nations, the actual nations themselves.
Santana will beat A-Rod’s contract in AAV. I was going to say total value at first, but even if its Santana, I still can’t see someone signing a pitcher for 10 years, especially if he’s near 30 already. Zito has been durable, bt 7-8 years is a lot for, I guess he’ll be 35 when he’s done, not that bad. Carlos Zambrano will be what, 26 when he’s a FA? So he could get something near 10/200, I’d say. Santana, my guess is 6/150, maybe 7/177 (that should be about 27 milloin per year).
What’s the chances of Santana being traded away this year? I think the Twins are one of the best run organizations in baseball, as they have been able to get guys to sign for less than market value, make great trades (like Pierzynski to the Giants) and everybody who plays there loves it. However, they have to realize the crazy money coming Santana’s way is going to be too much for them handle even with the new stadium, and they’re going to want to get something for him.
The M’s as they are right now could very likely be in the playoff hunt come trade deadline. Do they have anything to offer the Twins that might interest them? I’m thinking maybe a young CF to replace Torii Hunter.
Man this wild speculation junk is fun.
Everybody who claims the Mariner failure to sign Zito now means they are much more likely to sign other free agents in the future – Really?Well, I suppose if there are more Washington free agents out there or more really cheap guys from Japan, that may be true.
Lately, however, we haven’t even been doing very well with that limited group.
We have a clueless, unprepared management team that comes out of every free agent period just ’shocked’ at the prices and winds up wasting money on washed up has-beens and pretending they’ve been active in free agency. And a management team that feeds on fans telling them how smart they’ve been.
And people still buy it.
playing in a pitcher’s ballpark is just the cherry on the top of the winning team sundae.
You gotta think Miguel Cabrera would be looking for a 10 yr. I wouldn’t be surprised if he got close to Arod money.
What’s the chances of Santana being traded away this year?
Zero. Even if you can get equal value in return for the best pitcher in the league signed to what is now effectively a $25M/2yr contract, you don’t mess with the risk of trading away the best pitcher in the league for the last three years.
If the Twins are obviously out of it by the deadline in ‘08, maybe they deal him then, but more likely, they’ll unsuccessfully try to get him to take a hometown discount and settle for the draft pick compensation they’ll get by offering him arbitration and watching him sign a 7- or 8-year contract.
Re: 55
It isn’t so much I am against the M’s not getting Zito. I am against them spending big money on several mediocre players that don’t really upgrade them from what they already have cheaper, and then passing on the big contracts for players that can help the team win.
Spending $18M for seven years on Zito or $20M for a couple of years of Manny would help the team more than spending an equal amount on several players who suck.
You can say Zito isn’t worth it, but obviously the market says he is. Beltre’s contract looks a lot better than it did a couple of years ago. Zito’s may look pretty good in a couple of years also. Or not. But in today’s market you have to pay for it if you can’t develop it yourself.
I would rather give it to a young left hand pitcher who is durable and wins, than to several old guys who don’t win. He could stablize the rotation while the M’s develop from within.
You can say Zito isn’t worth it, but obviously the market says he is.
I’m going to run head first into a wall.
Santana is under contract until 2009, and with his last Cy Young, “As per terms of his contract, Santana will receive a $100,000 bonus for winning the award. And because he finished in the top three in the voting, he now has a full no-trade clause over the final two years of his four-year, $40 million deal.”
“I’m going to run head first into a wall.”
There has been a lot of that in M’s land the last few years.
All I am saying is that MLB values SP’s right now. There aren’t enough good ones to go around. It sucks, but a player is like a house, they are worth what someone will pay for them. The M’s have not been particularly good at developing young SP’s lately. If they want to compete, they then need to pay for the right pieces. Whether Zito is the right guy or not is open to discussion. But I don’t think what they have done so far is going to help them much and it adds up to a lot of money.
http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2005/01/minnesota-twins_17.html
He’s under contract until end of 2008.
I’m going to run head first into a wall.
And by “run head first into a wall”, you mean “make yet another post explaining why the M’s don’t have to jump off a bridge if SF and KC do for overpriced pitching”, right?
Zito doesn’t help as much as people think. At best, he replaces Schmidt on a bad Giants team (under .500 the last two years).
It sucks, but a player is like a house, they are worth what someone will pay for them.
Currently, I rent, but apparently this homeowner thing is pretty easy. No matter what I pay for my home, I’m justified in paying it because it’s worth what I’ll pay for it. Wheeee!
I think Jose Lima is still a free agent, I sure hope the Mariners go out and sign him to a $40M/4yr deal, because if they are willing to sign him to that kind of deal, certainly he’ll be worth it! Free agency ROXX!!
Clearly, the Giants realize that Zito has been possessed by the spirit of Warren Spahn.
It sucks, but a player is like a house, they are worth what someone will pay for them.
So. Let’s say you’re in the housing market, and there are 10 houses on the market. You already have a house, so you’re not in urgent need of a new one; you like the street these houses are on but you can get by with your current house if you have to.
One of these 10 houses is infested with termites AND roaches, but the other 9 all sell for $500K. The 10th house is still on the market – are you really arguing that you’d pay $500K for a house that will fall apart from infestation in 7 years or less, just because that’s what the other 9 houses in that street sell for?
Why would you not look in a less expensive neighborhood for a house?
(yes, I just compared Barry Zito to a house infested with termites and roaches. I didn’t mean it as an insult.)
#55. Actually, $18 million is about what Manny gets paid. IIRC, the supposed $20 million per year that Manny gets is really $16 million per year with $4 million deferred at almost zero interest.
I cannot stop laughing. Anyone telling a group of baseball fanatics, who use many quantifiable tools to examine and predict performance levels, that a intangible value exists in the market place, has obviously missed the point of the whole discussion.
“I’m going to run head first into a wall.
But, value != price…
Here’s a thought: baseball isn’t mathematics. Not all the things that occur on the field, or in a front office can be predicted, nor explained, by mathematical equations or statistical analysis.
I mean a statistic could never explain the large-recliner envy that went on between Griffey and A-Rod when they were here together.
I know, I know, I’m a heretic at this site.
Scott47a, the point is this: if the events you describe, like the recliner business, don’t affect the game, then we don’t care. If they DO affect the game, they’ll show up….in the statistics. If a player is some sort of head case who can’t keep from sucking even though he has the ability to be great, his statistics will reflect that problem, which is ultimately all I care about: end results.
Oops…tried to quote inside a quote… To expand on the point, suppose teams were severely undervaluing hitters and a player like Pujols (or whoever) was available for 400K/yr. Suppose also that mediocre pitchers were getting ridiculous contracts…like 55M over five years for Gil Meche or something even more crazy that I haven’t even thought of yet. Would it then be smart to acquire pitchers or hitters? You’re relying on the correct assessment of value by major league GM’s in determining what they will pay. That is the only way trusting price to approximate value would be correct (I say approximate because, clearly, different players are worth different amounts to different teams). In a situation where a winner’s curse is likely, this is, IMO, not a good method of assessing value. Obviously, the inefficiencies present in the player market are smaller than what I suggested above, but I believe they are there. Exploiting those inefficiencies by acquiring players that are undervalued and avoiding/getting rid of players that are overvalued, while keeping team needs in mind, is the way to build a successful team, IMO.
Money aside, Zito/Cain/Lowry/Morris/Valdez is a darn fine rotation, IMHO. Assuming the Giants can keep their 3 young guys — possibly dumping Morris on someone at midseason, if the Giants fall out of cotention — I see this as a strong move to keep fans in the seats when Bonds retires.
wayupwaydown, if you want to know why Dave is going to run into a wall (and he’ll likely have company), you might want to read this post. Really. It’s only two days old. It’s even on the front page. Heck, it even uses the exact same comparison you use of houses as players. We’re not running into walls because you’re saying something we disagree with; we’re running into walls because the exact same issue has been discussed so many f*cking times here, and there are still people who just. don’t. get. it. And it’s especially frustrating when someone comes in speaking their own gospels without taking even a cursory look at the site to see if, gee, maybe this issue has been addressed IN THE LAST TWO DAYS.
So, please. Go read that thread. Still disagree? More power to ya. Come back and rationally tell us why.
Scott47A, I doubt anyone thinks baseball is completely explained by math – that’s why everyone is always updating and creating new advanced stats. Really, the math is a tool to look at what happened and give our best guess at what will happen. No amount of math can tell you what what Zito or anyone else will do next year, but it gives a good probability of a player’s performance.
As a tool, sabermetrics are to conventional stats as a chainsaw is to a hatchet. Both can get you where you want, but sabermetrics and the chainsaw will do it quicker with better results than conventional stats and the hatchet. Both have the potential for catastrophic failure, but I’d take the sabermetrics and the chainsaw over conventional stats and the hatchet anyday.
No trade clause?
Hmmmmm?
You really think any takers will be found?
Well maybe Bavasi in three years,he-hee.
So, if we had a smart GM, would we be able to unload Washburn with his relatively wimpy little contract? Maybe even get something in return?
So, if we had a smart GM, would we be able to unload Washburn with his relatively wimpy little contract? Maybe even get something in return?
Next winter, maybe.
I mean a statistic could never explain the large-recliner envy that went on between Griffey and A-Rod when they were here together.
So the same GM that less than a month ago signed, nay, re-signed Barry Bonds, the biggest clubhouse distraction in the history of baseball, just signed Zito because he really, really values clubhouse chemistry. Riiiight.
There’s no reason to frame this as a stats vs. scouts or statheads vs. traditional baseball issue, because it’s not. There are plenty of “baseball men” who just won’t give a pitcher a seven-year deal because of the risk involved. Sabean put himself on a huge limb for a pitcher who is good but not great.
#30 & #40, re: calling a spade a spade:
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19970115
No, there are no racial implications to the phrase, but some people erroneously assume there are.
yup, a la ‘niggardly’
#86 You have a good point Mat. And I understand the other folks who emphasize the importance of sabermetrics and the value of using statistics.
But what about the psychological factors? What if Sabean made the Zito deal without regard to the obvious risks because he knows that it’s highly unlikely that he will be sitting in the GM chair in San Fran 7 years from now.
Those kinds of non-statistical motivations are very real. You could make the same argument about the Cubs spending spree trying to add financial value to the team for a sale. What do the current owners care if Soriano is a washout in year 6?
My only point in bringing up the “it’s not only math” argument is that it isn’t only math. I think the other motivations and actions are equally as interesting and discussable.
The fascination with the money that other teams spend on players is always good for a laugh. I know that the current ownership has cried poor enough times that it seems like reality now, but the truth is that they have never proven that winning is a priority of any kind. That’s not even debatable. As long as we have one of the worst organizations in pro sports, we can expect more of the same.
There is no reason (besides incompetence) why a Top 10 payroll team should finish in last place 3 years in a row.
I still say we need to have a test on previous threads before posting rights are granted.
It gets tiresome having to address the same misguided points in every thread, including:
-players are worth what someone will pay them
-USSM readers are going to jump off of a bridge at every bad move Bavasi makes
-Willie Bloomquist shouldn’t be sent to play baseball in Peru
etc.
You can say Zito isn’t worth it, but obviously the market says he is.
No. The market doesn’t say anything. Brain Sabean says Zito is worth $18 a year for seven years. You’re welcome to take Sabean as authoritative as to player valuation, but one can only hope that you’re not a sock puppet for Bill Bavasi.
That’s an interesting point. Maybe you could start your own USSM fansite with all of the pertinent points and counterpoints that have ever been made. Almost like the pathetic Jim Rome fansites.
I don’t want to speak for everyone here, but I know that life just might get in the way of reading every thread on this website. Or am I being too presumptuous?
I don’t know, is it reasonable to at least expect people to scan the front page, or… keep up on the arguments that get flogged in every single comment thread?
I’d hope it’s not, but… it’s a problem we’ve really struggled with: how do you handle topics like this that come up continually. FAQs don’t work. References to previous discussions don’t work. I don’t know.
I suppose I can understand. I feel the same way every time I hear about how Bavasi built a World Series team.
What if Sabean made the Zito deal without regard to the obvious risks because he knows that it’s highly unlikely that he will be sitting in the GM chair in San Fran 7 years from now.
So Sabean is a jerk that only cares about what happens to himself and not to the people in the organization around him? I mean, I suppose it’s possible, but I guess I’d like to think that Sabean isn’t that self-centered.
I think the other motivations and actions are equally as interesting and discussable.
To a certain degree I believe that other motivations are interesting in discussing why a move was made. Generally, however, I disagree that these things are equally as interesting to discuss, especially with regards to whether or not a contract was a good value. We can sit here and speculate on why in the name of Pete that Sabean made this decision, but no one really has any solid evidence, so it doesn’t seem like an especially productive discussion to me.
On the other hand, we have a lot of performance data (stats-wise and scouting-wise) on Zito, especially since he’s a veteran, so we’re in a relatively good position to evaluate the contract on the merits of how it helps the Giants win games over the next seven years. Now certainly different reasonable people can differ in how they interpret the data or how they interpret other observations, but those discussions are more interesting to me because we have tools to evalute the different ways of interpreting the data that give us pretty solid evidence about when certain methods of evaluation are accurate and when they are not accurate.
If your position is that the first two or three years of Zito’s contract aren’t that bad, but the last four or five are a big risk that Sabean took for non-performance based reasons, I don’t think many people will take much issue with that. If your position is that Sabean had a good reason (rather than just some reason) to take on that additional risk, that’s where I think you’ll get the biggest disagreement here. There’s something like a $50M gap between what Zito’s projected performance-related value is and what Sabean decided to pay him. That’s just too big of a gap to consider this a good idea regardless of how many non-performance factors we can think up.
#91– don’t forget the FO won’t spend money, cries poor, only spends money on local guys, etc etc etc ….
Seems to me like a lot of folks are posting at cross purposes here on this ‘market’ thing. First, talking about a ‘market’ for baseball players is accurate only in a very limited sense. True, there are competitive bidders for each player on the block and any auction constitutes, narrowly, a ‘market’. But that doesn’t mean it’s an efficient market in an economic sense — and here the market is not efficient because not all players are on the block at the same time on the same terms, so there’s no way for the ‘market’ for (for example) left handed pitchers to reach equilibrium between the available supple and the existing demand. Some people have mentioned housing as an example of another market with imperfections that make it similar to baseball. I’d suggest the New York apartment rental market as an even better example.
In that market, a large number of apartments are held at below ‘market’ rates by rent control laws. By analogy these apartments are the team controlled, minimum pay players — they may be great apartments with hugely attractive features (the King Felix apartments if you will) but they’re still dirt cheap to the lucky occupant. In contrast to such bargains there are apartments that have become free of rent controls. But they are relatively few on the market, and hence even a mediocre free market apartment may command a high price, while a really good (King Felix) apartment is worth millions. And to complete the analogy, consider rent control and free market apartments iin buildings that are about to go condo in a year or two or three, and hence, lose all value as apartments (we’ll leave off options value here) — these represent the aging, veteran players whose contracts are effected by even more uncertainty and externality and hence will be priced lower than comparable units, free or rent controlled, in building of more certain durability.
So, yeah, there’s a ‘market’ for apartments in New York just like there was a ‘market’ for Barry Zito. But to make sweeping statements that any given transaction in a market with such imperfections and external constraints represents themarket for that particular kind of apartment…well, it just ain’t true.
Uh huh. Let’s just accept this analogy for a second.
- you can still have overvalued apartments in that case
- you can still have a temporarily overvalued market for apartments
- this is an inadequate analogy because apartment renters, in this case, have other options like bribing their way into rent controlled apartments, sub-letting, building new apartments, buying houses, living in orbit, whatever.
I apologize, my post was probably a little harsh.
But it just gets tiresome having to have one of the same four or five conversations in every thread. Before we can discuss any free agent signing, we almost always have to have the “why do you guys take this so seriously?” and the “free agents are worth what the market will bear” conversation BEFORE we can actually discuss the signing itself.
And often, the thread never gets back on track because of having to have those conversations, among others.
It just gets frustrating, because it feels like I’m reading the same thread over and over.
Late to the party….
Dude, this is Brian Sabean we’re talking about. At age 36, Zito will just be getting into the proper San Francisco Giant age range. Mind you, he’ll probably still get called “rook” by 2014 Opening Day center fielder Marquis Grissom and Bonds would probably call him something too except that by then his head will be so large that his vocal cords will only be able to produce sounds too low in pitch to be audible by normal humans.
Actually 97, they don’t even spend money on local guys any more. Maybe we could change it to they only spend money on old, washed-up has-beens.
#100. preaching to the choir, Jeff.
Wow and double wow. First off I tip my cap to Boras on this one. Even with the crazy contracts being handed out, I laughed when he said he wanted 6/100 for Zito. And the contract he signed blows that away. I wonder who the Giants thought they were bidding against — couldn’t they have gotten it done at 6/18 per or 7/16 per.
I’ve said all off-season that the Zito contract would be the worst free agent signing of the winter and it pretty much is. (Dave has it #2 but Zito and Lee are both orders of magnitude of horrible above the others and it’s hard to pick one over the other.)
I know I’m much more pessimistic on Zito than most, but I can’t fathom how anyone thinks this is a good deal. I bet 29 GMs are laughing today.
28…Bavasi is probably pissed…