Prince Fielder, Opt-Outs, And A Contract I Would Support
It’s no secret that I’ve been generally opposed to the idea of giving Prince Fielder a long term, big money contract. I think his value on the field is fairly overrated and the side benefits of having him on the team are mostly made up and unsupported by facts. In general, I’d rather the team spread their money around to fill multiple holes and upgrade the roster rather than going all-in on Fielder, and have said that my maximum offer to Fielder would be something like $120 million over six years. Even if the market for Fielder never does develop in any real way, that seems unlikely to get it done, as it’s hard to see Boras letting Fielder settle for a contract less than what Adrian Gonzalez got back in March, when he wasn’t even a free agent.
Now, reports are beginning to surface that not only is Boras looking for a lot of guaranteed money, he’s also going to look for an opt-out clause for his client as well. This would give Fielder the duel benefits of long term security (if he performs poorly or gets hurt) as well as the ability to raise his future earnings if he performs well. It’s a win-win for the player, and in general, opt-outs are a terrible idea for an organization. In most cases, an opt-out for a player essentially eliminates any chance the contract has to turn out in the organization’s favor, while still saddling the team with all the risks of a long term guarantee to a player who might not be worth the price.
However, I do believe there is a way that the Mariners could satisfy Boras’ need to beat prior precedent (in this case, the Gonzalez extension), give him the opt-out clause that would let Fielder potentially increase his earnings by hitting free agency again in a few years, and make the contract work for the organization. In fact, including the opt-out might be the best way for the Mariners to make a run at Fielder while still keeping the contract offer to a reasonable price.
To help Boras save face, let’s put the total value of the contract at $155 million over seven years, $1 million more than what Gonzalez got from Boston on his extension. It’s not Mark Teixeira money, but Fielder isn’t as valuable as Teixeira was when he reached free agency and the Yankees aren’t involved in the bidding here, so Boras will just have to go pound sand if he’s set on beating that mark. 7/155 at least gets him a deal that won’t look like a total failure, especially if he can flaunt that he also got an opt-out for Fielder that could let him land another big deal in a few years.
How does 7/155 with an opt-out work for the Mariners? Simply put, you structure the salaries so that the organization gets a lot of the projected value from the contract up front, to the point where Fielder would have to perform at an elite level in order to want to use the opt-out. For instance, the annual salaries could go something like this:
2012: $13 million
2013: $16 million
2014: $16 million
2015: $25 million (player option for remainder of contract)
2016: $25 million
2017: $25 million
2018: $30 million
2019: $25 million (team option, $5 million buyout)
This contract would essentially break down into three parts – $45 million guaranteed over the first three years, then Fielder would have an option to exercise four more years for $105 million, with the team finally having the ability to void the eighth year for a final $5 million. It could shake out as being 3/45 (if Fielder opts out), 7/155 (if Fielder doesn’t opt-out and team buys out final year), or 8/175 (if Fielder doesn’t opt out and team picks up eighth year option).
By significantly backloading the salaries until after Fielder’s opt-out, it essentially transfers nearly all of the potential surplus value from the deal into the first three seasons. Most long term contracts are value for the team at the front end and value for player at the back end, but this kind of aggressive backloading would shift that even further, and would ensure that the team would have already received nearly 100% of the value of the contract before he opts-out. If he plays well enough to justify walking away from 4/110 in order to get another guaranteed year or two tacked on (much like what CC Sabathia just did with New York), then this deal will have almost certainly worked out for the Mariners, as he’d have had to have been a monster in his first three years to forfeit a $27.5M AAV from ages 31-34.
While an opt-out on a balanced salary contract is essentially lose-lose for the team, the terms could be structured in such a way that would greatly reduce the odds of there being much value lost by the organization if the opt-out is exercised. Essentially, you make Fielder walk away from so much money that there’s no real chance that the team would be losing a significant asset, even if Fielder had performed well and justified his price tag.
The opt-out would give Fielder the flexibility to say that he’s giving the organization a chance to turn themselves around while he and Felix are both on the team, but he’s not locked into a potential loser for the rest of his career. It would also give him a chance to opt-out and negotiate those last couple of option years into guaranteed years if he performs well, and Boras could sell the contract as having total potential value near Teixeira’s deal and being superior to what Gonzalez got. It might not be the contract of Boras’ dreams, but in this market, it’s probably at least a competitive offer.
Yes, it takes my 6/120 maximum and throws it out the window, adding an extra year and $35 million in guaranteed money that I think could probably be spent better by pursuing a different strategy. However, the low base salaries over the next three years reduce the strain of having two market value stars on the payroll at the same time, giving the team the flexibility to potentially still pursue other upgrades. In this scenario, the team could potentially still afford to go after a guy like Will Venable and perhaps a decent veteran third baseman as well.
It would also essentially give the team a three year window to win with Felix/Fielder as the core of the team. If they managed to turn it around and challenge for the AL West, attendance and revenues would likely improve, and the team could get a bump from their television contract in 2015 that would help them absorb another extension for Felix and Fielder sticking around for his big paydays at the back end of his contract. If it didn’t work, Felix would probably be trade bait, and Fielder might be more inclined to opt-out and go somewhere else, at which point the team would be free of both of their big money obligations, allowing the team to reboot and go in another direction.
It’s not the plan I would pursue if I was Jack Z, but if the team is serious about making Fielder a competitive offer without hamstringing the organization, this is probably the best path they could take. By dangling the opt-out clause to get an extremely backloaded contract and a lower AAV than Boras might want otherwise, the team might be able to make an offer that gives Fielder enough flexibility to accept the deal. If they’re dead set on getting closer to $200 million guaranteed, the team should just walk away, but if Boras is open to this kind of deal, then there might be room for a contract that could work for both sides.
M’s Close To Deal With Hisashi Iwakuma
Over the last week or so, various reports have been circling that the Mariners were closing in on a deal with Japanese RHP Hisashi Iwakuma. Today, we get the best confirmation of those reports, in the form of a report from Sponichi (in Japanese, but helpfully translated by Patrick Newman of NPB Tracker) where Iwakuma is quoted as saying:
“We’ve received terms from a number of clubs, but considering where I’m needed and an environment my family can live in, at present we’re closest to a contract with the Mariners,” Iwakuma said.
Generally, you don’t say something like this publicly unless you’re pretty darn close to a deal with the team, so we can comfortably guess that the two are pretty far along in negotiations. It doesn’t appear to be a done deal, but it also seems fairly likely that the M’s are going to end up with Iwakuma.
We’ve talked about the team’s need for another starting pitcher (or two) all off-season, and Iwakuma checks most of the boxes of things the team was looking for – a strike-throwing innings eater who could fill in at the back of the rotation without costing an arm and a leg. A year ago, Iwakuma seemed to be potentially a lot more than that, as the A’s bid $19 million to win his rights via the posting process, but they never came to terms with him on a contract, he stayed in Japan, and he took a step back in scout’s eyes, mostly related to a drop in velocity. His surface numbers still look good, but it’s important to keep in mind that Japan played with a new ball in 2011, and offense declined precipitously, so his performance relative to league average wasn’t as good as it had been in prior years.
As a guy who sits in the high-80s and didn’t miss a lot of bats in Japan, he profiles as a back-end starter, but there’s a lot of uncertainty with pitchers coming over from Japan. Hiroki Kuroda wasn’t hyped as anything particularly special and also posted pedestrian strikeout rates in Japan, but he’s been one of the best pitchers in baseball since arriving in the U.S. While people focus on the high profile failures like Kei Igawa and Hideki Irabu, the fact is that Japanese pitchers have performed pretty well in MLB, and there’s certainly a chance that Iwakuma performs better than his profile might suggest. There’s also the chance that his velocity keeps deteriorating and he gets lit up like a Christmas tree. There’s just a lot of variance here, and trying to figure out exactly what to expect isn’t easy.
Still, it sounds like he’s not going to be overly expensive and probably isn’t going to require more than a two year commitment, as Japanese players often give the M’s a bit of a discount due to the positive attributes it holds in terms of community and travel. I don’t really know exactly what to expect from Iwakuma, but getting a potentially solid starting pitcher at what is probably not a super high cost can’t be considered a bad thing.
Will Venable
Over the weekend, the Padres acquired outfielder Carlos Quentin from the White Sox in exchange for a pair of prospects, and in the process, created something of a logjam of outfielders from players remaining on their roster. Quentin is expected to take over as the regular left fielder next to Cameron Maybin, and his presence turns right field into a job share between some combination of five players: Will Venable, Chris Denorfia, Kyle Blanks, Jesus Guzman, and Mark Kotsay.
In concert with the Yonder Alonso acquisition (which blocks off playing time at first base, where Blanks and Guzman could have also been utilized), Quentin’s presence essentially means that there won’t be room for two of those five players on San Diego’s roster, and in reality, only two of the remaining three will get much in the way of regular playing time. So, while the team could theoretically just send Blanks back to Triple-A to clear a roster spot, they probably are best off trading one of Venable, Denofria, or Guzman, since there won’t be enough at-bats to go around for all three, especially with Veteran Leader Mark Kotsay getting some playing time for unknown reasons.
Enter the Mariners, who are in need of another outfielder – preferably a left-handed hitter who could form a useful platoon with Casper Wells in left and offer enough defensive value to potentially earn some playing time in center field if Franklin Gutierrez doesn’t rebound from his disastrous 2011 season. It would also be nice if that player had a little bit of power, specifically to right field, in order to give the team an offensive boost against RHPs and to take advantage of how Safeco Field plays.
You may have already guessed, but I basically just described Will Venable to a tee. He’s not much of a household name, since he’s spent his entire career toiling in Petco Park, but the 28-year-old is probably one of the more underrated players in the sport. His raw numbers have been held down by the offensive sinkhole that is San Diego’s home park, but even a basic park adjustment shows that his .250/.321/.410 line is good for a 107 wRC+, meaning that his offensive performance has been seven percent better than average to date.
For left-handed pull-power guys playing in San Diego, though, a basic park adjustment isn’t the tool you want to use to project their performance upon changing teams. Petco is basically the inverse of Safeco, as its cavernous right field swallows up fly balls much in the same way that Safeco does balls to left-center, so LH hitters are disproportionately affected by the park. This is why the Padres traded for the right-handed Quentin and targeted Alonso – a left-handed batter with opposite fielder power – by the way. If you look deeper at Venable’s numbers, you can see potential for quite a bit more than he’s been to date.
Home: 622 PA, .226/.304/.383, 93 wRC+
Away: 682 PA, .272/.336/.435, 119 wRC+
When not hitting at Petco, he’s been about as productive as Nick Swisher (122 wRC+), Carlos Pena (119 wRC+), Andre Ethier (119 wRC+), or Jay Bruce (116 wRC+) was last year. I’m pretty sure everyone would be totally okay with the team acquiring any of those four to improve the offense, yes? While we can’t just take his road stats and extrapolate straight from that, especially given the somewhat small sample size, adding in Venable’s batted ball profile to our knowledge of what Petco and Safeco do to left-handed pull-power guys does offer additional confidence that he could thrive in Seattle.
Pull: 370 PA, .378/.377/.696, 195 wRC+
Center: 279 PA, .366/.360/.505, 140 wRC+
Opposite: 188 PA, .266/.259/.431, 85 wRC+
44% of his balls in play are hit to right field, and when he pulls the ball, he’s a fantastic hitter with a lot of power. Right field is the best place to hit the ball in Safeco, and the park has systematically rewarded players with this kind of skillset. For instance, Raul Ibanez has nearly this exact same profile on balls in play, and his career line at Safeco was .285/.357/.474.
Taking Venable out of Petco and putting him in Safeco would provide a significant boon to his home performance, and as noted, he’s already been a pretty good hitter on the road during his career. With continued judicious platooning (the Padres have ensured that 80% of his PAs have come against RHPs since he’s pretty lousy against southpaws, and the M’s would want to continue that trend), Venable could easily settle in as an Ibanez-caliber hitter.
Now, we weren’t exactly known for our Ibanez love during his tenure here, so why would I be advocating that the team bring in a 29-year-old on a similar career path? Well, our problem with Ibanez was primarily on defense, as his glove gave back a lot of the runs his bat created, and he probably should have been a DH for most of the latter part of his career. Venable, on the other hand, is a top notch athlete and a pretty terrific defensive outfielder – 23% of his career innings have come in center field, and every decent defensive metric rates him as well above average in a corner and good enough to handle center field.
Venable’s defensive value and ability to hit right-handed pitching make him a perfect fit for the Mariners roster. The team could essentially use him along with Wells and Gutierrez as a three-headed monster in LF/CF, splitting up the roughly 1,400 plate appearances that will go to those two positions based on the opposing pitcher’s handedness and Eric Wedge‘s desire to keep everyone fresh and rested. He’d also be a nice bat off the bench on days where a left-hander starts and the team needs a pinch-hit option when the opposing manager goes to the bullpen.
Venable doesn’t have superstar potential, but if you get him out of Petco Park and into an environment better suited for his overall abilities, he’s probably a +2.5 to +3.0 win player. As a super-two arbitration eligible player, he’ll likely make a little less than $2 million for 2012, and the team would control his rights through 2015. He’s exactly what this team should be shopping for right now – an undervalued asset with upside who could provide value both in the short term and down the road.
Venable will provide a substantial improvement and roster flexibility for a low salary and a moderate cost in terms of trade. Ideally, I’d like to see the team try to get a package of Venable and Anthony Rizzo, which would give them both legitimate 2012 value and a potential power-hitting 1B/DH for the future, but even just getting Venable would allow the team to use Mike Carp at DH, his natural position. I know, I know, it’s not signing Prince Fielder, but it’s the kind of move that pushes the organization forward, improves the roster on the field, and allows the team to continue to upgrade other positions rather than putting all their eggs in one overweight basket.
With the holidays behind us, the off-season movement should pick up traction again. The Mariners should look to pick up Venable before another intelligent organization picks him off and reaps the rewards of saving him from San Diego.