Alex Rodriguez’s First Big Deal
This post is not timely whatsoever, so apologies for that; also, props to Tommy Rancel for suggesting it and helping with the research.
On July 27, 1996, Alex Rodriguez turned 21 years old. He also signed an extension valued at four-years and $10.6 million. Despite Rodriguez’s age, he was in the midst of his first major league season and third overall. Through the season’s first 86 games, Rodriguez had started 85 of them while hitting .351/.410/.632 with 21 home runs in just 353 at-bats. For comparison, Jason Heyward was 20 when he had a scorching hot May. He hit .337/.453/.628 over those 25 games. Rodriguez was not too far off and he did it over a full season while being only a little older.
Rodriguez was about as close to a sure thing as possible from a stats or scouting perspective; after all, that’s why he was the top pick in the draft and that’s why he ascended the ladder so quickly. That extension by today’s standards looks woeful for Camp Rodriguez and amazing for Woody Woodward and the Mariners but the economic environment in baseball was wholly different 14 years ago. The highest payroll in baseball still belonged to the Yankees, but at $52 million instead of $206 million. The highest paid player in baseball that season was Cecil Fielder, just over $9 million. Ken Griffey Jr. ranked third with a $7.5 million salary. In 2010, a $7.5 million salary doesn’t crack the top 25, in fact, a $15 million dollar salary doesn’t either, as Hiroki Kuroda’s $15.4 ranks 25th overall.
Still, for the production the Mariners received, the market rate for wins had to be extremely, extremely low for them not to rake on this deal. From 1997 until he left following the 2000 season, Rodriguez racked up 27.4 WAR. He was paid $10.6 million. That is roughly $390 thousand per victory. One would have to set the market rate for wins very, very low to say the Mariners made anything but a profit off Rodriguez’s extension.
His current and previous contracts are well publicized and overwatered from snark and critique alike. At one point, though, Alex Rodriguez was a hell of a bargain.
Most of the salary data courtesy of USA Today
My first reaction to this column was: “Kuroda makes $15 million??????”
Nice piece.
ha that was mine too.
same here
Me as well.
It’s worth it, Kuroda’s one of the most underrated pitchers in baseball.
That Cecil Fielder was the highest paid player and Kuronda currently is making 15.4 million a year proves that teams will always spend money unwisely.
With Kuronda I’m guessing you mean Kuroda. How did you form the opinion that the money he’s paid is unwisely spent. Kuroda have pretty decent chance at providing value equal to what he’s paid for the year and even if he don’t pitch any more for the season he still provided positive value during his contract (His contract was for three years 53.3 million dollars, his value provided during this period shown here at fangraphs have it at 36.4, Which means at the moment he have been worth 1,1 million in positive value) that seems like wisely spent money to my ears.
By “have” I assume you mean “has” and you meant to add “a”… see, I can unnecessarily nitpick too.
Oh NOEZ!1! I forgot a comma!
@AL
Well if he actually meant that someone named Kuronda was getting paid 15+ million I would probably have to agree that he was overpaid. Nevertheless I’m grateful that you pointed out my mistakes so that I can hopefully improve on them.
Have you actually paid attention to Kuroda and his numbers?
3.5 WAR in 2008
2.2 WAR in 2009 in 117 innings
and 2.9 WAR in 2010 so far
Career 3.66 ERA 3.53 FIP 3.77 xFIP
He’s one of the more underrated players in baseball. Likely the best 3rd starter in baseball, and could be one of the better 2 starters in baseball.
interesting piece, but it’d be nice if it delved in to what the value per win teams were paying at this time in 1996, and also, if the arbitration rules were different at that time, how that affects the Mariners/Rodriguez negotiating position. I realize I’m asking a lot, but I’m left with more questions that answers from reading this.
League payroll in 96 was around 980M, last year it was 2750M. A really rough estimate would put a win at 1.5M +/-.
A better way would be to look at the FA class of 96 and what they signed for and use the WAR that was projected at the time (or actually accumulated over the life of the deal) for them to determine what the going rate for a win was. I don’t have that info though.
Salaries would start exploding a few years later, Kevin Brown’s contract with the Dodgers comes to mind.
Cool piece! I didn’t know he had signed that deal with Seattle; when I read the title, I thought it would be about his Texas FA contract.
To further enlarge on your comparison to Heyward, Alex was a SS, Heyward is a right fielder.
It should be noted that 1996 was not his first MLB season. It was his first FULL MLB season. Indeed, Rodriguez was not even eligible for the 1996 ROTY (which went to Jeter) because he had too many PAs in 1995.