Contract Crowdsourcing Results: Juan Uribe
Juan Uribe, playoff hero*, is not worth much more than Jhonny Peralta, says the crowd. Or, at least, the expectation is that the contracts they sign this winter will be similar, which either bodes well for whoever signs Uribe or quite poorly for the Tigers. On to the results.
Average length: 2.06 years
Average salary: $6.02 million
Median length: 2 years
Median salary: $6 million
Standard deviation, length: 0.63 years
Standard deviation, salary: $1.99 million
This is, essentially, the standard middle infielder contract signed last winter. Marco Scutaro signed this deal to play shortstop for Boston last winter, while Mark DeRosa took it from San Francisco to be a play-everywhere guy. Placido Polanco got this deal plus an extra year to play third base for the Phillies, while Miguel Tejada and Orlando Hudson got the one year version of this contract. $5 to $6 million was the going rate for these guys, with the negotiating point really being on the years instead of the dollars. In fact, the Giants gave this same contract to Freddy Sanchez last year.
Peralta joined the group entering into that contract last week, and now the expectation is that Uribe will also find himself in the same situation when he gets around to signing. Given the abundance of guys signing this kind of contract, expecting Uribe to land in the same area makes a lot of sense. From an overall production standpoint, if not a player type, he’s pretty similar to the rest of the group – wrong side of 30, +3 win player if you like his defense to hold up, +2 wins if you don’t, and some positional flexibility to boot.
So, 2/12 for Uribe seems like a pretty good bet. However, I think he might end up with a little bit more than that, maybe edging towards the Polanco side of things, due to his power (which is generally higher priced than other skills) and my belief that we’re in for some inflation this winter. I’d probably put him down for 3/20 or something in that range. Given that Peralta just signed for 2 years and $11.5 million when he’s demonstrably worse than most of the guys who signed a similar contract last winter, I’d imagine Uribe’s agent will also be making the inflation argument when negotiations begin.
*Uribe hit .149/.196/.277 in the playoffs this year. I know he hit some big home runs that helped the Giants win the World Series, but I’m just saying.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
The way I see it, that is the Giants standard IF contract, I’m not sure if they resign him, they’d want to pay him a whole lot more than Freddy Sanchez
I don’t get why he’s expected to get 2/12 when he had a lower wOBA and just a slightly higher WAR (due to fielding numbers) than the year before. Last winter, no one wanted him and he had to settle for 1 year at $3.25M.
Last winter people thought his ’09 could’ve just been a fluke. Two years in a row of 2-3 WAR production increases the likelihood he reproduces the same level of play going forward.
And he hit home runs. Home runs are sexy.
One good year out of his past 4 and you say “risky”. Two good years in a row and you say “hmm”.
Jazz Hands. ‘Nuff said.
those are priceless.
Really, that’s like an extra million a year–per hand.
Shadow of the Vampire: now that is a scary movie.
Uribe will get more this time because he will be signing as an everyday SS and not just a utility player. In ’09 he played only 318.2 innings at short and posted a -2.8 UZR (-11.9 UZR/150). Last year he played 864 innings at short and posted a 2.1 UZR (3.3 UZR/150). Whether or not you think he’s a good bet to sustain his performance in the field last year, it puts him in a very different position than he was last offseason.
I expect one benchmark that he and his agent will have in mind is the 2 years / 18.5 mil the Giants gave to Renteria a couple years go. There was even a story during the ’09 season of how one of Renteria’s checks accidentally got delivered to Uribe instead and Uribe having a lot of fun with that in the clubhouse. But all fun aside, you can bet that if the Giants are bringing him back to be the starting SS that he’ll be convinced he should be getting somethign similar at least.
I paid a million dollars for my house in 2006. I won’t take a penny less now. Also, do you really think teams look at UZR when evaluating true talent levels? That much of a swing from year to year says more about the UZR measure than it does about Uribe.
In future iterations of crowdsourcing results, I think it might be beneficial to create a basic histogram for length and salary. Being able to eyeball the modes of the distributions for each might be helpful.
Agreed.
If Uribe comes in at 2/12, then where would Huff come in? 2/16? 3/22?
Giants payroll is going to balloon without anything flashy going on.
Wrong side of 30? Now I remember when I turned 30 I thought I was immediately on the wrong side. In fact I told people I was 29.95.But Uribe won’t be 31 until late July!
I thought the wrong side of 30 meant 35+ not just turning 30!
nope. that would be the wrong side of 35.
How about $21M-$22M over three years?
Looks like Cameron was pretty much there on that one.