With Jon Lester, Cubs Officially Force Window Open
We all knew that the time was coming. The Cubs themselves talked rather openly about it. Blessed with the best system in baseball, the Cubs were coming up on a period of hopeful contention. The soft target, for many, was 2016. By that point, enough prospects might’ve established themselves, and the Cubs would be able to gun for the playoffs. But it was always reasonable to think the Cubs might try to accelerate things. That they might hit that transition between stockpiling and spending, and spend big to hurry things up. There was a way for the Cubs to become a potential playoff team next season. Whether you think they’re there yet, the Cubs have now checked off a lot of boxes.
In Jason Hammel, the Cubs just locked up a pretty talented starter for the back of the rotation. In Miguel Montero, the Cubs upgraded behind the plate, getting kind of a poor man’s Russell Martin equivalent. And now the Cubs have their big fish, agreeing with Jon Lester for six years and $155 million. For Lester, the Cubs were long considered a favorite, but there’s a difference between something being possible and something getting done. We can now, officially, say this: the Cubs are ready to try to go to the playoffs. There’s no mistaking their intentions, and Lester’s a giant upgrade.
In a sense, this is when it’s most anticlimactic. We’ve already written and read about how Lester has changed, and which teams could end up with him. You’ve already thought about the Cubs adding Lester before, so now they’ve simply gotten that done, and you can think thoughts you’ve already thought. But it’s still worth a rundown now that we have an official decision and official terms. What do we make of the Lester domino falling? We’ll proceed in three sections.
Do the terms make sense, overall?
The Cubs inked Lester for $155 million. According to reports, the Red Sox offered the same number of years, but $20 million less. What that makes it sound like is a desperate overpay. In reality, the numbers don’t make it look godawful. Depending on what you do with them, this might even look totally normal.
For example, consider what ZiPS has to say about Lester’s next six years:
In a neutral park, ZiPS projects 6/151 for Lester. That’s why you’re hearing talk of 150-160 and it’s not completely crazy.
— Dan Szymborski (@DSzymborski) December 10, 2014
This is where we get into the art of things. The last three years, Lester has averaged about 4.5 WAR. On one hand, you’d want to project a decline, but on the other hand, Lester is also coming off by far his best season of the three, with some demonstrable changes to his approach. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to figure Lester might be a 4.5-win pitcher next season. What if you set the cost of a win at $7 million, and then inflated by the customary 5%? Then given the standard half-win per-season decline, Lester would be worth about $151 million.
And what if you set the cost of a win at $7.5 million? The market’s been pretty crazy so far. Then you get Lester being worth about $162 million. Alternatively, what if Lester is a 4-win pitcher? Then you’re more like $125 – 135 million. But understand how much estimation there is in here. It’s basically guessing at a rate of decline. It’s making an educated guess on the cost of a win, but it’s guessing at the annual rate of inflation. All the tables you see along these lines — they’re guides. This is ultimately how teams end up determining and structuring contracts, but they’re using some different projections. I think the safe conclusion is that the Cubs didn’t make a wild overpay or anything. Maybe, they wound up a little high, but the math is a lot more promising than, say, the Nelson Cruz math, and the Cubs don’t even need to worry about losing a draft pick. So you don’t have to try to build that value in.
In retrospect, if the Red Sox had offered Lester in spring training what they offered Lester this week, they probably would’ve had him signed. But when Lester was in spring training, he hadn’t yet had his absolutely phenomenal 2014. He rather significantly raised his stock, to the point where he’s more or less deserving of $155 million.
Are the Cubs a good fit?
The Cubs are a good fit. When you’re making a big commitment to a player in his 30s, you’re assuming the real value will come toward the front of the contract. So, these things only really make sense when you’re a team that might be playing for something. The Cubs are no longer a conditional contender. The Cubs are just a contender. They added Lester, another starter, and a catcher in a matter of days.
Steamer. We have to look at it, because we don’t really have anything else to look at. Based on Steamer projections and the depth charts, now, the Cubs rank seventh in the National League in projected team WAR. They’re sandwiched in between the Giants and the Brewers, with the Rockies mysteriously also just ahead. The Cubs don’t look as good as the Cardinals, and they don’t project quite as well as the Pirates, but this looks kind of like a .500 ballclub with massive upside. Projections always come with error bars, and when you have a team with as many talented and unproven young players as the Cubs, you figure the error bars are wider. But while the team still has weaknesses, most of the roster’s been shored up.
Lester’s impact is obvious. Montero’s impact is obvious. Hammel’s impact is obvious. The Cubs might still want another starter, but they already have depth, with Lester and Jake Arrieta forming a cruel 1-2. They could stand to get better in the outfield, but everywhere else is set, generally with depth or some fallback options if the top guy gets hurt or struggles. And naturally, the Cubs’ arrow is pointing up. Lester isn’t joining a team with a narrow, short-term window. There are reasons to believe he should age well, and the Cubs should only get stronger and stronger. So Lester can try to help a contender for several years, instead of for one or a couple.
As it happens, rather conveniently, the Cubs don’t have many other big commitments. Lester’s salary can be offset by the young players getting paid next to nothing for their contributions. Anthony Rizzo‘s under contract forever at very reasonable prices. The same goes for Starlin Castro. Edwin Jackson’s money will be off the books in two years. Montero will be off the books in three years. There’s no question the Cubs can afford this and build around this. And I might as well advance an argument about an intangible: Lester sends a message to the Cubs’ players themselves. Even if they don’t end up in the playoffs in 2015, the young players should be better for their experience in the seasons to follow, and Lester brings an element that wasn’t previously present in the clubhouse.
Now what?
Now the rest of the offseason can happen. Lester was holding up almost everything, even for players seemingly unrelated to the sweepstakes. Teams put together a variety of plans, and now the Red Sox have to go to the plan that doesn’t involve Jon Lester. Same for the Giants. This affects free-agent pitchers, this affects pitcher trade candidates, and this affects outfielders and shortstops and everyone else. You also wonder if this might affect the Reds, causing them to lean more toward stripping down instead of building up.
The Red Sox have options. They’ll presumably re-visit Cole Hamels talks, and they’ll be in to some extent on Jordan Zimmermann, Johnny Cueto, James Shields, and others. Relatedly or unrelatedly, the market’s now been set for Max Scherzer, and you’ve also got Brandon McCarthy floating around. The Red Sox still aren’t in an urgent situation. Neither are the Giants, if they were willing to offer Lester even more than the Cubs. It just becomes a quicker game now. Teams have been preparing for weeks for what they would do after the Lester decision. Now there’s that much less mystery.
That Boston got outbid by so much indicates that they were prepared to be turned down. That San Francisco might’ve had the high offer indicates that they were more all-in on this. There’s maybe a little more concern in the Giants front office. The Red Sox front office is left with questions yet unsettled. The Cubs front office, meanwhile, got to make a signature move. This move broadcasts where the Cubs believe they are to the rest of the league. And maybe the most incredible thing is the Cubs don’t even necessarily need Lester to work out that well, given what else they’ve got. But, imagine what they could be if he’s Jon Lester.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
I think Dave had a $170mm Scherzer contract as one of his potential worst FA signings. So isn’t $155mm for Lester just as bad if not worse?
Scherzer received a QO.
I think we have seen that this doesn’t really matter for the top end free agents.
Or for teams with protected first-round picks heh heh heh.
The QO is not worth nearly enough to significantly change the math on a contract that size.
I don’t understand why the A’s didn’t offer Lester a QO.
Obviously he wasn’t going to accept the offer right?
I mean, he had a terrific year last year by any metrics and even before teams discovered the market was going to run high this year after the offseason commenced, at a bare minimum I think anyone could have seen before the offseason began that Lester was going to approach if not exceed $100 million on a long-term deal.
So why not extend a QO?
The A’s didn’t want to pay him $15.3 million for 2015, but realistically what were the chances Lester was going to accept that one year / $15.3 million offer over the security of a long-term offer of $100 million or so (again, bare minimum)?
Finally, even if the A’s did think Lester might accept, they could have just flipped him to another team after he accepted if they didn’t want to pay one pitcher f$15.3 million.
The failure to extend a QO and get a pick for Lester is a poor decision by Beane in my humble opinion.
Even if you don’t want the player back (not talking about Lester here but just generalities) you gauge whether some other team will sign the player if a QO is attached and you can get a pick even though you don’t want the player for the following season. Seems like just a simple, strategic decision and again I don’t understand Beane’s logic here because the additional pick helps offset the payment for his other deadline deal of Shark / Hammel for Russell / McKinney (i.e., I made a run; it didn’t work out; and now it’s time to flip assets or even extend QOs and rebuild the farm).
@Bat
Can’t offer QO if traded mid-season
Re: Bat’s comment, Beane’s logic was that the rules don’t allow him to give Lester a QO since Lester didn’t play the full season with the A’s.
Teams can’t extend a QO to players they traded for during the season.
They can’t offer him a quali…oh, wait.
I like how Bat has such a logical argument. Too bad he is not familiar with the rules of what he is arguing in favor of.
@Bat
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-qualifying-offer-and-you/
Exactly. The article you linked to explicitly says: “A qualifying offer may only be extended to a potential free agent who spent the entire previous season with the same team.”
When people make mistakes you should definitely make them feel as bad about it as you can.
Obvious Troll is Obvious. Well played, sir.
Man, cubs pretty much tore it all down and built it back up in 3 years flat. Really helps to be a big market team when you want to rebuild. They can:
1. Afford the best front office talent (and keep them)
2. Eat money to get rid of bad contracts
3. Afford frontline free agents to move up the window
4. Don’t have to pray over every reclamation projects.
It’s amazing what you can do with money and a competent front office, eh?
Totally agree. The Cubs basically wrote a textbook on the perfect rebuild. While I think 2016 is really gonna be the big year for them, when Bryant, Russel, Schwarber and Almora all figure to hit the majors, pretty much any time in the next five years is Cub time.
Just peeking at the 2015/2016 SP free agent market, Fister, Price, Zimmerman, Latos, Kennedy, Grienke, Porcello, Cueto and about three other league average or better guys, the Cubs are absolutely going to be able to pick up the SP depth they need.
More than anything, I wonder if more big market teams shouldn’t explore total rebuilds. If the Phillies were to undergo such a rebuild (under what was hopefully a competent GM), I can’t help but wonder if they’d have a similar resurgence. The biggest benefits of being a big market team are that you never have to suck, and when your window is opening, you can take full advantage. Maybe the big markets should be more willing to suck, so they can better take full advantage.
Let’s see a winning season before crowning any champions. A perfect rebuild is the Giants 2005-8 morphing into 2009-15 – no tanking.
I’m quite sure a perfect rebuild would not include handing out enormous FA contracts to Zito and Rowand. I’m a Giants fan too but 3 titles in 5 years hardly makes the path they took to get there the best model for other teams.
No one crowned them champions.
If you’re a Giants fan and you don’t understand Zito/Rowand was about ownership worry about butts in the seats I can’t help you. Its all about hitting on the draft picks. The cubs have had how many years straight with high draft picks now?
Actually the Giants have done more right than just hit on high draft picks. They’ve also done a fine job with lower picks (Belt, Crawford, Romo), signed Sandoval as an international FA, and gotten huge contributions from all manner of minor league FA and scrap heap acquisitions from Torres and Huff and Uribe to Vogelsong and Blanco and Petit. In all those aspects they can rightly be viewed as a model for rebuilding. Not, however, in the highest profile FA signings of Zito and Rowand, which remain just terrible transactions regardless of the ownership/FO decison making behind them or the Giants ability to overcome those millstones.
Most every team has bad FA signings. The two that the Giants made seem to come up in every discussion. Of course the Giants made other moves to supplement, but the core group of Cain Lincecum Bumgarner and Posey is the engine that drives the success of the franchise. As in, without those guys, no titles. A homegrown infield definitely helps for repeats, as does reclamation and trades.
Scrap heap Sabean is good. Very good. It is big money Sabean that we don’t trust. That, and trader Sabean, although trader Sabean had his moments (Burks, Schmidt, Pence). But he also traded two borderline HOF relievers (Foulke and Nathan) and Wheeler, with little to show for it.
I don’t think any team should bank on hitting the draft lotto jackpot so many years clustered together. That would be unreliable. The credo of building from within only worked because they had Cain, Lincecum, Bumgarner, Posey, etc work ridiculously well. Rebuilding should be trying to work from every angle. The Cubs are exploring every possible way to get better they can think of.
So in other words, the perfect rebuild is having a slightly above average team and just be incredibly fortunate. The Giants way
The curse of big market teams is that they hate to rebuild.
Schwarber is a player without a position. The Cubs just don’t admit to it yet.
Schwarber may pan out at catcher, there’s no way of knowing yet. And no, your pessimism is not proof. If not, he can play LF.
5. Sign young players to contracts dripping with surplus value, even when the previous regime failed to get it done. (i.e, Rizzo, Castro)
While I agree with the overall sentiment, and it’s impressive what they’ve done in a short time frame, let’s watch them win some games before we claim their rebuild has been a success. They haven’t won 75 games since 2010. If Lester is in line with his Steamer projection (about 3.5 wins), Montero is the same 1-WAR catcher he’s been over the last two years, and their prospects don’t make an immediate impact like several other recent can’t-miss-prospects, then it could be a couple more years before they make the playoffs.
On a sidenote, why does Steamer have so much faith in Montero? He’s a 31 year old catcher, and Steamer thinks he’ll put up more WAR next year than he’s put up in the last two years combined.
Can you even call him an upgrade? He had fewer WAR last year than Castillo. I get that he fits their team better and that’s why they made the deal, but it doesn’t move the needle in terms of the rebuild- and he costs a lot more than Castillo too.
Pitch framing.
Completely agree
This might be a massive overpay. If Bae and alcantara play like they did last year on the ml, and Bryant has ks issues that get exploited by ml pitchers (like Baez) and soler hits closer to his last 40 ab than his first 40. We are looking at a team no where near contention. And the value of this contact is when the baby Cubs develops and this contract might become an albatross. When it is all said and done
As for Lester guys have career year during contract year, when his team did not respect him? That has happened many time before. Might be a good study of how contract year primes holds up
The floor for every team is shit. The Red Sox 2012, 2013, 2014 sequencing can tell you a lot about variability. Pointing out that a specific team could crash and burn if the stars align and everything goes wrong isn’t insightful. It’s important to acknowledge though.
The ceiling for every team is also a WS. Seriously, if the stars aligned properly and the Astros got in as a second wild card (they are projected for 75 wins – shooting 13 wins above your projection isn’t impossible) they could then do a Royals.
So no, this is not a massive overpay just because the Cubs’ floor is last place. You can say that for every team. Using your logic would mean that no free agent contract is worth it, because your team could theoretically tank. Some make more sense than others, but this specific case just appears to be a team paying market rates when they are projected to be about average. Which isn’t crazy at all.
My point is that this is a overpay because cubs are paying top $$$$ for a motivated player who had a career yeAr at 31. In a contract year, what of they get a 2012 motivated career year
As for peaks rookies are much more likely to be overhyped and have bad years than established players. And the cubs are relying on a lot of question marks to contend
Why stop there? If Rizzo forgets how to swing the bat, Castro takes up heroin, Arrieta decides he would rather knit than pitch, Maddon has a heart attack, and Russell spontaneously combusts then the Cubs will have a bad season.
I totally disagree. A big market team like them should never take that long to rebuild. If you want to see what a big market team does to rebuild, look at the Dodgers. They turned things around overnight.
With the current CBA, anybody with actual resources could have tanked for three years and built the team to a contender in three years. That’s especially true when you consider that they started out with greater than average talent in the system because the previous ownership spent more than they did. (Castro, Baez and Samardzija were already there).
We are talking about the Cubs who have 5 straight 5th place finishes in the NL Central, 4 straight top ten draft picks, 2 straight top 5, and a 5th top ten draft pick coming in 2015. They are a completely futile organization. Whether this rebuild works or not will prove out in the next 4-5 years, but expecting them to be good and compete with the Cards, Pirates and Reds is no slam dunk.
The difference between the Cubs and Dodgers is two things:
1) TV money, and
2) Debt service payments (Ricketts assumed ownership under leveraged partnership w/ Zell) and EBIT% that MLB requires them to maintain
The two things basically dictated that the Cubs reduce payroll short-term (EBIT and TV limits both lift in 2019), which lined out well with a rebuilding plan based on complete overhaul of minor league system.
A very juicy morsel of misdirection on the part of Tom Ricketts. What you say about debt service is of course strictly speaking true in fact — but not in spirit (i.e., Ricketts chose it and did *not* have to).
Ricketts didn’t have any debt service circumstances swarm upon him like some plague of lucusts; he decided in advance to spend like a relative MLB pauper despite massive personal wealth AND the 4th-highest annual revenues in the sport per Bloomberg.
He created a set of circumstances to insulate himself from the natural healthy criticism any grotesquely rich individual should endure whenever they cry poor. While the team was enormously profitable & needlessly terrible for three straight years Hoyerstein & Ricketts reaped praise from nearly every quarter for “doing it the right way.”
It’d be hilarious stuff, if it didn’t reflect so poorly on the American public education system.
Or the Cubs can look south at what the White Sox have done in 25% of the time.
The Cubs have been rebuilding for 3 years, the Sox for 2. In 2011, the Cubs were still trying to milk their veterans for an unlikely title, including trading prospects for Garza. They didn’t start rebuilding until 2012. So, no, the Sox haven’t done anything in 25 percent of the time.
Read above post. White sox dont have the fiscal restraints the Cubs have had for the last 4 yrs, mostly due to how Ricketts bought the team. If Mark Cuban had become Cubs owner in 2009, they likely would have been structured differently.
Actually now comes the hardest part imo. Right now they’re pretty much all potential. Lester, Arrieta, Rizzo and Castro is a nice core, but the rest still has to be filled out (since guys like Valbuena don’t appear to be part of the plan). Soler looks like he’ll be darn good, but after that, everyone is just potential.
The Cubs would be assuming a lot, IMO; namely, that Starlin Castro really is a consistent 2-3 win player and that there’s no chance he’ll repeat his horrible 2013, that Kris Bryant will live up to his hype (and if so, I’m comfortable with Valbuena holding down third for now), and that Soler and Baez will continue their progress. Overall, I would say too many question marks, but nicely over .500. Lester and Arietta is a super 1-2 punch.
Cubs early season struggles last year were mostly the offense and the Bullpen. 8-20 in April, and blew 7 games they led after 7 innings. Cubs were a .500 team from June 1 on, even considering how Baez and Alcantara struggled, and trading Samarj and Hammel. If there kids become league avg players in 2015 and there pitching is anything like last yrs from mid-may on, they probably improve to an 85 win or so team. Frankly, I see the Pirates and Brewers dropping off. Brew crew might miss guys like Duke and Gorezelanny more than they think(they were pretty good last year) and may not have KRod back either. Pirates might miss Martin more than they think, Liriano and Volquez were far better pitchers last year with Martin catching them.
I agree that they have done it right……and very well. They have drafted and signed what appear to be the right young guys. Traded not much for Russell. They have moved in on the right free agents at the right time. Still every rebuild is a bit of a crap shoot. I’m interested to see if it comes together and how quick. The only way to concretely measure everything is through wins, playoff appearances and hopefully a World Series title. My best wishes to the organization, the city and mostly the fans.
Depth charts don’t include Bryant who will be up by at least mid-May. That would make the Cubs closer to a 90 win team.
I don’t think Bryant brings them from an 81 win team to a 90 win team. Additionally, we have to think some of these prospects will fail. If every one of these guys turns out to be All-Stars we probably have the Big Blue Machine of the twenty first century.
I can only hope.
Have you even look at the projections? They’re extremely bearish.
But hey, if Bryant is only worth one win that still gets them closer to 90 wins!
Bryant is arguably the best prospect in the game. He should be the Cubs starting 3B on Opening Day. It is likely that he will be at least a 3 to 4 WAR player as a rookie, and that is my own conservative estimate based on his defense being poor.
The Cubs will be a lot better this season with Bryant and Soler in the lineup, Lester as the ace, and hopefully a Javy Baez that makes enough adjustments to hit north of .220. Even with all of those improvements, they still need a lot more pieces in place to become a 90-win team.
There is a LOT of upside in a lot of young Cubs players, but they are very young as a group, and a lot has to go right for them to even win 80+ games. They certainly have a great core group of talent under team control for the next 4 to 5 years, and I think with a couple more pitching additions, they could very well be a 90-win team for the next several years, but that won’t start until 2016.
Bryant likely to be 3-4 WAR in rookie season? Conservative? There is reason for optimism, but calm down expectations a little bit. Top prospects frequently have Bogaerts/Polanco/Profar type debuts.
“Top prospects frequently have Bogaerts/Polanco/Profar type debuts.”
This is true of most prospects. However, Bryant has punished AA and AAA pitching to a greater degree than your typical Bogaerts/Polanco/Profar types have.
It would not be a reach to suggest that he will be the Cubs Opening Day 3B and have a truly fantastic rookie season. I expected Profar and Bogaerts to struggle; I expect Bryant to flat-out rake.
Bill James projects Bryant for: 152 G, 530 AB, 32 2B, 33 HR, 75 RBI, 66 BB, 18 SB. That would be one helluva rookie season and I don’t think 3 or 4 WAR is out of the question. It would be unusual for a prospect to deliver on that kind of forecast, yes, but it is not ridiculous to suggest that Bryant might meet those expectations.
Max, I think you need a reality check as to how projections work. There’s a HUGE difference between saying “he will be at least a 3 to 4 WAR player as a rookie” and “I don’t think 3 or 4 WAR is out of the question.” No one is saying that 3-4 WAR isn’t *possible*. It’s that there’s a significant chance he produces something close to 0 WAR, and that chance should significantly drag down your projections.
Steamer only projects 42 players to reach 3.5+ WAR next season. You’re basically saying that Bryant, who is 22 and hasn’t yet played a single game of major league baseball, is among the top 50 best baseball players on earth.
lol @ 4 WAR rookie year being a conservative estimate for anyone
…..a 4 WAR rookie year even after missing the first month and a half.
I blame Mike Trout.
Please son, I would have had 5 War had the Sox called me up by May 1rst.
I love how everybody worships Steamer 600 which predicts that Bryant will be worth 4.2 WAR at 600 ABs in 2015. When the adjusted value is added to the Cubs current depth chart WAR total they are equal to the Pirates.
So all of you fucksticks think the Pirates are an 81 win team.
Easy there buddy.
Gosh, but Sam Fuld is a cranky baby today.
It’s my fault, really. I pulled the “hot foot” gag on him when he was sleeping and it almost burned down his house.
Im betting even sooner. My geuss is Bryant is up by Cubs 2nd road trip of the year, April 21 in Pittsburgh as his MLB debut. I think they want to start his career on the road to lessen the pressure.
I wasnt aware Bryan is a 8 WAR player. Actually closer to 10 since he wouldnt be called up until May. But yeah, is too early to start talking about him being the most elite player ever?
“Blessed with the best system in baseball”
Well, obviously, given the Cubbies 107 years long tradition of piling up WS championships like snow in North Dakota …
Seriously: in generally, I really like Sullivan’s writing, but I have no idea what definition he’s using for “system” and what measure he’s applied to arrive at “best” in this context.
I think he’s referring to having 3 of the top 15 prospects in baseball despite graduating one of last year’s top 10 prospects.
Farm system. Top prospects.
Include the full thought to grasp the sentence’s simple context —
“Blessed with the best system in baseball, the Cubs were coming up on a period of hopeful contention.”
Their minor league system is very, very strong, by most accounts the best in baseball (as he said). Most of the top talents are in AA/AAA and are nearing their big league debuts. Those talents will, hopefully, help the Cubs contend in the near future.
They have a few very nice pieces that they plan on bringing up but other than Bryant(who was pretty damn good before they drafted him), who have they truely developed all the way through the minors? Most of them have been traded for at the higher levels or were international free agent signings
Who cares whether they were drafted, signed, or traded for?
To me, it means the front office is good at trading and signing, not the farm system can sustain the young talent pipeline that’s needed for replacements for injuries, etc.
An international free agent signing is really no different than a draft pick. You have to sign the right guy and then be able to develop him in order to get any value.
@Fergie-oh yeah develope!…do you think that could be important…!?
Who cares where they came from? did the Yankees complain when there pitching staff was composed of Clemens, Wells and a lot of FAs m and only Rivera and Petitte were homegrown? Once upon a time you could buy a winner. Now its harder to do, so you have to build a farm system. Teams like the Cubs, Red Sox and Twins are doing that. Teams like the Yankees and Braves havent been, which is why they are on a downhill slide.
You all make good points, but the Cubbies have had MULTIPLE generations of superficially top quality teams during the entirety of my MLB awareness starting in the 1950s, yet no pennants and the rarest of post-season appearances. It has to be possible that there’s been a tendency to delusion in play at Wrigley and about the Cubbies all during that time.
The system he’s referring to is the PRESENT one, not all-time. Why you’d think otherwise is really confusing.
What difference does the last 100 years make? The front office has only been in charge since I believe 2011. They totally revamped their minor league system. I understand the need for restraint since there is so much uncertainty with prospects but let’s be reasonable.
Okay, let’s try again. When you see the word “best system” in that sentence, substitute “best minor league system in baseball at this current time”. Which has absolutely nothing to do with past history or championships.
“Dr. Maddon, Dr. Epstein, please. We have top prospects working on it right now.”
“Who?”
“Top. Prospects.”
Similarly, I have no idea what you mean by “in generally”. The Cubs minor league system is pretty widely considered to be the best in baseball, and Kris Bryant is equally widely considered the best prospect in baseball.
If it is true that my G offered 7/168, and were turned down, I think we dodged a bullet.
Yes, they clearly wanted Lester quite badly, and while it appears they’re prepared to spend the MONEY Scherzer’s going to command, on both fronts it looks like the Giants see themselves defeated by the circumstances of THIS off-season.
But 3 WS’s in 5 years, led by the catcher with the best OPS+ in MLB history and a true hoss at ace starter suggests they’ve got room to ‘lose’ this off-season and make it up the next. After that, tho, Pence starts slowing, Buster’s numbers start shrinking, and it’ll become extremely expensive for them to compete.
They will have to spend money of course. But given that next year is an odd year (arms are tired from all the fall work), it is best to bring in a raft of reclamation projects, mostly starting pitchers but also LF and 3B, and see what sticks. For 3B, I think they would be better off rolling the dice with the Korean SS, though I prefer trying one more C at 3B (Susac). It worked pretty well last time, and it worked across the Bay too. Next year, we can fill holes (LIncecum salary will also come off the books).
“led by the catcher with the best OPS+ in MLB history”
Buster is great. GREAT. But still, it’s much easier to have the best OPS+ of any catcher when all of the great catchers that came before have played through their declines and less productive twilight years and Buster hasn’t.
Yes, also some of those catchers played well in the postseason.
Lester has an easily-reachable option worth $15M for the 7th year that people keep missing. He essentially got 7/170 to play with the Cubs.
My question is whether this was a career year for him. His previous years were nothing like this one and a couple of years ago he was downright bad.
I pretty much write off Lester’s poor 2012 season as a by-product of the Bobby Valentine Disaster Tour. All the nasty negativity and confusion that contaminated that season must have been something of a distraction to more than one player.
Here’s an interesting tidbit: Steamer now projects the Cub pitching staff with the 2nd-most WAR in the N.L., trailing only the Nationals. Seems a bit rich, doesn’t it?
I’m not used to articles where somebody doesn’t have even a little bit of negativity about the Cubs. Feels.
I realize that this article isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of the contract, but I have to admit I’m having a hard time reconciling some of the logic being used regarding the various contracts lately.
Markakis plus Cruz project for 3.5 wins next year and receive 4/$101, and are widely panned. Lester projects for 3.5-4 wins next year and receives 6/155, shouldn’t it be panned too? Markakis and Cruz have their best years out of the last three, but I should trust the projections. Lester has his best year of the last three, but it’s possibly, maybe real improvement?
Maybe it’s that I just don’t buy the 0.5 win decline as a rule of thumb for 30 year old pitchers. As I’ve posted before on other threads, look at the pitchers with over 4 WAR in 2008 and count the number than even exceeded 0.5 WAR in 2014. Then look at how many of them were over the age of 28 in 2008. It’s not pretty.
What I do like is that Jeff notes that the variance in possible outcomes produces a wide range of possible outcome. I just think that this whole median projection, decline rule of thumb, inflation assumption model to come up with one number of what the contract while ignoring the variance of potential outcomes is overly simplistic in evaluating whether a contract is good, bad or somewhere in between. We should be looking at what it takes to justify the contract, but also how much money is realistically at risk on the downside, how much potential is there to outperform the contract, etc.
The biggest difference between signing Markakis and Cruz vs signing Lester is that for the same amount of money you get the same amount of (projected) production, but it’s coming from just one roster spot. Also, Lester is younger than either of the other two guys.
I personally don’t think the Cruz contract was as terrible as a lot of people think, and Markakis is at least defensible considering how much free agents have cost this off season, but both of these guys had cheaper alternatives available. Billy Butler signed for almost half what Cruz signed for and is projected for a similar next season. Moss was had for a 24 year old AA middle infielder. Instead of Markakis, the Braves could have gone for someone like Aoki or Rasmus. I’m not sure I see a cheaper 4+ win starter on the market.
I think this is a fair point, but I also think that Dave and Jeff in particular have espoused the linearity of the market value of wins. And that 1-2 win players are harder to come by than you think, and that multiple players spread the risk.
That’s a good point. Though it does seem to me that this off season there are cheaper 1-2 win outfielders/DHs available than what Cruz and Markakis signed for. I guess the thinking is that Cruz and Markakis both have upside.
Who has Cruz or Markakis as 3.5 win players? I believe most put them at 1.5 to 2.
I think he was saying the two of them combined are 3.5 wins for $101 million.
No one. He said Markakis plus Cruz.
Thanks. I think the difference between Lester and Cruz/Markakis is that pitchers decline differently. Markakis is going to have surgery, Cruz is 34 with a PED suspension in his past … and we’ve seen how big sluggers can quickly decline (Adam Dunn and Ryan howard come to mind). But it is interesting how these contracts are being doled out.
The top 6 pitchers by WAR in 2011 were Roy Halladay, Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw, CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee and Dan Haren. Pitchers can get hurt and fall off a cliff too.
You’d expect a steeper decline from Markakis and Cruz. 0.5 win / season decrease is per player, so for Markakis and Cruz you’d expect their declines to stack. By year 3, you’d anticipate those 2 players being something like .5-1.5 wins, while I think Lester projects for ~3.
Also a good point. It seems like $54M might cover the difference. And as I mentioned, I just don’t buy the 0.5 WAR per year decline from a pitcher over 30. Maybe that works for the first couple years, but I would expect that the decline will accelerate at some point.
Yeah, it should accelerate more for older pitchers.
I’ve been watching the MLB Network for the first time over the past few days, and it’s been interesting seeing Gammons, Darling, Dempster, Brian Kenny, and others ruminate about free agents and potential trades.
I note that Gammons and others specifically said on several occasions yesterday that Lester wasn’t interested in accepting the highest bid but rather would “go where he felt comfortable” and “where he was wanted” and “wasn’t about the money for him.”
This morning I read that Lester accepted the Cubs offer of six years, $155 million with a vesting option for a seventh year that would bring the total to $170 million.
The Red Sox were apparently the runner up in the beauty contest with a reported offer of six years and $135 million with no vesting option.
And that got me thinking…you ever notice how often guys say they WON’T accept the highest offer and they will go where they feel comfortable / wanted / interest some other factor other than money, but – coincidentally – where they feel comfortable / wanted / miscellaneous factor X is in fact satisfied with the highest bidder?
Reminds me of when Mike Hampton said that he and his family were choosing the Rockies over the Mets because of the Denver school system.
Picking the Rockies over the Mets because you like Denver’s school system better is like picking the Astros over the Twins because you like colder weather.
Supposedly the Giants offered the most money. If true, it significantly weakens your argument. (Overall, however, I believe you that players tend to take the money, using the soft factors as maybe a tie-breaker.)
Bob Nightengale’s Twitter just said something funny on this subject:
#Indians manager Terry Francona when asked if Lester chose #Cubs for chance to be part of history; Yeah and 150-some million.
Amen to that.
It weakens the argument to say he turned down more money to play for the recent WS winner? Maybe he actually likes the Northside of Chicago and Theo Epstein more than the other options.
Just a question re: $/WAR being valued at $7m. Last year, per this site, pitchers were responsible for 430 WAR for all teams, and, naturally, 570 WAR can be attributed to position (non-pitcher) players. Wouldn’t it be more accurate to separate $/WAR between pitchers and non-pitchers by looking at total salary, say, for all pitchers and divide by 430 to get $/WAR for pitchers?
I’m not saying the current estimate is wrong; I’m just curious.
The estimate is based on what teams pay for free-agency players, not the total universe of players. The overall average is much lower, because of team control for the first six years.
Players who haven’t hit free agency aren’t part of anything resembling a free market and aren’t paid according to their expected performance. But, you make an interesting point. If we were to separate free agent pitchers from free agent position players, is the $/WAR value the same?
It is not – the skew is clearly to under-performing the projection rather than out-perfomring the projection. Actually it is a combination of 2 skews: fatter downside tails on larger contracts and larger contracts having longer durations and therefore more overall $ (which would weight them much higher in this exercise)
So no – the $/WAR works only with projections, not in actual performance.
Seriously, nobody has any red flags about how the best years of Lester’s deal are going to be the roughest years for every one of their prospects? (assuming normal development curves for both)
Major props to Jeff Sullivan for saying that this contract could be more about signaling contention – to their young players and to their fanbase – than it is about actually contending.
also:
http://philbirnbaum.com/btn2007-11.pdf
Thanks to Bill, HoJo, and Rod, above, for explaining that you can’t extend a QO to a player traded midseason – I had no idea.
Just inserting this here because I could not reply to their comment above (i.e., no reply button there).
Thank you very much.
It is customary, in such a situation, to reply to the last comment in the thread that allows for a reply. You can include an @[username] to make it more clear, if you like.
Or alternatively, taken the credit for being Obvious Troll. Even on FanGraphs, they have their place too.
$30 mil signing bonus. Damn bro that’s some cash sauce.
Really interesting what the Red Sox are going to do now. They desperately need starting pitching. They also have too many bats to play at once. It seems that teams with pitching may wait the Sox out. They’ve got Bucholtz, Kelly and Webster. They need at least two more frontline starters. I don’t know if Shields and Masterson will cut it–and I don’t know if the Red Sox are going to offer enough to sign Shields considering how they value Lester.
Shark is off the trade market, and the Nats are contenders. They aren’t moving Zimmerman for minor prospects. Ruben Amaro sat on Cliff Lee until he lost all value, he seems to be intent on doing the same with Hamels.
The Red Sox may have really hurt themselves letting Lester go. Should be interesting how the rest of the off season plays out.
What if they just go nuts and trade for cole hamels? I dont think its out of the realm of possibility..
But why? They have Lester, Hammel, Arietta, Travis “Pretty Good” Wood (nickname pending); their rotation is solid as is. Why get rid of some of your young, promising prospects to patch it up? Signing Lester did that.
Arietta has exactly one season over 1.6 WAR, Wood had the 4th worst xFIP among qualified starters last year, and Hammel’s career xFIP would put him in the neighborhood of the 70th best. Edwin Jackson or maybe Dan Straily is currently the 5th starter. They could just give it another year to see what they had with these guys last year was real. But if they all pitch to career norms, contention in 2015 is a long shot.
very much otm. Even if Arrieta performs as well as last year — for the first time in his career, and over a full season rather than just part of one — they’re about an SP and a half away from a good rotation.
Another mid-tier SP, an RP, and a glove-first CF would put this team in a good place imo.
Hamels should not cost any “young, promising prospects” – he just doesn’t have that much surplus value, so if a team decides he is worth that, then they are not working in synch with the modern market. Ignore whatever Amaro says.
That said – there’s no real reason for any team to think their rotation is solid as is. It does not take much for a rotation to collapse. Every team could use depth.
The Giants can fill all their holes with Headley, Melky, and McCarthy/Santana for the same money Lester got. Make it happen Sabes.
Nobody bringing up that the Cubs are destined to win the World Series this year? Has no one seen Back to the Future 2?
There would have to be a lot of changes for them to beat Miami.
What is unremarked upon with the Lester story is how Billy Beane totally misfired on the Lester trade. Traded a useful player still under contract for a pitcher who they could not extend a QO to, or get draft pick compensation for, and who blew up in the playoff game. Seems like they just gave away Cespedes. This was very questionable at the time, but looks a bit desperate now.
When vegas puts the odds at 12:1, you know the cubs have something going; anyone saying otherwise is a sox fan.
I might have to repeat this comment in other articles, but I’m reminded of all those that said the Royals went all-in a year early with the Shields trade. A solid ace is hard to reach when you need/want it, and Lester will provide value for a few years at the minimum; if not in 2015, then beyond to 2016-17, in which the Cubs either project to, or can project to contend.