Red Sox Sign David Price
In perhaps the easiest move to predict of the entire winter, Dave Dombrowski went and bought his new team an ace. And it’s the same ace he went and bought 18 months ago, for his old team, so I think we can say with a good amount of clarity that Dombrowski likes David Price. A lot.
To lure the best free agent pitcher on the market to Boston, the team gave him the largest contract for any pitcher in baseball history: seven years, $217 million. In addition to the $31 million annual average value, Price also gets an opt-out after the third year, so the deal could be viewed as a three year, $90 million contract, with a four year, $127 million player option that Price can choose to exercise if he gets injured or sees his performance diminish. So not only does Price’s deal beat Max Scherzer’s contract from a year ago in terms of total value and not include the deferred money that Scherzer took to get that total, but he also gets the right to hit the market again and get an even larger payday in a few years if he continues to pitch at a high level over the next 600 innings.
In terms of expectations, this deal beats the crowd’s estimate by $21 million, though my 7/$215M guess ended up being pretty close, though I didn’t think he’d also get an opt-out. Steamer projects him for +5.3 WAR in 2017, so based on our normal assumptions about the free agent market, the $/WAR framework would have had him at just a hair over $240 million. If you think the opt-out is worth about $25 million, then this is almost exactly in line with an $8 million per win estimate for free agents in this market.
| Year | Age | WAR | $/WAR | Est. Value |
| 2016 | 30 | 5.3 | $8.0 M | $42.4 M |
| 2017 | 31 | 4.8 | $8.4 M | $40.3 M |
| 2018 | 32 | 4.3 | $8.8 M | $37.9 M |
| 2019 | 33 | 3.8 | $9.3 M | $35.2 M |
| 2020 | 34 | 3.3 | $9.7 M | $32.1 M |
| 2021 | 35 | 2.8 | $10.2 M | $28.6 M |
| 2022 | 36 | 2.3 | $10.7 M | $24.7 M |
| Totals | 26.6 | $241.2 M |
Value: $8M/WAR with 5.0% inflation
Aging Curve: +0.25 WAR/yr (18-27), 0 WAR/yr (28-30),-0.5 WAR/yr (31-37),-0.75 WAR/yr (> 37)
It’s certainly a huge commitment, but it’s a huge commitment for a great player, and Price should help get the Red Sox back to being a playoff contender. Their work certainly isn’t done after adding just one arm, but this is a big first step for the Red Sox.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
That’s a lot of money to waste on a pitcher who can’t win in the playoffs.
David Price in the regular season: 104-56, 3.10 ERA
David Price in the postseason: 0-7, 5.27 ERA
Come October every year they will regret this signing.
Congrats Red Sux fans, your ticket prices are going up, AGAIN! Highest prices, worst ballpark, perennial losers!
04,07,13 nice talking to ya
Don’t feed the trolls.
What’s the troll response to this? Something about Boston being in last place come October? I think I have to throw in a jab at the projections liking Boston, and probably something about Dave Cameron being personally biased towards Boston. There, I have contributed to this exchange.
Price’s postseason numbers are inconsequential. After all, his team actually has to make it to the postseason for those numbers to matter, so no point worrying about it for a few years.
How often do we go back and compare the aging curves, inflation rates, etc. etc. to observed data
Where do you think they come from?
2014 Tigers rotation w/ current contracts:
-Price, $217MM
-Scherzer, $210MM
-Verlander, $180M
-Porcello, $82.5M
-Sanchez, $80M
hmm https://twitter.com/AndrewSimonMLB/status/671815854502322177
Make that four.
How has this comment section become a magnet for fun-fact thieves?
Well, look at it from David Price’s view – when he goes back to the Trop this spring, the majority of the fans in attendance will be cheering for him for the first time in his career.
This is a thoroughly excellent comment. Why does it not have a gazillion upvotes.
You stole this joke.
I think he borrowed it from me off Over the Monster, but that’s OK. It’s too good not to share. 🙂
What’s going on here? Three different commenters have just copy-pasted someone else’s witty observation? For what? To inflate the reputation of a name on a site that anyone can steal? If the intention was to share a witty thought, then link to it, or credit the original. I’m just… why?
This is a big problem, a “beep”. I see it all the time. Thus:
Well, look at him with David Price showed trope when he returned this spring, most of the fans in the audience will enjoy all the first time in his career.
For Price’s deal to be “worth it” (at $7.5M/win), he needs to put up ~29 WAR. 22 SPs have done this in their age 30-36 seasons since WWII.
How many were hall of fame aces just like Price?
Price will be pretty lucky to make the hall at this point. Both versions of WAR have him less than halfway there.
I would imagine the median of those pitchers had more career WAR to the same point in their careers. In addition, since WWII counts a lot of pitchers who threw closer to 300 innings a season than 200, giving them a leg up when it comes to adding WAR.
Say what you want about Price’s future I think HoF might be a bit generous.
Some standard methods:
Black Ink: 28; Average HOFer ? 40
Gray Ink: 97; Average HOFer ? 185
Hall of Fame Monitor: 66; Likely HOFer ? 100
Hall of Fame Standards 30; Average HOFer ? 50
JAWS: 29.0 career WAR/28.6 7yr-peak WAR/28.8 JAWS
Average HOF for JAWS 73.9 career WAR/50.3 7yr-peak WAR/62.1
Most of those are cumulative over the course of a players career. Considering Price is likely only about halfway through his career some of these actually suggest he might end up with a decent case. Not saying he ends up there but it’s wayyyy too early to look at HOF metrics.
For Price’s deal to be “worth it” (at $1M/win), he needs to put up ~217 WAR. 0 SPs have done this in their age 30-36 seasons since the Civil War.
Wow. What a great deal for both Price and the Red Sox. And on the heels of Zimmerman signing a good deal with Detroit.
Cmon, baseball. Sign someone to an absurdly outrageous deal already. All these reasonable signings aren’t like you. I’m concerned about you.
I want the Dodgers to sign Greinke for like 3/111 or something ridiculous
Strangely enough, based on FanGraphs’ salary projection system, a 4/111 would be right at market value. So tack on another year and you wouldn’t be too far off.
I think Greinke could get 27M AAV over 6 years if he wanted, so he wouldn’t sign a deal of that same AAV for 4. If a team wanted to sign him for 3, they would have to inflate the AAV a lot, and that was my spitball of where it would land.
David Price has averaged 32 starts since 2010. At $31M/year, each outing in a 32-start season would be worth $968,750.
plus playoff appearances…
In the past 16 months I have:
– Traded for David Price
– Traded away David Price
– Signed David Price
I am jealous Dave.
But I’m definetly looking forward working with you!
Are you sure you don’t want to trad him one more time before dinner?
For sake of symmetry, the next move will be to release David Price?
The average annual value of David Price’s new deal is about 14 times what Harvey, DeGrom, Syndergaard and Matz made COMBINED this season.
All that tells us is that Mets fans should be jerking it 3 times day to that rotation
Brewers owner Mark Attanasio paid only $6 million more for entire franchise than the David Price contract.
David Price should use his money to buy the Rays franchise, trade for himself, then sign a massive contract extension.
Red Sox going to try David Price out in Left Field as well.
hmm https://twitter.com/CespedesBBQ/status/671810772532613121
Lol. It’s like, change the wording at least man, put in at least some minimal effort.
Fangraphs readers: follow @CespedesBBQ
congrats red sox on being the red sox again.
DD has fixed 2 of ben’s biggest mistakes – letting lester and miller go – already.
fixing ben’s other mistakes is going to be a bit harder, but it’s a great start.
meanwhile, my jays and our new gm are following ben’s “diversify risk” model. whoopee.
7 years $217 mill for a pitcher who can’t win big games because he chokes under pressure? That makes sense.
Over the last 100 years, only one pitcher has a lower ERA with min. 10 starts than David Price when pitching at Fenway Park:
Babe Ruth (1.76)
David Price is attempting the Kelly Johnson-play-for-every-AL-East-team-quest.
Every game David Price pitches, he will get paid twice what Sandy Koufax made in his career.
Wow, pretty crazy considering literally everything else about them is exactly the same.
*high five*
David Price adds ~5 wins to the 2016 Red Sox who are not the same as the 2015 Red Sox, but if they were, it would make them an 83 win team
That’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works.
I just opted out of my pants.
Dave you keep saying the $/Win is $8MM, however your projection above is $9MM/Win. Is the $8MM / Win based on the first year of the contract only?
It’s $8M with 5% inflation as he says
The issue for me is the Red Sox essentially signed the same pitcher they let go for $60M more. I mean Price and Lester are essentially two of the most similar pitchers in all of baseball. I’d prefer David Price because he has more velocity, but still.
3.08 SIERA vs. 3.40, 73 FIP- vs. 81 over the last three years. I don’t see much similarity outside of ERA.
What you said.
Granted, if Jon Lester were still in tow, this signing probably doesn’t happen but the two pitchers are hardly facsimiles of each other or anything.
David Price will also be taking two and a half months of intel on the best offence in baseball to a division rival.
I learned that you should swing the bat really fast and hit the ball over the fence! Then throw your bat. And sometimes throw your bat as you swing and then look down at your hands.
David Price will average $31 million over his contract. Tom Brady, for this year and remaining two contract years, averages $9 million.
hmm https://twitter.com/AndrewBrandt/status/671834019198164992
Are we really giving people shit for not citing a tweet? Really? Who cares – it’s an interesting factoid I wouldn’t have scoured twitter for but saw here. That’s the way the Internet works.
Is linking the original “giving him shit”?
I mean, on a relatively anonymous comment section here, whatever, but there are people out there that make a living stealing other people’s jokes (MLB Memes, the Fat Jew) and yeah it sucks.
Random question(s):
Are aging curves for pitchers the same as position players? Just seems like there is more downside risk on pitchers with pitchers falling off a cliff (and being out of baseball if not under contract) or getting injured.
Do the aging curves look the same?
Is there a chance of more survivor bias in the curve for pitchers? Or is this accounted for?
As far as largest contract in baseball history: I think Kershaw signed for this exact amount, counting the signing bonus, which is pretty crazy considering his contract bought out one arbitration year, and also has an opt-out. This would obviously be the largest free agent contract though.
Let me tell you a story about a great left handed starting pitcher named Roy Halladay……
Let me tell you a story… nah, nevermind.
I bet some of you are gonna laugh at that comment. But in every one of these pictures his throwing arm is on the left:
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSDqdoiT2wV3fPguDN6ljTPirRgAY3bPGgMZv-x0SVxXPV8y5wB
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ8DyNi2qQNVbipvd6YtruWYTIqlRo7KHq4gmQHTkIb65f1UJ_7
https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRi7xSRlyFM9PUJ369WIGV3xJq1HItFPLrRWaSSzfgVfuNLFt9aYQ
2014 Tigers rotation w/ current contracts:
-Price, $217MM
-Scherzer, $210MM
-Verlander, $180M
-Porcello, $82.5M
-Sanchez, $80M
Well, look at it from David Price’s view – when he goes back to the Trop this spring, the majority of the fans in attendance will be cheering for him for the first time in his career.
The Contract Estimate chart assumes a $/WAR value of $8m in 2016, with 5% inflation. Shouldn’t that starting value of include 5% inflation of this year’s $8/WAR, though?
It may seem nitpicky, but starting at $8.4m/WAR in 2016 and inflating 5%/yr from there adds up to an extra $12m in value over the course of the deal.
If $/WAR is 8.4, 8.8, 9.3, 9.7, 10.2, 10.7, 11.2, the total value becomes $253 over the 7 years.
8mil is an educated guess anyway, as is the 5% inflation. Plus we don’t take into account actual inflation or how the contract is structured, so meh.
I don’t think I’d evaluate the opt out by adding on $25M, especially from the Red Sox perspective. I’d read it, from your projections as either the Red Sox are getting $120M of value for $90M over three years (huge bargain!) or $240M in value for $217M (small bargain). According to the projection, all the optout does is make it more likely that the Red Sox are getting a better bargain.
I mean, it looks like you’re interpreting the opt-out as if it is a plus for the Red Sox, which it definitely isn’t. Considering it adds value in favor of Price at the expense of the team, it makes sense to think of it in terms of extra money the team spent.
Generally, contracts pay players about what they are expected to do, which leaves approximately equal room for them to perform better or worse. In practice, there is usually more room for a player to be worse, but let’s take my previous premise for the sake of simplicity. If Price performs worse than expected, he doesn’t opt-out, and so it is as if he’d signed this same contract without the opt-out. However, this is not a good outcome for the Sox. If he doesn’t opt out, it could be because at that point he expect to produce far less value than he is going to be paid for over the next 4 seasons.
It’s the case where he does better than expected that this matters. The upside of this deal is that he is better than he is being paid for, like if he averages 6 WAR over the first three years. If that is the case, then the Sox obviously want to hold onto him for the remaining 4/127, but they can’t. So that effectively limits the upside for this deal. It’s kind of like having a prospect who, if he breaks out, gets to become a free agent the next year. That’s not a very valuable prospect to have.
The second scenario – Price pitching better than expected and then opting out – is still a very favorable situation for the Red Sox in my opinion. It’s a win for both sides; Price will get more money on the open market, while the Red Sox got a ton of surplus value over the first 3 years of the deal (while not having to pay for the back-end of the contract).
If, however, Price pitches slightly worse or much worse than expected, then the opt out is certainly not at all good for the Red Sox. Price would decline the opt out, and the Red Sox are on the hook for the end of the contract.
But I still see the opt-out as strictly a benefit to the player and more of a neutral to the team rather than a major hindrance to the team.
Except in this scenario they would prefer to have him at this price than to lose him. If he opts out and they want to re-sign him, it would cost even more than his remaining contract. Basically, Price has to assess what contract he would get on the market after the three years. If he thinks he could get higher than the remaining sum, he will opt out, and the Red Sox will have lost some value.
I agree that the risk of the opt-out is relatively small for them. Not having to pay a guy 120 over 4 years is not a terrible outcome, even if that is less than he is worth. Greinke is a good example of this. The Dodgers really would love if they had him for 3/71 now, but in exchange for a lower overall contract guarantee, they gave up some upside by allowing him to deny them some years of surplus value. Greinke basically delivered the most value someone could have reasonably expected him to for the first three years.
Even if he outperforms the first three years of his contract, the last four still have greater risk because he will be older. I probably wouldn’t go so far as to say the opt-out is a positive for the Red Sox, but as you alluded to if they could have signed Price for 3/90 I think they would have prefered that to 7/217.
As I see it, the opt out is nothing but a positive for the Red Sox and this is why.
If the Red Sox, or any team, had to choose between offering Price a 3/90 or a 7/217 contract every single franchise would choose the former. Every single franchise. Every time. Given Price’s age and the number of dollars involved it is impossible to imagine any team choosing the later. Ever. Unless they had a crystal ball that could foretell seven years into the future of a 30+ year old pitcher with a substantial amount of mileage on his arm. All else being equal the 3/90 contract is far better for any team, especially given Price’s age and the vicissitudes of pitcher health.
So why did the Red Sox offer Price 7/217, you ask? Because they had to. They are a big market team that needs to mollify a restive fan base and usher out one of their all-time greats, Papi, on a winning note. The market dictates that 30 something starting pitchers with any kind of successful resume get overpaid for their declining years. That’s simply a fact of MLB reality. The examples are too numerous to list. One can rail against this reality but that won’t change the reality. Life is unfair. Billionaire owners have to pay over the hill pitchers tens of millions of dollars that they will likely never earn. C’est la vie.
So why is the opt out advantageous to the Red Sox under any circumstances, you ask? Because there is no possible downside given the reality the Red Sox live in. If Price stinks and decides not to opt out, the Red Sox were going to sign Price, or another of his ilk, for substantially the same contract. As long as the Red Sox were determined to land a front line FA pitcher this off season, and they clearly were, a nine figure contract was inevitable. The opt out does nothing to change that reality. If Price pitches well and decides to opt out, that is even better for the Red Sox. To begin with they get three years of an Ace level pitcher for market value while he generates both surplus value and actual on field performance. That’s great for the Red Sox. And for Price too! He will then get to renegotiate a more lucrative deal for himself with any team he likes. The Red Sox will have the chance to see Price up close for three years and then revaluate both the pitcher and where their team is at competitively speaking. (I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Kimbrel’s deal, including the team option, ends at the same time as this opt out potentially kicks in). If the Red Sox decide they want to resign Price for more money so what? I doubt it will be any more costly than Scherzer’s deferred money on his big contract. The flexibility the Red Sox will have at that point is worth the risk of not being able to resign Price if he opts out. Even paying more for Price in three years time does not out weigh the value of that potential flexibility. The opt out is an unqualified good for both sides.