Phillies Get Bryce Harper and Bryce Harper Gets Massive Payout
This offseason, Bryce Harper failed to reach an agreement with 29 teams on a long term contract that will pay him more millions in any one deal than any baseball player has ever received before. Fortunately for Harper, there are 30 teams in major league baseball, and after a winter (and arguably, a life time) of waiting, the 26-year-old and the Philadelphia Phillies have agreed to a contract that will pay Harper $330 million dollars over 13 years, with a no-trade clause and no deferrals or opt-outs, per Jon Heyman and Jeff Passan. In exchange for that large guarantee, the Phillies get a star player, both in reputation and performance. His five-win 2019 projection is one of the very best in the game, and he greatly improves the Phillies’ chances of a playoff spot in a tough division.
Prior to adding Harper, the Phillies had already made several big moves, adding J.T. Realmuto, Andrew McCutchen, Jean Segura, and David Robertson. Despite those additions, the Phillies were still projected for a win total in the low 80s, and found themselves in a real fight with the Braves and Mets for second place in the division. Harper jumps into a corner outfield spot with the Phillies and improves the team by around four wins over what Nick Williams would’ve provided, vaulting the Phillies past the Mets and Braves and into a conversation with the Nationals for best team in the division and potentially the National League. Harper gets his record-breaking contract, topping Machado’s free agent deal and Giancarlo Stanton’s $325 million extension. The money is more spread out, with a roughly $25 million average annual value that could benefit the Phillies as they navigate the competitive balance tax in the future, so go ahead and start (or continue) the rumor that Mike Trout will make his way to Philly after the 2020 season.
While the wait this winter has been a long one, as free agency drags into spring training, this deal has been an even longer time coming for the former teen phenom. Ten years ago, a 16-year-old Harper was asked what he wanted from baseball, and he responded with all the bravado of a teenager, mentioning the Hall of Fame, pinstripes, and becoming “the greatest baseball player who ever lived.” As for the criticism that came with the comparisons to LeBron James and seeming hubris of a wunderkind gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated when he could barely drive, Harper embraced it, saying “I love the way people talk crap. I hear it all the time. Overrated. You suck. I’ll just do something to shut them up, like, I’ll show you.”
A decade later, he’s still on track for the Hall of Fame, though New York’s trade for Giancarlo Stanton made pinstripes unlikely, and Mike Trout’s existence all but ensures that Harper won’t even be the greatest player of his generation. That Harper might have to settle for Cooperstown speaks to the great expectations placed on the former number one overall pick and NL Rookie of the Year. As for those trying to cut him down, a decade has likely wisened Harper to the reality that nothing he can do will ever stop the naysayers or the perception that he hasn’t done enough. After putting up consecutive four-win seasons at 19 and 20 years old, Harper was rewarded by his peers by being voted the most overrated player in the game two years in a row. While multiple All-Star-level campaigns should have been enough to draw positive attention, Harper wasn’t satisfied; he got better. At 22 years of age, he put up one of the greatest single hitting seasons of all-time and won the NL MVP award unanimously. Just two seasons later, he was again considered the most overrated player in the game by his peers.
The expectations placed upon Harper by the media, his agent Scott Boras, and by Harper himself have shaped the way he is viewed by players and fans. The Commissioner opted to single Harper out for daring to think a $400 million contract was a reasonable ask. When greatness is the standard, slumps, team failures in the playoffs, injuries that have shortened seasons, and one season’s worth of poor defensive metrics garner more attention than a Hall of Fame pace. With this contract, those expectations aren’t going away, but if his track record, projections, and comps are any indication, some of the boasts of a 16-year-old might well become reality, as Harper continues to put up Hall of Fame caliber numbers.
Comparisons help frame our understanding of players, but in free agency, historical comparisons can often do a disservice to a player like Harper. Most free agents are older than he is. Andrew McCutchen became a free agent for the first time this winter at age 32. When Harper reaches McCutchen’s age, he will be in the seventh year of his contract. Comparing Harper’s contract to 10-year deals is nearly meaningless when those deals miss on multiple prime years at the beginning and instead mostly contain multiple years in the late-30s when age decimates nearly all players. Perpetuating the owner’s message that 10-year deals don’t work out is an exercise without utility.
Since Jackie Robinson joined the majors in 1947, only 13 players have put up a WAR within five of Harper’s 30.7 and within 20% of his 3957 plate appearances through their age-25 seasons, including Manny Machado. The 11 players who preceded this year’s free agent pair averaged 39 WAR from age 26 through age-35, and eight of the 11 players are in the Hall of Fame. Even ignoring Harper’s MVP season, his comps create an incredibly high floor. According to my colleague Dan Szymborski, ZiPS, which uses some fairly conservative playing time estimates due to the length of the deal, still has Harper worth more than 30 wins over the life of the contract even with the last few seasons projected to be below replacement-level.
In the past two decades, the only players at Harper’s age or younger to reach free agency with a similarly high level of play are Alex Rodriguez, whose 140 wRC+ through age-25 is identical to Harper, and Manny Machado. The latter just received his own $300 million deal, while the former signed for $252 million nearly two decades ago. Those dollar figures can also deceive in free agency, as Rodriguez’s deal is worth close to $600 million in today’s payroll dollars. Machado’s contact might be the first free agent contact to reach $300 million, but it’s the 10th MLB contract to reach that amount in today’s dollars, while 22 deals have been worth $252 million or more adjusting for MLB payroll inflation.
It’s possible that Harper’s defense has taken a more lasting turn for the worse, and will limit his value going forward. It’s possible Harper gets hurt. He might age poorly. There is inherent risk in making any decade-long-plus commitment when you only get to see a single outcome. It’s important to bake that risk and that downside into future expectations. When we factor that risk with the very good player Harper has mostly been, the great player he’s sometimes been, and the upside associated with a star’s late-20s–make no mistake, even at this high cost, there is still substantial upside–this is an objectively good deal. Adding Harper for 2019 is always going to look good. Every single team in baseball would love to have had Harper for this season. The reason those 29 other teams don’t is their unwillingness to make the substantial commitment that comes after this season. Those teams undoubtedly have their reasons for not making that outlay, but based on everything we know, the Phillies did a very good job in securing a likely Hall of Famer fairly early on his career while paying a reasonable price to do so. For both sides, it has been a long time coming.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
Sullivan said 326 million, what a fraud.
On a more serious note this seems like kind of an absurd length unless Harper turns into Hank Aaron (Stanton length also stupid but team extensions tend to look that way, e.g. Ryan Howard/Miguel Cabrera/Joey Votto; also apparently it was movable).
Phillies “We’ll give you 12/324”
Boras “Fuck that shit!”
Phillies “Alright 13/330”
Boras “Deal.”
Thing is…Harper will “only” be 38, come Year 13 of his deal.
Jeter had a 117 wRC+ in his age 38 season.
A-Rod had a 129 wRC+ at age 39 (although, given the reason there’s no data for his age-38 season, he may not be an ideal comp).
Those guys are obviously not the norm…but it’s not crazy to expect him to maintain a high level of performance through his mid-late 30s.
I haven’t thought about this too deeply, but this is why I thought it was weird that there was so much smoke about landing Machado and Harper with very-high AAV deals, but that were shorter in length. They’re young enough that while a 13-year deal will be terrible on the back end, there is a decent chance they’ll still be worth a roster spot, and maybe even good enough to start.
exactly….harper is not pujols or cabrera and sigining 10 year deals when he’s 34 years old. Harper and machado are only 26. tons of comps that played at extremely high level until they were 38.
There isn’t though. Run simulations, odds Harper or Machado are 2 win players at age 38 are extremely low.
Age curves have changed alot.
Harper wasn’t even a 2 win player last year. There’s plenty of risk that he isn’t worth this paycheck by the time he’s 38.
According to BRef, Harper was a 1.3 WAR player last year. According to Fangraphs though, 3.5
Dude you pay money to be a member here and can’t even be bothered to look at Fangraphs WAR?
And the flip side of this is Jason Heyward had a 5.6 fWAR/6.6 bWAR season at age 25 before hitting the open market
Heyward did that with a 121 wRC+, carried by a .330 BABIP despite a sub-30 “Hard%,” and a .146 ISO in Busch.
288 different position players have played during their Age 38 since 1950.
15 of them produced at least 3 WAR … 5.2%
42 of them produced at least 2 WAR … 14.58%
82 of them produced at least 1 WAR… 28.5%
116 of them produced 0 WAR or less … 40.3%
YMMV on the definition of “crazy” and “high level of performance”
That’s actually pretty encouraging that the “average” 38 year old there still beats replacement level ~60% of the time and produces above average (>2WAR) ~20%. Assuming normal aging for Harper I like his chances for those probabilities to be much higher than those averages given the very high present talent level to decline from. There is extremely low likelihood of extremely high production at 38 but what looks like a very solid chance at OK to above average production at 38.
The “average” 38 year old isn’t playing in MLB at the age of 38. The median 38 year old who *was* an MLB player earlier in his career is a negative WAR player who is accumulating 0 WAR because he’s no longer in the league.
Granted, Harper base been a well above average player, but the broader point stands that aging curves need to account for survivorship bias and just looking around at “here are the late 30’s players still in MLB” gives a very misleading view of all players as a group.
Exactly. The fact that in the past 68 years only 288 players have even played at age 38 is a big red flag on its own.
The average player hasn’t accumulated 31 WAR through age 25, either…as alluded to in the article.
This happens even at the higher end. I went back to 1969 and looked at every position player who had won an MVP and a high percentage of them were out of the league by age 38. And lots of others put up less than 1.0 WAR.
(of course, this comes with the caveat that there have been some poor MVP choices over the years, but even the poor choices were generally above average players).
No, “average 38 year old MLB player” is retired.
What you are observing is survivor bias.
A sample of 43 year old MLB players will show solid production as well, as pretty much only Jamie Moyer will count, all others retired. That doesn’t mean the typical 44 year old MLB player is projected to perform as Jamie Noyer did.
Same as true with 19 year old MLB players. Since generally only the greats play MLB at 19, the sample if such players will have string performance baselines- but in no way does that tell us anything about what can typically be expected from 19 year old typical ballplayers.
So, the question then becomes…how did 19 year old MLBers perform at 38???
i’d bet PAs are way down. Jim Thome posted an OPS over 1.000 in his age 39 year but accumulated “only” 3.0 fWAR because he played about half a season. That leaves a lot of room for another player.
These only add up to 255 players and 88%….
You seem to be forgetting the fact that A-Rod did steroids.
Glad it is done… but I find it a little irritating that the specifics of this contract seem so driven by the egos or Boras and/or Harper. I kind of wonder what his contract would have looked like without their apparent interest in showing that they have the biggest, uh, hands, out there.
The Dodgers offered Harper 4 years at $45M per. He could have absolutely smashed the AAV record and likely held the record for a long time (barring a moderate possibility that Trout breaks that record), but instead he chose to just barely top the overall guarantee record, which will almost certainly be bested by Trout in two years, if not by someone else earlier.
he chose another $150 million guaranteed. lol.
If the probability of Harper getting $150 million+ in free agency at age 30 is greater than 50%, then he would have been better off financially taking the Dodgers’ offer.
Not to mention the fact that he almost certainly preferred the Dodgers as a team and Los Angeles as a location.
Sure. Or he could just take the actual $150 million now and not worry about if he might/could get marginally more in the future.
No need to over think it.
If my first sentence was “over thinking” it to you, I don’t know what else to say. It was in pretty simple English.
You are comparing a meaningless AAV “record” to a guaranteed $150 million dollars. You are definitely overthinking things.
I’m not talking about an AAV record. I’m talking about this:
“If the probability of Harper getting $150 million+ in free agency at age 30 is greater than 50%, then he would have been better off financially taking the Dodgers’ offer.”
You know, the thing that I wrote and that you responded to.
Given how the past 2 FA seasons have gone and that nobody has any idea what the next CBA will do to the league’s financial structure taking the sure $150 million seems like a smart move.
It’s not like he’s going to be living on food stamps at age 40 because he missed out on an extra $20 million in his early 30s.
He bet on himself once, and it didn’t go completely smoothly. He’s suffered injuries, some serious, and his performance has been pretty volatile. I think Harper did the smart thing here.
“he could smash the AAV record”
As if that’s a thing anybody cares about? He gonna tell his grandkids all about his AAV? Is the Hall of Fame going to start putting AAV on plaques now? Please.
For comparison this what Hank Aaron did from age 26-38.
1960-72
151 G, .306/.380/.570, 162 OPS+, 38 HR, 109 RBI, 105 R, 173 H, 28 doubles, 70 BB, 323 TB, 7.1 fWAR
Aaron had nine of 13 seasons of at least 7.0 fWAR. How much would this performance be worth in today’s baseball market?
We will get an idea what Aaron or Mays would be worth in a couple years when Trout hits FA. . . . .
Given that Harper only had 1 season in 7 higher than 5.2 fWAR, Aaron would be looking at a $500M/13 contract now that we see how a team will pay Harper. Trout and Betts are both better players than Harper too, so 2021 will be much more interesting than 2019.
Betts is also a week older than Harper.
His deal likely looks more like Arenado’s.
He will be 28 when he hits free agency, so the biggest difference is that teams are likely going to be about as willing to give him an 8-year contract as they were willing to give Harper/Machado 10 year deals. So that will cut the overall value down a bit; if he wants a 10 year deal, it’ll come at the expense of AAV.
On the other hand, while he will be the second best player in that year, there is a non-zero chance that he will also be the second-best player to hit the free agent market since A-Rod in 2001. I don’t know how big it will be, but it’s going to be very, very, big–I wouldn’t be surprised if he and Trout both shatter Greinke’s AAV.
As an OG Mookie stan…he’s averaged 6.8 WAR/650 in his career to date, over ~4 years of PA.
A-Rod had averaged 6.8 WAR/650 in his four years before opting out in 2007.
Pujols had averaged 6.7 WAR/650 in his four.
The main concern I’d have with Betts’ FA value (which I still expect to be in the $30m per year range) is how heavily UZR and DRS inflate COF defense – the bump a 55 CF receives on moving to a corner is usually a fair bit more than a single win, and teams will likely account for that (I highly doubt any of them view Brett Gardner’s 2018 performance as similarly valuable to Nelson Cruz’s and Ketel Marte’s).
He’s “only” a 135 wRC+ guy on his career, and teams tend to value past offensive WAR as more indicative of expected future value than past defensive WAR.
Betts was one of my favorites too, although he has dramatically exceeded even my wildest expectations. My concern with Betts is similar; there’s something weird about Betts and his defense in right field–given how strangely it is shaped at Fenway, it is possible that the defensive statistics aren’t quite adjusting properly for how many balls he “should” be getting too. I haven’t been able to find any home/road splits for defensive statistics to verify, but still, he’s at least an average center fielder and that’s no joke.
The terrifying thing about Mookie Betts is that although he’s going to regress a little bit, he had an OBP of .438 last year, and a .640 SLG. What he’s likely to regress to is still the best corner outfielder in major league baseball.
I’m 37 years old. Bryce Harper will still be under contract when I’m 50.
What!?
I’m 52, Harper will still be under contract when I’m dead, er, 65.
That’s one retirement strategy….
This is fun. . . .Clint Eastwood is 88 (89 in May), he will be 102 when Harper’s contract ends.
Next.
Bruce Sutter, who last pitched in 1988, will be drawing a salary from the Braves as a 69 year old in 2022.
https://www.ledger-enquirer.com/sports/mlb/atlanta-braves/article213840114.html
Bobby Bonilla will get 1.19 million annually thru 2035, I’d say he’s the winner?
Bobby is the real winner in the Madoff story.
The only winner.
Chuck Norris will be 91 when the contract ends. He’d out hit Harper if he wanted to.
Craig,
Congratulations on writing an article about Harper’s signing that avoids the extremes of resentment and euphoria about him. Well-reasoned.
Given Craig’s almost pleading insistence that Bryce is on a HOF pace, despite the fact that his WAR/PA doesn’t really bear that reasoning out, I would suggest that you read Dan Szymborski’s article, rather than this article, about the Harper signing if you really want an article that avoids the extremes.
Since when does the hof elect on results? He is the biggest name in baseball. That is enough.
A player who is 31st among batters in WAR by age 25, has won an unanimous MVP and selected to six all-star games is not on a HOF pace because…. he played in the majors while his friends were in AA and therefore his WAR/PA is not that great? Sounds about right.
Because… he really should be higher than 31st given that MVP season and his much earlier-than-average start; because he’s really only had the one great season and a lot of hall-of-very-good seasons that were marred by injury and/or long slumps, and he’s more than a third of the way through his career and already declining defensively; because he made the all-star team based on undeserved hype rather than actual production; because he’s been voted the most overrated player in the league by his own peers on multiple occasions. Next!
You can’t just ignore his one great season anymore than his fans can ignore his poor seasons. A few very good seasons and one great season makes for a very, very good player.
You can’t just ignore the poor seasons either. For sure Harper has a great start toward a Hall of Fame path based on WAR through age 25. But that’s carried by his MVP season and having six other seasons in that group. From age 23-25 (cherry picked, for sure), he’s 241st in WAR. That’s not even close to Hall of Fame.
The question on Harper is whether 2015 was the fluke or 2018. (I know, they both were.)
No one is ignoring that it happened or dismissing the possibility that it could happen again, but the reality is that it happened four years ago and he hasn’t reached 5 WAR in any other season. The most reasonable approach is to treat that historic season as a wonderful outlier while viewing Harper as a likely 3-5 WAR per season player going forward.
Not everyone in the Hall is an inner circle guy.
Bryce is easily on a HOF WAR pace if he continues put up 3.5-4.0 WAR seasons on a reasonable aging curve. Debuting at 19 and being good provides a humongous margin of error.
Also, he already has the the “Fame” part down at 25 and is just 10 WAR short of Harold Baines and 20 short of Jim Rice to begin his age 26 season.
Also, he’s got 184 bombs thru age 25, and is moving from a park that suppressed LH power to CBP.
The man is very much on track for 500.
I get that my above comment was downvoted, but my point stands. The HOF elects a lot of non-deserving players. I think he will end up being a deserving player, but even if he is not, he will get in because he is “Bryce Harper” . My wife cannot name a single baseball player, but she can describe “the one will the cool hair”.
It’s true that not all hall-of-famers are inner circle guys, but given the massive hype that surrounds Harper, if he limps to a career WAR total in the 50s or even the 60s–which is entirely possible given he has only a few years left in his 20s and is perhaps already declining, at least defensively–and if he becomes scorned and hated by the Philly faithful for underperforming his “record” contract, he becomes a man without a country and his fancy hair won’t get him over the HOF finish line. His legacy will be one of disappointment.
The reporting that it’s a front-loaded deal is interesting to me. I wonder if Harper demanded such a structure in part to the make the contract more tradeable in a few years. I wouldn’t fault him for wanting to secure a way out of the city in case he comes to develop the same kind of rocky relationship with Philly fans and media that other stars have.
It seems odd he would want to negotiation that front loaded structure for this reason, then show no interest in opt outs. I know its not the same, opt out you lose your guarantee, but they are similar enough in value to at least be worth talking about.
We don’t know that Harper showed no interest in an opt out; Philadelphia may simply have refused to agree to one. If that’s the case, then Harper may have fallen back on a front-loaded deal as an alternative mechanism to provide a means of leaving the city in the future. And Philadelphia would likely be more willing to agree to a front-loaded deal than an opt out because–as hebrew points out below–the front-loaded deal helps Philadelphia align their payroll for a run at Trout in two years.
Everything costs money… And an opt out would lower the total value and the boras/harper ego would suffer…
why would he want a no-trade clause then?
The front-loading is to help the Phillies get Trout
Because even if he wants out of Philly, he wants some measure of control over where else he might land.
Possible reasons:
– more tradable during the later years
– more money in pocket by the time the new CBA & potential of strike in 3 years comes around
– present day dollar is always worth more than a dollar tomorrow, 5 years or 13 years from now (I rather get more now and invest at 5% for than get same # later without interest)
I think the whole Philly fans/media turning on players is overblown. If you’re an overall good guy, who plays hard, and says the right things-the fans don’t really turn on you. The fans loved Thome, even when he came back that one year where he was a shell of his former self. The fans still love Utley. The fans still love Victorino. The fans still love Hamels. Etc etc.
The only people the fans and media ever really turned on were guys who were gigantic jerks who play poorly. (Like Papelbon). Or guys who run Philadelphia down on their way out of town. (See: Jayson Werth or Scott Rolen). Sure, they might be a little tougher than fans from cities that aren’t as passionate about their baseball (like San Diego) but they’re no worse (and I’d argue a bit better) than cities like New York, Boston, and Chicago.
You’re probably right, which is why it’s predictable that Philly fans will turn on Harper.
lol.
Yeah, just like they’ll turn on Carson Wentz for being a hypercompetitive asshole who’s obsessed with greatness?
Philadelphia likes players who play hard, are passionate, and don’t take crap from the other team. Harper should be fine.
Exactly – he’s a dick, but it’s in the De/LeSean style, not Jason Babin.
It’s a little like this here bacon sandwich. I’ll enjoy it now and worry about the bad stuff when I’m old, which I will be when this deal is ending.
30+ wins over the life of the deal: $330M over the life of the deal. Let’s say it’s 33 wins, just to make it a nice easy round number. That would be $10M per win. That’s a good deal? It’s over 13 years so some of it is “deferred” value and therefore worth less, but that’s well above the going rate, even if you want to use the unlikely-to-be-true-for-position-players-but-commonly-asserted $9M/win figure.
So much of whether this is a good deal depends on what version of Harper you’re getting. Unlike virtually every other megadeal I’ve heard of (including Machado and Arenado’s deal), there’s a tremendous amount of potential surplus value because he could light it up and puts up 30 wins in the first six years of his deal; that’s not out of the range of possibility. He put up 4.8 in 492 PAs in 2017. and he’s only 26. But because nobody is confident that’s the version of Harper they’ll be getting, this is a very expensive gamble; this guy is not consistent like Manny Machado or Nolan Arenado. Aside from the inherent risks of anyone getting hurt, this is a guy who only put up 3.5 wins last year, whose fielding metrics cratered, who has been hurt a lot, etc. It’s very much like the Stanton contract, except with big questions about his fielding ability and a penchant for making badly timed remarks like about how his team should have traded for Realmuto*.
…
*he got his wish! but late.
“That would be $10M per win. That’s a good deal?”
What was the $/win 13 years ago? Was it still around $8M or much lower?
Dave Cameron estimated it as $7M/win in 2014. That’s the last number I’ve seen that I trust, because it used ZiPs/Steamer prospectively. Someone told me they were starting to replicate it this offseason, and it clocked in at $8M. And yes, it’s “deferred”, so we would expect it to go a little farther, although we don’t know what the structure yet and so can’t analyze that part properly.
I’m not sure going back to 2006 makes a lot of sense, though. For one, that time period includes the introduction of the massive cable deals into the MLB, including the founding of the YES network. Those will continue to go up in value, although almost certainly nothing like what we saw before, especially with increasing mergers between entities that bid on sports TV rights.
This is an interesting thing that needs to be drawn out more though–the Net Present Value discount for future years makes a big difference. I’m not sure what it is, but I’d be wary of making it too high.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation
Yes. Deferred payment is useful because of inflation. We agree?
Sad:
Yes, it’s an overpay. Yes, he is inconsistency and narcissism made flesh. Yes, his average WAR for his last seven seasons is under 4. Yes, he can’t play defense. Yes, the Phillies should never have agreed to this.
Expect him to turn into Albert Pujols II before long.
Pujols was like six years older than Harper is now when Albert signed his mega deal.
But, on the other hand, Pujols was also a much better player than Harper.
At that point in time? debatable . In his prime, pujols is obviously better
30 WAR seems like a low projection for Harper’s next 13 years. I imagine ~40 is closer.
The 30 win projection above seems to track Zips projections of 29.6 WAR over eight years from last summer, with the 8th year being 1.8 WAR. If that’s the case, then the last five years would see reduced playing time or worst case, negative value.
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-thoroughly-average-exploits-of-bryce-harper/
What’s a good deal, purely paying for performance? He’s the most marketable player in baseball right now.
You kinda forgot about $/WAR inflation.
I didn’t, I just didn’t express it that well, and I’m also not entirely sure how to account for it yet.
Neither does FanGraphs. For a while there, Cameron and others kept assuming increases in $/WAR that didn’t actually come to pass. I think they were up in the 9-10 million range for contract articles over the last couple of years before the recent analysis you mentioned dropped it back down to 8.
I think the days of dramatic expansion of $/win are likely over, as the cable money seems to be plateauing. It may still go up relative to inflation more generally, but I think that just calculating out a straight inflation rate with a slight bonus is the right way to go. Below, I used 35% increase over 14 years, and if someone else has a better (and more informed) guess I’d love to see it.
If inflation doesn’t take the average $/Win amount well above 10M, then that means free agent prices are being majorly suppressed. In which case the Phillies will barely have to worry about their budget and should focus on signing the best players. Such as Bryce Harper.
What makes you say that? If it is $8M/win now (which is what Eno reported) and the era of cable bidding has come to an end, then we’re looking at standard inflation rates. 2000-2013 was a 35% percent increase, which would put it above 10M by the end of the contract, but only at the end.
The key is trying to figure out whether massive increase from cable revenue will continue increasing beyond that. How much? Do you want to guess? I’m not so sure it’s going to keep going up.
IF the era of cable bidding ends right this second, player salaries still have a lot of room to grow before teams pay the same proportion of revenue on salaries that they did, say, 20 years ago. There’s no reason why salaries shouldn’t continue to rise at a 5% rate for the next few years at least.
Don’t teams spend about the same on players now as they did 20 years ago?
Not at all.
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-mlbpa-has-a-problem/
Those numbers used by Grow in 2015 are highly, highly disputed.
Some of that is on the payroll side, but it’s also on the revenue side. Over the period, there are some fairly big new revenue streams – MLB Network and MLBAM – that also have direct costs associated with running them. It’s tough to say exactly the methodology for Grow’s revenue numbers, because the link from his article is to a site that no longer exists.
Ben Lindbergh did a similar analysis in early 2018 and came up with a much different answer than Grow – https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/2/21/17035624/mlb-revenue-sharing-owners-players-free-agency-rob-manfred . Lindbergh looks at years from 2010 to 2017. He also references an AP analysis (from 2010) that would extend basically the same conclusion back to 2006. One of the points on the revenue side is to look at the actual *income* that teams are getting from MLB Network and MLBAM rather than just putting all of that *revenue* into the denominator without considering the costs of running those operations.
It’s possible that this trend will change – and maybe started to change in 2018 – since revenue again increased and total MLB payrolls decreased in 2018. I’ve variously seen that 2018 decrease reported as either $18 million (well less than 1%) or about $115 million (~2.5%).
I must have missed something. The answer presented in that link isn’t the result of Lindbergh’s analysis. Those are just the numbers that MLB gave him. It sounds reasonable that Grow’s numbers could be thrown off by just including the revenues and not including the associated costs. But remember that every revenue stream has associated costs, so the same issue has been present every time someone has taken account of the revenues and salaries, even before MLBAM. There’s no telling whether it’s more accurate to say the ratio is down 10% or holding steady; best guess is the truth is approximately the median of the two.
Butts in seats – a big $$$ win for the Phillies
Phillies play in pinstripes ;).
glad someone beat me to this one!
An OF of McCuthen, Harpr and Odubel will sure be scary for the Philly pitchers though. But that’s pretty much the only negative thing I can think to say. Enjoy your stud, Philly fans. The first 5 years are gonna be awesome!
Did you leave the “E” in Harper out on purpose?
No, but I kinda like it that way.
Why type Harper when Hrpr do trick
Hoskins will no longer be out there. So the philly pitchers probably aren’t that upset.
Below average maybe, but I wouldn’t call it scary.
Cutch is fine in a corner, and Harper’s been above average every year other than 2018.
When Harpers contract is up the Mets will only have 3 years left on Bobby Bonilla’s deal.
Eric, is this you?
5 years ago, I figured this joke would eventually get stale. But it’s still as fresh as the day the contract was signed.
It literally ends one year prior to Harper’s deal.
Bonilla gets paid through 2035.
I have a real question; could a club offer, say, 400 million on a 30-year contract, fully knowing the last 17+ years of the contract are essentially fake, to lower the AAV for luxury tax purposes?
All contracts are subject to approval by MLB. Something like that would never be approved for the exact reason you state (its just a blatant attempt to circumvent the tax)
The NHL went through this a few years ago. There was no explicit rule against it so teams were giving out ridiculously long contracts to lower the AAV for Cap purposes. The league stepped in and put in restrictions IIRC.
It was Kovalchuk’s deal iirc that was 15 years where he was gonna make around a mil or so a year per year in the last 3-4 years of his contract.
The 15 year one was the one that got accepted. The original deal that the NHL turfed was for 17 years and had him making $550k for the last 5 year’s.
The devils also got penalized for doing it as well. Some money and a 3rd round pick.
Oh yeah you are right my bad.
I also realized that Kovalchuk is somehow only 35 years old. I would have swore he was 45 at least lol.
Yeah, that was BS. I forget who it was, but that 15 year had *just* happened and got approved. Devils pushed that a little further and got railed because of it (and then Kovy skipped town, er, the country) not long after. So they got a huge penalty for playing the same game other teams had and only 2-3 years of a ‘superstar’ player? BS.
It was a first round pick, btw. That much I remember very clearly.
I’ve always wondered about the same thing.
A 30 year contract is obviously fake, but who is to prejudge a 20-year contract for Harper as a ploy?
You can’t be outrageous about it. But the Dodgers did something like this with Chase Utley’s last contract, they gave him a 2 year deal when everyone knew he would only play 1.
Eh, not really. Utley’s deal was split evenly. $1 million in 2018 and $1 million in 2019. By retiring he is giving up the $1 million he could have made this year.
If they had front loaded it so he made, say, $1.5 million in 2018 and only $500K in 2019 then maybe you could say they were playing games.
I’ve seen reporting that Utley was released by the Dodgers, but with the plan to retire (which he’d announced during the season well before being released), so I’m left unclear whether Utley gets his $1 million for 2019 or not.
According to Cots the Dodgers have nothing owed to Utley in 2019.
What happens when a player voluntarily retires while under contract is a good question though that I cant really find a solid answer to. One would have to assume its just null and void though?
They don’t get paid. Ask Gil Meche.
I agree with Mule that it’s very clear that the player doesn’t get paid for subsequent years of the contract if he voluntarily retires.
He does, OTOH, get paid if the team simply releases him. It’s a guaranteed contract.
What confuses me about Utley is that stories about his retirement have quotes such as: “Chase Utley was given his unconditional release by the Dodgers on Friday so the veteran second baseman can officially retire. Utley announced in July that 2018 would be his final season.” ( https://www.mlb.com/news/dodgers-release-chase-utley-who-will-retire/c-300524382 ) So that leaves me at ????? on whether that’s a release or a voluntary retirement for purposes Utley’s 2019 salary.
No. Once he is done playing, they recalculate the AAV and retroactively take “taxes”
That can’t be right. You are telling me that Dodgers had to pay extra taxes after they released Carl Crawford?
Nasty Nate’s claim is not correct.
If a player is released with the rest of his contract being paid over time, then that remaining amount just keeps going into the team’s future CBT calculation each year. There’s also an offset – for both dollars paid and the CBT calculation – for any amount paid to the player by a new team. In practice that means that players such as Sandoval and Tulowitzki sign minimum salary deals so there’s a minimum salary offset for their old teams.
Yeah I’m gonna need a source on that. Never heard anything like that before. How would that even work? The league applies the “recalculated” AAV retroactively? Like if Pujols retired after this year his AAV for the previous 8 years would go down because he was due 25% of his total salary over the last two years?
That cant be true.
OK, I was wrong. But I know there is something in place to address this potential loophole.
There are various measures in place to “true up” actual salaries paid to luxury tax numbers if the two differ over the length of a contract. I assume that also applies to voluntary retirements.
For example, team option buyouts are guarantees that are therefore spread over the guaranteed years of a contract for luxury tax purposes. So if a team does pick up an option year, there’s a “credit” for the buyout amount that was already recognized prior to the option year.
There’s something similar with player opt-outs, where if the player opts out then there’s a 1-year true-up if the salary paid prior to the opt-out was greater or less than the total recognized for luxury tax. I assume there’s something similar with voluntary retirements, since the player is foregoing money/years that could have salaries higher or lower than the overall AAV of the contract.
A team release – such as Crawford – is actually relatively simple for the luxury tax, though, since the team just keeps paying the rest of the contract and therefore recognizes luxury tax numbers as if the player was still on the team.
That’s a clown contract bro.
Well, the Phillies are a clown team.
But at least they aren’t the Mets.
That a deadspin level comment bro
The Phillies definitely have the mascot that most resembles a clown.
I’m surprised there’s no opt out. I guess Boras had to give that up in order to get the record breaking deal.
How valuable would an opt out for Harper be? Say after five years like Machado?
There’s a nonzero probability that he has a season before age 30 where he hits close to where he hit in 2015. No? If he did that or averaged 5 wins seasons over the next five years (less than likely but not out of the question) then this deal looks really good for Philly.
Considering Harper hasn’t consistently lived up to expectations (he’s been very good, no doubt) seems like that opt out would be more valuable to him than other players.
My third paragraph doesn’t make sense. Of course it’s a good deal for Philly under those conditions.
Just surprised there’s no opt out. Seems like it would be in Harper’s best interest to have one and accept less money overall considering the type of player he is.
Players in these situations are somewhat surprisingly risk-averse. Boras claimed that Harper had $45 million AAV on the table; if true, even for only a year or two, Harper certainly would have been well-positioned to take such a deal at his age. Perhaps the MLBPA and Boras pushed him to take the record overall deal, and to get that it doesn’t look like he could do so with an opt-out.
Thanks for your reply Tiago. Yeah, I wasn’t thinking from the player’s perspective. I’d be risk adverse too if I had the opportunity to sign one of these huge contracts.
If I were Harper I’d have given up some money to get an opt out or two, but then he would have lost the glory of having the biggest contract ever.
For a guy that has already made over $50 million not including endorsements it’s certainly a cautious decision. But I’ll keep his thought process in mind next time I’m offered $330 million 😉
Harper may just want to have the chance to commit and know he’s there for the long haul. One of the reasons guys take longer deals with lower AAV is because they are actually human beings. Human beings often crave stability and certainty.
Now that Machado has been overpaid, now that Arenado has been overpaid, and now that the preening narcissist is going to be drastically and grossly overpaid let’s hear no more about “players not getting paid.”
i don’t think you understand the argument that was being made, unfortunately
These guys are certainly not OVERpaid. I think all three of these contracts are in range of “fair” for both team and player. I think more concerning are the players a few tiers below – like Grandal and Marwin Gonzalez – not getting paid what they probably deserve.
There are really only four free agents contracts from this offseason that I think were gross underpays: Grandal, Cruz, Moustakas, and Dozier.
Since those signings, Grandal has publicly stated that he signed early because he wants to have certainty on where his family is going to live, implying that he could have obtained a better deal if he was willing to wait (like Harper and Machado did). And it’s been made known that Moustakas rejected a multi-year offer but chose to accept a one-year deal because he likes Milwaukee.
As far as Marwin “30 year old utility guy with one above-average season that was fueled almost entirely by insane batted ball luck” Gonzalez – 2 years $21M is solidly in the range of fair. As were the vast majority of all free agent contracts signed this winter.
I would add JA Happ and Wilson Ramos to that list. I also think that Jed Lowrie and Charlie Morton deserve some consideration, although I don’t think they were “gross” underpays.
I dunno that I’d call Happ an underpay(not that it’s an overpay), at seventeen mil a year he only got two years, but that was due to him being 35 years old. I agree on Ramos, its a big bargain I thought he’d get a three year deal at 12-13 mil a year.
I disagree. All three are likely to be overpays with Arenado’s being the least bad and most justifiable given his association with the organization. Machado’s contract has the potential to look really bad if he isn’t a 130+ wRC+ hitter away from Camden Yards, while Harper’s contract will look really bad if his defense doesn’t rebound.
Any public projection system will tell you that these dollar figures, based on current FA $/WAR estimations are well within the error bar of ‘fair’. You can certainly feel that it will eventually be an overpay, and that’s fine, but the original post is dead-on with these deals being fair for both team and player.
I suppose it depends on your definition of “fair.” ZiPS only has Harper projected to be worth 87.6% of his contract, and even that may be optimistic.
It may also be pessimistic – Harper is as high variance a player as you’ll find, and his defense this past year was firmly an outlier.
It certainly could be, but the odds of Harper falling short are much higher than the odds of him exceeding that WAR total.
I’ve heard some people praising Philadelphia for making a good deal at a low AAV. I’ve heard others excoriating the Phillies for making a massive overpay.
Usually when I see that much of a difference of opinion, I assume it’s a pretty fair deal.
I think a fair bit of that is driven by a fairly broad spectrum of views on Harper as a player.
Perhaps oversimplifying a bit:
The more optimistic view of him is a projection of ~5 fWAR in 2019, the ceiling of his ~9 fWAR in 2015, plus of course his age.
The more pessimistic view notes that’s actually averaged about 4.4 fWAR across 7 seasons (with his 2015 obviously moving that up), he put up 3.5 fWAR in a full season in 2018, and he hasn’t been a model of health even in his early 20’s (3 seasons with fewer than 500 PA’s each). People who bring Baseball Reference into the mix get even more pessimistic because rWAR has him with 3 seasons of less than 2 rWAR, including only 1.3 rWAR in 2018 (largely due to differing measures of defense).
“People who bring Baseball Reference into the mix get even more pessimistic because rWAR has him with 3 seasons of less than 2 rWAR, including only 1.3 rWAR in 2018 .”
Bingo! Harper is terribly inconsistent year to year with three seasons under 2 WAR and an average annual career WAR of under 4 AND he plays terrible defense and no one else here seems to realize this. This is a terrible overpay and will be a huge albatross contract.
Pretty great offseason for the Phillies I’m saddened to say and they just might be done. Their defense was hideous last year and they improved that by trading for Segura , and getting Hoskins the heck back to first base, which will help their uber talented rotation. The offense went from bad to very good at the very least. I would be surprised if they don’t win 90 games. This is as strong as the nl east on a whole has been maybe in at decades and one of the teams in the division could win 86-87 games and finish in 4th place. I dunno what people on social media are thinking saying a guy with Harper’s talent isn’t worth 25+ mil a year.
I wouldn’t necessarily call their defense good. I think their 3 outfielders will rebound from what they put up last year, but if you don’t believe that, their outfield will be below average. Their infield should be average to above average. Realmuto and Segura are pluses, Franco and Hoskins could be slight pluses to slight minuses, and second base is up in the air right now due to Hernandez’s injury. I do think it’s *possible* the defense is very good, if all these guys play like they have shown they can, but I think it’s also possible their defense (on the whole) to end up average-ish.
The Phillies’ 2018 defense was the worst by DRS since the metric was invented. There is no way they will jump from *that* to “good” in one offseason, especially when two of their new starters (McCutchen and Harper) are coming off of negative defensive value seasons.
Herrera had three consecutive seasons of well above average defense followed by a shit year, so should be considered above average.
McCutchen had 2 DRS and -0.4 UZR last year as a first full-time RF so calling his 2018 negative defensive season is misleading.
I wrote that it’d improve, which should help their starters other than Nola, who had a low Babip despite a bad defense. Eflin, Velasquez and Pivetta all had inflated earned run averages while their peripheral numbers say they were much better than that.
Meant to write might not be done.
I’d be interested to see how his defense grades out moving forward now that he has his contract. If you go back and look at some of his high probability catches that he didn’t make last year, he literally let balls drop that 2017 Harper runs into the wall and catches. I’d bet on the side of him going back to 2017 Harper, and seeing a defensive improvement. Nothing is certain, but this contract and free agency has been looming for years and I think his defense will improve back to close to average now.
Wouldn’t you think his max defensive effort would be in his contract year rather than in year one of 13 years of certainty? What is his motivation to run into a wall now ? (Other than sheer joy)
With a contract running essentially though the end of his career, he can now go back to his natural all-out playing style without worrying about an injury impacting his earning power. I think it makes a lot of sense.
“Wouldn’t you think his max defensive effort would be in his contract year”?
Of course it would. Now that he got the only thing he was interested in, which was the stupid money, watch for him to play even worst defense than ever because he has zero reason to care about it.
The “motivation to run into a wall now” is that he’s no longer risking his one shot at a record-breaking deal by doing so.
Strongly disagree. He basically got hurt doing something stupid every year of his career. That is how he played. He tried to not get hurt last year, it was evident. He has always been an all out player, and I personally think you will see that again.
Other than Derek Jeter’s contract, has a team ever, in MLB history, signed a player to a contract of ten or more years and not regretted it? The closest I can think of is Seattle with Cano, and that’s only because they got the Mets to take over the back end by throwing in their most valuable trade asset.
You are assuming teams regret carrying dead money. I don’t think They do. Especially if they win beforehand.
If the phillies and Harper are good for the the next 5 year’s I doubt they care too much if he is overpaid in year 10-13
No, I’m not talking about teams regretting dead money. I’m talking about, at the end of a ten+ year contract, other than Derek Jeter, has any team ever said “if I could go back in time and re-do that contract again, I absolutely would”? Like, for example, here’s my thoughts off the top of my head as to what a few teams who signed ten year deals would say, if they could get a do-over:
Pujols / Angels: probably the worst contract of all time
Stanton / Marlins: absolutely not
Rodriguez / Yankees: no, the one championship wasn’t worth literally everything else
Rodriguez / Rangers: they hated the deal almost immediately and paid tens of millions to get rid of a guy who had literally JUST won the MVP
Winfield / Yankees: Steinbrenner hated this deal so much he hired a two bit mobster to get him out of it
Tulowitzki / Rockies: dear God no
Zisk / Rangers: one of the forgotten worst deals of all time, to a guy who retired halfway through it
Garland / Indians: 5.0 total fWAR over 5 years before he was waived
Votto / Reds: ehhhhh
Helton / Rockies: ehhhhh
What reason would a team have for saying they would not re-do a deal other than feeling like they wasted money??
I’m legitimately confused by this statement.
Teams know that they’ll have dead money at the end of contracts, and that’s the trade off for disks value early on. What I’m saying is, in its entirety, looking at the whole of a ten year contract… what teams haven’t regretted signing them?
Man this is a bad take and Arod earned every dollar and more on his first long term deal. As far as Votto I gotta ask are you Marty Brennanman?
ARod was worth the money, but after only three years they were so desperate to get out of the contract that they threw trends of millions of dollars to the Yankees just to unload him.
“Pujols / Angels: probably the worst contract of all time
Stanton / Marlins: absolutely not
Rodriguez / Yankees: no, the one championship wasn’t worth literally everything else
Rodriguez / Rangers: they hated the deal almost immediately and paid tens of millions to get rid of a guy who had literally JUST won the MVP
Winfield / Yankees: Steinbrenner hated this deal so much he hired a two bit mobster to get him out of it
Tulowitzki / Rockies: dear God no
Zisk / Rangers: one of the forgotten worst deals of all time, to a guy who retired halfway through it
Garland / Indians: 5.0 total fWAR over 5 years before he was waived
Votto / Reds: ehhhhh
Helton / Rockies: ehhhhh”
Good for you, at least one person here gets it.
The Cano contract looks okay aside from the suspension; not great perhaps but if he was on a contending team for those years I’m sure that team would’ve been happy with the result.
Based on the frontloaded nature of this contract, I think there’s a very real possibility that what happened with Cano also happens with Bryce Harper down the road as well. He’ll be able to dictate where he gets traded to (based on the no-trade clause), and will likewise be still desirable when he’s making *only* $22 million in like 2026, 2027. It’s a little bit like a ‘guaranteed contract opt-out’ in a way.
*Edit* – he doesn’t make the $22 million until his last three years, but I’d imagine that $26 million in 2027 will likely still be movable, if the Phillies were motivated to do so.
if all of yall were his agent you would have cost him 30$MM. Good job Boras!! Great get for the Phillies.
If you adjust Harpers deal for payroll and revenue inflation its not even a top 10 contract for AAV. Maybe not even a top 20 deal.
Comparing other 13 year deals, I guess there is only 1. He topped Stanton by only 5 million. Stantons deal was over 5 years ago so he loses adjusted for just CPI inflation. Also Stantons was an extension and not Free Agent signings.
Also, this is the send year in a row the NL spent over twice what the AL did on free agents. Last year was the first time ever. Worth mentioning at least
Good point on inflation-adjusted value. When you stack up all these mega-contracts and actually adjust for inflation, Harper’s deal pretty much falls in line with the “Harper is overrated” camp’s perception of how valuable he is. Significantly less valuable than A-Rod, slightly less valuable than Stanton.
This just seems like Boras ego stupidity… Silly contract term just for the purpose of saying he has the biggest d*ck. (The opposite normally true)
Heyman is now reporting – $30M this year ($10M salary and $20M signing bonus), then $26M for 9 years and then 3 years at $22M at the end.
per b-ref, if the Phils decline the options on Arrieta and Robertson their projected salary would be just under $154M in the 2020-2021 offseason when Trout is a FA. . . .
I’m extremely relieved my team (Cardinals) didn’t sign this deal. Harper is a hell of a talent, but his history of production is *way* too risky to lock in for 13 years at $25M each. The Dodgers were smart – offer ridiculously high AAV while the cumulative risk each year is lower.
Projecting Harper’s WAR at 5+ next year should be taken with a giant grain of salt when he’s only done that twice in 7 years, and not once in the past 3 years. At this point based on his history, Harper is far more J.D. Drew and David Wright and far less Ted Williams and Hank Aaron.
Objectively look at Harper’s production – he’s had *1* year in 7 worthy of this sort of contract. His average WAR across his 7 years is identical to post-prime Pujols (2010-2016). Harper’s second best year is a full 1.5 WAR less than Trout’s worst full year. Machado has had 4 years in 7 better than Harper’s second best year.
That said, Harper’s MVP year showed the talent he has, but as we can see, talent doesn’t guarantee production, which makes long guaranteed contracts insane. Given his rising strikeout rate over the past 3 years and his penchant for sub-1.5 WAR seasons (3 of 7 years), this contract is more about marketing hype than proven on-the-field production. He could turn it around and be Iron Man physically and consistently slump-less, but I sure wouldn’t be on that from his history.
The other MLB players see this, which is why he continues to be voted the most overrated. Thankfully, 29 teams didn’t get burned by this hype..
These sorts of contracts are why fewer teams are in bidding wars for free agents, which means deserving players are getting paid less for performance. The Angels are locked with Pujols sinking their contract. Same for the Yankees with Ellsbury. Same for the Cubs with Heyward. Same for the Orioles with Davis.
These teams would have far more interest in the market, driving up salaries for both top-tier players and these $8-20M/yr role players, if the MLBPA would understand that pushing total contract length over AAV is counterproductive to their union. One bad contract on a team blocks multiple players from getting paid more, and eliminates many teams from bidding wars for top-tier free agents deserving of maximizing AAV.
When Justin Verlander or Adam Wainwright want to complain about so many free agents not getting contracts, they need to look in the MLBPA mirror as to why. It’s due to too many guaranteed contracts locked into players who aren’t performing anywhere near the level of contract value, and free agents only holding out for contract length over shorter contracts with higher AAV.
Thank you Moustakas for proving me wrong – some players are willing to take short-term deals to make tens of millions and bet on themselves to continue earning more deals.
Players, like Harper, should be betting on themselves. Take the $180M/4y deal from the Dodgers and roll with another big contract afterwards. You want to be the best who ever played, so do it and make your next contract equal to or higher than $45M/yr and you’ll pass $330M in 8 years instead of 13. He’ll never hit $500M now, but if he bet on himself starting with the Dodgers deal, he could have.
The union should be pushing for players to collectively make more per year while allowing teams to have financial flexibility by not getting sunk by dead weight contracts. This is where I respect McGwire – he walked away from $30M in the final two years of his contract because he didn’t want to embarrass himself and take money he didn’t feel he could earn by his production due to lack of performance his last year, mainly from knee injuries.
That’s an interesting idea.
I think that the only way it’s likely to happen is if the CBA put an actual limit on the length of contracts: something like no contracts longer than 5 years. Part of the return for that for the players would presumably be much higher luxury tax numbers.
Maybe such an idea would also outright eliminate the ability to put team option years in contracts, which would change the parameters for early career extensions (especially combined with a 5-year max contract length). To really shift the structure toward paying players during their productive years, though, I think that players would probably also need to get something like arbitration after 2 years and earlier free agency. On the latter, perhaps they couldn’t get a full reduction to 5 years of service time but something like 5.5 years.
I’m curious about your rationale behind the “on track for the Hall of Fame” and “likely Hall of Famer”. Is this based on WAR through age 25 where he’s top 50 all-time? That seems to ignore that his last three seasons (age 23-25) have NOT been Hall of Fame pace.
To me, Harper has a good chance. But he’ll have to improve his consistency and health. I’d say he’s 25-30% chance to get in the Hall right now.
I wouldn’t disagree too much with the 25-30% chance.
However, I’d argue that 30% chance to get in the HoF is basically “on track” for a 25 year old player.
For example, a 25 year old player with 30% chance is more on track compared to a 38 year old who has a 50% chance, if that makes sense.
Most HoFers’ early careers are closer to Harper’s than Trout’s.
It is just that the ones that we remember tend to be crazy good.
I see what you’re saying but to me “on track for X” is 70% it does happen not 70% chance it doesn’t.
I’m a casual FanGraphs reader so please excuse if this is a touchy subject but I was checking Harper’s stats on both FanGraphs and Baseball-References and the WAR numbers are different by a pretty significant amount. Harper’s 2018 is 3.5 fWAR and 1.3 bWAR. If he puts up similar numbers in 2019, it seems very strange that FanGraphs would deem the season “worth it” for fWAR/$ while it would a big shortfall for bWAR/$.
Steamer and ZiPS have Harper projected for 4.6 and 4.8 WAR. Getting that player (if he winds up being that 2019 player) for whatever the cost ends up being is worth it.
The discrepancy between bWAR and fWAR is mainly in the defensive metrics used, and those have quite a bit of noise (larger error bars). The analysts/projection systems that are more bullish on Harper are looking at his bat (which is still elite), his physical tools, and figuring that last season’s poor defensive grades aren’t representative of his true talent level.
You’re right, though, that if he’s in that 1.3-3.5 band again next season, I think there will be some mild concern.
If defensive metrics are so noisy so that one bad year in the field can cause artificially low WAR scores, I think the WAR formula should be tweaked to take that into account. Otherwise, it’s false precision.
I know this will get massively downvoted, but you have stumbled onto the main reason that WAR is a mirage and a fiction. There are at last 3 different main versions of WAR and a couple others floating around out there and they can all give different numbers The best pitcher in baseball last year was either deGrom by a huge margin (here), deGrom by a little bit (Baseball Prospectus) or Nola (b-ref, though Nola and deGrom are tied if you include their bats).
And of course, we don’t yet have an “official” version of WAR per MLB which they could introduce at any time (though there are also good arguments against them ever doing it too)
We need Field F/X!!!
Quant work isn’t zero-one.
WAR is predictive of wins to a certain extent, I think the adj R-sq is something like .3, statistically significant and positively related but not highly predictive. Part of the variance is due to the difficulty predicting playing time, since WAR and wins are cumulative. WAR/600 PA etc is more predictive, around .45.
Some variance in ‘best fit’ models will of course occur. You can add a dummy variable or 2 with questionable independence to the playing-time adjusted WAR models to drive the adj r-sq up to .6-.7, but arguably that makes things worse. WAR certainly isn’t a fiction, is a best fit model with a couple different popular versions.
For some context, By 2031, 25 million a year is what relief pitchers will be getting in arbitration. When the Phillies finish this thirteen year contract, the Mets will still have 4 years remaining on Bonilla deal.
I wonder if the fact Harper soured on the FA experience played a significant role in the deal he chose. We can’t know if Boras is telling the truth when he says Harper instructed him to negotiate the longest possible deal, but if a 4 year 180M deal from the Dodgers was really on the table, boy does that look appealing.
I somewhat respect that Harper seems to prefer accolades and legacy above actual dollars. I like the competitive edge.
I don’t understand this choice if the Dodgers truly offered 4/45. The present value of 330 million over 13 years is ~270MM. The PV of 45/4 is ~170MM.
So he would essentially have to sign for the equivalent of 13 million a year for 9 years to break even. Not suggesting he would get a 9 year contract at 30 years old, but with 13 million a year as the break even, the bar is pretty low. Or said differently, if he took 4/45, and follows that up with 5/25, he would come out ahead, and that is still quite conservative.
I know I know, biggest contract ever…