Red Sox Land an Eight-Figure Bargain
The goal, always, is to win a championship, and indeed there’s nothing better than being able to win a championship, but such a triumph can come with certain consequences. Prominent among them is the common desire to keep a championship team together, even if other moves might be more useful. There’s also the tendency to over-favor a championship model, since, you know, the plan already worked once. But an advantage of winning it all can be that other people want to join the team, or that quality members want to come back. After the Red Sox won it all, Mike Napoli became a free agent. And late last week, Napoli re-signed, reportedly leaving money and years on the table to give the Sox a discount.
Consider that Napoli is 32 years old, and he re-signed for two years and $32 million. Curtis Granderson is 32 years old, and he signed for just about twice that much despite coming off a bad year. Carlos Beltran is 36 years old, and he signed for an extra year despite age leaving him a mess in the field. All three players were extended qualifying offers. It’s not directly comparable, but Tim Lincecum was given a slightly bigger contract than Napoli despite having allowed a billion runs over the last two seasons. Napoli’s getting up there, yeah, and the issue with which he was diagnosed a year ago hasn’t gone away, but as players in his situation go, he’s signed to something of a bargain deal that fits right within Boston’s organizational model.
Specifically because Napoli left money on the table, it wouldn’t be fair to say this is how he was valued by the market. Reportedly, there was a three-year offer, and there was a more lucrative offer, which might’ve been the same thing. It’s not that the market underrated Napoli — it’s that Napoli just didn’t chase after the biggest deal he could get. He presumably did last offseason, when he signed for three years and $39 million before having that cut into a fraction following a troublesome physical. Now Napoli’s set to make that money and then some, so he’s coming out of this all right.
A year ago, even before the physical exam, there were some questions about Napoli’s health, about his bat, and about how he’d handle himself defensively. Now he’s coming off a healthy season in which he hit like himself and played well at a new full-time position. You’d think that might’ve helped him to get a much bigger deal, but don’t forget that bit about the qualifying offer. For one obvious thing, Napoli now is a year older and a year closer to retirement. But last year, Napoli wasn’t extended an offer by the Rangers. This year, he declined an offer from the Red Sox, so this time that was a consideration and teams appear reluctant to give up a draft pick for non-elite talent.
The Red Sox, then, didn’t just re-sign Napoli for two years and $32 million. They re-signed him for two years, $32 million, and the value of the compensation draft pick they now will not receive, which you could value at a few more million dollars. So that of course does make things more steep, but the Sox won’t have to worry about Napoli’s age-34 or age-35 seasons, like the Mets will with Granderson. The Yankees gave up a pick to pay Beltran until he’s almost 40. You could say it was “very Red Sox” when the team signed Edward Mujica, and it’s very Red Sox to re-sign a good player to a two-year deal, because again the team isn’t putting itself in much danger. The story was talent without long-term commitments. The story remains talent without long-term commitments.
Napoli is coming off a major improvement. He hit well, but then he hit about as well as he was expected to hit. He exceeded 500 plate appearances, but he’d done that a few years before. Used to be that Napoli was a catcher. Then he was a part-time catcher and a part-time first baseman. In 2013, he was a full-time first baseman, and out of 19 qualified first basemen in baseball, Napoli was the league leader in UZR and UZR/150 games.
Napoli played first for nearly 1,100 innings. Previously, he’d played first for a little over 1,000 innings. Previously, as a first baseman, he was worth zero Defensive Runs Saved, and he posted a UZR of -3. Last year, he was worth +10 Defensive Runs Saved, and he posted a UZR of +10 as well. Napoli took a new job, and he thrived.
Obviously, given the nature of defensive statistics, everything we look at has a range, and we can’t be certain by just how much Napoli improved. But it makes sense that Napoli could improve a lot by being able to fully commit himself to first base instead of splitting time between that and a much more demanding position. People around the Red Sox wrote about Napoli’s defensive improvements throughout the year, and here’s a Howard Megdal piece from the end of October on the same subject. Napoli surprised even the Red Sox with his defensive ability, so it isn’t hard to buy the idea of his getting five or ten runs better. He’s now proven himself more than capable, which makes that one fewer question he has to answer going forward.
As a note, we have UZR data going back to 2002. Since then, there have been 82 player-seasons turned in by first basemen 30 or older, fielding at least 1,000 innings. Adrian Gonzalez has posted the highest UZR/150 among them, in 2012. In second, there’s Napoli’s 2013, meaning not only was he good — he was especially good for a first baseman his age. Of course, the fact he was playing first base means he’s probably not capable of playing, say, second or third all that well, but Napoli adds value where he is, meaning he’s not a one-tool slugger. Already, he’s aging more gracefully than one might’ve projected.
There’s plenty of aging left to be done. Steamer thinks Napoli’s going to lose ten points off his wRC+, and it doesn’t buy the extent of his defensive improvement. It projects nearly 100 fewer plate appearance, and therefore a WAR just over two. Yet the Red Sox probably feel like Napoli is pretty healthy, and they’ve seen his defense first-hand. They understand it better than a projection system does. He’s coming off a four-win season, and the next two years he probably ought to be worth another five or six wins, which can be worth lots on the market. And the market reportedly tried to reward him a little more, but Napoli had more in mind than just maximizing his dollars. Which is how the Red Sox wound up with a good player again, without a real long-term commitment, again.
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.
In terms of the comparison to Tim Lincecum, Steamer projects both Lincecum and Napoli as ~2 win players for 2014 (although Oliver is bit more pessimistic about Lincecum and optimistic about Napoli to a tune of a full win). But for Napoli to sustain that large advantage, he needs to continue to be an elite defender at 1B. Given that defensive rankings for 1B are not as reliable as other positions and he has a limited history, I’m not sure that predicting him to be an elite defender is warranted and probably just an average defender. If so, then he loses about half a win. So in my mind, Napoli actually has the lower expected value while Lincecum’s projection has a higher variance.
Both players have some warts, but both have a decent chance to record a 3-4 win season in the next two years. As a Giants fan, I think that the Lincecum signing is as defensible as Napoli–particularly since re-signing Napoli effectively cost the Red Sox a sandwich draft pick.
Steamer and Oliver both predict Napoli to be a 2WAR player while having a significant decline in defense.
Steamer has him at -6.5 and Oliver at -11, when he was at -.6 this year and -1 the year before. (total defensive value, not uzr). They both include a big regression in his offensive statistics too.
I think 2WAR is about the floor for Napoli (assuming hes healthy). And frankly, I’d be really surprised. His BABIP was high last year, but ALL of the sox players had above average babip. And Napoli hit worse in Fenway than on the road, which is strange, and might signal that there’s room for improvement.
I think Lincecum stands a fairly good chance of being worth that money, but I’m not sure the Giants had to promise him that AAV given the last two years. Napoli, obviously, is coming off a much better campaign, but perhaps I’m behind the market and the market is more forward-looking than it’s ever been. I wonder how a free-agent Lincecum contract would’ve compared to the free-agent Kazmir contract.
It’s a little misleading to say that a 2/32 contract is half as much as a 4/60 contract.
LOL…cause its 53%? really dont need to split hairs over that.
give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he means that the yearly amount is about the same
Fangraphs seems to have completely lost track of the idea that the years are the player’s currency this year.
Agree. To say Grandy got twice as much as Nap may be true, but it’s misleading without the context of the length of contracts.
I’m not so sure I would call this a “bargain.” A decent deal, for sure, but bargain may not be the best choice of words. I’m willing to bet that this turns out to be a fair deal rather than an outright bargain. That said, I think there’s a better chance Napoli outperforms this deal than underperforms, so I guess I ultimately have no opinion whatsoever.
Bargain’s probably a bit strong, given the money, but what with the trend of longer commitments, I think it’s real good for the Red Sox to limit him to two years. Not so much an AAV bargain as a length-of-commitment bargain.
That’s a fair point. I do agree that this a great deal re: the number of years, especially when compared to the players you mentioned.
Once Napoli got an AVN diagnosis on his hips, four years was probably about as likely as Cano getting forty years. A two-year commitment can’t go too far wrong, but I think it’s as far as anyone would be willing to go on Napoli without considering a scenario where Napoli adds a year or two where he is essentially playing for free.
He reportedly turned down more money and longer offers to return to the Red Sox, so other teams were in fact willing to go longer than 2 years
He turned down a 3/37 deal and took a 2/32 deal.
He took the Boston deal because its a much better contract.
I don’t disagree with the premise, but I will point out that getting a a length-of-commitment bargain last year with Napoli cost the Red Sox $6 million.
That’s the funny part!
I think the Red Sox would willingly trade that $6M for an additional year to watch his hips.
I’d bet they’d give him two 1 year 20M or so deals rather than the current deal, if he had been willing to go for that.
I don’t see how this is true? What are you basing $6 million on? He was going to sign for 3/$39 million, and in the end what he’ll end up with is 3/$37 million.
We have no idea what Napoli would have taken as far as a longer term deal at lower dollars last year after the original contract fell apart, do we?
TKDC – Napoli got paid 13mil last year.
6mil was the base which tends to stick in people’s minds, incentives took it to the AAV of his old deal (13mil) So instead of 3/39 before the medical, he’s now basically 3/45
The 6mil being discussed above is him getting 16mil per these 2 years instead of 13mil per
Thanks. I figured I was missing something.
If Napoli produced the same as he did this year (4 WAR), he’ll have almost paid for both years in the first year ($/WAR is up over 6M, so we’re talking 24M minimum at 4 WAR). In order to not pay for himself, he needs to put up less than 5.1 WAR over the course of the contract, which is possible, but would involve significant decline from last year.
Standard aging depreciation would be 6.5 WAR (4->3.5->3), and its possible that Napoli’s previously undiagnosed hip condition was causing him pain, and what appeared to be some premature decline.
Unless his hip blows up, you’re looking at about a max loss of 5M, and possible surpluss value of more than 10M. Thats a pretty decent bargain as far as FA goes.
I’m a little surprised there was no mention of the continued trend of decline in his peripherals (namely K rate, whiff rate, and Contact rate), or of the crazy high BABIP it took to hit like he did this year.
His periphrials are lower than 2012, but not enough to meaningfully say anything.
As to BABIP, you’d expect a significant rise moving to Fenway. It kind of does that to every right handed hitter.
That being said, Napoli hit 24 HR and 38 2B last year. In 2012 he hit 24 HR and 9 2B (he had roughly 2/3 the PA in 2012 as 2013). There’s an argument to be made that a lot of the balls hes hitting hard would have been homeruns to LF in most parks, but are going off the wall in Fenway, and inflating his BABIP.
There’s also the argument that his LD% was the highest of his career this year and his GB% was down, which can’t be a bad sign. Its also possible that the high LD% is an artifact of those same 2B, and some of them would have been classified as flies if they’d gone out.
His K rate was up 2.5 points over last year, which was already up 3.5 points over his career average; his whiff rate was up 1.5 points over last year, which was 1.5 points up from 2011; and his contact rate was down 3 points from last year, which was down 3.5 points over 2011. He also had a .370 BABIP this year (60 points above his career average) and even if we go with his xBABIP it should have only been around .330, and assuming his batted ball profile trends back toward his career averages it would be expected to be even lower. If he has a BABIP close to his career average this year probably ends up one of the worst years of his career (if not the worst).
im not sure about the whole “steamer is down on him but the red sox are smart and know him so lets put that aside” argument. most articles on here directly use steamer for long term WAR projections with no such caveat.
Steamer’s probably right about his offense, but I think you can argue the defense and I suspect he’ll end up with more playing time. Things meaningfully changed in 2013, which the system doesn’t know. That’s relevant to his glove. The playing time, that’s up to our own custom depth charts, and that particular one isn’t under my control.
I think that cavet is fair. The Red Sox have a excellent front office team with access to far more data and information then we have. They have far better projections and modeling system. They want to know about Napoli’s defense? Well, they have Field F/X.
I think it is fair when talking about teams like Boston,Tampa,Oakland,St. Louis..etc that they know more than us and probably have a reason for doing what they do.
Obviously, we can’t display such faith in teams like the Phiilies who had to be forced by MLB to form an analytics department.
Napoli is a weird case, and sometimes, its worth looking and seeing why the projections are doing what they’re doing. Sometimes the projections do silly things.
The Projections are predicting Napoli to have a .316 BABIP, which sits right above his .310 career average, but his last 4 years have been .279, .344, .273, .367. So .316 kind of makes sense in an average sort of way, but I’d guess hes either going to be below .280, or above .320. Basically hes been all over the place for his career.
Most of Steamer’s projection is just the same periphrals with his BABIP at .316, and the resulting 20 point drop in average/obp/slg. We all know that isn’t how it works though, and often when BABIP goes down, other things change.
The swings in his babip is a result of being a streaky hitter. With that said, Napoli has a few things working in his favor going forward, Fenway is built for his swing and will help get him out of slumps, additionally not catching should help him run a lot better. My guess is .320 and above, and given the defense, he is a 2.5 war player in the worst case scenario, and a 5+ war player if everything goes right.
I think it’s reasonable to disagree with Steamer – Steamer certainly isn’t the last word in predicting what a player is going to do. When projecting defense, it’s going to take Steamer awhile to believe that someone has made a defensive improvement. There’s a good chance a professional evaluator can do a better job assessing a player’s defensive ability than Steamer would, particularly in a small sample.
Exactly. Take his BABIP. His LD% was 24.4% last year after being consistently around 19% for his career. That raises his xBABIP to .334, which we can assume is even higher playing at righty loving Fenway. That is a drastic difference that could be due to a change in mechanics or approach. Projection system don’t really account for real improvement or decline.
If I am the Red Sox, I could look at Hit F/X data,bat speed,swing plane..etc and try to figure out whether that batted ball profile change is sustainable.
As a Red Sox fan, I like the signing. I think Napoli is a good player and as stated, the money is decently while the years were the real victory. As for the projections, I’m not a huge fan of them. Napoli’s batted ball profile changed with him turning into a line drive machine explaining the BABIP. I think we’ll see some decline,but not much. As for defense, I don’t think he is elite, but the margin of error isn’t as big as expected. He isn’t going to be Prince Fielder. If you can catch, you can probably be decent at first. I think he’ll be around a 3 WAR player. On a short contract, that is a good deal. If we assume he’ll produce 5.25 WAR over 2 years, the price is $6.1M/WAR. Probably a bit less than market value.
I would have like to see the Red Sox be a bit more ambitious. Perhaps sign a Corey Hart and spend the extra $$ on a Chris Young to play in center. I would have liked to see McCann in Boston to catch for 2-3 years before moving to 1st since the FA market is thin there for the next few years. But they played it safe and signed a good player in Napoli, who can play in Boston,likes it here, and is liked by his teammates and fans.
I agree, I would like the Sox to pick up more talent before the start of the season, and they got the money to do it. While some have been against resigning Drew, citing playing time for Bogearts and Middlebrooks, I disagree. Bogearts and Middlebrooks are both slightly above or below average at their positions respectively. Shifting both down the defensive spectrum wouldn’t be the worst move, I have Middlebrooks playing some RF when shifted, not 1B and he is the de facto 2B backup. Victorino could move to CF in this scenario should any of the lefty position players need the day off. Middlebrooks has gained some experience in RF due to playing in lefty defensive shifts, and has all the tools (arm, foot speed, instincts) to succeed in RF. The Sox have been looking for a Zobrist/Raburn type, and given the defensive skillset he would likely succeed that role. So If the Sox could pick up Drew for say 3yrs/45mil, I would do it, because it would giv the Sox time to let Cecchini develop at his own pace. However the Sox might not be able to wait. Drew’s market is going to blow wide open, once A-rod is suspended for 2014, and the Yankee have more salary relief, the Yankees could offer a front loaded deal, because Rodriguez will only be off the books for 1yr (will still count against luxury to though).
I’m against Drew simply because Bogaerts would lose value moving from SS to 3rd. I don’t like Middlebrooks at all. But if he can walk a bit more, I think he could be a Trumbo or Pedro Alvarez type with a bit less power.
As a maybe-average defender at SS, he wouldn’t necessarily lose any value moving to 3B.
Kyle, that’s not true.
When you have guys that hit spectacularly for their position, you keep them there if they can field adequately.
Why? Because positional scarcity matters, and the batting half of a player’s profile has a much wider range of runs than the defensive half. If taking a 5 run defensive hit at a position gets you 30 offensive runs, you take that.
It’s a whole lot harder to get offensive production out of the premier defensive positions.
So the Tigers should actually have moved Miggy to SS instead of 3B? Obviously that’s an extreme example, but you’d simply be swapping offensive runs for defensive ones; if Bogaerts is a 4 WAR player at both SS and 3B he isn’t losing value in moving.
No, because Miggy would probably be a -30 or more run shortstop.
If a guy can play a position at an average to above average level, you don’t move him down the defensive spectrum.
You’re missing the point though. The point is not to make sure that Xander has the same value, its to put the most value on the field.
Look at the leaderboard for SS and 3B. SS has 2 players above 5 WAR, and 3 above 4 WAR. 3B has 5 above 5 WAR (and 4 above 6). WAR is much higher for 3B, which tells you something:
1. Either the positional/defensive adjustment for 3B is too high
2. (or) the positional/defensive adjustment for SS is too low.
Take a look, a 4 WAR SS is a lot more rare commodity than a 4WAR 3B. It’s thus more valuable.
I don’t know, I think Bogaerts+Drew > Bogaerts+Middlebrooks. Trumbo is an averagish player as is. A Trumbo-type with less power is a below average 3B. Making a better team is about maximizing wins on the field, not maximizing the value of any one player.
RC, if you could actually come up with a great (or even good) 3B, then sure, leave Bogaerts at SS, but the alternative is Middlebrooks at 3B, who is nowhere near as talented as Drew. Drew+Bogaerts is considerably more valuable than Bogaerts+Middlebrooks.
Drew> Middlebrooks, signing drew doesn’t have to limit Middlebrooks to less than 500 at bats. Ideally, Bogeart 130, Drew play 130 games, and Pedroia plays 150, that gives Middlebrooks 74 games before considering him for some outfield duty. If Bradley, and victorino play 130 each, suddenly he is at 126 games. If the sox are willing to play Middlebrooks in the infield/outfielder regular player role, it would afford them the ability to carry additional player elsewhere on the active roster. Given the defensive ability of the bench having a 10th man of Middlebrooks caliber would be ideal for a team with World Series aspirations.
C’mon, the Red Sox carry two pinch hitters on the their bench, Gomes, and Carp along with Ortiz Cant play the field. Middlebrook off the bench balances the roster, providing an average premium position defender (3B, 2B, & RF), a pinch runner, and injury/ineffectiveness assurance for all positions except C with Bogeart and Victorino sliding to SS/CF respectively.
Napoli left more years on the table, not necessarily more money. The Red Sox paid for less years with a higher AAV. By being able to hit free agency in 2 years with those 2 years in a hitter friendly park, Napoli is likely going to make more money than if he signed a 4 year discounted contract.
Its much like players who forgo signing an extension and going Y2Y until they hit free agency. They are taking a bit of a gamble in not going for the security, but will make more money (like Ellsbury vs Pedroia)
It’s really players who take the security of longer term deals that are leaving money on the table. Players who want to maximize their earnings will go the shorter contract route. Going for the money entail taking some risk of course, since injury or unexpected decline can lower their earnings. So its a question of risk vs reward more than loyalty, but the loyalty angle makes better fiction.
Its interesting that Napoli is the teams highest paid player while being the Red Sox 6th best player.
Not sure Napolis LD rate was real, it may be that more of his hard hit GB were classified as LD (hence his lower BA on GB -237 vs 345 and 256 in the previous 2 years). The team itself had the highest BABIP in MLB history since 1930, so something else may be going on there (magic, good luck charms, etc).
” may be that more of his hard hit GB were classified as LD ”
Not sure about that. His GB% dropped 2.8% while his FB% dropped 2.2%. That’s close enough to say the difference isn’t really meaningful (especially when fenway really screws up fly/liner), and may just mean hes seeing the ball well.
His swing stats are a little worrying (contact down, o-swing up, swinging str up, etc)
The Sox could always do a Detroit and play Napoli at third…