Ronald Acuña Jr.’s New Contract is Staggering
It isn’t hard to justify a player’s reasoning for signing a long-term extension. It isn’t hard to justify Ronald Acuña Jr. wanting to secure his future. In 2014, the Braves phenom received a signing bonus of $100,000 and then spent the next three and a half years making almost nothing. Last season, he made a bit more than half a million dollars. He was set to do the same this season and next before finally cashing in to the tune of somewhere between four and eight million dollars, unless he manages to win an MVP award, in which case it would bump him up closer to $10 million. Earning just over $1 million for his six years after signing as a professional baseball player isn’t nothing, but it’s also not $100 million, and per Jeff Passan, Ronald Acuña Jr. appears set to sign a contract for a guaranteed $100 million over potentially the next 10 years of his professional baseball life. It’s a lot of money, but it also might be the biggest bargain of a contract since Mike Trout’s six-year, $149.5-million contract signed in 2014 or Albert Pujols‘ eight-year, $100-million contract signed in 2004.
Acuña isn’t on the level of Trout or Pujols, and odds are he never will be, but he is already a very good player. Our Depth Chart projections have Acuña as a four-win player today at 21 years old, sitting right next to J.D. Martinez, Javier Baez, Joey Votto, and Matt Carpenter. Dan Szymborski ran the ZiPS projections for Acuña’s next eight seasons; he averaged about four and a half wins per season, putting him right in line with expectations for Freddie Freeman and Anthony Rendon this year. Acuña is already one of the game’s better players, and his age should keep him at that level for the next decade before he declines, so he gave away potentially four free agent seasons and arguably his entire prime for a fraction of what he might have earned otherwise.
There are two paths to walk down when it comes to putting this contract in perspective. The first is to compare the deal to the one just signed by Eloy Jimenez. The White Sox prospect was guaranteed $43 million over the next six seasons despite never playing a day in the majors. If things break well for him and the White Sox, he will make $77 million over the next eight years and give up one free agent season. Acuña, who has already played a season in the majors and performed really well, will make just $90 million over the next eight seasons if things break right and will have given up two free agent seasons. Then it gets worse for Acuña, because $10 million of that $100 million guarantee is a buyout of a $17 million option for a ninth season followed by another option for $17 million. Those option prices are incredibly small when free agents or free-agents-to-be like Manny Machado and Nolan Arenado are making twice that today, not to mention what salaries might be like eight years from now. According to Passan, the most Acuña could make over the next 10 seasons is $124 million.
Even if we try to understand the deal through the lens of securing life-changing money, it’s hard to fully comprehend. If I’m Acuña, and I were given the option of signing a contract that would set me and my family up for life, I’d prefer to take something more like what Jimenez signed. The guarantee is doubled in Acuña’s case, but the difference between $43 million and $100 million is one that might not make that much of a difference in the course of a person’s a life, especially in contrast to this contract, which could potentially cost him hundreds of million of dollars given that Acuña may never have the opportunity to hit free agency while still in his prime.
As a result, when we compare the extension to the one Jimenez just signed, the deal looks really light. Even if we were to look at players with similar service time like the deals signed by Paul DeJong and Tim Anderson, we find difficult comparisons. Those deals provided guarantees roughly one-quarter that of Acuña’s, but those players were far inferior to Acuña and they only signed away two free agent years instead of four, and weren’t likely to be Super-2 eligible like Acuña. Even Evan Longoria’s bargain contract from 2008 only took effectively two free agent seasons. Given Super 2 status and Acuña’s demonstrated ability, a contract with $60 million in guarantees to buy out one or maybe two years of free agency would have been somewhat reasonable though still ultimately team-friendly. He might have been better off taking the $30 million that was reportedly offered to him last season. In this context, giving up two additional years of free agency seems completely unnecessary from the player’s perspective. It’s possible Atlanta wasn’t willing to offer that type of deal — though it seems strange that they wouldn’t be — and drove a hard bargain by offering this deal or nothing. If that’s the case, we should look at Acuña’s alternative in arbitration.
Arenado is perhaps the closest comp to Acuña at the moment in terms of expected talent and production. Arenado received $60 million for his four seasons of arbitration. If Acuña were to win an MVP over the next few years, Kris Bryant becomes a better comp. Bryant has made $24 million in his first two years of arbitration (despite a lackluster 2018 season) and is probably looking at $40-50 million more in 2020 and 2021. Rendon had a few up-and-down seasons to start his career and still made around $40 million during arbitration. If Acuña plays well, the Braves have guaranteed just $20 million or $30 million extra for those four free agent seasons and end up paying just $50-$60 million in total for those years. If we say Acuña’s arbitration seasons are probably worth around $40 million, and let’s say the Braves take a pretty big discount at 25% to guarantee those seasons, that means the Braves had to guarantee just $70 million for those four free agent seasons and are potentially paying, at most, $94 million over four seasons that don’t even begin until 2025. Forget the negotiations for the next CBA. Acuña won’t likely be a free agent until the CBA after that one kicks in.
We should look at the big guarantee for a player with Acuña’s service time, note that it secures Acuña for life, and understand how tough it would be pass up that kind of money given that we don’t know or understand Acuña’s motivation or circumstances. We can bemoan a system that suppresses salaries for more than half a decade. Those factors are all ones we should consider with contracts of this type, but we also need to consider what the player has potentially given up, as well as reasonable alternatives that meet some of the same goals. The balance between the guarantee is the free agent seasons, as well as the potential arbitration awards. Players simply haven’t given up four free agent seasons this far from free agency, especially players of Acuña’s caliber. A guarantee for half that amount that ensured that Acuña hit free agency in his 20s likely would have been a better deal for Acuña and a positive deal for the Braves. This deal isn’t a steal because of the system that players and owners have set up. This is a deal that, even within that system, will likely prevent Acuña from ever being paid at a level anywhere near his true on-field value.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
Who’s his agent? Did they need a quick payday?
I thought there were investing syndicates that would buy part of an MLB player’s future earnings? They give you cash now so you can wait the two years for arbitration to start the big paydays. That would surely have been a safer, better deal?
Maybe you’re thinking of J.G. Wentworth? “Call J.G. Wentworth! 877-CASHNOW!”
Fantex? their wiki page doesn’t have any new athlete IPOs since 2016.
Big League Advance is what he’s thinking of. And for Acuna this would not have made sense. Acuna was already a proven ML guy at this point, BLA is very focused on young players in the minors, since they have so much more leverage over the player. BLA itself is a nightmare.
All Acuna needed to do was have an agent who could negotiate a deal similar Blake Snell’s deal.
That was my first through tenth thoughts.
Then I realized he is Venezuelan.
I don’t think I can possibly guess what his reality might be.
Do agents get paid immediately for options? It seems strange that they’d agree to them if they wanted a “quick payday”
Kiley said he doesnt get any substantial signing bonus, so year it isnt like he got rich right away.
4 FA years is simply inexcusable.
He should fire his agent’s ass, immediately.
Every time I see a contract like this, my default is that it’s incredibly hard to turn down that kind of life-changing money. People talk about how good of a deal it is for the team, and criticize the player for taking it, but I see it from the player’s perspective.
This deal, however, makes no sense to me. When I saw the original numbers (8 years, $100 mil, 2 options years) I thought it seemed a little light, but I assumed the option years would be $30+ mil each. I couldn’t believe that he’s giving them two options years at $17 mil each.
The deal would have made a lot more sense if he was a mid/low-range prospect that put up a very good rookie season, but if there was uncertainty about whether he would perform that well again. Acuna was an elite prospect, and it seems like he’s just scratching the surface.
Bravo for the Braves though – they got a tremendous deal!
I think criticizing the agent is more justified. I find it unbelievable his agent was not able to get a better deal for him.
Acuna was a half decade away from free agency. If he was a free agent in a year or two, I think it makes sense to turn this down, but asking him to turn down $100M and brave the next long years of his life to be both a good player and uninjured might be too much to ask.
I agree with this if the choice was “$100 million or play out your rookie deal/arb years.” But a good agent should have been able to negotiate for other, better options.
Well he could have “braved” this season for which he isnt getting paid much and then negotiated better. It isnt an all or nothing proposition. 6 years $50 million also would have taken care of his future without costing him potential millions on the back end.
The beat goes on. Every extension is followed by an FG article saying that the player cost himself money in the long run.Sure he may cost himself a lot of money, but he could also get a career ending injury. Regardless, Acuna is set for life now many times over.
“Sure he may cost himself a lot of money, but he could also get a career ending injury. Regardless, Acuna is set for life now many times over.”
Isn’t this still true if he signed a deal more in the mold of the Eloy deal? He could of been set for life, have security from a terrible injury, and not given up up to 4 FA years.
The biggest downside I see to him giving up 4 years of FA is if he wants out of ATL by then.
I’d say the biggest downside of giving up 4 years of FA is the $120-$140 million that he would likely get for those 4 years.
We’re miles and miles away from being able to say his earnings in those 4 years were “likely” to be that high. It’s certainly possible, but not *likely* given all the things that can go awry in a half decade playing in the major leagues. Plenty of guys with talent have started out strong, but not all of them have kept that pace.
If we’re being fair, we have to acknowledge that there is always severe downside risk in any player’s future, and giving up potential earning power a half dozen years out may be a reasonable price a player might pay for eliminating that downside risk. And if he ends up hitting the high end of his range of projections, he can always have a shot at free agency going into his age 31 season. Guys like Goldschmidt, Lorenzo Cain, and J.D. Martinez have recently shown that a player can still get a lot of money in his 30s if he’s still performing well.
There’s more counter-examples of very good players in their 30s who HAVEN’T gotten a lot of money. Players like Moustakas, Grandal, Donaldson, Dyson, Frazier, Neil Walker were all good for at least 2-3 WAR, but had to settle for 1 or 2 year deals WAY below market rate.
In 2018 Donaldson had a series of worrisome injuries, performance decline, and then signed for $23 million. It’s not that much below “market rate” (the market seems to top out at 35 million/year), and teams weren’t going to give him a long-term deal based on a healthy month in Cleveland. Who was going to bet on him both staying healthy and being great for the next 3-5 years? If he is once again great and healthy, he’ll find some suitors for more money and years this offseason.
You’re comparing apples to oranges. If Acuna turns out to be like any of those players you mentioned, then he got a great deal with this extension, and he was never going to get $120 million+ over 4 years when he hit free agency anyway. But if he turns out to be a 5+ win player, he’ll get Goldschmidt/Cain/Martinez money for sure.
Every player you mentioned hit free agency later than Acuna and quite honestly only Donaldson is on par with Acuna performance wise based on last season.
Donaldson got screwed as a late bloomer who succumbed to injury issues in his 30s. Acuna could have taken a smaller deal and hit FA at 28 with much greater earnings potential than most of those players combined in terms of total dollars.
Now when he hits FA at 31 he’ll hopefully have been healthy but will be massively limited in what his contract looks like unless he’s performing like JD or Goldy at that point.
What he would get in 6 years isn’t really the point. But according to Zips it is the mean outcome that he’s a 5 WAR per year producer until he is a FA. There really is no point in acknowledging downside in this discussion. Any extension he could of signed would of given security for life and protection from the downside. What we can say with confidence is that entering FA later is going to cost him in both years and aav. There was likely a better balance between security and potential earnings, considering the precedent of all the other extensions happening of late, where security was achieved at the cost of 1-2 years of FA, not 4.
You’re putting an awful lot of stock in predictions that are based upon such a small sample. Acuna has only played 134 games in the high minors and 125 games at the major league level. There’s a *lot* of variance in those predictions, which means you can’t just ignore the downside. It’s highly likely that his projections will be quite different, one way or the other, after he plays his first full major league season this year.
The security (and money) that he gets with this extension is not hypothetical, and it is not contingent upon things going according to plan for 5 years. A lot can happen in 5 years. He gets to lock in $100 million dollars right now, no matter what happens. There’s a massive amount of value in that.
I think people are forgetting he would have been 27 going into free agency with a more typical deal. Hard to believe he would not be worth at least Heyward money by then.
Whenever someone signs an early extension like this you always here the inevitable “if he didnt sign this he could have been injured next year and never played again!” reasoning.
Maybe for a pitcher that makes a bit of sense but for a position player, especially an OF, its seems like a totally absurd argument. maybe I’m wrong but Acuna suffering a career ending injury seems about as probable as him getting hit by lightning and is a terrible point to be negotiating from.
The risk of a career-ending injury for a professional athlete who spends six months out of the year sliding into bases face first, diving for flyballs, and dodging beanballs is surely a lot higher than the odds of being struck by lightning. But yeah, they’re not high.
Conversely, there is probably more risk of a serious decline in his production than is generally acknowledged–yes, he was a highly rated prospect and turned in a great rookie season, but it’s hardly unheard of for players to get worse for no apparent reason.
… and then Steven Souza suffers what could be a career-ending knee injury stepping on home plate in a Spring Training game. Souza’s knee buckling looked an awful lot like Ronald’s knee buckling as he ran through first base last year. Fortunately for him and the Braves, he has some superhuman knee ligaments, but he came very close to totally blowing out his knee. Of course, it probably wouldn’t have ended his career, but it could have seriously altered its trajectory. Maybe that was in the back of Ronald and his agent’s minds when they agreed to this deal.
Right. And people actually do get hit by lighting. Doesn’t make buying “getting hit by lightning” insurance a sound investment.
Kind of like what happened to Chipper Jones before his career ended.
“Conversely, there is probably more risk of a serious decline in his production than is generally acknowledged.”
Relevant and unreported fact that you’d think a place like Fangraphs would care about — 2 of the 3 highest (non-active) similarity scores for Ronald Acuna are Bob Horner and Jeff Francoeur. Two guys that flamed out both with the same franchise, even!
This century there have been 11 players who accumulated a min 400 PA’s at age 20. They are;
Trout
Harper
Machado
Heyward
Acuna
Soto
Correa
Andrus
Starlin Castro
Odor
Justin Upton
Based on that list It seems like a the assumption should be that if you are good enough to be a full time hitter at age 20, a huge decline (or flameout) in the following years is unlikely.
Just to play devil’s advocate …
In today’s dollars, I would not be thrilled to be paying Heyward, Andrus, Castro $17M/year. Upton is worth it but not a huge amount of surplus. Odor is anyone’s guess as to how he will turn out.
That leaves Trout, Harper, Machado as those that have enough track record AND we can say with some degree of confidence that they would absolutely be worth the $17M/year in their FA years. I fully suspect that Soto, Correa, and Acuna would prove to be massive bargains, but they still need to get some years under their belt.
We also have a pretty extensive list of players that haven’t panned out when signing these very early deals. None with the pedigree of Acuna but still, once considered either top prospects or even those that put up an amazing year or two. These are players that you absolutely would have been burned if you dropped a $100M commitment.
If I’m the Braves I do this deal in a heartbeat. However, I can also appreciate accepting this deal from Acuna’s perspective. To be honest, I’m not sure that a 21 year old kid from Venezuela really cares about the “lost” money. $100M is absolutely life changing generational money. $200M would be better but by then you are just talking about more houses, more cars, etc. At $100M he will want for nothing. No matter how small the risk of a career ending injury is, it is still a risk and could easily represent the difference between being set-up for life and having to figure out employment after baseball.
The Braves just bought out Acuna’s age 27-30 seasons for at most $68m, but if Acuna really stinks it up, they could cut their losses for only $44m (by not exercising the first of two options).
To use your counter-examples, Heyward, Andrus and Castro, over the course of their 27-30 seasons:
Heyward has been worth 2.9 WAR (basically half way, just beginning his age 29 season)
Andrus has been worth 7.9 WAR (just beginning his age 30 season)
Castro has been worth 4.3 WAR (just beginning his age 29 season)
In hindsight, would I give any of the above players a 2/$44m with 2 club options rising to 4/$68m entering into their age 27 season? Sure, it’s a slight loss for Heyward (but you only pay him $44m because you wouldn’t exercise his options after his age 28 season), but a moderate bargain for Andrus and Castro (who you probably would exercise their age 29 and age 30 options).
So in the worst case scenario, this still turns out to be a decent deal for the Braves. And in the best case scenario, it’s an absolutely staggeringly good deal for the Braves. And any way you look at it for Acuna it’s a bad deal.
By this logic, though, if they offered him *half* that, he should take it. $50M is absolutely life changing generational money. Especially if you put it up against “kid from Venezuela”.
I don’t think it flies. Ultimately, the choice is his whether or not to take the offer, and I respect the decision, even if I think he’s (with a high probability) being underpaid.
Well, Heyward has been not so great for three “prime years”, Starlin Castro isn’t exactly a great outcome, Odor is worse, Andrus has been good but entirely due to defensive value. Upton has basically been the same player since age 21 (good, but never great). Correa’s missed 50 games a year twice already (yes, he’s been great when healthy). This list could have been presented by Atlanta as a case for signing long-term.
Just to take a slight different stab at comps —
(1) Lets go back further, I chose 1969 onward. Primarily to get some more comps who’ve actually had the opportunity to play out even just most of their 20s
(2) Lets get rid of anyone who actually hasn’t completed their age 20 season as well as those who in the Majors at 18 (can we agree that the sort of player who was good enough to debut at 18 probably projects better tahn on at 20?)
(3) rather than an open-ended 400+ PA (where you are including players like Harper and Griffey with 2x+ the PA through age 20), how about +/-50%?
(4) Next, only include players who were +/- 1.0 fWAR/600PA of Acuna through age 20
(5) Finally, lets get rid of active players who haven’t even completed their age 25 season yet
Acuna’s covered FA years would have been age 27-30, here is how those guys did those ages:
22.5 Andruw Jones
21.9 Giancarlo Stanton *
14.8 Roberto Alomar
14.5 Jose Reyes
9.8 Elvis Andrus**
6.7 Jason Heyward*
3.0 Bob Horner
*includes 2x (2019 ZiPS(R) and 2019-to-date )
**includes 2019 ZiPS(R) and 2019-to-date
IMO the comps suggest 10-15 wins as the median outcome with about a 30% chance of being significantly better and about a 30% chance of being significantly worse.
Why would Fangraphs traffic in publicly available similarity scores, which are not sabermetric in the least? The ones on bbref were a random project Bill James did that was never intended to be taken seriously. The way they are calculated is atheoretical nonsense. I’d love to get ZIPS similarity scores that are grounded in some actual math. But yeah the bbref ones are worth less than nothing.
Agree
Again, arguing the wrong point, it isnt about not wanting security, it is about the amount given up for security.
Did you see running to 1B last May? Fluke things happen. I am not about to fault Acuna for taking $100M now. You never know what will happen. Look at Andujar.
Even a torn ACL is not a career-ending injury for a position player. Most are back to full-strength, maybe minus a little bit of speed, in a year.
However low the risk it’s still there, accidental death for example. I like the deal for both sides.
jason heyward
Heyward has 29 WAR though 10 seasons, he had 28 WAR through 8 (when the Braves could opt out w/ Acuna). That wouldn’t be a complete disaster.
Grady Sizemore says hello.
Awww…Hello to you to Grady. He’s so polite.
I think there’s something to be said for athletes being able to play full tilt without worrying about injuries costing their family millions of dollars. It must be tempting to dial it back a bit and not slam into the wall/slide headfirst into home if it might cost your kids $50m. He doesn’t have to worry about that now. He can go for it. He’s paying a financial price for sporting freedom. Which is kind of admirable
Yup its the agenda around here that Meg has clearly pushed- I think this is wonderful that so many players are staying put and its none of our business if someones chosing security over gambling on himself/market in the future
I agree that it’s his decision and to a certain extent “none of our business”. But when you are analyzing player transactions (something this site does), extensions like this are part of the deal. I don’t think you need “an agenda” to explain the math that shows that, with a high probability, Acuna will be underpaid relative to market value, for a good portion, if not all, of this contract.
The aesthetics of “players staying put” isn’t really quantifiable and would make less sense to discuss in this post. Some of us have a strong preference for that, others don’t necessarily care. YMMV.
Yea I dont think Meg does much analyzing , I think theres’ a pretty clear message from the get-go on what her motives are
I look forward to the day when Fangraphs adopts your analytical approach and every article is, “something happened — but it’s none of our business if it was good or bad.”
It is strange, however, in the context of what he did turn down.
On the flip side though, how many career-ending injuries do we see for position players? There are levels of risk that are adequate when weighed against the opportunity for vastly higher payouts. Plus, as noted in the article, he could have just given up one year or two for a massive, life-changing payout as well.
What percentage of the time does a truly career-ending injury to an elite, young position player actually happen?
Grady Sizemore, Rocco Baldelli
Didnt balldelli have some extremely rare medical condition though? Either way, 2 guys out of however many kind of shows the point.
Jurickson Profar? Was No. 1 prospect a few years back, if I remember correctly. Then got a string of injuries that were not career ending, but destroyed his earning potential anyway…
It doesn’t necessarily have to be a career ending injury, could be something that drastically effects his value, too. Think of Justin Morneau & his concussion problems. or what is he blows out his knee, loses 2 steps & now is a below average fielder or relegated to 1B? or has a shoulder injury that effects arm strength. We’ve seen how the market values those type of players.
Not saying, any one of these items is likely, but, it doesn’t have to be career ending to be something that would lower his earning power going forward. (& I say that as some one that thinks this IS a bad deal for him)
This is straw man logic more or less. The argument isnt against him getting some security over risk, it is about him giving away far too much for said security. The Braves would have been happy to sign him for a more appropriate deal at market rates (which are still team friendly).
What is the value of getting that $13 million or so this year, in 2020, and in 2021, when he would have otherwise gotten almost nothing? Not just from an investment scenario, but from a quality of life scenario?
That’s an interesting angle I’ve never considered before. Jumping from $500k to $13M as a 21 year old just starting to set up their life seems like a much bigger quality of life difference than a 29-year old with $50M already in the bank contemplating $25M AAV vs $30M AAV. Your first million (10 million?) has gotta make the most difference in your life.
Great point. 500k you can’t even get financing on a house you can buy in cash w 13
Too bad Acuna won’t make $10M in total on this contract until 2022. He could have easily made that in arbitration in 2020 and would almost certainly have topped that amount in arbitration by 2021.
But why would he otherwise of gotten almost nothing? The article didn’t say he shouldn’t take any deal, it questioned him taking this specific deal. A deal that bought out only 1 or 2 years of FA would still pay him over the next 3 years.
It actually doesn’t look like he is; it’s $1M this year, $5M next year (at least that’s what I’m reading right now).
It’s $1M this year, $1M in 2020, and $5M in 2021.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/04/braves-nearing-extension-with-ronald-acuna.html
This is so confusing. Acuna very likely would have made about $7M as a Super Two player in 2020. This extension actually delays him getting “life-changing money”.
Delays it, but does guarantee it! You can get financing against a guarantee if liquidity is what you are worried about.
If there is a labor stoppage when the current CBA expires, or before that time comes, salaries aren’t paid out during a strike, but are they backpaid? Like, if MLB lost half a season, would player contracts be paid out prorated over the three months that were played, or would they be backpaid?
Is there a nonzero chance of, beyond the new CBA and/or a stoppage, contracts becoming null and void and renegotiated?
The flood of recent extensions is troubling to me, after two consecutive years of payroll decline and an obvious, obvious issue found in basically every other corner of the economy at large, where gains are concentrated among a very small percentage of the workforce, with stagnation or deleterious effects for those further down the food chain. It seems like jumping into so many team-friendly extensions is enabling such behavior by ownership. I’m wondering if we’re missing something with what could happen during or before 2022, where it might make sense to secure guarantees in the current environment. These make more sense if you think there’s a nonzero chance that the market may be seriously disrupted and/or contracts renegotiated at the point that the CBA is.
Or, it’s just the new Longoria contract, except with four months of near-MVP caliber play already on the books.
+1 for the use of “deleterious.”
Would be interested in an article on whether there is any avenue that a new CBA could modify existing contracts. Generally I would expect not, but it’s not impossible there’s some trigger in the CBA that would allow it. Paging Sheryl?
Sorry to sound like a broken record, but if you (whoever “you” is) want players to turn down this kind of money, you need to be focusing your attention on the salaries in the minors and minimum salaries in the majors. If Acuna was going to make $1.5M this year instead of $500K (and for the next couple years after that), it changes the leverage considerably.
I agree that minor league salaries and league minimum need to be addressed but I don’t think $1M makes that big of a difference in this scenario.
I have seen a lot of feedback on this contract along the lines of “he’d be stupid to turn down life changing money by not accepting ‘this’ specific contract” as if it was a binary decision with no alternative options available. There is certainly a figure that the Braves would have agreed to, that would still be a life changing amount of money for Acuna, that gives up fewer years of team control.
Taking a discount on the first year or two of FA makes some sense as a concession for locking in a guarantee given how much control teams have. I just don’t see how giving up 4 years was even on the table for the agent or Acuna unless Acuna wanted a specific number and this is what the Braves proposed to get there.
I believe you are making a lot of assumptions here. I’m not certain that there is a different figure or contract that the Braves would have agreed to. To suggest that there was is to suggest that the agent did not negotiate the best deal possible.
I suspect that you may be correct AND that the agent didn’t get the best deal possible but that’s purely speculation on my part.
I don’t think it’s much of an assumption when you look around the league and see deals with players at a comparable service time taking fewer years and fewer dollars at a still life changing amount of money.
It’s not all that speculative when baseball teams operate so similarly now and this deal is the outlier.
Yep. Keep the people poor so you keep them desperate.
Acuna had already broken the cycle of poverty, but I suspect he has a lot of pressure to support friends and family back home in Venezuela. His $560k salary isn’t life changing money unless his social network is limited to only a few friends and family.
Though oddly, this extension doesn’t provide an immediate infusion of money. There’s no reported signing bonus, and he only makes $1m in 2019 and 2020, then $5m in 2021. Things only really get interesting in 2022 (4 seasons from now) when it escalates to $15m.
I would have thought a large motivation for such a team-friendly extension would be to get money NOW. And this extension might actually UNDERCUT his earning potential in the medium-term had he signed no extension at all.
Truly strange stuff.
I don’t get what all the players are doing. Gun to your head would you really put him outside of the top 5 players over the next 10 years? I’d put 5 with upside. I understand wanting to be secure for life, and I do understand that a few million you aren’t set for life, and 100 million you are, and the difference between 100 million and 300 million isn’t much in life quality, however with all these guys signing these deals I am wondering what the players know that we don’t. Do they expect the new CBA to be bad for players? I can’t imagine that is the case…soo what is happening? The guys who aren’t getting paid are not Acunas, they are early 30s guys.
I guess it depends on how you define “set for life.” If I had $2m, I could draw 3.5% (70k) every year and reasonably expect to die with more than I started with.
I guess you are right. Where I live 75k for a family of 4 (my situation) you get medicaid, free kids lunches, etc.
Meaning family of 4, not income. I wouldn’t live somewhere where rent is 3400 if I was making 75k.
What if you were from a culture with massive extended families and the expectation that those who do well will spread the wealth to all?
” If I had $2m, I could draw 3.5% (70k) every year and reasonably expect to die with more than I started with.”
You might be too young to remember inflation.
3.5% real return is a pretty modest expectation for long term investment performance. The vast majority of the time you’d end up with far more money than you’d started with.
Or if you’re really risk averse, build in a significant treasury inflation protected securities position.
The current real yield on 10-year TIPS is about 0.6%, a reasonable long-term estimate for equities is probably about a 4% real return (6% nominal with 2% inflation), so it’s very tough to make the math work of expecting 3.5% real returns with a big percentage of assets in TIPS.
Do you have a family who lives in Venezuela?
Is your $70k adjusted for inflation or does it really have to start lower so that you can bump it up a little every year?
Either way, as he’s appeared on a MLB roster for at least one game, he gets healthcare for life as well. That is easily worth $5-10k per year in 2019$$ (and perhaps much more if it is better coverage than a typical health insurance plan and if dependents are included)
That’s certainly not a bad situation, but spending about $70k per year pales in comparison with what Acuña can expect for himself and his family with the extension that he signed. Said a bit differently, it’s not surprising that he sees a lot of marginal utility in going from life-time income of about $70k per year (inflation-adjusted) to more like $1 to $2 million per year (also inflation-adjusted).
I also think that 3.5% withdrawal assumption is a bit aggressive, especially for a quite young person in the current interest rate environment.
Are you saying with a gun to your head you’d take Acuna as a top 5 player for the next 10 years vs. him being outside the top 5, or just that you think he’s the most likely to be a top 5 player?
This buys out, what…3 years of arbitration and four free agent years? Four free agent years for a player of Acuna’s caliber would be a stunning price, and packaged with another 5-9 years on the back end as well. This deal basically sets Atlanta up to compete for the next decade with a cornerstone star, one who is unlikely to decline, and while providing a considerable amount of cost certainty. It’s a very good deal for Atlanta, and what nearly every team should be trying for with their young megastars. If Atlanta tries to sign every single one of its young breakout players to extensions early–like Albies, and whatever group of Soroka/Anderson/Wright and Waters/Pache/Riley breaks out–they are going to be a force to be reckoned with for a decade.
This is a point that I think needs exploring. Tom Brady has taken well below what he could have received with the sole intention of allowing the Patriots to surround him with more talent. I know that, assuming I was set for my next 1,000 lives, I would rather be fighting for championships every year rather than being in Mike Trout’s shoes. Isn’t that what life’s all about?
That’s fine I guess, but if you aren’t getting an enforceable, measurable, written obligation from the team to spend more than they otherwise would have (and you’re not), they’re just blowing smoke.
i guess you have no understanding of the salary cap in the NFL. Every dollar the quarterback takes is a dollar that cannot be spent on another player and every team pushes right to the cap. While there isn’t a hard cap in baseball at least the opportunity to use the money is there.
Never forget that Tom Brady is married to a woman whose net worth is in the $400 M range.
With a Premarital Agreement crafted by the best legal team that money can buy.
Does it really matter if you have $400 million or $600 million? Every quarterback who took every penny they could was equally set for their next 1000 lives as well and limited the team because of the salary cap hit.
The difference between $43 million and $100 million is not that big of a deal, but the difference between $124 million and [potential number pulled out of thin air] is a huge deal? The odds that Acuna cost himself “hundreds of millions of dollars” are very small. The odds that he will never have to remotely care about money again are pretty much 100%
The odds that he wouldn’t have to care about money would also be 100% if he signed an extension for less years and less guaranteed.
They would also be 100 percent if he signed for more money. I mean, if we are just saying things….
My point was that it’s not a valid rationale for this specific deal when it’s true of any extension. The article isn’t criticizing him for taking an extension, it’s criticizing this extension
And my point was that you have no idea what other offer might have been on the table. If you have some inside info, please share, but the only two options we know about for Acuna are this deal and $500k for 2019. But I do agree with you that it would have been better for Acuna if he instead signed a better contract, a contract that exists in the deep realms of the internet, but not in real life, as far as you or I know.
I don’t need inside info to know that Braves aren’t going to say “we will buy out 4 years of FA or nothing, take it or leave it”. Any year of FA that Braves bought out is a huge win for them. I don’t think it’s going so far out on the limb to suggest that a deal could’ve been struck for less years bought out, especially when we have the myriad of extensions already take place where only 1-2 years are bought out.
I feel there are a lot of conclusions being drawn here. Plenty of people have squandered larger sums. Paraphrasing here, but a comedian said something along the lines of the difference between rich and wealthy is when you are rich you could blow through it all in a summer in the Hamptons with a drug habit, but wealthy you could spend your whole life with a drug habit in the Hamptons.
Also I would be pretty certain he cost himself at least 100m. To quote a scout from 2018 spring training “Acuna is the best player in the NL and will win the mvp. Not in the future, but this year.” Now I realize that didn’t come to fruition and Yelich looks like a worldbeater but if he started the year how he ended it it could of. Next ten years: Trout, Betts, Yelich, Acuna is my guess on war rankings. I only include Yelich because despite his age he still hasn’t gone thru puberty.
Well, Acuna is 2 Legit 2 Quit, but if you make enough, then U Can’t Touch This.
ehhh
FanGraphs! Come for the baseball analysis, stay for an old white dude making hilariously outdated hip-hop references!
Hey! How do you know I’m old, white, or a dude! (You got 2 out of 3)
“The difference between $43 million and $100 million is not that big of a deal, but the difference between $124 million and [potential number pulled out of thin air] is a huge deal?”
I get that you’re pointing out the inconsistency in this logic, but the larger problem is with this logic in general. There is a large difference between $43M and $100M, and between $124M and $300M. Yes, every million dollars that a person accumulates is worth slightly less than the previous million, but not to the extent that so many commenters here think. The fact that most multimillionaires and billionaires don’t just retire whenever they have made “life-changing money” is a pretty good indication that people do in fact care about the $57M between $43M and $100M. If the first few million is all that matters, then why are Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and literally every other CEO of a Fortune 500 company still spending time doing any work at all?
There have also been multiple studies that show a person’s happiness is correlated more strongly with how much money they make in comparison to their coworkers and neighbors than how much money they make in absolute dollars. There’s also the fact that, in addition to their own financial wants and needs, most players have their own immediate families (including future generations) to worry about, and some, especially those (like Acuna) who are from countries like Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, have large extended families who are all very poor that they’d like to help out as well. Not to mention private charities, foundations, youth baseball programs, etc.
Most people here have absolutely no idea what it’s like to be very poor or what it’s like to be very rich.
The chances Acuna would make $200 million more in an imaginary world than he will actually make are slim. It only happens if he is really good at 26, and really bad at 30. Since we are on the subject of comparison, how many world-beating baseball players are not still really good at 30?
If he’d gone year to year, the near-best case scenario is he makes ~$60 million in arbitration and then, what, the Machado deal plus inflation, so maybe $350 million for 10 year?. That is $410 million through age 36. It is highly unlikely that he is good enough at age 26 to get that and then not still good at age 30. Sure, he won’t get as much, but predicting $200 million-plus less is ridiculous.
Harper was apparently offered $180 million for 4 years. Would a team offer Acuna $264 million for 4 years? That’s what it would take for this to be leaving “hundreds of millions” on the table (putting a value of $60 million on the first 6 years, and $64 million for the next 4).
Ah, we found the guy that knows more about the relative value of a dollar than everyone else here. Thanks for showing up.
Do you think that Acuna was just unaware of the possibilities? He just wasn’t told that he could perhaps make a lot more? If only you’d have been there to tell him about those studies, I’m sure he’d have turned down this offer and continued on with his $500k guaranteed.
It seems that any system might be setup to fail here. It’s impossible to create a system (one that ownership would agree with) that both pays players a fair market value (or something close) during their control years AND also shortens control years. While arbitration has its flaws, it at least provides variable earnings and a player with the ability to earn more based on performance (unlike standardized contracts in other sports). While I think that free agency should be reached sooner for players, arbitration at least offers them an opportunity to be paid for their performance. The alternative (which seems unlikely too) is to pay players smaller wages but let them hit free agency sooner. Is that better than the current system? It could be but we’d have to assume that teams would pay up for shortened track record of performance. Consider how many players weren’t their peak selfs until a few years into their service time. There is the risk that they sign a deal then explode and are stuck at a lower deal that doesn’t allow them any upward mobility. Arbitration and current free agency requirements are definitely flawed but there has to be some realistic give/take on controlled year pay and time to reach free agency, and at least in the current system players are allowed to be rewarded for performance.
Having said all that, I do think players should be more risk averse, personally. Acuna certainly has guaranteed himself more money than he could realistically expect to earn if he went through the arb system (Arenado and Bryant and Betts don’t seem like the median outcome for even very good players like Acuna). Navigating through 5-6 years of elite performance with little to no injuries can be a really tall task, even for the best players (Carlos Correa/Miguel Sano/Trea Turner/Byron Buxton).
If Acuna was closer to free agency or the Braves offered the Jimenez deal, he should have told them to kick rocks. But do we think Acuna is going to be an elite players for the next six years almost certainly or at least in the final year or two? And does Acuna want to bet $100M on it?
And even then, Acuna hits free agency at age 30, around the same age where the Mets just paid a hobbled Cespedes $110M, a one-dimensional Chris Davis $161M, Jacoby Ellsbury $153M, Choo $131M, and JD Martinez $110M.
Four years does seem like a lot to give up, but if a player wants to be risk-averse, which I think is reasonable, then this seems like a good deal for Acuna.
Your examples of Cespedes, Davis, Ellsbury and Choo are hilariously out-dated.
Look at what recent age 30+ FAs this winter got, like Grandal, Donaldson, Moustakas, Murphy and LeMahieu. What Choo and Ellsbury got half a decade ago means nothing.
Ellsbury and Choo signed in 2014
Chris Davis signed in 2016
Cespedes signed in 2017
Daniel Murphy is 34, not 30.
Donaldson is 33, not 30
And as you cite Donaldson, this is the whole point. Donaldson should have made a ton in free agency…but he got hurt again, and again, and again. He isn’t a comparison to what a prime uninjured Acuna could get. The whole point of my argument is that Acuna would have had to bet on himself being both good and injured for roughly the next six years. Donaldson couldn’t do that. Moustakas couldn’t do that either. You don’t think Moustakas or Donaldson would regret right now turning down a $100M extension? Or even an $80M extension?
LeMahieu isn’t even close to the hitter that Acuna is. That’s not a comparison. He was a 2-win player with an 86 wRC+ going into free agency. Might as well have cited Matt Adams too.
This contract and Eloy Jimenez’s will be an interesting study a few years from now. Specifically, how do such young players respond to life changing money–do they stay motivated and continue to perform like they would under team control?
Baseball players aren’t robots. For the average person, staying motivated to perform 100% at your job is not easy. Here, imagine if your employer guarantees you millions of dollars over many years, regardless of your performance. It would be hard to fault the players, if other things took priority. Money is a life changing thing.
And at these top levels where competition is fierce, I imagine 90 to 95% effort could bring you down significantly. It will be an interesting study.
I think its a pretty big misconception that players of this caliber are driven by money and therefore there is a risk of complacency when they land a big contract. These are not avg people. These are most competitive people on the planet. Whether they are playing baseball for $100 million or wiffle ball with friends they are trying to kill everyone lol.
I have seen it first hand.
Good point, that to get to this level in the first place, they need to have been competitive in the first place. But money creates both conveniences and problems, that can be a distraction.
I’m just saying that here, these two players have not shown evidence of sustained effort and success in the big leagues, and while being paid well. Usually by the time a MLB player gets life changing money, they will at least have been paid hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars already. So at that point, we are looking at a body of players who remained competitive despite having money.
I used to assistant coach a team w Harper on it when he was 10. He used to intentionally drill people in the head at 10 at 10u nationals if he thought that some people would think that the opposing player was almost as good as he was. The crazy part was no one thought that, we’d just mention in passing so and so is a good hitter on other team. We weren’t comparing, obv you cannot compare to a 10yo throwing 85 and hitting 400ft hrs. Clearly he’s changed for the better since then, but I think the elite of the elite are generally driven more by status and respect (think sociopaths) and recognition then money.
I think there are exceptions. I think Trout is different, and he doesn’t care, but he is gifted to an extent few ever have been. He was a cold weather guy. He wasn’t taking 1k swings a day. He wasn’t even playing baseball year around. But, I also think he doesn’t have the same tendencies as the other guys. No one would of written in Harpers predraft that weight is a concern because he eats 7-15 hamburgers a day. Long ramble, but I think that generally speaking elite athletes aren’t driven by money. The type that I’d worry about aging poorly are the “naturals”. Griffey who said he would never pick up a bat from last day of season to spring training. He also didn’t believe in weight training, or stretching. “Does a cheetah stretch before it catches its prey?” (making fun of ichiro). Guy hit 630 career home runs and couldn’t bench 225. Trout is in the Griffey bucket, but his baseline is so high, and analytics/diet fitness around him in so cal he will be fine.
Players that had a higher ISO than Acuña in their age 20 season or younger since WW2 (min 400 AB’s):
Alex Rodriguez
Frank Robinson
end of list
Thank you. The Lawrie and Francoer comps were making me nauseous.
Really great research and comparisons, Craig. Sometimes, though, we need an injection of the real world to gain perspective. The average American has $84,000 in retirement savings and 75% of Americans have $200,000 or less. Acuna is a 21-year-old kid who now will have made $100,000,000 by the time he’s 31. If he retired at 31 and invested what’s left of his contract , he and his family should live comfortably for generations. Sure he could’ve held out for more, but – aside from greed – why?
“Sure he could’ve held out for more, but – aside from greed – why?”
There is the idea of trying to set a precedent for those later. If he turned down this deal and then made it giant in free agency, he would set a precedent for future earnings expectations for players similar to him when they come along.
I don’t think that’s a good enough reason, but players talk often about trying to shape the future of earnings for their peers and descendents.
Maybe. Or he could be injured or experience erosion in skills. Is the Players Association going to comp him and make up the difference?
If the players association were really interested in that, they could easily create an insurance fund that protects the downside for these potential record-breaking situations. They won’t do that though. They want their members to assume the risk while the union reaps all the reward.
Would also point out that individual players doing this have next to zero impact on the long term trajectory of contracts. While Acuna may have given up a few bucks, we just had Trout, Harper, and Machado set consecutive records for contracts. Acuna can opt for more security while at the same time, the general contract market at the top end can also expand. They aren’t mutually exclusive events.
I don’t begrudge players at all for going after every nickel they can get their hands on, but let’s be real and acknowledge that they are at least largely motivated by wanting to help themselves. And they should be. If I were a professional baseball player, I’d want the absolute most money I could get while not playing for the Mets.
I don’t begrudge them either and I think Acuna made the right choice here. I was just giving an ulterior motive to greed.
I absolutely can’t blame Acuña for taking the lifechanging money, but there’s two main responses here. As a superstar he’s setting the market for the future; teams are gonna be pointing to this deal for the next decade as their starting point negotiations with top prospects. Secondly, the money Acuña is making pales in comparison to how much he generates for the Braves. Revenue has gone from $262 million their last season in Turner Field to $386 million in 2017 to $442 million last year. $12 million AAV to keep Acuña through his 20s is absolutely nothing, twice that would be a steal.
Not to say that he doesn’t have a good draw on his own, but that’s crediting him with a bit more than he truly deserves. Location, nearby amenities (that are owned by the Braves and generating revenue), quality of the team (partially related to him, but others as well), the $50 mil payout all MLB teams got are also big factors in that revenue.
I have no doubt that some of the revenue increase is tied to him, but to put out the numbers like the difference is his worth to the Braves is quite misleading.
“Sure he could’ve held out for more, but – aside from greed – why?”
Greed? Really? The desire to make more isn’t wrong… Those of us who aren’t millionaires think every dollar above some income X is unfair, greedy and wasteful. Many, many fans don’t understand that everyone, regardless of income, is allowed to want more money and should get it if they can and want to. The whole “millionaires vs. billionaires” argument.
“Sure he could’ve held out for more, but – aside from greed – why?”
To be compensated fairly for his part in generating the net income the Braves produce.
I’d rather say sure, Comcast could have paid him more and still been very profitable – aside from greed, why not?
So employees working for companies who lose money should have negative salaries?
Companies who lose money over the long term cease to exist and their employees are out of jobs. What’s your point?
Ever hear of Amazon?
Plenty of companies lose money for decades. I’m sure the employees are thankful their salaries are not directly tied to earnings.
Eh. That was not long term for Amazon. Clearly investors understood that there was a business plan in place for eventually generating huge amounts of profit by capturing market share first. And of course they were handsomely rewarded, and also of course their investment appreciated even while Amazon wasn’t raking in the profits.
Actually, that is a great metaphor for teams showing paper losses and crying poor while their franchise values go through the roof.
Amazon has not lost money in many, many years.
Not to mention that there is a difference between a company with negative cash flow because of a bad business model or bad execution and a company with negative cash flow because they are investing a lot of money into expanding the company, buying verticals, etc.
Silicon Valley VC has really screwed with basic economics, hasn’t it?
Even if, on the whole, the total of a company’s earnings don’t match its costs (generating a loss), each individual is (ideally) providing some level of positive benefit to the employer. (If they’re providing negative value, well, that’s why you fire people.) Since, in practically every industry, it is hard to precisely quantify this number, we have to go on what others are willing to pay for the same (or similar) services.
It’s a weird parallel to the “we can finish in last place without you” argument. If you view a sports team’s main product as generating wins, each player generates some value (possibly negative, Chris Davis) to that, even if the team is awful as a whole. The absolute value Mike Trout provides is the same whether the team quality is the 1962 Mets or the 2018 Red Sox (or the current Angels). This is intentionally ignoring marginal value to make a point.
That’s why I sort of agree with you; there’s some danger in using the Braves’ revenues to make the point. The point that I’m getting out of this, though, is that if it is greedy to for Acuna to demand more, it is greedy for the Braves to underpay him relative to his services provided.
Probably bc he wants to help hundreds of family members back home now — not in five years.
So why sign a deal that likely underpays him relative to what he would even make in arbitration? The only way that makes sense if the bump from $500K to $1M this year is worth giving up the future value of the contract (as pointed out elsewhere, he’s likely a Super Two, so would be hitting arbitration next year).
If that’s his mindset, fine. But it is confusing otherwise.
Well for that matter, why not take half what he was guaranteed? $50m also sets you up quite nicely for life. As does $25m. The larger point is that the money is going to someone – if not to Acuna than to Liberty Media … which is a public company, so the money saved on his contract is in fact spread around further (sort of).
So I’ll change my mind on this one – what he did in fact is a good thing!
One of the guiding bedrock priniciples of captialism is that things (including your services at whatever you do) are worth what someone pays for them. In this mindset, it is not even a greed issue, it is a respect/feeling valued issue. If Acuna says, “Hey, I’m happy with this.”, cool, good for him. But highly motivated, highly competitive individuals are likely to want to be the best at everything.
The purpose of the contract is clear, transfer the risk of injury/under performance to the team (which can aggregate across players) from the player. It is the same thing an insurance company does and like an insurance company the Braves should have a positive EV. How big that is makes this a steal or not and I think people are underestimating the risk in Acuna. To me more accurate, the risk that he is still a good player in 5 years.
Since 1990 there have been 12 position players that have put up between 2.6 and 4.0 WAR while being a rookie 21 years or younger. They are in order of WAR:
1. Cody Bellinger – Too early to tell if he would have benefited from taking this extension.
2. Francisco Lindor – Too early to tell if he would have benefited from taking this extension, but very unlikely he would have.
3. Ryan Zimmerman – If he hadn’t signed a later extension he would have reached free agency prior to 2012, doubtful he would have gotten a hundred million guarantee. As is, probably did about as well.
4. Acuna – Too early
5. Soto – Too early
6. Andruw Jones – Extension would have been the wrong choice.
7. Renteria – Would have been a free agent (I think, may have messed up an extra year of control here) after a 1.7 WAR season and having had ~7 war in the previous 5 years. Extension would have been the right choice.
8. Correra – Too early to tell if he would have benefited from taking this extension.
9. Elvis Andrus – Signed several extensions which resulted in giving up more control for similarish dollars. But, if he hadn’t signed any extensions he would’ve been a FA after a 1.8 WAR season. Acuna would do better with the deal Acuna signed, but is close. Can be considered a push.
10. Jeff Francoeur – Acuna did much better.
11. Stanton – Stanton did better.
12. Brett Lawrie – May be somewhat unfair to include in this list given it was done over less than half a year. But, Acuna had a 98 wRC+ in the first half. His great season was driven by his second half so I decided to include it. Acuna did better.
5 are too early to tell, 2 would have clearly done better, 2 are about the same, and 3 had worse outcomes than Acuna’s. Baseball players performance is really hard to predict 5+ years out. Given the uncertainty I can’t fault Acuna for taking the deal.
Also, yes I picked the cut off somewhat arbitrarily, but I think the point stands even if you expand or shrink the range.
I agree! It was obviously a smart deal for the Braves given the enormous surplus value they will get if he plays to his projections with the potential for significant upside beyond that, but the risk of a performance dropoff is probably a lot higher than most of the coverage would lead you to believe. If Jason Heyward had reached free agency one year later, he’d have been in big trouble. Projections are good, but they miss all the time.
Once upon a time, this would have been the kind of article Fangraphs would have written. As I said upthread — two of the top three similarity scores for Acuna are Francoeur and Bob Horner. All three Braves, and the previous two flamed out. That would be an interesting comparison.
Unfortunately, that kind of analysis wouldn’t fit the agenda…
Massive difference between being 20.3 years old (Acuna last April) and, say, 21.7 years old as a rookie..but you are lumping them all together. Not to mention WAR is a counting stat, and he only played in 111 games.
Acuna does not have many comps.
You are right about WAR being a counting stat, but 6 of the 12 played in less games as he did his rookie year. 1 was him, 1 was Soto (116 games vs 111, virtually the same). Only 4 played in meaningfully more games. Of the players who played in meaningfully more games 2 (Zimmerman and Andrus) would have done similarly with or without the extension. 1 would have done worse with it (Jones) and 1 is too early to tell (Bellinger).
You are right that he doesn’t have many comps, that is why I expanded the age range a bit.
If you want to get as stringent as possible (20 year old rookies, 400+ PA, within the WAR range I mentioned above) it is Acuna (too early to tell), Jones (would have done better not taking it), Correa (too early) and Andrus (similarly well with or without).
I’m confused. shouldn’t this list be much longer? Harper, Trout, Machado, Griffey Jr, ARod, Addison Russel all come to mind. heck didnt Albies do this last year?
I guess i missed the “rookie” part. Which seems like an arbitrary separation to be honest. As if ARod’s 9 win season as a 20 year old is any less impressive because he had a couple hundred PA’s previously lol.
If you remove the rookie label this is all the players who have had min 400 PA’s as a 20 year old since 1990;
Trout
Arod
Machado
Griffey Jr
Heyward
Harper
Acuna Jr
Andruw Jones
Correa
Beltre
Andrus
Pudge
Starlin Castro
Renteria
Odor
Justin Upton
It would appear Acuna is in pretty select company and tends to suggest he will likely out play his contract pretty significantly.
I think rookie is an important part to include. If Acuna came up at 15 and had 5 years of 3+ WAR performance I think that would change what we think about his long term prospects (especially since we would see if his BABIP is sustainable). If someone is 20 and in their 2nd or 3rd season it suggest they are more talented since they got called up earlier.
Sure. But in reality almost nobody is in their 2nd or 3rd season at age 20. Most of them played enough to lose their rookie eligibility (which is not much) and thats it. So its not a really relevant distinction IMO.
I really feel like no one is listening to Craig (author) or Scott (commentator). The argument posited by both is not that Acuna should have just gone through arbitration and ignored the extension, it’s that he should not have signed this particular extension.
In short: Signing a shorter, less lucrative extension would have been much much better than signing this extension. Neither Craig nor Scott are not comparing either of those scenarios to going through arbitration. Some quick math is included in the article for the sake of thoroughness, but the not-signing scenario is not part of the central thesis.
Damn, I used a lot of double-negatives. Hopefully the point still gets across, lol.
The fault in that argument is assuming that every option was available to Acuna. The only options we know he had were going thru arbitration (and pre-arb), and the extension that he signed.
The latter option eliminates an incredible amount of risk, and likely generates significantly more income in the short term.
There are three options:
1) No extension
2) Shorter extension
3) Longer extension
If you rank those in preference (under what I would assume you would) it would be 2, 1, and 3. One was still on the board when he selected three but two was not. And Acuna and his agent didn’t know 3 would exist when 2 was presented, even though 1 always existed.
I don’t think it’s fair to say today that he should have taken 2 over 3, when 3 didn’t exist when 2 was offered. Then 3 came along and that seems preferable (in my opinion) than 1.
If he was presented 1, 2, and 3 all at the same time (we are assuming he wasn’t) then 2 was the right choice but he wasn’t given them all.
Whether 2 or 3 is a better deal depends not only on one’s risk preferences and CBA expiration impact but also on the future value of a 4 WAR player (or whatever he thinks he’ll be). If you think the decoupling of Winning and franchise value is a real thing it might not be anything close to what it is now. This wouldn’t explain why he’d accept options rather than guaranteed money for those years though.
What makes you think the Braves were offering “a shorter, less lucrative extension?”
The only recent comp offered is Eloy Jimenez’s, but there’s no reason to assume the Braves would have offered the same deal to Acuna. He’s already under team control with zero risk for five years. It certainly seems possible that they were only willing to guarantee tens of millions of dollars is if they got to buy out multiple years of FA.
Because a shorter, less lucrative deal is still a win for the Braves?! That is how negotiations work, it isnt take this or nothing as talking heads imply.
In the chat today, Kiley insinuated that this poor deal is entirely due to issues with his agent, but failed to elaborate.
They offered him $30M last year.
Teams hire ivy league econ grads on unpaid internships and the players hire Tony Clark.
Yet somehow, the are playing in the only sport with no salary cap and 100% guaranteed veteran contracts. I’m sure NFL players are shedding some tears over these extensions.
Are you really trying to compare the NFL to the MLB?
The past few weeks have been like a supersized, MLB star version of “Deal Or No Deal”.
(I’m one of those folks who would take a $200K offer from the banker with the $10K, $25K, and $1 million suitcases yet to be opened. So I can relate to Acuña.)
Would it change your mind if you knew that if you went for it, they would raise the offer for the next person in that situation to $210,000?
You can counteroffer now, so go with 333,000 (you have 33% chance of $1M)
Before the 2008 recession close to 400,000 U.S. households were earning $1 million or more annually. By comparison, anyone earning that much is doing very well for themselves. I won’t be shedding a tear for Ronald Acuna, nor Eloy Jimenez. What ought to paramount — in my own opinion — is ensuring living wages and all around better living conditions for minor league players.
I like the final part, and I do agree with you as a whole, but the issue which I think you are skipping over is where should they distribute the money? Your point makes it sound like you are on the side of the owners getting a larger percentage.
I think you can both be for ensuring living wages/improved conditions for MiLB while still arguing in the context of this deal that it likely he is underpaid. Frankly, I think it’s quite consistent, because you talking about paying people what they are worth.
I don’t think anyone is “shedding a tear” here–that’s an exaggeration of thinking that this contract likely leaves millions of the table for Acuna.
If this was the mid-2000s, I would almost guarantee Acuna is two years older than his listed age.
eh? he looks closer to younger than his listed age than he does older.
Were you not around 2002-2004? Literally hundreds of prospects changed DOBs. And those were only the ones caught — unlike, say, Soriano, who was known throughout the industry to be older than listed, but no one said a word to the public.
I was. Pujols for example met his wife at a bar when he was 18 in the USA during a time when they were stricter on IDs. Same with Furcal and his DUI. Almonte, etc. My point is, if anything Acuna looks younger than his listed age, not older. That has actually happened as well, a player is so advanced for his age that they list him as older than he is to sign earlier. Rare, but has happened. Soto looks older, Acuna certainly does not.
Thanks for the age analysis. Maybe some teams are hiring?
Maybe! Could be my big break. People develop differently, clearly. And I get that you are being condescending, but Acuna looks younger than he is, not older.
To me Pujols is the funniest example. Evidence points to him being much older. as much as 6 years. Numerous quotes in spanish media about guys talking about good he was in 13s (age-group ball in Dominican) who were listed as 6 years older than him (ocatvio dotel), ha. He just happens to be the exact age where he doesn’t have to get a GED, lmfao. Beyond a shadow of a doubt he is 41, and probably 43-45. Quotes from his HS are hilarious, all the teachers talking about “a man among boys”, “acted much older than his age”, “fit in better among teachers” . It has to be known, because why did he fly so far under the radar? This was the time where HRs mattered and Defense didn’t. He put up video game numbers in hs, and didn’t get recruited, then again in college. Stl knew clearly. Guy was balding when he got called .
If Pujols is still able to be a replacement player at 45 years old then he is even more of a god then we give him credit for. Hell that means he was a 3 win player at ~42 years old.
Replacement level at 45, above average at 42. That is the stuff of greatness.
Funny. I’ve never seen the two of you posting in the same thread.
If this were the mid-2000s, Acuna would be about 15 years younger than he is. I’d bet my life on it.
Players can switch agents at any time, right? If so, most smaller agents are heavily incentivized to convince their players to take deals like this. There’s a very real chance of losing a player between now and free agency.
Acuna was signed under The Legacy Agency (TLA) but then TLA sold their agent division to a new entity called Gatemore Sports & Entertainment.
GSE has as clients: Acuna, The Andersons (Brett/Tyler/Cody), Greg Bird, Melky Cabrera, Jhoulys Chacin, Carlos Correa, Evan Gattis, Yasmani Grandal, Francisco Liriano, Starling Marte, Ivan Nova, Tommy Pham, Robbie Ray, Pedro Strop, Justin Turner, and I think they had Vernon Wells during his mega deal.
They aren’t a small shop/agency.
TLA was run by semi-super agent Greg Genske, who isn’t Boras, but is pretty popular.
I am continually surprised at how many players are not willing to gamble on their own talents. Only Trevor Bauer seems to have that confidence in himself when it comes to negotiations.
If you don’t think those option years are absolutely horrible deals for Acuna you are lying to yourself. Read everybody’s take on this extension. Not a SINGLE one will say this is a bad deal for the Braves. What should that tell you?
Bauer is smarter than your average player, despite his idiot tendencies.
Two more just jumped: Marquez and Grichuk.
Could it be that young stars have no confidence that the seniority based system the Union built is going to take care of them, new CBA or not?
What makes this even more confusing is that Acuna is only being paid $1M in 2019 and $1M in 2020. So, yes, it secures him “life-changing money”, but not until 2021, which is when he would have been arbitration eligible and made substantially more than that $2M (like Craig notes, it would be somewhere between $4M-$10M).
That is truly wacky. I had assumed he wanted to the cash now.
He either has some major skeletons in his closet, or received terrible advice.
I’m not sure I get your point? He doesn’t make $2M in 2021 (if that is what you are saying). He’ll make:
2019: $1M
2020: $1M
2021: $5M
2022: $15M
2023: $17M
That $5M in year 1 of arb is in that range and it requires zero risk for Acuna to make. Then $15M in year 2 of arb is probably more than he’d normally make (Betts made $20M and he had to win MVP to do it). He probably makes more than $17M in year 3 but again, this deal makes him 100% sure of making that.
I really doubt either player or team believe he is a slam dunk to be a star every year. ZIPS says he is, and I’m sure any system will more or less agree, with the backing of most studies of similar players. That said, he only has about 500 PA in MLB to his name, he’s already spent a month on the DL, and his great rookie season included a .350 BABIP that may or may not be sustainable. It’s risky to give so much money to a player with such a short track record. I think he actually did pretty well here.
Great deal for Atlanta.
Damn is the Trade Value series gonna be interesting this year. And tough to do.
I think we need to really consider the concept of saying that the jiminez deal and acuna deal are essentially equal. when you consider that both will lose roughly 40% percent to taxes and agent commission and that the average adult would like to live to and through part of their retirement, whatever they make, they need to in theory spread out across potentially 45+ years.
For sake of argument lets say neither plays a game beyond their guaranteed money
Jiminez has approximately $550K guaranteed to live on per year of his working adult life, Acuna $1.3MM
Nothing to sneeze at for either, but the above does assume that Acuna has both his options picked up. Relatively speaking, the Braves or any organization is doing that because the player performance far outweighs the option or at absolute worst breaks even. If he is still performing at a 3.5 WAR level at age 29-30, the Braves are either going to try and tack on a couple of years high AAV or Acuna is likely to find that on the open market.
Lost in all of this I do have to wonder about the motivational impact this has on players. I do wonder if eventually these “wins” by the owners over the players (in terms of control and surplus value) turn into pyhrric victories. If a guy has $100mm locked up at age 20 and doesn’t have a chance for more upside in 10 (!!!) years, how hard is he going to be trying? Does he hustle? Dive for fly balls? What about if the team starts losing?
Some of these deals look great on an Excel sheet but I do worry that teams might be creating some potentially ugly outcomes.
If the player’s motivation is driven solely by money, he would never be in MLB in the first place. It takes a whole lot more to get to the bigs and stay there. The whole “contract year” thing has been debunked by several studies.
Definitely not suggesting he is motivated by money. But we don’t have a lot of data points to evaluate what happens when a player realizes he is going to be massively underpaid relative to his peers for 8 or so years. This is totally new territory. There’s a very good chance he gets disenchanted with the business side of baseball even if he willingly signed the deal. Will it spill over into his play?
Not this again. Can we just let these players accept life-changing money if they want to? It’s okay.
I think the most important takeaway with all of these contracts is how pro-owner the current CBA is. The fact that the system forces these guys to take less than they’re worth just so they won’t get WAY less than they’re worth is garbage. The Braves are earning full value from Acuna’s talents right now. I know this isn’t news, but I think it’s important enough to be mentioned every time one of these articles is written.
I always find comments on other people’s money fascinating when they get really passionate. Obviously the earlier in the process the more leverage the club possess. If I were blessed enough with talent, the work ethic and luck to be in the position of a 21 year old would I try to secure as much of the value as I could?- of course. Would I give up longer term value for an immediate payoff?- especially if my family were living in the nightmare Venezuela is right now- yes even if the payout is only $500,000 more this year and next. Would I have gotten more upfront payment?- I would have wanted that yes.
The thing I would absolutely not consider is the MLBPA that didn’t even recognize me before I played my first game. IMO the MLBPA has to negotiate, concede and share a portion of concessions in the next CBA with minor leaguers-for enlightened self interest and because it’s the right thing to do.
I can’t understand why these pre-arb players are signing contracts that don’t include significant (for them) money up front, either as an outright bonus, or a higher initial salary for the first couple years – ESPECIALLY players like Acuna who did not get a multi-million dollar bonus when they signed their initial pro contract.
When signing an extension in a situation similar to Acuna’s, a bonus that’s somewhere around 10% of the total value of the contract should be basically mandatory from the player’s perspective, even if the yearly salaries take a hit. Why are agents not able to negotiate that?