The Case for Acquiring Stanton
There’s no player more polarizing this offseason than Miami outfielder Giancarlo Stanton. The Marlins’ new ownership group has indicated that they’d like to reduce the club’s payroll by as much as $50 million before the start of the 2018 campaign. With 10 years and $295 million remaining on his contract, Stanton is the logical place to begin with any such cuts.
The prospect of a Stanton trade isn’t particularly straightforward, though. There appears to be little consensus on the relative value of his production to the costs required to employ him. Is he overpriced and injury prone — should he be treated as a salary dump? Or is he the rare available peak-aged star who should be coveted?
What follows is a series of points in support of the latter case.
He’s not necessarily injury prone.
Much has been made of Stanton’s inability to put up 600-plus plate appearances — probably too much. It’s true that he’s only crossed that threshold four times over eight years in the bigs (yes, we can count the 636 he put up over two levels in his rookie season), but that’s not as damning as it may seem. And that’s not just because one of those four injury-shortened seasons came from a broken jaw on a hit by pitch — that is, by means of a one-time event, not a chronic problem.
Some of Stanton’s injuries probably do merit concern, especially those to his lower body. He’s had right knee surgery and missed time with right quad and hamstring injuries. He’d also endured left groin issues. But it’s easy to overstate how “sticky” these things are, even while acknowledging that there is some probability of recurrence.
Rob Arthur looked into this over at Baseball Prospectus and found an equation that predicted injury fairly well. Follow that equation, and Stanton should be predicted to miss… seven games next year. Even if the slugger hit the 10-day DL to rest his tree trunks, his new team would probably take the production in the other 150 or so games.
He’s young.
Some analysis of the player has centered on the fact that he’s 28 and, therefore, past his peak. That’s true! The most recent analysis of peak value suggests that it occurs closer to 26. The number 28 is bigger than 26. Case closed!
Well, not quite.
The issue regarding Stanton isn’t his age relative to all ballplayers, because all ballplayers aren’t available to clubs. Most younger ones are controlled by their clubs. If you compare Stanton to that collection of players who are readily available — that is, free agents — he’s suddenly young! He’ll be 29 next year. Meanwhile, among players who were above average last year and are free agents now, the average age is 31 years old. Only one of them — Eric Hosmer — is younger, and it’s clear which one you’d pick.
But Hosmer only costs money, and Stanton will cost money and prospects, so we’ll have to keep going.
He’s good.
Giancarlo Stanton is good, nor is he merely a one-trick pony. The combination of his prodigious power and patient approach has made him 43% better than the league at the plate the last three years. But he was also average in the outfield last year (and 19th out of 208 outfielders per Statcast’s Outs Above Average in 2016) and scratch or better on the basepaths in two out of the last three years.
Let’s say he’d provide average corner-outfield defense (-5 defensive value per year or better) plus scratch baserunning (-1 to +1 in baserunning runs), and a stick that’s 30%-plus better than the league. You want to know how many players managed that feat over the last three years? Only three: Bryce Harper, Mike Trout and Stanton himself.
He might not age terribly.
If you focus mostly on the strikeout rate (which was significantly higher before this past season), consider him a lumbering slugger whose future lies at first, and stare too hard at those leg injuries, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Stanton would fall off a cliff soon.
If you’ve been reading so far, though, you know I don’t see most of those things. Nevertheless, let’s focus on how his work at the plate may age. We can’t age exit velocity and launch angles yet; the data’s too new. But there is some available work on how plate discipline ages.
The quick takeaways are that contact outside the zone tanks as a player approaches 30, while zone contact remains steady throughout a player’s career. Swing rate generally goes down, which benefits players, as they can’t touch those pitches outside the zone any more. Call it the Josh Hamilton and Pablo Sandoval Memorial Rule if you like, but this combines to create an environment in which you don’t really want to sign a free swinger to a long-term contract.
Stanton, however, is not a free swinger.
Sure, his zone contact rate isn’t great. But he doesn’t reach a lot, and his production isn’t dependent on contact outside the zone. Take those three numbers in tandem, and you realize that he’ll continue to swing less and doesn’t currently rely on that last number.
| Swing | Z-Contact | O-Swing | O-Contact | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stanton Ranks | 47 | 177 | 76 | 195 |
Z-Contact = zone contact
O-swing & O-contact = outside of zone swing and contact
His contract isn’t under water.
The question of Stanton’s option is one that his acquiring team will have to figure out. It’s important to value that when talking about the prospect cost in acquiring Stanton. But the primary contractual question — is Stanton worth the $295 million and 10 years left on his contract? — is a little easier to answer.
| Year | Age | WAR | $/WAR | Est. Contract |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 28 | 5.4 | $9.0 M | $48.6 M |
| 2019 | 29 | 5.4 | $9.5 M | $51.0 M |
| 2020 | 30 | 5.4 | $9.9 M | $53.6 M |
| 2021 | 31 | 4.9 | $10.4 M | $51.1 M |
| 2022 | 32 | 4.4 | $10.9 M | $48.1 M |
| 2023 | 33 | 3.9 | $10.9 M | $42.7 M |
| 2024 | 34 | 3.4 | $10.9 M | $37.2 M |
| 2025 | 35 | 2.9 | $10.9 M | $31.7 M |
| 2026 | 36 | 2.4 | $10.9 M | $26.3 M |
| 2027 | 37 | 1.9 | $10.9 M | $20.8 M |
| Totals | 40.0 | $411.0 M |
Assumptions
Value: $9M/WAR with 5.0% inflation (for first 5 years)
Aging Curve: +0.25 WAR/yr (18-24), 0 WAR/yr (25-30),-0.5 WAR/yr (31-37),-0.75 WAR/yr (> 37)
By the assumptions and methodology used here — which are pretty generic — Stanton looks likely to be worth more than $400 million over the life of his current contract. Even if you push the dollars-per-win lower (to, say, $8 million per win) and say he’ll age poorly, the final tally still comes in around the current contract. And that’s being fairly pessimistic both about him and the current dollars-per-win environment, which Matt Swartz recently pegged as over $9 million per.
By popular demand, a more sober approach where he ages poorly and starts with his projected WAR:
| Year | Age | WAR | $/WAR | Est. Contract |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 28 | 5.4 | $9.0 M | $48.6 M |
| 2019 | 29 | 5.2 | $9.5 M | $48.7 M |
| 2020 | 30 | 4.9 | $9.9 M | $48.6 M |
| 2021 | 31 | 4.2 | $10.4 M | $43.2 M |
| 2022 | 32 | 3.4 | $10.9 M | $37.2 M |
| 2023 | 33 | 2.7 | $10.9 M | $29.0 M |
| 2024 | 34 | 1.9 | $10.9 M | $20.8 M |
| 2025 | 35 | 1.2 | $10.9 M | $12.6 M |
| 2026 | 36 | 0.4 | $10.9 M | $4.4 M |
| 2027 | 37 | 0.0 | $10.9 M | $0.5 M |
| Totals | 29.1 | $293.6 M |
Assumptions
Value: $9M/WAR with 5.0% inflation (for first 5 years)
Aging Curve: +0.25 WAR/yr (18-24), -0.25 WAR/yr (25-30),-0.75 WAR/yr (31-37),-1 WAR/yr (> 37)
He’s available right now, and that’s rare.
If a club assumes that Stanton resides in a class with Harper and Trout, they should pursue him without hesitation. When Harper hits free agency after next year, he’ll likely command a $400 million contract. And he’ll be the only other player of this class that’s available in the next two years.
But even if you lower the bar for Stanton, you still find few other comparable players available in trade or free agency. Is there a projected six-win player out there? No, unless there are some under-the-table Manny Machado talks percolating. Five-win player? No. Four-win player? Marcell Ozuna (3.8) and Christian Yelich (3.8) count, and are available. They’re cheaper, even. But they may cost more in prospects because they cost less in money, they aren’t under team control as long, and Stanton is projected for a win and a half more. The closer you are to competitiveness, the more that win-plus matters.
If you’re not convinced, you’re not alone. The Dodgers, most prominently, were rumored not to be interested because the player will cost too much in money or prospects or both. Or, they weren’t interested until they were, that is. Either way, grab the popcorn and refresh the news. There’s no bigger star this Hot Stove season.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
I’m confused why you chose 6.9 as his starting WAR to estimate his contract value. That’s going to be way higher than the projections will have him for next year. That only makes sense if you think he’s a true talent 7 win player going forward, which means you think he’s the clear second best player in the game basically
You can see the aging in the table. It asked for his number in 2017 and didn’t age it because of the assumptions.
If you put in 5.4 (projected WAR) and 5% inflation and $9m/win, a ten-year contract comes out to $449 million.
You can change the assumptions to be much more negative and you’ll still get more than $350.
Any reason $/WAR stopped rising in 2022?
Using his 2017 WAR instead of 2018 projections for the starting point of the model is obviously preposterous. But if it still comes out to $449 million, very interesting.
You should probably replace the version in this piece to start at 5.4 WAR.
I just followed the instructions. Up now is ‘ages poorly’ and 5.4 starting point. If you age that one normally, it’s $449m.
welp. He’s actually 28 don’t know why I made him 29 in seasonal age next year.
Better, but your “ages poorly” is more like “ages normally” imo, it’s relatively optimistic.
So, per the table, if Stanton finishes his career with 74+ WAR, good for 13th best position player of the last 50 years, he would be worth more than the contract. To par the contract, he needs 63+ WAR, or top 50 of the last 50 years.
I think I can understand why people are hesitant to risk $300 million to bet on an injury-prone player completing the latter half of a slam-dunk HoF career.
I think this is a fun way to think of it, but don’t really buy the model’s prediction that his age 28-37 years will be better than all but 23 guys on this list (40 WAR).
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2017&month=0&season1=1988&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=28,37&filter=&players=0&page=1_50
The second table is a little more believable (29.1 WAR). Might work better for mid-level players than superstars
It says 5.4
I would love to see the Dodgers get Stanton. This is partially because of my SoCal roots, but mostly because I want him to break home run records and it’s harder to do in a lot of the listed landing spots.
Where I really want is for him to move to Cincy or some other tiny ballpark and see if he can launch 100 dingers in a year, but I’ll settle for a normal-sized stadium.
I wish we knew what was going on in Stanton’s head. With a full no-trade he can really dictate to the Marlins what they do if they move him, and if they’re determined to do it he has a lot of leverage.
If they’ll only move him if its profitable enough for them then he really doesn’t, but if they’re operating under an obligation to cut payroll due to the acquisition (like the Cubs had to, to pay off loans and detangle previous ownership), he may kind of have them over a barrel.
He’s a LA native and would look pretty good in LF in LA, where the home run factors aren’t unfriendly (mostly neutral, but HR prone right down the lines at those 3 foot fences in the corners).
He’d also give the Dodgers maybe the best defensive OF in the NL, since they would have the 2nd and 3rd best RFs in the NL last year in the OF corners, and an average to above-average defender in Taylor in CF.
The problem is the Dodgers really want to cut payroll this offseason as 2018 is their only available window to reset their luxury tax threshold prior to resigning Kershaw and arbitration beginning for Corey Seager and then Cody Bellinger.
“With a full no-trade he can really dictate to the Marlins what they do if they move him, and if they’re determined to do it he has a lot of leverage.”
Sort of, but there’s also some leverage that goes the other way. The downside for Stanton is that he spends the next three years on a rebuilding, not very good team unless he waives his no-trade clause.
The Marlins do have other ways to cut payroll. They can move players who have positive surplus value (Yelich, Ozuna) and neutral-ish surplus value contracts (Gordon), possibly packaging some of their negative value contracts (Chen, Prado) in return for less prospect value depending on how much they value reducing payroll immediately vs. rebuilding their very poor farm system.
Yelich, Ozuna, and Gordon add up to $28.7 million of 2018 payroll (based on MLB Trade Rumors’ projected arb number for Ozuna). Prado is due $28.5 million over the next two years, and Chen is due $52 million over the next 3 years. Maybe the Marlins gamble that they can move the rest of Prado’s contract mid-season in 2018 without eating any of it if he returns healthy and once again performs at a 2-3 WAR level. Prado was a 3+ WAR player in both 2015 and 2016. Between Volquez, Ziegler, and Tazawa, the Marlins have another $29 million in payroll coming off the books after 2018. Maybe the Marlins also clear something approaching half of the combined $16 million due to Ziegler and Tazawa in 2018 and also get back some lottery ticket prospects if those pitchers are healthy and effective in 2018.
So it’s possible to see a fairly clear path for the Marlins to reduce 2018 payroll by $30 to $40 million and to make an incremental $45 to $35 million in reductions for 2019 (depending on how far 2018 payroll falls) even without necessarily packaging the contracts that currently look underwater with Yelich and/or Ozuna. Even bigger reductions are possible if they package bad contracts with those two players.
It could turn into an ugly situation between Stanton and the team, and it almost certainly makes it more likely that Stanton opts out after 2020 if he can get anything close to the money due to him after that year. From a payroll commitment standpoint, that’s not necessarily a bad outcome for the Marlins. A risk, of course, is that the Marlins slash payroll, clear out most of their other good players, and then are paying a diminished Stanton about $30 million per year after 2020.
The tough decision for Stanton is that this off-season might be his best chance to leave Miami for a contender before his opt out, which also leaves him in a position to be able to decide to take his guaranteed money post-2020 from an organization that even in 2020 looks like a better contender than the Marlins.
Who would want Prado? His contract is bad and he isn’t very good anymore.
No, they have like $50mn+ coming off the books after 2018 (AGon, Kazmir, McCarthy, etc). It’s after that year they will reset. An extension for Kershaw will presumably just keep him around his current $30mn salary but for another 10 years.
I generally agree with Johnny Fang.
Cot’s already has the Dodgers over the 2018 luxury tax, counting projected arb numbers – https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12Fdcz-v1dHv7WUA6N73JhLNL7cZ-JCaUSRyh8LQvG7A/pubhtml# . Even trading Grandal and his projected $7.7 million arb salary wouldn’t get the Dodgers under the luxury tax line.
That overage is before any free agent reliever signings or any prospective moves that would add payroll during the 2018 season (luxury tax is measured as of the end of year). If the Dodgers were really committed to getting under the luxury tax in 2018, they could perhaps see if they could package a prospect with Gonzalez and get a team (Phillies?) to eat all or most of his money to “buy” a prospect. A complicating factor is that Gonzalez has full ability to veto any trade as a player with 10-5 rights, but perhaps there’d be an understanding that the acquiring team would release Gonzalez shortly after acquiring him, guaranteeing him his 2018 salary without the need to play for that team. Another question is if the Dodgers really want to sell prospects just to get under the luxury tax now that the CBA has taken away international amateurs as a place to acquire prospects for nothing but (non-luxury tax calculation) money.
I think it might even be possible for the Dodgers to sign Harper, re-sign Kershaw, and still be under the 2019 luxury tax, though it looks like it could be tight depending on how much money they spend on the bullpen and having lots of starting rotation depth beyond the top 5 starters. But, besides that other money coming free after 2018, they also have $15 million gone between Puig and Forsythe and could try something like moving Taylor back to the IF and playing an OF of Harper, Pederson/Hernandez platoon, and Verdugo.
The Dodgers seem like such a logical option. They’ve got the coast, the money, the team, and the farm system.
The Dodgers have a half dozen outfield prospects at least comparable to Heliot Ramos, who seems like the best guy the Giants have to offer. They could safely punt one or two of them to best the Giants’ offer, add Stanton in their place, and be significantly better for the cost of his contract.
And while the Stanton contract is huge and the Dodgers will need to start worrying about arbitration soon, they’ve also got Adrian Gonzalez, Scott Kazmir, and Hyun-Jin Ryu coming off the books after 2018. Money is not an issue for this team. So unless you’re going to make a run at Bryce Harper, it seems like Stanton’s the guy you may as well open your wallet for.
I’m with Eno here. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to trade for Stanton given the expected price for Harper, if you think you’re going to be dipping into that market. How much to trade is the question, but prospects bust and if you’re a team with a lot of money you might as well blow it on Stanton than on two 3-WAR/year players. And, of course, the more you kick in on prospects the less you’ll probably have to pay.
Yeah the options mean that you have to be careful about how much to give up, given that you could only get him for three years.
What’s $150M-160M in surplus value worth in prospects? That’s the back of the envelope math for Stanton the next three years assuming he performs well enough to opt out. Given the risk inherent in the rest of the deal, this feels about like it might be what interested teams should be willing to pay, since the later surplus also comes with significant downside risk.
That’s like a top 50 guy and a borderline top 100 guy if we’re talking position players who are rookie eligible.
$150 to $160 million of surplus value is quite a bit more than a top 50 plus a borderline top 100 going by the prospect valuation model licensed by Fangraphs. It’s more like two top 10 prospects plus a prospect around #50 –
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/valuing-the-2017-top-100-prospects/
IIRC, that model pretty accurately reflects the realized return for recent big trades such as Sale and Quintana. (Some of the in-season trades for top-tier relievers are a clear exception, where teams have paid more in prospects than would be indicated by this prospect valuation model.)
That said, though the optimistic case in the first table is only about $115 million in surplus value because Stanton is still owed 10 years / $295 million.
Only having him for three years might be better. If he ages well then you get less surplus value, but you also have much much less risk.
I just think the neat “Win = $9 M, age by 0.5 WAR” approach is so cookie-cutter that it glosses over the real risks that happen here.
If you did this $/WAR analysis on David Wright’s extension, he would have been seen as a major bargain. Even Pujols could have made his mega-contract have surplus value if you aged him this way and assumed a win cost that much.
Here’s the problem with this analysis in my opinion:
1) A win only costs so much ($9 M) because it’s free agency, and teams have cost-controlled players at other positions. If you spent this amount of money on wins all across the roster, you’d need over $400 M to have a good team. So saying a player gives you surplus value relative to free agency is nice only if you’re a team that needs to fill a ton of holes through free agency. And if that was the case, you probably should be looking for bargains and undervalued trade acquisitions, not guys with $300 M contracts.
2) Players rarely age as neatly as the -0.5 WAR approach estimates. First, oftentimes a player’s skill just erodes, which deprives their entire value. This is what happened with Carl Crawford, for example, when he lost his speed. Second, oftentimes players get hurt or have unforeseen health problems. Jason Bay, David Wright, Prince Fielder, etc. A guy who’s healthy in their 20s might not be so in their 30s.
How much does the fact that he cleared waivers in August factor in to what times are likely to trade for him? Teams could have tried to take him for free, and not one went for it. I understand that teams have annual operating budgets, but he only made $14.5M last year so prorated out to mid August would have left a team on the hook for a few million in 2017.
We are debating the relative value of a bag of balls compared to Stanton and his contract, right? If any team gives up anything of value they had better get some serious cash relief.
I think adding that sort of salary in season made things more difficult. There are teams at the table now willing to trade for him, and they’ll trade a real prospect. Nobody is going to pick up that contract in July, but in November, it’s a different story.
I’m having difficulty understanding that argument for why he cleared revocable waivers in August. As Buhner’s Rocket Arm says, the cash involved (and luxury tax hit, if relevant) within the season wasn’t that incrementally large for any team that can contemplate paying Stanton $295 million over the next 10 years. In August, a team logically should have a good handle on what its payroll commitments look like for future years. I don’t see that it knows that much, if any, more in November before free agent signings have occurred.
I guess a couple things come to mind as possible factors:
(1) Is the idea simply that taking on a contract of this magnitude requires organizational discussions between front office baseball people and an organization’s owner/senior business people that take longer than the limited period to make a waiver decision? I’d think that would be mitigated in Stanton’s case, however, by the assumption that he’s been a potential trade target for some time, encouraging teams to have those internal discussions prospectively in anticipation of talks with the Marlins.
(2) Do teams evaluating potential waiver claims receive medical information on players? I could see lack of medical information, or lack of time to review it, being an issue, but I don’t know how this information is handled for potential waiver claims.
(3) Was there a strong belief that the Marlins simply wouldn’t let Stanton go for a waiver claim – he did, after all, clear revocable waivers – and that they also wouldn’t trade Stanton in negotiations with only the team that claimed him? If so, maybe a waiver claim, and the analysis and discussions to feel confident about making a claim, were seen as simply a waste of time.
I think it is that teams budget for a certain maximum amount of in-season payroll additions, and adding Stanton’s relatively large prorated salary in August was unrealistic for many teams because they had already hit that max or gotten near it.
Interesting idea, but I’m not seeing that one as being the real difference for teams that have the revenue to be interested in the rest of his contract.
Stanton’s contract is heavily backloaded, so his 2017 salary was only $14.5 million. Stanton reportedly cleared waivers in mid-August, so we’re talking about roughly 25% of his annual salary for a team acquiring him. That’s on the order of $3.6 million. That’s well within the range of current year salary that even mid-revenue teams take on when acquiring players mid-season.
Bryce Harper also cleared waivers. The relevance here being that Loria would have demanded a package for Stanton that could probably land you Harper.
The Marlins were also in the process of being sold, and any deal for Stanton would have been that much more complicated.
I think it’s worth noting that most of the teams connected to Stanton are either near or above the luxury tax. The Dodgers, Giants, and Red Sox would pay more for him (to varying degrees) than say the Marlins or Cardinals. I just don’t see a fit between on any team that expects to be near or over the luxury tax within the next few years.
If you sign a free agent to a contract and are in the lux tax, you lose a second round pick worth as much as $15m, and for a team like the Giants, that could be worth more. So getting a guy, even on a deal that he would get in FA, is still worth at least that much to those teams.
I think he was more talking about the fact that his nearly $30 million/year is actually higher for luxury tax teams who are paying the tax as well. I don’t know the specifics of luxury tax payments, but if you’re already over couldn’t they actually be paying upwards of $40-45 mil/year AAV for his services?
One of the projection tables lists his 2018 age at 29, another at 27, and the article refers to him as 28. What’s going on here??
He’s 28 now, his contract would ‘start’ at a seasonal age of 29, I rushed the second table because people were asking for it and made a mistake. Tables should say 29 and do now.
Beyond the baseball value that Stanton provides, is there any evidence to support the hypothesis that a player like Stanton could increase viewership simply because it’s fun to watch a guy hit a ton of dingers? This is purely anecdotal, but I feel like a player like that adds to the entertainment value of a team and I wonder if that’s something clubs actually consider (not that it necessarily would impact their desire to acquire him).
Players don’t normally move the needle on attendance.
I agree this is normally true, though I do think there are a few exceptions and one that may apply in this scenario:
The Dodgers’ Latino fanbase is huge and really important to the franchise and its really important to them to have a prominent Latino player. Adrian Gonzalez has been in that role for quite a few years now and has done it very well due to his ties to the southern California community, where he’s a native. Adrian is the Dodger who does the most of the Dodgers public service work with the city and so on.
Stanton is a Latino native to the LA area and high profile enough to take over this role in a way that younger players couldn’t.
I don’t know that it has a direct attendance value, but I think it would be a nice ancillary benefit that the team and city would appreciate.
From Stanton’s wikipedia page:
“Stanton is mostly of African American and Irish descent. His maternal great-grandmother was Puerto Rican.”
He is not a potential Latino icon for LA. The player you’re looking for is Julio Urias.
My understanding is that the reason he changed from Michael to Giancarlo was in part because he felt more connected with that portion of his heritage.
Julio is obviously someone who can do that someday, but hes very young.
Giancarlo is an Italian name. His parents gave it to him because they liked it.
I don’t know that Stanton’s Puerto Rican heritage will move the needle in LA, but you know what will move the needle? Home run chases. He closes in on 61 and everyone is going to buy tickets.
I’m on this. I want to see someone top 61 (who isn’t obviously on steroids) and I want to get dinger machines into smaller stadiums to get it.
Stanton plays RF and isn’t Latino, not really, whereas Puig is. And Stanton would displace Puig in RF. I don’t see how you reconcile all this with your Latin fanbase claims. Puig would likely be flipped to Miami for Stanton, where he’d fit nicely. AGon is on his lasat legs.
The estimated contract value is not correct. If Stanton produces 15-20 WAR in 2018-2020, he will opt out. The ONLY way Stanton opts in is if the contract is underwater.
The acquiring team gets 1 of these 2 scenarios:
1 – Stanton produces surplus value in 2018-2020, and opts out
2 – Stanton tanks, opts in, and becomes an albatross contract
The acquiring team has to weigh the likelihood of each scenario. The Marlins can pretty easily assume the risk of scenario #2 by agreeing to pay a portion of Stanton’s salary after he opts in (if that happens).
The Marlins can get a significant return for Stanton if they are willing to gamble on him opting out, and I think that’s exactly what they should do.
I agree the best thing the Marlins should do is agree to basically indemnify the acquiring team against Stanton not exercising his option.
Giancarlo Stanton, pre-option contract portion, is a somewhat below-market but reasonably well compensated elite player. Its the potential downside of the last 3-4 years of the contract that will be scaring teams off.
If I were the Marlins I’d offer to pay a substantial portion of his post-option earnings in return for receiving prospect value based on the pre-option portion of the contract.
Well, a third case exists where he is pretty good for the next three years but not good (or healthy) enough to believe he will get a better deal in FA. He could pick up the option and still earn it.
There’s no way Derek Jeter is smart enough to think of this, lol
I’m with you and you’re not even factoring in that there aren’t very many players at his level. Even if you were willing to pay Harper or Machado “market value” based on $/WAR comps, you might not be able to. If you have a chance to get a rare talent for that you should do it if you can afford it. If the Cardinals for example have to trade Piscotty and Reyes for Stanton and take his whole salary, they should IMO.
The Marlins are going to want trade value equal to Stanton’s surplus value for the next three years – and include a contingency clause in the case that he doesn’t opt out.
$77M/3yrs for his age 29-31 seasons represents (very roughly) a $40-70M surplus.
Contingent upon the rejection of the player opt-out, the Marlins will have to agree to pay down the back end of the deal. Stanton will be owed $218M/7yrs – if Miami pays $70M then the receiving team get the liability down to about $21M/yr, which is a palatable risk.
Yes the options come in when you’re considering how much to pay, very much. Generally making the argument that the contract is reasonable here.
Basically, it’s two completely separate contracts. One is extremely team friendly. The second is almost pure risk for the team. In order for Stanton to be dealt, each contract has to be negotiated separately.
To believe this analysis, you have to think that every team in baseball passed on claiming his from waivers and getting $200 million of surplus value just because they couldn’t fit a couple million dollars into their operating budget at the end of the season. It’s hard to believe that, as a group, MLB owners are this short-sighted. The Cardinals are a prime example. They have plenty of room in their budget (having tried and failed to sign Heyward, Price and others), a clear need for Stanton, and still didn’t claim him. The evidence suggests that teams look at that contract differently.
Guys pass through revocable waivers all the time. Harper wasn’t claimed last year. There was some chance that the Marlins would have just dumped him on you if you claimed him, but I really don’t believe they would have.
Harper seems to be an exception that proves the rule, however. The reporting was that every team understood that it was simply a waste of time to fill out the paperwork to claim him because the Nationals clearly weren’t going to release Harper or trade him during the season – https://www.fanragsports.com/heyman-several-mets-clear-waivers-eligible-trade/
These tweets are relevant–looks like teams see the rest of his contract as fair value. So they do not see $200 million of surplus value, and yet they were still shortsighted.
https://twitter.com/jonmorosi/status/930928945419218944
https://twitter.com/jonmorosi/status/930930290767343616
https://twitter.com/jonmorosi/status/930891011752067072
This is the issue. Teams are in the business of looking for surplus value. Stanton’s contract is big enough that a ton of surplus is not that likely. The first table has Stanton ending his career with 74+ WAR. Who the hell really believes that? The 25th best position player since 1950? Even the “pessimistic” table = 63.2 WAR, still top 65 position player since 1950.
It’s extremely risky and these kinds of fuckups are what hamstring teams for years when they don’t work out. Why put 300 million eggs in one basket? If you have $300 million, you have plenty of options to look for surplus value outside of betting on an injury-prone slugger being a slam-dunk HoF player. What happens a lot more often is players fizzling out at 45-55 WAR which would be whatever, something like $100 million in deficit.
“Rob Arthur looked into this over at Baseball Prospectus and found an equation that predicted injury fairly well. Follow that equation, and Stanton should be predicted to miss… seven games next year.”
I’m not sure this fully captures the injury fear. If I’m a GM, my concern is not just that Stanton will miss time next year, it’s that as he ages into his 30s, his penchant for injury will be a recurring issue, and those strains will become tears, etc. That may or may not be a reasonable fear, but it’s a different one from “will he be injured next season.”
You know, one thing to think about is that current injuries have sapped Stanton’s availability but not his performance.
Its entirely possible that continuing to miss time for those kinds of reasons is one of the only ways that a team gets decent value out of a Stanton who doesn’t opt out: He is injury-prone enough to not demand a higher contract rate on the market, but worth a goodly amount for the 100-120 games a year you get him.
Kind of like how the only thing that prevents Clayton Kershaw from opting out of his current deal after next year is probably another sub-150 inning season which may reduce his earning potential back to the 35m+ he’s already guaranteed to make.
Did injuries not sap both in 2016?
I absolutely agree, and I’d upvote frangipard’s comment more than once if I could.
It’s a 10 year commitment, where the team loses some of its positive surplus value outcomes if Stanton’s health and effectiveness hold up especially well (due to the opt-out) but has a lot of downside risk if he ages especially poorly, including suffering chronic injuries.
I see a lot of the fear on injuries as basically being that Stanton is 6′ 6″, 245 pounds, with a fairly extensive history of lower body injuries even prior to the age of 28. How does a player with that profile age over the next 5 to 10 years? And, if I’m an NL team, I can’t just plan on making him a full-time (or even 50% of the time) DH in a few years to try to keep him healthy.
I’d also add that the model (which basically only considers days missed in 2017 and 2016) probably doesn’t apply as well to a guy who’s missed decent parts of 5 of the last 6 seasons.
Agreed, and while it’s useful as a first pass at near-term probability of injury, it’s worth detailing that its only variables are age and the number of days missed due to injury over the prior three years.
Of course what a team really wants to understand with Stanton is “how do we think that a 6′ 6″, 245 pound corner OF will age, after this specific performance and injury history, over both the next few years and the next decade, taking into account both future performance declines and future injury risk.”
Nothing against Rob Arthur, but his model is useful for something like should injury history scare me away from picking this player for my re-draft fantasy baseball team. Or, being a bit more generous, should it scare me as a GM away from this player on a 1-year contract. I don’t see that it even attempts to answer the question of evaluating a long-term, big money contract commitment to a player.
+1
Even that second aging curve seems optimistic, given that it would require Stanton to be as productive in his next four seasons–entering his early 30s–as he was in his last four, his physical prime. Certainly not impossible, but I’m not sure that’s something I’d bet my team budget on, given the consequences of being wrong.
“Is the Hot Stove star overpriced, underwater, and bound to age poorly?”
Yes, no, and yes. He’s this year’s Pablo Sandoval.
Did he eat Dee Gordon?!
I think it’s interesting to hypothesize why teams, who have become quite sophisticated in how they evaluate contracts, wouldn’t see much if any surplus value in Stanton’s contract.
The second table is pretty easy for that one: it shows Stanton being worth almost exactly the remaining value of his contract ($295 million contract vs. $294 million value). That implies that a team should be willing to take the contract, and maybe they’d even overpay for availability by dealing a back half of the top 100 prospect who is worth something like $15 to $30 million of surplus value. The implication from media reports, however, is that the Marlins are expecting that level of prospect as something like the second piece in a trade to complement a better prospect who alone has surplus value of $40 to $50 million.
In the first optimistic table, the opt-out isn’t all that relevant, because Stanton’s surplus value is essentially all in his pre opt-out years. That would call for a big haul of prospect value. Team-friendly outcomes above this range are largely cut-off due to Stanton’s opt-out, however.
What we don’t see are more negative cases where injuries – whether chronic or the idiosyncratic injury risk of things like hit by pitches or collisions with the outfield wall – lead to lots of missed time and/or diminished abilities. And that idiosyncratic injury risk is where I sometimes wonder if the average aging curve analysis breaks down a bit: isn’t the probability of getting zero WAR from Stanton for half a year due to a random injury just as high probability as the risk of such an injury for a 2-3 WAR player?
Teams presumably apply a probability to all of these scenarios, and a general principle of risk analysis is that a more volatile asset (i.e., greater range of positive and negative outcomes) is worth less (compared to the average expected value) than a less volatile asset due to risk aversion. It’s also almost certainly tougher to forecast a player’s future performance the more years into the future one looks. In baseball terms for Stanton’s contract, the downside is simply a lot bigger for a team’s long-term budget than the downside of signing a 2 to 3 WAR player to a contract of something like 5 years / $100 million. There’s also presumably some hesitancy from teams that the player opt-out complicates long-term payroll budgeting. How does a team approach long-term free agent contracts for the 2018 and 2019 off-seasons when it doesn’t know whether it’s paying Stanton an average of about $30 million per year post-2020?
TLDR: it’s an interesting analysis from Eno, but I think that just focusing on starting point and normal aging curves glosses over a probability distribution analysis, and risk aversion to extreme downside outcomes, that I strongly suspect is a big part of how teams analyze such a large, long-term commitment.
This ^^^
The comp that I keep coming back to is Pujols. Through his age 28 season he was a far superior player to Stanton. He had posted seasons ranging between 7.7 and 9.5 WAR between his 23-28 years. His worst year in that span was significantly better than Stanton’s best season. Pujols was healthy as well – playing in no fewer than 148 games. Stanton has had exactly one season where he played as many as 148 games.
His actual performance from 29 and on …
29 – 8.4
30 – 6.8
31 – 4.0
32 – 3.6
33 – 0.6
34 – 2.8
35 – 1.8
36 – 0.8
37 – (-2.0)
That’s 26 WAR over 9 years. Using the same aging assumptions as in the article, Pujols would have been projected to have contributed 64 WAR over those 9 years. He was worth 40% of his projected value. This past season, instead of being -2.0 WAR he SHOULD have put up 5.2 WAR.
The Angels got burned two ways. First, the early years of the contract never panned out as expected. There was no real surplus (on an AAV) in the first few years. Then, the performance tanked way too early. His performance at age 35 was what his performance was projected at for 41.
The downside with Stanton is far more severe than what Enos outlines. I’m NOT suggesting that he will go the way of Pujols but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar fall. And he doesn’t have to fall as fast or as hard for this deal to be a disaster.
Thanks, and very good point about Pujols.
I’m wondering if anyone has done a retrospective analysis of these big-money position player free agent deals based on how they compared to projections and aging curves at the time that the deals were signed. Something like all 6 year or longer position player free agent deals (not pre-free agency extensions) with an inflation-adjusted value of at least $125 million. I’m pretty sure the overall analysis is that they’ve been bad as a group, because the surplus from the ones that worked out pretty well (e.g., Matt Holliday) is overwhelmed by the negative value from the ones that went very poorly for the team, such as Pujols or Prince Fielder.
The question would be, though, using Year 1 projections at the time and normal aging curves, were these deals predictably this bad as a group? Or did they turn out worse than we would have expected, perhaps due to skewness in the distribution of outcomes?
One underlying idea might be that time missed to injury always results in zero WAR, no matter the quality of the player, so better players with larger contracts pose particular downside risk from missing time due to injury.
Another would be that projection systems somehow hone in on a projected result that doesn’t accurately weight downside and upside for a player who has already performed at a very high level. IIRC, Heyward was projected to be around a 5 WAR player for the 2016 season when he signed his contract. I’m not saying that we should have expected him to crater to the combined 2.4 WAR that he’s posted over the past two seasons, but wasn’t it a more likely outcome than him turning into a player who overperformed his projection by about 7-8 WAR over two years?
Seems like it would an interesting project for a Hardball Times article or a Fangraphs resident.
“Giancarlo Stanton is good, nor is he merely one-trick pony. ”
perhaps fangraphs should acquire stanton to be a copy-editor.
Got it, fixed, don’t know why you put a dash between copy and editor.
I think the most accurate contractual progression is the 10-411. However, based on the way players are aging the last 5 years, I think I would start the 0.5 drop a year earlier at age 30, especially since he will be an older 30. That would drop his total WAR from 40 to 36.
My next point is that the longer and older these contracts are, the more downside the contract has making the base numbers look better then they actually are. Especially for a player already projected at 5.4 WAR. He might have a 5% chance at bettering his WAR projections the next 5 seasons by 2.0 WAR per season. But probably a 30% chance of producing 3.0 WAR per season less then projected. Not much up side, but a whole lot of down side. I don’t think these length of deals are properly evaluated because of this.
Finally, his injury history may not be predicatably repeatable. But I don’t think this takes into account his personal situation. He is just so freakishly huge. I do wonder how that will age. And he seemed to take an entire year to over come getting hit in the face. What if he gets hit in the head again? Just some pause for concern vs. the average player with his games missed history.
I think he is worth bewteen 300-350. That is his surplus value IMO. There is some, but not as much as listed here. That doesn’t even take into account my doubts about a starting point of 9 million in WAR/year. I have it a little lower as well.
When folks site the aging curve maximum, whether 26 or 28, they never site the variance or confidence interval around? It’s got to be 3-5 years, if you look at the point scatter.
I’m a Pirates fan. I *know* with certainty the probability of Hungtington trading for Stanton and his salary is less than nil. Still: I would be *absolutely fascinated* by a post—if the author had any interest whatsoever—which highlighted how acquiring Stanton + $5M annually for Tyler Glasnow, Cole Tucker and, say, Chad Kuhl or Ke’bryan Hayes would impact the Pirates win curve/projections for 2018 and maybe 2019. Just putting it out there.
Weird downvote! I was doing nothing more than sharing personal curiosity but I guess it’s your downvote to do what you like with.
Why does inflation suddenly stop in 2022?
2020 Presidential election. 😉
It’s really ironic that Miami finally got rid of Jeffrey Loria, and now the new ownership group is like “Well, obviously the first thing we need to do is curtail this organization’s free-spending ways.”
True, though Loria basically stuck the new ownership group with this situation by backloading the cash in some contracts. Not just Stanton, though his commitment is obviously a big one, but also others such as Wei-Yin Chen, who has a 5 year / $85 million deal where $42 million of the cash is in the last 2 years (2019 and 2020) per Cot’s. Virtually everybody with a multi-year contract on that team, from Prado to Gordon to Volquez to Ziegler, has escalating annual salaries rather than a flat cash per year deal. Yelich’s is more understandable, because escalating salaries are normal for pre-free agency extensions, but most of these contracts aren’t such extensions.
I’m not crying for the new ownership group, as they saw the details of the Marlins’ financials and therefore went into this situation with their eyes widen open, but it’s really something of a mess to sort out for a low-revenue team that also has a really poor farm system.
I have strong doubt about $9M/WAR starting point for free agents.
CC Sabathia and Zack Cozart did not receive QO of 1 year 17.4M contract which using the above valuation corresponds to 2 war.
Sabathia’s past three years has been 1.2, 2.6, 1.9 by fwar and 1.1, 3.1, 3.4 by RA9-war and is projected for 1.7 war next season.
Cozart’s past three years has been 1.4, 2.5, 5.0 war and is projected for 2.8 war next season.
If the Reds and the Yankees agree on $9M/WAR, they should have absolutely offered them QO since it is unlikely to be accepted and even if it were, the teams would be paying market price (Sabathia) or below (Cozart).
Yes, the Reds are not contending, but they could still flip Cozart for prospects assuming $9M/WAR figure is correct.
Fair point, but the “flip Cozart if he accepts the QO” idea is much easier said than done. Players who accept QO’s, or are signed as off-season free agents on major league contracts, can’t be traded until June 15 of the following season.
And that theoretical option of trading Cozart on June 15 is difficult because the market is effectively limited to teams in contention. The market demand from those teams is in turn highly dependent on them suffering from injuries or unexpected underperformance, as those contenders presumably came into the season with some other plan for a starting shortstop.
“The most recent analysis of peak value suggests that it occurs closer to 26.”
I feel like I’ve read this too but can’t find the same study. I’ve also seen several others that repeat that it occurs closer to 28-29. Can anyone share the 26-peak link?
Don’t you estimate the lost value of the players you send? In that case is it better to spend the money on JD Martinez? Even at $180 million for six years?
Good information, but it seems like only best case and reasonable case scenarios are presented, but not a bad case, like Josh Hamilton or Albert Pujols. Frankly, a team acquiring Stanton will probably even be nervous about the McCutchen scenario.
Seeing headline, thought it was reprint of a white paper on suggested Cabinet appointments sent to Abraham Lincoln by his transition team in December 1860. Or maybe not.
Sorry. When a player has a history of not playing full seasons, you can not decide that magically, they shall suddenly give you 550 at bats every season for the next 10 seasons.
That would be silly.
You have his age WRONG. He just turned 28, he won’t be 29 until November of 2018. Long after the 2018 Regular season is over.