The White Sox Extend Eloy Jimenez
Yesterday, White Sox right fielder Eloy Jimenez, our eighth overall prospect on this year’s Top 100, joined this week’s extension palooza (now featuring prospects!), signing a precedent-smashing extension before he’s even spent a day in the major leagues.
Eloy Jimenez’s deal with the Chicago White Sox will be for six years and $43 million, as @Ken_Rosenthal said. It will include a pair of club options and can max out around $77 million, sources tell ESPN.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) March 20, 2019
An important point here is that the White Sox appear to have leveraged service time manipulation to their advantage, as noted by Ken Rosenthal, though they’re far from the first club to have done so. Since Chicago could have gained a seventh year of control by leaving Jimenez in the minors for 15 days, the six-and-two structure means that he only gave up one year of potential free agency from what was otherwise his best (and only) alternative to taking this deal. There’s no way to know exactly how much money or how many years this saved the White Sox, but it basically took one season from the free agent column and moved it into the arbitration column, so the figure is likely in the millions. Since this exact set of circumstances could be changed in the next round of CBA negotiations, it was opportunistic of the White Sox to use this negotiating chip while they still had it.
But that doesn’t take away from the fact that this deal is predicated, at least in part, on some disingenuous public posturing from a club in the middle of a rebuild that isn’t going that well. They’re essentially holding their best prospect, and their fans, hostage, all to squeeze a little more value out of a potential franchise player in a far-off year. General manager Rick Hahn gave a non-answer last August when, during a sixth straight season in which the club was more than 15 games out of first place, Jimenez clearly warranted a call-up but was left in Triple-A. Manager Rick Renteria casually compared Jimenez to Ken Griffey Jr. last week when he was sent to minor league camp. Astros pitcher Collin McHugh shined a light on the motivations behind the situation after Jimenez was optioned. If Jimenez is on the Opening Day roster, I’m sure we’ll get some chuckles and shrugs when Hahn or Renteria are asked how he magically became major league-ready less than a week after they’d announced that he wasn’t.
Jimenez originally signed for $2.8 million in 2013, so that money plus the roughly $1.6 million he would get making the league minimum in 2019-2021 obviously wasn’t going to create a set-for-life situation, especially after agent/buscon fees and taxes. The sort of player he has turned into (a big corner hitter who has gotten bigger and more corner-y in recent years) isn’t in demand in free agency or elsewhere, unless that player is making close to the league minimum or is hitting like J.D. Martinez. In our most recent Top 100 prospect list, we made a graph of Jimenez’s likely WAR outcomes over his cost-controlled years, using the empirical baseline of past 60 FV hitters:
Moving left to right, the percentages are 12%, 15%, 30%, 28% and 15%. The weighted average of Jimenez’s team control-years WAR is 15.5, putting him in the middle to lower end of the 60/65 group, which jives with our 60 FV grade. We basically think he’s a perennial three-win player with a chance for a season or two of production higher than that, and about a 25% chance of turning into a role player or one who fizzles out quickly (the bottom two tiers).
Craig Edwards’ research pegs a 60 FV hitter as being worth $55 million, but Jimenez is near the top of that range and research from Dan Aucoin pegs that value at about $60 million. That would cover the first seven seasons with no deal, so $43 million guaranteed with a chance at $77 million over eight years suggests that both sides did well, with Jimenez taking somewhere between a $10 million and $20 million discount (roughly a third) to get the money guaranteed, but losing little of the upside. If Jimenez captures the full value of the deal (eight years, $77 million), that figure is very close to his present asset value over eight years, or the median value of what he’s worth over that term.
The White Sox assume some risk that Jimenez ages very quickly and turns into a DH in his arbitration years, but they’re in a rebuild and things will have gone pretty poorly in other ways if that happens. Jimenez could be leaving some money on the table if he does indeed turn into J.D. Martinez, but I’m generally of the mind that right-handed hitters with heavy builds at age 22 to take the median payout, especially if they haven’t had a huge payday yet. I just wish these sorts of shenanigans weren’t what got them there.
Kiley McDaniel has worked as an executive and scout, most recently for the Atlanta Braves, also for the New York Yankees, Baltimore Orioles and Pittsburgh Pirates. He's written for ESPN, Fox Sports and Baseball Prospectus. Follow him on twitter.
I think it’s instructive to think about what would happen if a team like the Rays or Reds (or White Sox) who have multiple FV60+ prospects signed them all to extensions like this before they hit the majors. I think it’s pretty clear they would be coming out way, way ahead; even if we figure Moncada (who would have been signed for a lot more!) is stuck being a 2-win player forever, the value they signed away in that deal would likely be outpaced by the value they got from Kopech and Eloy. These are very team-friendly deals.
Kiley mentions the service time manipulation, and that definitely played a role in him signing a deal that is team-friendly. But it’s also the low pre-arb salaries. Just think of the world where, say, a player on the 40-man roster but in the minors earned what the minimum salary is now, and a pre-arb player earned 1.5M instead of the $500K or so they get now. Aside from directly raising the cost of buying out his pre-arb/arb years, Eloy would be in a much stronger bargaining position if he wanted to sign an extension like this.
This deal is not that team-friendly. The second-to-last paragraph explains why.
And in my opinion that risk is significant. I’ve seen Eloy in person several times over the last two seasons and on each occasion I came away thinking that he wasn’t going to stay in the outfield very long as a major leaguer.
That’s not true, the deal is slightly team friendly for ChiSox (its not zero sum necessarily). Slight surplus value plus some certainty, thats better than the alternative.
Very real DH-only, power-bat only concerns- but that’s baked into the projections, with ChiSox still getting a bit of surplus value. Jiminez is worth slightly more on the trade market under this contract than under his last, simply due to the definition of surplus value.
Correcting wage issues in MLB is pretty simple- pay the poorest more. Its crisis level when so many staff are unpaid and so many players dont make a living wage or a minimum wage.
Most of the effort to pay more to the non poorest will actually cripple the efforts to pay the poorest more. So for example, your suggestion to raise the pay for pre-arb players would (1) help 8-figure millionaires (now) like Jiminez make more, but (2) would cause many lesser compensated players to make less.
How?
By pricing 0-1 WAR players out of their market early in their cost-controlled years. There are tons of 0-1 WAR players, generally the 20th-40th best players in the organizations, who would lose their jobs to ‘major league minimum’ players if their pre-arb prices rose to 1.5m. Further, if their service time cemented their minimum wage at 1.5m for all clubs, there would be a ton of 25 year old ~1 WAR players who would be out of the game. The key point here is that the low price of the least compensated players (i.e. MLB minimum) would undermine the attempt to increase pre-arb compensation (since the minimum paid players would just get the jobs instead).
Raising minimums is the way to fix compensation issues, all other attempts will just exacerbate the divide.
As someone else pointed out…..if the next CBA moves FA up a year or two….they bought out more than 1 year of FA. We just don’t know what the next CBA will do with FA yet. So, I think the Sox bought out more uncertainty, and the player likely lost a year of (new) FA.
I’d be shocked if the next CBA reduced team control by a year or more. That would really harm small-market teams and competitive parity around the league. The better solution is to raise major-league minimums to get more money to the players.
Not only that, but union members like Eloy would feel slighted, and would push back against the unfairness.
While it may be true that some early extention candidates would be annoyed, there is no way MLBPA or the players generally would push back against taking away a year of MLB cost-control contracts.
Agreed with all that the best and most progressive options are to reform (1) minimum pay, (2) years of cost control, (3) roster size, etc., but unfortunately (despite the very encouraging issue of increasing minor league pay getting some attention) the bulk of the ‘reform’ efforts will likely be focused on getting ‘future owner’ Boras/CAA clients their half-billion contracts. Here’s to hoping the more progressive reforms occur.
Agreed. Another way could be to start the arbitration process 1-2 seasons earlier. Teams would still maintain 6 (or 7) years of control but players would be getting paid more, quicker.
You might have an even better idea in that you get more money to young stars rather than just raising the pay of every young journeyman.
I would love to see arbitration start in year 2. So 1 “free” year, then 4-5 years of arbitration before free agency.
And to raise minor league minimums, which they’re apparently already talking about.
Coincidentally, his defense suddenly improved enough that he belongs on the big league team!
Anybody else getting victimized by obnoxious pop up ads on their mobile?
I was getting killed by them here last night. also on RussianMachineNeverBreaks. Someone is sneaking bad ads past the Google AdSense gatekeepers
Yup. Fangraphs absolutely sucks on mobile. I installed an adblocker on my iPhone so that I can actually look up stats in peace.
Literally the only reason I installed the adblocker was Fangraphs. It’s obnoxious.
What adblocker? I’ve been looking for a good one for iPhone.
Eric Longenhagen suggested using FireFox’s Focus browser on mobile and it’s worked for me. Still get an ad or two, but much improved.
Yep. You absolutely have to use adblockers to come here at all.
I think I like this a lot more for Eloy than the White Sox.
I see it as this, Jimenez had two scenarios:
A) He doesn’t sign, goes through three seasons of pre-arb and then three of arb (realistically could be four of arb but let’s simplify it here)
B) He signs, doesn’t worry about arb
If he accepted scenario A it would be three seasons at the minimum (~$1.5M total) and then would need to make ~$41.5M in arbitration. Looking at some of the bigger names who have are in their final year of arb: Ozuna ($26M total), Rendon ($36M total), Bogaerts ($25M total). So he’d have to really destroy all those other arb numbers. Maybe he could hope to follow the Kris Bryant path who was super two eligible, made $10M his first year, now $12.9M in his second, and then up from there. That seems like a tall bet.
If he accepts scenario B, he doesn’t have to worry about trying to put up record arb numbers.
Or another way to look at it is:
Jimenez could take $43M now in exchange for betting that six years from now (in reality probably seven) he won’t get better than $17M AAV over 2-3 year deal
Jimenez could decline $43M now, in exchange for betting he will receive $17M+ AAV over a 2-3 year deal 6-7 years from now.
I think with the high bust rate of prospects, Jimenez made the right choice. Worst case is he undersells himself six years from now and signs a 2/$34M deal instead of a 3+/$XXM+ deal. Best case (?) for him is he gets $43M no matter what.
Yeah the two team options make it a little sticky for him, but given that they are at a decent amount $17M each, I think the exchange for $43M today makes it fine.
As for the White Sox, I think maybe it is a bit more risk than I’d like (I’m not a White Sox fan, just putting myself in their shoes) given both the $43M (which I know isn’t much but it is something for someone with zero MLB PA) and the team options (while they are friendly inherently) being $17M (as opposed to something like Sale or Bumgarner).
I agree. He’s got set for life money before playing a single game in MLB. If he fails, he’s still set. If he succeeds he’ll get a chance at a big FA payday before age 30.
Good for him!
White Sox engage in shenanigans to not pay players GTFOH!
Meanwhile, José Quintana, the player the White Sox traded to acquire Jiménez, has 25.3 career WAR and has only made $26 million…
This is the sort of comment that is anti-progressive and completely misses the point imo.
Players who post negative WAR values do not make negative dollars. Accordingly, not every player can make $8m per WAR- that is the free market, retrospective price- it has no a priori legitimacy.
Saying ‘I object to obscene owner profits and conduct, wages in MLB ought to be mroe fair’ is obviously laudable. The clear solution is to do the basics- stop health science fraud, pay minor leaguers a living wage, pay staff a living wage, diversify staff and execs, improve health and safety measures, add robust protections to secure the player and lower staff share of baseball related earnings.
The popular and lazy critique, however, is ‘some hero ballplayer who everyone likes ought to be mega excessively rich rather than just extremely rich.” That is a nonsense take, particularly in a game awash with PEDs among its highest earners. “Owners are 1%er jackass criminals, so we should make sure all our favourite players get paid enough to bag 100m and eventually grown their wealth to owner level.” makes no sense. We don’t need the Jeters making more.
Another way to look at it. If he’s good, he’ll get $77 million over 8 years instead of something a little more than that.
If he’s terrible, then he’ll get $43 million instead of being non-tendered at some point.
As someone who has no idea what it’s like to have that kind of money, I can say this. I know my life would be significantly different if I had $43 million. I don’t know that my life would change much if I had $77 million or $100 million instead of $43 million. Eloy is set for life.
MC Hammer: “Hold my beer.”
Last year a joke going around was the White Sox’ rationale for keeping Eloy down is they wanted to see how he would handle failure before promoting him. And come the year 2023 they would still be keeping him down because they still hadn’t seen how he’d handle failure.
“Jimenez originally signed for $2.8 million in 2013, so that money plus the roughly $1.6 million he would get making the league minimum in 2019-2021 obviously wasn’t going to create a set-for-life situation, especially after agent/buscon fees and taxes. ”
Lets just assume 40% to taxes, 10% to agent and 10% to buscon fees and 10% to misc.
With no other money I get that he could spend $30k per year (in 2013$) and assuming a pretty safe 2% interest rate (ally.com, discoverbank.com, etc), I get that he wouldn’t run out until his early 50s. With laddered CDs and figuring 2.6%, that extends to his mid-50s.
Using 7% for an investment account, it would never run out. Up the spending to $50k per year (~median US household income) and at this rate he makes it to his 90s.
Sure, this isn’t the set for life where you buy your own Caribbean island or give your groomsmen each a Ferrari as a gift or the like, but “I’ll have at least what the average working Joe has even if I retire when I’m 24 plus lifetime health insurance plus some sort of pension” is pretty solid.
buscones generally take 35% of amateur bonuses
Only spending $30k a year is setting the bar extremely low for what “set for life” means to a professional baseball player.
That was $30k assuming you just stuff the money in a bank account. If you kept reading, figuring a conservative 7% return in the market, it is $50k, which as I said is roughly the US median household income.
All I was getting at is that what he got for his signing bonus and three seasons at the minimum, he could live the rest of a long life like the median American household, without having to work again .
—
RE: the buscon– doesn’t make a lot of difference. I was figuring 10% of the full $4.4M and that is $0.44M; 35% of just the signing bonus is 0.98M. So I just lost $0.54M and all of the compounded interest!
But I also figured 10% for the agent on the full amount. Best I can tell, the Buscon fills that roll as well, up until the player gets signed, so knock off $0.28M.
Now I’m only under by $0.26M. But it also looks like 10% for the agent is on the high-side. In 2017, Scott Boras averaged 5.7%. That shaves off another $0.09M, so we’re down to my estimates being $0.19M.
I reserved 10% for “misc”, so if he doesn’t need a full-time publicist and private trainer and nutritionist, etc, some of that 10% can easily get back to where I started.
Only spending $30k a year is setting the bar extremely low. Period.
Some of your assumptions and figures seem substantially off, but yes, assuming he gets take home say 40% of that 43M, he should do well if he makes good, sound investments (probably w/ reasonable help) and moderate his (and his family’s) spending — not just 30K per year, but maybe more like 200K-plus per year me thinks depending on how well his investments do.
Yuck.
One of the rare extensions that I think favors the player. There’s a lot higher chance of a bust here than the normal early extension of a young player who played half to full season of major league ball and showed that he could hit big league pitching but let’s see if he can adjust to the league adjustment to him.
Nearly every extension “favours the player” vis-a-vis the players’ other options.
When we look at these deals and say “player friendly or club friendly” we sometimes make a zero-sum game analysis with respect to market value that the player might have in the future. This is not a serious way to analyze whether ‘the deal is good for the player.’
Unfortunately for players, their current ‘pro/con’ analysis has to take place in their current marketplace, which is under the current CBA- and even estimates about future CBAs should be grounded in reality, not popular PR memes.
Given this circumstance, players are almost always far better off, with respect to ‘estimated future wealth,’ taking 8-figure extensions if they are 2+ years away from FA.
This is true because (and this almost always gets missed in fan discussion) players can ‘bet’ on things other than ‘themselves’ or ‘their arm’ or ‘their bat.’ Fans sometimes praise ‘betting on yourself’ as a macho virtue, and often discuss this concept only in terms of passing up ‘today $’ to take a chance at a FA payday in the future. No serious wealth management programs operate so recklessly as to bet on health in an occupation of major physical attrition: players can “bet” on upside pay by investing their money, and those who do so have higher returns than those who bet on their health (in the aggregate). That is why even MLBPA financial advisers often, correctly, assess early extensions as beneficial.
TLDR; mega millionaires can bet on themselves financially, diversifying their holdings to minimize risk. Betting on their arm makes no sense. In current labor market, early 8-figure extensions may benefit teams moreso than players, but are nonetheless better for players than alternatively waiting for FA.
“Jimenez originally signed for $2.8 million in 2013, so that money plus the roughly $1.6 million he would get making the league minimum in 2019-2021 obviously wasn’t going to create a set-for-life situation, especially after agent/buscon fees and taxes.”
I would gently argue that a person who earned $4.4M before his/her 25th birthday WOULD be set for life, despite fees and taxes.
Fraud and kickbacks for Caribbean players can eat up more than the typical fees and taxes would suggest. Hideous degree of labor related crime in MLB Caribbean pipeline, comparable to NCAA issues. Lots of ‘loans,’ to not only players but family etc., I’d agree Jiminez probably not set for life despite impressive headline (4.4) number.
Apparently he is still starting in the minors. LOL Whitesox
Source?
I know I am in the minority but I think the DH only power bat is grossly undervalued. I also know that I have watched what a great DH can do for a lineup. It is absolutely not a coincidence that the Red Sox recent success can be tied directly to that position. The team had its moments but even with the arrival of such important cogs as Pedro Martinez, Derek Lowe, Jason Varitek and Manny Ramirez between 1997 and 2002 the team did not begin its run of 4 WS championships until the arrival of David Ortiz. During these halcyon days for Red Sox Nation he was the consistent difference that kept the Red Sox in contention. After his retirement in 2016, the 2017 season was marked by a sharp drop-off in offensive production and then came 2018 and DH was again filled by a tremendous hitter and the offense reached new heights. So what if these players don’t add anything else, these hitters are simply asked to hit, They are not a part of the 9 men who have traditionally been considered a baseball team. Those players are the ones who go onto the field and try to prevent the other team from scoring. The DH has absolutely no responsibility for that yet his WAR is sharply diminished simply for not even being allowed to be on the field. What could be more ridiculous than that? For this reason the value of the DH should have zero defensive consideration when figuring his value to the team, or his personal WAR. The question before us is whether Eloy Jimenez is going to hit like David Ortiz or J.D. Martinez, or like Jon Singleton. If the answer is Column A then the White Sox win and don’t care one iota whether he can play the outfield, and if it is from Column B the White Sox lose. This contract looks like a reasonable decision by both sides and everybody moves on.
Isn’t Craig Edwards’ research based on surplus value? So comparing that number to Eloy’s contract is not the right comparison.
But I agree with others that this seems like a pretty good deal with a ton of security and basically the only severe downside is if Eloy is really good but then turns into a pumpkin specifically in 2026.