What Is Nick Swisher Worth?
An unintended consequence of Melky Cabrera’s 50 game suspension has been an uptick in the amount of conversation about what Nick Swisher is going to get as a free agent this winter. Swisher has been elevated in the free agent outfielder ranks, and is probably #2 behind Josh Hamilton on the list of interesting OF bats that will be looking for new deals this winter.
So, this newfound interest in Swisher’s value led to a column from Jon Heyman, in which he discusses this very topic.
Word going around is, Nick Swisher, the Yankees’ eternally upbeat rightfield power supply, may seek a “Jayson Werth contract” when he hits free agency at the end of the year.
To baseball fans, that is well-known to mean $126 million over seven years. In other words, it’s a lot more money than most folks have guessed so far for Swish.
Second-hand or not, some Yankees people have heard that’s the figure Swisher is thinking about and may at least shoot for, and one other source who’s spoken to Swisher said that, indeed, Swisher has shown real interest in Werth’s deal. It’s believed the two sides have had no extension talks yet, as it is team policy to wait for free agency, except in rare cases.
While the $126-million figure is two to three times more than most of the estimates for Swisher, free agency brings some surprises. The Werth deal, for instance.
Werth was headed into his age 32 season when he hit free agency, just as Swisher will be, so there’s some value to the comparison. However, beyond just age and position, they aren’t really that much alike. Using the Custom Leaderboard and the age filters, we can isolate the age 29-31 seasons for both players, which are the three years they had leading up to their trip into free agency.
| Name | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | wRC+ | Fld | BsR | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Werth | 1,810 | 0.279 | 0.376 | 0.513 | 0.387 | 137 | 14.4 | 4.9 | 15.5 |
| Swisher | 1,717 | 0.274 | 0.364 | 0.481 | 0.365 | 126 | 10.4 | -5.3 | 10.6 |
The advantage in any single area isn’t huge, but Werth just beats him across the board. He hit a little better, walked a little more, had a little more power, was a better baserunner, and produced more value in the field while occasionally playing some center field as well. In the three years leading up to free agency, Werth posted WARs of +5.2, +5.0, and +5.3. Swisher has never posted a +5 WAR season, and he’s not going to this year either.
So, no, Nick Swisher is not going to get the Jayson Werth contract. He’s simply not as good as Jayson Werth was, and that contract is generally seen as a mistake anyway, so using it as fair market value for an outfielder is probably not realistic. If Swisher has his heart set on 7/126, he’s going to come away disappointed.
However, there is another recently signed outfield contract that Swisher can aim for, and is far more realistic – the one the Dodgers just gave Andre Ethier. Here’s Swisher’s last three years compared to Ethier’s last three years.
| Name | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | wRC+ | Fld | BsR | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Swisher | 1,717 | 0.274 | 0.364 | 0.481 | 0.365 | 126 | 10.4 | -5.3 | 10.6 |
| Ethier | 1,595 | 0.288 | 0.361 | 0.453 | 0.351 | 122 | -4.9 | -3.2 | 8.0 |
Now this is a comparison Swisher can win. Their offensive numbers are pretty similar, with Swisher having a slight power edge over Ethier, and he grades out as a significantly better defender, though their reputations probably don’t line up with the defensive metrics. Still, Swisher can point out that he’s at least Ethier’s equal, and perhaps a little bit better, depending on whether you give him extra credit for playing in the AL, how you evaluate his defense, and how much extra credit he should get for durability. Working against him is the fact that Ethier is one year younger, but overall, most of these minor adjustments should come close to canceling out.
So, the contract Swisher needs to be pointing to isn’t Werth’s 7/126, but instead Ethier’s 5/85, and then he can argue from there that he should get a premium because Ethier’s deal was signed in-season rather than in free agency. Even though he was only a few months away from free agency, he still divested some personal risk by signing early, and presumably took a little bit of a discount in order to be rid of the injury/performance risk over the final three months of the season.
That probably leaves Swisher angling for 6/100 but seeing offers more in the 5/90 range. And, given what k +3 win players in their early-30s have been going for in free agency as of late, that sounds just about right. If the bidding gets intense, Swisher might be able to crack $100 million, especially if he goes for maximizing years over AAV. If that nine digit mark is really important to him, I could potentially see him landing a 7/100 deal, where a team agreed to tack on an extra year or two at fairly low marginal cost just to get him signed.
While none of us saw Jayson Werth getting 7/126 either, the reality is that Werth was a better player than Swisher is now, and even factoring in inflation, there’s not much of a reason for any team to pay Nick Swisher that kind of money. He’s a good player, a guy who can help you win, but he’s also an aging corner outfielder without elite offensive skills. Unless the market just goes bananas again, I don’t see Swisher getting anywhere close to Werth’s deal.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
He will get Frenchy type money
All the money in the world!
To be fair I seriously doubt you saw Werth getting Werth type money
Werth probably didn’t see Werth getting Werth type money.
Even Scott Boras didn’t see Werth getting Werth money. Once he heard the offer, they accepted pretty much immediately. He didn’t bother to ask for counter offers from other teams.
he states that in the article…….
Please refer to the conclusion of the entire article:
“While none of us saw Jayson Werth getting 7/126 either…”
Team policy to wait for free agency, except in rare cases?
Why? Does this make any sense?
Extension are like buying insurance (in the end you probably pay more than they are worth), so if you can self-insure (like, say, by having loads of cash), there is no reason buy it.
i’d love to see a list of millionaires who don’t have some form of health insurance (and i’ll show you a list of fools). medical tx can be costly, prolonged, and worst, unpredictable. given that most wealthy individuals invest their money (are illiquid), the expense of health insurance premiums are a cheap and logical way of avoiding financial ruin.
think of it this way J,
when a player goes to FA, the conditional probability that his ROS performance is awful, he loses a limb, etc is 0. however, during the season, that probability has a nonzero value. the idea is that that nonzero probability depresses the value of a contract because it corresponds to data point which has a lower than expected contract value. another way to think of it is that a team is receiving a premium from the player for choosing to sign the player without the full set of information that it would have in the offseason. this is a key point about what sabermetrics endeavors to accomplish–finding reliable and valid information out before the market does.
however, in practice, i believe this site has shown in articles that the actualized discount a resigning team typically receives is quite low. put another way–stars are going to get paid.
Yes, I think you are talking past my point. But I’m only going to address your non-baseball point. Many very rich people don’t have health insurance.
Yes, at the extremes of wealth, it makes little sense to purchase health insurance because you’re not going to face financial ruin from any health care issue. However, someone with net worth in the 10-25 MM range…well, you’re misinformed. Those people buy health insurance for the reasons I mentioned. I’d love to see some evidence to the contrary though.
From a team perspective, you sign players to extensions early to get a discount over free agent rates. The downside is you’re committing to the player long term while he’s still in the early stages of his career. A lot of careers tail off faster than expected at that stage, especially with pitchers. It greatly increases the risk of the team getting a bad deal.
The Yankees have a ton of money, and prior to the current CBA, there wasn’t a lot of incentive to limit their spending. It just made more sense for them to pay free agent rates after players proved themselves rather than to lock them up early to potentially get a discount.
Exactly. If you can pick and choose which player you want when you have the most possible information, there is no reason sign extensions for a slight bargain.
J.D. Drew and Pat Burrell’s contracts from a few years ago are interesting comparisons as well. Burrell’s is the opposite end of the spectrum as Werth’s (2 yrs, 16 mil) but his numbers are similar. I’m thinking closer to 5/70 for Swisher, though that’s probably underestimating how overpaid corner outfielders are.
Also I wrote an article about this very thing a week ago in case anyone’s interested (NOTE: it is much worse than the above article): http://yanksgoyard.com/2012/08/12/sabermetric-outlook-nick-swisher/
Whoever signs Swisher to $100 million is clearly overpaying for him?
Did not mean to add the ? there
Agreed. Before this whole thing about Werth came out, I thought he would get signed for 4/50 or so and I still thought the Yankees should pass.
The Yankees will definitely pass; that’s a given. Assuming Brett Gardner can come back healthy next year, I’d honestly expect the Yankees to go with an Ichiro / Andruw Jones platoon in RF, pay them a combined $8-10 mill or so. They need to get under that $189 cap, which honestly is looking like it won’t be terribly difficult, with the money coming off the books for A.J. Burnett, Pedro Feliciano, Mariano Rivera, Alfonso Soriano, and Swisher, and the Yankees unlikely to give a big-money deal to Granderson.
Theo wishes Alfonso Soriano was still on the Yankees ….
Whoops! Rafael Soriano; brainfart.
I’m sure he is going to shoot for that and start his offer there but I bet he doesn’t even think that’s a realistic number. Although $/WAR is higher now than when Werth was signed.
7 years
$81,328,215.98
3.5-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.5-1.0-0.5 WAR trend assumption
Assume $5.25million/WAR appreciating 5% per annum
38 years old in final season
I’m sure he’ll get more, but I wouldn’t construct a team that way.
“I’m sure he’ll get more”
I’m not, at all. Then again, all it takes is one owner willing to spend recklessly…
Given his age and a projected 3.3 fWAR for 2012, I think startign at 3.5 WAR in 2013 is a bit optimistic.
Starting at 3.0 instead, but leaving everything else as you have it, lowers it down to a 7/$60M. Year 7 is at 0 WAR, so lets just call it 6/$60M.
i think he’ll get a deal like bay’s
This conclusion, early in the post, bothered me:
“So, no, Nick Swisher is not going to get the Jayson Werth contract”
because you only support it with a WAR comparison at that point, as if that’s all a GM would look at. You allude to other factors in the rest of your post: a contract also depends on the market for corner outfielders (who are buyers, what are the other options, $/WAR inflation). So, that’s fine if you think those factors aren’t enough to push Swisher to Werth-payout, but I’d prefer you to explore those a little deeper before making such a sweeping conclusion.
Also keep in mind (and no, I’m not at all joking here) that Swisher has the largest Twitter fanbase of any player in baseball, and is something of an instant marketing boon, which Werth was not. Don’t think that won’t be factored into the rubric when people are looking to sign him.
Sigh.
Let’s not discount this entirely. Although some teams may focus more on WAR in evaluating a player, there are many considerations that fall outside of wins/losses. Theo admitted this past offseason that the Crawford/Lackey signings were made with an eye towards keeping the fanbase interested and pressure from the higher ups. If another GM is feeling the same pressure, and the choice is Swisher alone vs. Cody Ross and Luke Scott, Swisher’s proven fan appeal will certainly factor into the offer. If 2 GMs are feeling that pressure, it could drive the price $5-10 million above the original offers.
So would you rather your favorite team signed him or BJ Upton? I realize Bossman Junior can play CF, and has a lot more variance in his performance, but if you’re talking about potential FAs, Upton should be in the discussion.
While Upton is far more ‘toolsy’, I don’t think there’s any doubt that Swish is the better player. That being said, I am hoping that the Yanks actually sign upton to replace Swisher. I think in the Yankees’ clubhouse we would see a far more dedicated and hard working Upton, and see more of that potential realized.
I would not go past for years on a 32 year old outfielder and I certainly wouldn’t go above $40 million on that deal. I know, I’m under valuing him but I don’t think he will be worth much more than that
What Swisher gets is dependent on the number of bidders for his services, and how free cash they have available. The Yankees have been making the $189m for 2014 noise for a year now. Swisher at Werth prices doesn’t fit that plan if the Yankees stick to it. Especially since Granderson’s contract is coming up as well. And Cano’s. If the Yankees pass on Swish, then he will likely make what people view as a reasonable deal. If the Yankees decide that the $189m thing is stupid, because we’re the Yankees, then they can and will pay Swish whatever it takes to keep him, allowing for the fact that they will be more likely to give big dollars than long years.
A big factor being ignored in this conversation: Just because he may ask for Werth money doesn’t mean he actually expected it. If he things $100m is fair, asking for $126 is reasonable. Leaves negotiating room.
Remember when A-Rod opted out of his $252m contract? Boras kept saying he wanted $350m for his next contract. We all laughed at how absurd it was. Hank Steinbrenner sure showed Boras how absurd that was when he negotiated him down to a contract worth up to $300m. I’m sure A-Rod and Boras were devastated when they had to settle for that.
Remember, asking for more than you want so that the other sides feels they got a deal when they talk you down.
Swish is 2 years older than Ethier- doesn’t that matter?
And on an unrelated note, I want a bj from Christy Turlington.
Knish reference win!
At least someone got the reference!
Interesting discussion until I got down to the crass/crude/tasteless comment…
It stopped being interesting when Twitter was mentioned.
I don’t think Swisher’s camp really “expects” a Werth-type deal, but are aiming high knowing that the expectations were initially much lower. As it is, Heyman says most were estimating something two to three times lower. I think they’re just trying to move the conversation north; they’re negotiating through the media. (a classic Boras tactic–I had to double check Swisher wasn’t repped by him, especially considering this was a Heyman report!)
Before this year, did anyone really think he’d get a triple-digit contract? I know I didn’t. Granted, Swisher’s value has been boosted by Melky’s suspension and Ethier’s deal, but Swisher is still pretty much the same player. Yet Dave has reasonably–and I stress reasonable because it was a great article–convinced us $100 million is a possibility, but I think a lot of that simply has to do with Swisher’s camp whispering “Jayson Werth” and everyone else thinking “Well, maybe if…”
Well, If Nick Swisher is worth his weight in gold:
Gold is ~ $1639 an ounce
Swisher allegedly weighs 210 lbs.
Then he’s worth $5.5 million.
This is close enough to the $/WAR value that I suggest we substitute “Golden Nick Swishers” for the aforementioned value in all future texts.
We might have to normalize the dollar to Nick Swisher’s weight, or hope Swisher’s weight inflates at the same rate as the market, but whatever, I’m sure it’ll be fine.
The off season will be slow and pitcher focused. I’m thinking 3 years 36-40mil. I just don’t think Swisher has that reputation that everyone overvalues. There is no way anyone thinks Swish has potential to produce much more than he already has so I can’t see many teams overvaluing like the Werth deal.
I think you are living up to your name on that comment…
If all you do is value Swisher at current production levels, then factor supply and demand, Swish will get way above 3/40. You can count on both hands the number of desireable corner OF in all of MLB, and there’s pretty much only 1 or 2 available this offseason with a slew of teams needing one. Swish would be a significant upgrade for Boston, Baltimore, Tampa, and Toronto and that’s onlt in the AL East… I have a tough time finding teams that wouldn’t be better with Swisher in the OF…
“I have a tough time finding teams that wouldn’t be better with Swisher in the OF…”
I do not disagree with this but it is not the point, sure Houston would be better with him but are they going to go after him when it would solve very little? Toronto would be better but they have young guys they want to try out. I don’t doubt that Swisher is valuable (plus he can play all OF and 1B) I just don’t think many teams are going to look at him as a solution to their problems, especially at the suggested prices.
Tampa? They wouldn’t sign anybody for Werth money, let alone Swisher.
As of now, 2.7 WAR.
The market for OF is pretty bare this offseason. Especially with the Melkman getting caught with the juice. Someone will overpay him.
another thing to consider: Compared to Hamilton, Upton, Sizemore, Bourn etc. Swish is the only guy with any real experience at 1B AND at that position, there’s only one FA under 30…who happens to be James Loney.
I would say that increases his value.
B. J. Upton turned 28 yesterday.
Read the whole comment
true value? 4/52 what he’ll get? 5/80.
SMH
lol swisher wants 120 mil… how about 3 yr 30 mil?
I have to say that I’m shocked that the perception is that Swish is going to get this kind of money and I’m not quite sure that he will. He’s obviously overshadowed and possibly under-appreciated playing for the Yankees where there are so many big names and nobody really thinks of him as a key player on the team.
I don’t think he’s worth Werth money or anywhere close to be honest. I love the guy, he comes off as a really cool dude and can certainly play, but he’s definitely closer to being worth $10M a year than $20M.
From day one Swisher has been a tremendous offensive player for the yankees.
Now that free agency approaches, it will be interesting to see how much he is worth to the yankees. In reality, I suspect he will be playing some place else next year if the yankees decide to keep Ichiro (also a free agent). In any case, I do not believe Swisher will get the kind of contract that Werth signed with the Nationals.
Considering the support he received from the Yankee big bats and their high home run stadium and his runs, RBIs and HR totals will shrink with most other teams, if not all of them. He’s over rated and over valued.