SEA extends Felix Hernandez; 5 yrs./$78M

[TooLiveBrew]

Link

 

As best I can tell, no more details yet aside from that it's a multi-year deal.

[Invader3K]

Rumors say it's 5 years and about $78 million total.

[JoeHova]

Buying out 3 years of free agency is pretty good for the Mariners. Obviously there is risk with signing any pitcher to a long-term deal but a team has to take a chance now and then and Felix appears to be one of the better pitchers in baseball.

[TooLiveBrew]

A Jon Heyman Tweet confirms 5/$78M

[Ennder]

I'm not a fan of the deal personally. He has had too many injury concerns to make this deal at this point.

[fallingleaves]

Bargain. Jack Z has the Mariners in great shape to win the AL West. I wish he was our GM http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/frown.gif. Instead we pay 30 million for Wolf and 42 Million for Soup. :*(

[jjkoestler]

Bargain. Jack Z has the Mariners in great shape to win the AL West. I wish he was our GM http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/frown.gif. Instead we pay 30 million for Wolf and 42 Million for Soup. :*(

 

We didn't have King Felix and therefore we could not extend or him. You cannot compare this extension to Wolf or Suppan. Personally I think this is a horrible move by Jack Z. The Mariners are 1 injury away from being crippled for the next 5 years.

[danzig6767]

Bargain. Jack Z has the Mariners in great shape to win the AL West. I wish he was our GM http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/frown.gif. Instead we pay 30 million for Wolf and 42 Million for Soup. :*(

 

We didn't have King Felix and therefore we could not extend or him. You cannot compare this extension to Wolf or Suppan. Personally I think this is a horrible move by Jack Z. The Mariners are 1 injury away from being crippled for the next 5 years.

High end starting pitching costs money and Felix is not only ace quality, he's young. If Jack waited another year to try and lock up Hernandez, it would have made it harder and more expensive to get him signed, or risk losing him.

 

Fan Graphs

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/the-extension-for-felix

 

The Mariners have reportedly agreed to a 5 year, $78 million contract extension for Felix Hernandez. Mariner fans (including this one) are obviously thrilled with the deal from an emotional standpoint. We've been attached to King Felix since he was 17, and after watching the likes of Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey Jr, and Alex Rodriguez depart, it is refreshing to see the team finally lock up a superstar to a long term deal.

But, I'll keep my celebrating to a minimum over here. Let's take a look at this deal from the perspective of what Hernandez surrendered by signing this deal.

As a second year arbitration eligible player, Felix was in line for a significant paycheck with or without this contract. Based on his 2009 salary of $3.8 million, his performance last season, and what comparable (yet still inferior) pitchers got in their second arbitration year, he would have been expected to come in around $9 or $10 million in salary for 2010.

So, in reality, his 5 year, $78 million deal is more like 4 years and $68 million, because he was already getting the first 10 million. Or something really close to it. How does $68 million over the next four years, or about $16.5 million per season, compare to what we think he would have gotten had he not signed this deal?

Given a realistic projection for his performance, you're looking at something like a $15 million payout in arbitration next year if he stays healthy. Even if he gets hurt (non-labrum tear category), he's likely looking at another $10M-ish payout, as we've seen teams offer arbitration to players like Brandon Webb and Erik Bedard even coming off lost seasons, because the upside is high enough to justify a one year contract.

Alternately, a healthy Felix could have opted to sign long term next year, following in the steps of Johan Santana in buying out his free agent years at the end of his fifth full season. Johan got 6 years, $137 million. Felix doesn't have Santana's track record, but he's younger and has better raw stuff, so you'd have to think an extension after next season would have been in that neighborhood.

To buy his long term security a year earlier in an attempt to avoid what happened to players like Bedard, Webb, and Ben Sheets, Felix signed at a pretty significant discount. He turned ~$20 to $25 million in payouts plus free agency at age 25 (or $10 million in payouts plus a ~$20M/year AAV extension in a year) in exchange for about $53 million over his first three free agent years.

$17 to $18 million a year for three free agent years is a really large discount over what his expected payouts for those years would have been in in the future. He sold the risk of injury in 2010 for probably something between $5 and $10 million per season from 2012 to 2014.

Given the risks inherent with pitching, it's understandable. Felix's family is now set for life. But he left a pretty decent amount of money on the table by signing now. Not that I'm complaining.

[Invader3K]

It seems like a reasonable deal for what Hernandez brings. I'm not going to fall all over Jack Z and call this a tremendous "deal", because this seems fairly in line with what a pitcher of Hernandez's caliber would be paid.

[TooLiveBrew]

While Hernandez may have left money on the table, he's out of this contract at age 28 & will definitely be able to secure another huge payday as long as he doesn't suffer any poorly-timed injury.

[JoeHova]

He has had too many injury concerns to make this deal at this point.

I disagree. Obviously any pitcher can get hurt but he's only spent 2 stints (43 days) on the DL in his career and neither was for a serious injury (forearm strain, sprained ankle). I'm not sure a forearm strain from April 2007 would concern any team if they had a chance to sign a guy as good as Felix. If I was a GM, I would always be nervous about signing a pitcher to a long-term deal, but you pretty much have to at some point and Felix is one of the 10 best pitchers in baseball.

[rluzinski]

I think it's a good deal for both sides, roughly speaking. Felix and Seattle are sharing the cost of injury risk. Whenever a team signs a starting pitcher to a long term contract, they better not assume he'll pitch 200 innings/year over the course of it.