Should the Brewers extend Weeks? [Latest: Won't negotiate once Spring Training starts]

[JohnBriggs12]

I think most are overvaluing Weeks. To me he's worth about $25 million over 3 years. I can't get around the fact that he's had one very good season (I won't call a year where a guy fans 184 times and hits .269 outstanding) out of 5. True he's had good partial seasons, and good stretches from time to time, but he's never had the consistency associated with an All Star type player. Even last year, he had stretches were he was flailing badly and there's no coincidence that the team struggled when he did.

[thebruce44]

People are saying he'd never be worth $12m per year. His value over the past 4 seasons: $12.7, $9.4, $6.3, $24.3 which averages out to $13.75m even though his missed most of 2009.

Player dollar values need to be taken with a grain of salt. Fangraphs dollar values for Pujols the last few years are $30.8, $34.2, $41.7, $39.0, $35.8, $29.3. He may be the GOAT 1B of all time, but does anyone really think he should get paid that much?

 

 

Thats exactly the point I was trying to make. Its been a while since someone has tried to use those Fangraph's $ values to decide how much to pay a player, so I was surprised to see some posters doing it here. Weeks should be paid according to how he compares to his peers at 2b.

 

As such, saying that if he plays half a year he is worth $12 mil is fairly ridiculous.

[RockCoCougars]

I think 4 years/ $40 million sounds fair, though. The Brewers really should have done this last off-season, they probably could have saved at least $2-3 million a year. He is somewhat of an injury risk, but so was Paul Molitor at this point in his career (I know I use that one a lot, but still). If they don't get this done now, and he has another season like last year, may as well kiss him goodbye.

[WV Brew]

JC Bradbury at Sabernomics blog, who is a professional economist, has him at $12.14 million. This is the 15th most valuable position player in the NL, ahead of one Prince Fielder, who is 16th. If the Brewers can sign him below that number they probably should.

[Mudville9]

I'm not sure what Rickie will be making this year, but don't you think something like this would get it done? 4 yr/ 44 million

 

2011 $ 8 million

2012 $10 million

2013 $12 million

2014 $14 million

 

If he was worth about $12 million (according to the economist), this would give him a raise this year and he would still be a bargain for the Brewers until 2014. Who knows, if he stays healthy that would even be a bargain by then.

[sbrylski]

If anything those values undersell Pujols because its a linear projection and doesn't take into account how rare a talent he is.

Endaround...you have to at least admit those "values" have no real world correlation to actual contracts, though. Maybe if teams paid guys in Monopoly money they might mean one thing, but since they have to pay actual dollars, no team is going to sign Pujols to a $40 million/yr contract.

You're mis-interpreting the number. The value stat tells what a team with an average payroll could have paid him last season to have broken even in value. It says nothing of the future. For example, it doesn't consider risk. It doesn't consider aging.

 

What you can do with that number, however, is plug it into risk and aging formulas to figure out what an acceptable contract would be. This is a really simple illustration with semi-made up formula's, but here's an example.

 

Pujols was worth around $30 million last season and $40 million in the two seasons before then, so let's say he's about a $35 million player. Let's plug that into an aging formula that I essential made up on the spot here, but passes the eyeball test for the most part.

 

Age 31 - $34 million in production value

Age 32 - $31

Age 33 - $28

Age 34 - $24

Age 35 - $20

 

For comparison, Adrian Gonzalez was about a $20 million player last year. He hit .298 / .393 / .511 and rated very similarly in defense to Pujols last season (1.1 runs above average verse 1.5). So I think it's fair to say Pujols will fall off to around Adrian Gonzalez 2010 level over the next five seasons.

 

After aging, we can add some risk to the equation. Again I'm going to just go with a super simplified method. Pujols has been fairly durable (shoulder?), let's say there's only a 5% chance he get's injured for the season and the team only gets $5 million in production out of him. Here are the new expected values for the next five seasons, adjusted downward for risk:

 

$33

$30

$27

$23

$19 (I'm rounding all these numbers, btw)

 

The next thing you could do is adjust for inflation. That is, let's say the cost of a win goes up 2% each of the next five seasons:

 

$33

$31

$28

$25

$21

 

Alright, enough touching the numbers. But the point is, when starting with Pujols' fangraphs value, we CAN produce an expected contract value. From the numbers above, on a five year deal Pujols is expected to be worth $138 million, for an average annual value of $27.6. Seems to match the conventional thinking. A six year deal should be worth around $154 million with a $25.7 average annual value, and a seven year deal would be worth around $167 with a $23.9 average annual value.

 

One more point to make - remember those values are for a team with an average payroll. That means teams who can afford to pay higher than average per win, can afford to sign him to a bigger contract.

 

Hopefully this post makes sense.

[nate82]

The dollar stat that you can find on Fangraphs is not the price that a team should be paying for the player it is the amount of value that the player is giving to that team. Like all economics stats it is based on a perfect market and only is theoretical so will Weeks get paid what the dollar amount is? No he won't get paid that amount but I think he will get close to that amount or maybe even more depending on the market for his services.

 

I think the amount that the Marlins were going to give Uggla is about where Weeks value is at. Uggla and Weeks are very comparable in talent level though Weeks is younger than Uggla. I believe Weeks is going to be looking at getting a contract similar to what was offered to Uggla. To get Weeks extended it is more than likely going to cost the Brewers anywhere near $12-15m a year something like a 5-year $60m deal is what I believe would be close to what Weeks will be looking at. Taking his injuries into consideration I think the Brewers will offer him something like 5-years and $50m with the 5th year being a team option year with a buyout around $2-5m.

 

I predict Weeks won't get the extension he wants and will go the free agent route. The Brewers really do not have to budge from their spot since they already have a replacement nearly ready to go in Lawrie. Weeks really matches up better with Phillips than Uggla though so I believe a contract of 5-years at $45m would be a fair deal and would be near his true market value.

[Baldkin]

I think most are overvaluing Weeks. To me he's worth about $25 million over 3 years. I can't get around the fact that he's had one very good season (I won't call a year where a guy fans 184 times and hits .269 outstanding) out of 5. True he's had good partial seasons, and good stretches from time to time, but he's never had the consistency associated with an All Star type player. Even last year, he had stretches were he was flailing badly and there's no coincidence that the team struggled when he did.

Purely as a thought process, what would you call Ichiro's offensive season last year? Would you use 'outstanding'? He only struck out 86 times and hit .315.

[TooLiveBrew]

Even last year, he had stretches were he was flailing badly and there's no coincidence that the team struggled when he did.

 

So he's not worth paying as though he's a key member of the lineup, but he's a key member of the lineup?

[PrinceFielderx1]

Weeks is open to talking extension,

 

"Rickie Weeks is open to discussing an extension with the Brewers, according to MLB.com's Adam McCalvy. Jon Heyman of SI.com reported yesterday that the Brewers were set to start talking about a potential deal with the second baseman"

 

link

[kramnoj]

Like all economics stats it is based on a perfect market and only is theoretical so will Weeks get paid what the dollar amount is?

 

I don't think this is true. I thought it was based on the money that teams pay players in FA, and then compares it to to player production. I don't know if they wait a year to see actual production, or if they use a weighted average or a projection to determine the player value.

 

Anyway, one of the reasons that player values seems so out of whack is because people usually focus on player peak seasons and laugh at the value provided, and don't mention the crazy money that is thrown away each for average or below production. The below example is I imagine an extreme example, but it's something I put together recently. I might have missed one or two players, but I don't think it changes the main point.

 

The 2010 Brewers are an extreme case, but it is part of the data used in how teams spend money to try to get wins. I'll use Bref WAR, just because it's easier for me to reference and track. I'll just be using 2010 salary and WAR. For this, I'll just look at FA contracts signed before the 2010 season (it would look worse for the Brewers if I included Hoffman and Riske, but I'm trying to isolate spending in one off-season)

 

Wolf $9.25M 1.9 WAR

Hawkins $3M -.9 WAR

Davis $5.25M -1.5 WAR

Zaun $2.15M .4 WAR

Counsell$2.1M 0 WAR

Vargas $900k -.5 WAR

Edmonds $850k 1.6 WAR

Loe $400k .8 WAR

 

$23.9M 1.8 WAR

 

It actually goes up to 2.2 WAR if I include pitcher hitting. So if I include all value per Bref, the Brewers spent $10.8M per Win for 2010 in the 2009-2010 off-season.

 

Again, that is extreme, but that is the kind of stuff that is included in the value calculations and is either ignored or dismissed by many of its critics.

 

************************

 

Back to Weeks. I was previously against signing him, as I was not sure he was going to put together a good, healthy season. I was also naively hopeful that the Brewers and Prince would agree to a reasonable contract, and didn't think paying for Weeks would make sense, compared to all other needs the Brewers would have.

 

But here we are now, Weeks was great, the Brewers have young pitching that is progressing, and with the presumption that Fielder is gone after 2011, the Brewers can sign Weeks to a 4 year deal or so for near market rate.

 

If, in 2012, the Brewers have one too many players that are major league average or above in Braun, Hart, Weeks, Casey, Lawrie and Gamel, and not enough positions to play them, they can go ahead and trade one of them at that time. But retaining Weeks would be good insurance for when Casey declines, or if Gamel doesn't pan out as much as we would hope.

[nate82]

Like all economics stats it is based on a perfect market and only is theoretical so will Weeks get paid what the dollar amount is?

 

I don't think this is true. I thought it was based on the money that teams pay players in FA, and then compares it to to player production. I don't know if they wait a year to see actual production, or if they use a weighted average or a projection to determine the player value.

Either way it is a theoretical value and not a true value. It is meant to be a comparison of what you can expect the player to get in a free market. There are other factors that it doesn't take into consideration like the number of 2B in the FA market or the number of FA available for a trade. All of those factors could decrease a players value. There are other things that will increase a players value like in Jeter's case where he is more valuable to the Yankees than to any other team in baseball. Jeter's value to the Yankees can't really be measured and thus he can sign for a higher price than what the market would give him. Pujols will never make the amount that his dollar value says since it is a theoretical value. If every team had the payroll of the Yankees then yes Pujols would probably be able to sign to his theoretical value. Since the market is not perfect there is no way any player would be able to sign a contract that would pay them their theoretical value. Their actual value will be a lot lower than what they could make based on a perfect market where every team can spend as much as the next team.

[DannoMac21]

Need to extend Weeks. Lineups like ours in the National League, with competent pitching, is what makes teams top tier...like the Phillies. You never know what Brett Lawrie will be...and Weeks is actually affordable, unlike a player like Fielder. Please get this done Melvin, so I don't have to change my username.

[Warning Track Power]

Haven't heard anything on this since last week. Hopefully that phone call between Melvin and Weeks laid the groundwork for the extension to get done soon. Good to see Weeks at least interested in re-upping unlike the [expletive deleted] Prince and Boras were spouting last year.

 

 

(edit: language... please see FFE re "BS" --1992)

[BrewCrewForever]

Perhaps talks for Weeks extension will heat up in a couple of weeks at the Winter Meetings.

[greeg35]

Several times a day I go to the JS site with some part of me expecting to see that this got done. I've been disappointed so far.

[Invader3K]

I think Melvin tends to keep these types of negotiations pretty well under wraps. The announced extensions of Braun, Gallardo, and Hart all pretty much came out of nowhere.

[BrewCrewForever]

I think Melvin tends to keep these types of negotiations pretty well under wraps. The announced extensions of Braun, Gallardo, and Hart all pretty much came out of nowhere.

That is a great point. While we all thought those players could get extended, we had no idea really when and then boom! They happened. Although I think the Hart one literally came out of nowhere. Most of us thought he would get traded and then they extended him.

[Warning Track Power]

Although I think the Hart one literally came out of nowhere. Most of us thought he would get traded and then they extended him.

Agreed! And because of this I now firmly believe Weeks IS NOT going to be extended and Fielder IS going to be extended http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/laugh.gif

 

[cheezscott]

Seems like we wont be having a huge off season FA signing and our biggest move will hopefully signing Weeks to a long term deal or a Prince trade. Any idea where we expect the payroll to be. 90 , 92, 95???

[logan82]

Low 80's.

[thebruce44]

Seems like we wont be having a huge off season FA signing and our biggest move will hopefully signing Weeks to a long term deal or a Prince trade. Any idea where we expect the payroll to be. 90 , 92, 95???

I would guess $80-82 on opening day with the option to pick up salary to make a playoff run to the upper 80s. So pretty much in line with the last couple of years except for the last one where the owners were willing to lose money to make up for the dead contracts.

 

I think the following year the new TV money kicks in though.

[logan82]

Wolf also deferred money last year making the payroll look higher than it actually was. We will have to pay him back and that will be figured into the budget but not show up on the payroll. Realistically our opening day payroll was around $86m in 2010. A drop to the low 80's isn't much of a drop off from 2010. I wouldn't be to shocked if our opening day payroll was in the high 70's around $78m. So start at $86m take a little off for paying back some of Wolf's deferral and a little more for an anticipated drop in attendance. Not sure how they will budget for having a possible sandwich pick for Hoffman.

[TooLiveBrew]

Apologies if this was posted elsewhere, but in TH's blog post yesterday discussing Brewers tender decisions, there was the following:

 

The Brewers have gotten nowhere with Fielder’s agent, Scott Boras, with whom general manager Doug Melvin briefly met during meetings in Orlando last month. Melvin also met there with Weeks’ new agent, Greg Genske.

 

“I asked him if they would be interested in discussing a multi-year deal,” said Melvin. “He said he was, so we said we’d consider it.”

 

 

Nothing earth-shattering, of course. Just reassuring to me since I infer from this comment that the reason we haven't heard anything much more about the Weeks extension is that the Brewers are still figuring out how they want to go about it. I guess I'd just hoped they'd get a deal worked out early & go from there... and I really want to see Weeks retained.

 

 

EDIT: And now I see McCalvy has an update at his blog:

 

The Brewers would love to lock-up second baseman Rickie Weeks with a

multi-year contract extension but are having trouble getting those

talks started, general manager Doug Melvin said this week.

 

"We're

working on getting Rickie signed," Melvin told the sports radio station

WSSP on Tuesday morning. "He's got a new agent, Greg Genske, who is CC

Sabathia's agent, so it's going to be a lot tougher than his previous

agent [Lon Babby].

"[Genske] doesn't respond as quick. But we'll be working on it."

...

 

"I've had one meeting with [Genske], and he said that he's

interested in a long-term deal," Melvin said. "But once players get

close to free agency, they get a little less interested in trying to

sign up because they're so close to free agency and they've got some

security under their belt."

 

The comment about how Genske is also Sabathia's agent makes me feel less optimistic than I was a few minutes ago. Seems like Melvin's bracing fans for disappointment; maybe that's reading too much into things.

[Invader3K]

Figuring out if they can extend Weeks or not will make the rest of the decisions this off-season somewhat easier.