Ryan Howard signs 5 year/$125 mil extension

[Invader3K]

I think John Heyman is the only pundit out there saying it's a good deal so far. That says something, I think.

 

Edit: I'll add to that this is another example of the big market teams screwing things up for the smaller markets. This is an overpay that won't really hurt Philly that much if Howard's level of play goes south. However, this talk that it "raises the bar" for Fielder, Gonzalez, etc. makes it almost impossible that he small market teams can keep those guys.

[sheethead]

I think John Heyman is the only pundit out there saying it's a good deal so far. That says something, I think.

 

Yeah, it says he is the ultimate agent pundit. I wonder what his "other" income is comprised of?

[MJLiverock]

For $25 mil a year, they can get a couple players who project to be at least 5 games over .500. There are plenty of other free agents and plenty of areas that can be improved.

 

This extension is going to look terrible in a few years.

Yeah...that's the thing. You can sign a guy like Adam Dunn to play 1B, and even ace type starters can be had for $15 million a year (I think that's what Halladay is getting paid).

I agree in principal to the idea but in reality those type of players have to be 1. available in the year you need to sign them. 2. willing to sign a short term deal 3. pitchers that get $15MM/year typically are trying to get 4 and 5 year deals 4. better hope some other big market team or more desirable team doesn't need the same player that year. Any of these things go against you and the gamble is lost and Joe Koshankyor Mike Jacobs, or someone of that ilk is playing first base.

 

For instance if this had been the year Prince was gone who would have been available to sign to take his place? What pitchers would have been brought in besides Wolf that would have helped?

 

We have also seen that just signing two $12MM/year people doesn't necessarily offset the loss of one $25MM/year player. The Brewers have $20MM sunk into Suppan and Hall and that production isn't worth anything.

 

Guys that get paid $25MM/year get paid because they are really, really good, using two slightly above average guys to replace that talent isn't an easy task.

 

[endaround]

But Fielder isn't worth $25m over 5 years (Howard definitely isn't). On a one year contract, Fielder at $25m would likely be in line with his expected value. But the Brewers take on way too much risk for five years at that price, there just isn't any discount for them taking on the risk. Fielder's top upside is likely what he did last year, a 6.8 win season. But he could have another 2008 which was a 2.8 win season. And that's without injury concerns thrown in. At $20m it may make sense, at $25m it doesn't.

[Invader3K]

For instance if this had been the year Prince was gone who would have been available to sign to take his place? What pitchers would have been brought in besides Wolf that would have helped?

I agree with what you're saying that it isn't easy. Just off the top of my head in your hypothetical situation, we could have signed Lackey instead of Wolf, and then maybe traded for a guy like Adam Dunn (I'm not trying to keep riding the Dunn train, but his contract and talent level are a good combo, and the Nats could probably have dealt him for a couple mid level prospects).

 

I guess my main point is that while it's easy for Philadelphia to stick $25 million/yr into one guy, it's probably not the right move from a value standpoint for the Brewers. As much as I love Prince and what he does for the team, I just don't think it makes sense anymore (and yeah, I realize I've flip flopped back and forth on this topic a lot).

[endaround]

Dunn isn't worth his contract. His defense is that bad.

[zzzmanwitz]

I think this article sums it up best for what it means for Brewer fans.

 

http://hardballtalk.nbcsp...ners-and-losers.html.php

[Tbadder]

What's really bad about this contract is that it makes Sir Albert's worth at least 30mil per year. The whole salary structure spirals out of control as soon as someone puts up ridiculous numbers. Assuming Albert gets 30mil how long will it take to get to 40mil.? Something has to be done. I wish the fans had guts and brains enough to lock out the owners and the players, but that'll never happen. Joe Blow from Kokomo will usually work against his best interests whenever possible, and so...

[FVBrewerFan]

Carpenter/Wainright/Penny vs Gallardo/Wolf/Davis is the issue. Paying Prince $25MM a year won't solve that glaring difference. While there is no guarantee that $25 MM can buy much better starting pitching, it's worth the chance. Because what they're doing now won't work.

[monty57]

I love the big guy but if he wants 5/$125, no thanks.

I have to agree, and I think "he wants 5/$125" is too low. Boras/Prince seem to want 8/$200. Maybe Prince is worth this on the open market, as it's quite possible some team with lots of money will pay up. However, the Brewers cannot fall into that trap. Not only would a contract like this bring the risk of Fielder getting injured, but also would include the risk of our minor leaguers getting hurt or not panning out. Signing Prince (or anyone) to a contract this big would mean that our minor leaguers would need to pan out big time. If we continually add 1 or 2 players a year from our farm who can play at an average to above average MLB level, then we could feasibly have a contract like this on the books. If we have a couple of years without this "cheap player" infusion, we would be in trouble. As good a job as the Brewers have done developing players lately, I don't think it's realistic to believe that we'll have enough good, cheap complimentary players for the term of the contract.

I have been a proponant of signing a four-year deal, as we have a lot of money coming off the books after this season and should be able to pay Prince for a few years. Any contract that gets 5+ years would lead to us losing too many other players in order to hold on to Prince. There is the possibility of trading him after a couple of years, but that's assuming the Brewers will be able to trade him. What if he's hurt or underperforming. He could still be putting up 30 HR a year, but that wouldn't be enough for someone to trade for him with a $25MM/year price tag. In other words, we could very well be stuck with a really high priced player while players like Escobar, Lawrie, Gallardo, etc have to be traded or allowed to walk. It probably wouldn't be doomsday, but it could lead to an extended period of mediocrity.

The comments from Boras, and now this Howard deal have caused me to move from the "sign Prince" camp to the "stop banging our heads against the wall trying to deal with someone who doesn't want to deal" camp. We should trade Prince when we get best value for him, and look at extensions for our high talent young players who are interested in singing, such as Weeks, and in the not-too-distant future Escobar, Lucroy, Lawrie, etc.

[MJLiverock]

Signing Lackey instead of Wolf really wouldn't have made that much difference in the future fo the Brewers and still would have left a need for more pitching, even with Wolf the team is still pretty bad in the rotation. It also means the Brewers probably would have had to pay more the Boston since I think given the choice for a similar contract a player will pick Boston over Milwaukee.

 

What incentive is there for Washington to trade Dunn for two mid level prospects? His example is he is not that expensive for the production so why would Washington give that up? A team likes to have at least a couple players to keep the fans interested and if anything they would want pitching in return which the Brewers can't give up.

 

I think it is pretty hard to just replace elite players or pick up a few guys and cobble together production of offset the loss of great players. That was a big part of my arguement that the Brewer pitching staff would be awful last year because it is very hard to replace the 300 elite innings the team got from Sabathia and Sheets.

 

Replacing a 1.000 OPS hitter like Prince isn't going to be easy either.

 

A team like the Phillies has the money to spend they may as well spend it, especially when this close to being on top of the game. I think that is a point that is missed in many of these is it worth it arguments. If they don't spend it are they going to piggybank it and spend it later? How much heat and lost near term revenue does the team take for just piggybanking money and letting star players walk? If they play in a couple more World Series in the next few years and then fall back to the middle or bottom of the pack in 5 years it would be worth it to me as fan rather than playing for a hypothetical wins per dollar spent trophy.

 

I always think of the analogy of high end sports cars, you could buy a Ford Fusion and get somewhere, you could by a nice higher end Acura and have some extra bells and whistles or you could buy a Ferrari. It may be a pain to get fixed, may break down, be poor in the winter but if you have a few extra million laying around versus just a few thousand then why not? It sure is fun to drive and you were probably going to blow the money on something anyway and this one just happened to be available when you had the money to spend. Maybe in two or three years you will wish you blew it on a that Piccaso sketch instead but it wasn't for sale at the time. Luckily for you another boatload of money has been delivered to you and you can now become that art collector instead. And that old Rolls you had in the garage sold for a decent amount of cash as well freeing up more of your massive disposable income to blow.

 

That to me is why the big market teams spend the ridiculous money they spend. They have it, they have to spend it on something, so they throw it at whatever the best on the market is available at the time knowing they will have money in the future as contracts roll off and revenues keep coming in.

[Oldcity]

Replacing a 1.000 OPS hitter like Prince isn't going to be easy either.

They don't have to do it by getting another 1.000 hitter for him. They can get an .850 hitter and a good pitcher and replace his value that way, for example. I think that's what you're saying in your analogy, though.

[WV Brew]

According to J.C. Bradbury at Sabernomics.com, Howard should have gotten $97 million or 19 and a half per year. The Phillies overpaid by about 28% according to this estimate. He also estimates Pujols as worth $40 million/year! If the Cardinals overpaid by as much as the Phillies did, Pujols would get over $50 million per year. Makes ARod's deal look cheap. As far as Prince goes, he is as good as gone.

[MJLiverock]

I looked around just briefly at some of the guys who have moved around recently via FA or trade even that fall into that mid 3 WAR and $10MM a year area. For hitters you see guys like Ibanez getting a 3 year deal for $31MM, Granderson is getting paid $10MM next year and then a FA, Swisher gets $9.1MM in 2011 then FA, Damon signed a one year deal for $8MM, Berkman gets $14MM then FA. Those are basically the type of hitter that falls into that category. Guys that sign 3 year $30MM deals are on the northside of 30 or guys on short term deals that leave you open again in a year to finding that 3.0 WAR guy.

 

Pitchers that fall in there are guys like Jason Marquis, who signed a 2 year $15MM deal in the offseason, Carl Pavano who got a 1 year $7MM deal or Edwin Jackson who was traded but will get $8.75MM next year and them hit FA. Ted Lilly gets paid $13MM this year and is a FA next year. John Lackey gets $18.7MM this year and $16MM per for the next 4 afterwards.

 

Realisitically that is the type of deal the Brewers would be looking at if they went FA to try and replace Fielder with two of the mid 3 WAR players. Some combination of an old hitter on a one yer deal leaving you open to the risk of finding another guy the next year but limiting money tied up to just one year, signing an aging player to a 3 year deal around $10MM and then on the pitching side getting a younger guy about to hit FA or signing an againg or injury historied pitcher to a short term deal.

 

I don't think anyone would be too excited about replacing Fielder with Raul Ibanez and Jason Marquis. The question is do you think the team would be better? I don't think the team would really be any better in that situation. A team likely ends up with two middle of the road guys who are either aging, or have durability questions, or coming off possible career years.

 

It still doesn't remove the risk that at least half the money will be squandered on a guy who fails to perform, gets hurt, or is gone in a year leaving you open to replacement risk again. The risk weighting is probably how much of chance of failure do you put on Prince not living up to his deal 25%? 50%? verus how much of risk is signing 2 $10MM guys and having them or one of them being a failure? If you put 50% on Prince his expected outcome is around $12.5MM of value received. If you think one guy will pan out for sure and give him a 100% likliehood to succed and the other guy only a 50% chance of succeeding the expected value received is still only $15MM for these two $10MM players. Is it better value than Prince? Yes, but you have to assume Prince fails miserably to live up to his deal, if he is even 75% he makes up the difference. That is why elite players get the money, they receive a scarcity premium for their services since they only become available at rare opportunities and although they are not without question , the alternatives also tend to have big questions and limited upside.

[logan82]

Weeks falls into that 3+ WAR player category and I think we could sign him for less than $10M per year. I say you take the $25M that Fielder is likely to demand and pay Weeks plus another player or two.

[rluzinski]

The Brewers could replace Fielder with some 27 year old AAA first basemen but upgrade three other positions and possibly be a better team for it. The point is, there are many different ways to upgrade an 81-84 win team. The idea that there is no other way the Brewers could buy those wins is just false.

[tigerbrew]

Weeks falls into that 3+ WAR player category and I think we could sign him for less than $10M per year. I say you take the $25M that Fielder is likely to demand and pay Weeks plus another player or two.

I agree. I think it's a bad idea to give Fielder a 125M+ extension, it could potential hamstrung the team in the future like Redd's contract did for the Bucks. With that money, I much prefer to give long term extensions to Weeks and McGehee plus sign another player or pitcher.

 

[MJLiverock]

Weeks is already on the team so I wasn't counting him as a replacement for Prince's production.

 

I understand what you are rluz and I agree to a point. I think it is a lot easier said than done. There is a good chance that money will be wasted as well since finding three quality guys in the free agent pool for team friendly deals is a tall order. If a guy like Prince doesn't live up to his $25MM deal and "only" really gives you $18MM of production, you still have a very good player that produces at a level above almost everyone on the team. A $7MM a year guy not living up to his production may well be pretty much worthless or at a level that could have been had by calling up a young guy and plugging him in so are you really better off wasting that $7MM? Or having 2 of the 3 guys suffer bad seasons or injuries?

 

I just wanted to point out going the 2 or 3 slightly above average guys in place of Prince isn't without risks either. You have to find guys that fit by salary, position, and attainablilty and they have to produce as well. It isn't that easy to just wave the hand and pick up a .800 OPS player or above average pitcher in any given year even without factoring in where the player fits on the diamond given what the team already has.

[monty57]

I kind of look at the Howard deal in the same light as the Cubs' Soriano deal. Although Soriano has fallen off faster than might have been expected, it is hard to believe the Cubs really expected him to be a superstar when he's 38 or 39 years old. I agree with MJLiverock on the premise that for the Phillies, the deal makes more sense than it might for other teams. The Phillies have a World Series caliber team put together, and keeping Howard around a few more years may mean an extra ring or two. They might not get a World Series team together again for fifty years, so for them it's worth it to go for it now, even if it means paying a 37-year-old lump of lard $25MM for no production in six years.

 

The Brewers are not in the same situation. They are much, much better than they were five or six years ago, but they probably aren't considered World Series caliber right now. Thankfully, they have a good farm, and their peak years could well be ahead of them if they play their cards right. I'd love to keep Fielder around and build around him, but signing him for 5-8 years will mean that a lot of other good players will have to be allowed to walk when they start to get expensive, and that's probably not the best way to maximize the Brewers' chance of winning a World Series. Prince/Boras are pricing them out of Milwaukee. As a Brewers fan, it's not fun to have to come to that realization, but I think it's important that we realize it.

 

We've extended Braun cheaply, and Gallardo fairly cheaply. We can possibly extend Weeks to a contract that will not financially strap us. Guys like Escobar, Lawrie and the cream of our up-an-coming pitchers can be extended when the time comes. Plus, we should be able to get a good player or two in return for Prince in trade. That can allow us to be a good team for a long, long time. If we strap ourselves to one monster contract, it is unlikely we will be able to hold on to all of the ancilliary players, and we will have a very bad team if Prince should happen to get hurt and miss a good portion of a season or three.

 

Plus, and we all hate to think this, but there is a chance that Prince fails. I'm all for extending young guys and assuming some risk in return for price certainty and a few more years of a start player, but there's a big difference in the risk we took on Braun and the risk we'd take on a deal for Prince at the price he's asking. Although it would appear that Prince seems likely to be very good for the next five years, that doesn't come with a guarantee. When you weigh the potential upside/downside of holding him versus the potential upside/downside of trading him, it seems to me that for the price he's asking, trading him bears a lot less risk and the potential upside lost pales in comparison to the extra risk involved.

[joepepsi]

Well done monty. They could probably trade Prince in the offseason for at least a couple good prospects, then sign someone like Adam Dunn for a couple years to play 1B. Dunn would make up for a lot of the numbers lost by Prince's absence, but with a more reasonable contract.

[TheCrew07]

I understand what you are rluz and I agree to a point. I think it is a lot easier said than done. There is a good chance that money will be wasted as well since finding three quality guys in the free agent pool for team friendly deals

Why does it have to be done through FA? Why couldn't you trade for those players and keep the money to use on our own players? Flexibility isn't maxing out the payroll every season... it comes from spending money wisely, getting the best value on the dollar and having multiple options at key positions. Melvin entire problem is that he's basically limited himself to the draft and FA to build this team, but he can only afford mediocrity in FA. He's said repeatedly that a team of "average" players will be competitive and he basically works to replace below average players. That's why he's happy maxing out the payroll to be average, he's just playing whack-a-mole with holes on the team from year to year. It works well enough to be an average baseball team, to float around 81 wins give or take, but we're never going to be a great baseball team on his watch unless he changes his approach.

[endaround]

Yes if we ignore all the players that Melvin got via trade or waivers he only uses free agency and the draft.

[razzzorsharp]

The other thing to consider is the marketing that comes with mid-level players as opposed to that one superstar.

[MJLiverock]

I think you and I are on the same point TheCrew07. Free agency is tough to build from and tough to just replace a guy with 3 others because of the various reasons I listed. Monty and some others have hit on the point that it does help the team keep Weeks and afford a few of the arby years of the other guys. It just takes time to build from the farm system and only a rare player can step in and play at Fielder/Braun level from the get go. I am not trying to be arugmentative but I don't agree that it is simple to just replace a talent like Fielder with 3 other cheaper guys and not see a step backwards. I would rather get some prospects in the AA area and hope to see them develop quickly and use money to plug maybe one spot via free agency but have it be better than some run of the mill $5-$7MM guy. At some point clinging to mediocrity or treading water at 80 wins is counter productive.

 

The wac a mole analogy is a good one, every year the team scrambles to fill some glaring hole with a stop gap measure in the short run. It does seem at times there is no long range plan, which (I don't mean to put words in your mouth) is a problem and a side affect of Melvin's seeming unwillingness to trade talent for talent. By this I mean you have to give to get and sure trading minor pieces here and there but trading a guy who is still useful and talented for a useful talented positon player or pitcher hasn't been the norm. He dumped the Lee contract and got a return on a future free agent but I mean a true young guy for young guy or something beyond the obvious. Teams like the Twins, Rays, Braves, Tigers, have all been willing to swap out players with talent for guys they thought were better or helped them more. Being completely risk averse is a poor strategy, you have to take some risk to have above average upside especailly with limited resources. Melvin gets paid to know more than fans and as an owner I would want him to know more than other GM's or be better at his job of evaluating talent than other GM's because that is his peer benchmark.

 

It will be interesting to see how the catching situation plays out. If LuCroy becomes the guy will Melvin trade Salome if offered something of value or will he hang on until Salome's value declines as he sits in AAA. (I don't see both being on the ML roster together, they will want some gritty veteran to back up LuCroy). Salome, playing a premium position and showing ability to hit, may have value that could bring some other team's prospect, be it a low level pitcher, or infielder.

 

Wow I went way off the course here, this probably makes more sense in the "Why do some want to fire Melvin" thread.

[TheCrew07]

Yes if we ignore all the players that Melvin got via trade or waivers he only uses free agency and the draft.

Yep all of the great players we've acquired via trade... like Gomez? Capellan? Maybe Bush, Jackson, and Gross? Koskie? Mench? Lee? Cordero? Vargas twice? Estrada? Where's the upside for the rotation? Where's the other elite pitcher we desperately needed with this core of position player? Bush is the only player that even played here more than 3 years and while he's one of my guys, he's hardly a core player. Lee and Cordero were probably the most all-around talented players, but they weren't going to be part of 2008-2011 runs when the team was going to peak. Gomez is gifted athletically, but he's not a significant talent on the field, in fact I'm struggling to come up with with a single positive he brings offensively other than his speed.

 

Melvin has done very well on the waiver wire no doubt, but those moves weren't made with getting starters in mind, those were moves were aimed at creating depth. He got very lucky to strike gold with McGehee and Davis, Pods was a 1 year wonder, Turnbow was a flash in the pan as was Clark. I tend to equate waiver wire claims with FA, the only cost to acquire is monetary but you are correct it's technically a different lane... If you're honestly suggesting that Melvin thought he was going to get significant production out of a waiver wire claim I think you're clearly biased.

 

You can argue semantics all day long but my point still stands, he doesn't trade for players of significant talent, and outside of the drafting process, that's the only other means the team has to acquire said talent. I'm not talking about rental player deals, the same holes are left behind the following season, I'm talking about lasting solutions to problems as they present themselves. The truth is that the closer the team got to breaking over the top, the more conservative he became as GM. Sure he hasn't given up anything the team will miss, but who has he acquired via trade that we couldn't live without?