Ozzie Albies Robbed by the Braves

[MrTPlush]

 

Braves got lucky to have a player that no matter what they offered he was going to say yes.

 

Ummmmm, really?

 

C'mon, that is just not true.

 

How so? This deal is absolutely horrendous and clearly way under the market value for this type of a deal. There are multiple players to do better. The ceiling salary for 9 years is absolutely terrible.

[TURBO]

 

Braves got lucky to have a player that no matter what they offered he was going to say yes.

 

Ummmmm, really?

 

C'mon, that is just not true.

 

How so? This deal is absolutely horrendous and clearly way under the market value for this type of a deal. There are multiple players to do better. The ceiling salary for 9 years is absolutely terrible.

 

How so?

 

You said he'd take any deal they offered, that is just ridiculous.

[Fear The Chorizo]

I can't think of one. Rocco Baldelli is the closest example I can think of when it comes to a "can't miss" type of elite talent that didn't really pan out. Still, he had two very good years at 21 and 22, got hurt and missed his age 23 season blowing out his knee, but came back to put up another 3.0 WAR season, but then developed a rare disease that ruined his career and he still fought his way back to come up with a couple of huge hits in the ALDS vs the Red Sox, including the game winning hit.

 

Grady Sizemore comes to mind as well - particularly since he burst onto the scene, was expected to be one of the best at his position for a decade, signed an extension that was widely panned as being too team friendly after ~1 MLB season, then suffered a myriad of injuries during what would have been his arbitration years that led to him being a shell of what he was projected to become. I'd argue Orlando Arcia is actually another fair comparison. Always viewed as a plus defender at a premium position, Arcia's 2017 offensive statline during his 1st full big league stint was pretty impressive and quite comparable to Albies' 2018 line minus the power numbers. Arcia put up a 2.5 WAR season as a 22 yr old, and was once considered one of the top 15 prospects in all of baseball, too. Fast forward to present - while still a great defender, I think even the most optimistic of us don't see Orlando becoming a perennial all star anymore.

 

The list of "can't-misses" that never truly realized their potential is really long, for many reasons. It's difficult to come up with, because at one point or another, just about every top 50 MLB prospect that makes it to the majors flashes their talent for long enough a period for people to notice and start projecting just how good they might be if everything goes right. Then baseball inevitably finds a way to to turn 95% of those silver slugger/Cy Young/HOF-potential careers into a mix of good-not-great, meh, and disappointing careers. Albies appears to have all the talent to realize his potential of being one of the best 2B in the game, but let's see how he develops over the next 5 seasons to know whether this contract is the joke for him that it appears to be right now - alot can happen to make the deal overall look well served for both player/team or even make it look player friendly.

[xisxisxis]

I'm trying to think of an elite non-pitching prospect who blew out a knee/elbow whatever and never did anything afterward. I'm coming up blank. Mat Gamel I guess but he wasn't elite by any means. Anyone else?

Not sure if you were asking a general question, because I can't see where Albies is considered an elite prospect.

 

Injury is one concern, but long-term success is another... Look no further than Jonathan Villar. The Brewers offered him an extension after his 1 very good year and he turned it down (he took the "guaranteed" huge salaries moving forward). How did that turn out for him? What if the Brewers signed Pat Listach to an extension after his rookie year... The dataset to look at is players who didn't match their initial performance either due to injury or they just were never good after 1+ early years and who did and did not sign extensions. Looking only at players with injuries and who signed a contract extension is only looking at a subset of the data.

 

There's plenty of RISK for the team to offer these deals so early in a career and there's plenty of RISK averted by players when signing these. To ignore RISK is just foolish, but hey I can see the tendency to ignore it since there's always a resency bias and there hasn't been real risk in the USA for a generation like there was years ago with extended stock market/salary stagnation (like the inflationary 70's) or stagnant and devastating job losses like the 80's when heavy manufacturing disappeared from most of the "steel belt"... I can understand that many don't perceive risk, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

[MrTPlush]

This deal is like $4.5mil, on average, yearly. This is zero risk for the Braves.

 

He could morph into a pumpkin tomorrow and I don’t think a tear would ever get shed. Total non issue kind of commitment.

[wildcat83]

I fully agree with the comment that there’s just too low of a possible ceiling. Maybe some decent sized incentives would’ve made it more acceptable to others. I still think if he wanted security, wanted to stay in Atl, this isn’t horrible TO HIM, and his opinion is really all that matters. I really think it’s 50/50 on who comes out as the “winner” in the deal when it’s all said and done.

[Oxy]

This might also be the kind of deal where if the guy turns out to be an absolute stud 5 years from now-- the Braves might tear up the contract and give him an 8 year extension or so from that point on, just as a good faith PR move for everybody.

[Ennder]

Brett Lawrie was derailed by injuries. This would have looked like an awful deal for him but been a bad one for the Blue Jays if they had signed it.

[TURBO]

He willingly signed the contract. This is far from robbery, no matter how you paint it.

[clancyphile]

He decided to get a sure thing now...

 

Plus, with a long-term future in Atlanta, he can line up endorsements - at least in the local market. That will help him out as well.

[crossface21]

Albies signed the contract. Many players leave this stuff up to their agents. If you blame anyone, blame the agent. There are no incentives, award bonuses, trade clauses, etc., and his agent did a lousy job. With that said, the higher these contracts are the higher everything in the ballparks go $$$ wise. I'm all for the lower the better on contracts. These guys already make an obscene amount of money that most of them aren't worth.

[brooks_quichenick]

Albies signed the contract. Many players leave this stuff up to their agents. If you blame anyone, blame the agent. There are no incentives, award bonuses, trade clauses, etc., and his agent did a lousy job. With that said, the higher these contracts are the higher everything in the ballparks go $$$ wise. I'm all for the lower the better on contracts. These guys already make an obscene amount of money that most of them aren't worth.

 

I guess with the lower contracts dished out to these players you don't care about, the billionaire owners will totally be lowering the cost of everything from tickets to parking and concessions at the ballparks! This will definitely happen and the owners definitely WILL NOT pocket the increased profits.

[endaround]

I'm trying to think of an elite non-pitching prospect who blew out a knee/elbow whatever and never did anything afterward. I'm coming up blank. Mat Gamel I guess but he wasn't elite by any means. Anyone else?

Not sure if you were asking a general question, because I can't see where Albies is considered an elite prospect.

 

Injury is one concern, but long-term success is another... Look no further than Jonathan Villar. The Brewers offered him an extension after his 1 very good year and he turned it down (he took the "guaranteed" huge salaries moving forward). How did that turn out for him? What if the Brewers signed Pat Listach to an extension after his rookie year... The dataset to look at is players who didn't match their initial performance either due to injury or they just were never good after 1+ early years and who did and did not sign extensions. Looking only at players with injuries and who signed a contract extension is only looking at a subset of the data.

 

There's plenty of RISK for the team to offer these deals so early in a career and there's plenty of RISK averted by players when signing these. To ignore RISK is just foolish, but hey I can see the tendency to ignore it since there's always a resency bias and there hasn't been real risk in the USA for a generation like there was years ago with extended stock market/salary stagnation (like the inflationary 70's) or stagnant and devastating job losses like the 80's when heavy manufacturing disappeared from most of the "steel belt"... I can understand that many don't perceive risk, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

 

Villar is likely to make over $10 m next season if he meets projections going forward (if he keeps up his start he'll likely be closer to $15m) So since the Brewers offered $25 m three years ago Villar has made about $8 m and likely $10 m next year in year 4 for $18m and the chance to enter FA as a 30 yr old and not a 31 yr old. Not sure Villar made bad choice there

[OnTheBlack]

Albies signed the contract. Many players leave this stuff up to their agents. If you blame anyone, blame the agent. There are no incentives, award bonuses, trade clauses, etc., and his agent did a lousy job. With that said, the higher these contracts are the higher everything in the ballparks go $$$ wise. I'm all for the lower the better on contracts. These guys already make an obscene amount of money that most of them aren't worth.

 

 

There's absolutely no truth to this whatsoever. Owners will charge whatever they can and they DO NOT lower prices simply because salaries go down.

 

It's basic economics. Players salaries have nothing to do with what it costs you to go to a game.

 

Imagine the Cubs didn't make the trades they made and didn't make some of the signings they made. They have a young budding superstar in Jason Heyward's place in Jimenez, a young future ace instead of Darvish(Cease), a stud SS and they were a better team, but they cut 100 million from their payroll.

 

Their tickets would likely go up because they were a better team. In no scenario other than an owner running a team like a charity would it cost a penny less for tickets, beer or anything else.

[OnTheBlack]

I'm trying to think of an elite non-pitching prospect who blew out a knee/elbow whatever and never did anything afterward. I'm coming up blank. Mat Gamel I guess but he wasn't elite by any means. Anyone else?

Not sure if you were asking a general question, because I can't see where Albies is considered an elite prospect.

 

Injury is one concern, but long-term success is another... Look no further than Jonathan Villar. The Brewers offered him an extension after his 1 very good year and he turned it down (he took the "guaranteed" huge salaries moving forward). How did that turn out for him? What if the Brewers signed Pat Listach to an extension after his rookie year... The dataset to look at is players who didn't match their initial performance either due to injury or they just were never good after 1+ early years and who did and did not sign extensions. Looking only at players with injuries and who signed a contract extension is only looking at a subset of the data.

 

There's plenty of RISK for the team to offer these deals so early in a career and there's plenty of RISK averted by players when signing these. To ignore RISK is just foolish, but hey I can see the tendency to ignore it since there's always a resency bias and there hasn't been real risk in the USA for a generation like there was years ago with extended stock market/salary stagnation (like the inflationary 70's) or stagnant and devastating job losses like the 80's when heavy manufacturing disappeared from most of the "steel belt"... I can understand that many don't perceive risk, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

 

 

Well, he put up 4 WAR as a 21 year old, and was the 11th rated prospect in baseball going INTO his age 20 season with the Braves in which he played less than 60 games, put up a .810 OPS and a 1.8 WAR. For context, Hader put up a 2.2 WAR last year. So in his age 20 season two years ago in about 60 games he put up a WAR near what Hader did last year.

 

Not sure what it takes for you to consider someone an elite prospect, but I suppose you're right. At this point, off to a great start in his 3rd big league season now at age 22, he's not an elite prospect, he's an elite player.

 

Don't compare him to Pat Listach and you don't need to lecture people on economic hard times. None of the times you've mentioned were as bad as the past decade and since you're apparently talking down to millennials, those born prior to 1978,(though not specifically, though this definitely read as a "I walked uphill to school both ways" type post telling us about financial hardship) do you have any idea how much student loan debt is crippling this generation? Or that this is the first generation that's likely to not do better than their parents, and if you really want to go down this road, it's the baby boomers who created this entire mess. What does this have to do with Ozzie Albies contract? Nothing, so less lecturing, lets stick to the topic.

 

 

 

This is a absolutely terrible deal and I would certainly hope the fools who made such a deal for such a talented young 2nd basemen, find themselves losing clients in the near future to other actually competent agencies.

 

 

The Braves did nothing wrong here. It's not their fault this young kid from a Latin American country was taken, and given such incredibly awful advice.

 

The only way you can look at this deal and think it's not a complete joke is if you're looking at the total dollar value within the framework of your own personal life.

[OnTheBlack]

Albies signed the contract. Many players leave this stuff up to their agents. If you blame anyone, blame the agent. There are no incentives, award bonuses, trade clauses, etc., and his agent did a lousy job. With that said, the higher these contracts are the higher everything in the ballparks go $$$ wise. I'm all for the lower the better on contracts. These guys already make an obscene amount of money that most of them aren't worth.

 

I guess with the lower contracts dished out to these players you don't care about, the billionaire owners will totally be lowering the cost of everything from tickets to parking and concessions at the ballparks! This will definitely happen and the owners definitely WILL NOT pocket the increased profits.

 

 

 

The one place I can see this impacting the fans(we agree, it's obviously not going to result in more lower costs for the fans as the piece of the pie for players has drastically been reduced over the last 20 years and prices have only gone up) is there is almost certainly going to be a work stoppage.

 

I'm starting to think one of the area's that you're really going to see the players push for change is in team control. Either 4 years of arbitration, 5 years of team control...something. Most players aren't like Albies, Harper, Trout, Machado...they're not getting called up at 19 or 20 and producing, they're getting called up in their mid 20's. And as Boras told Harper, teams don't want to pay you when you're 34, much less 39.

 

They're going to have to find a way to increase the pct of revenue the players are getting. I don't care if you like that or disagree with that, that's obviously going to be a huge part of what the players want, and last I'd seen they were under 40 pct of total revenue. So...I'd hope it would be salary floors more than something that makes the game tougher for small market teams, but I'm leery of what it could be.

 

But bottom line, the Ocuna deal was bad, as many, many experts have said, this may be the worst contract signed in FA history.