YELICH EXTENDED - 9 YEARS $215M, Mutual Option in 2029, Full No Trade, $28 million deferred

[tmwiese55]

0-1 so far. Contract is a disaster!!

[Outlander]

Can someone who is better with numbers and WAR, etc give a quick break down what Yelich will have to produce over the course of the contract to validate it, specifically performance wise?

 

Also, is there a general agreement about Braun's contract and how he performed in comparison? I'm just curious..

The Athletic did a breakdown of a few contracts last January at https://theathletic.com/756032/2019/01/08/what-we-can-learn-from-the-history-of-10-year-mlb-contracts-from-garland-and-zisk-to-cano-and-stanton/ but it is a pay site.

 

To quote one sentence from it though:

 

Still, those first two seasons were so good that —based on his bWAR total and the average value of a marginal win (one win of bWAR) over the course of his contract to this point — with two years still remaining on his contract, he has already earned far more than the $145.5 million the Brewers committed to him from 2011 through 2020.

[sveumrules]

Can someone who is better with numbers and WAR, etc give a quick break down what Yelich will have to produce over the course of the contract to validate it, specifically performance wise?

 

Also, is there a general agreement about Braun's contract and how he performed in comparison? I'm just curious..

 

It all depends on your projected future value & dollar/WAR figures, but here are a couple attempts from FanGraphs...

 

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/christian-yelich-cashes-in/

 

Money quote..."Even so, much of his performance value is up front, during the two low-cost years that are being carried over. ZiPS figures that the seven years starting in 2022 are worth $225 million, which is still $36.5 million more than he’s being paid for that period."

 

Here is another where they examine how "similar" players have performed over during their thirties...

 

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/how-good-will-christian-yelich-be-in-his-thirties/

 

tl,dr..."If we assume a nine million dollars per win at present in free agency, and a five percent inflation rate, those 17 wins will be worth around $190 million. The Brewers are paying just $174 million for that potential production (and maybe less when deferrals are factored in); that’s just an 8% discount of the projected value three years in advance. Given the uncertainty in player performance, and that the Brewers were not under any pressure to sign Yelich, that discount is not significant. The Brewers are likely to get exactly what they pay for and Yelich gets long term security. Everybody wins."

 

ZIPS came in around 36 WAR, Yelich's comp group came in around 29 WAR, so I would imagine the Brewers internal projections for Christian are in a similar range over the life of the contract.

[Eye Black]

Here is another where they examine how "similar" players have performed over during their thirties...

 

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/how-good-will-christian-yelich-be-in-his-thirties/

 

tl,dr..."If we assume a nine million dollars per win at present in free agency, and a five percent inflation rate, those 17 wins will be worth around $190 million. The Brewers are paying just $174 million for that potential production (and maybe less when deferrals are factored in); that’s just an 8% discount of the projected value three years in advance. Given the uncertainty in player performance, and that the Brewers were not under any pressure to sign Yelich, that discount is not significant. The Brewers are likely to get exactly what they pay for and Yelich gets long term security. Everybody wins."

 

ZIPS came in around 36 WAR, Yelich's comp group came in around 29 WAR, so I would imagine the Brewers internal projections for Christian are in a similar range over the life of the contract.

 

I read that article earlier today, and it’s very encouraging despite the small sample size. Granted Andrew McCutchen is likely to pull the averages of that group down, but it’s surprising on the whole how relatively “safe” outfielders who put up 20-30 WAR during their age 24-27 seasons have been on the whole (in terms of not completely dropping off a cliff). It seems like his worst case scenario would be having something along the lines of a Dale Murphy drop-off in his 30’s, some of which was attributed to an arthritic left knee in Murphy’s case.

 

On a side note, I also apparently never fully appreciated how good Rickey Henderson was in his early-to-mid 30’s (including a 9.9 WAR season at age-31).

[Ennder]

It is also important to remember that the value of a win changes based on where you are in the win band. If the Brewers stay competitive and are always fighting for a playoff spot the value of a win goes up to more like 9.5M or 10M. It seems like they are always going to be that team that is in the fighting for the playoffs and not generally the sure thing playoff type.

[TJseven7]

It is also important to remember that the value of a win changes based on where you are in the win band. If the Brewers stay competitive and are always fighting for a playoff spot the value of a win goes up to more like 9.5M or 10M. It seems like they are always going to be that team that is in the fighting for the playoffs and not generally the sure thing playoff type.

 

Wait, WHAT? Let me get this straight. You are making the case that if the COLLECTIVE of your team is on the fringe of the playoffs, its makes your best players WAR more expensive? What QB agent made that line of thinking up?

 

Yelich is a 6 WAR guy. He's an 8 mil per WAR guy. WAR is an attempt to put a players individual impact in a vacuum and calculate their cost. He gets zero boost from the collective. I'm seeing the details of Yelich at a 7 year 182 mil extension. Mutual option unlikely. First 2 years basically untouched. 7 years added. 182 mil with 28 of it deferred in 4 mil chunks from 2029-2035.

 

182 mil is 22.75 WAR. The 1st 2 years do not count as they were original.

2022 is 6 WAR, 2023 is 5.5, 2024 is 5. (31-32 -.5 WAR per year)

2025 is 4 2026 is 3 2027 is 2 and 2028 is 1 (over 32 -1 WAR per year)

26.5 WAR in total so it's positive on WAR total.

 

The more accurate look comes about if you have a sliding scale. I do have a sliding scale. (Joe and I disagree here) PER WAR 4 mil up to 1, 5 mil up to 2, 6 mil up to 3, 7 mil up to 5, 8 mil up to 7, 9 mil above.

2022 is 48 mil, 2023 is 44, 2024 is 35

2025 is 28, 2026 is 18, 2027 is 10, 2028 is 4.

Oddly this comes to 187 and the 7 year extension value is 188.5.

 

It is fair to predict Yelich will be a sizable value for the 1st 5 years of these 9. 6th is a small value, 7th is a small loss. 8 and 9 is where things get rough.

 

This is right on the nuts. Dead on FAIR deal and you don't see FAIR on superstars very often. I didn't expect to see this and Thank You Yelich.

[Eye Black]

I know Milwaukee native David Samson may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but this 8-minute video of him explaining how he negotiated Christian Yelich’s first contract during Spring Training in 2015 is pretty remarkable if accurate.

 

LINK to Video Tweet from David Samson

 

Another takeaway is that he confirms that Yelich was one of the young players that were indicated as being influenced negatively by Jeff Baker, referenced in this article from the time of his release: Jeff Baker released because of spreading 'anti-front office' message

[clancyphile]

It is also important to remember that the value of a win changes based on where you are in the win band. If the Brewers stay competitive and are always fighting for a playoff spot the value of a win goes up to more like 9.5M or 10M. It seems like they are always going to be that team that is in the fighting for the playoffs and not generally the sure thing playoff type.

 

Wait, WHAT? Let me get this straight. You are making the case that if the COLLECTIVE of your team is on the fringe of the playoffs, its makes your best players WAR more expensive? What QB agent made that line of thinking up?

 

Yelich is a 6 WAR guy. He's an 8 mil per WAR guy. WAR is an attempt to put a players individual impact in a vacuum and calculate their cost. He gets zero boost from the collective. I'm seeing the details of Yelich at a 7 year 182 mil extension. Mutual option unlikely. First 2 years basically untouched. 7 years added. 182 mil with 28 of it deferred in 4 mil chunks from 2029-2035.

 

182 mil is 22.75 WAR. The 1st 2 years do not count as they were original.

2022 is 6 WAR, 2023 is 5.5, 2024 is 5. (31-32 -.5 WAR per year)

2025 is 4 2026 is 3 2027 is 2 and 2028 is 1 (over 32 -1 WAR per year)

26.5 WAR in total so it's positive on WAR total.

 

The more accurate look comes about if you have a sliding scale. I do have a sliding scale. (Joe and I disagree here) PER WAR 4 mil up to 1, 5 mil up to 2, 6 mil up to 3, 7 mil up to 5, 8 mil up to 7, 9 mil above.

2022 is 48 mil, 2023 is 44, 2024 is 35

2025 is 28, 2026 is 18, 2027 is 10, 2028 is 4.

Oddly this comes to 187 and the 7 year extension value is 188.5.

 

It is fair to predict Yelich will be a sizable value for the 1st 5 years of these 9. 6th is a small value, 7th is a small loss. 8 and 9 is where things get rough.

 

This is right on the nuts. Dead on FAIR deal and you don't see FAIR on superstars very often. I didn't expect to see this and Thank You Yelich.

 

Only $28 million deferred?

 

I was hoping for a bit more... something more along the lines of Bonilla territory.

[Ennder]

It is also important to remember that the value of a win changes based on where you are in the win band. If the Brewers stay competitive and are always fighting for a playoff spot the value of a win goes up to more like 9.5M or 10M. It seems like they are always going to be that team that is in the fighting for the playoffs and not generally the sure thing playoff type.

 

Wait, WHAT? Let me get this straight. You are making the case that if the COLLECTIVE of your team is on the fringe of the playoffs, its makes your best players WAR more expensive? What QB agent made that line of thinking up?

 

 

That isn't what I said, I said it is more valuable, not more expensive, those are two very different things. The value of a win on a team who wins 70 games is very low. As the wins become more important the value of each WAR becomes higher. If it pushes you into a playoff rather than missing the playoffs the value shoots way up as the team earns a lot of revenue from the playoff games. If the Brewers are going to live in the world where they are always in the hunt for the playoffs but never a sure thing the value of WAR is going to be higher for them than a lot of other teams. That small amount of WAR can easily be the difference between making or missing the playoffs.

 

That doesn't mean they should be looking to overpay for players. What they generally do is leave some flexibility in payroll and push it up if it looks likely they are going to make the playoffs and sit on it if it looks unlikely. But if the Brewers are going to constantly live in the playoff fringe it is going to make Yelich's contract look better when judging it after the fact.

[Eye Black]

Value to a given team is often situation specific, and the closer it gets to putting you over the hump of being a playoff team the more valuable added wins become for your team. A 5+ WAR player has more value to a team already projected as a mid-80s win team than a team projected to win 60 something games. For instance, the Orioles paying the “market rate” for a Yelich type player would not return the same value as it would to a team like the Brewers who are probably near, or just below, a .500 team without Yelich.

 

Nolan Arenado is another good example. The Rockies aren’t going to the playoffs this year even if he continues to be a 5-6 WAR player. Lets say he produces 5 WAR this year. They are paying him $35 million, so approximately $7 million per WAR. If you just plucked him off the Rockies and put him on a team like the Nationals (and he produced that same 5 WAR) he would likely prove to be a better return on investment for them (i.e. more valuable) even though his WAR produced is the exact same.

[CheezWizHed]

Good post, Eye Black. I've always thought that a linear concept of a player's worth was silly. Two other ways to look at the variable nature of worth:

- Upgrading from a 0 to 2 WAR player is much less expensive than from a 2 to 4 WAR, which is much less expensive than a 4 to 6 WAR player. The higher it goes, the fewer there are. Supply and Demand kicks in at that point.

- What is it worth to "buy" a World Series? Probably more to a team that hasn't ever won one than to a team that just won one. Not that everyone doesn't want to win every year, but that it's more special to someone that doesn't have one.

[igor67]

There is some utility to recognizing that from a business standpoint not all wins have equal value. However this case does rather neatly illustrate the problems with thinking that. That math that Eye black is talking about is analyzing things from a marginal wins perspective. In a very strict, but important sense once the Brewers ink their next player to a contract Yelich is no longer a marginal wins decision he is a fixed quantity. So the tricky part about the analysis is figuring out how to recognize the utility of that type of thought without counting everyone's wins from a marginal perspective.

[Ennder]

There is some utility to recognizing that from a business standpoint not all wins have equal value. However this case does rather neatly illustrate the problems with thinking that. That math that Eye black is talking about is analyzing things from a marginal wins perspective. In a very strict, but important sense once the Brewers ink their next player to a contract Yelich is no longer a marginal wins decision he is a fixed quantity. So the tricky part about the analysis is figuring out how to recognize the utility of that type of thought without counting everyone's wins from a marginal perspective.

 

It certainly spreads out to everyone but that is why my suggested value wasn't all that high. If we think of a win as worth 9M a year on a team that is on the fringe of the playoffs it might be worth 9.5M a year. If we were just applying all of the value to Yelich that number would be a lot higher. But yeah the math becomes a lot harder and a lot fuzzier when you are trying to spread something like that out over a full roster.

[JosephC]

A bit late to this party, but I think this is a wonderful deal for Milwaukee...to the extent where I'm surprised the union didn't make a big effort to pull the plug on it. Sure, the last couple years will probably suck, and there is some concern over the defensive falloff last season, but I think he's a safe bet to stay a premier hitter over the next five years. Hopefully Attanasio will put resources around him. Yelich's soon to be 26 million per year goes on the books, Braun's roughly 19 million per season comes off the books...I sure hope Attanasio puts that 7 million difference back into the MLB roster.

[TJseven7]

That isn't what I said, I said it is more valuable, not more expensive, those are two very different things. The value of a win on a team who wins 70 games is very low. As the wins become more important the value of each WAR becomes higher. If it pushes you into a playoff rather than missing the playoffs the value shoots way up as the team earns a lot of revenue from the playoff games. If the Brewers are going to live in the world where they are always in the hunt for the playoffs but never a sure thing the value of WAR is going to be higher for them than a lot of other teams. That small amount of WAR can easily be the difference between making or missing the playoffs.

 

That doesn't mean they should be looking to overpay for players. What they generally do is leave some flexibility in payroll and push it up if it looks likely they are going to make the playoffs and sit on it if it looks unlikely. But if the Brewers are going to constantly live in the playoff fringe it is going to make Yelich's contract look better when judging it after the fact.

 

Fair enough but you can say that for every player on the 25 and also say that for any scrubby upgrade they get for next to nothing at the trade deadline. Lyles and Pom were worth a mint by that logic and they didn't get much of a return at the trade deadline.

[Ennder]

 

Fair enough but you can say that for every player on the 25 and also say that for any scrubby upgrade they get for next to nothing at the trade deadline. Lyles and Pom were worth a mint by that logic and they didn't get much of a return at the trade deadline.

 

Yep I completely agree. That is why I said instead of being worth 9 wins it is most likely 9.5 wins. The jump is very small because it is spread over a full team, doesn't mean the jump in value isn't there. It is also the kind of thing you can only really look at after the fact. If during Yelich's career with us we have a lot of really close playoff races and we win a few of them, it definitely makes the contract look better. If we don't it makes it look worse.

[BillMilton]

Please apply these comments to the Lo Cain contract.

[adambr2]

Braun: “He’s one of the best players in the game. Obviously I’m not going to the Hall of Fame. He has a real chance to be the next Brewer to be a Hall of Famer.”

 

A little surprised to hear Braun come out and say this. I'm sure he's right but outside the PED scandal he's probably got the career numbers to at least put himself on the ballot. Wonder if he's specifically referring to the stigma around PED scandal athletes rather than making a specific statement about his career credentials.

[sveumrules]

Braun: “He’s one of the best players in the game. Obviously I’m not going to the Hall of Fame. He has a real chance to be the next Brewer to be a Hall of Famer.”

 

A little surprised to hear Braun come out and say this. I'm sure he's right but outside the PED scandal he's probably got the career numbers to at least put himself on the ballot. Wonder if he's specifically referring to the stigma around PED scandal athletes rather than making a specific statement about his career credentials.

 

I think Ryan is just being realistic.

 

He'll definitely end up on the ballot, but I'd guess he'll be one & done & not just because of the PED stuff.

 

The average HOF LF is 65.7 career WAR / 41.7 7-year peak WAR compared to Braun at 48.2 career / 39.2 7-year peak.

 

Lance Berkman racked up 52.1 career / 39.1 7-year peak with a 144 OPS+ (Braun currently at 135) & he was only able to muster 5 votes (1.2%).

 

First ballot Hall of Very Good & third best player in franchise history (at the moment) is still a fantastic outcome & I hope Ryan puts up a healthy, quality season to make the option decision interesting.

 

My prediction: If Ryan is the 2020 World Series MVP, the option will be exercised by both parties.

[Ennder]

Even without the steroids Braun's career is so early heavy that it wasn't going to happen. In the big picture of basball Braun hasn't mattered since 2012.

[pacopete4]

Couldn’t stay healthy enough to continue the big numbers in his prime. Hopefully he goes out with some big moments.

[monty57]

That isn't what I said, I said it is more valuable, not more expensive, those are two very different things. The value of a win on a team who wins 70 games is very low. As the wins become more important the value of each WAR becomes higher. If it pushes you into a playoff rather than missing the playoffs the value shoots way up as the team earns a lot of revenue from the playoff games. If the Brewers are going to live in the world where they are always in the hunt for the playoffs but never a sure thing the value of WAR is going to be higher for them than a lot of other teams. That small amount of WAR can easily be the difference between making or missing the playoffs.

 

That doesn't mean they should be looking to overpay for players. What they generally do is leave some flexibility in payroll and push it up if it looks likely they are going to make the playoffs and sit on it if it looks unlikely. But if the Brewers are going to constantly live in the playoff fringe it is going to make Yelich's contract look better when judging it after the fact.

 

Fair enough but you can say that for every player on the 25 and also say that for any scrubby upgrade they get for next to nothing at the trade deadline. Lyles and Pom were worth a mint by that logic and they didn't get much of a return at the trade deadline.

 

I agree, and that's why teams in the playoff hunt are willing to give up future value (prospects) in order to gain that short-term marginal upgrade while teams out of the playoff hunt are willing to give up the "extra WAR" in the current year in order to gain that future value. The "extra WAR" is valuable to the winning team, and not very valuable to the losing team.

 

In regard to Lyles and Pom, no one would have guessed that they would be as productive as they were. If so, they would have required a lot more to acquire. They have been paid in retrospect this offseason, and we'll see if a good half-season continues into their new deals. All players, and especially relievers, have a very wide variance in a small sample size. Guys with strong track records are going to be more expensive at the deadline, as they are more likely to produce solid results, but even they can have a bad few months and make the GM look foolish for trading for them.

[RollieTime]

Brewers will be paying Yelich his deferred money through the 2042 season. Looks like it will be $2 million per season for 14 years.

[KeithStone53151]

Brewers will be paying Yelich his deferred money through the 2042 season. Looks like it will be $2 million per season for 14 years.

 

So he'll be getting 2 million or more per year until he's 50. That's pretty awesome for him. Even if he goes all Terrell Owens, he won't go broke until at least 50

[bork]

Brewers will be paying Yelich his deferred money through the 2042 season. Looks like it will be $2 million per season for 14 years.

 

Depends on the buyout. If they do the buyout in 2029, he gets $2.5 million from 2031-2042 (12 years, $30 million). If they don't buyout, he gets $2.3 million from 2031-2041 (11 years, $28 million).

 

Interestingly, Braun's deferred money ends in 2031, so they overlap by 1 year. And Garza's deferred money ends in 2021, right before Braun's kicks in. So they're paying deferred money from 2018-2042.