2010: Justin Upton: 6 years, $51.25 million
2011: Jay Bruce: 7 years, $64 million (6 years, $51 million with club-option for 7th year at $13 million)
2012: Andrew McCutchen: 7 years, $66.25 million (6 years, $51.5 million with club-option for 7th year at $14.75 million)
None of these players are centerpieces of teams that are consistent high spenders, so the importance of locking their young talent up earlier rather than later was crucial. The similarity of the contracts is amazing though, and shows a market for the elite 25-year-old (or younger) outfielder has clearly been defined. The contracts are so similar, and all of them were signed preceding a different MLB season, in addition to there being a clear progression in total money that the players could make on their respective contracts, so it's very easy to compare the three players' production and determine which team got the biggest bargain.
We'll look at each players' production at the time of their extensions, and compare them to see whose production was most valuable. The chart below shows the players' averages per 162 games played in their MLB career before they signed their respective extensions (WAR and UZR are cumulative, not 162-game averages):
The immediate thing that jumps out is McCutchen's total WAR production in comparison to the other two players. Him playing CF should give him an edge of about 1 win per season, but because he rated so poorly in the field, his value in the field is about equivalent to Jay Bruce's, an above average right fielder. This does mean he has a marked advantage in value over Justin Upton, however, who is a pretty average right fielder. Last season, McCutchen's playing center field made him worth a full 10 runs (or one win) more than Justin Upton, to put things in perspective, so McCutchen over the course of 3 seasons accrued about 30 more runs of value than Upton would for his team just by virtue of playing center field vs. right field. McCutchen also gave back some of that edge because he was rated as the worst fielder of the three, again, partially because he plays the most demanding position.
Upton's case is interesting because in his first season of 44 games, he struggled mightily with a -0.8 WAR and .647 OPS. However, the reasoning for this was that Upton was merely 21 years old at the time of his call up, and only played 71 games above A ball, none of which were in AAA. He was a very raw, unprepared prospect, but an undeniable talent and the Diamondbacks rushed him to MLB which luckily didn't stunt his development. Of the three, Upton showed the most growth as an MLB player prior to his contract. Additionally, his BABIP was the highest of the three players,
Jay Bruce was basically a slightly lesser version of Justin Upton across the board, except he displayed more power (both are two of the ten most powerful hitters in the league) in his statistics than Upton did. Additionally, Bruce played more games than Upton in his first 3 seasons (357 games for Bruce vs. Upton's 289), and was more effective in his first MLB season, posting a 0.9 WAR across 108 games with a .767 OPS. Bruce had more time in the minor leagues, however, which seems to be a major reason for his more instant production (Bruce played 99 games in AAA prior to his MLB callup in early 2008). Bruce did excel in the field however, playing the fourth best right field in baseball from 2008-2010 according to UZR, and showing the best arm in right field of anyone in baseball, even besting Ichiro during that time period. Bruce's defensive value was the biggest difference between him and Upton.
McCutchen profiles between Bruce and Upton as a hitter during their respective time periods by OPS, as he was more productive than Bruce but less productive than Upton (largely because of Upton's insane 2009 season, which we'll get to later). McCutchen rates as a below average fielder, which honestly made him about as valuable in the field as Upton, an average right fielder, so Bruce holds an edge here too. The big difference that accounted for McCutchen's 12.9 WAR over his first 3 seasons was that he produced consistently from day one. He played 420 games over the past 3 seasons, far out-pacing Bruce and Upton prior to their contract extensions, and produced at least 3.5 WAR in each season. His 2009 and 2010 seasons were marked by identical .286 AVGs and .365 OBPs to further demonstrate his consistency. This is largely in part due to his playing parts of three seasons in AAA, honing his craft before reaching the MLB level. His 2011 season was the most valuable of any of the three as far as their respective "contract years" are concerned, so now let's examine the year that ultimately helped these 3 players get their contract offers so early in their careers:
As we can see, Upton's 2009 season was tremendous, and garnered him a couple votes in MVP consideration. He only had 3 steals prior to his 2009 season, so he worked on his hitting prior to his work on the basepaths, showing a development progression that was ideal. Upton has since been a consistent 20-steal player, with potential for more if he moved out of the middle of the order. Upton's 2009 season was marked by a .360 BABIP as you can see, but he also displayed a higher baseline BABIP (.340) than that of Bruce or McCutchen in his career up to that point. He and McCutchen both posted solid line drive rates in all 3 seasons, while Jay Bruce's 2nd MLB season featured him struggling to hit line drives as his LD% dropped from 20% to 13% and his BABIP was a mere .221. As we can see, offensively, Upton had the most effective season by wRC+, creating 40% more runs than the average MLB player. Bruce and McCutchen were still very solid, and All-Star caliber, but can't compare to Upton's rate production, as his SLG was far higher and he hit .300.
McCutchen did end up posting the highest WAR, meaning his "contract year" was the most valuable of the three. He actually could be expected to improve a fair amount from his 2011 production. While his walk rate rose to 13%, which is elite, his K% rose 5% from 13.6% in 2010 to 18.6% in 2011. McCutchen moved to the #3 hole for the first time in his career, which likely contributed in part to his lower average and career-high in home runs and HR/FB%. Now, McCutchen has to be more concerned about driving runs than getting on base, especially since the Pirates' offense apart from the top 3 hitters is pretty anemic. McCutchen hit 41% of pitches he made contact with for flyballs, and hit less infield flies than ever before, which shows a concerted effort to hit the ball for power. His HR/FB% of 12% complemented this rise in flyballs, but McCutchen would be more valuable as a pure hitter if he hit more like 2009 and 2010 than he did last year. To the Pirates, however, he's a more valuable quantity as a 25-30 HR hitter that adds in 20 stolen bases, similar to Justin Upton's production.
All three players, given their current levels of production, profile as potential $15+ million per year players on the free agent market. Fangraphs posts a value of each player's seasons by multiplying their WAR by the season's market rate "per win". Last year, after adding up salaries and dividing it by WAR, every win a player produced in WAR was worth about $4.47 million if the player was a free agent. So given this, McCutchen, Upton, and Bruce were all worth over $20 million in the season preceding their contract extension. All three are easily worth the contracts they commanded, and the Reds and Pirates seemed to get the better contracts, as those club options for a 7th year are squarely in the middle of Jay Bruce and Andrew McCutchen's primes. Upton will hit free agency a year earlier in his respective career, so the Diamondbacks missed an opportunity to lock him up at a below-market rate.
Given all of the analysis above, McCutchen's deal with the Pirates seems to be the most valuable contract to any of the players' respective teams. McCutchen is a consistent 5-WAR player if he improves/continues on last season, which is very likely, and as a center fielder his bat is more valuable than in right field, where there is a lot of depth right now (Nelson Cruz, Hunter Pence, Matt Holliday to name a few). His production will outpace his true value in every season of his contract, and he's locked up for 7 seasons instead of 6. While this assumes a lot of projectability, McCutchen's consistency makes his performance the easiest to predict going forward. To analyze the other two, it's tough not to look at their production post-contract to differentiate between the very similar skillsets, especially their dynamic power. Upton's 2011 was phenomenal and he really put everything together, lowering his strikeout rate by 7%, posting the highest isolated power (ISO) of his career at .240, and posting the highest contact rate of his career at 74.5%, making contact on 85% of swings at pitches in the strike zone. Upton still does have his flaws, as he's a free-swinger and will always strike out 100+ times per season, but his improvement in this area vaults him over Bruce in my opinion. This isn't to say Bruce isn't valuable, as his 2011 season compares very favorably with Upton's 2010 season, the first season following each player's respective extension was signed. Bruce projects as a .280/.360/.500 player going forward that should produce approximately 5 wins per season.
Big names to watch this season are Mike Stanton and Jason Heyward, as they both would have the same career lengths following this season, so they're due for similar extensions if their teams would like to be proactive. I fully expect Stanton to receive an extension similar in value or surpassing the value of these players' deals. These contracts are more common than odd now, and these three small-market teams did a fantastic job locking their players up long-term and rewarding them early on for their elite production.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment