The worst contract I've ever seen

[cmathewson]

What Brock said. I was surprised at how old he is. Guys who get this kind of money typically make it big by their 25th birthday. His first above-average year was at age 27. And he's only had two above average years in his career. Here is his OPS+ for his career:

 

2007/23: 131 (127 PAs)

2008/24: 88 (609 PAs)

2009/25: 98 (624 PAs)

2010/26: 30 (84 PAs in injury year)

2011/27: 146 (732 PAs)

2012/28: 84 (323 PAs in injury-shortened year)

2013/29: 114 (636 PAs)

Career: 108

 

That does not say elite player on the upswing in his career, which is the contract he got. That says above-average player in decline. And if you focus on defense, which at times has been elite, you can expect significant decline by the end of the contract. Center fielders with limited power do not fare well into their 30s because they have no place to go when their range declines. Guys like Hunter have the bat to take them to a corner. Ellsbury? Not so much.

 

Upshot: This is one of the riskiest free agent contracts in the game. There is almost no chance the Yankees will get anywhere near the value they are investing in this player.

[2wins87]

This is a bad contract. I don't think it looks worse than Pujols contract does right now.

 

Of course, no one expected that the Pujols contract would look this bad two years after the fact. Pretty much everyone expects this contract to look bad two years from now.

[2wins87]

All Lofton did between 30-36 was hit .287/.368/.422 while providing excellent defense and baserunning.

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/yankees-sign-jacoby-ellsbury-bet-on-speed-aging-well/

 

Yeah Lofton was a borderline HOF candidate (should have at least gotten more consideration). If there was any reasonable expectation for Ellsbury to play like Lofton this would be fine contract. Ellsbury's age 27 and 29 seasons might resemble Lofton's. But you can't fill in all the years with injuries and mediocre hitting with Lofton like years and think you have Kenny Lofton.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Yeah Lofton was a borderline HOF candidate (should have at least gotten more consideration). If there was any reasonable expectation for Ellsbury to play like Lofton this would be fine contract. Ellsbury's age 27 and 29 seasons might resemble Lofton's. But you can't fill in all the years with injuries and mediocre hitting with Lofton like years and think you have Kenny Lofton.

 

Heh, yep. Lofton posted a WAR over 4.0 in every one of his first eight seasons. He posted a WAR of 4.9 or higher in seven of those seasons.

 

Ellsbury has two seasons with a WAR above 5.0.

[twinsfan34]

I'm just glad the Yankees are adept at signing 30+ something year olds to megadeals.

 

It helps keep things honest for the rest of the league. Imagine if they were actually good at developing talent and had discretionary and fiscal responsibility in their cap moves...

 

Mark Teixeira, $24.6 for 3 more years

CC Sabathia, $23M for 4 more years

Alex Rodriguez, $26M for 4 more years

Vernon Wells, $23M

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah4PW47PiAi-dHlNa3NEdk5laU5raUVXX0FSQ2ZQV0E&output=html

 

Now McCann at $17M per and Ellsbury at $22M per.

 

Didn't Derek Jeter get another $10-12M extension?

 

Any time they can get stuck/locked into big contracts for long periods of time is great. Provides little flexibility if injuries/etc.

[thetank]

The Jayson Werth contract and the Vernon Wells contract were worse and perhaps the Matt Kemp contract. Of the top 10 OF contracts for money 6 of the players were traded and the Reds tried to trade Griffey.

[PseudoSABR]

Basically, you're paying $22M for Kenny Lofton. No way would I do that.

I bet he won't age nearly as well as Lofton did, who stayed very productive (and very journeyed) until his late 30s. As great as Lofton was, there's a reason he received so many one year contracts in his thirties; players with his skill set hadn't aged as well as Lofton atypically did.

[biggentleben]

All Lofton did between 30-36 was hit .287/.368/.422 while providing excellent defense and baserunning.

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/yankees-sign-jacoby-ellsbury-bet-on-speed-aging-well/

 

I'd question excellent based on his arm, but others don't include that in overall defensive viewpoints. I'm not saying Lofton was a bad player at all, either, just that he's nowhere near worth an elite contract in the game. How much different is Jacoby Ellsbury from Brett Gardner or Desmond Jennings or any number of guys knocking on the door every year with similar high-OBP, speed, defense CF skillsets? Not enough for me to pay him elite money.

[johnnydakota]

Its not a bad contract , Just like with A-RIOD the Yankees will have the commish discover he did some thing wrong and will hand him a 211 game suspention thus voiding the last 2 years of his contract

[biggentleben]

I bet he won't age nearly as well as Lofton did, who stayed very productive (and very journeyed) until his late 30s.

 

I will always be anti-Lofton to some degree for costing the Braves David Justice and Marquis Grissom to get his worst season baserunning by far in his career. He hit .330+/.400+ for the Braves, but got a reputation for not playing through any nick or bruise and was caught nearly as many times stealing as he stole that season. He also had some horrible blunders on the basepaths that season on what should have been easy tag-up's, 1st-to-3rd's, and other plays. He then went on to his sub-.200 in the playoffs that season and struck out 1/4 of his plate appearances while committing multiple errors in the NLCS against the Marlins. The Braves gave up one of their franchise's most popular players to acquire him, and they were more than happy to let him go after one season.

 

I will not argue that he aged very well, even having a very good full season his last year, which surprises me that he didn't attempt to keep on toward goals like 2500 hits or 650 steals, but he was simply done.

 

Juan Pierre is another guy who's aged well, but also well traveled.

 

My comparison isn't so much that Lofton was a poor player as he aged, but that he was easily available to teams. Heck, Juan Pierre has been found for a song in recent years and put up lines like .307/.351 with 37 steals in 2012 in only 439 PA. Guys like that aren't in the uber-elite of the pay threshold, and shouldn't require 20M+ over long-term to acquire.

[gil4]

This news might be better than the Nolasco and Hughes signings combined.

 

Yes, I hate the Yankees that much. I love seeing them do something so monumentally stupid that no one can believe it.

 

I hope you're right. My guess is it ends up being a marginal overpay, not monumentally stupid. Their roster has a lot of opportunities for disaster and not a lot of payroll flexibility left, even if they are the Yankees. I hope Cano leaves and they crash and burn in spectacular style.

[Mike Sixel]

How is it an overpay, if it does not stop the Yankees from signing other players? As long as they are willing to keep spending, it doesn't matter if they pay $5 for a win, or $100MM for a win.

[TheLeviathan]

Isn't the dumbest part of this that they are balking at Cano's price (33% more) and turned around and handed this out? If you're going to splurge and overpay, why not do it for an actual elite talent?

[Brock Beauchamp]

Isn't the dumbest part of this that they are balking at Cano's price (33% more) and turned around and handed this out? If you're going to splurge and overpay, why not do it for an actual elite talent?

 

The first question I asked upon hearing about this deal.

[Brock Beauchamp]

The Jayson Werth contract and the Vernon Wells contract were worse and perhaps the Matt Kemp contract. Of the top 10 OF contracts for money 6 of the players were traded and the Reds tried to trade Griffey.

 

Nah, the Kemp contract isn't this bad if only because the Dodgers signed him through his age 27-34 seasons.

 

A pretty dumb contract but not historically so.

[Willihammer]

The Yankees poached the BPA from their biggest rival. Its a smart move IMO

[Winston Smith]

He's an up the middle guy with a marginal bat outside of the 2011 season, he has marginal plate discipline, and lives and dies by his legs.

 

In short, he's not a guy you want to give a seven year contract. Sure, he might be Rickey Henderson... But we've seen exactly one Rickey Henderson since 1920. Odds are against the guy thriving through his late 30s.

 

It's not about seeing the future, it's playing the odds and using player models to your advantage to minimize risk. And all things point to Jacoby Ellsbury declining quite rapidly. Hell, he hasn't been a great player since 2011 (and it should also be noted that was the only season he was a great player).

 

Ignore what appears to be a flukish 2011 and Ellsbury is basically Michael Bourn at three times the price. I'm not sure how anyone would consider that a good deal.

 

Lucky you don't work for the Yankees or you'd be walking out the door with your stuff in a cardboard box.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Lucky you don't work for the Yankees or you'd be walking out the door with your stuff in a cardboard box.

 

Given the amount of championships they've won in the past decade compared to the money they've spent, a lot of people should be walking out the door with their stuff in cardboard boxes. This signing only reinforces that.

[kab21]

I tend to agree with Seabiscuit. Votto is hitting. Fielder, the guy hasn't missed a game. Detroit is tougher on LHB. I think he'll do fine in Texas. He's never been injured in any form.

 

Pujols had foot surgery, oblique issues, and shoulder issues. He tried to play through them. He had the surgery. I don't think he's done. I think he can hit til he's 37/38 at .300 30 100 level. I can be wrong of course. I just don't see his skills diminishing that much when healthy. He's too disciplined/hard worker to not.

 

I would agree with the rest of your list though.

 

Maybe Verlander, like Clemens sans the steroids, will have a 2nd wing after 30 to his career.

 

I don't think you guys appreciate just how long these contracts are for. It's possible to play at a decent level until you are 40+ but that is the exception. And just to be clear I don't think any of these 3 players are done. It's just that Pujols and Votto still have 4+ yrs until they hit the 2nd half of the contract.

 

And Pujols days of hitting .300 are over. Maybe he has one more .300 season but he won't he even average close to that over the next 8 years.

[cmathewson]

The Jayson Werth contract and the Vernon Wells contract were worse and perhaps the Matt Kemp contract. Of the top 10 OF contracts for money 6 of the players were traded and the Reds tried to trade Griffey.

 

Those were not for this many years at this age. That's the issue. i could see paying him $17 mil for four years. Not $22 mil for seven. They're almost guaranteed to throw the last three years and $66 mil down a rat hole.

[ND-Fan]

Yankee's based on 189 million for payroll if they have 30 million tied up for fill in players for pitching and infield they can have 8 other contracts at 20 million average. This 189 million is self imposed limit to not pay luxury tax and I believe if they can get down under it again for year it reduces tax also if they exceed again. I think they have been paying 40 percent rate on their payroll so if they have been at 200 million plus the tax they have been used to paying a payroll of 280 million. What they can spend on players puts them in another league than what most of other clubs in baseball can spend. Only Dodgers, Angels, and maybe Texas can spend close to these levels. They have spending level double to triple what the Twins have paid. Like said before this is contract that makes better right now and they don't worry about out end. They need to win to keep their tv and attendance up if they don't loss revenue from that will far exceed the amount of loss they could have on this contract. Its ridicules but that's how baseball is structured they want these dominant franchises for selling baseball to tv. Smaller franchises worry about tv too but they need sell their product to get people to ballpark create their largest stream of revenue to the team fans that come to park and buy whole experience when there.

[thetank]

This is a bad contract. I don't think it looks worse than Pujols contract does right now.

 

Of course, no one expected that the Pujols contract would look this bad two years after the fact. Pretty much everyone expects this contract to look bad two years from now.

Pujols has had a tear in his elbow for several years now. He has bone spurs there. He has had feet problems for x number of years now. Some think he is older than his reported age.

 

Shouldn't have been signed for more than 5 years. The Cardina;s are thankful now he didn't sign after making a big offer at the last minute.

 

This newest Elsbury contract will be another disaster.