Signing the youngsters to long term deals

by SpringTrainingFun on Apr 18, 2008 1:21 PM EDT

Looks like the Rays are really looking in to the future. They just signed rookie 3B Evan Longoria to a guaranteed 6 year deal, with options that could make it a 9 years deal.

All this to a rookie who hasn't proven that he'll stick at the ML level. I find this quite surprising. Maybe they're looking at what Shapiro and Antonetti have done and just accelerated the program.

http://tampabay.rays.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080418&content_id=2546402&vkey=news_tb&fext=.jsp&c_id=tb

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Man. Quick trigger fingers. I know the kid is much ballyhooed, but I really don’t see how it would have hurt the rays to give him the rest of the year in the majors before doing this deal.

It certainly looks like fausto’s deal influenced this one though, with the three club options.

by Pronktastic on Apr 18, 2008 1:45 PM EDT reply actions

I quite agree. It doesn’t seem like they got any value out of the deal by doing it now rather than in a year.

by Jay on Apr 18, 2008 2:27 PM EDT up reply actions

Assuming Longoria matches Tulowitzki’s first year in the bigs (and is projected to be on the same curve), the Rays will save $3M over what the Rockies paid Tulo. $3M sounds like a lot, but its less money than Oldberto made in 2007. Plus, the Rays are taking on enough risk to make up for the $3M in savings.

p.s: Tulo signed a 6 year/$31M contract this offseason. But for years 1-6 he will have only been paid $20M, while Longoria will $6M for the same set of year. The Rockies bought out 2 years of Tulowitzki’s free agent years ($10M on the back end and $15M in a club option).

NBR (No Borowski Run): Refers to that run which puts the Indians up by 4 over an opponent, thereby drastically reducing the chances of Joe Borowski pitching in a game.

by crazymoloh on Apr 18, 2008 5:27 PM EDT up reply actions

Ooops…. Longoria will make $17M, not $6M.

NBR (No Borowski Run): Refers to that run which puts the Indians up by 4 over an opponent, thereby drastically reducing the chances of Joe Borowski pitching in a game.

by crazymoloh on Apr 18, 2008 5:28 PM EDT up reply actions

Well, I would dispute the difference. Tulowitzki signed when he was only five years from free agency. At the end of the 2008 season, Longoria will still be six full years away. (It may be that the Rays made the case to Team Longoria that once the deal is done, the team has no motivation at all to suppress his service time. As it is, he gets a 500K bonus if he ends up a would-be Super 2 in 2011, also gets an extra $1 million in 2014, but only if his option is not picked up. These bonuses are far less than the multi-year effect of reaching arbitration a year early.)

Tulo gets $10M total for his first two arbitration years, including half his $2M buyout; Longo essentially gets $13.5M, including the first buyout.

Tulo is guaranteed $11M for his would-be walk year, including the other half of his buyout; Longo has a club option at a net cost of $5.5M for his would-be walk year, including the next triggered buyout.

So Tulo is guaranteed $21M for those three years, while Longo is guaranteed $13.5M but will almost certainly make $19M. I say “almost certainly” because barring catastrophic injury or failure, the Rays are going to pick up an option that costs only $5.5M for his age-28 year, and which also activates the other two-year option. Looking at what we opted to pay Byrd and Blake for one-year re-ups in 2008, Longo could be fairly disappointing through 2013 and that option would still get picked up.

Looking at the club options beyond the would-be walk years, Tulo’s is one year at net $13M, while Longo’s is two years at net $21.5M. Here the Rays did better, but picking up that option is not the slam-dunk that the earlier one is, so I have trouble scoring it as that big of a difference in the value of the contracts to the two clubs.

So compared to Tulo’s deal, the Ray’s got (a) a $2M savings in “very likely” cost, a further $5.5M savings in the event of a total disaster, and a slightly better club option package. Considering they did the deal basically 1.9 seasons earlier than Tulo’s got done, and considering how much more Tulo has proven than Longo, it’s hard to say the Rays did better.

by Jay on Apr 18, 2008 6:19 PM EDT up reply actions

I realize I replied to your comment, but I wasn’t disputing your point. Just adding Tulo’s contract for comparison. I think we both agreed that there were some savings the Rays scored, but its offset by the ‘risk’ since Longoria hasn’t proved anything yet.

NBR (No Borowski Run): Refers to that run which puts the Indians up by 4 over an opponent, thereby drastically reducing the chances of Joe Borowski pitching in a game.

by crazymoloh on Apr 18, 2008 6:52 PM EDT up reply actions

This is utterly amazing. Totally groundbreaking. I would have thought it was an April fools joke. It’ll be very interesting how this turns out.

by oxforddave on Apr 18, 2008 2:16 PM EDT reply actions

groundbreaking?...or grave-digging…

by APV on Apr 19, 2008 12:19 PM EDT up reply actions

Well, to compete with the Yankees, Red Sox (and even to some extent the Blue Jays) you need to try something new.

Not sure if this is it.

by Toxicadam on Apr 18, 2008 2:48 PM EDT reply actions

Just saw this on mlb.com and was totally shocked. The guy has played, what, 5 games? And they’re giving him that kind of money. They made such a big deal about his service time only to do this?

The Disabled List just called ... it was trying to unload Joe Borowski. I offered a bagel but balked at giving up a ham sandwich.

by westbrook on Apr 18, 2008 3:18 PM EDT reply actions

In theory, the service time reduction was part of the deal. Because he didn’t start the season in the majors, 2013 will be his walk year rather than his first free agency year. Presumably, that made it cheaper to buy out those years.

Longoria would have been a Super 2 for 2011, but they could have prevented that as well with another six weeks in the minors. Amateurs.

by Jay on Apr 18, 2008 4:27 PM EDT up reply actions

I thought the point of these deals was to REDUCE the club’s risk. Seems like giving a guy 5 games in $17m – $44m is a bit, well, risky.

by gte619n on Apr 18, 2008 3:44 PM EDT reply actions

They only pay 44 mil if he is good, and if that is the case, it will be well worth it. So they are betting 16 mil (the guy will make at least 1 mil in the next couple of years), to possible save upward of 60 mil. Really, the risk is quite minimal (3 mil/year over the next 5-6 years, even the rays could absorb that). It really is a strange bet, but easily defendable. I guess it surprises me most that a club would try to do something so out of the ordinary as these organizations are conservative to a fault.

by oxforddave on Apr 18, 2008 4:20 PM EDT up reply actions