Raffy R Lock-up?
by Brick. on Dec 3, 2007 7:41 PM EST
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PrintHe's arby elligible anyway so they've got to talk. Might as well talk about buying that out plus a couple more years of FA. If there's a stable reliever to lock up for a while on the Tribe, it's Betancourt.
Hoynes notes they're getting ready to talk:
"Agent Alan Nero, who represents several Indians, is scheduled to meet with the Indians this week to possibly discuss a multiyear deal with Rafael Betancourt. This year Betancourt was among the AL's most dominant setup men, going 5-1 with three saves and a 1.47 ERA in 68 appearances. He struck out 80 and walked nine in 79 innings.Betancourt, 32, made $860,000 last season, including $20,000 in incentives. Eligible for arbitration for the second straight year, Betancourt has always worked on a one-year deal."
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Re: Raffy R Lock-up?
Re: Raffy R Lock-up?
Re: Raffy R Lock-up?
We should be careful here.
Re: Raffy R Lock-up?
I expect the Indians to guarantee him the 2009 payday in exchange for some cost certainty and the gift of a 2010 club option. I'll be surprised if they guarantee three years when they've already got two years of control as it is.
Re: Raffy R Lock-up?
so everything is either at cost or cheaper and so we don't loose him automatically after 09. That said, I think they could wait a year to do this, but I have no problem with them doing it now. He just doesn't seem like as big a risk as a lot of BP guys to me.
Re: Raffy R Lock-up?
I wouldn't be that surprised to see the Indians go 3+1 instead of 2+1. Something like:
- 1.6M
- 2.4M
- 3.2M
I wouldn't have a problem if they signed a FA with Raffy's record at those prices, even if we had to go slightly higher. It is a longer commitment, but at prices like that so what? It's pretty low risk cost wise with very high upside if he becomes our closer, as he very well could.
I've thought we should do this for a while. Locking up our own while we can get them at reasonable rates is the only way we have been able compete. Raffy seems to be the next logical candidate to get a longer term contract.
Re: Raffy R Lock-up?
Re: Raffy R Lock-up?
The whole appeal of buying out arbitration years is guarantee players a little less than what they would expect to get on the open market for the years in question. The players get security and mitigat their injury risk while the owners get cost certainty and lock the player in a little while longer.
If he expects to make say 1.5M in 2008 and 2.0M in 2009 in arbitration and 12M in 2010-2011 in FA (for a total of 15.5M) that offer of 11.2M over 4 years might be a bit low. Maybe we would have to offer a more to get him to agree, I wouldn't have a problem with that.
The reason why it might be really hard to get him to sign that is that after 2009 he can probably sign a huge FA deal with another team for 3+ years at a much higher rate, especially if he turns in to a closer. He could be positioned pretty well after his age 34 season in 2009 to capitalize with a 40M+/3 year deal. He would be much more poorly poitioned after an age 36 season in 2011.
He is fairly old to still be in the arbitration process, he has to plan ahead for what could be his one big contract after the 2009 season. That makes it all the more critical to use the advantage of controlling him for another 2 years to our advantage.
Re: Raffy R Lock-up?
They can sign him to a two-year deal with 2010 option right now. Then, if he dominates again in 2008, and we think we've got one of those one-in-1000 "consistent" relievers, we're in the best possible negotiating position for a further extension.
The other thing you're missing is the radical improbability of Betancourt ever getting a $40 million deal. Relievers are relievers, and Betancourt is one of them, and only two have ever made $10 million in a season. You basically are assuming that he will flat-out duplicate his 2007 season for the next two years, and the odds are well against that.
by Jay on Dec 4, 2007 4:55 PM EST up reply actions
Re: Raffy R Lock-up?
My point was that if Raffy ever makes it to market, we have no chance to sign him. I could easily see him taking his chances by not extending his contract with the Tribe and just accepting arbitration if he has a dominant or even just very good 2008. I think his value jumps to the point that we have little chance of signing him. Not at the 6M+/year he would command by 2010 in FA, even if he doesn't close.
I think that he is a relatively low risk proposition. He is getting paid so little that we can use the years we still control him to buy up some more FA years at a stomachable rate for our contending years. Plus at the price we could get him at, he should be pretty easily tradable if we decide to rebuild in 2010 or 2011.
Basically, I think the risk of Raffy-R backsliding to the point where he is unuseable by 2010 is less than the risk of our losing him after 2009 if we don't extend him that far now. It just seems like a good opportunity to lock up one of our guys who has been a solid performer for us.
Re: Raffy R Lock-up?
Riske got three years for $13 million guaranteed. Those incentives probably have something to do with Cy Young votes or "games finished" (meaning if he became the closer). And the club gets a fourth-year option at reasonable money, too. How can you twist this into the idea that Rafi might get $40 million someday?
Rafi will get $40 million if and only if he remains an elite reliever, consistently, for two more years and spends at least one of those years as the closer. And I know that right now, we tend to think of him as The Machine, so of course if feels like he probably will go out and do just that. You're going by your gut, and I'm going by the entire history of professional baseball.
My point was that if Raffy ever makes it to market, we have no chance to sign him.
I'll give you this point, just to make the argument more simple. But your reaction to it is based on fear, not on a rational course of action.
If we give him a two-year deal with a club option for 2010, we still have a ton of time to make sure he doesn't make it to market. We can give him the deal you imagine a year from now, and he'd take it a year from now, because he'd still have two years remaining before getting to free agency. His own agent will tell him to take it at that point.
And even if we didn't do that, let's say he had a down year in 2008, then came back with a vengeance in 2009. Now he's had a little volatility, we pick up the 2009 option and get to work on a long-term deal. And a year before free agency, we definitely still have a strong chance to sign him.
In sum, there would be no advantage, financially or strategically, to guaranteeing him more than two years, as long as we can get him to agree to a club option for a third year. None, zero, zip. It would make you feel better for a brief moment, yes, but it would not help the team.
by Jay on Dec 5, 2007 4:55 PM EST up reply actions
Re: Raffy R Lock-up?
I'll give you this point, just to make the argument more simple. But your reaction to it is based on fear, not on a rational course of action.
My reaction was not based on fear. It was based on reality. The Indians do not pay the market rate for good FA's. I am not afraid of it or even disagreeing with it. It is just part of the way we have to do business. You know that and I know that.
Assuming we sign him to a 2+1 after 2007 and he were willing to renegotiate after 2008 to give him an additional 3+1 it would no doubt be more expensive than if we did it after 2007. It would also be the same as a 4+1 deal after 2007, which is longer term than I am advocating. If we renegotiate and do your 2+1 deal, we are left with the 3+1 that I am advocating, only it would likely be at a higher rate. Either way it costs us more than using our 2 low cost year leverage now.
He will turn 35 in the first month of the 2010 season. I don't think Shapiro would be very interested in having him locked up in a contract for very long past then. I definitely don't see him giving a reliever more than 2 guaranteed years at that age. Which would take him through 2011, the same as when my 3+1 suggestion would end. But again, it would be more expensive.
In summary:
- I think we should take our current 2 year low cost advantage with him to buy out 2 years of FA.
- It will be less expensive to buy out those years now than at any point in the future.
- He may not be as dominant in 2008 as he was in 2007, but he does not need to be to be worth the deal we could sign him too now.
- He has been a good to dominant reliever the past 3 years. He has over 300IP with a career WHIP of 1.057. He is worth what we can sign him for now, even if he regresses to him career mean.
Re: Raffy R Lock-up?
We might agree that there is a certain total guaranteed salary number below which it's worthwhile to give him a third guaranteed year right now -- and above which it is not worthwhile to give him the third guaranteed year. We might disagree on exactly what that number is, but probably not by more than a few million.
I know that I would not without limitation rule out giving him a third year -- how cheap is this, anyway? -- and I assume that you would limit how much you'd be willing to give him in order to buy that third year out, right now.
And anyway, I think this is all played out.
by Jay on Dec 5, 2007 9:26 PM EST up reply actions
Re: Raffy R Lock-up?
You are right about there being a monetary point were a 3rd guaranteed year and a 4th option year are not worthwhile.
My point is that if we want to lock him in for those years, it will never be cheaper than it is now and he is a low risk to not be worth the money.
Yeah this is about played out.
Re: Raffy R Lock-up?
I think the reasonable to say that for Betancourt not even to be worth a one-year flier deal by 2010 is highly unlikely. So I'd say if they can lock in 2010 at $4 million and get a reasonable option for 2011, at that point it is worth it.
I'm not sure they can get that, but given that Betancourt is looking at $3 million as a guaranteed max if he doesn't do a multiyear deal, maybe they can, if that's what they want.
Re: Raffy R Lock-up?
Re: Raffy R Lock-up?
- 1.6M
- 2.4M
- 3.2M
- 4.0M Team Option
by Jay on Dec 5, 2007 9:28 PM EST up reply actions
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