Stan "The Fan" Charles: Failing To Re-Sign Chris Davis Could Set Orioles Back For Years

[DJHJR86]

I'd say locking Machado up long term is priority #1. Resigning Davis isn't that far behind, however.

[EagleOriole]

It would be great to re-sign Davis - but there is life after Davis. Someone mentioned extending Jones and I want Jones to be an Oriole for a long time, but there are many more things we need to do before doing this.

[DrungoHazewood]

Stan "The Fan" Charles explains why signing Chris Davis after the 2015 season is the most critical juncture Peter Angelos has faced as Orioles owner. http://www.pressboxonline.com/2015/08/06/failing-to-re-sign-chris-davis-could-set-orioles-back-for-years

Failing to sign any one player cannot set an organization back years. A year ago people were calling for him to be non-tendered. Now the organization is in jeopardy of long-term losing if they don't outbid everyone else to sign him to a 5/120 deal?

[DrungoHazewood]

If you pay him 6/100M you are expecting about a 2.7 average WAR per season. That doesn't seem unreasonable risk to me. But I don't see the O's going beyond an AJ 6/80 M offer, if Boras even lets them make it.

It's pretty likely that Davis passes 2.7 wins in a few weeks. That'll be the second time in his MLB career he's reached that mark. He'll turn 30 in March. It's certainly not impossible for him to play well enough to justify a 6/100 deal (although I think that's lower than what he'll get), but I'm skeptical of deals that expect a player to be much better in their 30s than they were in their 20s. That probably describes 10% of players, maybe less than that.

[Stotle]

If you pay him 6/100M you are expecting about a 2.7 average WAR per season. That doesn't seem unreasonable risk to me. But I don't see the O's going beyond an AJ 6/80 M offer, if Boras even lets them make it.

I think the nature of FA means if you are expecting 2.7 average WAR per season then you are willing to pay him that "value" plus whatever premium the market inevitably demands with other buyers bidding. Judging FA contracts by whether or not they are worth the amount spent sets up essentially every contract to be a failure.

The closest you can come to paying a player what he is actually worth is probably extending a player while under team control, buying out arb and free agent years.

[weams]

I think the nature of FA means if you are expecting 2.7 average WAR per season then you are willing to pay him that "value" plus whatever premium the market inevitably demands with other buyers bidding. Judging FA contracts by whether or not they are worth the amount spent sets up essentially every contract to be a failure.

The closest you can come to paying a player what he is actually worth is probably extending a player while under team control, buying out arb and free agent years.

I understand that our FO is highly analytics driven on theses issues.

[weams]

Failing to sign any one player cannot set an organization back years. A year ago people were calling for him to be non-tendered. Now the organization is in jeopardy of long-term losing if they don't outbid everyone else to sign him to a 5/120 deal?

Of course that is not close to true. You can not really even look at surplus value from Chris Davis at any point now.

[weams]

Each season, most FA deal show negative surplus value. It is rare to catch a good one in the top tier.

[DrungoHazewood]

I think the nature of FA means if you are expecting 2.7 average WAR per season then you are willing to pay him that "value" plus whatever premium the market inevitably demands with other buyers bidding. Judging FA contracts by whether or not they are worth the amount spent sets up essentially every contract to be a failure.

The closest you can come to paying a player what he is actually worth is probably extending a player while under team control, buying out arb and free agent years.

I'm not sure I totally agree. Yes, most long-term, expensive deals come out as losers using the $7M/WAR estimate (or whatever the value was at the time). But that $7M/WAR number comes from taking all the free agent contracts signed in whatever year and dividing it by the production. Everyone can't be below average.

[DrungoHazewood]

Of course that is not close to true. You can not really even look at surplus value from Chris Davis at any point now.

Even if Chris Davis were to level off and give you 3-5 wins a year for a few years, you'd still have to expect that in year 4, 5, 6 of a long-term deal he would be a below-average player.

[Shabadoo25]

Davis to me is like Snider writ large. The better pitchers around MLB easily hang an 0-4 with 4Ks on him. Then he will face some AAAA guys and hit some homers in bunches.

His long dry streaks drive me nuts.

[weams]

Even if Chris Davis were to level off and give you 3-5 wins a year for a few years, you'd still have to expect that in year 4, 5, 6 of a long-term deal he would be a below-average player.

His bat is slow. He is just so strong. Unless he does the aging PED guy thing, I believe you to be right.

[DrungoHazewood]

Davis to me is like Snider writ large. The better pitchers around MLB easily hang an 0-4 with 4Ks on him. Then he will face some AAAA guys and hit some homers in bunches.

His long dry streaks drive me nuts.

Except that Davis has a 1.338 OPS off Bartolo Colon. 2-for-5 with a homer off Wade Davis. 3-for-8 with a homer and a double off Hisashi Iwakuma. 3-for-5 off Jake Arrieta. Three homers and a double off Ivan Nova. Five extra base hits in 30 ABs off Jeremy Hellickson. Three homers off of Rick Porcello. Two homers and a double off James Shields. A .991 OPS off Mark Buehrle. A .972 off Erik Bedard. A homer off Koji in 8 ABs. A .841 OPS off John Lackey. Slugs .571 off Ervin Santana and .577 off Hiroki Kuroda.

[Stotle]

I'm not sure I totally agree. Yes, most long-term, expensive deals come out as losers using the $7M/WAR estimate (or whatever the value was at the time). But that $7M/WAR number comes from taking all the free agent contracts signed in whatever year and dividing it by the production. Everyone can't be below average.

Not for longer-term contracts. The salary increases (usually backloaded) while expected production decreases. Agents use player comps to try and anchor the market for bidding, but those comps are contracts that likewise didn't take into account the overpay ($/win) on the tail end of the deal. The only way for it to really work out is for a player to perform above or below his three-year average leading into the deal, and to do so for most or all of his new contract.

As I've noted earlier, teams are okay with the inherent delta between cost/production towards the end of deals because generally teams are not locked into big chunks of salary commitments for large portions of the payroll for extend periods of time, so you will have the opportunity later to move players, eat money, or whatever.

Finally, the more productive FA entering the offseason are generally paid a premium, so the cheap one-year guys (like Cruz 2014) looking to rebound or reestablish value tend to provide most of the "overproduction" side of the equation on a year-to-year basis (which is a nice strategy if you can figure out which of the twenty-some FA in this category are going to over-perform).

[Fan4Life]

Pass on Davis. Duq is going to have to find the next Chris Davis. That guy with great promise that hasn't had any consistent success at the ML level and always kills it at AAA. And hope our coaches can apply the finishing touches as they have generally done with Davis.