Would you offer Austin Hays the Scott Kingery deal?

[Philip]

58 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

He would have to be worth more than the salary in the option years. Not just a little more, a lot more, otherwise you would not take the risk in locking up those dollars. The number of guys who are worth a lot more than $13-$15M in MLB is pretty small. Trout only got, what, $35M per? Hays would have to be worth half of Trout for the contract to work significantly in the O's favor. He would need to have at least that kind of upside to take the risk on the front end. I don't think the odds are good that Hays will pan out on that level given we have seen he is capable of .230 in AA in a down year. I think he's much more likely to be worth $0-5M than $25-30M.

At the moment, .5 WAR is worth about 6 mill. Hays would earn that pretty easily, And even if he earns only 3 WAR Over the course of the contract, it was money well spent. Of course he’s expected to do much better than that, Which increases the value.

[Ohfan67]

59 minutes ago, Philip said:

At the moment, .5 WAR is worth about 6 mill. Hays would earn that pretty easily, And even if he earns only 3 WAR Over the course of the contract, it was money well spent. Of course he’s expected to do much better than that, Which increases the value.

But really the point of the contract for the team is to not pay full free agent price for the WAR. The team would take a gamble by paying more in the first few years than they have to pay, but overall pay less for WAR than if they went through all the arbitration years. I find it hard to find a decent comp player to estimate the savings. 

[Ohfan67]

2 hours ago, LookinUp said:

The crazy comp I think of for Austin Hays is ... Adam Jones. Decent CF. Good power. Not great BA/OBP spread. Maybe hits for more average. Flame away. That's probably your 80th percentile for Hays, with somewhat more upside than what Adam actually produced*.

 

*Noting that I think Adam's upside was certainly higher than he ever produced too. Most people don't hit their ceiling.

I agree with Frobby...I think that’s a good comp. 

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, Ohfan67 said:

But really the point of the contract for the team is to not pay full free agent price for the WAR. The team would take a gamble by paying more in the first few years than they have to pay, but overall pay less for WAR than if they went through all the arbitration years. I find it hard to find a decent comp player to estimate the savings. 

This deal pays Hays about the same that Schoop got for his six years.  I think the teams employing Schoop got good value for their money and I think Hays can be as good or better.

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Philip said:

At the moment, .5 WAR is worth about 6 mill. Hays would earn that pretty easily, And even if he earns only 3 WAR Over the course of the contract, it was money well spent. Of course he’s expected to do much better than that, Which increases the value.   

Where are you getting that .5 WAR = $6 mm?    Usually $8 mm/WAR is commonly used.    And remember pre-FA players make far less than that.

[Aristotelian]

I have no doubt that Hays can be worth 3 WAR, but he is already under team control. IMO, the only thing the contract add is that the team is locked into paying him through his arb years in exchange for the option to pay him $13M for his first couple years of free agency. You are taking on the risk that he stinks or gets injured in exchange for little upside, IMO.

Jones got $13-17M AAV. Even if Hays performs at that level, the $13M-15M options are not that great a deal.

[Philip]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

Where are you getting that .5 WAR = $6 mm?    Usually $8 mm/WAR is commonly used.    And remember pre-FA players make far less than that.

.5/6m isn’t too far from 1/8m.

I was estimating based on inflation, but the point remains valid. If 1WAR=8M,than a 6 year/24 mill contract would cover 3 WAR.

the 3 pre-arb years would total about 1.8 M, so you’re betting that the normal arbitration raises would be more than the 6 year contract, which by then would be 3 years/22.2 M, which would require and additional ~3.75 WAR.

however, if he’s doing well, his arbitration raises in years 4-6 would probably surpass that.

as I write, though, I realize that the artificial suppression in years 1-3 skews the math a bit. If I’m the team, I’d want an extra year, and if I’m Hays, I’d want a player option and a higher AAV

 

[Philip]

1 hour ago, Aristotelian said:

I have no doubt that Hays can be worth 3 WAR, but he is already under team control. IMO, the only thing the contract add is that the team is locked into paying him through his arb years in exchange for the option to pay him $13M for his first couple years of free agency. You are taking on the risk that he stinks or gets injured in exchange for little upside, IMO.

Jones got $13-17M AAV. Even if Hays performs at that level, the $13M-15M options are not that great a deal.

Yes I was realizing that while writing my post. I still think it’s worthwhile to investigate but the numbers/years would need modification.

[Roll Tide]

13 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

I've stated before that I think it would be wise for teams to lock up their young talent before the next CBA.

This was never the Oriole way! Under the new regime I'd like to see Elias have done forward thinking and moves like this would ge a good sign. 

4 million per year is not much unless he really craps the bed!

[sportsfan8703]

I think we’ll keep our salary flexibitly and just see who sticks. Good idea though. 

[hoosiers]

The Phillies took a gamble on Kingery based on a strong year at AA and AAA - one of those home stadiums being an extreme hitter's park.  I would not take that gamble on Hays right now and would prefer to wait until at least the end of this year to check out this year's production before locking him up LT - even if it costs a bit more.  Now, Hays does have an injury history now and lost a year last year so he might be more likely to accept a deal.

[Moose Milligan]

Bregman, 6/100.

Could have been us, Orioles...could have been us.

 

3 hours ago, hoosiers said:

The Phillies took a gamble on Kingery based on a strong year at AA and AAA - one of those home stadiums being an extreme hitter's park.  I would not take that gamble on Hays right now and would prefer to wait until at least the end of this year to check out this year's production before locking him up LT - even if it costs a bit more.  Now, Hays does have an injury history now and lost a year last year so he might be more likely to accept a deal.

It's a 4 million dollar a year gamble, if you're gonna give him the Kingery deal.  It wouldn't prohibit the Orioles from doing anything else.  That's the thing, it's a buy low situation....if he has a fantastic year and costs more after the end of this year, hopefully it's not more than 5 million a year.  

[Frobby]

45 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Bregman, 6/100.

Could have been us, Orioles...could have been us.

 

It's a 4 million dollar a year gamble, if you're gonna give him the Kingery deal.  It wouldn't prohibit the Orioles from doing anything else.  That's the thing, it's a buy low situation....if he has a fantastic year and costs more after the end of this year, hopefully it's not more than 5 million a year.  

I don’t think $4 mm/yr is that small of a gamble on an unproven player, and again, it’s really a $7 mm/yr gamble on the arb years, rather than a $4 mm/yr gamble on all six years.    

[LookinUp]

Seems like a very good comp for Hays (from a FV perspective). Apparently the Rays think it's a good idea.

[Ohfan67]

14 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

This deal pays Hays about the same that Schoop got for his six years.  I think the teams employing Schoop got good value for their money and I think Hays can be as good or better.

Schoop is an interesting comparison. Schoop was productive for the O's (11.5 WAR) and I think the O's got rid of Schoop at about the right time (of course a trade in 2017 would have yielded more return, but in terms of Schoop's play it was pretty good timing). The O's paid about 10 million for those 11.5 WAR. That's pretty good. If Hays productivity in his first six years was similar to Schoop's, then you would be paying 21.5 million for those 11.5 WAR with Kingery's deal. Not awful, but twice as expensive. I don't know. For the deals to make since, then the club option years are going to have to be bargains. Forecasting productivity in years 7, 8 and 9 seems really iffy unless the young player is really hot stuff.  The more I think about it, the more I think that the reason you don't see these deals more often is because the models used by teams show that they are not worth the investment. What's the probability that Hays will be a productive player in his eighth season? Especially relative to the productivity per dollar that a younger player could provide at that point? Maybe teams aren't so dumb when it comes to long term deals for young players. I guess the models would also have to be tweaked for each team's financial situation, etc. This is pocket change for the Phillies, but not for say Tampa. Anyway, it's fun stuff to think about.