Would you offer Hays or Mountcastle a long term deal now?

[Frobby]

In the last couple of years there have been some long term deals made with players with little or no major league experience:

Scott Kingery: 6/$24 mm before he’d played a game in the majors.  Team options for $13/$14/$15 mm for three FA years.    Covers ages 24-32.   Was BA #31 prospect.   Produced -1.3 rWAR in the first year of the deal but improved to 3.0 rWAR in year two.

Brandon Lowe: 6/$24 mm after one partial season (43 games) in the majors.   Team options for $10.5 mm/$11.5 mm for two FA years.   Covers ages 24-30.   Was BA #93 prospect before his partial debut season.   Produced 0.7 rWAR in the partial season before he signed, and 2.9 rWAR in the first year of the deal.

Eloy Jimenez: 6/$43 mm before he’d played a game in the majors.  Team options at $16.5/$18.5 mm for two FA years.   Covers ages 22-29.   Was BA #3 prospect before his debut season.   Produced 1.4 rWAR in first year of his deal.

Would you offer a deal like that to Hays or Mountcastle at this point?   Say, 6/$24 mm with two team options at $12 mm each?

Please answer the poll, but I’m interested to hear why or why not.   Also, anyone else you’d consider at this point?

[Scalious]

Kingrey and Lowe both have MI Gloves. There was not as much pressure on the bat for those 2 for them to be worth the risk of an unproven player. While Eloy's investment was purely about his extremely high hitting ceiling.

Mountcastle value puts it all the unproven bat and I don't think his hitting ceiling is elite enough IMO.  Hays being able to play CF helps here. So i'd peruse a Hays deal before considering Mountcastle.

[sportsfan8703]

Nope on both.  I'm not against locking guys in early, but not in these situations.  Hays has been plagued by injuries.  6.5 years of Mountcastle is plenty for a DH/1B.  If he's not a DH/1B now, he will be in 2027.  

[ChrisP]

Yes because it's not my money. 

[backwardsk]

I voted yes for Hays and no for Mountcastle.  $24M committed to Hays over six years is little risk.  I looked at how Kingery’s salary is distributed.  He’s getting 1, 1.5, and 1.75 in his first three years.  So that’s a little bit more than $2M more than he would have received if he didn’t do the deal.  With Hays I wouldn’t give him 4 per year, but a little bit more than Kingery.  Maybe something like 1, 2, 3.5.  
 

If you put more upfront, he could make a very attractive trade piece as he’ll have less money owed to him in the latter years.  Also, these types of deals are attractive to teams that are bumping up against the luxury tax threshold.

The wrench in this strategy is that the new CBA could totally blow up the economics.  Someone like Mountcastle may end up expecting more than 560k, or whatever it is, in year two and three anyway.

[oriole]

I said yes to both. Those seem like very team friendly contracts and neither player would have to be anything close to a star to make it worth the money. 

[Frobby]

10 minutes ago, ChrisP said:

Yes because it's not my money. 

That’s what some people said when we signed Chris Davis.   With due respect, if your team has budget constraints due to economic realities or just ownership fiat, then the team needs to spend it’s available cash cost-efficiently.    

[Ruzious]

They would have to have a very productive season before I'd consider it.  It's not like they're Acuna and Albies.level prospects.  

[backwardsk]

12 minutes ago, Ruzious said:

They would have to have a very productive season before I'd consider it.  It's not like they're Acuna and Albies.level prospects.  

They are definitely not the prospect level as the Braves guys, but the commitment in the controlled years is less than half.

[mdbdotcom]

The poll is open until the end of spring training, so I'll wait until then to vote. I look forward to seeing them both play this spring.

[Camden_yardbird]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

In the last couple of years there have been some long term deals made with players with little or no major league experience:

Scott Kingery: 6/$24 mm before he’d played a game in the majors.  Team options for $13/$14/$15 mm for three FA years.    Covers ages 24-32.   Was BA #31 prospect.   Produced -1.3 rWAR in the first year of the deal but improved to 3.0 rWAR in year two.

Brandon Lowe: 6/$24 mm after one partial season (43 games) in the majors.   Team options for $10.5 mm/$11.5 mm for two FA years.   Covers ages 24-30.   Was BA #93 prospect before his partial debut season.   Produced 0.7 rWAR in the partial season before he signed, and 2.9 rWAR in the first year of the deal.

Eloy Jimenez: 6/$43 mm before he’d played a game in the majors.  Team options at $16.5/$18.5 mm for two FA years.   Covers ages 22-29.   Was BA #3 prospect before his debut season.   Produced 1.4 rWAR in first year of his deal.

Would you offer a deal like that to Hays or Mountcastle at this point?   Say, 6/$24 mm with two team options at $12 mm each?

Please answer the poll, but I’m interested to hear why or why not.   Also, anyone else you’d consider at this point?

This has been an utter failure for the Orioles in the past.  Guys like chapman and marte are other players who have shown this as a solid mid market team strategy.  That said, not mountcastle until he comes up but yes on Hays, I think that's a reasonable gamble and one that should not cripple payroll if it doesnt work out.

[ArtVanDelay]

1 hour ago, Ruzious said:

They would have to have a very productive season before I'd consider it.  It's not like they're Acuna and Albies.level prospects.  

If they've been very productive at the MLB level then why would they accept a deal such as this?

[interloper]

I hope Elias is active with trying to extend our young, good players. But he doesn't need to move on this quite yet, so I voted no.

Hays carries significant injury risk and you want to at least get a LOOK at Mountcastle at the ML level first. If Mountcastle was a more elite prospect with the ability to be an above-average defender, I'd be saying lock him up immediately. 

[fansince1988]

The Orioles would never do this. They are shedding as much payroll as possible.

[MurphDogg]

The risk is low that Hays or Mountcastle wouldn't outperform the contract, and the PR associated with making a commitment to a player would be positive.

The only player who hasn't outperformed a contract like this is Jon Singleton, and that risk was priced into that contract.

From a PR standpoint it would give the Orioles a player to market around, fans could feel good about actually buying that player's jersey, knowing that he will actually be around.