Wander Franco 12/$223 mm

[Can_of_corn]

8 minutes ago, Hank Scorpio said:

I can't shake the image of Scott Kingery.

In his career season he put up 2.6 WAR in 500 pa.

Wander just put up 3.5 in 308.

He's also five years younger.

[Frobby]

8 minutes ago, Hank Scorpio said:

I can't shake the image of Scott Kingery.

There have been other flops besides Kingery who got early extensions and didn’t pan out.   And this deal is 7 times the size of Kingery’s.   But, Franco was the no. 1 prospect in the sport, and put up 3.5 rWAR in little more than half a season as a 20-year old rookie.  Barring injury, he’s as close to “can’t miss” as there is in this sport.   

[Hank Scorpio]

No question.... he plays the right position, he's the right age, he has the pedigree, got a little sample size, etc..

But it's projection. I really do like seeing deals like these from small market teams. It warms my heart.

[Frobby]

Dave Szymborski with some good insights using ZiPS:

I constructed a small simulation for how much Franco could make going year-to-year and then signing a mega-deal relative to what he will actually get. In the 50th-percentile projection, with near-minimum salaries in 2022 and ’23, arbitration projections, and free-agent contract projections, ZiPS estimates $297 million over the next 12 years. This is well above the $223 million he can max out at, but that’s not the whole story, either. The upside isn’t tremendously high, with the 90th-percentile projection going up to $360 million. Franco could figure out how to pitch like Jacob deGrom this offseason, and he’ll still get relatively paltry sums of money for the next few years; arbitration awards don’t scale up linearly for superstars. And the downside is significant. His 10th-percentile result ends up with him making less than $20 million over his career, and in 35% of the simulations, he falls short of $182 million. By comparison, at the time of their signings, Acuña falls short of his guaranteed deal only 17% of the time, and Albies does worse only 9% of the time. Another natural comparison is when the Rays signed Evan Longoria a week into his major league career to a contract worth a guaranteed $17.5 million over six years; ZiPS only had him doing worse than that contract in 11% of the simulations.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/wander-franco-lands-a-monster-deal/

I’d love to see a long term projection for Rutschman and do this same analysis.  

[Sports Guy]

Easy deal to give

[Frobby]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Easy deal to give

If it’s not your money.   As good as I expect Franco to be, any time a team commits that much money to a player unconditionally, they have to gulp a little before they sign.  

[Sports Guy]

3 minutes ago, Frobby said:

If it’s not your money.   As good as I expect Franco to be, any time a team commits that much money to a player unconditionally, they have to gulp a little before they sign.  

There’s always a risk…but this is easy to do.  It’s probably the safest 200M deal you will ever see.

[Frobby]

8 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

There’s always a risk…but this is easy to do.  It’s probably the safest 200M deal you will ever see.

Well, per ZiPS there’s a 35% chance it’s underwater, 10% chance it’s underwater by $160 mm.  Certainly a wealthy team takes that chance every time.  But Tampa has to cross its fingers a little because the 10% scenario probably would hamper them significantly.   (This is where you tell me that every team can afford a bad $25 mm/yr contract.)

But put it this way: if the O’s were lucky enough to have Franco, I’d do that deal in a heartbeat.   And then gulp.  

[Can_of_corn]

5 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Well, per ZiPS there’s a 35% chance it’s underwater, 10% chance it’s underwater by $160 mm.  Certainly a wealthy team takes that chance every time.  But Tampa has to cross its fingers a little because the 10% scenario probably would hamper them significantly.   (This is where you tell me that every team can afford a bad $25 mm/yr contract.)

But put it this way: if the O’s were lucky enough to have Franco, I’d do that deal in a heartbeat.   And then gulp.  

I think that those numbers will skew more towards the team once the next CBA is done.

[Frobby]

4 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I think that those numbers will skew more towards the team once the next CBA is done.

Could be.  

[Can_of_corn]

I wonder if Elias is going to stop name dropping the Rays now that they signed a guy to this deal?

Maybe he should be talking about the Pirates model?