Witt Extension; Adley Comparison

[btdart20]

I may not understand the contract, so this could all be bunk...

Royals have control for the next 7 years.  Then Witt can opt out for each subsequent year through the 10th year.  Then, if there's some miracle of events, after the 11th year, the team has a 3-year option for about $30m/year.

$288.7m / 11 = $26.45m.  Which means, he's opting out after year 7 if he's healthy/productive.  The rest of the numbers are meaningless.

20 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Witt has 4 years left of service time, including this season.

So, if everything goes right he would get something in the area of 50M the next 4 years.

That leaves a guarantee of 7/238 (roughly) on the table. That is 34M a year. This is not really a bargain. They paid all the money for this deal although if things go as they are, he could be a 45-50M a year guy.

Still, this is one of those extensions where there is a ton of risk for the team and very little for the player.

My interpretation seems to push it closer, but I haven't seen a yearly schedule.  Have you seen what he's going to make in the first 7 years?

[Going Underground]

10 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I’m mulling it over, but my initial reaction is the Royals just did something pretty stupid.  So, I wouldn’t necessarily want to do the same.   

I like Witt a lot, and he’s a player worth extending.  But let’s look at this.  He was due less than $1 mm this year.  Assume his Arb years would have gone $7.5/15/22.5 mm, which is pretty aggressive.  That’s $46 mm for his control years, so the Royals are paying him something like 7/$242 mm for the FA years.   That’s a huge guarantee (just shy of $35 mm/yr), and it isn’t reciprocal, as Witt has FOUR chances to opt out.  So all the risk is on the Royals and they’ll receive little surplus value if Witt outperforms his hefty deal.  

All the details aren’t out yet, so I haven’t completely made up my mind, but my initial reaction is that the Royals are likely to regret this deal.  

 

Some of it might be for PR purposes also. KC wants a new stadium downtown. John Sherman since buying the team in 2019,the team has been bad. Plus Patrick Mahomes owns 1% of the Royals, so they have the money.

 

[oriolediehard]

40 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Adley’s older.  Gunnar’s the better comparison.  

Holliday will be the comparison after this year.

[Frobby]

14 minutes ago, btdart20 said:

I may not understand the contract, so this could all be bunk...

Royals have control for the next 7 years.  Then Witt can opt out for each subsequent year through the 10th year.  Then, if there's some miracle of events, after the 11th year, the team has a 3-year option for about $30m/year.

$288.7m / 11 = $26.45m.  Which means, he's opting out after year 7 if he's healthy/productive.  The rest of the numbers are meaningless.

My interpretation seems to push it closer, but I haven't seen a yearly schedule.  Have you seen what he's going to make in the first 7 years?

I think the structure of the payments is very important.  Yes AAV is $26.45 mm, but then remaining AAV by the time the opt-out years roll around is probably much higher, because the first 4 years are probably at a much lower salary than the final 7.   
 

 

[ThisIsBirdland]

 

 

[Frobby]

4 minutes ago, oriolediehard said:

Holliday will be the comparison after this year.

To be clear, Witt has played for two full years.   He’s got more of a track record than Holliday will have after this year, or than Gunnar does now.  

[Frobby]

2 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think the structure of the payments is very important.  Yes AAV is $26.45 mm, but then remaining AAV by the time the opt-out years roll around is probably much higher, because the first 4 years are probably at a much lower salary than the final 7.   
 

 

Okay, now we’ve seen it.  Witt would be opting out of $35 mm/yr.  

[Sports Guy]

Extensions I would like to see and feel are realistic:

Gunnar: 8/150ish…50M or so the next 5 years and 100M the following 3.  If you can convince Boras and Gunnar to sign an extension, they may only want 7 years, so make it 7/120.  We have him for 5 more years. An 8 year deal has him becoming a FA for his age 31 season and a 7 year deal for his age 30 season.

I wouldn’t sign him for less than 7 years. If I’m not getting at least 2 FA years, I wouldn’t do the deal at all. 
 

Holliday: 9/130ish..hope to have a 10th year team option for 40M or a 15M buyout. So a guaranteed 145.  At 9 years, he hits free agency at 29 and if the option is picked up, he hits it at 30.

Can we package these 2 together for Boras?

Rutschman: He is way below the other 2 for me in terms of needing/wanting to sign him to a deal.  Still, I would like to.  He will enter his first FA season at age 30.  Currently, he is with the Os through his age 29 season, which is 4 years from now.

I would give him an 8 year deal for 160M.

Posey got 9/167 but he only had 2 years of service time left before hitting free agency.  Same age.

[Sports Guy]

12 minutes ago, ThisIsBirdland said:

 

 

Ok, I glossed over the opt out stuff. So he’s definitely getting 7/141 from KC. So, he would be 29 (although the season would be age 30) if he elects to go into FA that first opt out year.

This is roughly in line with what I said for Holliday and Henderson. Witt currently has one more year of service time than Gunnar and 2 more than Holliday.  

[Dunk35]

Offer Gunnar 10/250 with a couple team options on the end. 
 

Definitely don't want Adley at that kind of contract. And I love Adley Rutschman. 

[ThisIsBirdland]

Just now, Sports Guy said:

Ok, I glossed over the opt out stuff. So he’s definitely getting 7/141 from KC. So, he would be 29 (although the season would be age 30) if he elects to go into FA that first opt out year.

This is roughly in line with what I said for Holliday and Henderson. Witt currently has one more year of service time than Gunnar and 2 more than Holliday.  

It's those later years that get tricky.

• He gets an additional 4/$140m even if he's not living up to the contract.
• If he is living up to the contract, he likely opts out after the 3rd available opt-out year to avoid triggering the 3 team controlled options.
• I can't imagine he either let's the deal get to the team options, or the team will want to exercise their options if he's allowed it to get that far.

So if he performs, he's probably getting 10/$246m and opting out to unlock a new deal after that?

If he doesn't perform or he gets hurt, he gets the full 11/$281m.

[Sports Guy]

Just now, Dunk35 said:

Offer Gunnar 10/250 with a couple team options on the end. 
 

Definitely don't want Adley at that kind of contract. And I love Adley Rutschman. 

He won’t sign for 10 years..at least not guaranteed years.  He may do something like this Witt deal though.  An ability to opt out or have player options.

You Are basically saying, give him a 5/200 extension.  That’s all risk for the Os. That’s paying him what the elite guys are getting now and doing it after one season.  It may be ok to do that but when signing these deals, you should get some level of a discount. my suggestion isn’t much of one but it’s a little bit more. I don’t think we can expect much more than that.

 

[Orioles Jim]

Something to note is that Witt’s agent is NOT Boras but is in fact Witt’s own father.

So there’s that.

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, ThisIsBirdland said:

It's those later years that get tricky.

• He gets an additional 4/$140m even if he's not living up to the contract.
• If he is living up to the contract, he likely opts out after the 3rd available opt-out year to avoid triggering the 3 team controlled options.
• I can't imagine he either let's the deal get to the team options, or the team will want to exercise their options if he's allowed it to get that far.

So if he performs, he's probably getting 10/$246m and opting out to unlock a new deal after that?

If he doesn't perform or he gets hurt, he gets the full 11/$281m.

If he is performing well, he will opt out immediately. 

He would still be looking at a potential of 7/229 but he likely will be able to get more than that on the open market.

[Aristotelian]

I would love to see this type of deal for Gunnar. Holliday is interesting as well but carries more risk. I'd also welcome a shorter cheaper deal like Acuna's. Excited to see what they come up with.