Carl Crawford reaches agreement with Boston (7yr 142mm)

[Remember The Alomar]

$20.3M per year??!! For Crawford?!???!?

#1 Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees- $ 33,000,000

#2 C.C. Sabathia, New York Yankees- $ 24,285,714

#3 Derek Jeter, New York Yankees- $ 22,600,000

#4 Mark Teixeira, New York Yankees- $ 20,625,000

#5 Johan Santana, New York Mets- $ 20,144,707

#6 Miguel Cabrera, Detroit Tigers- $ 20,000,000

Crawford is the new number five, behind Tex. Unless they move him to right field, this makes little sense for the Red Sox. Amazing left field defense at Fenway doesn't have the same value as it would in the Trop.

I wish I knew where I could find UZR/150 stadium splits (even though the sample size would be small), but Fangraphs rates him 22.5 UZR/150 for his career at Tropicana while only 7.6 away at all other stadiums. I'm not say he's going to drop that low, but I think it's going to take away some of his value.

Carl is a pretty athletic dude, so I bet he'll end up aging alright, but if he ever suffers a major leg injury then there goes pretty much all of his value.

Of course, they are the Red Sox, so overpaying him isn't really going to hurt them at all.

[Moose Milligan]

Name 5 players (at least) that you'd rather give 20 million a year to.

[Remember The Alomar]

Name 5 players (at least) that you'd rather give 20 million a year to.

No offense, but that's kind of a silly way to look at it. Who's to say that there SHOULD be five players that I'd want to give 20 million dollars to in the game today?

Like I said, it's a signing that will most likely (barring injury) end up being OK, but that doesn't mean they're not overpaying him.

[Moose Milligan]

No offense, but that's kind of a silly way to look at it. Who's to say that there SHOULD be five players that I'd want to give 20 million dollars to in the game today?

Like I said, it's a signing that will most likely (barring injury) end up being OK, but that doesn't mean they're not overpaying him.

I never said there should be 5 players you'd WANT to give 20 million a year to. I asked if you could name 5 players that you'd RATHER give 20 million a year to. Big difference.

[Remember The Alomar]

I never said there should be 5 players you'd WANT to give 20 million a year to. I asked if you could name 5 players that you'd RATHER give 20 million a year to. Big difference.

Fair enough.

If that's the case I guess Crawford is as good as any.

[waroriole]

Name 5 players (at least) that you'd rather give 20 million a year to.

That's easy:

Pujols

Tulo

ARod

Longoria

Cabrera

AGon

Many More

[Mad Mark]

MLB is OK with it. YESPNESN is estatic. Everyone else weeps...but the people who count don't care!

[Sports Guy]

This pretty much guarantees Beltre goes to Anaheim. Lots of help here for Beltre.

I would also assume Soriano goes to Anaheim.

[Goop]

This is just ridiculous...

[ShaneDawg85]

Wow. There sure have been some awful contracts this offseason. This isn't Jayson Werth bad, because Crawford's simply the better player. But this isn't much better.

[GeorgiaBird]

I also don't think he is a spotlight guy. Boston has plenty of stars to deflect attention and Crawford is not the sort that is going to make a scene, so it will probably work out. But I think he would have been a lot more comfortable going somewhere other than Boston or NY.

[Pedro Cerrano]

Just once I'd like to see an offseason pass where the top 2-3 free agents don't sign with the Yankees and Red Sox.

We're simply never going to compete in this division of behemoths but as long as MLB keeps raking in dollars I doubt you'll see any change in the near future.

The fact of the matter is only 3 teams (Os Jays and Rays) really have anything to complain about.

[DrungoHazewood]

Rather than do it myself, I'll just rely on Tango:

Crawford: 7/142MM$, paying for this schedule:

Year Age $perW WAR Payout

2011 30 $5.00 4.8 $24

2012 31 $5.42 4.3 $23

2013 32 $5.88 3.8 $22

2014 33 $6.38 3.3 $21

2015 34 $6.92 2.8 $19

2016 35 $7.50 2.3 $17

2017 36 $8.14 1.8 $15

$perW going up at 8.5%, starting at 5MM$ per win. WAR starts at 4.8, dropping at 0.5.

I have Crawford as a 4 WAR player. I think this is an overpay. How would a more typical team see him? Well, they’ll be conservative on the growth of salaries, say setting it at 7%. The $ per win would start at 4.5MM$. If we do that, this is what they’d see:

Year Age $perW WAR Payout

2011 30 $5.00 4.0 $20

2012 31 $5.35 3.5 $19

2013 32 $5.72 3.0 $17

2014 33 $6.13 2.5 $15

2015 34 $6.55 2.0 $13

2016 35 $7.01 1.5 $11

2017 36 $7.50 1.0 $8

That’s 102MM$ for 7 seasons. Or, for the first five seasons, it would be 84MM$. That’s more in-line with Torii Hunter and Ichiro from a few years ago.

***

As you can see, it highly depends on the rise in baseball salaries. The Redsox are betting big. Not only that, but they have him valued at 4.8 WAR, which is excessive. Maybe they think he will have a better aging curve. Let’s try another schedule:

Year Age $perW WAR Payout

2011 30 $5.00 4.00 $20

2012 31 $5.41 3.75 $20

2013 32 $5.84 3.50 $20

2014 33 $6.32 3.25 $21

2015 34 $6.83 3.00 $20

2016 35 $7.38 2.75 $20

2017 36 $7.98 2.50 $20

I started him at 4 wins in 2011, but this time dropping him by only 0.25 wins a year. Inflation set at 8.1%. In this case, inflation and aging cancel out (as you can see by the constant 20MM$/21MM$ payout each year). That gives you 7/142.

Anyway you cut it, this is an optimistic or aggressive forecast.

***

Werth was a huge overpay, and this one was also a big overpay.

[Frobby]

Werth was a huge overpay, and this one was also a big overpay.

But the Red Sox overpaid for a better player.

[LookinUp]

Does this affect the Sox's ability to resign AGon?