Buckeye Basketball Brief: Michigan State stands in Bucks’ way to Big Ten Title
February 14, 2012MLB News: Kosuke Fukudome Signs with Chicago White Sox
February 14, 2012When news broke last week that Asdrubal Cabrera had avoided arbitration by signing a one-year contract with for 2012, I was mostly happy. I entered the week fairly certain the team wasn’t going to let the process play out through an arbiter—a rather nasty process—so there were really only two options. Either sign Asdrubal to a long-term deal or kick the can down the road and sign him to one-year deal. The team decided to do the latter. Of the two choices, I think it was probably the wise one, but we’ll get to that later.
My blasé reaction was evidently not universal. Not long after the news broke, there appeared a great deal of concern on twitter and elsewhere that the Indians now had no players on their roster signed beyond the 2012 season. This note was mentioned with great consternation. Without anyone under contract, how can they even field a team? Is this an omen that the Dolans are looking to sell? Is Rachel Phelps going to move our beloved Wahoos to Miami?
Well. No. It doesn’t mean any of that. Not even close, really. First, do you know how many players on the team’s current 40 man roster are not contractually obligated to play for the Indians in 2013 (if we still want them, that is)? Grady Sizemore, Derek Lowe, Travis Hafner, Kevin Slowey, and Casey Kotchman. That’s five players over whom the team will not have control in 2013. The other 35 players? If the team wants any of them, they have to play for the Indians in 2013.
That means that Jason Kipnis and Justin Masterson and Carlos Santana and Lonnie Chisenhall and Fauberto Carnandez and Jack Hannahan and Asdrubal Cabrera and Ubaldo Jimenez and Vinnie Pestano and Shin-Soo Choo and Chris Perez and Josh Tomlin and 23 other players are under club control for the 2013 season, either via club options, arbitration eligibility, or rookie contracts. All told, the 35 players we currently have under club control for 2013 represent over 150 seasons of club control going forward. STOP. FREAKING. OUT.
On top of that, take a look at those five players we don’t have under control past 2012. Do you want to sign any of them to longer-term deals right now? Not really. Not if you ask me anyway. Grady doesn’t merit more than one-year at a time at this point in his career given his injury history. Neither does Lowe, Slowey nor Kotchman. And Pronk? Are you kidding me? We just weathered four seemingly interminable years waiting for his albatross of a deal to end. Doubling-down merely for the sake of having “long-term contracts” is the height of insanity.
But let’s step back a second, because I don’t think anyone was shrieking that we didn’t have Hafner for another six seasons. Rather, people seemed to be upset that the team seemed averse to signing players to long-term contracts, and that without these sorts of commitments, the team is destined for perpetual mediocrity.
That line of thinking is, more or less, wrong. Long-term contracts are essentially bad things for clubs and good things for players. All the risk falls on the team: remember, all MLB contracts are guaranteed. That’s why players fight for longer deals and clubs fight for shorter deals. Think of it this way: who is more likely to want out of the Prince Fielder contract in three years, Fielder or the Tigers? The very best case for the Tigers is that they get what they pay for. That’s an INSANE risk to take. What if you bought a box of Cheerios, and you went home hoping that MAYBE there would be some Cheerios in the box? That’s a crummy deal, right? The Cheerios people, on the other hand, would love this: they don’t have to give you Cheerios–just the chance that there might be Cheerios, but full price please.
Anyway, for a team to have no long-term contracts means two related things: (1) the team is financially flexible to make additions because (2) the team has no long-term debt obligations. Somewhere in there, people were finding something to be upset about. I have to tell you that I don’t see it.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to be upset with the Indians’ management and ownership, but refusing to sink money into long-term free agent contracts ain’t one of them, no matter what those brandishing pitchforks might have you believe. Low-attendance, low-revenue teams must build their teams with young players, not because they’re the best players out there (though often they are), but that they’re contractually prohibited from becoming free agents, and are therefore unnaturally cheap. To love players like Jason Kipnis and Vinnie Pestano and Carlos Santana but wail about not have long-term MLB contracts in place is a contradiction in terms: you build one way or the other, and our front office is largely doing it the right way.
Before we go, we should get back to the player that started all this. Should the Indians have signed Asdrubal Cabrera to a long-term deal? As I mentioned above, Cabrera has no choice but to play for the Indians through the 2013 season. If he wishes to ply his trade in Major League Baseball, he will be doing it in a Tribe uniform so long as we still want him for at least the next two seasons. At the end of 2013, Cabrera will be (at least?) 28 years old, almost certainly past his defensive prime and arguably past his offensive peak if you trust any of the studies I’ve ever read. We will likely have seen his best seasons, and we will have gotten those seasons for far less than he’ll make in the subsequent phase of his career as a free agent (free agents, as a rule, make much more than similarly productive arbitration eligible players; the caste system of MLB is designed to reward veteran players with higher salaries, whether it’s deserved or not). Furthermore, the 17th best prospect in baseball—if all goes according to plan—will be just a year away from the Major Leagues, according to the recent projections.
Last week we had the option to gamble that Cabrera will always be as productive as he was in 2011—a season wherein he slugged 25 points higher than he had ever done in his professional career before. We had the option to lock up a player coming off a career year well into his 30s. If we would only have ponied up the money, last week we could have bought high and secured a “face of the franchise” for years to come.
Believe it or not, we did that once before, not too long ago. We even named a section of our stadium after him.
And it is shocking to me how many people want to do that again.
47 Comments
great article, thanks for the level-headed insight.
Lindor isn’t even the only interesting SS prospect in the Indians’ system. Dorssys Paulino is a highly touted international free agent. Ronny Rodriguez had a breakout season last year in his first year stateside. Tony Wolters was a third round pick in 2010, and has had a lot of success since. All 4 are top 20 prospects for this system according to MLB.com, and several others (though some drop Paulino, as he hasn’t played yet). Wolters will probably be ready by 2014 if Lindor isn’t. Even if neither of them are, the Indians could just as easily rely on a stop gap option to wait for Lindor (Jason Donald, perhaps?)
I thought Hafner technically had a club option for 2013 that we would never think to exercise? (except you never know – he could have a 2006 season and force us to exercise it anyway)
Great post.
I for one love the Tribe’s flexibility. They can now go into each season knowing exactly who to sign and who not to bother, with the advantage of control. Sure, they can’t keep anyone for 7 years, but who cares? Anyone really worthwhile, they couldn’t really do so anyway.
The only real risk in this approach is a poor minor league system. If the Tribe has a couple of bad years, or a boatload of prospects don’t pan out at once, there may be no recovering for a number of years. Right now that doesn’t seem to be the case, but it’s a point to be aware of for the future.
You’re right. So that leaves four. I’ve been looking forward to the end of that deal for so long I don’t even consider the option year anymore. I think it’s a $2.75 buyout or a $13 option for Pronk in 2013 IIRC.
I think we should and can sign 2 of the 3 “big” free agents that will come after 2013/2014 seasons. Those being Masterson/Choo/Asdrubel.
**I think that we have to make Masterson the priority even though he’s the one that is controlled through the 2014 season.
**I think that as long as Choo has a bounce-back season this year, he becomes the other guy.
**I think that if Choo (w/ Boras) asks for crazy money, then we can look at re-upping Asdrubel instead.
**I think that if both of them want crazy money, then the prudent thing to do will be to trade them. But, I am not sure if the FO can afford to do it with the PR backlash it would create.
Finally, I think that all of that can be tabled for now and we should just enjoy the countdown to opening day!
I just want one of my Cleveland sports teams to win the whole thing ONCE… so I have no problem at all not having albatross contracts handcuffing this team through 2015 or so on.
Just win once….
While I agree with your argument, I have to point out that the reason this bothers people so much is because, in the best case scenario, guys like ACab and Masterson play well in ’12 which lowers the likelihood that we will be able to keep them past ’13. (IMO, to a level nearly of 0%). I hate the cliche, but it’s like they’re auditioning for the big market teams. So while I realize why the Indians do what they do, it doesn’t make it any easier to watch the market inequity of MLB play out in front of you.
Also, Hafner isn’t the best example to compare to the Cabrera situation. First off, people forget that the first contract we signed with Hafner was actually an amazing deal for us. We gave him $7M over three years (with a club option for $4.75 in 2008). He posted OPS+ of 162, 168, and 181 with 5.0, 5.7, and 4.9 WARs in those first three years. Where we screwed up was the extension.
So while I guess you could say both could be “buy high” scenarios, I just don’t see a lot of similiarities between extending a 30-year-old DH who can’t play the field vs. trying to lock down a 25-year-old SS who developed a power stroke at a time many young players do.
Except albatross contracts don’t ensure you winning, or even that fans will come to the park to help pay for them.
To be fair- despite years of poor drafting, our front office has displayed a knack for acquiring young talent through other means.
I agree with all your points here. If Masterson has a good year again, his arbitration number may be huge anyway.
I’m afraid Asdrubal will be looking for crazy money. Middle infielders with pop have traditionally been very well paid once they hit free agency.
Agree the Pronk comp isnt perfect: we signed that contract because if we didn’t, he’d be a free agent in a few months. Cabrera is still 2 full years away from that. Even less reason to sign him now; shouldnt we at least take advantage of one of those two years to assess whether the three-month power surge was real?
Your point about Asdrubal seems valid (especially with the depth at SS in the minors), but I dont see how you can cast this generalization about long-term deals being poison. Obviously the Hafner deal hasnt panned out. It doesnt mean we should never do it again. If you can lock up a young player with the proper upside at a position you lack minor league depth at, you do it. Keep the player-hawking teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies away. Obviously there is more risk in doing this, but there is also likely greater returns. A good GM can figure out where the amount of risk is worth the potential contribution to the team. As an acknowledgement to your point and the Indians specifically, this is something our club should be doing only in exceptional cases.
Oops. Im getting my years confused. The timeline actually lines up similarly. Scratch that.
But i still say wait to see if the power is real.
I’m fine with the way the Tribe is doing things. Let the big boys overpay for the worse half of the player’s career. The upside for them is they get knowm commodities. The upside for the smaller market teams is they get the prime, young years at a bargain price.
Now the trick of it is that the Tribe is dealing with mostly unknown commodities. So they have to be good at scouting and allocating funds.
In one example, the question is not whether or not the Tribe will resign Asdrubal. The question is, do you really want them to in the first place? I don’t, assuming the FO has drafted and scouted well and has his replacement ready. In this case, it seems they do.
I understand what you’re saying. The problem is that once everyone knows that the power is real, we may not be able to afford him. Darned if you do, darned if you don’t.
ACab will be 26 this year. Having him from 27-30 would be during and just over his peak years (if you buy into Bill James’ stuff). It’s not like he’s a 34-year-old, one-tool left fielder.
All of this is a moot point though not knowing the kind of deal he wants.
Point taken kjn and it’s a good one. However, if Lindor is getting ready to advance you at least have to think about it. Especially if you can trade high and restock.
Players rarely turn down long term contracts during the arbitration process and then sign with their original team, right? I mean, Asdrubal is basically saying he wants to test the market and once he does that, the chance he remains here goes down dramatically. So I don’t think the deal he wants is going to involve a hometwon discount.
Also, minor note, but Slowey IS under team control next year, as he’ll be entering his 3rd and final arbitration year. So that leaves only Sizemore, Lowe and Kotchman as not under control for next year.
I guess this is my point:
Right now, we’re not sure if his power is real. This gives the Indians an advantage in negotiating since the Indians can say to his agent (probably with sugarcoated language): “Look, he had a great ’11, but that might have been kind of flukey. We’re still willing to bet on your boy to the tune of X years at Y millions”.
If Cabrera isn’t willing to sign under those terms, I think it’s very improbable that he’ll accept a deal from us after he jacks 25+ HRs this year. At that point, he’s a year closer to free agency. A decent ’13 gives puts him in line for a monster contract elsewhere.
If he and his agent are willing to turn down guaranteed money now to roll the dice, I think it’ll be the same come winter 2013.
100% agreement. If Asdrubal wasn’t looking to test the market, he already would have signed a deal. Which is one of the reasons I’m disappointed that there was no deal- Acab’s days in Cleveland now look finite. If he plays close to how he did in 2011, I don’t think he’s an Indian after 2013.
And like you said, it’s a question about where the club wants to invest funds and, based on our farm system, SS may not be one of them. That said, SS is generally seen as the hardest non-catcher position so if Lindor was ready in 2015 to play and ACab was still at SS, I’m sure we could find a way to fit both in the lineup, maybe by moving Acab to 2nd. Of course, hopefully by then Kipnis is hitting 25+HRs there. Those would be some great problems to have.
Don’t forget, other than the draft, the best place to get young cheap talent is through the trade market from other teams. Unfortuantely for the Tribe, the big boys haven’t been as losse with the high end minor league talent lately.
Flip Asdrubal to the Yankees when Jetah retires?
These events didn’t cause me to freak out but I completely understand the rationale for doing so. People generally dislike change and uncertainty. It’s exacerbated by a recent history of seeing our great players disappear from our grand arena.
Secondly, they’re not really just players; they’re heroes. There are a lot of obvious players to point out this idea but I’m going to go with Jack Hannahan and Shelly Duncan. They’re not all that important in the argument you make in this article and all the money, draft picks, prospects, and window of opportunity arguments. But they are important to fans (just watch Twitter during games especially WFNY contributors and other local sports folk SUPERMANAHAN!). More importantly they’re our heroes. That theoretical 2013 (or 2014 if you like) team for all we know might not be our heroes, or rather we don’t know them as our heroes yet.
Professional sports is a dichotomy of intra and extra fourth wall thoughts and experiences. Observing a visceral reaction and calling it silly by only using logic and ignoring emotion is also silly in itself.
You conceded to the fact that there aren’t likely folks upset to being upset over Pronk, Sizemore, and company but I think your actual opposing argument is what I detailed above here.
(I don’t truly disagree with anything you’ve stated I just love a good argument especially when a perspective is ignored and I can jump in ;D)
Absolutely. I made the argument earlier this off-season that we should be shopping ACab now, but doing next year works for me as well.
All good thoughts, and I agree to certain extent about the hero thing.
My point is that the front office has to be coldly analytical; they dont have the luxury of being irrationally exuberant like the rest of us. And I think in this instance they’ve done a good job.
Hafner talk becomes irrelevant if the deal for Burnett is realized. Hopefully, they don’t go that route. Need all the offense we can take and if he does well this year, maybe dump him for a fringe prospect instead at the deadline.
Two rambling thoughts in response (no time for coherence):
– I’m concerned about it. Not a freak out. If tere was reliable info that Dolans were looking to sell I would freak out, But in a happy way. Because I don’t think they have personal funds to compete even in a mid-market team way.
– The paradigm Hart used to compete in the early 90s was to lock up promising players to long term contracts, where team risks wasting money and player risks being underpaid in what would have been arbitration/free agency years. There were a few of these contracts that didn’t pan out for that FO but they obviously scored huge on a few – Manny, Belle, etc. But Jacob had the funds to risk. Would Hart/Jacobs have locked up Carlos Santana, for example, and why shouldn’t the Dolans to make sure the Window stays open, or at least so you have a base of MLB-experienced talent to work from? If you bellieve in him, why not now after he hit .239?
BTW, don’t necessarily disagree with how they handled Astrubal b/c last year’s stats were higher, and also we don’t know what he and his agent wanted. But remember: the previous year he broke his arm, before which he was playing great. The truth may very well be that last year he was experienced enough and healthy enough to play like he wil for the next 5 years. Depending on what he wanted, I wouldn’t have minded an owner able to take that risk because I thought I saw a demeanor change last season, a team leader, and a team without them goes nowhere.
Correction, it leaves 3. As mentioned below, Slowey is arby eliligble still next year too. Not eligible for free agency til 2014, same as several others.
Fair enough re: hart’s strategy. Two additional thoughts.
1) hart also had the highest payroll in MLB in some of those years.
2) it’s possible that players have learned in the last 20 years they were leaving a lot of money on the table by signing away their FA years. Boras’ influence here on the market as a whole can’t be overlooked either.
Fauberto Carnandez. Hehe.
It is no longer on the table, but apparently was discussed.
https://twitter.com/#!/BryanHoch/status/169523860461461504
agree about Boras, but even if fewer players now go for it the tribe still followed that paradigm with CC, and more recently Sizemore and Fausto. It’s absolutely reasonable to ask w/o being accused of panic why this has stopped.To ask whether it’s paucity of talent, unreasonable agents, lack of funds to commit. planned sale attempt or strategy shift. Without knowing it seems pretty meaningless to simply parrot Antonetti’s corporate-speak like “flexibility.” Tempting to assume Dolans are keeping their powder dry but just as likely they’re out of powder.
Good point. I think it is reasonable and have come to give the future sale argument some consideration because of it.
Also, I don’t know if it was the case with all the FAs we looked at, but I know more than a few were only being offered two-year deals max.
Lastly, I haven’t watched the video to get the direct quote, but Hoynes reported from his interview with Antonetti that…. “He feels last year’s trade for right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez opened a two-year window for the Indians to contend. Those two years would be 2012 and 2013. ”
Maybe I’m reading into that too much, but it sounds pretty definitive.
I guess I’m advocating the Occam’s Razor approach on this: when in doubt, choose the simplest hypothesis rather than the most titillating or exotic.
Which is to say, maybe there hasn’t been a player in recent years who merited a long-term contract extension. Choo is a bit old for that gamble, and on the wrong side of the defensive spectrum (maybe Hafner is a more suitable comparison here?). Masterson is still so young and cheap it hardly seems worth it right now. Same with players like Santana and Kipnis–there will be time to prepare a face for the faces that you meet, as they say. And as I tried to point out above, Cabrera has a lot left to prove and two years left to prove it. What’s the harm in making sure that power from the first half of last season is real?
Conspiracy theories are fun, and sometimes they pan out to be true. But in the absence of all real evidence, to suggest that a dearth of long-term commitments correlates with an impending change in ownership is a bit flimsy and out-there IMO.
I should also say here that I wasn’t entirely clear in the original article. I’m not saying that long-term deals are inherently bad things–only that they are inherently risky things. They certainly have their place, and I’d be the last to suggest that there’s only one right way to do things. If I did that above, then I wasn’t being clear. I meant to suggest that I wasn’t ready to take the risk on Asdrubal, considering we would have been doing it on very limited evidence, coming off a career-year, etc.
Further, I’m trying to argue that the mere presence of long-term deals is not a panacea, nor an indication of a successful or healthy front office/ownership structure. All you need to do is look around the league to see that writ large.
PORTMANTEAU!!
not sure if your conspiracy talk is in response to my comments, Jon, but if so you’ll see I suggested a number of possible reasons for this situation. I wouldn’t characterize any of those, including stripping long term obligations to increase franchise sale attractiveness, a “conspiracy.” Fail to see how stripping would be nefarious or misleading or negative. As I said, I’d welcome “maintaining flexibility” for that reason, more so than for the reason of, you know, not having enough money to risk for success and labeling that “flexibility.” Some of the possibilities I suggest dovetail with yours, some don’t, but since there’s no greater “real evidence” of your favored theories of what is happening not sure what makes others conspiracy theorists.
Said a different way, my suggesting this possibility is not ascribing evil motives to the Dolans. If they sell I would greatly admire them for an unselfish civic good, and if they sold to Dan it would be one of my happiest sports moments of the last decade.It’s not a negative. Not having money to even try to retaim young talent, now that’s a negative.
Gotta be honest, couldn’t disagree more with this article. First off, Indians fans aren’t stupid, we know that we still have all the young guns on their initial major league contracts under contract for beyond next year. Second, you failed to mention the biggest problem with the lack of long term contracts, how will our team look in 2014 and 2015? Jimenez, Cabrera, Choo, Raffy Perez and Joe Smith are all free agents after 2013. Masterson and Chris Perez are free agents after 2014. It’s about time to start extending the contracts of these players. Since we aren’t extending contracts, I think that signals one thing, our window is through 2013. That means tribe fans have A LOT to worry about. Say we win 90 games this year and just miss the playoffs (realistic and a bit optimistic maybe). Then in 2013 we start the year struggling and hover around .500 a la 2008. You know what that means? MASSIVE FIRESALE, where all of the guys I named would be on the block. Sure we are safe for now but I really don’t understand how you’re not concerned.
Also, why in the world people are calling Asdrubal’s 2011 a fluke or say he won’t repeat it is beyond me. In my opinion, his 2009 season was just as good as 2011 and he showed great ability before that in spurts. He struggled in 2010 with the injury but I’m not seeing a regression this year. Also, he’s 26, if we signed him to a 6 year deal now he would be a free agent at 32. You also said he’ll be past his prime at 28?!?! Please share some of these studies. He may lose a step and be pushed to second or third but his offense will be just reaching his prime I assure you. I’ve always believed that power hitters typically reach their prime in their late 20’s/early 30’s.
The writing is on the wall my friend, some of these guys are walking in FA or are going to be traded before then. IMO the FO will extend half of the guys I mentioned (the cheaper, more bargain based players: probably Cabrera, Smith, and hopefully Masterson) and trade the others for prospects a la 2008/9. I just hope they choose right this time because they really blew it on Hafner, Westbrook and Carmona instead of CC and Cliff.
Umm I care and most other fans do too. It’s one thing to not go out and buy the Fielders and Pujols in Free agency (or even the cuddyers Beltrans and Penas) but it’s another thing when you don’t even keep your core players. I don’t know if I can handle seeing these guys in pinstripes.
Yes, it is flimsy, but pontificating about it in the comments message of a sports blog seems pretty harmless imo.
I don’t see it as a “conspiracy theory” at all, just a possible explanation for more than a few non-traditional/peculiar moves that the club has made as of late.
In short, it’s fun to talk about the Tribe.
27 is the modal age of the peak performance for MLB position players according to Bill James in his ’82 Baseball Abstract. I’ve seen some statistical arguments against this, but I’m not a math or stats guy so I can’t really judge.
Point is, it’s not outlandish to think that most players peak at 27.
Sizemore, Hafner, Westbrook, Carmona. Man, it seems like the last few “lock-up” deals we have made back-fired on us. Perhaps we’re just a little less itchy on that trigger finger because of them?
“IMO the FO will extend half of the guys I mentioned (the cheaper, more bargain based players: probably Cabrera, Smith, and hopefully Masterson) and trade the others for prospects a la 2008/9.”
if we resign Raffy, Asdrubel and Masterson, while flipping the others for prospects, then the FO did exactly what they are supposed to do.
Agreed.
If we enter ’15 with Acab and Masterson locked down, I’m happy. That’d mean the only real loss was Choo. Kipnis, Brantley, Chiz, and Santana would still be around. Losing Smith/Perez isn’t that big a loss IMO. Building a bullpen on the fly is infinitely easier than building an offensive unit and it’s not like we wouldn’t have some decent arms remaining.
This was meant as a reply to mgbode’s post a little farther down.
This was meant as a reply to mgbode’s post a little farther down.
I don’t think everyone is overreacting or freaking out. But I do believe that everyone is worried because they’ve seen this happen here before. Everyone is just looking at the situation and worrying that guys like Cabrera, Santana, Choo, Jimenez, Masterson, Pestano, Kipnis and ALL the other great young talents we have, are gunna play their way out of this city into the arms of the free-spending, Big market, championship contending teams.
I for one think that if we don’t sign any of these guys to say a five year deal, they won’t come back once they hit FA. Because hey, why would they?
I don’t mean that I don’t care about not being able to keep players in general, but in the screwed up world of baseball, that’s the reality. So within that reality…