2014 Off-Season Thread

[elcheato]

Paying him based on wins is not making him work for it.

Yes I know, twas a joke and I hate fun

 

[tristan+kyrie=$]

pay the man

 

[kidduck]

No Tribe fan can read this and not root for the Tribe to get a deal done here. And Justin is the Man!

Masterson cites why he'd sign short-term pact

Indians righty loves playing for Francona, embraces role as leader of rotation

By Jordan Bastian / MLB.com | 3/5/2014 3:40 P.M. ET




play video

[FONT=mlb_primary]Masterson on the 2014 season and playing for Francona[/FONT]


GOODYEAR, Ariz. -- There are millions of reasons for Justin Masterson to take his talents to the free-agent market next offseason, but the Indians rotation leader also sees plenty of reasons to consider sticking around with Cleveland for a few more years.


That is why Masterson might be willing to sign a shorter-term contract with the Tribe, rather than demanding an extension similar to the six-year, $105-million pact Homer Bailey signed with the Reds earlier this spring. Masterson just wants a fair deal, even if that includes agreeing to a three- or four-year extension to stick around.


"It is a challenging situation," Masterson said on Wednesday morning. "Especially for me. [I'm] not doing this because we need to get the most money ever. We also think about others who may come behind us. There are a lot of different factors you try to work in. Are we being true to our value or are we skewing it?"


This past weekend, Masterson's camp presented what it felt was a fair deal to the Indians and the pitcher is waiting for the club to counter. When Bailey signed his long-term deal with Cincinnati, it seemed a foregone conclusion that Masterson -- comparable to the Reds righty in both service time and statistics -- would go to free agency next winter.


At least in terms of contract length, Masterson now appears willing to give Cleveland a discount. The big right-hander loves pitching for manager Terry Francona, has embraced being a leader and mentor for the rotation and his growing family has found a comfort level in Cleveland.


Masterson said those kind of factors "become increasingly important."


Masterson added that there is something to be said for showing commitment to a city that has seen plenty of stars leave over the years. Francona brought his two World Series rings to Cleveland two offseason ago, when Nick Swisher and Michael Brantley also joined the team on long-term deals as free agents. This spring, Brantley inked a five-year extension to stay with the Tribe.


"In general," Masterson said, "when you have those commitments on certain teams, it does show, 'Hey, I want to be here.' Not only to the fans, but to other people. People want to come here. Why do they want to go there? Now you have people thinking, 'Hmm, what it is it about that place?' There can be that aspect. Maybe not, but there is that possibility."

 

[AZ_]

Have to admit that there certainly seems to be a ton of positive vibes surrounding this one.

 

[Pyro]

Day 2 of the Indians not signing him yet.

 

[Frank Stallone]

Does Bartolo Colon look fatter? Or does he look fatter?

 

[UDcleveland]

Does Bartolo Colon look fatter? Or does he look fatter?

Well he doesn't look skinnier...He was pretty ginormous before though, so...

yeah he's probably fatter

 

[Ruken]

Have to admit that there certainly seems to be a ton of positive vibes surrounding this one.

Which just means we won't sign him

 

[AZ_]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Source: Matt Carpenter’s six-year deal with <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23STLCards&amp;src=hash">#STLCards</a>, if completed, will be worth between $50M and $55M.</p>&mdash; Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) <a href="https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/statuses/441631736687239168">March 6, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Very very very important to reference this deal when Kipnis' time rolls around.

This is a good framework, as the two players have similar service time with Carpenter having a slight edge in production.

 

[kidduck]

Masterson will sacrifice to stay, so next move belongs to Indians



Ken Rosenthal

FOX Sports


MAR 06, 2014 9:41a ET

​

Rob Tringali / Getty Images North America​

Justin Masterson won a career-best 14 games last seaso

How can the Indians say no to right-hander Justin Masterson?


Unlike a number of recent Cleveland stars -- CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee, even LeBron James -- Masterson is willing to make a financial sacrifice to remain in the city.


Masterson's sacrifice would be in length of contract, not average salary; he has proposed a three-year extension on top of his current one-year, $9.7625 deal, according to major-league sources.

Thus, the Indians could buy Masterson out of free agency for considerably less than the Reds paid righty Homer Bailey, who recently agreed to a six-year, $105 million contract.


Masterson, who turns 29 on March 22, is about a year older than Bailey, but the two are statistically comparable. Bailey will average $17.5 million in his deal, and that includes a lower salary for his final year of arbitration. Masterson, the Indians' player rep and a member of the union'€™s executive council, has indicated he would seek market rate over a shorter term -- say, $17 million to $18 million per season.


Such an annual salary would represent about one-fifth of the Indians' current payroll -- a sizable chunk. The team already is paying first baseman Nick Swisher $14 million per season and center fielder Michael Bourn $12 million, both through 2016. And remember, position players generally are less risky than pitchers.


Then again, what message would the Indians send if they were unwilling to extend Masterson, who is from Beavercreek, Ohio, and speaks openly about his affection for manager Terry Francona and his teammates?

If anything, Masterson might be more valuable to the Indians than Bailey is to the Reds, given the relative strengths of the teams' rotations. None of the Indians' other returning pitchers made more than 25 starts or threw more than 150 innings last season. The Reds have two other pitchers who exceeded those totals, Mat Latos and Mike Leake, and a third, Johnny Cueto, who has done it before.


Masterson's asking price, too, is relative.


The combined values of the qualifying offers for free agents over the next three years likely will be in the $45 million to $50 million range. Masterson's proposal likely is not much above that, and if the Indians dove into the open market next offseason, they probably could not find a comparable pitcher at a similar price.

Of course, no one will ever confuse the Indians with the game's financial behemoths, though recent developments on the revenue side have improved the team's financial position.

The Indians sold SportsTime Ohio to FOX for $230 million in December 2012 and negotiated a 10-year deal with FOX worth at least $400 million, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Last September, the newspaper reported that the team's ticket revenues increased 20 percent from 2012 to '13. And, like all 30 clubs, the Indians are receiving increases from baseball's new national television contracts.

Still, the Indians anticipate only a slight bump in season-ticket revenue coming off their first postseason appearance since 2007. The signing of Masterson would take their payroll to an even more uncomfortable level, and perhaps compromise future flexibility.

The Indians could always decide that they simply do not want to spend on Masterson --“ that would be their choice, a baseball decision. But their public position is that they want to keep him. And if that is the case, it would be difficult for them to ask Masterson to make much more of a compromise, assuming that he is not asking for some ridiculous number.
Masterson might never again possess this much leverage, yet he is willing to postpone his free agency until he is 32, a less-than-ideal age to hit the open market.


How can the Indians say no?

When a potential free agent wants to stay in Cleveland, the proper response is to jump.

 

[elcheato]

Article that gives a different point of view:

Justin Masterson is scheduled to be a free agent at the end of the 2014 season, but over the last few days, he’s made it clear that he hopes he never gets there. He wants to re-sign with the Indians, and in fact, he’s made them an offer, and one that seems pretty generous on the surface, to be honest.

According to the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Masterson has asked the Indians for a three or four year extension in the range of $40 to $60 million. I think we can safely assume that a three year deal would be closer to the $40 million figure and a four year deal would be closer to $60 million. Just to make the math easy, let’s say that his offer is $40 million for three years with a $5 million buyout on the fourth year, making it either 3/$45M or 4/$60M, depending on if the option is picked up. That’s the kind of structure that would make sense given the range of numbers being tossed around.

And of course those numbers pale in comparison to what the Reds just gave Homer Bailey a few weeks ago. Bailey, also set to be a free agent at the end of the year, got $90 million for five years with a $5 million buyout on a sixth year option, so the Reds either paid 5/$95M or 6/$115M to keep Bailey in Cincinnati for the long term. Even the low end of Bailey’s total guarantee is 50% higher than the high end of Masterson’s reported asking price, making this seem like an obvious no-brainer for the Indians.

I even said as much on Twitter yesterday after reading the report on his request. But the more I look at it, the less sure I am that Masterson’s offer does represent a significant discount to the Indians. I think that instead, the Bailey deal may have skewed our perceptions for what a reasonable price point looks like for this situation.

There’s actually a name for this cognitive bias: anchoring. Our minds often turn an initial price for an item into an anchor that all future prices become relative to. This is basically how discount stores and outlet malls attract shoppers, marketing items as 50-60% off rather than focusing on the fact that they’re selling second quality merchandise that isn’t actually worth the MSRP. Our minds anchor the initial price as the market value of the item, and we become convinced that we’re getting a good deal, even if what we’re paying is the real market value for an item in lower demand.

Bailey getting $95 million for five free agent years can easily become an anchor for Masterson’s expected price because they are pretty similar pitchers in terms of value. Here’s their 2011-2013 data:


Name IP BB% K% GB% HR/FB LOB% BABIP ERA- FIP- xFIP- WAR RA9-WAR
Homer Bailey 549.0 6% 21% 44% 11% 73% 0.290 97 96 95 7.5 7.2
Justin Masterson 615.1 9% 20% 56% 9% 71% 0.299 99 92 92 9.5 8.1

Bailey’s a little better by ERA, Masterson’s a little better by FIP/xFIP, but the margins are pretty small. Both have been very good pitchers in two of these last three years, with each having one mediocre season in the mix. For Bailey, that came in 2011, while it was 2012 for Masterson. If you prefer to heavily weight more recent performances, maybe you have a slight preference for Bailey, especially because he is a year younger. If you care more about established track record, though, Masterson wins pretty clearly, as his pre-2011 performance blows Bailey’s out of the water.

They’re not the same pitcher, but each have pros and cons that essentially balance out. In terms of future expected value, there’s no reason to be significantly more bullish on one than the other. They both project as roughly +3 WAR pitchers for 2014, and neither is at the point in their career that imminent decline should be expected. So Bailey makes sense as an anchor for Masterson’s price.

Except that anchoring is a cognitive bias. It’s an issue to be aware of and attempt to avoid, not one to accept as a good pricing system. Especially in baseball, it is much better to base pricing models based on expected future performance and opportunity cost rather than simply looking at one comparable player and deciding his contract “sets the market”. Sometimes, that market setting contract is a wild overpay, and I’ve already argued that the Reds probably paid too much for Bailey.

So, instead of simply noting that Masterson’s deal is a bargain relative to Bailey’s deal, let’s look at it through the prism of the market as a whole. On Tuesday, I showed that the median price of a win this past off-season was in the range of $6 million. For above average players, it was a little higher than that, but the non-Tanaka starters all came in around that figure: Ubaldo Jimenez got $5.5M per win, Ricky Nolasco got $5.9M per win, and Matt Garza got $6.6 million per win. The 2014 forecasts put Masterson’s value squarely in this class of pitchers, but his longer health track record and 2013 excellence might bump him up a bit in the eyes of the market.

Still, even with inflation, Masterson probably shouldn’t expect to get more than $7 million per win if he hits the free agent market next off-season. And since he turns 30 before the 2015 season, he won’t be a particularly young free agent. What would we reasonably expect a 30 year old Masterson to get as a free agent next winter? The standard half-WAR decrease aging curve would peg him at +7 WAR from 2015 through 2018, but maybe that’s too harsh; the 85% aging curve for players in their 30s that I used for the $/WAR post would suggest +8.6 WAR over those same four years. The specific number doesn’t matter so much, but it’s safe to say that his forecast production over four free agent years is somewhere in the range of +7 to +9 WAR.

Even at $7 million per win, assuming some inflation and that Masterson continues to pitch at an above average level in 2014, that’s $49 to $63 million over four years. Or almost exactly what he’s rumored to be asking for.

The value to the Indians here probably isn’t the total cost, but instead, the chance to get that fourth year on a team option. Even if Masterson simply agreed to sign for 3/$45M with no option, it’s not clear that this is a large enough discount for a mid-revenue team like the Indians to take the risk of doing the deal a year ahead of time. After all, the Indians aren’t a team that can afford to buy a ton of market priced wins, and so to take on the risk of his 2014 health and performance, they should get a real discount over what Masterson would be expected to get as a free agent.

In looking at Masterson’s actual expected production and the market price of wins in free agency, Masterson’s asking price seems entirely reasonable. Fair, even. He’s made the Indians a solid offer at a price that makes sense for him and probably makes sense for them as well. But it seems like the “massive bargain” reaction that I had, and many others seem to be having, might be more of a result of the Bailey overpay than anything else.

If we allow Bailey’s deal to “set the market” for good-not-great pitchers, then we’re tacitly acknowledging that this particular type of pitcher should be drastically overpaid relative to buying other types of wins on the market. Bailey’s deal shouldn’t be the anchor for a fair Masterson price. Bailey’s deal was too high, and the Indians are right to not want to to go anywhere near that price.

 

[Frank Stallone]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Sources: Free-agent RHP Ervin Santana considering a change of agents. Currently represented by Bean Stringfellow of Proformance.</p>&mdash; Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) <a href="https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/statuses/441702114742763520">March 6, 2014</a></blockquote>
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[UDcleveland]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Sources: Free-agent RHP Ervin Santana considering a change of agents. Currently represented by Bean Stringfellow of Proformance.</p>— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) <a href="https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/statuses/441702114742763520">March 6, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Never could trust ol' Bean Stringfellow

 

[Frank Stallone]

Never could trust ol' Bean Stringfellow

 

[tristan+kyrie=$]

please be good this year...the Cavs have me on the verge of burning my furniture