Josh Brattain of The Hardball Times does as good a job as one can do in poking a gaping hole in “superagent” Scott Boras’ ridiculously overinflated estimation of A-Rod’s worth on the free agent market.
Brattain’s big point is that A-Rod was actually worth the truckload of diamonds Tom Hicks forked over in 2000, because he was a rock solid shortstop who at 25 had accomplished more than any other infielder in baseball history.
Please don’t go to the Mets, please don’t go to the Mets, please don’t go to the Mets
Now, he’s a 32-year-old masher with an average glove at third base. Can he hit? Absolutely. But why are we talking about “ownership” money instead of “great player” money?
To wit:
Speaking of comparables, what about this one?
Regular season (2004-2007)
Player BA OBP SLG HR David Ortiz: .302 .403 .612 208 Alex Rodriguez: .302 .391 .578 220Post season (2004-2007)
Player BA OBP SLG HR David Ortiz: .381 .500 .735 9 Alex Rodriguez: .245 .343 .380 4Is Rodriguez’ defense and base running worth $20 million?
Oh, there’s more.
In fact, A-Rod’s offensive numbers don’t really stand out that much. Here’s Brattain channeling a GM talking to Boras:
He will decline offensively, he will decline defensively, and he will steal fewer bases. You like using numbers Mr. Boras, so you might be interested in this one: After Rodriguez’s monster year, his career OPS+ is 147. Ten players are right around that—five above and five below. The five in front are Frank Thomas, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, Vladmir Guerrero and Jason Giambi. The five just behind him are Lance Berkman, Miguel Cabrera, Todd Helton, Chipper Jones and Gary Sheffield. In the cases of Thomas, Ramirez, Thome and Giambi, this includes a good chunk of their decline phase—something Rodriguez has yet to begin.
When you consider that A-Rod will make most of his money with his bat, well, there are 10 hitters in his neighborhood—are any of them looking for a 10-year/$300 million contract? Of course not. That’s absurd.
Of course Boras has been selling A-Rod not just as a hitter, but as the cornerstone of a revenue-driving cable contract draw for any team willing to invest in his services. Boras is relying here on the marketability of A-Rod. And marketability is all about perception. And Brattain has something to say there as well:
After the Red Sox won the World Series, Boston fans were chanting that they preferred Mike Lowell to Rodriguez.
Quite frankly, while Alex has kept his nose clean for the most part, he is generally perceived as being as phony as a three-dollar bill. This isn’t Michael Jordan or Wayne Gretzky you’re selling here. Ortiz is on a whole different level of marketability; ‘Big Papi’ is better liked, is now a World Series legend and makes $13 million a year.
Here’s the perception: There is another player who isn’t well liked by fans. His name is Barry Bonds. When folks want to make fun of Bonds, they take his picture and Photoshop either a large head or these comic book superhero type arms onto him. When they wish to make fun of your client they put him in high heels and holding a purse. One is called Barroid, the other ‘Slappy.’ Do you see the problem here?
Go read the whole thing.
And since we haven’t linked to it before, though it’s the clear endorsement of Pax Arcana, click here to sign the online petition to encourage the Red Sox to re-sign Mike Lowell.
Battling Boras [The Hardball Times]
Ah, another transplanted from Jersey Mass (Salisbury) hack like me .
Ja, Slappy is not worth the bucks his agent is shouting about, but what fodder for off season … or what?
Pray to God we get Lowell re-signed :O
A couple of issues with these points:
1) It’s unfair just to compare A-Rod’s stats with Ortiz’s and then say it’s not worth doling out the extra money for A-Rod. Ortiz is signed below market because the Sox recognized it was important to re-up him before he got remotely close to free agency. Same sort of thing happened with Beckett. If Ortiz were a free agent now, he would get a higher per-year salary–I would say it would approach $20mil.
2) Any press is good press for some teams. Teams like the Mets or Sox are high-profile enough as is, but there’s no question that a team like the Giants has been more high-profile, and generated much more revenue, because of Bonds. Yes, A-Rod is unlikeable in a different way, but if you put him the right market, where an actual gain could be seen (I’m looking at you, Los Angeles teams), he could very well generate some of the revenue Boras refers to. Not to the same degree, but some of it.
3. What decline period, exactly, is this guy referring to about Manny Ramirez? The last two years he’s missed some time due to injury, but his numbers are basically the same. Remember the graphic Fox flashed about his seven years with Cleveland and seven years with Boston? They’re practically identical.
Ultimately, I agree with the point–to most teams he’s not worth the money. But Boras only needs to convince one, and I think he will. I just hope it isn’t the Sox.
Padre Pio —
1. Agreed, but Ortiz would not reasonably expect anywhere near $30 million per year, even though A-Rod’s supposed advantages (defense, baserunning) are really minimal.
2. L.A. is really the only place a shallow guy with big numbers fits. I predict he’ll sign with the Angels.
3. You’re right. Manny’s “decline period” has yet to begin. We may have gotten a taste of it this year in terms of power numbers and long stays on the DL, but it’ll be a while before he can be called “in decline.”
Also, I think Boras won’t necessarily get away with the banana in the tailpipe trick this time like he did with Hicks in 2000. He may need to get more than one team interested just to generate a market of some sort.
Pax–
1. I’m the biggest Papi fan there is, and I hate A-Rod. But A-Rod’s defensive and baserunning advantages over Ortiz are more than “minimal”. They’re not the difference between 20 mil and 30 mil, certainly, but they’re more than minimal. There’s no question that A-Rod is the more complete player, and as much as I’d like to believe he will always choke in the playoffs, I always find that argument futile. Peyton Manning had no problem in the playoffs last year, Barry Bonds in ’02, etc.
2. If Boras is smart, he’ll pit the LA teams against one another. Arte Moreno is getting dangerously close to being pegged as a guy who would never go the extra mile to make his team competitive, and there seems to be more and more national push for him to get the other big bat he needs. As for the Dodgers, they keep piecing together teams with weird signings like Juan Pierre and Nomar, but they’ve got a ton of young cheap talent and appear to be making a grasp for the spotlight after axing Grady Little and throwing a bunch of cash at Torre. Both teams have some urgency, and where they’re in the same market, they compete against each other from a marketing standpoint even more. And let’s face it, Boras is advertising A-Rod as a huge marketing gain, so the fact that they are competitors in that way is more important than pitting two rivals like the Yanks and Sox against one another.
I’d say A-Rod’s advantages over Papi are minimal in the American league, because he’s not a substantially better fielder than tons of guys. Hitting is the hard thing to do, and is what should get you paid in the A.L. If I were a team that cared how much I spent on players (i.e. not the Yankees, Red Sox, or Mets) I would find it very hard to justify the extra $15 – $20 PER SEASON it would cost to have A-Rod around than someone like Mark Texiera. Or Mike Lowell.
He’s a great player. But a smart market doesn’t come to the conclusion that he’s worth two Papis or a Texiera and a half.
Ortiz doesn’t have to play first base but he could and both the times he played first base in the World Series he made some good plays.
The difference between Ortiz and A-Rod is Ortiz cares about winning more then A-Rod ever could. A-Rod thinks it’s cool to be the highest paid player while Ortiz took a discount to stay in Boston.
I have my own reasons why we don’t want Fraud in Boston,
http://firedannyainge.wordpress.com/
Pax,
You are wrong. The Red Sox and the Mets have budgets they stick too. The Red Sox have left many players on the table because the money wanted went way over the budget (A-Rod)so don’t for a second include us in with the Yankees. Our budget is bigger then mosts because it has to be. You can’t play the Yankees 19 times a year and compete with them if you don’t spend some money. Ask Baltimore and Tampa Bay.
I would love to see what Texas or Cleveland or Detroit would be doing if they had to compete with the Yankees 200 million dollar payroll in order to make the playoffs. It is a lot different playing them 19 times a year vs 6.
Speaking of wrong, that Danny Ainge don’t look so bad these days, does he?
FDA, I don’t know that that’s necessarily true. The Sox budget is based on funds available, and because we’re a crazy baseball town and Tom Werner knows how to soak every last cent out of marketing ventures, there are plenty of funds available. If Texas, Cleveland, and Detroit brought in the money we bring in, and faced the possibility of losing that money if they didn’t field a competitive team, they’d act the same way. I don’t think it has much to do with the Yankees at all.