Was Manny The Best Contract Ever . . . . ?

RG33

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Looking at this list -- it is amazing to think that the 8 year, $160,000,000 deal that Duquette signed in 2001 was one of the best contracts of the last 20 years.

There certainly can arguments made that the first A-Rod contract was better on a relative value standpoint, but that came with the stain of Steroids (Manny didn't really get caught until after his Sox time). One could also argue that Jeter's was a great contract in context, although he was probably significantly overpaid due to the NY factor/Captaincy/Etc.

It amazes me to see the large number of total albatross contracts on this list when you think about how much longer so many of these still have to run. Trout's might turn out as the best of the bunch so far, but he is somewhat unique in terms of his success and subsequent extension before his first attempt at UFA.

Looking at folks like Pujols, Cabrera, Votto, Hayward -- it is hard to see them not already being disasters or turning into them by 2023.

I'm not as competent with pulling the BRef data as comparisons, but I thought this list was really interesting to look at -- and a big red flag when it comes to signing UFAs to these types of contracts (not that this is news -- it was just a fun endeavor).

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/league-info/highest-paid-players/
 

grimshaw

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Do you mean of the mega contracts, his was the best?

According to fangraphs - http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=210&position=OF#value
he earned about $153 million of his 180 (I used 25 for his first year). A lot of his value got clobbered for his LF defense ,accurately or not - players get penalized pretty harshly for Fenway. Even being conservative, I think they about broke even before considering stuff like helping win a world series or being a huge clubhouse distraction.

Votto is way ahead of his value so far earning about $135 of his $225 and still mashing big time.
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=4314&position=1B#contract
 
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RG33

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Do you mean of the mega contracts, his was the best?

According to fangraphs - http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=210&position=OF#value
he earned about $153 million of his 180 (I used 25 for his first year). A lot of his value got clobbered for his LF defense ,accurately or not - players get penalized pretty harshly for Fenway. Even being conservative, I think they about broke even before considering stuff like helping win a world series or being a huge clubhouse distraction.

Votto is way ahead of his value so far earning about $135 of his $225 and still mashing big time.
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=4314&position=1B#contract
Yes, to clarify, of the mega-contracts that have been given out over the last 15 years.
 

grimshaw

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Maybe it's easier to go with 100+ million contracts over 5 years since the first one was Kevin Brown in 1999 and many of them haven't expired yet.
 

scottyno

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Kershaw has been worth almost his entire contract already and still has 3 years left. Scherzer is well on his way to being great value. As you said though the real answer is Arod, especially since the first contract ended up ending after 2007 due to the opt out and before any of the steroid issues.

Also probably not a "monster contract", but Pedroia's contract has been amazing, he still has 4+ years left and he's nearly been worth his entire 8 year deal already.
 

grimshaw

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Beltran's 2005-2011 contract with the Mets was pretty great. Earned about $175 mill and was paid $119.
Holliday earned about $160 and was paid $120

A-Rod definitely earned his first 10 year contract too, though the Yanks tore it up in 2008 - close to 300 mill.
 

trekfan55

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Beltran's 2005-2011 contract with the Mets was pretty great. Earned about $175 mill and was paid $119.
Holliday earned about $160 and was paid $120

A-Rod definitely earned his first 10 year contract too, though the Yanks tore it up in 2008 - close to 300 mill.
Nit, the Yanks were fooilsh enough to sign him to a new 10 year contract after he opted out.

Holliday makes my head hurt, I remember when this board was clamoring for the Sox to sign him and people were worried because he played in Coors.
 

j44thor

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And yet Manny was offered up for free about 1/3 of the way through the deal.
 

Oppo

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These guys weren't FA signings but still fun to look at:

Trout 6/$144.5 has already been more than worth ($184 per FG) it with 3+ years remaining.

Posey 9/$167 ($184.6 per FG) with 4+ years remaining.

Freeman $8/135 ($133.5 per FG) with 4+ years remaining.
 
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jungleboy

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These guys weren't FA signings but still fun to look at:
That's the point though, right? Part of the reason those players have been worth their contracts is precisely that they weren't FAs. That means that they (a) signed younger, (b) had some arb years bought out to bring down the overall value and (c) could only be extended by their current club and didn't have the price driven up by multiple suitors and mystery teams. And (d) that one of them is Mike Trout.
 

Van Everyman

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According to fangraphs - http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=210&position=OF#value
he earned about $153 million of his 180 (I used 25 for his first year). A lot of his value got clobbered for his LF defense ,accurately or not - players get penalized pretty harshly for Fenway. Even being conservative, I think they about broke even before considering stuff like helping win a world series or being a huge clubhouse distraction.
Jeter's big deal that we all thought was ridiculous when signed was 10/205 from 2001-2010, and looks like it was worth about $224M for the 10 years according to Fangraphs, even with his crappy D.

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=826&position=SS
So Jeter was a better player than Manny over the life of his contract? Because...the Monster?
 

moondog80

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Mega FA deals have a horrible record of success. But, if you have huge revenues, it's pretty much the only way to take advantage of it, especially with limits on spending on the draft and international market. Through that lens, the Manny deal was a huge win.
 

Van Everyman

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Do you understand the concept of positional adjustment?
I believe so but please bear with me here as I am almost certainly out of my depths in this discussion.

Here's what I do get: Manny played a (far) less valuable position than Jeter defensively -- that they both were subpar on that front. To that point, however, shouldn't Jeter's poor play have cost him more in overall value than Manny's poor play (even if Manny started from a lesser place)? Or does just being a live body give a SS an advantage?

Manny also had a career 154 OPS+ compared to Jeter's 115. I recognize that's not exactly a perfect correlation -- for one, it includes Manny's pre-2001 years in Cleveland, when Jeter had not yet evolved into the offensive player he became during the contract. But it also gives a sense of how wide the offensive gap was between the two in Manny's favor.

I also wonder about park adjustments and whether we have the same faith in them offensively and defensively. Both were coddled in one respect by their respective parks -- Manny by playing the Wall and Jeter by poking all this shit home runs to RF in the Toilet.

My overall point is that the notion that Derek Jeter--a plus offensive player and below average defender--was a more valuable player than Manny Ramirez--an elite offensive force and (far?) below average defender--in the primes of their careers seems ludicrous to me. That we could even be discussing who was more valuable seems more of a mark against defensive metrics than anything else.
 

grimshaw

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To elaborate now with snark aside -

You mentioned the live body at SS thing, and this is not a perfect analogy by any stretch, but I like to think of it as, what if Manny played SS and Jeter played LF over their respective contracts? How many runs would Manny be giving back per game vs how much less Jeter's bat would play in LF (assuming he didn't turn into Hanley).

Anyhow actual numbers:
The average ops+ of a left fielder over the life of Manny's contract was about 113. The average ops+ of a SS over the life of Jeter's contract was about 92.

Manny averaged an ops+ of 154 while Jeter a 121. The difference in points between a league average left fielder and Manny was about 41 points, while for Jeter about 29. A notable difference, but not earth shattering. And we're talking over the lives of their contracts, not career like you indicated above.

As to defense - no doubt both were below average. But Manny contributed -12 dWAR to Jeter's -6. Manny's UZR/150 was -18 to Jeter's -4. So Jeter was merely bad by those metrics, while Manny was wretched.

Then you take into account baserunning. Jeter was one of the better base runners in baseball for several years over his contract, and contributed a total of 21.5 runs above average, while Manny, one of the worst baserunners "contributed" -25 runs below average.

Then finally WAR.
Jeter averaged about 4.5 to Manny's 3.7. Overall, not a huge stretch that Jeter's contract was better given they both made very close to the same by AAV.

If you want to quibble about left field in Fenway, that could maybe move the needle a bit, but he did play half his games on the road, so I don't think that's going to close the gap all that much if the Fenway evaluation is off.

And this is coming from a Jeter hater, and I'm going to take a cold shower now.
 
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Comfortably Lomb

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Evan Longoria, in the fantasy land that MLB is, is criminally underpaid.
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=9368&position=3B#value
He took less money for the guarantee of a lot of money. The guy has made $57M and is guaranteed $81M more, he's underpaid but he's going to end up with millions upon millions. Players who ride it to FA instead of taking an earlier buyout deal risk a lot. But they're young and think they'll never get hurt. Ask Nomar how he feels about rejecting his payday from the Sox? I bet he has at least mixed emotions.
 

edoug

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He took less money for the guarantee of a lot of money. The guy has made $57M and is guaranteed $81M more, he's underpaid but he's going to end up with millions upon millions. Players who ride it to FA instead of taking an earlier buyout deal risk a lot. But they're young and think they'll never get hurt. Ask Nomar how he feels about rejecting his payday from the Sox? I bet he has at least mixed emotions.
Definitely, no criticism of Longoria. He should have a comfortable life in either case. From a financial standpoint anyway.
 

cannonball 1729

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How about Miguel Tejada? Signed a big (at the time) FA deal for 6 years, $72 million, and then averaged roughly the same amount of WAR as Manny did (4.6 for Manny, 4.0 for Miggy) for a little over half the money. Plus, he played every day - he averaged 156 games played per season, including playing all 162 games in each of his first three seasons in Baltimore. If you look at just the part where the Orioles had him (before they traded him for half of the Astros' top prospects), it's even better: 4 years, $40 million, 5.0 WAR per season, .311/.362/.501 line as a shortstop. In an alternate universe where Tejada signs that deal with another team inisteadof the Orioles, we may well be talking about him as a borderline Hall of Famer.
 

Sampo Gida

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If you adjust for payroll inflation Mannys 160 million deal was worth roughly 320 million today and even more so if adjusting for MLB revenue inflation

Position adjustments make comparisons with players at other positions difficult and for much of Manny early days at Fenway the defensive metrics penalized him unfairly by not accounting properly for the wall, although I suppose some of this data has been corrected. I'm in the camp that there is a decided middle of the field bias and that the position adjustments should be regressed. Hanley Ramirez experience in LF supports this.

In any event, i thought it interesting to compare Manny with subsequent large Red Sox FA signings. All WAR numbers from BR

Daisuke 6/102-9.2 WAR include post fee
Drew 5/70 - 11.4
Lackey 5/78 -4.1
Crawford 7/140- 0.6 (2 yrs)
Hanley 4/86 - 2.0 (3 yrs)
Pablo 5/90 - (-2.0) ( 3 yrs )
Price 7/217 - 4.1 (2 yrs)

Total paid 460 million, WAR received 29.9 over 26 player seasons

Manny was paid about 160 million over almost 8 years for 33.2 WAR. Actually only 128 since 32 million was deferred

While Manny fell just a tad short in terms of surplus value its certainly the best FA signing for the Red Sox in this century. Costing 5 million/WAR while the other contracts cost 15 million/ WAR. Even taking into account payroll or revenue inflation he was the best signing.
 
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grimshaw

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If you adjust for payroll inflation Mannys 160 million deal was worth roughly 320 million today and even more so if adjusting for MLB revenue inflation

Position adjustments make comparisons with players at other positions difficult and for much of Manny early days at Fenway the defensive metrics penalized him unfairly by not accounting properly for the wall, although I suppose some of this data has been corrected. I'm in the camp that there is a decided middle of the field bias and that the position adjustments should be regressed. Hanley Ramirez experience in LF supports this.
Do you have a guess as to when the data was corrected? I couldn't find an attempt to do so. Without home/road or ballpark splits, it kind of muddles things. He was in a division that was easy on left fielders, so maybe that helps your point as well.

Anyhow, I like your breakdown overall, and have agreed that left field in Fenway clouds defensive ability quite a bit which is supported by the link below.

If you look at the defense stat for all time Red Sox left fielders here http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=lf&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2017&month=0&season1=1901&ind=0&team=3&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=3,d then you can see that none have positive DEF which measures fielding runs + positional adjustment. It's UZR based so, yes, because there is less real estate to cover, it's tougher to make an impact. And I would think it would affect his defensive runs saved because of that. His arm, by the eye test seemed decent, so if he played the wall effectively (and my memory is that he wasn't bad), I'm not sure how that is factored in.

However - look at his DEF compared to long time Red Sox outfielders. Likely the best defensive left fielder for them was Yaz, and he broke even, while Manny was dead last with -153 career runs below average. Even guys like Troy O'Leary and Mike Greenwell were over 110 runs better than that - Greenwell even played more games, and O'Leary was fairly close to Manny.

I wish there were home /road splits, because for all we know he could have been even worse on the road but Manny was clearly the worst defensive left fielder in Fenway history and it wasn't close. I think his defense was at the least in the ballpark in terms of eating into his overall value.
 
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