The Blue Jays did something extremely smart for a mid-market team: they locked up a young commodity long-term. 25 year-old left hander Ricky Romero was given a 5 year, 30.1 million dollar contract extension that essentially buys out his arbitration eligible seasons and delays his free agency at least a season. A deal like this would have seemed far fetched for Romero only a couple of seasons ago, when he was dangerously close to be labeled a bust. A former first round pick (6th overall) in 2005 amateur draft, Romero, a Cal-State Fullerton alum, was given a 2.1 million dollar signing bonus upon leaving school. His professional career, prior to the 2009 season, was marred by both injuries and control problems.
Despite his troubles, Romero was placed in the Blue Jays rotation by manager Cito Gaston at the start of the '09 season, and despite a mid-season oblique injury, he was able to perform at a 2.7 WAR level (That's saying Romero's performance was worth 2.7 more wins to the Jays than an average player in his same spot). This season, Romero has been a 3.4 WAR player, the same as CC Sabathia for the Yankees, and his overall performance suggests there is no reason that can't continue in the future.
The smartest thing about the deal (assuming of course Romero doesn't implode) is the overall economic implication. No pitcher has ever been given this type of contract after only pitching a season and a half in the majors, but that doesn't mean it's a bad idea. In baseball, there are essentially two ways to go about dealing with a young player contractually; the first is to go year to year with him, and the second is to lock him up to a long-term deal. Both methods have their pro's and con's.
Going year to year with a player means the team will follow the rules MLB and the player's union setup during their previous collective bargaining agreement regarding the start of a player's major league career. As an example let's use player X, a big time prospect who definitely will perform well when called up. Upon reaching the majors, player X's ML clock starts, which counts how many days of major league service he has had. For player X's first 3 seasons, his contract is "under control" by his team, meaning they are allowed to simply renew his original deal or as most teams due, offer a modest pay increase over that period of time. Upon completion of his 3rd ML season, player X will then become arbitration eligible, meaning in order to maintain his rights the team must offer to have an arbitration hearing to determine how much money he should make at the start of his fourth season. Depending on the arbitration panel's decision, and the player's previous season performance, player X might receive a substantial pay increase over his first 3 seasons in the majors. After his fourth season, player X will be arbitration eligible 2 more times (So 3 seasons of complete contract control and 3 seasons of arbitration) before he can finally file for free agency before the start of his 7th season. That's a relatively brief and abbreviated explanation of going year to year.
The alternative, which the Jays chose to go for with Romero, is to lock your player up long-term relatively early for some serious guac (that's what the kids on the streets call money!). By doing this, the Jays have eliminated all the confusing aspects of going year to year by locking Romero into a fixed sum that will encompass all of his remaining years of complete contract control, as well as all of his arbitration eligible seasons and what would have been his first year of free agency. What are the implications? For the Jays, they either have essentially payed a lot more now to pay a lot less later, or they gave millions of dollars away to a player who could regress or get injured. In arbitration, Romero (assuming, again, he maintains his current level of performance) could make slightly more than he will with this new deal, and he absolutely would have made more on the open market in 2015. So if Romero performs, they'll have both saved money on Romero during his arbitration years and prolonged his tenure in Toronto by an extra season, presumably below market value.
For Romero, the implications are either he sacrificed some money and the ability to reach free agency a bit earlier for long-term security and a hefty sum of money, or he swindled the Jays and gets more than he will ever deserve. Ultimately, the Blue Jays are the ones taking the bigger risk, but as fangraphs notes, it isn't a huge one. Seems like a good deal all around.
Note: For a more in depth economic understanding, click on that fangraphs link above- it was written by a computer nerd, and computer nerds know how numbers work.
No comments:
Post a Comment