First off, I mentioned “being in the right place at the right time.” What does this have to do with anything? Let’s first see how J.P. Ricciardi got his General Manager job. Well, he worked under Billy Beane, widely regarded as the best GM in baseball and perhaps one of the best in all sports. Heck, Beane was even the subject of Michael Lewis’ book, Money Ball, truly an accomplishment for a General Manager. When you work under genius, somehow, at least people believe, genius gets transmitted by osmosis. This may actually be true, so I’m not going to deny that: I guess it is possible that working under capable leaders will make you more capable, since you are “learning from the best.” Okay, I can kind of accept that. My point here, though, is that J.P. got his job at least partially because he happened to be working under Beane, something that may have happened to anyone. Ricciardi wasn’t the only one: Paul DePodesta was another assistant to Beane who then got hired, at 31 years old, to be the Dodgers GM. He was fired in 2005 (which I don’t necessarily agree with, but that would be the Dodgers’ owner’s fault, which is another story). Sam Presti got hired as the Sonics GM immediately after the Spurs won the Western Conference Championship (he was then the Spurs Assistant GM). Many current and former NFL head coaches trace their lineage back to Bill Walsh on his coaching tree and use the “West Coast” offense that he designed. This happens in all sports (and in other industries too). Pay attention: The assistant GM or assistant coach, the VP of Player Personnel, or the Special Assistant to the GM, etc. who happened to be working under successful GMs who just won the championship, will soon be in huge demand around the league. To be fair, this does not mean that these former assistants aren’t worthy, only that there is a chance that such good fortune could have just as easily happened to somebody else.
Now back to J.P. At least in my opinion, his most conspicuous move was signing Vernon Wells to a seven-year, $126 million contract. I thought this was pretty absurd when he did it, but am happy that I finally sat down to compare Wells to some other guys to see how he stacks up. His contract comes out to $18 mm/yr. Guys who get this money should obviously be the real cream of the crop, the Albert Pujols-type, Vladimir Guerrero-type, Barry Bonds (don’t kill me!)-type. And they usually are—these 3 guys are earning in $14 mm-$16 mm range, and Bonds will probably be even less, if he plays this year. But here is the problem: all three of these guys are considerably better than Wells! In fact, it’s not even close! Pujols has a .332 career average, with a .420 OBP and a whopping .620 slugging. Vlad has a .325 career avg, with a .392 OBP and an awesome .579 slugging. He also happens to have a gun in right field. And Vernon Wells? He has a .281 career avg, with a .331 OBP and a .478 career slugging. What a difference! Bonds? Suffice it to say that, as A ROOKIE (BEFORE STEROIDS), Bonds’ .330 OBP was only 1 point lower than Wells’ career average. Enough said.
Yes, I know, I’m forgetting something: Wells has three gold gloves. But I don’t see how this could possibly make up for the fact that he is so much worse of a hitter than these other guys and that this is a 7 year (in other words, long term) contract. Even though I only named Pujols, Vlad, and Bonds, the list goes on and on. Miguel Cabrera, Todd Helton (even with no power), Manny Ramirez, Ryan Howard consistently put up numbers that Vernon Wells has never sniffed. In Wells’ career year, 2003, his OBP was .359. These guys have OBP in the very high 3s or low 4s every year. Vernon Wells simply isn’t on that level, period. So what level is he on? I tried to find a player who is a very similar hitter to Wells. As mentioned above, Wells has a career .281 avg, .331 OBP, and a .478 slugging. After quite a bit of unnecessary manual labor, I found a good comparison. Last year, he bat .278, with a .330 OBP and a .476 slugging. His career numbers are slightly worse, but are comparable. Sorry, Blue Jays fans, I’m not describing David Wright or Chase Utley. I am describing Xavier Nady, who would probably be quite flattered if we told him he was being compared to the great Vernon Wells. His numbers last year were basically identically to Wells’ career numbers, which is scary. Of course, we do need to consider that Wells is a better defender, but is that worth the nearly $16 mm/yr difference, starting in a few season? Finally, Baseball-Reference.com has a feature that shows players who are most similar to the one you are currently viewing. In recent years, whose career is most similar to Wells’? Aubrey Huff, Trot Nixon, and Troy O’Leary are on the list. And who is most similar to Wells through Age 28? Shawn Green and Raul Mondesi are on that list, certainly not guys to whom I would give a $126 mm contract.
It is just really difficult to justify the size of the contract that J.P. gave to Wells. Is Wells so charismatic that he draws so many fans to the ballpark and that justifies his hefty price tag? Is it his well-rounded play (for some reason, though he might appear to be a great athlete, I think people perceive Wells to be a great stolen-base threat—yet he has stolen more than 10 bases only once in his career)? If not, what is it? I really can’t figure this one out, so the only thing I am left to do is question the GM’s move—and that GM happens to be one of the most prized ones in the game today, who, even more importantly, needs to be thrifty.
I can be reached at jwrosenf@fas.harvard.edu
8 responses so far ↓
1 Bobby Swift // Jan 23, 2008 at 10:23 pm
I don’t really have any issues with the Wells contract, for a few reasons.
One, Wells plays a premium up-the-middle defensive position, and plays it pretty well. Advanced defensive metrics are pretty dicey when it comes to CF and C, so the numbers on Wells are pretty mixed. Most have him around league average in 2007 and slightly above average in the preceding seasons. He will begin to decline pretty quickly as he exits his peak years (he will be 29 next season).
Second, Wells is, relative to his position, a pretty good hitter. The comparables you used are unfair. You don’t cite any other CF or any other players at the top of the defensive spectrum. Pujols signed after 3 years of MLB service time, while Wells signed after 5 years of MLB service. The proximity to FA is a major factor here. The Pujols deal was also several years ago, so inflation has to be accounted for. And, as I touched on earlier, he plays 1B (although admittedly, he plays it very well). Bonds plays LF and is one of the worst fielders in the league at his position, same with Manny. Vlad signed his contract several years ago (inflation) and is a below league average defender in RF. So comparing their offensive statistics and salaries with Wells is pretty meaningless.
I think better comps would be CF that have signed recently, like Andruw Jones, Torii Hunter, Gary Matthews Jr., Aaron Rowand, and Juan Pierre.
Torii Hunter makes $18mm per year, same as Wells. The Hunter deal is for 2 fewer seasons. But Hunter signed the deal when he was entering his 32 year old season, as opposed to Wells entering his age 28 season. Over the past few years, Hunter has been slightly better defensively but slightly worse offensively. Last year, Hunter was far superior, in a walk year, to Wells, but Wells is still in his peak, so this was probably just a down year. These deals are pretty much in line with one another. Without hindsight bias, I prefer the Wells deal, because it would have been difficult to predict him falling off a cliff offensively this year.
The Jones contract is pretty clearly a better contract, for $18mm per year over 2 seasons, it was one of the better deals of the offseason. Wells is younger than Jones, but the extra 5 years is a lot of risk.
The Rowand/Juan Pierre/GM Jr. contracts are all for less years and less dollars per year, but I like the Wells contract better than any of their deals. Pierre is a replacement level player, with little to no offensive or defensive value. GM Jr. is a well below league average defender and is likely to be worse than Wells offensively, by a lot, going forward. Rowand has durability concerns, is about the same as Wells defensively, is worse offensively, and is older than Wells.
I don’t really think this is a terrible contract. At the time, this deal looked to be right in line with his market value. If Wells does not bounce back next year, it will prove to be a costly mistake. I don’t really fault Ricciardi for this, though, because with all of the information available to him at the time, this was a reasonable deal. Signing a guy like Juan Pierre, who had no track record of production, is indefensible. Those are the type of contracts that bother me.
2 Jason Rosenfeld // Jan 23, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Grady Sizemore plays a gold glove CF and is clearly a better hitter than Wells (higher career obp, slugging, and avg.) I understand that Sizemore signed his deal after only 1 yr of service, but his deal was 6 yrs, $23 mm total.
Aaron Rowand also plays a gold glove CF and has extremely similar numbers to Wells, yet was signed by the Giants for $12 mm/yr, and for only 5 yrs, not 7. He is only 1 yr older than Wells.
Want another CF? It pains me to admit this, but even Mike Cameron has a higher career OBP than Vernon Wells. Yes, his slugging is worse than Camerons’, but Cameron also steals more bases and is just as good (if not better than) of a fielder. And he was had for $7 mm in a 1 yr deal.
A comparison to Jim Edmonds is a little tough, since Edmonds’ prime was several yrs earlier than Wells, and we need to adjust for inflation, but listen to this: Edmonds earned more than $12 mm/yr only once, and has earned less than $80 mm in total for his career through 2007, and that is with him being a significantly better hitter than wells (50 pts higher OBP, 50 pts higher slugging), being pretty durable, AND being an 8-time gold glove winner. Inflation would certainly bring him up millions, but certainly not enough beyond Wells’ 18 to make Wells’ deal a decent one. Wells should be significantly cheaper than Edmonds to make sense, and this is impossible, because no one would pay Edmonds $25 mm/yr.
And yes, Andrew Jones is expensive, but he is also another better deal then Wells.
Above are all OFs.
And one final note on the following:
“Bonds plays LF and is one of the worst fielders in the league at his position, same with Manny.” Bonds has 8 gold gloves. Of course, he isn’t anymore the fielder he used to be, but when he was playing gold glove caliber D, and hitting a ton better than Wells will ever hit, he was making a lot less than Wells. Adjust this for inflation if you want, and double bonds’ 1998 or 1999 salary if you want–and it would still barely amount to what Wells is getting, and that’s with Bonds being so much better than Wells that it’s not even funny.
3 Bobby Swift // Jan 24, 2008 at 12:13 am
Comparing Sizemore to Wells is truly apples to oranges. Sizemore had 2 more years at the minimum and then 3 years of arbitration, vs. Wells 1 year of arbitration and then free agency. For what it’s worth, Sizemore’s deal is a pretty terrific contract for the Indians.
Re: Rowand, he does not play Gold Glove CF anymore, since the famous crash into the wall. UZR, Inaz, and +/- all have Rowand at league average, similar to Wells. The relevant comparisons here are the two years preceding signing the contract, or 2005-2006 for Wells and 2006-2007 for Rowand. During those time periods Wells is 2 years younger than Rowand, much better offensively, and similar defensively. The two years may not seem like much, but those are 2 out of the 3 ‘peak’ years, which the Blue Jays get from Wells and the Giants will not get from Rowand. Rowand’s injury history along with his age suggests he will age worse than Wells and have durability concerns.
Re: Mike Cameron. Very underrated player and his deal is one of the best of the offseason. It must be noted that he will miss 25 games for PEDs, which hurts his real value and his perceived value. He will also be 35 next season.
Re: Bonds. I’m not sure why he should be a comparable here. He plays a different position in a different league. His peak seasons are probably the best seasons in MLB history, so of course his contract will look great compared to other players. Much of Wells’ value is tied up in playing a league average CF, Bonds’ defensive value is actually significantly negative, but is far outweighed by his offensive output. Edmonds also isn’t a great comparison, because he has not been a comparable player to Wells in a long time.
It only really makes sense to compare Wells to players at the same position, around the same age, who signed contracts at similar points in their careers.
In 2007 a win was worth $~4mm (see here http://www.tangotiger.net/salary2007.html). Wells, after 2006, was projected to be around a 4.5 WAR player (1 Win for offense, 1.5 for defense, above a 2 WAR CF). This would lead him to be valued at $18mm per year, which is, coincidentally, exactly what he signed for, and exactly what Tangotiger predicted here: http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/sabermetric_moves_of_the_off_season/
4 Bobby Swift // Jan 24, 2008 at 12:28 am
Also, to be clear, your main point about Ricciardi stands, regardless of the merits of Wells’ contract. I think Beane in general gets more praise than he has earned. His drafting record has not been impressive over the past 4-5 years. He is clearly one of the best GMs in the league, and has been for a long time, but the Indians are now the league’s model franchise. Beane disciples have been able to leverage the incredible success of Moneyball into GM contracts, and have had mixed results. The idea that someone who worked for Beane must be smart and qualified is pretty stupid, a GM should be evaluated on his own merits.
5 wilson // Jan 24, 2008 at 9:31 am
Did Nady have a nice year where he batted ~320 and power before age 25?..point is wasn’t so clear Wells WAS Nady until the past year which put his 04,05 years in evidently more accurate perspective..
So now clear Wells IS Nady (at least so far) but, to be fair.. a little advantageous hindsight there.
6 tangotiger // Jan 24, 2008 at 4:18 pm
The most important things in analyzing a deal is:
1. Know how many years to free agency. A guy that is 3 years from free agency will sign a deal at 40 cents on the dollar.
2. Know if a player plays a premium fielding position (C, SS, CF) or not (1B, DH, corner OF). The difference accounts for around 5 million dollars a year.
3. Know how good a fielder is. A great fielder will add 5 to 10 million dollars a year on the free agent market.
4. Realize that baseball inflation is somewhere around 8% or 10% a year. The rule of 70 tells you that baseball salaries (and revenue, and market value) double every 8 years or so.
If you are going to compare Wells to anyone (Pujols, Sizemore, Bonds, etc), you have to look at the 4 above points, or you’ll have a huge gap in the analysis.
By the way, the other 2 CF that you could have brought up are Carlos Beltran and Ichiro.
7 Jason Rosenfeld // Jan 24, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Re: wilson — i’m not sure I understand your point. Are you agreeing that Wells is a similar hitter to Nady?
Re: the Edmonds comparison. This isn’t an outlandish comparison. tangotiger says that baseball salaries double every 8 yrs or so. let’s use that:
From 2011-2014, Wells will be earning over $20 mm/yr. That means that a comparable player should have earned abot $10 mm/yr in 2003-2007. Edmonds was a better player during this stretch, and before this stretch, than Wells has proved he could be (Edmonds has a .617 slugg and .643 slugg in 2003, 2004 respectively). However, he made under $10 mm/yr in 2003 and 2004, and only slightly more in 2005 and 2006. It’s hard to use this as evidence that the Wells signing was bad, unfortunately, because we are using a few estimates here and there and that could lead to a large error (and we would need to look at more yrs of the contract in the comparison, of course)… But the fact that Wells will make more (or at least about) 2x what Edmonds made, while Edmonds was clearly a better hitter and just as good of a fielder, if not better, shows that the Wells deal can’t be perceived as one of great value–even if it you come to believe that it isn’t a horrible one.
Beltran and Ichiro are other guys you could use to compare. Their big contracts, similar in size to Wells’, don’t make Wells’ deal look awful, but it certainly doesn’t make Wells’ deal look good. Ichiro has shown amazing consistency and durability, and his contract was for 5 yrs, not 7–and Beltran is a little better hitter than Wells.
8 Andy Lim // Jan 24, 2008 at 9:47 pm
There is no doubt that Wells’s 2007 season was a tremendous disappointment. Obviously the preliminary returns on his contract are bad. However, if you want to judge Wells’s signing, you can only use his performance prior to this year. So you can’t really say he has a career .331 OBP, because it was .336 then, and his career slugging was .492 at that point, which is hardly shabby.
The real problem with Wells’s contract, from Toronto’s standpoint, is not that it’s 7/$126mm, but that he can opt out after 2011 (according to Cot’s). It’s back-loaded, so Wells would leave $21mm per contract year on the table if he exercised the option, but it means that this isn’t really a long-term lockup at all, unless Wells plays poorly to the point that Toronto wishes it hadn’t locked him up. But the better Wells does, the less you can really regard him as a 7/$126, and the more you need to regard him as a 4/$63mm.
In any case, regarding one of the comments towards the end: I view Ricciardi not as one of the game’s most prized GMs, but as someone in the middle of the pack, and I think others by and large agree. Shapiro, Towers, Epstein, Cashman, Beane, and Dombrowski are better regarded for sure, and for many others you could make arguments (Byrnes, etc.). It’s been long enough that the Beane sheen should be all gone.
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