The Blue Jays have signed Adam Lind to a four year deal worth $18MM, writes MLB.com's Jordan Bastian. Jon Paul Morosi of FoxSports.com tweets that the deal also includes club options for 2014, 2015, and 2016.
Bastian says that Lind will earn $400K in 2010 with a $600K bonus, then $5MM each year from 2011-2013. The 2014 option is worth $7MM with a $2MM buyout, the 2015 option is worth $7.5MM with a $1MM buyout, and the 2016 option is worth $8MM with a $500K buyout (Twitter link). If all of the options are picked up, Lind will earn $38.5MM over seven years.
Lind was entering his final pre-arbitration season in 2010, and wasn't scheduled to become a free agent until after the 2013 season. The deal buys out all three years of arbitration eligibility, and gives the team options for three free agent years.
The 26-year-old Lind broke out in a big way last season, hitting .305/.370/.562 with 46 doubles and 35 homeruns. Even though he's mostly a leftfielder and designated hitter, Toronto appears to get a tremendous bargain here. For comparison's sake, Nick Markakis will earn $62.455MM for the same seven year chunk of his career.
Now this is what I call a deal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Adam Lind is a trememdous player and this deal is one hec of a bargain for a rising star who really has a chance to be a superstar!!!!!!!!!!!
So it could end up being a seven year deal that could really as I said, turn in to a bargain. Sounds like Ryan Braun, Troy Tulowitzki, and Evan Longoria have some company!
I like Adam Lind, a lot. But it’s tough to imagine that he’ll be able to get that much better than he was last season, and even then he was only a 3.7 fWAR player. Lind is a butcher in the outfield, so he’s really just a poor man’s Braun. The guys you mentioned are among the very best players in the game, and Lind just isn’t that kind of player.
Well I undestand what you are saying but I wasn’t comparing Lind with them in terms of talent although I think he is close if not very close to them. I was comparing them in terms of a team friendly contract to a tremendous player.
There is nothing that tells me that Lind won’t post his same OPS or hover around a .300 AVG for several years to come. I will say that the home runs will increase.
The defense is shaky but then again, he isn’t playing the outfield.
And by not playing the outfield, his value is pretty much cut in half. The replacement level for a DH is pretty high, so he’s held to a higher offensive standard than other players who play the field.
And seriously, you think he’ll hit more home runs? His ISO was .257 and he hit 35 last season.. those are monster power numbers. If he can even maintain that kind of power going forward, let alone improve upon it, then he’ll continue to be one of the best hitters in the game.
I really do.
But I think that if he played the field year would get more.
May I ask why? Because there seem to be pretty much no indications that his power production will increase.
Lind has enormous power. A ton of his home runs were to the opposite field. Put simply, he has 40+ HR potential easily, he just needs to turn on more balls.
17 of his home runs last year were to centre field, left centre, or to left field. he only pulled half his home runs last year.
Incredible deal. I think a lot of Jays fans were expected the Hechavarria announcement today, but that will come. Another home run for Anthopoulos.
He’s done a fantastic job since he came in.
Agreed. The Morrow-for-League deal was nice and he managed to get a pretty good bounty for Halladay when Ricciardi apparently couldn’t.
I’m not really sure why he spent so much to add Alex Gonzalez, Kevin Gregg and John Buck, though. And they desperately need a leadoff hitter.
Maybe for a mid-season trade.
A midseason trade of whom? Who the hell is going to give up value for Alex Gonzalez or John Buck? Those aren’t the kind of pieces that turn into good trade chips.
If Gonzalez is having a strong first half I could definetly see a team making a trade for him.
But Toronto really wouldn’t get much value for him. He’s good defensively, but he’s an impatient hitter with one league average offensive season in his entire career. He shouldn’t be a starter on any remotely good team.
what would you have them do, run mcdonald out there 162 times a year? They needed a cheap 1 year placeholder, who cares?
he is on a team that has its starter go down with an injury there, friend.
Satchel – You’re a smart kid, but your argumentativeness is getting tired.
Getting tired? I comment on this site like once a week.. I just think that it’s silly for a Blue Jay fan to believe that some contender is going to come to Anthopolous and offer him anything of value for Gonzalez.
I suppose from now on I’ll just come on here to say bland, worthless stuff like, “Good deal!” or “Adam Lind is so good!”
If I’m going to delve into the comments, it’ll be to have arguments, to have discussions. Not to sit around and collectively agree with everyone about everything. I like arguing; it’s good for the brain.
they are on 1 year deals, and its not like they are blocking prospects. JP Arencibia has flopped. so gonzalez and buck are stop gap and maybe if they do well enough they could turn out to type b free agents.
I know, but did he really need to spend $7.5M to land those guys?
JP Arencibia flopped? A little early on that one.
Not too desperately. Bautista has done a good job of getting on base during spring training, while displaying some power. While he’s not your prototypical leadoff hitter (speed), if he continues to play like that during the regular season, he’d still make a solid leadoff hitter.
Yeah, Bautista isn’t the worst option. But he’s a guy with a .329 career OBP, not much value on the basepaths, and a pretty high strikeout rate. Ideally, you’d want your leadoff hitter to project for an OBP higher than .325-.335, but that’s where he sits right now.
I’ve pointed this out before scribble, and you continue to remain pretty uninformed when it comes to the Blue Jays. To address 2 of your points :
1. Bautista is the leadoff man because there’s literally no other option. Overbay’s OBP looks sexy, but he’s really awful vs. LHP and more of a #3-#5 hitter vs. RHP, as well as openly saying he hates hitting at the top of the order. The only other player than Bautista that makes any sense leading off is Vernon Wells. Most Jays fans are just happy Cito isn’t doing anything crazy like putting Alex Gonzalez 1 or 2 because of his “speed”. Also, I wonder how you felt about Marco Scutaro leading off every day last year heading into the season…he certainly didn’t project for anything better than .325-.335. I think people are going to be pleasantly surprised by Bautista this season.
2. There is zero downside to the Gregg/Gonzalez/Buck signing. The team has a paltry payroll compared to previous years, even with the 16m being spent on Halladay and Ryan. If Rogers was willing to spend the money, why wouldn’t AA add a solid defensive SS and C to help his young pitching staff, as well as a proven innings guy to solidify his bullpen, perhaps for a midseason trade? When the Jays are willing to eat salary in a deal to get better players (Halladay), go after top international FAs (Chapman, Hechevvaria), and commit a ton of $ to the draft for their 10 picks in the top 125 (16m+ according to Bob Elliot), there’s nothing to complain about when they blow 7.5m on mediocre veterans – it can only help, provided they aren’t blocking MLB-ready prospects, and they aren’t.
Forgot about Hechy. The Jays really have a great young core of talent and a ton of young talent coming up. I mean you and I can make a huge list of young talented players that the Blue Jays have on their big league club and in the rest of their system.
Lind, Hill, Hechevarria, Snider, Arencibia, D’Arnaud, Marisnick, Drabek, Wallace, Encarnacion, Stewart, Romero, Cecil, Jenkins, Cooper, Alvarez, Roenicke, Wilson, Morrow, and Perez are all players who can impact the Blue Jays this year and for years to come. Impressive.
I just hope that fans and executives have faith in the Blue Jays, I know I have faith in the Blue Jays.
Encarnacion is a free agent after 2011 and it’s pretty likely that he’ll be non-tendered after this season unless he actually manages to follow through on his impressive offensive upside. And even then, his defense at third sucks so bad that he probably needs to move to first base, left field or DH.
he may just improve that defence and bring his bat too. he may even be extended cheap.
Wow, thats a bargain.
I’m curious to see the value of the options. The options are really what makes the Longoria deal stand out. There is no question that this would be a good deal even without the options but the options is what will determine whether it is a great deal like the Longoria deal or just a good deal.
wow what a bargain. curios to see what the options are worth but i would imagine them to be team friendly.
I don’t see it as a huge bargain. $18 M guaranteed is less than he would probably make in arbitration, sure, but guaranteed contracts have a higher risk associated with them than going through arbitration. Still a slightly team-friendly contract, I think, since there shouldn’t be all that much risk with Lind, but the real value to the Jays is going to come from those team options.
they bought out his arb. years to pay for the options that buy out his first three free agent years.
It’s a huge bargain from the perspective that arbitration awards don’t seem to account for defense. He would have made much more than that through arb if he continues to produce. Now, once he hits FA … that’s a different story. Still, if Vlad and Matsui can get $7m with bad backs/knees and significantly inferior offensive performances, Lind could easily get $10m – even in this market.
Do you have any data to support the claim that the arbiters overvalue power hitting? Because I can’t seem to think of any such case.
It’s not that they overvalue power hitting, it’s that they undervalue defense. Lind is an atrocious defender, which really hurts his value, but not nearly to the same degree under the arbitration system, where defense carries minimal weight.
I agree that it seems that they undervalue the great defensive players. I’m just not sure that that means that they overvalue poor defensive players like Lind who has no defensive value. At least I can’t think of an example where this is evident.
HowNow about Ryan Howard?
Player filed for 10M. This translates to a free agency value of 25M per year. Team filed for 7M. That translates to a free agency value of 17.5M. In order for Howard to win arbitration he must be worth more than 21.25M. According to UZR Howard was a league average defensive first baseman. The two years preceding the arbitration Howard averaged 5.65 fWAR. Assuming 4M per win this translates to 22.6M worth of value. With this in mind I believe that the arbiters correctly valued Ryan Howard.
If each win is worth 4 million dollars then an 81-81 team should have a payroll of 324 million dollars, so I think your monetary valuation of a win is off.
(Sorry for the essay!)
Obviously, I meant 4M per win above replacement. A team made up of replacement level players are expected to win 47 or 48 games in a year and pay all their players the league minimum (around 400K). This translates to a major league payroll of 10M. So a .500 team would be expected to have a 150M major league payroll. Obviously they don’t.
The reason is that players in their pre-arbitration years are payed the league minimum (around 400K) while they produce greater than replacement level value. As I showed in the example even players in their arbitration years don’t get payed what they would be worth in free agency. Normally they are payed 40%, 60% and 80% of their free agency value in their first, second and third year of arbitration respectively. Furthermore teams take on a risk when signing players to long term deals. Therefore studies have shown about a 10% discount on long term deals.
By definition the average team is a .500 team. According to the USA Today last year the average team spent 88.9M on major league payroll. There is a 61.1M gap between what we would expect the teams to pay the players if they acquired their entire major league roster through free agency and what we actually observe. This makes sense from the perspective that teams invest in scouting and player development in order to save money on their major league payroll.
Depending on your perspective you can say that baseball’s salary structure is screwing players out of 61M per team. Or you can say that the average team’s scouting and player development system is worth 61M. I would tend to say the latter.
I don’t have anything right in front of me but if you do a little digging it shouldn’t be hard to find. The article I read compared players based off their offensive numbers. Some were plus fielders some were poor fielders. The article couldn’t find any major discrepancy to suggest that arbiters took in advanced defensive metrics as points to weigh. The only time defense seemed to play a role is if the player was awarded for his defense through GG’s. The conclusion was simple – unless the player was outstanding defensively (outstanding as being defined by a stupid GG award) or extremely bad defensively fielding did not factor into the awards.
It’s actually not all that different that advanced hitting metrics. You still see guys awarded huge deals when their counting stats are inflated by either who they hit around or their home ballpark.
This sounds interesting. Do you have a link to the article that you mentioned?
My only point is that it is a little bit simplistic to say that because great defensive players are undervalued poor defensive players must be undervalued.
Say for arguments sake that the arbiters assume that everyone is Adam Lind in the field. This would imply that poor defensive players are correctly valued by arbiters relative to their expected value in free agency (based on fWAR). Whereas great defensive players are undervalued.
Lind’s contract: 2014 – $7 mil or $2 mil buyout, 2015 – $7.5 mil or $1 mil buyout, 2016 – $8 mil or $500K buyout
so if all options are picked up its a 7 yr 38.5 million dollar deal.
Link imo should fire his agent/advisor. Getting locked up for his prime years at this rate. WOW
The buyouts = more theft: (from @MLBastian)
2014 – $7 mil or $2 mil buyout, 2015 – $7.5 mil or $1 mil buyout, 2016 – $8 mil or $500K buyout
He makes 8 million in 2016, not 18 million.
Guys, I think that, although he’s cheaply paid during his prime seasons, he makes up for it by getting paid $18 million during his age 32 season. That’s a pretty good payoff, considering he’ll probably be declining by then.
you mean $8MM?
This is a fantastic deal for a great player. I don’t think he’ll be able to duplicate the numbers he put up in 09, but I think he will still be a great player for years to come and this deal is very team friendly
Alex Anthopolous continues to impress. Locking up the best DH in the American league through his prime years for an average of only 5.5 million is most certainly a coup. Lind might look like a fool in the outfield, but has the swing and approach to continue his success at the plate.
Wow is all I can say, absolutely love this deal for the Jays.
This reminds me of Aaron Hill’s deal in a way with all the options.
Great job AA!
i remember reading that alex was in charge of the hill deal
Goes without saying — this is a great move by the Toronto FO. Morrow was a smart acquisition and Lind’s signing is highway robbery. While a certain GM in Seattle is getting all the credit for smart moves, AA is actually doing a better job IMO. And he’s doing it under the radar.
Toronto fans have got to be happy that they finally have a more-than-competent GM. Anthopoulos has definitely done a terrific job thus far.
Some of you are idiots, Adam Lind put up a .318 / .380 / .509 line in 400+ minor league games and obviously has as as much natural talent as any of the big stars at the plate. If anything, he’s going to improve on last years numbers.
Sure he had a great run in the minors, and a terrific year last year but how can you honestly expect him to improve on a .305 batting average and 35 home runs. Sure it’s possible, but it just isn’t likely. I like Lind a lot and I would like nothing more than for him to throw up a .325 avg with 44 homers, but it just isn’t realistic.
I just don’t see why you’d expect such regression before he’s 26. Watching Lind all year, he has such a great approach at the plate, a smooth swing, etc. No one would predict that kind of output you’re suggesting, but I didn’t see one sign in Lind that made me think a large regression would strike him. Hill, I could see. Lind looks a lot more of a sure bet.
No no, I’m not saying he will regress largely. But he will regress. I predict he will take a small step back is all. I’m not saying that he will just go out there and tank. I predict he will still perform very well.
Why will he regress? Your assessment of him is idiotic, there is nothing at all to suggest he won’t continue to improve. You were probably saying Albert Pujols would regress after his second season too.
Look I’m not saying it’s all downhill from here. I just think that after the league has adjusted to him he won’t do as well in 2010. I’m saying basically he’ll have a small sophomore slump. Nothing like the one Geo Soto had for the Cubs but still he will take a small step back. I don’t think it’s far fetched to think he can maybe improve on his 09 line in the future, but I’m just talking about next year.
I don’t know why you’re so sure he is going to go out and post better numbers than he did last year.
Even if you think he’ll have a sophmore slump, it’s still a win for the Blue Jays. That’s like $4.5 million yearly, so that’s a steal even if he performs below his first full season’s performance.
Yeah, I’m all for this deal. It’s terrific. I’ve been a big fan of Lind ever since he came up, and I’m glad the Jays got the deal done.
What, no seven year, $126 million deal?
Heck of a bargain. Good for him to have that security, and the Jays. I take it he must really like playing there.
one more piece to the puzzle in place!