The Tigers are "increasingly optimistic" about signing Justin Verlander to a long-term deal, reports Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports. Felix Hernandez's five-year, $78MM deal is being used for comparison, but Morosi feels Verlander might be aiming to top that with either a larger guarantee or a sixth year. What's more, Morosi feels Verlander is justified in asking for more money than Felix.
Morosi appears to be using the simplistic arbitration hearing-type stats to make his case – wins, All-Star appearances, and even no-hitters. But this is not a hearing decided by three baseball rubes. Consider:
- Hernandez is almost three years younger than Verlander.
- Hernandez has a better career ERA, ERA+, and FIP.
- They're similar (Hernandez being slightly better) in career innings, strikeout rate, walk rate, and home run rate.
- Regarding Verlander's seven extra career wins in six fewer starts, look at run support. Verlander has received 5.2 runs scored per start, Felix 4.3.
No, like they said, Felix is younger. Verlander should get a deal similar though.
He took a little less. 80mm becomes 76.88 after MI state income tax. Felix will get 78 in WA where there is no state income tax.
Verlander might get more, but he is getting paid his value, whereas Felix took a discount.
Both should take a discount, that is the benefit from a team’s point of view. That, and buying out FA years.
Definitely, I would love for him to take a discount. He’s a staff ace in a very winnable division…and the Tigers have made it clear they plan on being perennial contenders post 2010. However, he hits FA in 2011 and may think he can get big money. I hope his hearts in the right place
Shouldn’t Verlander tip the scales a bit for pitching in the tougher home ballpark?
They both pitch in pitcher’s parks.
The logic here is correct. Felix is younger and superior to Verlander. However, the M’s got a deal on Felix, so the only one that should be bothered by Velander getting more money is Felix. At the same time, Felix wanted to stay and wanted a long term deal. So as long as he’s happy, so are we!!! Verlander should get about the same amount as Felix if he isn’t giving Detroit a discount.
Nope. ERA+ accounts for this. Verlander is great, no question, but Felix is better across the board in actual pitching skills.
Zacharydmanprin, the home ballpark isn’t as big of a deal because of the run support. That ballpark allows for more runs, but he also gets more run support. Felix is indeed a better pitcher.
Justin Verlander has been valued at 18.9 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) over 132 starts and 840 innings. Felix Hernandez been been valued at 21.2 WAR over 138 starts and 905 innings.
fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=8700&posit…
fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=4772&posit…
Useful, but this discussion doesn’t end with “which is a better starting pitcher” or even “which is a more valuable player”.
Good point leviticus6688!!!! I like your logic.
Not to say that Verlander is on the same level as Robertson or Bonderman by any means, but Dombrowski sure does have a track record when it comes to these deals…
He also gave a bad contract to Dontrelle Willis.
In your 2nd post, you put ERA twice
Hernandez has a better career ERA, ERA , and FIP.
The question is whether Verlander is worth more TO THE TIGERS than Hernandez is worth TO THE MARINERS. One has to go well beyond to the two pitchers statistics to find the answer.
One should also consider that Hernandez is significantly underpaid.
How is Felix “significantly underpaid?” The M’s bought out two of Felix’s arbitration years, and three of Felix’s free agent years. Felix is averaging $15.6 million per season over the course of his contract; that’s certainly below his value IF HE HAD BEEN A FREE AGENT, but he wasn’t a free agent. He traded security for future earning potential. There’s no significant underpayment there. Verlander’s in the EXACT SAME POSITION as Felix was. Verlander has two more arb years left; so, Verlander, like Felix, will have to give up some of the earning potential that he would have had if he remained unsigned until he becomes a free agent in return for the security of knowing that if he blows his arm out this year, the Tigers can’t simply cut him loose (as they would have been able to, if he was just a team-controlled arb player). Both of these guys are signing long-term contracts WHILE THEY ARE UNDER TEAM CONTROL; by necessity, they will not get what they would have gotten if they had waited for free agency. There was no “underpayment” on Felix; he got what he deserved given his service time and skills. Verlander shouldn’t get more, because he’s not a better pitcher, and because he’s in precisely the same situation (in terms of service time) as Felix was… If Verlander does get more, the M’s will have gotten a better deal.
And you have summed up the definition of a home team discount. He takes a discount in order to stay with the M’s long term.
If Verlander gets the same as Felix, the M’s will still have gotten a better deal. Thanks for pointing out the obvious with “who gets the better deal” line.
“How is Felix significantly underpaid?”
These are the alternatives: 1) he takes a richer contract from the Mariners; 2) he does not extend; 3) he takes the contract he did.
1) I don’t know anyone who thinks the first case was impossible: the Ms would have paid more. The total here over the five years exceeds 78m.
2) There is virtually no question at all that he would have made much much more money as a free agent. The total here over the five years exceeds 78m.
You seem confused about this one because of the arbitration hearings involved. Felix will presumably make more through the contact he now has than he would have through arbitration. But given what he will not make through free agency by virtue of signing this contract, he will make significantly less in total.
3) This is what he did. The total here over five years is 78m.
For his own reasons, Felix chose the least lucrative scenario — and so one doesn’t need to say he “should” be paid more. But one cannot say that he is anything but underpaid: he chose the least lucrative scenario. He is paid less than he is worth to just about every team in the league, including the Mariners.
A lot of assumptions here …
1. Why would Felix and his agent leave money on the table? While clear to you that the M’s management would have paid more it apparently wasn’t clear to either Felix or his agent. Do you have some link or evidence that shows Jack Z claiming that he was ready to offer more money to Felix? My guess – you are making a broad assumption based off what “you” feel Felix is worth.
2. This is a little confusing. Felix was not a FA. He was bound to arbitration. While I think we can agree that he was in line for $10m this year, there is no way to know what he would have made in 2011 and in his FA years.
To play devil’s advocate, let’s assume that 2009 was an outlier. The real Felix Hernandez is the guy we saw pre-2009. He’s a guy with a career ERA of 3.80 (ERA+ of 114). That’s an almost identical career path of a guy named Lackey (career ERA of 3.81 / ERA+ of 117). Lackey just signed as a FA for around $16m/year. To just assume that Hernandez would make $20m+/season a few years from now is hardly a guarantee. Injury, regression, an even crappier economy (is that possible?) could all conspire against in 2 years.
3. It wasn’t the least lucrative. It was the best deal available to him given his limited negotiation leverage. It may very well turn out to be the deal of the century (think Pujols) or he might just be another average pitcher earning more than he is worth. The reality is that nobody knows the answer to this question. What Felix DOES know is that he is set for life. Regardless of how well he pitches or how healthy he remains the guy is uber-rich. This was the only way to guarantee that. All other options carry risk – a risk that he apparently was not willing to take.
“1. Why would Felix and his agent leave money on the table? While clear to you that the M’s management would have paid more it apparently wasn’t clear to either Felix or his agent. Do you have some link or evidence that shows Jack Z claiming that he was ready to offer more money to Felix?”
I AM JACK Z.
No, of course I don’t. But if you follow along, taking away the better-offer alternative from what I offered doesn’t change the outcome: taking the M’s 5/78 offer is the least lucrative scenario.
“2. This is a little confusing. Felix was not a FA. He was bound to arbitration. While I think we can agree that he was in line for $10m this year, there is no way to know what he would have made in 2011 and in his FA years.”
No one said he was a FA; I mentioned his arb years more than once.
“To play devil’s advocate, let’s assume that 2009 was an outlier. The real Felix Hernandez is the guy we saw pre-2009. He’s a guy with a career ERA of 3.80 (ERA+ of 114). That’s an almost identical career path of a guy named Lackey (career ERA of 3.81 / ERA+ of 117). Lackey just signed as a FA for around $16m/year.”
You didn’t laugh as you wrote this? You’d do well in negotiations, and indeed this kind of nonsense is probably in part what got Felix inked to a lesser deal. But in order to be convinced at all by any of this and believe “Felix IS the guy seen pre-2009”, we have to go ahead and discount everything every scout has ever said about Felix, discount his age and trend toward improvement, discount his already-once-achieved ace status at 23, and every other metric which has for some time made clear that not only is his ceiling as high as any starting pitcher’s, but that he is likelier than most to reach it.
So I guess what I’m saying is sure, if we assume Felix Hernandez is not Felix Hernandez, the calculus changes dramatically and he may not be underpaid!
“To just assume that Hernandez would make $20m+/season a few years from now is hardly a guarantee. Injury, regression, an even crappier economy (is that possible?) could all conspire against in 2 years.”
You assume that it’s an assumption. The things you mention here aren’t just immeasurable possibilities. There are indicators of injury risk, indicators of the likelihood of regression, indicators of economic prosperity or its lack. All of it is measurable and all of it, measured, concludes he will very probably be worth more than 20m per by as a 2012 FA. This is a broad consensus.
“3. It wasn’t the least lucrative. It was the best deal available to him given his limited negotiation leverage. It may very well turn out to be the deal of the century (think Pujols) or he might just be another average pitcher earning more than he is worth. The reality is that nobody knows the answer to this question.”
Might have to eat my words about your aptitude for negotiations. The argument “NOBODY KNOWS FOR SURE” barely counts as one.
All baseball knowledge — indeed, all knowledge categorically — is probabilistic. Consequently, we work our hardest to determine the probabilities of potential outcomes and plan our actions accordingly. Whether or not Felix will remain an ace is not a toss-up; it is a decidedly probable outcome. This accounts much of the source of his value and it IS in part the source of EVERY players value: how likely is it that they will perform.
I look at it this way. If you had a 5/$80 contract to give away and your choices are Verlander or Hernandez, which one are you choosing?
This is why Verlander deserves a contract of lesser value than Hernandez…maybe just a few million over the life of the contract, but still less.
No, that’s silly; no one has that choice.
Players have no objective value whatever. The question is “if you are the tigers and you have to choose between giving Verlander 5/80 (or more) or letting him test Free Agency, what do you choose?” And that calculation has almost nothing to do with Felix Hernandez.
The question is “Does Verlander deserve more than Felix?” or at least thats what my screen reads. Based on that question, then I so no.
I agree that that is the question, but I also agree that you oversimplified it.I don’t think there’s anybody on these forums who doesn’t believe that Felix could have gotten significantly more money–probably DOUBLE–if he had waited and hit free agency. In other words, it’s fairly well accepted that he, for whatever reasons, took a discount to stay in Seattle.Likewise, I don’t think Verlander is saying “I’m a better pitcher than Felix.” He would be hard-pressed to make that case. What he seems to be saying is “I’m comparable to Felix, and I don’t care that he took a discount.” And why should he? Whether or not you want to stay where you are enough to take less money is a very personal decision and one that has wide-ranging implications for you and your family in additionto the team and your future hypothetical team.In other words: Felix is better, and in that sense he deserves more money. But he chose to take less. At least in Verlander’s mind, that morphs the question into “Does Verlander’s performance deserve more money than Felix settled for?” And that is less clear. Why, afer all, should his worth be so largely dependent on what somebody else took? (Personally, I think the offers we have been hearing are quite fair.)
I couldn’t have said it better!!!!
I would actually say that you are creating a question that was never asked (god i’m a debate nerd). I don’t believe I am oversimplifying it at all, just responding to the question that was posed as the headline.That all said, I don’t disagree with you at all. I’m just saying that if all things are equal, Hernandez deserves more based on all aspects of performance and age than Verlander. Now, if there is any league that is not equal, it’s MLB. Verlander should get a larger contract than Hernandez did, but he doesn’t deserve a larger contract than Hernandez got. If the comparison is directly to Hernandez then Verlander gets a smaller contract than Hernandez. However, Verlander will be getting a contract that is comparable to Santana, Halladay, Sabathia and the rest of the league. Verlander may or may not deserve a bigger contract than the one Hernandez got based on all contracts around the league, but he does not deserve a bigger contract based off Hernandez.
Best of luck in putting together a formula for how much a player “deserves” independent of the factors I mentioned.
Good luck with the case that Verlander should somehow deserve more money than Felix. I’ve laid out how this contract should look and why everyone is happy.Just go 9.5 this year, 12 in 2011, 13 in 2012, 15 in 2013, 13 2014, 13 in 20156 years 75.5 mil.Nothing to laugh at. He’s got long term security, more money than he will ever likely use, and gets to hit the open market at 33 when contract ends.Salary increase from 9.5 to 14 up then settling lower each year. I’ve always thought that frontloading the contract would is smart. I would have 0 problems paying Verlander 13 and 14 mil in his prime years.Contract never goes over 15 mil. I’m one of the few people who would never give out 17+Mil unless they were Halladay durable.I like that contract a lot more than Felix’s low start then explosion into the 18+Mil’s. He’s hella young though, so it makes sense…I guess. (10:$6.5M, 11:$10M, 12:$18.5M, 13:$19.5M, 14:$20M)I’m pretty sure Verlander’s preference is to stay and win in Detroit and he makes a boat full of money. Everyone ends up happy.Damn..I should be an agent.
I would fire you if you acted as my agent. No way is Verlander worth $20m or so less than Hernandez. He deserves equivalent type money. Maybe not the same, but he shouldn’t be taking any serious discount.
“No way is Verlander worth $20m or so less than Hernandez. ”
Felix deal=78
My proposed Verlander deal=75.5 (Hardly 20m less.)
Verlander will take the security that comes with having 68+Million.
He still hits the open market again at 33.
Detroit will want to lock him up, justin and porcello will look to build the staff.
Dave Dombrowski is going a 12 year 350 million based on how he is givng out extensions :p so tiger fans you have mr verlander for his career or most of it
No, I am a Tigers fan, and I do not believe Verlander deserves more money than Hernandez, who is the younger and better pitcher.
Hernandez has never had a year like Verlander’s 2008, which was a disaster. That is the big difference for me. But I think they were pretty comparable pitchers last year, despite the ERA difference. Hernandez had the best defense in baseball playing behind him, which made his ERA appear better than he actually pitched. Verlander had the much better K/BB, FIP, xFIP, WAR. He just had an abnormally high BABIP.
However, I’m not convinced that it’s not preferable to trade JV for prospects rather than sign him to a big extension. He’s never been on the DL, but his workload does concern me. He threw 300+ more pitches than anyone in baseball last year, and there is no doubt that Leyland will continue to abuse him for as long as he remains the manager. If the Tigers had a manager who was better at managing his pitchers and took pitch counts seriously, I’d feel better about this deal. As it is, I’m leery of the deal becoming an albatross, like most of the long-term deals Dombrowski’s signed have become.
Felix did have some great defense behind him at the end of the year, but still had Betancourt and Lopez at short and 2nd. However, Felix had more strikeouts and less BB. That is all Felix, not his defense.
No Question, Felix IS a superious pitcher to Verlander.
I do agree with the abuse provided by Leyland though. He is old school and old school doesn’t cut it. He should take care of his pitchers better with the pitch counts. Maybe that’s why Detroit has so many bad contracts. Not because they were bad contracts, but because Leyland over-pitched his players.
Felix had a higher BB/9 ratio (2.7 K/9 compared to 2.4 K/9) and a lower K/9 (8.2 K/9 compared to 10.1 K/9) than Verlander last year. That’s why Verlander had the better FIP, xFIP, WAR. His ERA was only in the mid 3’s because of a very high BABIP at .328.
6 years is risky, but he’s right at the fence on age. He’s still young enough that a 6 year deal would work out for him at this point. Obviously risky, but the chance is very good he’ll prove durable over the life of the contract.
I agree, he’ll get in the neighborhood of 5 years/$75-85MM. It’s POSSIBLE that if he holds out long enough they’d throw him a 6 year/$100MM deal.
I think that Felix and Tim lincecum will be the highest paid pitchers in the game with their next contract signings. Lincecum is the only young pitcher that deserves more than Felix in my mind.
One could make a case for Zach Grienke
We know pre arbitration contracts are tricky.. We know Arbitration system is a little tricky. Biggest example, Jason Repko making half a million to suck in the minors.
Unfortunately, I have only been able to see highlights of Felix and looking through stats. I have seen Verlander pitch live, and he is my favorite ball player, so I may be a little biased. I think they are very comparable pitchers. As far as the run support goes, I think their teams finished about how they should have given those numbers. Both are good pitchers. A few million here or there isn’t a big deal, but both deserve similar contracts.
I”m going to go ahead and say Greinke deserves more than both of them!! haha 2010 CY YOUNG WINNER= GREINKE 🙂