Adam LaRoche Finally Caves, Re-Signs
Adam LaRoche lost a lot of 2011 to injury, okay, and in 2012 he had himself a bounceback season, okay. Sometime during the season, the Nationals approached LaRoche — a free-agent-to-be — about a contract extension. Nothing was agreed to; the Nationals were willing to give LaRoche two years, and LaRoche was seeking three years, citing a desire to stop bouncing around. Come the offseason, the Nationals extended to LaRoche a qualifying offer, and LaRoche turned it down; LaRoche was seeking three years. LaRoche kept on seeking three years. On Tuesday, LaRoche re-signed with the Nationals. He re-signed for two years, with a mutual third-year option. I’ll quote Amanda Comak:
“[The negotiations] were pretty much not moving for a couple months,” LaRoche said. “It got to a point at one time where I really thought ‘OK, I probably am not going back to Washington.’ We were in talks with some other teams and things were looking promising and Washington wasn’t budging.”
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The deal, which a source said is the same one that had been on the table for the first baseman for much of the offseason[...]
Here are the actual terms:
2013: $10 million
2014: $12 million
2015: $? mutual option, $2 million buyout
Along the way, the Nationals had most of the leverage, and this end result is hardly surprising. Maybe LaRoche didn’t think this was how things would work out, but then that would fall on his agent. For one thing, the Nationals had and still have Michael Morse, who’s capable of approximating LaRoche’s production, so re-signing LaRoche wasn’t an organizational necessity. And then there’s the matter of the qualifying offer, meaning LaRoche would cost other suitors a pretty high draft pick. By re-signing LaRoche, the Nationals don’t receive a compensation pick, but that pick would be lower than most of the picks other suitors would’ve stood to lose. The Nationals had every reason to hold their ground, and in the end LaRoche found out he couldn’t do any better.
I can’t help but laugh at this other LaRoche quote, after the contract news broke:
“You know me, I wasn’t stressing it a whole lot, but I’m glad it’s with Washington and not somebody else,” LaRoche said in a phone interview with The Washington Times. “I was prepared to leave, if I had to, but I was really trying to do everything I could to get back there so, I’m glad it worked out.”
LaRoche was doing everything he could to re-sign with the Nationals, so he took months to accept the offer they had out on the table. One of these parties is presumably more disappointed than the other. Not that LaRoche isn’t happy to stay, but it seems he thought higher of himself.
Here’s the thing, though: while the headline says that LaRoche caved, and while the Nationals were fairly inflexible, ultimately the Nationals haven’t re-signed LaRoche at a bargain. LaRoche, without question, is coming off a big year, but he’s also a 33-year-old first baseman. It takes little more than a quick stroll through his historical WARs to understand what sort of player LaRoche really is.
The Nationals aren’t interested in paying LaRoche for what he’s done — they’re interested in paying him for what he will do, based on what he’s done, and on what similar peers have done at similar ages. LaRoche, just last season, posted a strong 127 wRC+, but his career mark is 112, and he hadn’t broken 120 since 2006. He hadn’t ever been worth more than 2.5 wins above replacement, according to his player page, previous to last year’s 3.8. Last year, LaRoche was a Nationals team MVP candidate, but Future Adam LaRoche probably won’t be 2012 Adam LaRoche.
I don’t like the word “fluke”, and I think baseball fans use it too freely. Certainly, there are performances that look somewhat flukey. I don’t see anything flukey about LaRoche’s 2012. His BABIP wasn’t elevated to a crazy degree, and none of his other numbers spiked or fell unnaturally. To those who say Adam LaRoche’s 2012 season was a fluke, I say, no, I think you’re wrong, sort of, and allow me to explain.
LaRoche’s underlying skillset didn’t change. He had all the same strengths and weaknesses he’s always had, since breaking into the league. Because his skillset was the same in 2012 as it was in seasons previous, a future projection should be based on a number of those previous seasons. Given that skillset, LaRoche has demonstrated that a season like 2012 is achievable. However, it is not to be considered the “mean” season — it might represent his 70th or 80th or 90th percentile. Contracts should think more about the 50th percentile.
And that’s where we turn our attention to LaRoche’s 112 career wRC+, or 1.7 career WAR/600 plate appearances. It’s meaningful when a player’s coming off a strong season, but only in that it provides new information, and not complete information. Sure, LaRoche’s 33 dingers last year were somewhat out of character. But then, he hit 32 dingers in 2006, with a .276 ISO. The next season, he hit 21 dingers with a .187 ISO. LaRoche showed in 2006 that this sort of performance was within his reach, but it did not and does not accurately reflect his true talent.
LaRoche is a pretty good player who can look like a pretty great player. In 2012, he looked like a pretty great player more often than usual, and in 2013, he probably will not. Maybe he’s a 2-win guy, and the Nationals are paying him more or less like he’s a 2-win guy. Maybe he’s a little better, or maybe he’s a little worse — if nothing else, 2012 proved that LaRoche isn’t in the midst of a decline — and maybe the Nationals are giving LaRoche a little something extra because they like having him in the clubhouse. He’s one of them beloved veteran mentors, see, and while I’m not dismissing that as irrelevant, I just don’t have anything to say on the subject. The Nationals like LaRoche’s leadership, and presumably that factored in here somehow.
Without the qualifying-offer issue, Adam LaRoche might’ve been able to find a bigger free-agent contract than this. This contract, though, seems to be about what he’s worth, assuming you agree LaRoche is somewhat worse than his 2012 performance. The Nationals are at a place where every win matters, so the focus is more on talent than efficiency. Maybe keeping Morse instead of LaRoche would’ve been a little more efficient; LaRoche, however, is probably a little better. Now Morse can be dealt to improve the roster somewhere else, making the 2013 Nationals even better than before.
Adam LaRoche isn’t not a 127 wRC+ kind of guy. He can do that. He just did that. He might think he’s a little more likely to do that again than the Nationals and the rest of the market. The Nationals won, signing LaRoche to the contract they wanted, but it’s not a bad contract for LaRoche, so in time, he should be happy. He got his multi-year deal, he got to stay where he was, and he’s going to play for quite possibly the best team in baseball next season. There are worse ways for contract negotiations to turn out.
As a Nats fan, I want to see articles that proclaim LaRoche an amazing bargain, and Michael Morse a great trade chip. You and other thoughtful posters, though, have written what I know is much more reasonable. We will be really sad to see Morse go, but need to accept that now is the time to wring out every last win, because single wins should be meaningful for teams this good.
This, of course, is why the Nats might get more for Morse than comps and advanced stats would suggest they should. It is late in the offseason, and a good number of good teams still have a wish list. The Yankees, Orioles and Rays have reason to vie for Morse’s relatively cheap 2 WAR, because they may need them to snag a wild-card spot. LaRoche might have brought a late first rounder, but perhaps Morse can bring 2 wins to the Nats in the form of a person who actually has a position to play on the team (read that left-handed reliever) and a decent prospect.
In any transaction both parties seek the best deals for themselves. That best deal for Laroche came from the Nats as the clock ran out. Sure, maybe he thinks he should have got better based on his career year in a contract year. But in the end, he got a 40% raise guaranteed for the next 2 years. The Nats made a mistake of paying him based on his performance in a contract year given they had another option in Morse. In 2011 before he went on the DL most Nats fans thought he was a lemon. His career numbers over the last 6 years, which were his peak years, suggest he is worth 9 million a year. Now he gets an average of 11 million in his declining years.
More important, if salary inflation is poised to rear its ugly head, he may actually be better off with a 2 year deal if he does not decline much and gets to try the FA market again (and accepting any qualifying offer). For some players, going year to year is actually the best strategy if they are healthy since longer term deals are discounted for age and injury concerns.
If he does not get a qualifying offer, then he does not need to subsidize any deal to the tune of 5 million dollars or more for a teams lost pick.
He could do just as well in his next deal.
I don’t understand why Adam LaRoche had very negative defensive stats early in his career and now has very positive defensive stats at this point in his career. After all his best offensive season is not 2012, it is 2006. And players don’t tend to improve defensively with age. If you hold his defense constant, then, 2012 is not necessarily his career year, and his performance does not look quite as anomalous.
There are a couple of hypotheses.
1) Adam LaRoche was a bad first baseman when he came up and has improved his defense even as he’s gotten older.
2) The Braves gave him very poor defensive instruction and/or positioning, and the Diamondbacks and Nationals figured out how to “fix” his defense.
3) The discrepancy is a result of statistical noise.
I find 2) and 3) a lot more likely than 1). Defensive players just aren’t supposed to improve with age.
(Then again, it’s possible that first basemen are just different. Keith Hernandez came up in 1974, and posted his career high in TotalZone in 1983; John Olerud came up in 1989 and posted his career high in 1998; and though JT Snow generally alternated negative and positive throughout his career, he started out strongly negative and got less so.)
Still, I’m uncomfortable about assessing LaRoche’s WAR value without better understanding the true value of his defense.
You’re absolutely right. Defense is the the biggest question in determining what to expect from Adam LaRoche.
For what it’s worth, after two years of close observation, I can confirm that UZR is correct in claiming LaRoche is an above average defensive 1B. He’s good at fielding the ball, but he’s excellent at receiving the ball, which the the single most important skill for a Nationals’ 1B. Ian Desmond and Ryan Zimmerman are very erratic throwers (they have 55 throwing errors together since 2010). I think this is largely why the Nats FO has preferred LaRoche over Morse.
Since we can assume LaRoche will maintain a similar level of defense in 2013, it’s a very reasonable contract for the Nats.
If you look at LaRoche over the last 5 years, he’s sported a .348 wOBA. 2011 is essentially a write-off season, since he was batting the entire time with a torn labrum, which sapped all his strength when swinging. If you look at the average of his healthy seasons (2008-2010 and 2012), he’s a .355 wOBA hitter.
Combine that with his above average defense (~+5 UZR), and LaRoche is about a 2.5-3.5 WAR player going forward.
LaRoche wasn’t medicated until 2006 for ADHD. As a Braves fan that watched him play, this was definitely a deterrent to his defense. Could be a contribution reason to your #1 above.
I think the difference between Morse and LaRoche will be worth almost exactly $5m. With both players, I worry there’s a small overpay. But for a contender, at this point in the offseason, a small overpay is okay. Plus the Nats get to trade Morse, likely for reliever that is a small underpay, while shedding the small overpay that Morse’s $7m would have amounted to.
So the Nats add a small underpay and remove a small overpay, which is win. For a contender, the marginal value of a win is more than a win. I think that moreness of difference is about one small overpay. Net result: Win!
Underlying skill set didn’t change but performance took a huge leap. Sounds like a decent definition of fluke.
Morse only has 1 year left so getting LaRoche for 2 alows Rendon to establish himself at 3B and then they move Zimm to 1B – good deal Rizzo. Now can we get a LH reliever please.
I’ll never understand why people are in a hurry to move Zimmerman to 1st. You’d have to assume his shoulder will never be ok, because otherwise you wouldn’t move a guy with his defensive ability. Signing LaRoche more likely means they are moving Rendon around the diamond a bit this year, because if they don’t, he’s only going to be a trade chip for the next two years. He’d have more value if he established he could play 2nd, 1st, and the OF in any case. If you are concerned about Zimmerman’s health, you have to be even more concerned about how Rendon can’t stay healthy.
Unless the Nats have targeted a few young lefties, I don’t see why they wouldn’t have just paid for a FA. I would rather they got useful prospect(s) back in a deal with more upside than a loogy. But Morse might not have any more value than Willingham did two years ago.
Yeah, I don’t really understand it myself. Howell or Gonzalez could have been had for $2.85 or $2.25m, respectively for only one year of commitment. That’s really nothing, and it would have left Rizzo to shop around for the best possible package for Morse, instead of the best possible package involving a lefty specialist.
With that said, if Rizzo can get someone like Jake McGee, I’ll be more than happy.
Money-wise, the Nats probably did the right thing here. They get a very good defensive 1st baseman, a left-handed bat with power, and control for two/three years after which they have no commitment towards any 1st baseman. 1st basemen being one of the easiest positions to fill, this works out well. Morse might not fetch as much as some think given the recent importance being placed on years of control. If the Nats can get a semi-decent pitching prospect in return, they can save face, especially with Alex Meyer now gone. Overall, another good move by Rizzo and the Nats.
http://summerpastime.blogspot.com/2013/01/morse-code.html