Angels Extend Erick Aybar
Forgoing free agency is the new hotness. After already locking up his double play partner Howie Kendrick back in January, the Angels gave Erick Aybar a reported four year, $35 million contract extension today. Aybar is under contract for 2012 at just over $5 million, so this represents a pretty nice raise in annual average value, and assuming that the contract covers 2013-2016, it will keep Aybar in Anaheim through his age 32 season.
This also represents a pretty significant commitment from the Angels towards a player whose skills aren’t generally valued all that highly on the open market. While Aybar has averaged +3.2 WAR per season over the last three years, most of that value has come from his defense and baserunning abilities, as he’s hit just .280/.327/.391. Those aren’t terrible offensive numbers from a shortstop, but they came during his expected peak years and put him in the same category as guys like Jimmy Rollins, Stephen Drew, Jhonny Peralta, J.J. Hardy, and Cliff Pennington. There’s nothing wrong with any of these guys, but this class of ballplayer has traditionally not struck it rich in free agency.
For instance, Rollins just hit the free agent market this past winter with the same basic set of skills that Aybar brings to the table. He was coming off a +3.8 WAR season with a 106 wRC+, but had to settle for 3 year, $33 million contract from the Phillies after few teams expressed interest in his services. Rollins did turn 33 over the winter, so his advancing age was certainly a factor, but he still didn’t do that much better in AAV than Aybar got in this extension, and Rollins has a better overall track record.
In terms of age, Peralta and Hardy are better fits, as they both signed their deals headed into their late-20s. Peralta was a comparable hitter to Aybar but with a significantly worse defensive reputation, and he ended up settling for a 2 year, $12 million contract with the Tigers that has turned out to be an excellent investment by Detroit. Hardy was coming off a stronger season than anything Aybar has had in his career, posting a 113 wRC+ and his usual quality defense, but settled for just $21 million over three years from the Orioles. Injury problems were a factor, and again, Hardy isn’t a perfect comp for Aybar’s skillset, but he does show that the market for quality-shortstops-with-some-question-marks wasn’t exactly blowing up.
What about similar-ish guys who didn’t make it to free agency? In January of 2011, Jason Bartlett signed a two year, $11 million deal with San Diego that bought out his final year of arbitration eligibility and his first year of free agency. Like Aybar, Bartlett is a good glove guy with an okay bat, and he got far less than what Aybar just signed for. He was also a couple of years older, but 31 versus 29 doesn’t explain 4/35 versus 2/11.
Dropping down one service time year, a few guys who were two years from free agency have also signed extensions recently – Stephen Drew (2/14), Asdrubal Cabrera (2/16), and Yunel Escobar (2/10). In each case, the teams decided that they’d rather go shorter term, and I’d guess that it’s likely that they were aware that these players weren’t likely to get huge raises in free agency, so they had less to gain by locking up multiple free agent years in a long term deal.
Really, the only contract that looks even remotely similar to Aybar’s new deal is the four year, $32 million extension that Alexei Ramirez got from the White Sox. Like Aybar, Ramirez is a good-but-not-great hitter who accumulates a lot of value with the glove, and the White Sox bought out Ramirez’s final two years of arbitration and first two years of free agency by giving him an AAV extremely similar to what Aybar just got from the Angels. Ramirez was actually three years from free agency when he signed the deal, so it’s quite likely that Aybar’s representatives used this as a negotiating point, noting that he had less leverage at the time the White Sox extended him, so Aybar should get a premium on top of this type of contract.
If the Ramirez extension was the reference point, than the Aybar extension looks completely normal, or maybe even a touch light, but in reality, it stands out as a bit of an outlier given other contracts signed by similar shortstops over the last few years. For the most part, the standard deal for this type of player has been 2-3 years for something a bit shy of the AAV that Aybar got from the Angels. That he was able to get four years while still under contract for one more season is a bit of a surprise.
That doesn’t mean it’s a bad signing, of course. You could easily argue that most of these other deals were too team friendly, and that the market has been undervaluing this type of player based on a lack of appreciation for position scarcity and defensive value. If Aybar’s deal signifies a market adjustment, it may very well be one that was needed to bring prices more in line with actual value provided. $9 million per year is essentially what you’d expect a league average player to get as a free agent, and Aybar’s established himself as a better-than-average player. So, this isn’t a deal that I expect the Angels are going to regret. It’s just a little more than we might have expected him to get based on recent history.
Dave,
I think you’ll find that JJ Hardy was traded by the Twins to the O’s after 2010 (in which he put up a 93 wRC+), and then received a 3-year, $21m extension while in the midst of his 30-hr, 113 wRC+ 2011.
Yep. Wasn’t a FA deal.
yeah, but he was only 2 1/2 months away. I wouldn’t think they got that much of a discount at that point in time.
I love fangraphs, but I think a lot of the contract and front office analysis on the site could be greatly improved by taking organizational context into account. The Angels went all in for the immediate future (the next 4-5 years). After that, Pujols’ contract will likely become an albatross and many of their other current stars will be on expired or expiring contracts. Even if they’re not able to get much of a discount, it makes sense for them to lock their currently cost-controlled players into a below market contract for an extra year or two.
Keeping your own league average player is probably still a better value than having to sign OPP (other people’s players). 2012 Hardball Times has an article that discusses this. Meanwhile, Albert is a bargain at $12 and $16 the next two seasons. The structuring of the contract makes nice with their whopping TV contract. Arte has explained enough in interviews that it doesn’t sound like he believes or worries about the later years of the contract will be an albatross. 2016 – Weaver, Wilson, Pujols due $65.7, although I guess we throw in Aybar now. 2017 – Albert due $26 and then the rest of payroll will be filled in from there as Albert’s salary escalates to $30 by 2021. It feels like the Angels are prepared to fill in the blanks as they see fit from 2017-2021 when Albert is old and “stealing” money for value he will allegedly have provided during the first handful of years of the contract.
Investing in players whose value comes entirely from defense is risky. Defensive players tend to put up volatile seasons, mainly since speed is a huge factor in the calculations. The Mariners are regretting that 4/20M deal they did with Franklin Gutierrez. Heck there was even a season where UZR loved Mark Reynold’s defense.
It’s much safer to invest in players like Hardy and Rollins, players who can recoup come of that value with their bats.
“Defensive players tend to put up volatile seasons”
Is this even true? It’s been stated that defensive stats are volatile, but is a player’s defensive ability/performance volatile? Or is it just a flaw in the stats?
It just seems to feel this way. I’m an O’s fan and I remember a couple years ago when the Orioles gave a 2 year deal to Cesar Izturis. He was coming off of a 2.5 win season, 90% of it coming from defense. Everyone thought it was a good deal, and he then went on to be replacement value (factoring in the negative fWAR season) over the course of the contract.
Defensive metrics are known to be volatile. I don’t think actual performance is quite so volatile, aside from large observable declines in athletic ability.
I think you’d be surprised to find out Rollins has been a very average hitter (at best) for quite awhile now.
What does this say about Jean Segura and does this make him a valuable chip going forward?
…but had to settle for 3 year, $33 million contract.
Poor Jimmy Rollins settling for 11 mil a year.
I’d say $11 million per year is much better than $8.75 million… since when is a 20% discount not much?
Sorry, this wasn’t actually meant to be a reply to Randy’s comment…
I think you can look to an even earlier Angels SS precedent here to guide the contours of this contract. The Angels signed Orlando Cabrera for 4 years/$32M (2005-2008). Cabrera delivered $42.7M in value the first three years of his contract, at which point the Angels traded him for a one year of Jon Garland.
Those were Cabrera’s 30-33 seasons, the deal worked out fine for the Angels, and I think it’s reasonable to say that Cabrera’s bat and glove fall well into Aybar’s range.
As an Angels fan, I still think this is a bit of an overpay — the Angels have alternatives on the farm and in Maicer Izturis. But looking at it in the context of Cabrera, this makes enough sense, and I think two years into Aybar’s contract, he’ll be plenty tradeable if the Angels need to trade him.
“9 million per year for a league average player is what you would expect on the open market”
What a great era to be a ballplayer. Crazy the money that is thrown around
The Cubs are going to look really stupid for not extending Starlin Castro before he became an all star regardless of whether he improves significantly on defense.
The other thing with Aybar is that there is some thought that he hasn’t put it all together yet, and league perception with him is pretty strong.