Two Vesting Options to Watch
Vesting options are an interesting bargaining tool in the market of baseball. Usually based on some sort of playing time (PAs, games started, games finished, appearances, etc.), the players’ ability theoretically decides whether or not the option vests, as the player will be benched if his performance isn’t worthy of the playing time bench mark. However, we can see some situations come up where a team can be put between a rock and a hard place with these options, as the player is performing too well to be benched but too poorly to earn the money the option guarantees. Here are two vesting options to watch for the 2010 season.
Magglio Ordonez, OF, Tigers
This is one that Dave Dombrowski and the Tigers should have been watching Ordonez’s 2009 vesting option – he only made the cut by 61 plate appearances, and if salary was as big an issue as Tigers brass made it sound when Curtis Granderson was traded, 61 plate appearances could’ve been easy to cut from his playing time. Instead, the Tigers will be paying Ordonez $18MM this season.
The same situation could come up once again this season, as 540 plate appearances will guarantee a $15MM salary for Ordonez in 2011. Even if the market rate for wins climbs back to $4MM per win next season, Ordonez’s market value likely won’t approach $15MM, as CHONE projects the 36 year old for only 2 wins. Simply put, age hasn’t been kind to Magglio since his fantastic 8.8 WAR, .438 wOBA 2007, and his defense is approaching liability territory. The Tigers would do well to avoid letting his option vest.
Kerry Wood, RP, Indians
Kerry Wood’s 2 year, $20.5MM contract was considered risky at best by many at the time of its signing. Now that the Indians don’t appear to be contenders, it looks worse, as Wood didn’t have the leads to save last year and may not this year either. Wood has an $11MM option that vests if he finishes 55 games – teams aren’t allowed to use performance-based qualifiers such as saves for options or incentives.
The Indians certainly have incentives to play Wood at the end of the games early in the season, as anything can happen with key injuries to players like Joe Nathan. Mostly, though, the Indians would do well to build up Wood’s trade value, as they could bring in some well needed young arms if Wood shows promise early in the year. As a reliever who will turn 33 this season and is averaging 1 WAR per season over the last three years, it’s unlikely that he will fulfill the value of his option. It will be interesting to see how Wood’s team handles this situation if he is on a contending team, whether that be the Indians or a hypothetical trading partner.
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Has anyone looked at whether teams actually try and manipulate vesting options? Do players with team options have a high probability of falling just short? My guess is that teams that had a reputation for doing this would have more difficulty signing free agents in the future – which might significantly reduce the incentive to do so.
A general question raised here again – when does defense become a liability? Since fielding is measured here against the average, even if every team in the league put great defenders in RF, many players are going to come out as below average. Does the system in place for evaluating defense take into account overall league defense at all? It seems like good defensive players will be valued lower by this measure if other good defenders are brought into the same position.
And the Tigers got “stuck” chasing the division title with Ordonez on a hot streak – you can’t sit your best player to avoid a vesting option for 15 extra games when he’s playing very well and the division is that close.
My response is that you can always look at other types of defensive metrics, such as runs above replacement, etc. Basically replacement level is the level of defense that the Tigers could expect if they pulled a commonly available player (AAAA or AAA) and put them there.
So defense above average suffers from this problem, but above replacement level doesn’t. And yes, while replacement level changes, it’s based on a huge pool of available players (all available by trade or signing MLB and MiLB players, rather than just available MLB). So the adjustments don’t change as quickly.
It’s a minor point, but the Tigers brass never made it sound like salary was an issue, in fact they regularly maintained the opposite. Salary cutting was just always the primary media assumption attached to every story on their dealings. The Tigers never actually claimed any such thing.
Please explain to me, then, why they made the granderson trade.
Similar to the McCourt divorce that they’ve claimed hasn’t influenced the clubs financial decisions, isn’t it?
They were selling high on Granderson before his production went south. You can agree with that evaluation or not. It is a complete fabrication that Mr. I (or the Tigers) are having financial issues. The Tigers had the 3rd or 4th highest attendance in the AL last season.
I would ask those who claim $$$ had anything to do with the Granderson trade… If they had to trade him to save money… Why is payroll nearly the same this season as last???
@mscharer They were looking at long term payroll, not just this years. Without knowing their books and internal financials, suggesting that they’re doing fine by pointing to attendance isn’t really a valid counterargument to mine: I can just wave my hands and say, “but they see the condition of the city of detroit, state of michigan, and expect massive attendance drops.”
Suggesting that they moved Granderson as a baseball decision isn’t backed up by any of the projection systems. Perhaps Detroit made the decision based on that idea, but they were wrong.
It is indeed a complete *guess* that they’re having financial troubles. But given the economy, especially for their fan base, their super high payroll, and the Granderson projections, it’s far more reasonable that they dumped his contract, rather than his skills.
I disagree, I think part of it is because they thought he was on the decline and his value will never be higher. I know some of his metrics suggest otherwise but unless you watch him every game like I did you won’t know the whole story.
People point to his BABIP and just assume he’s been getting unlucky but that isn’t the case. The guy continues to hit more and more popups and infield flys which hurts your chances of getting hits. And when he does hit the ball on the ground often times it’s a weak chopper because he rolls over anything that’s on the outside of the plate. He simply can’t(or atleast doesn’t try) to go the other way(he only had 4 RBIs all year from balls hit the other way). Yes his line drive rate may be the same, but he is easy to defend because he doesn’t use the whole field so those line drives have a better chance to get caught. Teams position themselves perfectly against him and he doesn’t have the bat control to take advantage of other openings on the field.
Also in close games alot of the times he becomes useless after the 6th inning on because teams will bring in their lefty specialist to face him and you basically have 2 options, either keep him in there and make an out or take him out of the game. His biggest attribute at the plate last year was his power but out of his 30HRs only 6 came after the 5th inning so that’s got to tell you something. Also in high leverage situations he just crumbles. Last year he batted .172 with an OPS of .637. Pathetic. And lets not even get into his K/BB ratio, thats not very good at all either.
Lastly he is even declining in the field. He took multiple bad routes throughout the year, which cost the Tigers dearly. He just doesn’t get the jump he used to. Yes it is improved over last year but he is over 12 runs behind what he was in 06 and 07. If you watch him out there you can just see that he doesn’t have the make up speed that he used to but he is still a good defensive player just not a great one.
Now this could be a fluky bad season but he’s declined 2 years in a row and will get a big raise and be on the wrong side of 30 shortly and nobody watches him or scouts him more than the Tigers so obviously they are concerned with it. And it’s not just the Tigers that think this, other scouts do as well, for example read what Keith Law has to say about him. He basically says he’s a good player but not the great player that people think. He has way too many flaws in his game.
With that said I still do think it was worth the trade for the Yankees. I think Granderson’s swing problems may beable to be corrected and with the short porch in left field at Yankee stadium more of those flyballs will find the stands instead of gloves. I loved Granderson when he was here, he was a cool guy and did alot for the community so he will definitely be missed and I do hope for the best for him(except against the Tigers) but when I take off the homer glasses I can see what the Tigers saw in him.
I stopped reading and unsubscribed from this comment thread when I read tobias say, “I know some of his metrics suggest otherwise but unless you watch him every game like I did you won’t know the whole story.”
Such an intentionally obtuse comment has effectively broken the implicit rules of sabermetric discussions. You lose.
Yeah you’re right metrics are the be all end all of everything. Why have scouts or scouting reports when you can just look at their WAR and that’s it? I guess teams shouldn’t send people to scout players since according to you that is useless. Why have analyst breaking down a guys tools? All that matters is what some advance stats say. Newsflash there is more to diagnosing a player then a number. I know it’s hard to get that through some people’s heads on this site because they treat sabermetrics like gospel but they’re not. They’re flaws in it just like any other stat.
I mean don’t get me wrong I like metrics and I use them alot but at the same time I know there is more to a player than just that. Unless you actually watch a player often it’s hard to gauge what kinda player he actually is and what kind of impact he actually had. When I compare players that I don’t watch on a regular basis I don’t just look at metrics and just assume the one that has a better one has more skills. Sabers tell alot of the story but they don’t tell the whole one.
And besides even if you want to look at stats like WAR, you’ll see that last year was his worst season and clearly his worst season at the plate since his rookie year. His WAR slowly keeps declining while he keeps getting older and his price tag keeps getting bigger.
@travis. as I can wave my hands and say as well… the yankees are in new york, the financial industry is centered in new york, the financial industry was struggling, must be the Yankees are having financial troubles too. Obviously a ludicrous statement. But that is the assumption made by many with regard to the Tigers. Despite the clear lack of evidence to prove it.
The Tigers dealt Granderson because they did not believe his contract was worth the production they expected in 2011, 2012, and 2013. To wait until next season to deal him would have meant getting less in return or maybe being stuck with him.
It has nothing to do with the overall financial wherewithal of the Detroit Tigers and everything to do with how they valued Curtis Granderson as a player. They saw him as a very solid CF, who probably had his peak season in 2007, will more than likely move to LF by the end of his contract and struggles at the age of 29 to hit LH pitching. Which is still a very good baseball player. But not irreplaceable.
They were looking at long term payroll, not just this years. Without knowing their books and internal financials, suggesting that they’re doing fine by pointing to attendance isn’t really a valid counterargument to mine: I can just wave my hands and say, “but they see the condition of the city of detroit, state of michigan, and expect massive attendance drops.”
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Not that it necessarily means anything, but the Forbes data had the tigers averaging a ~$4M profit each year from 1998 to 2007. In 2008, after a $41M increase in payroll, they went to -$26M. 2009 data not available from Forbes yet, but is there reason to believe it will be that different than 2008?
This is one of the benefits of the Johnny Damon signing that gets overlooked and that is that it can help Ordonez’s vesting option from kicking in.
Obviously Damon isn’t going to play RF but by having him on the team it can limit Ordonez’s AB’s as a DH because now Guillen moves to that spot. So when Leyland gives Ordonez time off to “rest” in the outfield he has an excuse not to play him in the DH spot because Guillen is a multiple All Star and switch hitter to boot. Before Damon, Guillen would be in the outfield and somebody like Raburn would be the DH so it would be hard to justify to the union sitting Magglio at the DH spot for some 4th OF(even though Raburn came on strong in the 2nd half but I think that was a fluke) . It’s alot easier to do it with a guy that has the career credentials of Guillen.
So if the Damon signing helps prevent that his contract this year basically pays for itself.
Oh and just to comment on letting his option kick in last year. I really think Leyland and the Tiger brass would’ve liked for it not to kick in but their hands were kinda tied. Leyland benched him quite a few times early in the year to limit his ABs and it was easily justified because of the way he was playing. But in the 2nd half is was just impossible to do it to that extent with the way he was playing.
After the All Star break he led the entire AL in batting average and was 5th in OPS and 2nd among OFs. Yeah his metrics might not have been great but do you think the union is going to care about that? All they have to do is say “This guy is a multiple time All Star and a staple in their organization for years(then list those numbers I said)” and I think a grievance would definitely be thrown at the Tigers and I’m fairly confident Magglio would’ve won.
This is why I don’t have a problem with the “contract games” people say go in in MLB or other sports. If the team has ANY sort of option with your salary, they will opt for the most cost effective course every time. That’s sort of their job.
It is the player’s job to earn their way into those millions of dollars. Magglio was playing well enough that the Tiger’s had to let him get AB’s. Jason Heyward might play well enough to earn a spot on the opening day roster—thus starting his arbitration clock and earning himself more money in all likelihood.
But sometimes people talk as if every dollar associated with a player’s contract is guaranteed money and that just isn’t true. Magglio SHOULD have to earn that $15M, most simply agree he isn’t likely to perform to that level.
Granderson was also an extremely poor 2 strike hitter, where he had a .177 Avg. / .473 OPS / .307 BABIP . That was roughly in half of his PA’s (350) also.