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Post by rjp313jr on Sept 10, 2013 10:54:40 GMT -5
You can look at it any number of ways and justify going year to year or extending him. If you can give him 3 years at 8M total then that's less than 3 per season. It's pretty low for a reliable OF/1b who can produce above average numbers. Even if he's a backup it's a low figure and if he's producing in year 3, you will have saved at least a few million on the "cap". In year 2 of arbitration if is production holds he has to be making at least 7M.
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Post by burythehammer on Sept 10, 2013 11:01:51 GMT -5
His 162 game average for his career is .269 with 11 HR and 77 RBI. He doesn't steal bases. He doesn't play every day. Again, AFAIK this is all arbitrators look at, other than like awards or whatever. Yeah he'll get more in ARB2 if he has a similar year in 2014, but I don't think we can say 7M is a minimum.
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Post by jmei on Sept 10, 2013 11:28:48 GMT -5
Let's look at a player comp-- Shin-Soo Choo. He's got a similar profile to Nava but has been a little better in pretty much every single facet of his game, with a better speed/power combo and more playing time (has gotten 640+ PAs in four of his last five seasons). In his first year of arbitration, coming off a .300/.401/.484 season with 22 HRs and 22 SBs and with a .297/.391/.488 career line to that point, he got $3.975m. In his second arb season, coming off an injury-plagued .259/.344/.390 year, he got $4.9m. In his third season, coming off a bounce-back .283/.373/.441 line with 16 HR and 21 SB, he got $7.375m.
A three-year deal with Nava would buy out one pre-arb and two arb years. Choo, a much better player, only got roughly $9.4m over that stretch of his career. Even with inflation, there's little chance Nava would break $8m over that period of his career. In free agent dollars, it doesn't sound like a lot, but you have to remember how cheap pre-arb/arb years come, especially for players with Nava's skillset.
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Post by Guidas on Sept 10, 2013 13:12:48 GMT -5
I think if you offer Nava 3 years for $6-8M he'll think he died and went to heaven. Or at least, Scottsdale. And you'll have a capable 4th OF who you could also likely be able to trade if, miraculously, the Sox develop a couple average or better OFs beyond Bradley in the next couple years.
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Post by johnsilver52 on Sept 10, 2013 13:58:22 GMT -5
I think if you offer Nava 3 years for $6-8M he'll think he died and went to heaven. Or at least, Scottsdale. And you'll have a capable 4th OF who you could also likely be able to trade if, miraculously, the Sox develop a couple average or better OFs beyond Bradley in the next couple years. That is kind of what it's all about as well. A capable 3-4th OF the team has available who can come in and make an impact. Remember how badly Theo wanted David DeJesus just a couple of years ago for instance? He made, even then, between 3.5-6m per season and was putting up Nava like numbers for more money. IMO, time to just pay the guy the team has and take care of him over the next few years, in case he does break out at a higher age against high odds. What Nava has done is good, he's a top notch 4th OF and decent 3rd and won't hurt the team to pay 7-9m spread over 3y 1 bit.
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Post by jchang on Sept 10, 2013 14:03:48 GMT -5
to summarize, even if the FO does not give Nava a 3-year contract, the arbitration salary will not break the Red Sox bank. so either way, Nava is a bargain and putting up above average batting for a starting OF.
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Post by jmei on Sept 10, 2013 14:09:33 GMT -5
I see little reason why the front office should bear the risk of performance volatility as Nava enters his 30s. Nava is already under team control over the next four years. He won't be a free agent until after 2017 (when he would be entering his age-35 season). The main advantages to extending him now are (a) cost certainty and (b) potentially saving a few million dollars if Nava improves over the next few years. Those factors don't matter much to a team like the Red Sox that won't be pressing up against their payroll limit in the next few years (and even if they do, the ownership has rarely shied away from paying the luxury tax for a good team). (The other advantage (the ability to buy out valuable free-agent years) doesn't apply to Nava since the front office would presumably not want to guarantee a good salary for Nava's age-35 year five years in advance).
I understand wanting to pay Nava out of sentimental reasons, but remember that if he stays healthy and plays well he'll get paid through arbitration anyways. If Nava continues to play well, he'll be rewarded through the arbitration system while the front office will be happy to keep paying him-- a true win-win situation. If he doesn't play well, however, I'd like the front office to have the flexibility to non-tender him. I'm sure the FO understands the sunk cost fallacy, but we see over and over again teams keeping over-the-hill players on guaranteed contracts even when they'd be better off DFAing them and bringing up a prospect or a FA acquisition.
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Post by The Town Sports Cards on Sept 11, 2013 8:25:03 GMT -5
How are people still so down on Daniel Nava? He has the 4th best OPS among AL Outfielders, in other words there are 11 other AL teams who's BEST outfielder, isn't putting up as good of numbers as Nava is. He is ahead of such players as Ellsbury, Adam Jones, Josh Hamilton, Yoenis Cespedes, Alex Gordon (who was a popular trade target on these boards in the offseason), and Ichiro Suzuki just to name a few. Why not reward the guy with a 3/yr $6-8M deal with almost no risk involved rather than worry about arbitration every year?
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Post by chavopepe2 on Sept 11, 2013 9:05:06 GMT -5
How are people still so down on Daniel Nava? He has the 4th best OPS among AL Outfielders, in other words there are 11 other AL teams who's BEST outfielder, isn't putting up as good of numbers as Nava is. He is ahead of such players as Ellsbury, Adam Jones, Josh Hamilton, Yoenis Cespedes, Alex Gordon (who was a popular trade target on these boards in the offseason), and Ichiro Suzuki just to name a few. Why not reward the guy with a 3/yr $6-8M deal with almost no risk involved rather than worry about arbitration every year?Because you currently have the guy under team control where his contract is not guaranteed and you can go year-to-year with him well still most likely paying him less than $8M total. This isn't a charity. It would be a poor business decision to extend Nava.
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Post by elguapo on Sept 11, 2013 9:30:03 GMT -5
There is a $ figure at which it makes sense to sign Nava to a guaranteed deal -- instead of harping about how $8M over 3 is too high, propose a number that makes sense to you. Who's going to line up to argue that $1M/year for 3 years would be a poor business decision for the Sox?
A guaranteed deal can offer lower overall cost, cost certainty, and spread the lux tax hit evenly (a benefit if the Sox think they don't need the space next season but may in the future). Two or three very real benefits for the Sox, and a guarantee would be an obvious benefit to Nava.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 11, 2013 9:30:39 GMT -5
How are people still so down on Daniel Nava? He has the 4th best OPS among AL Outfielders, in other words there are 11 other AL teams who's BEST outfielder, isn't putting up as good of numbers as Nava is. He is ahead of such players as Ellsbury, Adam Jones, Josh Hamilton, Yoenis Cespedes, Alex Gordon (who was a popular trade target on these boards in the offseason), and Ichiro Suzuki just to name a few. Why not reward the guy with a 3/yr $6-8M deal with almost no risk involved rather than worry about arbitration every year? I'm not one of these "Nava is a mirage" guys, but you do have to be carful with some of those comps, because despite the fact that Nava feels like a young player, he's not. He's actually older than all the players you listed except Hamilton and Suzuki. He's had a great season, sure. But he's also 30, three years past a player's expected peak, and while there is a chance that he's Matt Stairs and he's just going to keep doing this for another decade plus, but if I had to bet money, I'd bet that he never has a season this good again.
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Post by jchang on Sept 11, 2013 9:51:44 GMT -5
Without having made a study of arbitration salaries vs performance, I would venture a guess that the guys who got contracts, which always included one (or two) years beyond the arb years, were probably getting for the arb year in line with what they would have gotten in arbitration. So basically the player got financial security in exchange for the team getting an extra year. The purpose of getting an extra year or two was not for a discount rate, but rather that the alternative is to commit to a 5-7 year deal at the end of arb, which potentially includes a players declining years. I am thinking the situation for Nava is that with consistent performance, he may get comparable money to what has been mentioned here in the arb years. Afterwards, he may be looking at a 2-3 year contract as opposed to a 28 year old all-star player looking for 5-7 yrs. Anyways, I am glad we have Nava, who was only expected to be a 4th OF, delivering above average starter performance. Even if his game continues to elevate, that's a good problem to have and it won't break the RS bankroll.
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Post by rjp313jr on Sept 11, 2013 10:39:33 GMT -5
Hopefully, we can all at least agree that going year to year or giving a 3 year 8M contract are both low risk propositions for the Sox. We can argue which way is better, but based on reasonable expected return, either works. More importantly the risk is extremely low. To the point it's really not worth caring about as a fan. However, I will flip flop a bit and say they should simply renew his contract this year. Sucks being cold blooded, but why sign a 31 year old to an 8M dollar contract when you can have him for 750K. Especially when you still own him after that. Good points. It doesn't matter if he had a kid. Maybe he doesn't need to live like a millionaire athlete.
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rfan
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Post by rfan on Sept 11, 2013 11:27:56 GMT -5
Isn't it Red Sox policy that to extend a guy before free agency they have to get at least 2 free agent years guaranteed or as team options (or something like that)? As much as we all love Nava, he's clearly not young enough to buy out free agent years, and I doubt the front office would be willing to make an exception for him.
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Post by jmei on Sept 11, 2013 11:29:21 GMT -5
There is a $ figure at which it makes sense to sign Nava to a guaranteed deal -- instead of harping about how $8M over 3 is too high, propose a number that makes sense to you. Who's going to line up to argue that $1M/year for 3 years would be a poor business decision for the Sox? A guaranteed deal can offer lower overall cost, cost certainty, and spread the lux tax hit evenly (a benefit if the Sox think they don't need the space next season but may in the future). Two or three very real benefits for the Sox, and a guarantee would be an obvious benefit to Nava. Here's the thing-- in either direction, the worst the Red Sox can do is overpay or underpay for a couple million dollars, which frankly I don't care that much about either way. My main worry is that extending a player at his peak value is almost always a bad idea, especially when the player is entering his decline years, offers limited defensive value, and has just come off a breakout year with unsustainable peripherals (mainly, a high BABIP). Also, I'm concerned that Nava just falls off a cliff in a year or two, between his age, his injury history, and his bad defense in LF. And if he's on a guaranteed contract at that point, I worry that they'll keep him on the roster rather than giving the spot to a more deserving player. It may seem trivial now, but it happens every year, and it always drives me nuts. I might be talked into offering three years, $6.5m with two team options (let's say $4m and $7m) at the end. If I'm guaranteeing him cash, I want the potential to grab some surplus value at the back end.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Sept 11, 2013 12:27:32 GMT -5
This is in line with what I believe the team probably sees when they look at Nava, although I disagree about the unsustainable BABIP. That number is in line with what he's done in the past, during his minor league career. The projections for this year had him somewhere between .315 and .342, and he's slightly over that. He's done much better during his minor league days, so it could sustain. But while he might come close to replicating this season in the short term, that's not guaranteed at all given his age. And he could easily be extended next year if this one proves not to have been an outlier. He's later than most in starting his career and that has an effect on everything else: his skillset, his projection, and his earning power. While that might seem unfair, that is probably what the team will consider when they evaluate him. He's not even arbitration eligible until 2015, I believe, and it's 2018 till he's a free agent. He'll be 35, and a lot of players are wrapping it up right about then. That's not to say he won't get a contract. He's a very dependable OBP guy. That has value. But he'll probably never break the $5 million/year mark.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2013 13:59:30 GMT -5
I still think that Nava is someone with whom you go year to year and you don't. I agree with Fenway that 2013 is likely the best season he'll ever have. I've mentioned this before, but even with his recent September improvement, he did the majority of his damage before June 20th.
There are two stats of note.
Despite being known for taking walks, Nava's walk rate has fallen was nearly 13% before June 20, and 8% after and this includes a recent stretch with a 30% plus walk rate earlier this month.
I like to look at the percentage of games where the player made a real impact with his bat (w/RAA>0), before June 20 it was 52% of games, after it was 36%.
HR rate fell to .5% from 3.6% despite making more contact per PA due to slightly lower K rate and much lower BB rate.
Nava's fans will quibble with these numbers and dismiss them as small pieces of data. But they aren't. They point to a player, whom as it is won't put up a WAR of 2.0 this year and will probably be worse next year. You don't sign players like that to long-term deals after 30. You hope just hope they don't completely collapse.
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Post by knuckledown on Sept 11, 2013 14:30:18 GMT -5
I still think that Nava is someone with whom you go year to year and you don't. I agree with Fenway that 2013 is likely the best season he'll ever have. I've mentioned this before, but even with his recent September improvement, he did the majority of his damage before June 20th. There are two stats of note. Despite being known for taking walks, Nava's walk rate has fallen was nearly 13% before June 20, and 8% after and this includes a recent stretch with a 30% plus walk rate earlier this month. I like to look at the percentage of games where the player made a real impact with his bat (w/RAA>0), before June 20 it was 52% of games, after it was 36%. HR rate fell to .5% from 3.6% despite making more contact per PA due to slightly lower K rate and much lower BB rate. Nava's fans will quibble with these numbers and dismiss them as small pieces of data. But they aren't. They point to a player, whom as it is won't put up a WAR of 2.0 this year and will probably be worse next year. You don't sign players like that to long-term deals after 30. You hope just hope they don't completely collapse. All good points favoring the year-to-year approach, but I take exception with his UZR -9.9 rating, which is the biggest drag on his WAR. Nava appears to my eye to be pretty average and that measure doesn't make sense.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2013 14:51:43 GMT -5
I think that your eye is hampe
I am not saying that UZR is perfect, but in this case I don't think it's too far off. Your eye maybe skewed by a couple of things. First off, he plays a lot of LF in the smallest LF in the majors. Second, LFs are better around the league than you might expect. The Greg Luzinski types that many normally think of as a typical LF are mostly gone. In their place are players that are far more athletic and faster than Nava. Further he's on the same team as Gomes, and Carp who are absolute butchers in the OF.
Nava is also hurt by having played 400 innings in RF, a position that stretches his athletic skills especially at home, and 85 innings at 1B, a position in which he has no experience.
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Post by jmei on Sept 11, 2013 16:01:25 GMT -5
Nava'z UZR this year is a little funny. He apparently racked up -1.6 UZR in 8 (!) innings of emergency duty at CF, -1.4 UZR in 85.2 innings at 1B, and -4.8 UZR for 400 innings in RF. That's three-quarters of a win's worth of bad defensive rating playing out of position. I don't think he's quite that bad.
If he stays in LF, he's a 3.5 fWAR kind of player per 600 PAs, but even there he's probably a below-average defender there and should only play RF under emergency circumstances. This year, he's played almost as much in RF as he has in LF, which is a gross overstretching of Nava's ability (he doesn't have the range for it). The defensive stats rate him poorly at 1B but maybe he can improve there with time.
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Post by johnsilver52 on Sept 11, 2013 17:14:23 GMT -5
Nava'z UZR this year is a little funny. He apparently racked up -1.6 UZR in 8 (!) innings of emergency duty at CF, -1.4 UZR in 85.2 innings at 1B, and -4.8 UZR for 400 innings in RF. That's three-quarters of a win's worth of bad defensive rating playing out of position. I don't think he's quite that bad. If he stays in LF, he's a 3.5 fWAR kind of player per 600 PAs, but even there he's probably a below-average defender there and should only play RF under emergency circumstances. This year, he's played almost as much in RF as he has in LF, which is a gross overstretching of Nava's ability (he doesn't have the range for it). The defensive stats rate him poorly at 1B but maybe he can improve there with time. I really don't think he's had enough work at 1b to get enough judgement of his abilities on that. Less than 10G total at the MLB level, -0- in the minors. It's why I'd like to see him play the position exclusively during ST. If a guy like Napoli can barely play it? Then a guy like Nava, Gomes, maybe even Lavarnway can learn to. Have mentioned this before here, but George Scott in his last couple of seasons played 1b with a balloon belly and even made the basic moves around the bag. Nava can move, as long as he has any reactions to grounders, line drives he should do ok and ST could determine that. My thoughts.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 12, 2013 1:06:53 GMT -5
The defensive stats rate him poorly at 1B but maybe he can improve there with time. I really don't think he's had enough work at 1b to get enough judgement of his abilities on that. Less than 10G total at the MLB level, -0- in the minors. It's why I'd like to see him play the position exclusively during ST. If a guy like Napoli can barely play it? Then a guy like Nava, Gomes, maybe even Lavarnway can learn to. Have mentioned this before here, but George Scott in his last couple of seasons played 1b with a balloon belly and even made the basic moves around the bag. Nava can move, as long as he has any reactions to grounders, line drives he should do ok and ST could determine that. My thoughts. Have we ever seen Daniel Nava not improve at something he worked hard at? To my eyes, he's already made some progress this year. Give him another winter and spring and I think he'll be a reasonable defender there.
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jimoh
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Post by jimoh on Sept 12, 2013 5:48:01 GMT -5
Have we ever seen Daniel Nava not improve at something he worked hard at? ... Height?
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Post by The Town Sports Cards on Sept 12, 2013 7:19:36 GMT -5
If coaches told Daniel Nava to get taller, he'd show up to spring training next year looking like this:
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Post by knuckledown on Sept 12, 2013 9:34:47 GMT -5
Not for lack of trying:
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