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Post by notstarboard on Mar 8, 2024 22:03:50 GMT -5
How do you reach this conclusion? If he were to hit free agency as a consistent 2-WAR pitcher in 2029, I think he would definitely do better than 2/29. And you think he'd only be looking at HALF of that?
For comparison: Lugo just got 3/45 based on one good season as a starter at age 33. Hicks, who hasn't even been a starter, got 4/44. Wacha, with a 1.5 WAR projection, got 2/32. Maeda is 36 and has totaled 210 IP and 3 WAR over the last two seasons and he got 2/32. Take those as a conservative baseline and add in 5 years of inflation. And then also factor in the benefit to the Red Sox of adding some payroll stability to their long-term planning. ADD: Actually I don't know why I overcomplicated this. If you're saying this extension is basically paying him $29 million for his two free agent years, and we're stipulating he'd perform at 2 x 2 = 4 WAR over those two years, then of course $29 million for 4 WAR is a good deal.
I think I see the issue - you're one year off (add: as Scotty caught above). the 29mil would be for ONE year, not two, and my estimates are on the high-end and assuming greater payroll inflation than we are currently seeing. The second free agent year would be an additional 21mil, or 50mil total. You can certainly argue that a 2-war Bello gets closer to 18mil/1 or 36mil/2, but that's the high end, and still well short of what the Red Sox are paying - not accounting for any additional risk. I was already accounting for inflation, which is why I estimated 26mil through arb for the first 5 years. If they had bought out 2 free agent years (before the option), then I would certainly agree with you, but the 1 less free agent year is huge in the calculation. The payroll number may be a benefit 4-6 years from now for the CBT, but given the health risk pitchers face, price stability can backfire real quick. ADD: I'm not complaining about the deal. It's only high if he's a 2-WAR guy going forward. If he becomes a 3-WAR guy then it's a good deal. Dane Dunning isn't an ideal comp, since he hasn't been as good as Bello ever. He has had three full seasons with xERAs between 4.48 and 4.76. He hit 2.1 fWAR last year for the first time (which should result in less arb money than a guy who put up 2 WAR all three pre-arb years) purely through volume (172.2 IP). His ERA was solid (3.70), his FIP was mediocre (4.27), both his ERA and FIP outperformed his xFIP, SIERA, and xERA, so fWAR and bWAR are both going to inflate how good he actually was.
With that said, you've convinced me that Bello would have to be more like a 3-WAR guy for this to save the Sox much money. However, 1) He only really needs to get to that level by the years that are being bought out, since the real advantage of this deal is getting two extra years of control over a guy who probably would sign for much longer than two years in free agency, and 2) even if they don't quite break even on dollar value, the team still gets some benefit from evening out his AAVs, including from adding that extra ~$8.2 million to the tax calculation this year when they have plenty of space under the CBT.
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Post by wcsoxfan on Mar 8, 2024 22:40:48 GMT -5
Dane Dunning isn't an ideal comp, since he hasn't been as good as Bello ever. He has had three full seasons with xERAs between 4.48 and 4.76. He hit 2.1 fWAR last year for the first time (which should result in less arb money than a guy who put up 2 WAR all three pre-arb years) purely through volume (172.2 IP). His ERA was solid (3.70), his FIP was mediocre (4.27), both his ERA and FIP outperformed his xFIP, SIERA, and xERA, so fWAR and bWAR are both going to inflate how good he actually was. With that said, you've convinced me that Bello would have to be more like a 3-WAR guy for this to save the Sox much money. However, 1) He only really needs to get to that level by the years that are being bought out, since the real advantage of this deal is getting two extra years of control over a guy who probably would sign for much longer than two years in free agency, and 2) even if they don't quite break even on dollar value, the team still gets some benefit from evening out his AAVs, including from adding that extra ~$8.2 million to the tax calculation this year when they have plenty of space under the CBT.
Dane Dunning isn't a comp for Bello, as I think we would all be disappointed if Bello didn't exceed his performance/projections and he's 1.5 years younger with a better pedigree. Dunning is the best comp I could find for what a 2-WAR pitcher looks like in terms of earning power in an arbitration year to create a 4/8/12 inflated salary projection. Whether WAR should be used to evaluate pitchers is a valid conversation, but it's not relevant to this string posts regarding whether he would out perform his contract if he's only a 2-WAR player. If Bello is a 2-WAR pitcher in years 1-5, then turns into a 3-WAR pitcher for years 6-7, he should exceed his pay, if he were to stay healthy throughout. If we are conservative with health risk and assume one missed season among six healthy seasons (which would be pretty lucky), then I think we've reached the break even point.
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Post by incandenza on Mar 8, 2024 22:48:43 GMT -5
How do you reach this conclusion? If he were to hit free agency as a consistent 2-WAR pitcher in 2029, I think he would definitely do better than 2/29. And you think he'd only be looking at HALF of that?
For comparison: Lugo just got 3/45 based on one good season as a starter at age 33. Hicks, who hasn't even been a starter, got 4/44. Wacha, with a 1.5 WAR projection, got 2/32. Maeda is 36 and has totaled 210 IP and 3 WAR over the last two seasons and he got 2/32. Take those as a conservative baseline and add in 5 years of inflation. And then also factor in the benefit to the Red Sox of adding some payroll stability to their long-term planning. ADD: Actually I don't know why I overcomplicated this. If you're saying this extension is basically paying him $29 million for his two free agent years, and we're stipulating he'd perform at 2 x 2 = 4 WAR over those two years, then of course $29 million for 4 WAR is a good deal.
I think I see the issue - you're one year off (add: as Scotty caught above). the 29mil would be for ONE year, not two, and my estimates are on the high-end and assuming greater payroll inflation than we are currently seeing. The second free agent year would be an additional 21mil, or 50mil total. You can certainly argue that a 2-war Bello gets closer to 18mil/1 or 36mil/2, but that's the high end, and still well short of what the Red Sox are paying - not accounting for any additional risk. I was already accounting for inflation, which is why I estimated 26mil through arb for the first 5 years. If they had bought out 2 free agent years (before the option), then I would certainly agree with you, but the 1 less free agent year is huge in the calculation. The payroll number may be a benefit 4-6 years from now for the CBT, but given the health risk pitchers face, price stability can backfire real quick. ADD: I'm not complaining about the deal. It's only high if he's a 2-WAR guy going forward. If he becomes a 3-WAR guy then it's a good deal. Oh okay, got it. I still think this is a fine extension if he's a 2 WAR pitcher, for reasons that have been pointed out (e.g., what notstarboard says above). The risk is just not that high, and it seems to line up well with the team's future costs to shift 2028-2030 costs forward to 2024-2026; like half the roster is pre-arb/arb1 the next three years.
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