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Tuesday Notes: Chris Young, Scott Boras, Brian Sabean

posted by Shawn Hoffman, on April 8th, 2008 at 07:44 am, in category Uncategorized
  • I’m not sure how I feel about long-term deals for players with one full year of service time (i.e. Troy Tulowitzki, and most recently Chris Young). The teams seem to be taking on much of the risk, in exchange for relatively minimal cost savings down the road. If Chris Young turns out to be a stud centerfielder (which he hasn’t been to this point, PECOTA aside), the D-Backs will control his rights for an extra year at a relatively low price, saving several million dollars. But if Young flops, Arizona will be on the hook for many more millions than they ever could have saved.In all likelihood, Young will come somewhere in between, and this deal won’t look particularly good or particularly bad (which is why I have trouble criticizing it outright). But having an extra year of performance to go on certainly wouldn’t hurt, given the long-term nature of these deals.
  • As exorbitant as $9.5 million seems for a player with no professional experience, Scott Boras is right to push these limits; smart teams know how high the ROI is for first round picks as a whole (and this is particularly true for the first overall pick in most drafts). A draftee’s signing bonus is essentially the price of that player’s first three years in the big leagues. No matter how you look at it, a three year, seven-digit deal with a top amateur is always a good bet.
  • Neal Huntington said last fall that the Pirates were in even worse shape than he had thought when he originally took over as general manager. Well, I can’t even imagine what the Giants’ next GM will say. As Joe Sheehan put it, San Francisco’s lineup “calls to mind the waning days of the Rachel Phelps Era.” They’ve scored sixteen runs in seven games, and while it’s far too early to make any real conclusions, we knew coming in that this could be a historically bad offense if things broke wrong. And no, there isn’t much help coming any time soon either (remember when Brian Sabean used to purposely sign Type A free agents in order to give up his first round picks?), barring a major midseason pickup.


Feedback? Write a comment, or e-mail the author at shawn(AT)squawkingbaseball.com


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  1. on April 8th at 09:14 am
    Andrew said:

    Regarding your first bullet, what’s interesting to me about these contracts is that it’s bringing younger players more in line with what they would earn if not monopolized by their team. It seems some teams are recognizing that non-arb players still have considerable value and they feel it’s worth paying them up front if they can buy an extra year or two down the road. Plus, that has to help future negotiations since the players won’t be dying to finally rake in the big bucks and feel compelled to automatically jump to the highest bidder.

    When you combine this trend with the payouts non-arb guys like Papelbon are demanding (and getting), it makes me wonder if there’s an overall trend towards more of a free market.

  2. on April 8th at 02:47 pm
    John Peterson said:

    Sabean used to purposely sign Type As in order to give up draft picks? Why the hell would he do that? Is there some source for that?

  3. on April 8th at 04:14 pm
    squawkingbaseball said:

    John - The Giants took that approach for a number of years, purposely signing guys like Omar Vizquel and Michael Tucker early in the FA season. As crazy as it sounds, Sabean was actually very open with it. This is from an
    MLB.com chat in January of 2004:

    nick_gee: Can you elaborate on the reason for signing Michael Tucker just hours before the deadline for offering players arbitration expired, thus forfeiting this year’s first-round draft pick. Was it a mistake? Or was it just a way of saving money?

    Sabean: We were able to use the first-round draft pick money to apply to our Major League payroll and figured, by where we pick in the first round, we can get the same type of player or pitcher for half the price with our second selection.

    Pretty damn ignorant, if you ask me. But then why should that surprise us, given his track record?

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