Friday, April 16, 2004
The Anderson Deal
Posted by Dave StudemanA lot has been written and said about the Garrett Anderson contract. I would like to throw in my two cents worth, based on this article.
GA is actually going to be paid about $13M a year for four years, because the Angels will have to buy out the fifth year of his contract.
Last year, teams spent, on average, $860 thousand for each Win Share Above Average (WSAR) from free agents. So, at $13M a year, GA would be "expected" to produce 15 WSAR on average.
He actually produced around 16 WSAR last year, which would seem to make this a good deal for both parties.
However, he plays a position (or positions, I guess) with a lot of other good players. And, as we've said, teams are paying much less for free agents these days. Maybe 25% to 35% less. Both these facts are somewhat offset by the fact that the Angels play in a major media market, and will/should pay more for talent.
Put these together, and I'll propose that GA should be paid around $650 thousand for each WSAR.
But the other key fact is that GA will be turning 33 in the FIRST year of this contract. His value will almost certainly decline, maybe dramatically, by the time he turns 36.
Win Shares should not be used to predict future performance, but let me just guess here and say that he's likely to average 14 WSAR over the life of this contract (which is about the same as 22 Win Shares a year).
So I would have paid him around $9 million a year, myself (14 times $650 thousand a year). I think the Angels paid about $4M a year ($16M in total) more than they needed to.
Dave was called a "national treasure" by Rob Neyer. Seriously. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.