Rangers Sign Shin-Soo Choo - 7 Years

[depraved]

Boras works his magic yet again.

 

[Fountain City Blues]

Ridiculous amount of money being thrown around. Do people think he will succeed in Texas or fall on his face?

Click the link I posted, if history is any indication of similar WAR players, it is rather poor.

 

[redseat]

Click the link I posted, if history is any indication of similar WAR players, it is rather poor.

yeah according to the chart yes.. Still a ton of money

 

[ImSmartherThanYou]

Not sure if Boras or Texas....

Why pay over market value, when no competition?

They didn't pay over market value. The market value for 30+ year old outfielders has increased dramatically thanks to the Ellsbury deal. Choo is as good or better than Ellsbury.

 

[ImSmartherThanYou]

He'll succeed in Texas - especially with the guys around him... As long as he stays healthly, he should be able to average 15-20 HR, 60-70 RBI, 70-80 Runs, 10-20 SB and he should maintain his OPS around .800. Is that worth $18m per year? Who knows?

The only thing that irks me is that Texas probably could have gotten him for less. By most indications, all other teams had dropped out... But, who knows....

Seriously? Batting in front of Beltre and Fielder and getting on base at or near a .400 clip, you think he'll only be good for 70-80 runs?

 

[GMATCa]

Awesome! He and Prince figure to add quite a punch to our lineup!

It looks great for 2014, but long-term, these contracts make little sense, if any.

 

[GMATCa]

They didn't pay over market value. The market value for 30+ year old outfielders has increased dramatically thanks to the Ellsbury deal. Choo is as good or better than Ellsbury.

The New York Yankees distort the market.

 

[GMATCa]

the cost of living in NY over about anywhere in Texas is another factor...that could put this at a better value deal.

Yeah, the combined factors of the state/city income tax and the cost of living probably give Choo a superior value on $130M in Texas than $140M in New York. However, his endorsement opportunities would have been greater in New York, especially given that the Big Apple features a much bigger Korean and Korean-American population. Thus the combination of $140M and endorsements may have still granted New York the greater economic potential for Choo.

Perhaps he's a low-key guy who did not relish the possibility of playing in New York, or perhaps Boras mistakenly imagined that there was a $150M deal for Choo, as there was for Ellsbury.

 

[BigDDude]

Said he wanted to play for a contender.

Maybe after playing for Korea as he did, he just did not want to join another Evil Empire??????

 

[TDs3nOut]

Maybe after playing for Korea as he did, he just did not want to join another Evil Empire??????

Funny quip, though I don't think it's literally true. That is, Choo didn't play for North Korea, so NYY would have still been his first evil empire team.

 

[TDs3nOut]

It looks great for 2014, but long-term, these contracts make little sense, if any.

Seems to me that long-term sense is best found in developing a good farm system. Signing some FAs to expensive deals can be an effective short-term complement to that.

 

[BigDDude]

Funny quip, though I don't think it's literally true. That is, Choo didn't play for North Korea, so NYY would have still been his first evil empire team.

Of course. However, with so little new and interesting MLB info to deal with, and so few folks on this board to deal with, I am admittedly scraping the bottom of my posting barrell today.

And only 5 more very long and boring hours to kill.............

 

[GMATCa]

Seems to me that long-term sense is best found in developing a good farm system. Signing some FAs to expensive deals can be an effective short-term complement to that.

... but these are long-term deals ...

I just wouldn't want to be paying Choo this type of salary when he's thirty-seven or thirty-eight. Rarely do such free agent deals provide teams with the value that they're expecting, for they're paying more for what a guy has already done than what he is likely to do as he ages.

Maybe the Rangers' new television deal renders the risk palatable, and the short-term promise is obvious. However, I don't think that these contracts make any real business sense, whether it's the Mariners with Cano, the Angels with Pujols, the Yankees with some of their signings, or what have you. The Red Sox figured out that you can get similar, if not better, results with a much more efficient economic model that creates greater roster flexibility and clubhouse cohesion.

And unlike the Mariners, the Rangers shouldn't have been desperate to sign any particular free agent.

 

[TDs3nOut]

... but these are long-term deals ...

I just wouldn't want to be paying Choo this type of salary when he's thirty-seven or thirty-eight. Rarely do such free agent deals provide teams with the value that they're expecting, for they're paying more for what a guy has already done than what he is likely to do as he ages.

I don't think any team really "wants" to sign a thirty year old player to a seven-year deal. In order to get a particular player, they sometimes have to do that, though.

 

[GMATCa]

I don't think any team really "wants" to sign a thirty year old player to a seven-year deal. In order to get a particular player, they sometimes have to do that, though.

... right, but then there's the question of whether the risk is worth the reward. Usually, I don't think that it is, but if Texas wins the World Series in 2014, then the matter changes. Yet since winning a World Series, or baseball's postseason results in general, are disproportionately influenced by randomness most years, I don't think that one should construct a roster on that basis. What makes more sense is ensuring the long-term viability of the franchise so that one is in the postseason constantly.

I added to my previous post, by the way.

 

[BigDDude]

... right, but then there's the question of whether the risk is worth the reward. Usually, I don't think that it is, but if Texas wins the World Series in 2014, then the matter changes. Yet since winning a World Series, or baseball's postseason results in general, are disproportionately influenced by randomness most years, I don't think that one should construct a roster on that basis. What makes more sense is ensuring the long-term viability of the franchise so that one is in the postseason constantly.

I added to my previous post, by the way.

Are you Billy Beane? If not, you sound a lot like him. And, this is what he does. However, with this in mind, I think he would actually like to make it past the first round now and again, so.....?

 

[steveringo]

Seriously? Batting in front of Beltre and Fielder and getting on base at or near a .400 clip, you think he'll only be good for 70-80 runs?

I can't sneak anything by... I was intentionally posting everything low - I guess I over-did it with the runs (or under-did it?)... I actually think all of his stats will increase in TX....

I don't agree with the size and length of the contract - even if it is 'market value'...

I think all players are grossly over-paid.

 

[TDs3nOut]

... right, but then there's the question of whether the risk is worth the reward. Usually, I don't think that it is, but if Texas wins the World Series in 2014, then the matter changes. Yet since winning a World Series, or baseball's postseason results in general, are disproportionately influenced by randomness most years, I don't think that one should construct a roster on that basis. What makes more sense is ensuring the long-term viability of the franchise so that one is in the postseason constantly.

I added to my previous post, by the way.

I'm not prepared to argue that singing Prince and Choo guarantees success, but I certainly think that they improve the chance of success. And I think that they do that beyond just this upcoming season. I'm certainly no expert on how best to run a baseball organization (and even the guys who are experts come up short far more often than not), but it seems to me that the combination of developing a quality farm system and acquiring key free agents are pretty important parts of running a successful organization.

 

[GMATCa]

Are you Billy Beane? If not, you sound a lot like him. And, this is what he does. However, with this in mind, I think he would actually like to make it past the first round now and again, so.....?

One would imagine that possessing the best starting pitching in the league, as was probably the case with Oakland from 2000-2003, would be a ticket to advancing out of the first round, yet the Athletics lost in the ALDS all four years, actually losing in a winner-take-all Game Five all four years. Baseball is a sport where truth emerges over enormous data samples, playing nearly every day for six months. To think that anything definitive or decisive will necessarily emerge by incongruously funneling 162-game results into a best-of-five (or even best-of-seven) playoff series is fallacious.

Just look at Texas: the Rangers were the best team in baseball over the two-year span of 2010-2011, but they did not win the World Series. The fact that they lost the World Series in 2011 to St. Louis was largely a fluke; that's the nature of baseball in small samples, where these isn't enough of a volume to neutralize all the randomness, fickleness, and volatility of the game.

The real championship in baseball should be the regular season. Postseason results can occasionally confirm the regular season, as in 2013, but usually they just create confusion.

 

[GMATCa]

I'm not prepared to argue that singing Prince and Choo guarantees success, but I certainly think that they improve the chance of success. And I think that they do that beyond just this upcoming season. I'm certainly no expert on how best to run a baseball organization (and even the guys who are experts come up short far more often than not), but it seems to me that the combination of developing a quality farm system and acquiring key free agents are pretty important parts of running a successful organization.

I don't disagree, but the question is the kind of contracts that you give to certain free agents. Let's take the Atlanta Braves when they finished in first place in their division for fourteen consecutive completed seasons (1991-1993, 1995-2005). In all that time, a span of a decade and a half, Atlanta only inked three elite, external free agents: Greg Maddux to a five-year contract in 1992, Andres Galarraga to a three-year contract in 1997, and Brian Jordan to a five-year contract in 1998. Maddux was the reigning National League Cy Young recipient and only twenty-six when the Braves signed him; Galarraga's contract was only for three years; and Jordan's contract proved reasonable enough that the Braves could unload the last two years in a trade that netted Gary Sheffield, perhaps the National League's best right-handed hitter at that time (discounting the steroidal Sammy Sosa). Otherwise, the Braves relied on a high-quality farm system, trades, the retention of their own players to rational contracts, and minor external free agents such as Terry Pendleton, Sid Bream, and Rafael Belliard prior to the 1991 season. Atlanta did not, conversely, grant the kinds of contracts that became major albatrosses or liabilities later on, the type that hamstring roster flexibility and continued success. The only major exception came when the Braves absorbed Mike Hampton's (discounted) contract after the 2002 season. Hampton helped the Braves win three more division titles from 2003-2005, but he broke down during the 2005 season and did not pitch again for almost three full years as Atlanta's divisional dynasty came to a close.

Signing Choo for three years at $55M would have made sense for Texas, but if history is an indication, signing him for seven years at $130M means that the Rangers will be spending the majority of the time regretting or debating the contract. The same will probably be true of absorbing Prince Fielder's contract, even at a mild discount and with the partial off-set of dumping Ian Kinsler's contract. Ranger fans should be understandably excited about 2014 and maybe the 2014-2016 years, but Texas' payroll structure could look ridiculous from 2017-2020.

And that could be a good-case scenario; just ask the Angels about those contracts for Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton.