In the last 17 days, the Atlanta Braves have spent more than a quarter billion dollars locking up a good number of their young, homegrown stars to longterm contract extensions. For a team like the Dodgers or the Yankees or even the Red Sox, this would be cause for unbridled celebration. But for Atlanta, a team whose ownership group is a large media conglomerate that views them as just another asset with a tightly controlled budget structure, there is a tinge of apprehension in the air. Or at least there should be.
Up the East Coast a bit, but still in the Braves division, we find the Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies were once the toast of the MLB, taking the NL pennant in both 2008 and 2009, winning the World Series in ’08 too. Today though, they are the delusional little brother, looking up at the big dogs in the division.
How did this happen in just 5 short years? Well, the Phillies fell in love with the players that brought them the success, so much so that they over paid them to stick around well past their primes. Ryan Howard has just under 1000 days remaining on a contract that paid him $125 million over 5 years and is now regarded as perhaps the second worst pact in all of baseball. At best, Howard is a platoon first basemen. At worst, he’s almost useless.
Chase Utley signed a $27 million extension before last season despite missing almost 100 games the previous year with a DEGENERATIVE knee condition.
Former MVP Jimmy Rollins is entering the final year of a 3 year-$33 million deal, but has been steadily declining since 2007. He hit .252 with 6 homers last season.
(Not to mention Jon Papelbon, who is in the final 2 seasons of a 4 year- $50 million deal that the Phillies spent all winter trying unsuccessfully to move.)
Why the history lesson? Because the Phillies are the worst case scenario. They’ve overpaid to wed themselves to declining or injury prone (or both) players simply because they’re the fan favorites. Sentimentality doesn’t win you ball games.
There are, however, some key differences between what the Phillies have done and what the Braves are doing. Jimmy Rollins is 35. Chase Utley is 35. Ryan Howard is 34. None are done with their contracts. Of the players the Braves just extended long term–Andrelton Simmons, Freddie Freeman, Julio Teheran, Jason Heyward, and Craig Kimbrel–the oldest anyone will be at the end of their contracts is 32.
That’s the good part.
The bad part is the huge, gigantic, enormous level of risk involved. Baseball is an unpredictable game. Aside from normal performance decline, which happens to everyone but not always at the age we expect, injuries, prolonged slumps, and other freak occurrences are a fact of life.
On the first point, can I draw your attention to Matt Harvey? Harvey is a division rival Met whose rise to Cy Young contender was halted by the terribly common UCL tear requiring Tommy John surgery and a year of recovery. What about Ken Griffey Jr.? The Kid was one of baseball’s greats before repeated hamstring injuries left us with a series of what if’s regarding the future Hall of Famer. Or even Rocco Baldelli? Baldelli took the MLB by storm in 2003 but missed all of 2005 and was forced to retire in 2010 by a rare mitochondrial disorder. Stuff happens.
On the second point, we have to look no farther than the Braves’ own clubhouse. Last winter, Atlanta gave $75 million to BJ Upton to be their center fielder for the foreseeable future. The result? One of the single worst seasons ever turned in by a modern full time position player.
Long term deals are inherently risky. Arguably, only one 10 year deal in MLB history, Alex Rodriguez’s first big contract, has ever played out as it was envisioned. Teams know this. It’s why Josh Hamilton struggled so hard to find an employer in 2013 and it’s why only teams like the Dodgers can afford to have multiple massive contracts on the books at once and not lose sleep over it.
The Braves aren’t the Dodgers and they haven’t wedded themselves to one player for the next half decade or more–they’ve done it with 4! Their payroll has a hard cap on it thanks to the ownership group and it isn’t in the same stratosphere as the big boys in baseball.
Plus, it’s not like Atlanta is paying bargain basement prices or getting hometown discounts here. Freeman’s contract was a massive overpay. They went to 8 years and $135 million for a player who reasonably should have gotten 5 years at $50 mil. Craig Kimbrel signed on for 4 years and $42 million at a time when the league is finally waking up to the closer myth and prices for late inning relievers are dropping precipitously. Andrelton Simmons’ deal for 7 years and $59 million absolutely shattered the record for a player with less than 2 years of service time. Simmons, who hit .248 last season, wouldn’t have even been eligible for arbitration for 2 more seasons.
The upshot of all this is twofold. First, the Braves have opened themselves up to a ton of risk by hitching their wagon to a whole number of players, each of whom could get hurt or under preform, for a very long time. The second is that in doing so, they may very well be hamstringing themselves in terms of their ability to field a competitive roster around this core. Consider that in 2019, 5 years from now, the Braves will be paying Simmons and Freeman alone a total of $36 million. More than a third of their total 2013 payroll!
That’s exactly the type of thing that has gotten the Phillies into a world of trouble.
-Max Frankel
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