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The Hot Stove League Contracts

Find out what's going on in contracts, what they've been paid, what they should have with the Stat Geek Baseball's SPRO Salary Projection system, and more.

Week of June 2

Free Agent Contracts
Kendrys Morales signs 1 year $7,500,000 contract with Twins.
SPRO Analysis - Minnesota overpays for Morales. Morales signed this late deal after the draft, allowing Minnesota to keep its #1 draft pick for this Qualifying Offer player. But it's still not worth it. This contract, with its prorated full season value of $12 million, is actually about where Morales should be full term. He's really only worth $7.5m per year, due to his injury past. See our Qualifying Offer page for more details.

Week of May 12

Free Agent Contracts
Randy Wolf signs 1 year $1,000,000 contract with incentives with Marlins.
SPRO Analysis - Miami gets bargain in Wolf. It's a bit hard to put a true value on this as we're now six weeks into the season, but had Wolf signed prior to the season, SPRO was stating $3,301,000 (which includes all incentives), so take that for what it's worth. Prior to not pitching last year, Wolf had been remarkably durable, which is proving to be a very valuable commodity in 2014.

Week of April 28

Arbitration Contracts
Chirs Johnson signs 3 year $23,500,000 extension for 2015-17 with $10m club option and $1m buyout. 2014 season salary is $4.75m wit Braves.
SPRO Analysis - Atlanta pays market value for Johnson. SPRO 3 years $16,6000,000, but okay with the additional year now that 2014 has begun.

Week of April 14

Pre-Arbitration Contracts
Sean Doolittle signs 5 year $10,500,000/$13,750,000 (if arbitraiton eligible in 2015) contract extension for 2014-2018 with two options years at $6m/$6.5m and $500,000 buyout with A's.
SPRO Analysis - Oakland overpays for Doolittle. It's not an overpay as far as number, but it is as far as years. At 1.122 years of Major League Service Time, Oakland's taking a significant gamble that he'll continue on this good career path, and if true, and he becomes their closer, they get a bargain. But if not? Too long a deal. SPRO 2 years $2,445,000.

Jed Gyorko signs 5 year $35,000,000 contract extension for 2015-2019 with $13m club option and $1m buyout for 6th year with Padres.
SPRO Analysis - San Diego overpays for Gyorko. Now we're just dipping over into does not make enough sense territory with these pre-arb deals. Gyorko had a very good rookie season, but he wasn't Mike Trout, and he's started off 2014 batting 0.152. Yeh, we know he plays in a notorious pitcher's park, but... his service time starts the year at 1.000, and San Diego has one more year before they're even looking toward arbitration. There was no hurry, but they're willing to pay him $13m five years hence and they don't even know what they truly have. SPRO says one year extension, that's all, $554,000. Now that's probably gonna be higher at the end of the year, but we would just want to wait till then.

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Week of April 7

Free Agents
Ryan Roberts signs 1 year $1,000,000 contract with $250,000 incentives with Red Sox.
SPRO Analysis - Boston gets bargain in Roberts. SPRO $2,024,000.

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Hall of Fame Veterans Ballot

Managers Joe Torre, Tony La Russa, and Bobby Cox are elected in a unanimous vote by the Hall of Fame Expansion Era veterans ballot. Former players now on the veterans ballot did not get the required 75% vote to gain election, including Dave Concepcion, Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Billy Martin, Ted Simmons, Dave Parker, and Dan Quisenberry. The ballot for each former era is now held once every three years.

See where the player
candidates rank among Hall of Fame positions in the
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Elected to Hall of Fame
January 8, 2014

Greg Maddux 97.2%
Tom Glavine 91.9%
Frank Thomas 83.7%

Elected to the Hall of Fame, the three players which Baseball Evaluation thought would make it. Craig Biggio just misses, with 74.8% of the 75.0% needed for election.

Others Close:
Mike Piazza 62.2%
Jack Morris 61.5%
Jeff Bagwell 54.3%
Tim Raines 46.1%
Roger Clemens 35.4%
Barry Bonds 34.7%
Lee Smith 29.9%
Curt Schilling 29.2%
Edgar Martinez 25.2%
Alan Trammel 20.8%
Mike Mussina 20.3%
Jeff Kent 15.2%
Fred McGriff 11.7%
Mark McGwire 11.0%
Larry Walker 10.7%
Don Mattingly 8.2%
Sammy Sosa 7.2%

Others who did not get the 5% needed to stay on the ballot next year

Moises Alou, Armando Benitez, Sean Casey, Ray Durham, Eric Gagne, Luis Gonzalez, Jacque Jones, Todd Jones, Paul Lo Duca, Hideo Nomo, Rafael Palmeiro, Kenny Rogers, Richie Sexson, J.T. Snow, Mike Timlin

Jack Morris was in his final year on the BBWAA ballot; will be eligible for Veterans ballot in 2016

Who, What, When of HOF Class
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Actual Contracts Versus SPRO Projections

So how do the actual contracts given out to players during the past off season compare to our SPRO Salary Projections, both on the average and by maximum players per position. Overall, the average salary of players on the rosters listed, 855 players overall, in the USA Today Salary Database on March 31, 2014 was $3,936,922. SPRO projections were $3,583,053.

There has been a significant change over the past year in salary structure, adding approximately 10% to salaries, predominantly for free agent year players. Most of this will play out over the next several years as national and local television contract increases filter down to the player level.

And how does it compare now to the highest players paid per position.

High Salary Actual	Who	Position	High Salary SPRO	Who
$17,000,000	Brian McCann	C	$18,176,000	Yadier Molina
$25,000,000	Ryan Howard	1B	$24,000,000	Miguel Cabrera
$24,000,000	Robinson Cano	2B	$19,148,000	Robinson Cano
$19,329,646	David Wright	3B	$16,983,000	Adrian Beltre
$16,000,000	Jose Reyes	SS	$11,258,000	Troy Tulowitski
$21,250,000	Matt Kemp	OF	$19,518,000	Jose Bautista
$28,000,000	Zach Grienke	P	$24,000,000	Justin Verlander

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First Year Player Draft Round #1

1    HOU    LHP Brady Aiken 2    MIA    RHP Tyler Kolek 3    CWS    LHP Carlos Rodon
4    CHC    C Kyle Schwarber 5    MIN    SS Nick Gordon 6    SEA    OF Alex Jackson
7    PHI    RHP Aaron Nola 8    COL    LHP Kyle Freeland 9    TOR    RHP Jeff Hoffman
10    NYM    OF Michael Conforto 11    TOR    C Max Pentecost 12    MIL    LHP Kodi Medeiros
13    SD    SS Trea Turner 14    SF    RHP Tyler Beede 15    LAA    LHP Sean Newcomb
16    ARI    RHP Touki Toussaint 17    KC    LHP Brandon Finnegan
18    WAS    RHP Erick Fedde 19    CIN    RHP Nick Howard 20    TB    1B Casey Gillaspie
21    CLE    OF Bradley Zimmer 22    LAD    RHP Grant Holmes 23    DET    OF Derek Hill
24    PIT    SS Cole Tucker 25    OAK    3B Matt Chapman 26    BOS    SS Michael Chavis
27    STL    RHP Luke Weaver 28    KC    LHP Foster Griffin 29    CIN    SS Alex Blandino
30    TEX    RHP Luis Ortiz 31    CLE    LHP Justus Sheffield
32    ATL    OF Braxton Davidson 33    BOS    RHP Michael Kopech
34    STL    RHP Jack Flaherty

Source: MLB.com

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