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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 April 14

Pre-Arbitration Contracts
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.

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.

Week of March 31

Pre-Arbitration Contracts
Player Resigns with Club
Yunel Escobar signs 2 year extension for 2015-16 seasons at $13m with club option for 2017 year with Rays.
SPRO Analysis - Tampa Bay gets bargain in Escobar. SPRO for 2015-6 is $17,928,000.

Jason Kipnis signs 6 year $52,500,000 contract with club option $16.5m w/$2.5m buyout for 7th year with Indians.
SPRO Analysis - Cleveland pays market value for Kipnis. Another in the long line of extensions to pre-arb players to get cost certainty, we don't know how confortable we are with the couple extra years, but the numbers are right in line for the four we like, SPRO of 4 years $21,836,000, so we're not gonna complain. Just the cost of doing business in today's baseball world.

Chris Archer signs 6 year $25,000,000 contract with club options with Rays.
SPRO Analysis - Tampa Bay overpays for Archer. We like Chris Archer, as we do with many of these long term deal candidates with limited Major League service time (0.156 for Archer, under 1 year). But, ... we're not okay with them. SPRO says that a pitcher with only 150 innings of experience does not have a long enough track record to make this commitment and we don't think that waiting one more year, still within the pre-arbitration period would be too much to ask or too costly a wait as the track record lengthens.

Week of March 24

Free Agents
Chris Young signs 1 year $1,200,000 contract with $3,475,000 incentives with Mariners.
SPRO Analysis - Seattle overpays for Young. We don't usually think of an overpays for this slight an amount as SPRO says $850,000, but we wanted to make a point. Small point, yes. Young has had three of the last four years at a minimal or zero value for his club. Probably time to prove your worth for one year from a durability standpoint, which is somewhat what they're doing here with the incentive structure. Not sure if those incentives should be necessary.

Kevin Frandsen signs 1 year $900,000 contract with $700,000 incentives with Nationals.
SPRO Analysis - Washington pays market value for Frandsen. SPRO $1,122,000, including salary and incentives.

Player Resigns with Club
Miguel Cabrera signs 8 year extension for 2016-23 seasons at $248m with 2 additional club option year. Total with current deal 10 years $292m.
SPRO Analysis - Detroit overpays for Cabrera. Cabrera is the best hitter in baseball, with some small nod to Mike Trout, but the years are just too long. Now we don't know if that slight downturn at the end of last season due to injury shows the start of a trend, but no matter, the 10 year term is 2 years too long for us. SPRO 8 years $208,115,000.

Pre-Arbitration Contracts
Yan Gomes signs 6 year $23m extension with Indians.
SPRO Analysis - Cleveland overpays for Gomes. Okay, getting a bit ridiculous. Yan Gomes may end up being great, but ... there's also a reasonable chance at 1.083 years of Major League experience, that he ends up being less than that. Too early, ... should at least wait till next year to see how he responds to full-time duty. We can't get past an arbitration level contract of SPRO 2 years $1,107,000.

Mike Trout signs 6 year $144.5m extension for 2015-2020, $145.5m including 2014 season with Angels.
SPRO Analysis - Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim pays market value for Trout. We think it's a bit high on the out year side, but won't criticize that because we also believe Trout may have been better off with a slightly shorter deal, taking to free agency a year or two earlier. SPRO 7 years $128,796,000 for the best young player in the game.

Sterling Marte signs 6 year $51m w/two club option years with Pirates.
SPRO Analysis - Pittsburgh overpays for Marte. Another in the new sign them early trend, but Marte is not long enough into his career for us to give him a long term deal. We'd play the pre-arbitration year thing one by one and check track record longer first. SPRO 2 year $1,133,000.

Week of March 17

Player Resigns with Club
David Ortiz signs extension for 2015 season at $16m with 2 additional vesting/club options for 2015/2016. Current 2014 deal pays Ortiz $15m.
SPRO Analysis - Boston gets bargain for Ortiz. It's slight, the bargain that is, but it is a bargain for past production. SPRO 3 years $52,464,000. SPRO 2014 - $16,891,000; 2015 - $17,480,000.

Pre-Arbitration Contracts
Jose Quintana signs 5 year $21m (if not arbitration eligitble 2015) to $26.8m contract with White Sox, including club options for $10.5m and $11.5m with $1m buyout for 6th and 7th years.
SPRO Analysis - Chicago White Sox overpay for Quintana. Yes, it's the new trend, signing pre-arbitration players to long contracts, but it has lots of risk. SPRO 3 year $7.565m. We think the $ for that term on the signed deal are too high as well at $9.65m.

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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
Best Ever Book

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
Stat Geek Baseball Blog

Hot Payroll Numbers
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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