Dan Uggla and aging
December 16, 2010 at 6:46 pm by Capitol Avenue Club under Atlanta Braves
It seems that my unsolicited advice will go unheeded. Since the extension isn’t a done deal and we don’t know the financial terms I’ll refrain from discussing the financial and baseball ramifications. What I would like to talk a bit about is how Uggla is going to age.
Dan Uggla will be 31 years old in 2011. This may be a bit hard to believe seeing as he’s only been in the majors for five years, but remember he was a rule 5 pick that took awhile to develop, a late bloomer if you will. The fact that he has only been in MLB for five years does not change or soften the fact that he will be 31 years old in 2011, however. 31 is 31, regardless of how the previous 30 were spent.
Despite the fact that he will be 31 years old in 2011, Dan Uggla has been a very good player for the past five years. He’s a career .263/.349/.488 hitter (117 OPS+) who plays a premium position (albeit not too well).
What has happened is not what I’m concerned with, only what’s going to happen. In an effort to determine what Uggla’s next five years are going to look like, I pulled a group of players with similar offensive profiles and results during their mid-to-late 20′s and looked at what they did during their early-to-mid 30′s. So I took all players from 1969-2010 who recorded at least 2,250 plate appearances during their age 26-30 seasons with at least 500 strikeouts, an ISO between 0.205 and 0.245, and an OPS+ between 110 and 124. There are 15 such players, including Dan Uggla. I then looked at what they did in their age 31-35 seasons. Four of them–Uggla, Curtis Granderson, Nick Swisher, and Adam LaRoche–are yet to play their age 31 season. Here’s what the other 11 did.
The Success Stories
Greg Vaughn — After hitting .248/.344/.466 (112 OPS+) in 2723 PA’s for the Brewers and Padres during his age 26-30 seasons (1992-1996), Vaughn actually improved during his 30′s, hitting .247/.348/.501 (120 OPS+) in 2833 PA’s over the next five years. He would go on to play two more seasons in MLB without much success, but the 120 OPS+ during his age 31-35 seasons is rather noteworthy.
Reggie Sanders — In 1994 Reggie Sanders led the league with 114 strikeouts in 107 games–how the times have changed. In 1995 he hit .306 with 28 homers and 69 walks. Overall during his age 26-30 seasons he hit .271/.357/.491 (120 OPS+) in 2251 PA’s. He would play nine more years in the majors, but during his age 31-35 seasons he hit .264/.339/.504 (115 OPS+) in 2492 PA’s. He produced slightly less on a rate basis, but racked up 241 more PA’s. Of course, the strike in 1994 might have something to do with that. Still, there’s relitivley little attrition here, which as you’ll see is quite uncommon for a player of this age and offensive profile, making him a success story.
Still Active, Still TBD
Alfonso Soriano — Soriano is much like Uggla in many ways. He spent the early part of his career in Japan and didn’t get significant MLB playing time until his age 25 season. He played 2B regularly until he was 30 years old, at which point he moved to the outfield. Overall from 2002-2006, his age 26-30 seasons, Soriano hit .283./.331/.526 (120 OPS+) in 3543 PA’s. He’s played four seasons since (next year is his age 35 season and he’s hit .271/.327/.505 (110 OPS+) in 2190 PA’s. His 2009 season was a disaster but he rebounded a bit in 2010, making the overall body of work acceptable. Unlike Uggla, Soriano doesn’t walk very much, which has undoubtedly hurt his offensive game a disproportionate amount as he loses bat speed.
Pat Burrell — Burrell had already received some MVP votes by the time his age 26 season rolled around and he stayed productive for the next five years (apart from the stink-bomb of a season he had in 2003), hitting .252/.370/.473 (116 OPS+) in 2967 PA’s during his age 26-30 seasons. Since he’s played three seasons, hitting .271/.327/.505 (110 OPS+) in 1558 PA’s. The book is still out on what Pat Burrell is capable of given his highly variable level of performance since he’s left Philadelphia, but the argument that his production has declined is unassailable.
Retired after age 35 season
Tony Armas — Armas is one of the two players in the sample that played exactly five more seasons after his age 30 season. After hitting .252/.287/.481 (110 OPS+) in 2998 PA’s during his age 26-30 seasons, Armas was injured and mostly useless over the next five years of his career, hitting .261/.296/.451 (103 OPS+) in 1551 PA’s. Not that he wasn’t mostly useless during his age 26-30 seasons. Corner outfielders with sub-.300 on-base averages aren’t any good.
Carl Everett — Everett had two awesome seasons, one pretty good season, and two pretty forgettable seasons during his age 26-30 seasons. Overall he hit .287/.354/.503 (119 OPS+) in 2551 PA’s during his mid-to-late 20′s. Over the next five seasons of his career he hit .261/.329/.439 (98 OPS+) in 2220 PA’s, a fairly significant drop-off.
Unmitigated Disasters
Raul Mondesi — Braves fans probably remember him best for the big fat .211/.271/.359 line he put up in 41 games for the 2005 Braves. That was his age 34 season and he would never play in the majors again. In his age 26-30 seasons, he was a productive hitter, boasting a .273/.337/.498 line (116 OPS+) in 3046 PA’s. After that, he hit only .246/.318/.439 (96 OPS+) in 1525 PA’s over the next four years.
Geoff Jenkins — Geoff Jenkins was an offensive force for the Brewers during his prime, hitting .275/.349/.493 (117 OPS+) in 2571 PA’s during his age 26-30 seasons. After that he played three more seasons in MLB, posting a .259/.330/.437 line (96 OPS+) in 1341 PA’s. His last (age 33) season was particularly offensive; he hit only .246/.301/.392 for the Phillies.
Dean Palmer — Palmer bounced around the American League during his age 26-30 seasons, hitting .273/.339/.507 (113 OPS+) in 2659 PA’s for the Royals, Rangers, and Tigers. He played one more full season beyond that and parts of three seasons, amassing a .232/.318/.421 line (93 OPS+) in 961 PA’s. Meet the nightmare scenario.
Jesse Barfield — Barfield’s peak was very nice but he crashed hard after it. He hit .256/.342/.466 (120 OPS+) in 3030 PA’s during his age 26-30 seasons, but played only parts of two more years after that and amassed a terrible .203/.286/.391 line (87 OPS+) in only 426 PA’s.
One More
Brad Hawpe’s age 31 season was last year and he hit only .245/.338/.419 (94 OPS+) in 346 PA’s in addition to being released by the Rockies, the only team he’d ever played for. Over the previous five years he had hit .285/.379/.503 (120 OPS+) in 2689 PA’s. Like Burrell it’s not certain that he’s done being a productive major leaguer, so there aren’t a lot of conclusions to be drawn here.
Thoughts
Overall the group averaged a 117 OPS+ during their age 26-30 seasons and a 106 OPS+ during their age 31-35 seasons. Furthermore we haven’t accounted for survivor bias. That is, the better players tend to play longer, so the 106 OPS+ would undoubtedly be lower if we had a purely representative sample of all of their age 31-35 seasons. The only player to do better in his 30′s was Greg Vaughn.
Obviously looking at the data alone isn’t enough to determine how a player will age, but it’s pretty clear that, historically, players with Uggla’s offensive profile haven’t fared nearly as well in their age 31-35 seasons as they did during their age 26-30 seasons. This is to be expected, of course, most players aren’t as good during their 30′s as they were during their 20′s. Still, the potential for extending Uggla to turn into an unmitigated disaster–especially considering his defensive limitations–is enough to make me think very seriously about letting him walk after 2011. He could age beautifully, but there’s a non-zero chance he’ll be a below-average hitter with no position by age 35. When Keith Law says he wouldn’t want to lock up Uggla through his mid-30′s, this is what he’s talking about. Players with Uggla’s offensive profile generally struggle to remain productive after their age 30 season.
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Thank you for doing that research. That’s scary. Considering that most ballclubs have sabermetric-type research people around, would it be logical to assume that the Braves know this already? One can only hope…
I’m sure they’ve done something, and probably a lot more scientific than this.
Speaking of aging effects, have you guys seen the Starting Pitcher DL Probability chart at FanGraphs? My number-crunching of this chart says that the Phils have an 80% chance of one of the Four Horsemen going down, and a 64% chance of at least two spending time on the DL. Silver lining?
One of the only ways I see them extending Uggla is they want some form of player insurance on Freeman potentially tanking and Chipper holding up at least two more years. Other than that they must really not like the 2011 OF FAs. Maybe if they do not think any of the 2011 OF FAs will be useful and in their price range, they extend him simply because he is the best option.
I don’t know off hand any of the decent FAs next year other than something like Willingham or DeJesus and both of them are basically the same age as Uggla.
This news is far more devastating than the Cliff Lee extension, for two reasons:
1. Lee will be paid $25m by the Phillies for his age 37 season, after which they’ll pay $12.5m just to make him go away. It’s great for them in ’11 and probably ’12 and ’13 too, but pretty bad after that.
2. Your own mistakes always hurt more than your enemy’s triumphs. I can handle the Phillies’ coup easier than I can handle the Braves paying Dan Uggla $12m for his age 36 season. Peter’s research above should be enough to convince any rational fan that this extension is a mistake. It’s even worse when you take into account that Uggla is a middle infielder. A 36 year old middle infielder who can’t get on base and fields his position horribly is definitely not worth $12m. And the Braves ought to know that, but apparently don’t.
Everyone is, of course, pulling for Uggla to age as good as, if not better than, Greg Vaughn did in doing better as he aged. However, let’s just hope that he learns better Defense and learns how to be patient, as has been the Braves’ mantra for the last year or so.
5 years @12 mill per…If those numbers are correct….Sadly, I think that I’d rather have Infante back for one more year. There is little upside to this contract and a whole lot that can go horribly wrong. It’s frustrating watching this team continue to hamstring itself with bad contracts.
5 years @12 mill per…I can only hope that there’s a team option in there somewhere…Otherwise, sadly, I think I’d rather have Infante back for one more year…Frustrating watching this team continually hamstring itself with bad contracts.
Right when I’m beginning to look forward to Lowe’s 15 mill coming off the books in 2 years….
Sorry for the double post…was getting
“internal server error” so I didn’t know if my post went through
I think they should at least see how he does in Atlanta before talking an extension…I’d be fine with an extension(preferably after the season) that kept him in Atlanta through 35 tops, and 12.5 mil a year seems fair given the market.
CAC- how well do you think he would transition to the OF in a couple years? how much would simply changing positions depreciate his value?
Brave Fans are starved for power hitting players becuase we haven’t had any. We finally get a decent power hitting player and had to trade Infante and Dunn to get him and now you don’t want to try to extend him? One year of service for those two players (to me) would be a bad deal. I would try to extend him,(I know it is a stretch for some of you) he might be very good for the next five years. Sometimes we might need to look at the player and not all of those statistics.
Dave @ 5, if Uggla is extended he will be 35 during the last year of his contract (31 for 2011, 32 for 2012, 33 for 2013, 34 for 2014, and 35 during 2015). Looks to me like that would be very important to ya’ll statistic people. Wren gets paid the big bucks, I’m going with him. However none of us would be splitting hairs over contracts like this if we had owners who would give us 100 million per year to work with.
Dave @ 5, if Uggla is extended he will be 35 during the last year of his contract, not 36: (31 for 2011, 32 for 2012, 33 for 2013, 34 for 2014, and 35 during 2015). Looks to me like that would be very important to ya’ll statistic people. Wren gets paid the big bucks, I’m going with him. However none of us would be splitting hairs over contracts like this if we had owners who would give us 100 million per year to work with.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Matt Reeves, Peter Hjort. Peter Hjort said: New at CAC: Dan Uggla and aging — http://capitolavenueclub.com/?p=3323 [...]
I’m glad they resigned him. The Braves have needed someone the last couple of years to put some power into the lineup. And they got him without having to give up anything of value and without losing a draft pick. If he ages he ages and if so that will be Wren’s problem to deal with then. By the end of this contract the Braves will have a new owner anyway. Liberty only promised to own the Braves until after the new labor agreement is signed and that would be in 2012.
Sure, this deal may hurt us in the latter years, but isn’t that the norm these days? You think Uggla making $12M at 36 is bad? That’s almost half of what Crawford will be making at the same age, this for a guy whose game is predicated on speed. I don’t care who much of a work out warrior the latter is; you can’t maintain speed into your mid 30s and I don’t see him becoming a 30HR guy over the next few seasons.
Anyway, we’re never going to be handing out a $100M contract to a UFA, so these are the types of deals we have to make to stay competitive with a sub-$90M payroll. I personally don’t care about these salaries anyway; I don’t get any satisfaction when our team signs someone for a bargain. This ain’t the swap meet!
15: It’s not about an abstract sense of satisfaction for most of us, it’s about wanting the Braves to have a decent budget to play with in future seasons. E.g., if Wren hadn’t signed Lowe for $60m, we might have had enough payroll to be in the hunt for one of the big-ticket FA outfielders this offseason.
Obviously, if the Braves had an unlimited payroll, it would be great for them to take all sorts of expensive fliers on players who have upside potential and downside risk. But given limited resources, deals like the contemplated Uggla extension are bad news for fans who like winning.
Grace: not to be rude, but it seems like your chain of thought is “ignore the truth while lamenting the fact that the payroll isn’t larger”. The facts are this:
1. As Peter states quite clearly, uggla isn’t likely to age well. He’ll just age.
2. There isn’t a 100 million dollar payroll anywhere in sight.
3. As there are limited resources available, those resources have to be spent wisely.
4. We gave up nothing short of garbage to get uggla.
5. We are under no obligation to retain uggla.
Given the reality of #4, it is at least somewhat likely that we’d be better off by offering arbitration, letting some other foolish gm sign uggla to an absurd contract, and then taking the draft pick. Under this scenario, we would in effect be selling high on him. Prado then slides back into his 2b role, and we go hard after willingham or ordonez.
There are worse scenarios than uggla walking away after this year…5/60 immediately comes to mind as one such scenario.
@15: That just doesn’t feel like a smart post to me. Just because the Crawford signing is stupid, that doesn’t mean we should be half as stupid as that signing.
If some of the statistical analysis is true, he could already be losing some of his power and we could quite possibly only see 20-25 HRs next year. That’s not bad, considering the fact that I don’t believe I’ve seen a 20-25+ HR guy for the last few years.
I just hope that this contract is very incentive filled. That would make this contract easier to swallow if he only made 9-10mil, with the incentives to make up to 12m a year.
Grace 13 at 10,
When you make the trade of ONE YEAR OF INFANTE at a good price and of a potentially pretty good lefthanded reliever who may also be so so or pitiful, you are making it on the basis that based on the ONE YEAR OF ARB THAT UGGLA HAD, the deal is worth it. You only paid for the one year. The extension has nothing to do with the sufficiency of that trade. It was either good as executed or it wasn’t.
I have no developed empirical evidence, but I believe a player will, on average, extend pre FA for lower numbers than in a true FA situation (I know CAC disagrees with that). Uggla knows that if he tanks this year or has a major injury (neither are LIKELY, but both are POSSIBLE) then his shot at a big pay day is gone. Pre FA the risk of catastrophic injury (Campanella and the car wreck?) is ON THE PLAYER. As a team, I expect the player to accept a discount if I am going to extend pre FA equal to the cost to insure the contract during the pre FA years for coverage or payment during what would have been the FA years. This contract may represent such a discount.
However, this is a bad extension for THIS TEAM. We have no reason to believe that payroll will increase even as fast as average player salary. We have an average payroll. We compete against two spending juggernauts, one that may be getting its stupid house in order and one that is near its peak, and another that is potentially going to ramp up the dollars and might figure out what to do with them. Because Uggla is likely to be worth 15 million in years 1, 2, and 3 won’t help us with years 4 and 5. This team has a pre FA second baseman that fields better than Uggla who is moving to left field (where he profiles as slightly above average rather than as occasional all star). FOR THIS YEAR, based on payroll limitations, that shift makes sense. Beyond this year, it makes no sense.
If Chipper is “one and done” it “might” make sense. BUT, this team with limited payroll is committed to Chipper for 1 more year anyway, so the potential for problems in matching payroll is significant. Basically, we have already spent the 2012 savings on KK and McLouth on Uggla to stay even if Chipper is still playing.
But, even comparing to CAC’s list of players, how many of them had to maintain their position to maintain their value? If Uggla is a step slower, he can’t stay on 2nd. If his offense drops 10 % (and I think it is a similar ops+ drop even if you take the broadest “regular player, age 26 to 30 sample” possible) he can’t go to first and produce his contract. He is, unlike Soriano, totally too slow to add defensive value in the outfield. MAYBE he can play 3rd well enough and hit well enough to be of value in the out years, but that is VERY unlikely.
And the other thing is, that the net improvement in getting Uggla, giving Infante and Dunn, and shifting Prado is probably less than either (a) making a DeJesus trade on similar terms or (b) making a Willingham trade on similar terms. And both of those guys will make considerably less in 2011 than Uggla’s scheduled arb raise. Despite the above, TO MAKE SURE A DEAL THAT WORKED WAS DONE, I think Wren did the right thing in getting Uggla. I just think the extension is a bad idea. Taking the picks at the end of the year would have replaced Infante and Dunn as players and that should have been the route taken.
Oh, and the extension killed any “pick value” in the deal. Do you think there is 10 % possibility that the Braves offer arb to a 36 year old second baseman with minimum salary of 10 million?
Uggla is also not a particularly good athlete. He won’t have his athleticism to fall back on as he battles aging. Of the group of players that Peter cites, Uggla reminds me most of Palmer.
If we are stuck with this deal, I imagine Uggla will be useful for the first three years of it. By the forth, Uggla should be sent to take the only job he can handle, and they don’t offer that job in the NL.
I couldn’t agree more that signing Uggla to a 5 year contract is a terrible decision. The first 2 years of the contract probably wont be that much of a burden because he will hopefully still be producing. The last few years however will most likely be a completely different story. I was actually just reading in Sports Illustrated the other day that no everyday player over 35 hit more than 20 home runs and played regularly in the field. It also noted that no pitcher over 35 received even 1 vote for Cy Young. Basically once your 35 or over you shouldn’t be making anywhere near what we are close to giving Dan Uggla. If we sign him it will be a HUGE MISTAKE! We don’t have the money that other teams do, so we cant overcome a terrible contract like that.
Shouldn’t the list of similar players factor in those who use speed as part of their game and those who do not? You mentioned that Granderson and Soriano are similar players but their speed is part of their offense. Soriano’s decline is due, in part, to the decline in his speed. Uggla, being slow, may age better because his speed isn’t part of his offensive.
Peter,
I agree with you that this deal has a very high probability of not being a good one for the Braves. However, I do have to object to the statement “31 is 31, regardless of how the previous 30 were spent.” I think that the way the previous 30 years were spent makes a HUGE difference in how a player ages, and that someone who has lead a healthier life prior to 30 is likely to age slightly better as they get older (genetics are also a factor). A couple of examples of how this can help are Julio Franco and Steve Nash. Both of these athletes are extremely disciplined in their diet and workout regiment, and both have been able to perform at a high level while at an advanced age for their sport.
Now, I have no idea if Uggla has the same discipline or work ethic that those two athletes have. If forced to guess I would assume he probably doesn’t. But there are situations in which an athlete can age more gracefully than his peers. I just wouldn’t want to bet $60 million on it.
What’s at least a little confusing about this scenario is that Wren said it would be a while before an extension was discussed so both the Braves and Uggla could settle in and get to know one another. I can’t imagine they’ve learned a whole lot more the past couple of weeks, unless Wren and Uggla have been having daily coffee klatches in Buckhead.
Kind of makes you wonder if it’s not a bit of a knee jerk reaction to the dollars and years being handed out in the free agent signings of the past several days (especially the ones in the division).
OK, I’ll try my very amateur hand at this. Feel free to rip the post apart, but please not me.
At Fangraphs they have been evaluating contracts the following way: Take the players WAR, estimate a 0.5 decrease in WAR per year for aging, use the current market value as 5 million per WAR, then estimate a 5% annual inflation.
So using 5.1 as Uggla’s 2010 WAR here is what those numbers would look like:
Year WAR price/WAR Worth
2011 4.6 5,000,000 23,000,000
2012 4.1 5,250,000 21,525,000
2013 3.6 5,510,000 19,836,000
2014 3.1 5,780,000 17,918,000
2015 2.6 6,070,000 15,782,000
Total: 98,061,000
If you are more pessimistic about Uggla’s WAR with the Braves, using Fangraph’s fan projections for Uggla in 2011 as 3.8 here is what that would look like:
Year WAR price/WAR Worth
2011 3.8 5,000,000 19,000,000
2012 3.3 5,250,000 17,325,000
2013 2.8 5,510,000 15,428,000
2014 2.3 5,780,000 13,294,000
2015 1.8 6,070,000 10,926,000
Total: 75,973,000
Again, this all projections. If Uggla is forced to move off 2B as most expect then his positional value will decrease, though hopefully his defensive value will increase.
I’m not crazy about a 5 year deal for Uggla, but considering the cost of free agents on the open market, I don’t think this is as crazy as people saying.
Rob, I think Julio aged gracefully with a little help from generous helpings of “Jesus Juice”, as he called it.
I have to agree with much of Steve’s (17) sentiment in the sense that the Braves don’t absolutely have to extend Uggla right now. They didn’t give up much for him (although I already miss Infante) & there really shouldn’t be a hurry to extend him for 5 years. Try & get him to take 4. He’s in a much better environment than with the Marlins & that should count for something.
Well said by Mr. Hjorte.
That said, there is a reason the Marlins wouldn’t go beyond four years. As for our Braves, well, we have seen the resent contracts doled out to Chipper Jones, Kenshin Kawakami and Derek Lowe. Of the three only Lowe has approached anything worth his dollar value.
Me thinks Mr.Wren and company had better work on their bean counting skills.
don’t forget to take into account inflation, in dollar, player salaries, and payrolls.
With just a 3% dollar inflation over 5 years, then in the 5th year we’d be paying him just over $10M in today’s dollars.
to me, it’s only a slight overpay, which is acceptable given our stuggles with FAs and our lack of position players in the system.
the bigger implication is that that 5th year is JJ’s first FA year, and the last arb year for Heyward and Hanson. We might can handle all 4 of those ($60M?), but there’s no way we can add another big contract for 2015. (JJ is probably gone long before then though).
Uggla has been more consistent, better at taking a walk, and more steroid-free than almost everyone on that list. He isn’t one of those guys with a couple flash in the pan years of steroid inflated numbers that artificially inflated his age 26-30 averages.
He may not age gracefully, but I would bet he will play just fine into his age 35 season. If he has to move into LF for the last couple of years of his contract that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
I have to agree with the idea that we should just let Uggla walk and take the draft picks. The one success story on the list, Greg Vaughn, could easily had something to do with anti-aging strategies employed during the era when he played that now receive long suspensions from MLB.
As a long time Braves fan myself(30 years) I have watched this free agent thing spiral out of control just like the rest of you. With that being said, there is ALOT of risk in dollars in every deal that is made. If you are the Yankees or Red Sox these poor decisions might not matter as much, since money must be being printed in a dark room under Yankee staduim and Fenway. The Phillies are a lot like the Braves were in the nineties with attendance up and an owner who doesn’t mind spending money, but I don’t see them in the same light as Yanks and Bo Sox. Every other team is trying to catch lightining in a bottle like San Fran did with a limited budget and getting hot at the right time of the year.(Remember San Fran got in the playoffs on the last day of the season) With all of that being said, there are no perfect deals and no deal gets made without chances. If Uggla signs an extention of 5 years 60 Mil thats crazy, but what about Worth deal in Washington,(18 million yr. 7 years Insane)Dunn deal 4 years 14 million a year, Victor Martinez 4 years 12.5 million as a DH.
Now I’m not saying this is a smart thing for the Braves to do, but I really do like the CHANCES of Uggla having a better rate of return for the money than all these deals above not to mention Crawford in Boston and Jeter in NY although the money machine is running full speed this off season. So for the sake of discussion, are there any contracts above you would rather Atlanta have?
I totally agree with your thoughts. As soon as Uggla became a Brave I said I would not offer him anything more than a four-year deal and even then only if he agreed to switch positions in the next year. Given the extreme shortage of right-handed power in the game I still might go four years, but any year after that simply increases the great risk of this contract. As long as the Braves are facing serious budget limitations I think letting Uggla go after the 20011 season and taking the draft picks is a reasonable idea. Paying him for more than the next three or four years is a terrible idea. Look at how the Lowe and Jones deals have worked out.
I also have this fear that based on Uggla’s All Star game a few years ago that we haven’t seen the last of prolonged incompetence at seocnd base in playoff games. You know, he kind of looked a little “Brooksy” then. And, what kept Uggla out of mlb wasn’t his hitting. They thought he could hit good enough for second, but he couldn’t field it.
People, stop throwing Chipper into the “bad contract” department. Your lack of knowledge on the worth of players is burning a hole through my head.
Uggla is worth more to us because he is the ONLY righthand power hitter we have, and there are none in the pipeline. A lot of similarities to when Lowe got 4/60.
Left out of the Greg Vaughn discussion is that his age 31-35 seasons were 1997-2001. These were the heyday of the Steroids Era. CAC was cautious in not calling out Vaughn, but it can’t be ignored that he’s the only one on the list that got better and it makes you ask why he got better with age when no one else does. Just like, why does a 37 year old break the single season HR mark – JUICE.
Don’t forget about steroids. From 1990-2005 it’s not a good idea to compare guys to now. Steroids made players carrers last a lot longer.
Lets say that in 2015, Uggla’s production is similar to 2010 Aaron Rowand. Now, San Fran probably had a higher payroll in 2010 than we will in 2015 (inflation considered), but certainly not when you take out the bad Zito contract, which the 2015 Braves shouldn’t have a comparison to. If Uggla indeed becomes a bad contract, but the team’s only bad contract, there’s no reason the Braves still can’t compete.
Our 2015 team could be very similar to San Fran’s 2010 team with a nucleus of great young pitching (Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Bumgarner vs Hanson, Teheran, Minor, Delgado) that has a few years under their belts, and a lineup superior to the defending world champs.
I think Aaron Rowand’s 2010 production is a reasonable worst-case scenario for 2015 Dan Uggla (despite a clear defensive edge going to Rowand). And that team, with a similar amount of money to work with as the Braves have, just won the World Series.
Thus, even if a worst-case scenario plays out, I don’t think this contract can hamper us so much to take us out of contention in the next five years.
How many of those guys seem similar physically to Uggla? Most are OFs, not IFs, and I can’t think of many short, squat guys in that list.
I still like the idea of picks, and letting him walk. Next year have…
McCann Ross
Freeman Hinske
Prado/Pastornicky/Jones
Free Agent (or Lowe/Jurrjens trade)
Prado/Chipper
Heyward
Schafer?
Free Agent (or Lowe/Jurrjens trade)
Hudson, Hanson, Lowe/Jurrjens, Pick 2 from Minor, Delgado, Beachy, Medlen, Teheran, and then a laundry list of bullpen candidates
Jason Heyward for President,
I usually take ( their 2010 projects * 2 + their 2010 results ) / 3 to get the 2011 projection then discount 0.5 W/year and use an 8 percent rate of return.
The point of this article was to discuss how Uggla’s aging pattern might involve a more precipitous drop than the standard 0.5 W/year, though.
Will I don’t advocate a 5 yr deal, I can defend it.
1. He knows how to take a walk, OBP is solid.
2. Players salaries will go up as our economy continues to come back.
3. Even using Chippers poor 2008 showing he was still work $10MM.
We might be slightly overpaying in todays terms (may change in 5 years), but I will take it for 30HR power that we haven’t seen for quite some time.
I am curious to know if the Braves are expecting higher revenue this year and beyond in light of the return to the playoffs. If they feel they have a decent boost to revenue and thus payroll coming, it may be in their interest to extend him and kind of hope for the best.
I dislike saying something like that, but ultimately all contracts are based on hope.
One defense, is that it provides financial diversification in regards to future salary growth. He’s the only guy signed to set terms, the other projected stars in 2013-2015 will be arb players (if not signed to extensions). So, if salaries explode, they are likely saving money on Uggla even if his performance declines somewhat. If salaries don’t increase, then they will be saving money on their arb players.
CAC,
Thanks for the feedback.
I do understand the point of the article and I very definitely get the reasoning behind it.
But I’m not sure I believe this contract is the albatross that others are making it seem. Uggla should provide enough value to the Braves over the life of the contract, even if the last years aren’t great.
Considering the cost of players on the open market, I don’t see us acquiring a more cost effective free agent and I don’t think we have a prospect in the minors who we can expect to provide the kind of right handed power that the Braves need.
With our minors deep in good pitching prospects, we should be able to field a solid young pitching staff at a reasonable cost allowing us to carry Uggla’s 4th and 5th year without it totally weighing down the team’s payroll.
This is a pretty scary analysis and in some ways makes me less in favor of the extension than I was. One glimmer of hope/reason for unrealistic optimism is that Uggla averages 76 walks per year. Mondesi and Jenkins both averaged 50, Palmer 60 and Barfield 63. Plate discipline and selectiveness aren’t going to go away with age and could theoretically let Uggla adapt to a decline in power and maintain a better OBP than the “umitigated disasters” were able to do.
It is scary, but at the same time I am slightly encouraged because of just how consistent Uggla has been. His strong OBP numbers for a power hitter give me hope, and I believe that in a lineup with better protection, he could approach 100 BB’s, which would compare best with Burrell but no one else really on that list.
I realize he could potentially drop off. But if the 5 year deal goes through, I feel very comfortable for 2011-2013, and cautiously optimistic for 14-15.
Only time will tell.
Give it up Nick @ 32. These pro bloggers here have all the calculations needed to prove you wrong (trust me on this one).