Are the Braves Glad Tommy Hanson and Jair Jurrjens Are Boras Clients?
March 26, 2012 at 12:58 pm by Franklin Rabon under Atlanta Braves, Economic Analysis, Front Office, Injuries
A lot has been made about the Braves reluctance to deal with super agent Scott Boras when it comes to extensions. The first and foremost issue is that Boras loves to gamble on his players and almost always guides them to free agency. Famously, Andruw Jones went behind Boras’ back to negotiate an extension with the Braves, when Boras presumably wanted him to go to free agency.
Boras has a lot of clients, and thus, his main concern is maximizing his expected payout when the player hits free agency. He doesn’t care a whole lot about risk, because he has more than enough players to spread the risk around if one or two of them happen to take a pillow contract that substantially hurts them. Players, on the other hand, should be more concerned with risk, because they only have one client to earn their money with, themselves. If they take a risk and it blows up in their face, they don’t have 30 other clients to pull money from. In the business world, we call this a divergence of risk preference. It’s not quite a divergence in financial interests, because presumably both Boras and his clients want as much money as possible, however, his clients shouldn’t be willing to take as much risk as Boras does, something I think his clients all too often fail to appreciate.
However, that’s not the issue here. The issue here is might the Braves perhaps be glad that Boras is Jurrjens’ and Hanson’s agent? Why should they be? Well, primarily because it gives the front office a ready made excuse to not sign the two pitchers to long term, lucrative extensions. Fans and media harbor a certain disdain for Scott Boras, that while not totally unmerited (due to the risk issue outlined above) is certainly misguided (ie they’re more angry about guiding players to fair compensation for their talents). If a team isn’t making much headway in signing a beloved current player to an extension, two simple words often shift the ‘blame’ from the front office to the player, “Boras Client”.
So why wouldn’t the Braves want to sign Tommy Hanson and Jair Jurrjens to long term contracts? They’ve both been successful young pitchers. Studies have shown that extensions are generally a better value for the team than free agent bidding wars.
The issues are injury concerns for Tommy Hanson and injury and uncertainty issues with Jair Jurrjens. Also, the Braves may be shifting to a ‘use, test, discard’ strategy with their pitchers. This is very similar to what the Rays have done with their young pitchers. They use them heavily, being maybe under-cautious with pitching mechanics, if the pitcher is successful and shows no injury concerns then you maybe re-sign him, if not, well, you let the pitcher walk as a free agent and become someone else’s injury concern.
Much has been belaboured with regards to Tommy Hanson’s pitching motions and whether or not it makes him injury prone. While he doesn’t have the dreaded ‘inverted W’, he does tend to have timing issues. For a particularly pessimistic view of Tommy’s mechanics see Chris O’Leary’s diagnosis. While I think O’Leary is maybe a little overzealous in his analysis, Tommy does certainly have biomechanical issues that are at least worrisome. His ‘new delivery’ may have addressed some of the pace issues, but most of the things that O’Leary worries most about with Hanson’s delivery are still present. He still has the timing/coordination issue and he still brings his elbow behind his shoulder. Well, why not just work with Tommy to change his mechanics? Two issues here: 1) Tommy is probably successful because of his mechanics. We have no idea if changing them would allow him to be the same pitcher he is. 2) Often times, for established Major Leaguers, changing mechanics only exacerbates injury issues. Pitching is a very specialized, and very unnatural motion. Changing a pitcher’s motion causes the pitcher to be less reliable in repeating it (since he hasn’t built the new motion into muscle memory) which can not only lead to inconsistency, but can lead to injury. One of the biggest issues that cause injuries in pitchers is not repeating your delivery consistently. When you don’t do so, you often end up having more developed muscles fight against less developed muscles, which puts strain on tendons and joints. SBNation mentioned this concern here.
Jair Jurrjens is a more controversial pitcher. His mechanics seem to be mostly fine from an arm standpoint. Though I do worry about his knees continuing to be a problem because he lands very hard on his heel, a problem that was shown in the recent spring training game against the Tigers, when he tore a huge divot in the mound. Ideally a pitcher would like to hit the mound with his whole foot relatively equally to better distribute the shock of the landing, and also to allow for more stability in the lower body. Jair seems to get less leg drive than he once did with his lower body, which is perhaps why his velocity has dropped. Knee injuries concern me, because they rarely go away, they tend to nag and routinely flare up (one needs only reference Chipper Jones and his recurring knee issues). I don’t know that Jair’s knees will ever be 100%, which could lead to further injuries or ineffectiveness.
What I worry about even more than injuries with Jurrjens is his inconsistency. While the popular narrative has been that Jair’s bad seasons were almost totally attributable to freakish injuries (because his supporters don’t want him to be considered injury prone either), in reality his bad and good seasons have mostly been a product of swings in luck. As most “pitch to contact” guys do, Jair lives and dies by luck. A pitcher can primarily control three things to varying degrees: 1) His strikeout rate 2) his walk rate and 3) his groundball rate. For all three of these, Jair has been remarkably consistent. He has routinely sat at 6 K/9, 3 BB/9 and a groundball rate of 40-45%. First, these aren’t really good. One commonly held belief is that Jair is a groundball pitcher, when in fact this number is actually below the league average. It’s in the neither groundball or flyball range, but Jair is certainly closer to being a fly ball pitcher. His K rates and walk rates are also neither very good. What has made Jair good when he’s been good and bad when he’s been bad are things that pitchers seem to have relatively little control over: 1) their strand rate 2) BABIP and 3) home run rate.
I’m not going to say that pitchers have no control over any of these, however, these rates tend to randomly fluctuate much more than the other rates. Looking at Jair’s bad seasons and good seasons, we can see that his strikeout, walk and groundball rates don’t deviate significantly, but he sees large swings in strand, babip and homerun rates. In Jair’s good seasons he’s had a strand rate near 80%, babips around .270 and HR/FB rates around 6-7%. In ‘bad Jair’ seasons, we’ve seen strand rates at 70% or under, babips around .300 and HR/FB rates around 9%.
The issue with Jair is that these swings make it hard to know for certain which Jair is real. Pitchers can, over large samples outpitch their FIP in some cases. Tim Hudson has shown an ability to do so, as did Tom Glavine. (Contrary to popular belief, Greg Maddux didn’t significantly do so, his FIP for his career was 3.26 and his ERA 3.16, lower but not significantly so, Maddux was just a good pitcher and almost all of his FIP/ERA deviation can be explained away by pitching in front of good defenses). With Jair, his data have varied so wildly that we just can’t know how good (or mediocre) he might be. He might be the average of those two pitchers, or he might be the good one with some bad luck or the bad one with some good luck. We just don’t have enough data to know for certain, which makes a long term contract worrisome.
So why does Boras matter? Why wouldn’t the front office merely let these two pitchers walk at free agency (or preferably be traded prior to hitting it) regardless of their agent? Well, they likely would, but it’s just more convenient to do so with a Boras client. Front office types are not only worried about putting together the best team for the money that they can, but they are also concerned with perception of how well they are doing their job. In letting Hanson and/or Jurrjens walk at free agency they are taking a risk. They’re taking a risk that these injury and inconsistency risks fade away and they turn out to be excellent pitchers. And while I certainly think the smart play would be letting them walk, regardless, it’s much easier to say “Boras Client” if Jurrjens and/or Hanson turn out to be solid workhorses for years to come. Having the two be Boras clients is a “win/draw” situation for front office perception. If one or both turns out to be ineffective, then the front office is portrayed as smart, and if they don’t it’s simply a matter of a shoulder shrug and saying “Boras Client” to the understanding nod of those following the team.
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Good analysis, good read. While I agree that the Braves shouldn’t rush into long term extensions, especially with their pitchers, I do wish that they had managed to get something worked out with at least one of their young pieces. There’s still plenty of time, of course, even though Hanson feels like he’s been around a long time.
With Chipper’s retirement officially pending, and Derek Lowe’s final money coming off the books after this year, the team’s financial future has a lot of questions answered. Now the only thing is to figure out how to allocate it, between ensuring their young talent stays around, and in looking to find new pieces to insert.
fjr,
I take a little issue with your characterization of Boras concern for his clients individually. He is an agent who is a lawyer. As such, he cannot let his duty to one client affect his duty to another.
I think what causes him to take the path he takes is that his negotiating power is directly tied to teams knowing that, in fact, he will not accept what he perceives to be a discount. So, when someone for personal reasons wants to accept a discount (like Andruw Jones), Boras releases them as a client.
I disagree with his style on two issues. First, the perception that continually pushing will continue to push all contracts higher, thus raising the mean expected outcome for each client. Fro players as a whole this is probably true, but for “unfavored classes” (over the past few years DH’s and relievers), the numbers don’t always continue to go up.
Second, the insurance value of the extension contract. That is, if the client takes the extension, he is insured. Does Boras cause them to get insurance when they do not consider an extension? If so, do they get back the insurance plus some when they contract? I doubt it.
Braves have done a terrific job of scouting and developing pitchers, but as of right now I wouldn’t put them on the Rays level. Braves and Rays have both developed very good pitchers, but the Rays have done a much better job of signing their pitchers long term. Great analysis. Thanks
@2
with your first issue, as a laywer, I can tell you that while his duties to one client should have no effect on his duties to another, that’s sort of a pollyanna-ish view of how things actually work. Madson is a great example. There is NO WAY that Madson should have taken the risk of a pillow contract as a pitcher. There’s just way too much risk in blowing out an elbow to do that over the possibility of a few million more dollars. However, Boras can easily view it as a risk worth taking, since Madson makes up only a small portion of Boras’ income. Madson makes up 100% of Madson’s income.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at with your point about insurance. I probably just am not understanding what you’re trying to say there.
@3
I’m not saying that the Braves have been better, worse or at all comparing them to the success of the Rays. I’m just saying that it seems that their style is geared towards using their pitchers as heavily as possible when they’re in their first 6 years of team control, and then letting them walk as free agents most of the time. This maybe explains why we keep drafting pitchers, when it seems like we have an abundance. We may just be planning on letting them walk or trading them as they near free agency in most cases.
Trade Hanson.
I would say trade JJ too, but nobody wants him. Might as well pitch him into the ground.
Astute analysis. Obviously, small amounts of fan and media criticism of FO actions are always present, but if you’re Frank Wren and you like keeping your job, you want to make sure you’re generally thought of as a competent guy by dumb fans and hacks like DOB. Deflecting blame onto Boras for failing to come to terms on Jurrjens and Hanson achieves that. More broadly, it supports the Braves’ general strategy of not throwing free agent money around to many players.
Its not hard to imagine that the Braves, in a couple of years, will be dead last in the NL East in payroll. The ability to compete is going to depend, much as with the Rays, on the organization outsmarting, not out spending the competition. They obviously have to use sound judgment in the draft and player development, but also in managing their roster. With players who are not extension candidates, the approach should be use, test and trade. They apparently tried to deal Jurrgens unsuccessfully, but could try again, if he can reestablish his value. The same approach can work with Hanson in about three years. They cannot, however, afford to lose quality players without compensation and hope to remain competitive.
@8
mostly agreed, though I believe that the Marlins payroll spike is a flash in the pan and that the Phillies have tied their hand so severely that even though they will continue to outspend everybody in the NL, they’ll be stuck spending it mostly on aging, ineffective players.
fjr at 4,
What I was getting at with insurance is having Lloyd’s type coverage for disability. Let’s take Madson. If they rejected overtures on a 2 year extension, then to be properly protected in rejecting that, he should have had insurance guaranteeing his income for those 2 years (I realize only 50% is available). Particularly with pitchers, the risk of catastrophic loss is large.
But I also am a lawyer. And it is not pollyannaish to expect a lawyer to do his duty. But if Boras gives them an acknowledgement that “This is my system. This is why I run it this way. If you don’t like the risk, get somebody else.” then Boras has met that duty.
Let’s put it this way. If boras DIDN’T do that, Madson can take him to the cleaners.
@10
How in the world would you prove that Boras wasn’t acting in his client’s best interests? He could just say “I thought he would be fine injury wise and it was worth the risk.” Proving that sort of issue wouldn’t go anywhere, unless you just happened to get a fired up prosecutor and sympathetic jury. I think it’s naive to think an agent like Boras, with tons of clients, would act in his clients best interests instead of his own. And there are LOTS of cases out there where it seems to be that is what Boras did, took unnecessary risk for the player, though it probably would give a higher expected value total payout.
Lots of people who have fiduciary duties abuse them, and they’re almost always impossible to prove in court and almost always settle for pennies on the dollar.
Pitchers almost never get personal insurance on their arms because it’s prohibitively expensive. It’s also fraught with potential for abuse and insurance companies don’t like giving it. They get some sort of disability insurance, but it’s certainly nothing that someone used to a MLB salary would be able to live on without selling off all their assets.
Teams get insurance on players for long term contracts, but almost never players. Teams also get a break, because they buy in bulk for a whole team, thus lowering the rate they have to pay.
I don’t think it’s too big an issue between the Braves and Scott Boras, it was more between John Schuerholz and him.
After all, we signed Derek Lowe.
I don’t see Jurrjens bringing in large money in the offseason, let him test the waters and bring him back to be the third starter for a few years. Hanson is going to continue to get hurt, i would let him have a healthy month and trade him when Hudson returns…
@8 – love this comment. This is going to have to be the front office’s mantra in the coming years – “use, test, and trade.” Does anyone remember what teams were offering for Jurrjens after his rediculously lucky first half?
@12
I agree that I don’t think the Braves care if it’s boras or not, they just look t the dollars, years and quality player they are getting. The point with Boras, is that it allows the FO to absolve themselves of any fan ire in the case that Tommy and Jurrjens end up being good after they leave Atlanta. Wren could just act like they were purely Boras clients who priced themselves out of the market, regardless of the actual truth of that statement.
@13
I think the risk with either Jurrjens or Hanson is roughly equal. Hanson may have a greater risk of injury (though I think people underestimate how dangerous a knee injury is, and how often they recur), Jurrjens probably has a bigger risk of simply being a mediocre to bad pitcher.
Having Boras clients shouldn’t give the FO an excuse to be risk averse. Signing an extension that buys out arb years and maybe some free agency time is usually team friendly. Despite a shoulder issue with Hanson and unimpressive peripheral stats with Jurrjens, I don’t have much doubt that either would be a costly long term investment if some FA years were bought out. Even with Teheran and Delgado, it would still be a good move to try and sign one of either Hanson of Jurrjens (with JJ at a lower cost).
@ #16
There is this perception that early extensions are team friendly, which is not necessarily the case. For example, the Braves offered Francouer the same extension that McCann got–luckily he didn’t take it. Look at the contracts Grady Sizemore and Travis Hafner signed with the Indians a few years ago. How about the Cardinals contract for Adam Wainwright? Wainwright’s TJ surgery has wiped out any surplus value there was. Cameron Maybin and Alcides Escobar just signed contracts that won’t give their teams discounted rates until 3-4 years down the road, and then the rates are only discounts in the option years if those guys progress offensively, and don’t begin to decline defensively. My point is that most extensions these days are NOT the Evan Longoria types, where the team gets really high performance for pennies on the dollar. The Braves are very risk-averse. They don’t want to tie up guaranteed money in guys with the kinds of injury and performance issues in Hanson and Jurrjjens until they have more data.
@16
Jair only has one more year of arb they could even buy out, so we couldn’t do the sort of deal you’re talking about anyway. What in the world kind of ‘buying out’ of arb years could we do for JJ? He’s not going to make less than 5.7MM, in arbitration next year, so he obviously wouldn’t take a contract below that amount. Are you proposing we offer him more than that?
My point wasn’t that Boras clients give the FO an excuse to be risk averse. Actually quite the contrary. My point was that I think it would be the smart thing to let one or both be traded or walk in free agency. And that being boras clients, that makes the move more palatable to the general population.
The Braves payroll being what it is, they can either afford to pay for some free agent position players or some free agent pitchers. They can’t really afford to do both at any significant level. TO me, the obvious move is to let the farm keep developing pitchers, since it seems our development system is pretty good at it, and then save whatever money we have for extending and buying free agent position players when needed.
There is less inherent risk in signing a position player to a long term contract, so that’s not a bad strategy.
Take a law firm that represents Joe’s Car Wash and ExxonMobil. Which client do you think will get the most attention? Which will get the most experienced attorneys?
It seems to me that Boras is great for stars and not so great for others. His philosophy seems to be a one size fits all, which is fine for the top players. His overall strategy works in general but may not in particular cases. Ryan Madson took a huge risk in signing that contract. Even if he had not gotten hurt, there is no guarantee that he would have had a great year to maximize his value; he isn’t that kind of player.
I say trade Diaz Jair and Todd Redmond to the Rangers for Craig Gentry and Yoshinori Tateyama
I would trade Hanson Terdo and Lipka to the Angels for Trumbo Andrew Romine and Mazier