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Baseball Blogs Weigh In: The Longoria Deal
Yesterday, the Tampa Bay Rays announced a historic long-term deal with their rookie-of-the-year candidate, Evan Longoria. If all the options are picked up and bonuses earned, the Dirtbag from Long Beach State will earn $44.5MM over the next 9 years.
Some have noted that the Rays are following the blueprint of the Indians from the 90s, by locking up their young talent long-term. However, this move is unprecedented for a player so early in his career, as last night marked only his 7th game as a major leaguer.
Buster Olney notes that this deal is not surprising as teams are even starting to consider giving star college players 10-year deals when they are drafted. While there is certainly risk with the deal, historically the risk is minimal for top position prospects. Fred Claire notes that long-term deals are now the norm, but that these deals are being reserved for players with impeccable character traits.
Lets take a look at what is being written about this contract in the Blogosphere...
- skyking162 looks at the math behind the Longoria deal in a two part series. In Part 1, they calculate how much money the Rays are saving. They note that the Rays are paying Longoria during his arbitration years as if he would be worth $9MM on the free agent market. In Part 2, they calculate the addition of the option years and note that the upside far outweighs any downside.
- Outs Per Swing notes that signing Longoria before he becomes a star will help the Rays avoid making the same mistake the Marlins made with Miguel Cabrera.
- DRG of Rays Index takes exception to writers that now say sending Longoria to the minors had nothing to do with delaying his free agency clock. DRG notes that keeping Longoria in the minors for two weeks meant the Rays only had to buy out two free agency years instead of three, thus saving the team money. He also refers to reports of players being upset about the deal. He says they should talk to Rocco Baldelli and ask him if he thinks it is a good idea to leave money on the table for a little security up front.
- Her Rays needs help deciding on the white Longoria jersey or the grey.
- Baseball Musings is surprised by the move but notes that this is just another reason to like the future of the Rays.
- Babes Love Baseball thinks the Rays bought the car without so much as a test drive.
- Fanhouse notes that the Rays are doing a great job of locking up their young talent and while Longoria may be underpaid the first six years of the deal, he will make up for it in the option years and beyond.
Cork Gaines writes for Rays Index and can be reached here.
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Obviously this is a great deal for Tampa. The odds that Longoria doesn't become a great player are very low. If he doesn't become a great player, then he'll likely simply become an okay player, making him still worth nearly all of that $17M. If he busts out and becomes a stud then suddenly they're getting the most productive years of a terrific player for just $44M. This is a brilliant move by the Rays and a good indicator of the guys that are running that organization,.
Posted by: scribbletone | April 19, 2008 at 06:34 PM
Great deal for TB, low risk HIGH reward...no doubt a great way to go about things...More teams should follow suite...
Posted by: rotoenquire | April 19, 2008 at 10:46 PM
I'll play Devil's Advocate here and suggest that this is actually a fairly dangerous pattern.
While it has panned out notably well with certain players (Sizemore, Crawford, etc), there is still some risk with handing out contracts to unproven talent.
While Longoria is a "can't miss" prospect, other highly rated prospects have sizzled out. One only needs to look at the Rays outfield with Roco to see a prime example.
I'm willing to bet that some of the recent young signings will look quite foolish a few years from now. If this trend continues we will see more and more bad deals. It might take a few years for that to happen, but it will occur.
So while I do believe that the Longoria deal will work out I find the precedent that it sets to be very dangerous.
Posted by: bjsguess | April 20, 2008 at 06:38 PM
Of course some prospects won't work out. And some will explode. And many will fall in between, all to varying degrees. That's why it pays to make many of these deals -- each one is insured by the rest. The Rays already have Carlos Pena and James Shields locked into similar contracts. Even when one of them ends up being worth a few million less than they're being paid, the other two will be worth a few million more.
Posted by: Sky | April 21, 2008 at 04:26 PM