Ellis Still Talking Extension With A's

I think that if they do re-sign Ellis, it should be for 4 years/36 million.

His offense has its ups and downs, but he's generally not a force at the plate. He's fine. He has some pop, he doesn't have a terrible average, and we have seen that he can have some really good offensive numbers at times, and can be clutch at times. So I'd say he's worth 2 to 2.5 million at the plate.

But in the field there's nobody better fielding his position. For that I think he deserves something very respectable. 7 million a year for his defensive capabilities.

Paying him 9 million a year over the next 4 years does two things: We get him at a decent over all price. He gets paid. He gets his veteran salary which he deserves, BUT, at the same time, if and when a young prospect is ready to come up, the contract isn't too long and wouldn't be THAT difficult to eat in return for a trade.

BomberMan,

That's a lot for a 2B. I doubt Orlando Hudson would even get that much. Ellis is a great fielder, but not the best. I think Hudson and Aaron Hill are both better. He is very, good, though. You overvalue defense. Also, there are not many teams looking for 2B in the offseason. Only the White Sox, D'Backs, Dodgers, Cardinals, and Rockies seem interested. And with Hudson, Grudzielanek, Durham, and Ellis there is depth.

I also don't think the A's should sign Ellis. They should take the draft picks. They also should give Eric Patterson a chance. I know a lot of people don't think he's good but he has a great bat. He could hit .280 with 30 steals. that's good for 2B. The only bad thing is that he has terrible defense and doesn't have the power for LF. He doesn't got the arm for center field. He is just a stopgap for Jemile Weeks and Adrian Cardenas, anyway. They shouldn't extend Ellis to block those 2 unless they want to trade Cardenas and then move Ellis when Weeks is ready. That could be a Beane-like move.

If GMs valued defensive runs saved as much as offense, here's what Ellis would be worth:

Offense: he's almost the definition of league-average, which is 2.5 wins above replacement in the AL. At the going rate of $4.5MM per win, that's $11.25MM per year.

Defense: 2B is neutral on the spectrum. Ellis is about +20 runs better than the average 2B or 2.0 wins. That's another $9MM per year.

In total: about $19MM per year. Ellis is one of the 25 best players in baseball, and the A's haven't paid him anything over his career. He certainly deserves a huge pay raise, although most GMs don't realize it. Ellis is way better than any prospects waiting in the wings, and I'm positive Beane will re-sign him. There's a reason he wasn't traded this past week.

Are you kidding me?

Top 25 in baseball? You cannot be serious. I love Ellis, but I think top 100 is far more accurate. Perhaps top 75. No way Ellis is a top 25 player in the league. He is not even hands down a top 10 2B. Utley, Uggla, Kinsler, Kendrick, Hudson, Hill, Roberts, Polanco would all have something to say about that, and then there are guys like Kelly Johnson, Jeff Kent, Jose Lopez, are all good also. Ellis is probably a top 7 or 8 2B, but top 25 in baseball overall? Craziness.

"Offense: he's almost the definition of league-average, which is 2.5 wins above replacement in the AL. At the going rate of $4.5MM per win, that's $11.25MM per year."

Out of EVERY player in MLB, Ellis is the last guy you should try and pigeonhole as a "certain" kind of hitter, look at his OPS+s year by year:

103, 81, n/a, 127, 84, 110, 93.

The only thing that can be said about Ellis's offense is that it fluctuates between "very awesome" and "really sucky".

Max -- and you didn't even mention Pedroia and Cano ...

Sky -- think you might have your numbers wrong -- going rate seems to be about $2.5M per WARP.

At that rate, Ellis is still a $10-12M / year player, but that number obviously falls as he gets older (IE, contract gets longer).

Maybe $24M for 3 or $30M for 4?

I agree with Joe. Ellis is a good player and there isn't anything negative about him. however, he is an average bat at best so i don't think he is worth A's to sign him for four years; that is actually a long time for a contract (unless we're talking superstars). if he gets re-signed it won't be above 2 yrs for $7.5 mil per and then Patterson will get moved out. It makes no sense to keep Ellis and Patterson.

Sky: Ellis is NOT worth $19 mil. talk about inflating the market. yikes

No way ellis get more than 4 million per year for more than 2 years. patterson probably has a much to offer as ellis by next year and will save money so the a's can get what they really need which is some pop in the middle of their lineup. I believe that beane plays on clearly the whole infield except barton this offseason. ellis is not in the long term plans with how the a's are stacked with 2b prospects (cardenas, weeks, pennington, petit, and even patterson-who offers just as much offensively)

I hope they let him walk. He's a little overrated defensively and his offense is usually poor, with a few hot-streaks a year. The A's offense is so pathetic currently and Ellis is part of the reason for that.

I read it, but I'm hoping I'm hallucinating... 19M a year for Ellis? Top 25 player?

Cano's 4yr/30M current sets the market. So 4yr/36M seems most likely for Hudson. Ellis will probably get something similar to Castillo, 4yr/25M

Mark Ellis' career OPS+ is 99 -- that's pretty average.

Free agents went for about $4MM per win two off-seasons ago and $4.5MM last off-season. I'm not talking about BPro's dumb WARP stats here. REAL wins above replacement. There's a thread at The Book Blog that discusses this.

Before going further with Ellis, I hope we all agree that he is the premier defensive 2B right now, slightly ahead of Hudson. No others are close.

That said, I'd only want Utley and Roberts ahead of him. This is Kinsler's first year as a stud with the bat -- he needs to repeat it and improve his awful glove. I could say the same about Uggla. Hudson is a step down. Polanco is barely above average with the glove these days. Kendrick and Hill are underrated, but not as good. Cano is close assuming he gets his bat back to pre-2008 form. Kent is not who he used to be. And Lopez? Seriously? I'm going to assume that was a typo.

The reason Ellis is better than Hudson offensively even with similar raw stats is two-fold - Ellis plays in a pitchers' park and Hudson plays in a hitters', and then add on the fact that Ellis plays in the AL, which has better pitching than the NL right now.

******

Here's a question. If Ozzie Smith was playing in his prime, what you
pay him per season?

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Robinson Cano's contract has nothing to do with the market. He signed it while still under team control and it mostly replaces his arbitration years which pay much less than free agent contracts.

As much as I love Ellis he is not a top 25 player, thats incredulos. But I do believ he is up there among the top 2B. I'd say the top 5 2B go like this: Dan Uggla, Orlando Hudson, Brian Roberts, Mark Ellis, Dustin Pedroia. Ellis gets the edge over Pedroia because he is a vet we still need to see what happens with Pedroia.

And I say the A's give Ellis a 2 year 12 million dollar deal with an option for a 3rd. Because he's been a main stay there and he is consistantl. You can count on somewhere between .250-.280 avg, 10-20 HR's and 70-85 RBI's. And I think Cardenas will be ready be the end of 2010, probably the same with Weeks. And one of them will move over to SS, and the A's are set.

my bad actually Utley goes ahead of Pedrioa, Ellis and Roberts. Updated

Uggla
Hudson
Utley
Roberts
Ellis

Ari, Chase Utley is far and away the best 2B in the majors right now. He's the best hitter and is right up there with Ellis and Hudson defensively. He's one of the best five players in the majors (Pujols, ARod, Chipper, Utley, Sizemore).

Uggla is an awful fielder. Hudson doesn't hit as well as Ellis and has lost a couple steps in the field. Roberts is better than Ellis. Kinsler is close and deserves mention, but he also can't field well at all. I'd put it like this:

Utley
HUGE GAP
Roberts
GAP
Ellis
Kinsler
GAP
Polanco
Phillips
Iwamura
Kendrick
Johnson
Hudson

I love Ellis, but top 25 is crazy. Then you follow that up with Chipper being top 5. We all know he had an amazing first half, but that guy is nearly washed up. All credibility has been lost for Sky.