Contract extensions have been a key part of Jon Daniels’ team-building strategy over his 14+ years as the Rangers’ general manager, and the richest of those extensions was completed seven years ago today. Elvis Andrus agreed to an eight-year, $120MM contract that also contains a $15MM vesting option for the 2023 season.
The new deal began with the 2015 season, which would have been Andrus’ first free agent year. Andrus was already signed to a previous extension — a three-year/$14.4MM pact for the 2012-14 seasons, which were Andrus’ three arbitration years — and thus Texas needed to make a sizeable investment to keep Andrus off the open market. As MLBTR’s Steve Adams noted at the time of the deal, “Scott Boras has managed to secure the largest extension ever for a shortstop in terms of new money,” which was perhaps a necessary step given that Boras usually advises his clients to test free agency. (In fact, the Andrus deal has been cited for years as one of the relatively few examples of a Boras Corporation client signing a long-term extension that covers free agent seasons.)
At the time of the deal, it’s quite possible the Rangers felt they would ultimately be on the hook for only the first four years (and $62MM) of the extension. Andrus had opt-out clauses after both the 2018 and 2019 seasons, and as deep as a week into the 2018 campaign, he looked like a strong candidate to exercise that first clause given his improved offensive production in 2016-17. However, a fractured elbow cost Andrus two months of the 2018 season and he never really got on track after the injury, thus informing his decision to stick with Texas in 2019.
Last season, Andrus just flat-out struggled, hitting .275/.313/393 (76 wRC+, 78 OPS+) over 648 PA, with a career-low 5.2% walk rate and a major lack of quality contact, as per his Statcast numbers. In the wake of that poor season, Andrus again chose to pass on his opt-out clause, leaving Texas owing the shortstop $43MM through the 2022 campaign and now not really knowing what to expect from Andrus performance-wise over those three seasons.
Such risks are baked into any extension, of course, and it’s worth noting that Andrus’ hitting potential was a question mark even back at the time of his 2013 deal. Though he had been a highly-touted prospect (Baseball America ranked Andrus as the 19th-best prospect in the sport prior to the 2008 season) during his time in the Rangers’ farm system, Andrus’ minor league numbers weren’t overly impressive. Even at the big league level, he hit only .275/.342/.353 over his first 2591 MLB plate appearances.
That said, 2012 marked Andrus’ best offensive showing to date, as he hit .286/.349/.378 over 711 PA and reached the AL All-Star roster for the second time in his career. And, it’s unfair to say that Andrus wasn’t a valuable offensive player early in his career, considering that his solid average and OBP were augmented by superb speed and baserunning. Combine these skills with a solidly above-average glovework at shortstop, and it’s easy to see why Texas felt comfortable making a long-term bet on Andrus’ future.
Had that extension not been signed, Andrus would have been a 26-year-old free agent hitting the free agent market in the 2014-15 offseason. There wasn’t much in the way of premium middle infield talent available that winter, so even though Andrus didn’t do a ton to elevate his stock over the 2013-14 seasons, his young age and hints at further productivity could have still potentially led to a nine-figure contract. An Andrus free agent deal could have been something of a forerunner to Jason Heyward‘s deal with the Cubs a year later, with a team choosing to pay a premium for a 26-year-old, non-elite offensive player based on their overall skillset and future breakout potential. Heyward had a much better hitting track record than Andrus, so the shortstop wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near the $184MM and eight years Heyward got from the Cubs, though it isn’t a reach to guess that a team could have given Andrus a six-year commitment.
Though it isn’t known whether Andrus will be able to get back on track in 2020 (if there is a season) or beyond, the uncertainty of the back end of his deal doesn’t mean the extension was a mistake for the Rangers. As per Fangraphs, Andrus has already delivered $85.8MM worth of value over the first five years of the contract, surpassing the $77MM he has earned in real-life money. Andrus was a major contributor to the Rangers’ AL West titles in 2015 and 2016, and while he has never matched his offensive peaks of 2016 and 2017, his sheer durability has also been a big point of value — the fractured elbow is the only significant injured list stint of Andrus’ entire career.
Indeed, that wayward pitch from Keynan Middleton (on the second-last at-bat of a 7-2 Angels win over the Rangers on April 11, 2018) might end up being the real what-if moment of Andrus’ tenure with the Rangers. Had Andrus gone on to match his 2016-17 numbers in an uninterrupted 2018 season, he would surely have opted out of his contract and, even in the slow-moving 2018-19 free agent market easily topped the four years and $48MM left on this Texas deal. In such a scenario, the critics currently bemoaning the Andrus extension would probably have then been criticizing Daniels for negotiating an opt-out clause into the deal in the first place.
Andrus is a notable question mark for a Texas team that is looking to turn things around after three losing seasons. While the 2020 season could end up being a wash, getting one more solid year out of Andrus in 2021 or 2022 could be enough to mark down the extension as a win for the Rangers in the eyes of the general fanbase. Even if 2019 is the beginning of end for Andrus as a productive regular, he has still done enough over the course of his contract to make it a decent return for the Rangers, even if that hoped-for leap into superstardom for Andrus never happened.
Great deal, quality player earning at the very least a fair salary. Andrus is just like Brett Gardner, both really great solid players who never attract much attention.
Odd to think he’s only going into his age 32 season. Feels like he’s been around much longer than he has. At the very least, he’s an extremely smart base runner. No longer has the wheels he once had with a 26.7 feet/second sprint speed which puts him slightly below average, but still manages 25-30 stolen bases a year.
If you add in the fact his range was rated #1 at the SS position between 2015-2018 in the AL I think it was a good move.
Before that him and Kinsler were one of the better double play combos I have seen in the last 15 years.
Andrus stops playing shortstop after September 30. Ask the Blue Jays.
Wise decision for Andrus to except the extension.
*accept
My grammaraer sucks but DAMN!
I hate it when they “he flat-out struggled”, when he hit .275, which is fine. He had his 2nd most homers and RBI’s of any year, and he plays good defense.
He posted his lowest OPS+, fWAR, and second lowest wRC+ in a full season in his entire career. He isn’t a good defender, but much closer to an average defender. Plus he batted 3rd behind Danny Santana, and Delino DeShields last season. RBI totals are meaingless.
He has the second highest Active Range Factor for SS
Only behind Simmons.
2019 is the only recent season where he wasn’t one of the best in the AL
He may have fallen off completely or possibly Beltre helped him.
We will find out this year.
But to say he is a below average defensive SS. Don’t know where you are getting that.
I never said he was below average. I said he was average. -3 DRS, but ok marks in UZR and range runs.
Quoting you…
“He isn’t a good defender, but much closer to an average defender”
For the most part of his career this has been incorrect
Range is the most important factor for SS like CF because it allows you to be able to position other fielders.
A SS with great range has an impact on the team as a whole.
He may not be what he once was as I think 2020 will say a lot in determining where he is at.
Good and average are two different things. He had just .1 range runs last season and a 2.1 UZR. Those are average numbers, not good.
Last season as of right now looks like an anomaly unless of course you have more data to prove that his skills dropped off.
So because of his track record he is an above average to great defensive SS.
Unless of course you can say without a benefit of the doubt that he will repeat 2019 in 2020..
We will have to see.
As Andrus goes so does the Rangers.
Hopefully you are right because Jon Daniels has put them in a position to be a threat again.
As of right now they are the only team in the AL West that strikes worry in me long term.
I think he and beltre brought out the best in each other. If nothing else, beltre taught elvis to be more serious and andris taught beltre to lighten up and have a lil fun, which made them both better players.
RBIs are now meaningless? In that case players should stop getting them and concentrate on something that drives in runs. As of yet we do not have a stat for that but we can come up with one I suppose.
RBIs are meaningless in player evaluation, silly. They are largely dependent on luck/batting order position/quality of hitters around you. This is widely accepted in the baseball world at this point
Next week we’ll talk about pitching wins being meaningless for player evaluation. Stay tuned
I’m so sorry. That’s my mistake. I thought meaningless meant having no meaning.
Wait, we also don’t want pitchers to get wins?! I can’t wait for all of the baseball stuff you’re gonna teach me. Bless you!
It’s gonna take a while. You have a lot to learn.
You guys are just too easy.
Nolan Ryan had a 8-16 record in 1987. A down year for him, right? But wait…
Lowest ERA (2.76)
Lowest FIP (2.47)
Highest ERA+ (142)
Most strike-outs (270)
Fewest Hits/9 innings (6.5)
Most Strike-outs/9 innings (11.5)
3rd lowest WHIP (1.139)
In 13 of his 16 losses, the Astros scored 2 or fewer runs. In another loss, they only scored 3.
So, yeah. Using Wins as a measure of individual performance is a great tool. Whatever you say.
Bhambrave, you do understand the definition of the word meaningless, don’t you?
Posters would be better served and received if they argued that such-and-such statistic didn’t tell ENOUGH of the story. But the minute they go to an all-or-nothing argument they are wrong. Sorry.
Hey, I’m old. I don’t get out much. I just go to work everyday. 3-11 today. I have to confess that when people use an invalid argument and then get mad at me for pointing it out, it is funny.
Wins ARE meaningless when evaluating the performance of an individual pitcher. Too many things can affect the outcome that he has no control over. And I didn’t see anyone getting mad, just shaking their heads.
Hey it’s all good. I’m largely having fun. Trying to point out the folly in taking an extreme stance on shaky ground.
For me to drive you in from second, you have to be on second. I get it. But I also could NOT drive you in. Therefore, my driving you in is anything but meaningless. One stat can be good while another stat can be even better.
Not every player is going to be some kind of SABRmetric darling.
I agree that RBI aren’t totally meaningless, but they can be misleading, and there are better stats,
I remember having a discussion with someone back in 2002. He said Vinny Castilla was better than Edgardo Alfonso because Vinny had more RBI 61 to 56. Vinny was a terrible hitter that year, but he had a ton more PA with RISP. Edgardo didn’t have many opportunities, but he was a better hitter.
We kind of do, already. It’s called BA/OBP/SLG with RISP, runners on, or high leverage situations. All you have to do to find that is click “splits” on baseball reference on a player’s profile and you’ll see how good they are in the clutch. Player’s should stop trying to concentrate on getting RBI’s, but concentrate on being good in high leverage situations.
You don’t have to be a SABR metric darling to be good. All you have to have is a good BA, OBP, or SLG with men on base in order to tell you if they are actually clutch, or not. RBI’s don’t tell you if they were clutch or not. Wins are completley meaningless when it comes to evaluating a pitcher. Jacob deGrom has 21 wins in the past 2 seasons while Red Sox’ Eduardo Rodriguez has the 4th most wins since 2018. Mike Fiers also has more wins than deGrom and Clayton Kershaw for that matter, and one less win than Stephen Strasburg. Yet Kyle Hendricks, despite having really solid numbers the past 2 seasons has the 9th most losses.
FWIW, I don’t believe in “Clutch” either. But I do believe in “Choke”.
This is an argument over semantics. RBI’s are basically a “meaningless” number. You could look how he hits with RISP? How he hits with RISP and less than 2 outs, how many opportunities he had with RISP etc.
All that stuff tells you far more than an an RBI. So are they completely “meaningless”, no they tell you how many runs a guy drove on. But they are meaningless in the fact that it doesn’t tell you how good that guy was at driving in runs.
My “work” here is done. Now it’s off to my job.
To all posters, stay well, keep an open mind and remember, there’s more to life than being really, really ridiculously good looking.
Saying he hit his second most homers and RBIs sounds good, but not when you look at the actual statistics. 20, 12, then 8. 72 RBI’s is his second most.
275 is fine, yea, but not when your OPS is 707 and you’re OPS+ is 78.
He’s got the batting line of a 1970s shortstop.
He only had two seasons where he was worth the money, In 2016-2017.
His 2017 was pretty amazing though, 20 dingers, .800OPS, 30SB, +10DRS, +5BSR.
His bat may not play as much these days when Shortstops can all hit for power and field, but he still brings a decent skillset of speed which is usable these days.
He’s still a really good baserunner, 6+ runs with running last year on BR.
I agree… I feel like that phrase/phrasing is used way to liberally when it comes to players who just had a ‘down season’. Like yeah okay, he wasn’t as good as he was in his peak seasons and you can quote all the “advanced metrics you want” to indicate that he was a “below average offensive player or whatever” but like the dude hit .275, played solid defense and like you said hit the 2nd most HRs/RBIs of his career. Had a handful of AB’s gone slightly differently and he had gotten 5-10 more hits than he did he would’ve had a solid season. Taking one year where a guy still managed to hit .275 with double digit HRs really doesn’t warrant a “he flat out struggled” plenty of SS’s would love to have posted the numbers he did — and like I said just a handful of ABs going a little bit differently for him and it wouldn’t even be in consideration for a “flat out struggled” — “Flat out struggled” should be reserved for if he like all of a sudden hit .245 with 5 HRs and couldn’t play defense either. If you ask me… writing him off after hitting .275 is a little premature. — having said all of that. I’m not sure I really ever saw the extension the Rangers signed him to as being an overly good decision. He was never a “superstar” offensively even in his best years. And while his defense has been solid and he’s a significantly above average baserunner. $20M/year for a guy who’s essentially a career .275-.280 hitter with limited power always struck me as a bit of an overpay. For example compare him to Bogaerts. They essentially got similar extensions and Bogaerts offense blows Andrus out of the water 10 times out of 10. Idk maybe the defense, baserunning, and general situation TEX was in with him made it the right call at the time. But personally I just always felt it was a borderline overpay for a guy who’s never really been an “elite” offensive player even in his best seasons.
How can you say he didn’t flat out struggle offensively when he was 22 percent worse than the average MLB hitter? You’re looking at his 275 average and that’s it. So what if he hit for a decent average, what else did he do? Average doesn’t matter anymore, this isn’t the 70’s. In a season when the ball was juiced he put up a 707 OPS.
And once again, just because he “hit the second most home runs of his career and 2nd most RBI” doesn’t mean squat when it’s only 12 home runs and 72 RBI.
Elvis Andrus posted a .313 OBP. He didn’t have any power to speak of. He hit well below league average. Andrus also batted 185 times in the 2nd position in the lineup and 460 ABS batting 3rd. The RBI’s are a function of a favorable batting order. They definitely aren’t because he was highly productive.
Andrus is an action player.
When he is on base he makes things happens.
Reason why I say how he goes so does the Rangers.
We will see what happens this year but throughout the contract extension he has been one of the main reasons for their success.
Sometimes you have to understand baseball deeper than the just basic numbers.
When Andrus does get on base how does that increase the production from you lineup?
When Andrus is on the field how does that make your defense better?
Rangers last year won 78 games with him having a down year.
If he can return back to normal production you could see that team in the race for a Wild Card spot.
They said that because other than that he was bad.
you’re using batting average and rbis to measure the productivity of a hitter? that’s laughable. GTFOH.
A .275 average sucks when it leads to an OPS that barely cracks .700.
Unless he swipes over 60 bags with that .275 average with no power. Now he puts himself in scoring position 60 times with a single scoring him because of great wheels. That player’s wheels can also avoid double plays, reach second on a grounder to avoid another double play, go first to third on a single, throw the pitcher off thinking about him as well as the batter he’s facing.
Little of that shows up on the WAR board or OPS.
That would be a complete outlier. There’s always an outlier. 99% of the time what JD says holds. Particularly so in today’s game where very few people steal 25+ bases.
I guess you overlooked the word “unless”.
If you read “barely cracks .700”, if a player was healthy enough for over 600 plate appearances and had a .705 OPS with a .275 batting average with wheels, there’s a good chance they’d reach base well over 200 times in a season, well over. No power. That’s not completely horrific.
“As MLBTR’s Steve Adams noted at the time of the deal, “Scott Boras has managed to secure the largest extension ever for a shortstop in terms of new money,”
Derek Jeter’s 10yr / $189mm extension way back in the day. It wasn’t a free agent deal.
Jeter was a FA contract actually
Yeah, I remember those deals. Yankees never use to hand out extensions. Was a Steinbrenner policy for a long time.
@jaysfan1994.
Not sure where you’re getting that info. Pettite, Posada, Rivera, Cano each signed multi-year extensions at-least once before they were free agents as well.
@Red Eye.
The 10 year extension exclusively covers his free agent years, but it was signed feb. 2001, which is before he was a free agent. Had he not signed an extension, he was set to be a free agent after the 2001 WS.
“Jeter had been eligible for free agency after this season but he had no desire to follow Rodriguez’s example and test his value on the market.”
abcnews.go.com/Sports/story?id=99854
I remember his 3 errors in the 2015 ALDS
Jays fans remember those 3 errors too. He should be on their Level of Excellence.
Crazy to think he’s only 32. I remember him being a part of those back-to-back pennant winning Rangers teams a decade ago. I guess him and Cruz are all that are left now
Interestingly enough he was part of that huge Atlanta deal that set them up for those postseason contentions with talents that mostly fizzled out after being good during their run.
A year and a half of Teixeira to the Braves (they dealt him a year later before he hit FA to the Angels) for Saltalamacia, Matt Harrison, Andrus and Natalie Feliz.
Amazing to think Cruz is still playing, he was considered an “old prospect” when he was dealt to Texas, he’s got over 400 homers now.
As a Braves fan, I loved getting Tex. What sucks is that they traded him for Casey Kotchman. Tex was only going to be a half year rental, but only getting Kotchman really sucked.
Brilliant extension for jd. U can say at time his hitting was questionable, but rangers have almost always valued defense over offense @ss. And at the time rangers had plenty of offense and power.
The extension will end up being worth it if you consider that he has produced $85.8 of value during the life of the contract thus far. That leaves him needing to produce $34.2 in value over 2020-2022, assuming the rangers do not exercise the 2023 option. Divide that number by 3 years (34.2÷3=11.4) So he needs to provide $11.4 million in value each of the next three years to break even. If a win in WAR is approximately $8 million, Andrus needs to produce 1.5 WAR each season for the next three for the Rangers to break even from a value perspective. 1.5 WAR is completely attainable.
Definite win for the contract. Never an elite player, outside of his two peak seasons, but there’s something to be said for consistency and great defense at a key position for a decade+. At the very least he’d post a decent average, make contact, steal bases, and play defense.
I’ve never understood why they say that a win is worth $8M. If a replacement level player is worth 0 WAR and an average MLB’er is worth 2 WAR, then they think below average players should make $8M per year. That doesn’t make sense.
Yeah seems generous. 16M player putting up 2 WAR sounds like a bad year. 24M for 3 WAR seems even worse.
Taking it a step further, if a 0 WAR team is expected to win 48 games and you add 25 1-WAR players making $8M each, then you’ll be expected to win approximately 73 games and have a $200M payroll.
Last year the average team’s payroll was 138 million. The average team’s accumulated player WAR was 39.5. Or 1 WAR = 3.5 million
Hard to believe Daniels still has a job. 14 years and no titles and really nothing but a World Series loss. How do the fans let that happen? I guess nobody in Dallas pays attention to them?
Winning the World Series isn’t that hard. Tell him, Wash.
It’s incredibly hard.
You can say the same about Billy Beane.
At least Jon Daniels has 2 World Series Appearances.
I would love to see the Rangers make the change at GM because Jon Daniels is one of the better ones in the business.
You can say he lucked into Beltre but besides that he has been able to continuously put together teams that have been able to compete.
Since the Astros been in the AL West the Rangers have been our toughest competition.
Ownership lets that happen. Seen quite a few fans calling for Daniels dismissal over the last several years.
Marginal top 15 SS probably.
He is a lot like Furcal.
I thought Furcal didn’t receive his due credit as a baseball player from fans but the GMS and people tho made the decisions always valued him as a player
Good comparison. I think Furcal was a better overall offensive player though. He was a sparkplug at leadoff for the Braves.
I didn’t know this, but Furcal was the Cardinals starting SS when they beat the Rangers in 11.