Make 'em work before ya' pay 'em

When I heard the Pittsburgh Pirates agreed to a three-year deal with Ryan Doumit, my heart sank just a bit.  Wanting to know more, I started contacting a few people and nobody would tell me on the record what Doumit’s deal is.  But I’m guessing it’s around $13MM over three with a signing bonus just under $1MM and a fourth year club option in the $8MM range.  That would be $22MM/4.

That’s about what I had him at the other day at $24MM/4, and I thought that was high considering he had laid out so much.

But notice I only talked about a four-year deal.. not a three-year.  As I mentioned then, what possible good does it do to sign Doumit to a contract that only eats his arb years unless we’re going to trade him? 

None.. zero.  The media says it affords the organization ‘cost certainty’ but that’s a load of malarkey since we’re not the Red Sox, if you think about it rationally.  The difference between offering no contract and forcing the player to submit arb offers each year, and the team’s position what he is worth, is likely to be less than $2MM over the entire three years, and most of that coming in his last year. 

Instead, it would force the young player to earn next year’s money instead of having a chance to pack it in on dysfunctionally managed clubs.  Plus, isn’t that what exclusitivity (the intitial six years) is all about?

We’ll wait for the final numbers on Doumit before making final thoughts but there hasn’t been a player to offer the Pirates a deep discounted deal since Bay offered up his, and he probably agreed to do that because he knew that the organization knew he was only 85% healthy.

Plus, we all know too well the end result when we did eat arb years recently - a significant regression in their production.. Snell, Sanchez, Wilson, Capps, just to name a few of the recent ones.  And I’m betting a dollar to a dime that you can add Doumit to that list now as well, no matter what the contract amount is for.

In my own opinion, this isn’t the way the Pirates should be moving forward during a full rebuilding cycle. Handing out large sums of money to only players who command positions the organizational depth is weak in due to short-term plan mismanagement only provides the player too much leverage.

And to be quite blunt as a fan, I hope the entire 25-man has rolled over with every player around during the ‘pack it in’ years long gone before McCutchen, Tabata, Alvarez, Ford, et al hit town.

Doumit included.

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One reader took me to task by pointing out my March 2006 article where I said Jack Wilson was worth an average of $6.25MM over three. 

But I’m guessing he missed the part where I said the only reason I felt that way was because we had mismanaged our short-term plan.. we had no organizational depth.  Here we are nearly three years later with the exact same problem.

See above.

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Quite a few emails asking about the Pirates offensive 41.1% three-and-out rate (of occurances) from August 1 on.  One reader in particular wanted to know if I ran a correlation between year-end winning percentages and three-and-out rates, which I hadn’t.  So I did and I noticed an odd pattern:

2006: 0.474
2007: 0.455
2008: 0.321

The first two weren’t all that exciting to begin with and then 2008 showed why.. the potential for outliers.  The Angels had a .617 winning percentage last year but also had the worst three-and-out rate in the game at 39.1%.  That’s a very unusual combination but somewhat explained because of their pitching, the state of the division they are in, and very clutchy hitting. 

The lowest rated 19 clubs in the game last year – all under 37% – averaged a .514 winning percentage; in 2007 the best 19 had a .504; in 2006 a .516.  All what you would expect to see.

Also don’t forget this tidbit.. 57% of all Pirates plate appearances from August 1st on ended in three or four and out innings.  League average was less than 50% as it almost always is.  You can’t score runs if you don’t get men to the plate.

Good stuff.

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Based on progressive drafts, no radical increased spending, typical organizational cycles, and the lack of supplemental draft picks for free agents lost, my modeling program suggests it will be years before we have a chance to be competitive again.

We lose too many pitchers when our offensive youth hit, then as that talent starts to mature our arms are too young, and that next cycle is the one that starts to rock.

In 2016.

I can’t wait.

Related posts:

1. Re: Wilson & Sanchez: Damn good job Neal. Damn good.
2. So, guess-hitting doesn’t work against Lilly, huh?
3. Doumit contract is front office red flag
4. 2011 or bust?
5. Doumit long-term? Hmm..