The Greinke Contract

The average value of Zack Greinke‘s contract appears to blow David Price‘s contract out of the water:

The D-backs beat out the division rival Dodgers and Giants to unexpectedly win the Greinke sweepstakes Friday night, acquiring the free agent ace they hope will get the franchise contending again — and fast. He reached an agreement on a $206.5 million, six-year contract, sources told The Associated Press.

The major league ERA leader and runner-up for the NL Cy Young Award helped lead the Dodgers to their third straight division title this season. Then, the 32-year-old righty opted out of his contract, leaving $71.5 million on the table — and wound up with the richest deal, by yearly average, in baseball history.

Is it a fair contract? I like to take the three-year year average WAR, discount it 5% a year for players 30 or older, and see how many WAR the team can expect over the life of the contract. The measures of fWAR and rWAR are extremely different for Greinke, as fWAR tries to measure ability while rWAR is a bit more results oriented. I averaged the two together to get a three-year average WAR of 5.3. With a 5% discount, Greinke would be expected to produce 26.7 WAR over the six years of his contract. With one free-agent WAR running at $7.5 million, his contract should be worth $200 million. So it’s slightly on the high side, but as far as we know, three teams were in the bidding.

Note, however, that the flavor of WAR does matter. I like fWAR more for contracts, since it is more ability based, and rWAR more for awards, since it is more results based. If you go strictly by fWAR, the Diamondbacks are over paying. If you go strictly by rWAR, the Diamondbacks got a bargain. Greinke is an unusually intelligent pitcher, and there is some evidence he saves his strikeouts for when he needs them. Over the last three seasons, his K/AB rate is 23.4% with the bases empty, 25.7% with men on, 26.6% with runners in scoring position, and 30.3% with a runner on third and less than two out. Having two versions of WAR comes in handy here, because neither may be measuring him correctly, but the combination of the two gives a better overall view of his value.

The Diamondbacks have a ace to go with an offense with most of the starters in their primes. I like that combination.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/1IL5a7k