The Mets and Yoenis Cespedes agreed to a three-year deal. He gets $27.5 million in 2016, and $75 million total if he doesn’t opt out after one year. That’s compared to a report $100 million, five year offer from the Nationals. Here’s why Cespedes took that deal:
Still, it’s a gamble that few players take, one that apparently resonated with Cespedes for a couple of reasons:
First, as I wrote on Friday, he truly does love playing in New York and wanted to stay here, in part because the Latin culture made him far more comfortable than the other three cities in which he had played, and in part because he sees himself as a superstar made for the New York stage.
Secondly, the shorter team deal brings some ego-gratification — no small factor, according to a person who knows Cespedes well. That is, he felt disrespected by the lack of long-term offers this winter, more so that he couldn’t get a deal to match the six years and $132.75 million Justin Upton received from the Tigers.
But by taking the three-year deal at an average of $25 million per year — including a rather staggering $27.5 million in 2016 — he is making significantly more per season than either Upton or Jason Heyward, which saves some face for both him and his agents.
In the early days of free agency, the headline number would be the dollars per year. That’s what made the contract big. At some point the total value of the contract became the headline number, and players started asking for more years. I’ve written for a while that teams might be better off giving players more money for fewer years, so they are not carrying around a high price, declining player.
That’s what the Mets did with Cespedes. For one year, $27.5 million is a reasonable price for his efforts. Even the $75 million for three years is reasonable. It looks like other teams didn’t trust Cespedes’s efforts enough long term to go $25 million a year long term, and that’s probably a good thing. So this is a deal that works well for the Mets, for Cespedes, and maybe will start changing the landscape of deals, more money for fewer years.
(Just as a thought experiment, when Bryce Harper becomes a free agent at a very young age, I’d rather pay him $400 million over five years than $600 million over ten years. Both the team that signs him and Harper will likely be better off with the shorter term deal, but he’ll want the long-term deal to break half a billion.)
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/1SDiZ0e
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