Long-Term Contract Extensions for Young Players

[fredjstanley]

This morning on my Phillies 2015 standard game I extended J.P Crawford for 10 years, $39.5 million towards the tail end of the 2015 season after Crawford had played around 20 games in the majors, and was wondering if anyone else has adopted this strategy on OOTP? It's a tactic used occasionally in real-world baseball, the Rays and Astros have had particular success with the formula, and I was curious to see other OOTP users experience and what kind of deals they've managed to get done with top prospects.

FYI Crawford was at 2.5 star ability, 4.5 potential at the time of the deal, and the breakdown of the contract (roughly, I don't have my game to hand as I write this) is as follows:

Years 1 & 2: $850k
Years 3 & 4: $2.4m
Year 5: $3.4m
Year 6: $4.4m
Years 7 & 8: $5.4m
Years 9 & 10: $5.4m (both team option years)

Also, do you think this is a fair contract for both player and team? Interested to hear your thoughts!

[DustinthePOWERHOUSE]

Originally Posted by fredjstanley

This morning on my Phillies 2015 standard game I extended J.P Crawford for 10 years, $39.5 million towards the tail end of the 2015 season after Crawford had played around 20 games in the majors, and was wondering if anyone else has adopted this strategy on OOTP? It's a tactic used occasionally in real-world baseball, the Rays and Astros have had particular success with the formula, and I was curious to see other OOTP users experience and what kind of deals they've managed to get done with top prospects.

FYI Crawford was at 2.5 star ability, 4.5 potential at the time of the deal, and the breakdown of the contract (roughly, I don't have my game to hand as I write this) is as follows:

Years 1 & 2: $850k
Years 3 & 4: $2.4m
Year 5: $3.4m
Year 6: $4.4m
Years 7 & 8: $5.4m
Years 9 & 10: $5.4m (both team option years)

Also, do you think this is a fair contract for both player and team? Interested to hear your thoughts!

I typically try to do it after a little more service time...it's super risky doing it that early. Then again, maybe he turns into a superstar and even if he doesn't you can probably justify those salaries.

Greed and motivation for a winning team play a big factor in extensions, usually I try to extend as much as possible, but some people are harder to extend than others.

[pgjocki]

You are signing him for way below market value and taking advantage ofwet what I consider a loop hole in AI logic.

It's your sim, but I never extend more than 3 years now to ensure I don't lock up my core for a fraction of what they would get through arbitration and/or free agency.

[monkeystyxx]

Yeah, I don't like contracts longer than 5 years for that reason.

JP's gonna be 31 by the time he's free of that contract and he's making a little over 2015 average MLB salary. Given the trend lately, he's probably making 2025 average or maybe even below. If he works out to be an All Star calibre player, that just strikes me as unfair. Of course, if he gets horribly maimed in his next game, then it works out great for him (except the whole maiming thing). Butt odds are that won't happen.

Even Singleton's contract was only 5 years. Longoria's was essentially a 6 year extension and he was already 27 (plus his isn't exactly small money).

[Westheim]

To be fair, the only thing that strikes me as gaming a loop hole in the AI are the team options. If those are player options or no options, I'd say it's a solid deal.

If I'm the real J.P., do I take it? Heck, yeah! I'm gonna be on somebody's payroll for $40M - more than enough to never work a minute in my life again. How many talented 22-year olds have ended on the scrap heap of molten elbows? They didn't make $40M.

Maybe I'm not the right guy to ask.

W. Estheim
Greed - Low
Desire to Win - Low
Leadership - Very Low
Intelligence - Skipped Test
Loyalty - You Got Cookies?
Work Ethic - Neither one

[monkeystyxx]

Originally Posted by Westheim

To be fair, the only thing that strikes me as gaming a loop hole in the AI are the team options. If those are player options or no options, I'd say it's a solid deal.

If I'm the real J.P., do I take it? Heck, yeah! I'm gonna be on somebody's payroll for $40M - more than enough to never work a minute in my life again. How many talented 22-year olds have ended on the scrap heap of molten elbows? They didn't make $40M.

Another way of looking at it though, if that contract is for 5 years, he's still guaranteed $20m, still more than enough to live on, with the possibility of renegotiating at 26 with a view to making far more than the other $20m in the future if he's as good as people expect.

Worst case scenario, he knackers a knee/elbow, never plays again, makes $20m.

Average case scenario, he makes $20m, isn't that great, makes $1-3m a year for the rest of his career drifting around various clubs. Not exactly a bad living.

Best case scenario, he makes $20m, then signs an even better contract aged 26 (rather than 31) having had a great start to his career.

If I'm JP, I'm wanting the guaranteed $20m and relative freedom, rather than the $40m stuck in Philadelphia for 10 years on league average pay. That's kinda like saying "might as well get paid now, because man am I going to suck later on". Different strokes, I guess.

From a club point of view, I'm not sure I'd WANT to sign a player who thought $5m/year for 10 years aged 21 was a good idea. Shows a lack of ambition and confidence in himself.

Of couse, I wouldn't want to sign a Bryce Harper either, who thinks a $400m contract is lowballing aged 23.

[Westheim]

Nobody's gonna give you a 5-yr, $20M deal though, since your three years at the minimum and two years of arbitration will always be cheaper for the team than the $20M deal. The team has no motivation whatsoever to hand out such a contract. It only brings a benefit and balances against the risk of a blown elbow if it includes several years of free agency.

Edit: frickin' typos

[fredjstanley]

Interesting replies from everyone, it seems the jury is pretty divided on this one. Personally, I feel that the deal is fair and represents a risk/reward for both sides.

If JP is a huge bust, he's guaranteed $29 million over eight years, which is more than a remote possibility as he has just 60 PA's above AA.

On the other hand, if he turns into an all-star he'll be paid roughly $5 million a year for four of his FA eligible seasons. He'll still, however, be in a position to cash in as a 30 year old free agent once the contract expires.

As a point of reference, Jon Singleton signed a 8 year $35 million deal including THREE team options before he'd made his major league debut. Chris Archer's contract is another similar case - Archer signed a $43 million, eight year deal including two team options after one season in the bigs. Archer's contract looks like a steal at this point, while Singleton's has worked out very poorly for Houston.

[DustinthePOWERHOUSE]

I think the fact that he took it shows exactly what's going on. His greed is probably low and therefore he probably wanted this contract more than other players would. Very few players (in the game) sign deals like this anyway. The length of the deal also isn't an exploit as the game makes you increase the money substantially before signing long term deals. I think this is more of an aberration than anything else.

[r0nster]

I have pulled the Cleveland Indians 1990s) methodology if signing core young players to long term contracts. Helps me quite a bit. However I sign my core players to varying number of years. If I had 3 core players would sign one say 8 years then 9 and if confident in player 10 years. This way I can see if I can handle a nice contract at that time or dump him for better young players

[Jman0329]

When I did my Phillies sim, I also locked up J.P. to a long deal right out of the gate. Although it did not work out as I truly planned, as he became a solid regular, but I could have gotten so much more value compared to what I gave him.

I rarely give large extensions until they hit arbitration, but as mentioned above Tampa and Houston are known for using this system to their advantage.

[baseballonly]

It's defiantly good for the team IMO, if he ends up just being an average player then you still aren't paying him the going price for an average SS on the FA market, especially considering you can expect that to be much higher in ten seasons. If he doesn't pan out at all, you can probably ship him off to someone for virtually nothing but shed the salary (assuming, at least, he's still a young fringe ML player), and if worst comes to worst, eating his contract won't kill you given the Phillies' budget which tends to be around $200m.