Monthly Archives: February 2008

Contracts

Granderson gets multi-year deal

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Buster Olney is reporting that Curtis Granderson has signed a multiyear contract. Terms weren’t not available. More to come later. (h/t Motown Sports)

UPDATE: It’s official. A five year deal with a club option for 2013. The Tigers buyout his arbitration years and first year of free agency. ESPN reports that the contract is for $30.25 million. Not sure on the option at this point. It’s a great deal for the Tigers. Again, more to come later.

Notes from the conference call

  • Dombrowski is thrilled and said it “is a great day for the Tigers organization.”
  • Granderson is excited to be a part of this (the team, the city) for a long time to come.
  • Granderson’s agent Matt Brown said that it was great dealing with John Westhoff and Dave Dombrowski. He also thanked Mike Ilitch for the confidence that he showed.
  • Granderson is excited and appreciative that it got done now, knowing that the Tigers didn’t have to make a move like this at this time (not being arb or FA eligible)
  • On the length of the contract and possibly foregoing bigger dollars, Granderson recognized that he got some security and that he doesn’t know what could happen over the next 5 years. Brown followed up and noted that in these types of situations the club is assuming all the risk, but that it’s a win for both sides because he’s at the top of the heap for pre-arbitration players.
  • Dombrowski said his willingness to do a long term deal was due to how good Granderson is. Plus, not being a pitcher Granderson doesn’t present as big of an injury risk. The skill and the make-up of Granderson along with his willingness to stay are what made it possible.
  • Granderson views the Tigers as a second family. Everything since he signed with the organization has been positive.
  • Curtis said his areas for improvement were hitting left handers more consistently, continuing to cut down and strike outs, and improving in the outfield. He’s sure he’ll have more things to focus on in 2009 and will learn by watching the veterans on the team.
  • Granderson’s plans for the evening are to pack to head down to spring training.
  • Dombrowski said the trades of Gorkys Hernandez and Cameron Maybin didn’t factor into the decision to lock up Curtis.
  • Granderson’ celebratory meal was a McDonald’s extra value meal plus a double cheeseburger off the dollar menu.

Analysis

There’s not much to analyze except to say “Yay!” Granderson on the open market is a $100 million player. Of course Granderson didn’t get “taken” on this deal because he isn’t eligible for the free agent market. The only leverage that Granderson has at this point is to say no to a long term contract. And being faced with $30 million or $500,000ish, it’s easy to see why he’d take the money and the security. Not to mention he is sticking with an organization that he likes, and figures to be a contender for a good chunk of his contract.

From the Tigers stand point, they take on the risk at this point. If Granderson’s career takes an unfortunate ending due to injury the Tigers are left holding the bag. In their favor though is the fact that even if Granderson is average they’ll still come out ahead. And when factoring in his defense (not to mention his work ethic and all his other qualities), he stands to be easily better than average. While being better than 2007 will be difficult (though not at all impossible), his future is still bright.

His projections for this year (Bill James, Marcel, Chone, PECOTA ZiPS) range from an OPS of 806 to 882. So he figures to be somewhere between good and really good. Plus he’s now locked up for his peak seasons with some very palatable cost certainty. The contract will pay Granderson $1 million this year, $3.5 million in 2009, $5.5 million in 2010, $8.25 million in 2011, and $10 million in 2012. Even the 2013 option is affordable at $13 million (with a $2 million buyout).

And then there is the off the field stuff. Normally “off-the-field-stuff” conjures up bad images. But Granderson is becoming the face of the franchise on a team with multiple All Stars and potential Hall of Famers. He’s entrenched himself in the community and been exceedingly accessible. He could be the next long term Tiger and as an unabashed fan I hope he is.

The contract is par for the course with the Tigers who are taking care of their own and locking up a team to make a run for the next several years. This deal pushes the team payroll over $133 million this year and $99 million in 2009 (with only 12 players signed).

Former Tigers

Sean Casey inspires Terrell Owens

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Sean Casey at the bat
Former Tigers first baseman Sean Casey reached an agreement with the Boston Red Sox and will be the primary back-up at first base. Curt Schilling is pretty excited about the move citing Casey’s nice guy/solid teammate reputation. But Schilling goes a step further and relates a story about Sean Casey and a Sharpie.

Each year at the All Star game the participants are given a jersey to autograph which is then auctioned off for charity. Casey somehow was down a couple jerseys and ended up having to autograph his game jersey.

He tells the story and it generates a huge laugh, and I them comment that since he autographed it, he should take a black sharpee into the field with him when he plays, and have each player that gets to first base autograph his shirt as well.

He actually TOOK the black sharpee in his pocket, onto the field with him. I am not sure who he told, but I know he told more than one player about it, and it was hilarious to watch guys at first base start cracking up as he told them the story.

So in the end he got the better of everyone because he had players autographing his jersey while they were standing on first base.

Casey only played in the 1999 and 2001 All Star games, meaning that his Sharpie-ness predated Terrell Owens’s Sharpie stunt by a full season.

2008 Season

The 2008 PECOTA’s are here

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Baseball Prospectus has released it’s 2008 player projection system known as PECOTA. What’s available at this point isn’t the full results of the system, just the weighted mean. PECOTA offers projections across a spectrum which are available on the player cards which will be forthcoming. What we have now is the middle.

PECOTA is premium content so I won’t post all the projections here (I recommend a BP premium subsciption, at least for the next month or buy the annual). Still, I will note some items.

Offense

It was a surprisingly gloomy picture on offense when I opened up the spreadsheet. I didn’t expect them to forecast another batting title for Magglio Ordonez or another quad 20 for Granderson, but I was a little surprised how down some of the projections were.

  • Curtis Granderson’s 2008 is forecast to be much more like his 2006 than his 2007, but they do like him for a .486 slugging percentage and they give him a very high upside score (20th highest for position players).
  • The system hates Jacque Jones and sees only a .699 OPS. Players expected to significantly outperform that are Marcus Thames, Ryan Raburn, Brandon Inge, and Timo Perez.
  • But the Tigers do have some decent balance in the forecasts with 6 of the 9 members of the starting lineup projected to be at least 20 runs above replacement (and Edgar Renteria is at 18). Detroit is the only American League team that can claim that many.

Pitchers

The system likes the Tigers starters though.

  • Justin Verlander has Josh Beckett and Kevin Millwood as his top two comparables and is projected to headline the Tigers staff (and several other staffs as well).
  • PECOTA still sees big things for Jeremy Bonderman and he has the 22nd highest upside score bolstered by a 3:1 K:BB ratio.
  • The system likes Dontrelle Willis to rebound a little and be a league average pitcher with a 4.55 ERA. Not too shabby since that’s the highest projected ERA in the rotation.
  • One caveat on the above bullet is that PECOTA only sees Kenny Rogers pitching 57 innings. The list of pitchers in their mid 40’s throwing more than that is probably a pretty small number and his injury last year was probably also a large factor.
  • As for who might be eating those innings? PECOTA would go with Yorman Bazardo narrowly edging out Virgil Vasquez with either giving typical 5th starter type numbers.

If you want all the numbers, you’ll have to buy the book or a subscription. And keep in mind these are projections, not gospel. Players will over perform and under perform the numbers. But there is some science behind this stuff, and it’s a nice objective check compared to one’s gut – especially when it comes to your favorite players.

Take I75 North has some comments on the prospect projections.