Justin Upton Is A Safer Choice Than Chris Davis

A couple weeks back, I put together a comp model for Chris Davis with consideration for his skill set and late blooming performance.  The model suggested that Davis should be paid about 6/99 up to 8/190 if you really believed in his skills with respective to his historical comps.  It appears over the past week, that the Orioles were unable to get Davis to bite on a 7/150 contract and that the contract offered may have been pulled off the table with the club now focused on other targets.  One such target is Justin Upton.  In this post, I applied the same comp model approach.

For Upton's model, I based the comp model on isolated power, walk rate, and home runs for players aged 25-27 who played left and/or right field from 1981-2004.  Those players were:

Player	WAR/pos
Jesse Barfield	19.1
Shawn Green	13.4
Jermaine Dye	11.9
Magglio Ordonez	11.8
David Justice	11.6
Greg Vaughn	11.2
Jack Clark	10.9
Brad Wilkerson	9.6
Trot Nixon	9.1
Bobby Higginson	9
Ryan Klesko	6.8
Pat Burrell	6.7
Danny Tartabull	6.1
Kal Daniels	5.9
Rob Deer	5.5

This population was used to project from age 28 through age 37, a ten year period.  No one, to date, expects Justin Upton can earn a ten year deal, but I think projecting to that point gives us a fuller view of the potential player.  As you go through the list, you see a variety of player whose game was similar to Upton's.  Largely, power mixed in with a good deal of athleticism.  Of course, that combination can manifest in several ways.  It can produce someone like Rob Deer or someone like Jesse Barfield.  For your reference, Upton had a WAR of 10.3 during his last three seasons, which would drop him in right between Jack Clark and Brad Wilkerson.

Upton's projection adjusted to the current offensive environment:

Year	Age	PA	HR	AVG	OBP	SLG	WAR	$
2016	28	514	22	.269	.355	.483	3.4	24.1
2017	29	513	23	.259	.358	.476	3.4	25.0
2018	30	463	20	.252	.349	.462	2.7	20.6
2019	31	479	21	.262	.354	.472	3.0	24.3
2020	32	510	20	.249	.335	.438	2.2	19.1
2021	33	497	19	.250	.344	.439	2.4	21.6
2022	34	465	18	.242	.328	.425	1.7	15.8
2023	35	465	15	.219	.304	.373	0.4	4.2
2024	36	414	11	.205	.286	.342	-0.4	-3.8
2025	37	433	12	.190	.267	.321	-1.1	-11.7

 Coincidentally, Justin Upton's projected worth over seven years is 150.5 MM, which is effectively what the Orioles offered Chris Davis.  Personally, I would prefer to tailor that deal to six years and 134.7 MM.  That would likely be beneficial to both the club and Upton.  He would hit free agency after what should be a relatively solid age 33 campaign.  If pushed maybe a 6/130 deal with a 2/50 option (10 MM buyout).  Anyway, that is just rolling the numbers around.

Second question is what are the likely floors and ceilings?

Year	Low	Mean	High
2016	3.0	3.4	3.7
2017	3.5	3.4	2.9
2018	2.7	2.7	2.5
2019	2.4	3.0	3.2
2020	0.5	2.2	3.6
2021	1.0	2.4	3.4
2022	-0.1	1.7	3.1
2023	-0.7	0.4	1.3
2024	-1.2	-0.4	0.2
2025	-1.8	-1.1	-0.5

This table looks quite different from the Chris Davis table.  For Davis, the low end projection suggested that he would never be an average starting first baseman.  The low end for Upton is four years of solid play, plus the second highest WAR for these three populations.  Second, the mean projection has six above average years while Davis had four.  The high end projection for Davis delivered five above average seasons, while  Upton's goes to seven.  It is hard not to look at this table and scratch your head why Davis is being valued so greatly.  It could be because historical comps poorly describe what Davis is or it could be that conventional wisdom loves home runs and overlooks age and position constraints.

Finally, here is the value outlay:

Length	Low	Mean	High
1	21	24	26
2	47	49	48
3	68	70	67
4	88	94	92
5	92	113	123
6	101	135	153
7	100	151	182
8	93	155	195
9	81	151	197
10	61	139	191

Upton's floor is projected here to be worth about double what Davis' floor was worth.  The mean outlay appears to be on target for what the Orioles are willing to spend and is significantly above Davis' mean.  Davis and Upton essentially have the same high projection.  In other words, Davis and Upton both have the same ceiling value, but Upton is a much safer choice for getting value in return for the cost.

Now, comp models are not ideal.  Each player is a beautiful snowflake and this approach mashes them all into a snowball.  That said, I feel far more comfortable with Upton's comps than I am comfortable with Davis' comps.  To me, if the choice is between these two players, then the choice is rather clear.