07 June 2016

Manny Machado, the 500 Million Dollar Man

From 2019 until 2026, Machado should earn more each year than the nation of Tuvalu.
A couple offseason ago, the Orioles tried to buy out a couple years of free agency.  Terms were never divulged, but there was word that Manny would have had a few years bought out around 25 MM a piece.  The rumor was that it broke down because of a difference in the number of years being bought out.  The Orioles wanted more and Manny wanted less or at least be more fully compensated in exchange for being locked in for a longer term.  Over the past season and a half, the inability to come to terms looks poor in hindsight for the Orioles.

In the end, it may be cheaper to fund the development of a time machine and go back to 2013 to sign Manny long term, but lets assume that is not possible.  What is the general ballpark should we expect to sign Machado?  How much should the Orioles dedicate to a talent like him.  To answer this question I did what I did last winter, I used a number of variables to find players who were similar to Machado.  I then took that population and how they performed moving forward.

You might remember that the model largely underpredicted what players wound up seeing.  For example, I put together a comp model for Chris Davis.  It projected the following for him:

YearAgePAHRAVGOBPSLGWARValue
20163051826.263.333.4822.215.4
20173152228.265.339.4982.518.4
20183256029.271.356.5013.224.7
20193350926.261.346.4812.419.4
20203448120.248.334.4381.512.8
20213538117.243.316.4380.98.0
20223640416.237.310.4180.65.6
20233738516.222.299.4050.22.0
20243835513.211.283.379-0.3-3.1
20253935712.200.270.356-0.7-7.6
Mean203.251.333.45712.596

I also broke down the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile WAR expectations for Davis.  The model had a seven year deal at 40/104/172.  With deferred money adjusting the value, we found that Davis signed for 7/145.  In other words, the model thinks the Davis deal has about a 33% chance to be worth his deal or better.  A quick review of or other modeling efforts and you will find that players generally agree somewhere between the 50th and 75th percentile, which makes sense.  The signing team should find the player slightly more valuable than what other teams would value the player.  This might give us some level of expectation when we look at Machado.

So who is in Machado's comp class?  Well, players like Machado are very rare in how well he has performed at such a young age.  I typically like to restrict player groups positionally, but this was not possible this time.  In other words, our projection group here is effectively the same group for Bryce Harper.  That might be problematic.  This group consists of Ken Griffey Jr., Mickey Mantle, Alex Rodriguez, Al Kaline, Andruw Jones, Eddie Mathews, Cesar Cedeno, Vada Pinson, Frank Robinson, Hank Aaron, Cal Ripken, Jr., Johnny Bench, Albert Pujols, and Orlando Cepeda.  That is a pretty wide net, but that is what you get who you try to find outstanding 23 year olds.

Year
Age
PA
HR
AVG
OBP
SLG
WAR
Value
2017 24 642 34 .297 .375 .539 7.4 51.8
2018 25 639 31 .296 .374 .531 7.1 52.2
2019 26 662 35 .292 .370 .533 7.3 56.3
2020 27 570 29 .285 .367 .531 6.2 50.2
2021 28 646 31 .282 .362 .507 6.4 54.5
2022 29 651 33 .291 .378 .526 7.3 65.2
2023 30 593 27 .278 .366 .496 5.8 54.4
2024 31 551 24 .277 .357 .484 4.9 48.3
2025 32 516 23 .271 .350 .485 4.4 45.5
2026 33 450 19 .270 .350 .461 3.6 39.1
Mean
285.287.368.51160.4517.5

 One thing to notice is that 2017 and 2018 are arbitration years.  Using previous research on the Depot, we expect Manny to make 17.6 and 21.4 MM in arbitration of the next couple seasons.  This would reduce the mean expected 10 year deal to be 452.5 MM.  It should also be noted that the general assumption in the performance modeling is that Manny will be an average defense shortstop.  Given his performance this year at the position, we may be able to assume that he is worth another five to ten wins due to his glove.  That translates into an additional 40-100 MM, but for simplicity here we will simply assume average defense.

Below is the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles:
  
Year
Low
Mean
High
2017
5.6
7.4
9.2
2018
4.4
7.1
9.6
2019
5.4
7.3
9.3
2020
3.6
6.2
8.4
2021
4.1
6.4
8.7
2022
5
7.3
9.7
2023
3
5.8
8.5
2024
2.9
4.9
7
2025
2.2
4.4
6.5
2026
2.2
3.6
5.1

In contract to Davis, the expectation for Machado is that he will be a perennial All Star invite up to a perennial MVP candidate.  The total value worth for these scenarios are 286/453/637.  If we were to consider the Davis contract, then we might conclude the market value for Machado would be around 550 MM.  That is such a large jump on existing contracts that I hesitate saying he could see that money.  I think a more modest deal in the 450 MM range is more likely.  It remains to be seen whether the Orioles think they have the ability to shoulder a salary that may be roughly a quarter of their payroll in the near term.

A little further south, the Nationals face the same issue.  Due to positional differences, Bryce Harper's outlook is 231/404/596.  One could argue that the population better fits Harper though:

Player bWAR PA AVG OBP SLG
Avg Comp 24.6 2661 0.299 0.365 0.522
Machado 21.1 2215 0.285 0.336 0.474
Harper 21.6 2355 0.285 0.387 0.519

It should be noted that both Machado and Harper will likely finish the year with a career bWAR of around 25.  Their batting metrics should also trend upward, but only as much as 350 PA or so can affect those values.  With that in mind, Harper barely slides into the upper range of the comp population with Machado in the bottom half.  As you can probably see, there is a lot of uncertainty with this model.  That said, you probably want numbers, so here you go with consideration to opt out value:

Opt Out
10 yrs
3
383
4
397
5
415
6
434
7
447
8
451
9
455
None
452

For both sides, it would not surprise me if the sweetspot is somewhere between a 10/400 (opt out after 4 yrs) to 10/440 (opt out after 6 yrs).

3 comments:

Pip said...

It is all but impossible that Angelos, even if he's still alive and still owns the club, would be willing to spend that kind of money.
So a more pertinent question is when would be the best time to trade him for max value.
1) keep him till he hit FA and take the pick( assuming that process survives the upcoming CBA)
2) trade him at the final trade deadline
3) trade him before his final year.
Bear in mind that team performance is less significant when we're talking about so much value. A true 7-8-win player would bring back a huge haul, and would-if Dan is smart( which he isn't but oh well) more than replace him.
As much as I agree with this article, it's dealing with something that will never happen so we need to consider the realistic alternatives.

Jon Shepherd said...

Maybe. Of course, the same was said prior to Nick Markakis' extension, Brian Roberts' extension, Adam Jones' extension, and Chris Davis' new contract. Yes, those pale in comparison to a 400+ MM outlay, but I would not be so dismissive of something happening.

I think you either trade him with a year left or throw a lot of money at him. Public pressure might force a mid-season deal.

Loki said...

I would be fine with any number as long as Angelos is willing to pay. 10 years/$350 million seems reasonable with an opt out (club and player) after 6.