Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
April 05, 2008
Tiered Expirations

The Blue Jays signed Alex Rios and Aaron Hill to long term deals Friday, locking them up to deals through 2014 and 2011 respectively. The money seems about right, too. Rios is good but not great. Ten million a year works, especially when he's a couple of years away from free agency, and he'll be declining by the end of the contract. Richard Griffin likes that the Blue Jays set their big contracts to expire in two sets:

The club is simplifying things. Now there are two different plateau years in which to rethink the roster and rebuild the payroll if they need new direction. The first key year is after 2010, when the contracts of Roy Halladay, A.J. Burnett, B.J. Ryan, Scott Rolen and Scott Downs are set to expire.

Now, a second key season is 2014, when the contracts of Vernon Wells and now Rios and Hill come due. Instead of having long-term deals expire all over the calendar juggling budgets, the strategy for future young stars - for example, Dustin McGowan and Shaun Marcum - is that they can now be inked to deals that expire in 2014.

I don't know if this is really simpler. It seems to me it's tougher to deal with big turnover like that; it almost forces a team into a rebuilding mode. Of course, if the Blue Jays develop players capable of taking over at that point, they'll look really smart and be able to bring in a great free agent to complete the team.


Posted by David Pinto at 07:41 AM | Transactions | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Griffin also misses the fact that this is hardly new policy for Ricciardi: 2007 was a very similar "plateau" year until recently. What happened was that J.P. spent portions of 2005 and 2006 extending the contracts of players (Wells, Halladay) who were going to be free agents after 2007. By the time 2007 was complete, the feel of a "plateau year" had essentially been moved out to 2010.

If Ricciardi is still around in 2009 or 2013, I would expect to see the same thing happen. As you point out, the large simultaneous turnover could cause problems with replacing all those players at once. I suspect, however, that this "tiering" of contracts has more to do with Rogers' desire for cost certainty than with the optimal approach to building a baseball team.

Posted by: Brian at April 5, 2008 09:45 AM

It all depends on the state of the farm come those times too. Players like Travis Snyder, Brett Cecil, Adam Lind, and Robinson Diaz that should be figured out by 2010. Some of the more long shot prospects like Justin Jacskson (A-) and Balbino Fuenmayor (A-) could be coming up between 2012-14. The Jays are also getting more active in latin america and have added another latin team. With more international scouting and more drafts like 2006-7 the pipeline should be productive.

Posted by: Andrew at April 5, 2008 01:33 PM
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