The Astros are on the verge of bringing back free-agent reliever Rafael Montero on a very nice deal after posting his best season in terms of rWAR at seasonal age 31:
Robert Suarez received a similar deal after his rookie season at age 31. These contracts seem on the high side to me, both for their length and their expectations. Relievers, due to small sample size effects, can vary wildly in their results from year to year. Just look at Montero’s career to see an example of that. It strikes me that the expectation for both of these pitchers should be about three WAR over the next three years, meaning that teams are valuing a WAR at about $11 million.
I believe that’s good news for the current crop of free agents. For example, I’d value Aaron Judge as a six WAR player. Given he’s over 30 and building in a 10% decline per year, he should be expected to generate 24.5 WAR in five seasons, worth $270 million. A contract that went ten years would be worth about $430 million.
Judge and others will have good arguments for that amount of money. It seems like it would be much more difficult to replace an elite position player than an elite reliever. I suspect that the MLBPA will have a lot less to complain about when it comes to free agency after this winter.