Shopping At A Different Market

The story of the day is Bowden's comments about the Zimmerman extension "negotiations."

"We've made it clear to [Zimmerman and Van Wagenen] that if Ryan is willing to sign a contract that is similar to what all the other good young players are signing for -- if he's willing to do a market signing -- we are prepared to do that with him," Bowden said. "We're not to going set all new markets with him. We're not going to change the pay scale of Major League Baseball for one player."

Fair enough. You don't want to double what the market would pay just for the hell of it.

Here's Zimmerman's agent's take:

"At this time, it's not in [Zimmerman's] best interests to consider a contract in the range that they're talking about. I'm not calling either side right or wrong. There are just a different viewpoints."

Fair enough. We can't expect the guy to take an unfair offer.

So what WOULD be a fair offer?

Bowden offers some clues:

For comparable players, Bowden cited Cleveland's Grady Sizemore (who signed a six-year $23.45 million contract in 2006), Colorado's Troy Tulowitzki (six years, $31 million, signed in January), Atlanta's Brian McCann (six years, $26.8 million, signed in 2007) and the New York Yankees' Robinson Cano (four years, $30 million, signed earlier this month).

So something like 6/$30 million would be a fair offer, something in the range of the market?

Well, that's what Bowden would have you believe. But he's being (warning: shocker alert) disingenuous with that argument. You can't just compare one young player with another young player as if the circumstances were the same. I'm sure that Bowden would LOVE to point to the Tulo deal as the model. One catch... Tulo has a year less of service time than Zimmerman does. In fact, the average salary of those contracts he uses as comparison is over $1 million a year for the equivalent service year that Zimmerman's about to enter -- a service year in which the Nats will likely pay Zimmerman less than half that amount.

You need to compare service year to service year. And when you do that, 6/$30 is a laughable offer.

I took the yearly breakdown of those contracts, plus another big deal -- David Wright's extension (which was signed at a similar service time point as Zimmerman is at now) -- and lined them up service year by service year to get an idea of what the market rate for a young star is. I figured out the average for each year, then used a 10% fudge factor to account for the continued rising salaries since most of these contracts were signed. I totaled up year by year and came up with a rough estimate of what the 'kids' are being paid to come up with a rough market estimate.

Zimmerman has 4 seasons left 'til free agency (and keep in mind, this isn't a quantitative evaluation of the players; we're saying, essentially, that all of these players are of similar run/win value).

4 years: $22 million
5 years: $35 million
6 years: $49 million
7 years: $67 million

You can see that the salaries really start escalating once he hits free agency. $17+ million might seem like a lot to pay for him, but that's a long way in the future and with continued salary inflation, $17 million won't be quite what it seems today. (To Teddy's chagrin.)

At the same time, if Zimmerman plays it year to year, he'll be a 27-year old free agent, a premium YOUNG player on the free agent market -- the kind of player other teams would surely break the bank for. $17 million will likely seem a bargain! If he were a free agent today, you can see him getting that much per year. Imagine what he'd get in 4 years as salaries keep going up! (Another reason why a long-term deal is of increasing importance; even Uncle Teddy's biggest defenders likely have a hard time seeing him handing out a 7/$130 million contract.)

So, no, there's no need for them to lock him up. No urgency. He's theirs for a few years anyway. But they need to find a middle ground there. Bowden citing somewhat misleading numbers for contract comparables isn't the greatest place to start... publicly, at least. 6/$30 isn't the market offer. It's 6/$49 or 5/$35.

And that's probably the floor. Nice work if you can get it...

The full salary numbers are here. Contract years are in yellow. The rest should be pretty self explanatory.