2039-40 Player Options: A Serial

[jleddy]

Give Mauro a break...maybe he just values poutine, free healthcare and seeing the leaves of the maple trees change colors each season over Cirque du Soleil and the dirge on society that is Sin City.

[RonCo]

Flores is a loss. He passed up slightly more money (our base offer was a couple million less overall, but we had easily attainable bonuses; 100 IP; that would have put him slightly over EDM) to sign with EDM.

There are a few ways of looking at it. What I"m doing here is simply "did he wind up with a deal that is better than he had?" but you could also ask "did he get as good of a deal as he could have?" Your example of him passing up a better offer is a bit different. It's one that supports the developer's viewpoint that bonuses are not making much of a difference in the decision tree. I've been asking them to make players much smarter here, but such is life. The upside here is that it means that folks worried about the influence of big bonuses are probably over-concerned.

[RonCo]

I can see only one way that Flores is a win and boy Edmonton wouldn’t like it. If Flores knows he is going off the cliff this season and it’s his last payday, then what he did makes sense.

Short of that it’s a total fail. He could have gotten the same deal he just got next year and kept that 25.5 mil. And he also could have held out longer this winter for a bigger payday.

Yeah, if Flores pitches well this year and comes out healthy, he would certainly have done better by staying. I'd personally feel better if he'd stayed. If pressed, I'd probably say he's 30% likely to wind up ahead of what he would have done, and 70% likely to have made a fail.

That said, again, if he were a real life person I'd probably see it more positively than here. I can come up with a bunch of reasons he'd go--including the fact that if I were Mauro Flores I'd do just about anything to get out of Vegas and that park, that I'm coming off a season that makes me think I may not do well if I don't bounce back, that I'm 33 and more likely to get hurt, that I'd rather play for a winner, and Vegas is maybe not really set up to be one, blah, blah, blah...

[udlb58]

I was being a smartass with the Flores comment. I knew once I was the leader in the clubhouse, I was doomed unless I wanted to jump the salary up to fight off any late pushes to top our offer (since the players pretty much spell out exactly what the top offer is). I didn't want to pay more, so I added the bonus and hoped nobody topped us enough to beat out the deal.

...and Vegas is maybe not really set up to be one, blah, blah, blah...

Shots fired Vegas may not be set up to be a winner over the life of the one year left on his deal?

[RonCo]

Shots fired Vegas may not be set up to be a winner over the life of the one year left on his deal?

As I showed in the last Media Guide, I'm not expert of prognostication, and I could certainly be proven wrong, but I'm not particularly high on Vegas in the very near term future.

[ae37jr]

Flores would have been terrible in Jacksonville too. If I'm not mistaken, you have a park that favors lefty power hitters. The trick to Mauro is a big right field and avoid certain lineups.

[bschr682]

Well the core of the team is the same and the minors has only 1 impact prospect so we are definitely stuck in neutral. Neutral did just make the playoffs though so it will all depend on how this division format plays out and how successful I can be at using my bullpen as a weapon.

[crobillard]

I'm really excited about the Flores acquisition, but more than anything it's because Chet Parrish was my number two in the rotation and I didn't have anyone that could reliably start under him. I mean even in my pitcher's park Wen Huang had and ERA of 5.29 as a starter at home in 47.2 innings. Much better as a reliever, but I was stuck with him as my number three starter. So getting Flores was huge for me.

I wont be thrilled if he falls off the cliff this year, but I'll likely still be stuck throwing him out there for all three seasons and hope for the best.

As far as jumping Jacksonville's offer. That's exactly what I did. Mauro came back and told me that my offer was crap and Jacksonville's was better. He told me that this offer is what it would take to get it done and I just gave him it. Nothing more fancy than that. I would have signed Lynch to this if he was open to it. Lynch just kept saying he wanted 17-20 mil a season regardless of what I did and I was never going to sign him at that level. The reason I held off so long to deal Lynch was because I really wanted a deal to work. There was one sim I believe it was in ST that Lynch dropped down to 11-14 mil which I think would have been a steal. I offered him what he wanted and next sim he said it was too low -_-. The timeframe on Flores' deal works out for me though. Hopefully I'll have my rotation sorted by then.

[RonCo]

And Lecaze is only a win if he was sure CCJ was planning on keeping him. Otherwise, he gave up free money by not forcing the Jimmies' hand.

Given Lacaze's deal, his in-retrospect decision tree looks like this:

----------------------------
Option 1) Opt in, CCJ Accepts [Total salary = $5M]
Option 2) Opt in, CCJ Buys Out $500K* [Total salary = $6.5M/$4.7(P])
Option 3) Opt out [Total salary = $6M/$4.7M(P)]

* I'm assuming the buyout was 10%...bump it if it was higher. To me, even another $500K wouldn't make much of a difference.
----------------------------

So it's completely fair to say he left $500K* on the table by not opting in, but if a player believe he's underpaid and can get longer term deal that's a dangerous decision because if you're right, and CCJ agrees, then basic game theory says you get a worst case scenario of lowest salary and fewest years of control.

So, yes, while the lottery could have gone his way, and if it did so he'd cold have made a little more money, I admit I have a hard time saying that Lacaze made a bad decision to opt out. Given his belief in himself, that was the only decision that guaranteed him more money and more control.

[RonCo]

By definition, every player who opts out when there is a TO in play is leaving buy-out money on the table and could have gotten a better deal by making the team decline their option. This is the best play when they know they are at least a little overpaid. Lacaze proved to be a little underpaid, though.

[RonCo]

WHAT THEY GOT: PART II


We're down to only one more sim before the season starts, and we still have three guys (Barrera, Tobias, and Gaona) unsigned after opting out. If they go unsigned then their decisions are potentially disastrous on a galactic scale. I mean, opting out and not being signed is different from playing out a contract and not being signed, right?

A little more time will tell, I suppose.

We already discussed Lacaze, Muirhead, and Flores (who I gave a modified grade of "Push/TBD" to account for the fact that his case is really one of uncertainty--it's unlikely to be a middle ground and we'll know in a year if he won or lost). So today I'll add commentary to others and you can tell me I'm wrong.

Here's the table as it stands...

POS	Player	Team	Age	Decision	2040	2041	2042	2043	Grade
RF	Jean-Luc Lacaze	CCJ	33	Opt-out	$5m(T)
				Signed	6.0m	4.7m(P)			Good
RP	Wayne Muirhead	CCJ	27	Opt-out	$2.0m(T)
				Signed	$3.0m	$3.0m(T)			Good
CF	Willard Gagne	ANO	28	Opt-out	$7.5m (P)	$10m(T)
				Signed	$10m	$11.5m(T)			Good
SS	Lloyd Braun	ATC	33	Opt-out	$8.0m	$8.0m	$7.0m(V)	$6.0m(V)
				Signed	$9.5m	$7.6m(P)	$7m(T)		Good
1B	Albert Gaona	TWC	31	Opt-out	$5.5m	$5.5m	$5.0m(T)	$5.0m(P)
				Signed	$12.0m	$11.0m (O)	$9.5m		Good
C	Luis Barrera	CCJ	31	Opt-out	$16.0m(T)
				Signed	$16.7m				Good
C	António Tobías	SA	32	Opt-out	$12.0m
				Signed	$20.0m	20.0m(PT)			Push
SP	Mauro Flores	LV	33	Opt-out	$25.5m	$25.5m(V)	$25.5m(V)
				Signed	14.6m	14.6m	14.6m		Push/TBD
SS	Mark Wareham	TWC	31	Opt-out	$14m	$14m	$14m(P)
				Signed	$20m	$20m(PT)			Bad/TBD
C	Shag Hopkins	LOU	33	Opt-out	$17.0m(V)	$16.0m(T)
				Signed	$14m	$12m(T)	$12m(T)		Bad
2B	Carlos García	BRK	33	Opt-out	$5.2m
				Signed	$3.5m	$7m(V)	$14m(P)		Bad

Commentary:

Willard Gagne made out pretty well, picking up $2.5M guaranteed, and an additional $1.5 on his team option. A clear player win. I grade Lloyd Braun's decision as good, too, as he gains $1.1M front-loaded over the two years the contract is best for. He's 33 now, so you can argue what vesting options are worth. If you think they impact a player positively then he lost something there, but I admit I don't see them as player friendly.

Then we come to Mark Wareham. What to make of him, right? He gave up a guaranteed $42M, and I figured this would be a huge fail for him, but he's making $20M this year, and $20M next if the two enact a mutual option. One assumes that will not happen, but you never know...and that first $20M and a superior OBP from the middle infield makes it possible that he'll at least break even. So...I'll still call it a bad decision--but tag a Flores-like "TBD" on there to give us a caveat.

Shag Hopkins vested at $17M with a team option, then opted out and got less. Bad decision. Same for Carlos Garcia. He had $5.5m coming, and agreed to take $3.5M with a $7M vesting option that won't hit. Weird contract or not, I think we can agree that the decision tree did not work well for him.

Final Commentary:

António Tobías is an interesting question. He gave up a two season deal for a 1-season deal that was better that season.I'll call that a push for now, but in the end it will really matter what happens next year. If he gets $12m next year, or a solid multi-year deal, then he could win. Less, and he could lose. So, yeah, jury is out.

Albert Gaona made out like a bandit. Clear great result for him, even though he had to wait awhile.

And, finally, Luis Berrera gets the same 1-season deal for just a little more money--but he also gets a decent shot at a $3m bonus. I'm going to call this a good decision, though it may wind up being a push

[RonCo]

Bumped for final update on decisions.