Be Wary of Long-Term Deals for Free Agents

This morning as I drove into work listening to MLB on XM a comment put a question into my head. The host made a comment that players that sign with the Yankees as free agents tend to have a bad season likely due to the pressure and glamor of being a Yankee. This made me wonder if some teams were “easier” to play for after signing a free-agent deal…. But then once I started researching things started to get interesting so I changed to just seeing how long-term deals with new teams affected players.

The Criteria

• Player must have signed a minimum 3 year deal with a new team and stayed with that team all of those 3 years. This established a perceived pressure of living up to a deal that this new team invested in the player.
• Year range 2006-2012 for contract signings. I could not find any good free agent signing lists from earlier than ’06.
• If a player was injured for the majority of a season that year was omitted, but it applied to very few players.

In the end I compiled a list of 31 players who had received 3 years or longer deals from a new ball club and had stayed with the club for at least 3 years. The results were not promising for any club looking to sign some free agents. I compared basic stats for simplicity, reviewed were Average, OBP, SLG, and wRC+. I mostly did the OBP and SLG for myself so will mostly focus on average and wRC+ here.

Key takeaways – Average

• In year 1 after signing with a new team only 8 players either matched or improved their average from the prior season.
• The only player to consistently outperform with his new team in each of the 3 years was Carlos Lee after signing with the Houston Astros. Technically his average dipped to match his average the year before he signed the contract but he never went in the red.
• Overall for the 3 year span only 3 players had a higher batting average over those 3 years than they did with the last season with their prior team. (Victor Martinez, Carlos Lee, Juan Pierre)

Key takeaways – wRC+

• 5 players improved their wRC+ in the first years with their new teams and 2 matched their prior year numbers.
• Out of the 25 players who have completed 3 years with their new team (2012 signees are heading into their 3^rd season), 5 finished those 3 years with a higher average wRC+ than they had the year they signed. (Victor Martinez, Torii Hunter, Carlos Lee, Juan Pierre, Mark DeRosa)

The overall numbers for the group though was not promising. Whether this is due to many of these players aging which could be highly likely, or just never getting settled with a new ballclub. It seems teams looking at signing Free Agents to deals of 3 years or longer should not expect much out of the players.

Overall #’s

	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3	Overall
Difference in Average	-0.022	-0.025	-0.030	-0.026
Difference in OBP	-0.022	-0.021	-0.030	-0.025
Difference in SLG	-0.055	-0.072	-0.063	-0.063
Difference in wRC+	-17.63	-19.06	-20.08	-18.923

 

A little bonus:

Worst 3+ year deal since 2006 : Chone Figgins in 2009 signed with the Seattle Mariners. Out of the group of players researched Figgins had the biggest overall drops in Average (-.089), OBP (-.114), and wRC+ (-56.33)

Best 3+ year deal since 2006: Victor Martinez (duh) in 2010 signed with the Tigers and had the best overall increases in Average (+.020), OBP (+.030) and wRC+ (+14.0). Side note – ALL players had decreases in slugging.

 

So you might ask how this compares to players that resign similar deals with their current teams? The numbers below illustrate the numbers for players in the same time frame that resigned deals with their teams as free agents (according to ESPN free agent trackers).

	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3	Overall
Difference in Average	-0.005	-0.007	-0.019	-0.011
Difference in OBP	-0.005	-0.001	-0.016	-0.007
Difference in SLG	-0.018	-0.032	-0.057	-0.036
Difference in WRC+	-3.68	-3.53	-10.53	-5.915

As you can see quite a bit of difference. There are many factors in play here but it seems that there is a major difference in proving to a new team that as a free agent you deserve the long term deal you got, and understanding that you performed well enough for you current team to give you a long term extension. Yes all numbers are negative still but they are much closer to the original numbers and likely chalked up to random variance year to year.

Best re-sign/extension – 2B Aaron Hill –  The Diamondbacks resigned Aaron Hill and were rewarded with an increase in OBP for 3 years (.035), Slugging (.094) and WRC+ (33.67)

Worst re-sign/extension – 1B/DH Paul Konerko – The White Sox understandably extended Konerko only to see average 3 year drops in Average (-.068), OBP (-.036), Slugging (-.098) and led all resignee’s in WRC+ drop at (-40.33 average). A close Second place was Jorge Posada’s extension in 2007.