Jay Bruce signed for 6 years, $51 million, $12 millon club option for 7th year

The Reds locked up their 23-year old RF for 7 years, $63 million. He would've been arbitration eligible as a "super-2". Reds fans seem ecstatic; any outsider perspective on this deal?

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2010/1...jay-bruce.html

i like it. i think he has a ton of talent and to lock that up for 6 years at under 10 mil per is pretty solid. There is risk to signing him, but also risk to not signing him..if he breaks out he'll cost significantly more. the guy is super streaky and has showed glimpses of greatness. I think this will be a great deal when all is said and done.

Yeah that's pretty much the only move for a small market team. Guarantee all the arb years early and you can get the player to give up a couple extremely valuable FA years. Gotta be careful, but for players like Jay Bruce, that's really the only play.

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Originally Posted by haveacigar

Yeah that's pretty much the only move for a small market team. Guarantee all the arb years early and you can get the player to give up a couple extremely valuable FA years. Gotta be careful, but for players like Jay Bruce, that's really the only play.

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agreed...problem is that if the gamble fails it can set a small market team back quite a few years. this is one of the reasons I find it laughable that people say payrolls don't matter.

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Originally Posted by dickay

agreed...problem is that if the gamble fails it can set a small market team back quite a few years. this is one of the reasons I find it laughable that people say payrolls don't matter.

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I was thinking about it though, it seems like a lot less risky in practice than it sounds. I can't really think of a deal like this going badly, can you? Well, Jeremy Bonderman, but no position players.

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Originally Posted by dickay

agreed...problem is that if the gamble fails it can set a small market team back quite a few years.

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A deal with an average annual salary of $8.5 million is highly unlikely to set any MLB team back "quite a few years." It's not an albatross of a contract. Every team could easily survive that if the deal failed...and it'd REALLY have to fail for the money to just be dead money. Even if Bruce busts and doesn't continue on the track of stardom, it'd take a catastrophic injury or a ridiculous step backwards for him to not be of some use to the Reds.

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Originally Posted by dickay

this is one of the reasons I find it laughable that people say payrolls don't matter.

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Nobody says this.

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Originally Posted by HoustonGM

A deal with an average annual salary of $8.5 million is highly unlikely to set any MLB team back "quite a few years." It's not an albatross of a contract. Every team could easily survive that if the deal failed...and it'd REALLY have to fail for the money to just be dead money. Even if Bruce busts and doesn't continue on the track of stardom, it'd take a catastrophic injury or a ridiculous step backwards for him to not be of some use to the Reds.


Nobody says this.

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I would like you to go deeper into this, I will await your article on the fangraphs site.

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Originally Posted by HoustonGM

A deal with an average annual salary of $8.5 million is highly unlikely to set any MLB team back "quite a few years." It's not an albatross of a contract. Every team could easily survive that if the deal failed...and it'd REALLY have to fail for the money to just be dead money. Even if Bruce busts and doesn't continue on the track of stardom, it'd take a catastrophic injury or a ridiculous step backwards for him to not be of some use to the Reds.

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Well, it can if you have a shoestring payroll. Plus, it's not the average annual that will kill a payroll. By the time someone like that losing value and becoming an albatross, you'd be in the backloaded part of the deal that is being more than $10 mil per year of waste.

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Originally Posted by haveacigar

Well, it can if you have a shoestring payroll. Plus, it's not the average annual that will kill a payroll. By the time someone like that losing value and becoming an albatross, you'd be in the backloaded part of the deal that is being more than $10 mil per year of waste.

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That's still not going to set any MLB team back a few years.

Plus, while you'll be in the "more expensive" years, there's also inflation to account for.

And, for these types of players and contracts, the "back end" of their deal will be when they're 27-29. The risk is really, really minimal compared to free agent contracts, which are you usually similar in length yet handed out to players who are ALREADY 29.

And, like you said, the risk is also significantly higher with pitchers. These types of deals for position players nearly always produce surplus value for the team.

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Originally Posted by ragecage

I would like you to go deeper into this, I will await your article on the fangraphs site.

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Wonderful idea! I second this motion.

Fangraphs article on Bruce extension

Where does it say Erik Smith? I don't support imitators like this Matt Klaassen child.

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Originally Posted by HoustonGM

Fangraphs article on Bruce extension

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Man you are fast with those articles.

Yeah, I linked that before having seen ragecage's post. :|

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Originally Posted by ragecage

Man you are fast with those articles.

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Ohhhh, I get it. "Matt Klaassen" is his alt on Fangraphs. Clever!

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Originally Posted by BINGLEBOP

Where does it say Erik Smith? I don't support imitators like this Matt Klaassen child.

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I assumed his facebook page is just his alias to keep his loyal fangraph fans from hounding him.

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Originally Posted by ragecage

I assumed his facebook page is just his alias to keep his loyal fangraph fans from hounding him.

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Geraldine is fake?!?

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Originally Posted by HoustonGM

Yeah, I linked that before having seen ragecage's post. :|

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You know you likes me. <3

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Originally Posted by ragecage

You know you likes me. <3

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Forum soulmates.

I knew it from the moment you quoted each other's posts.

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Originally Posted by BINGLEBOP

Geraldine is fake?!?

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Now you are just blowing my mind.

You know what's more likely to set back small market teams than locking up young, pre-arb/arb players to long-term deals?

Signing mid-30's league average pitchers to three year extensions worth $12 million per year

I sense the beginning of a deep and meaningful relationship.

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Originally Posted by HoustonGM

That's still not going to set any MLB team back a few years.

Plus, while you'll be in the "more expensive" years, there's also inflation to account for.

And, for these types of players and contracts, the "back end" of their deal will be when they're 27-29. The risk is really, really minimal compared to free agent contracts, which are you usually similar in length yet handed out to players who are ALREADY 29.

And, like you said, the risk is also significantly higher with pitchers. These types of deals for position players nearly always produce surplus value for the team.

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Any small market team that is eating 10+ mil in payroll is going to be set back. That doesn't mean it kills them or prevents them from competing or anything drastic like that, but it's definitely going to be set back to some degree. I also don't know if inflation really has a notable impact.

That doesn't keep it from being a good idea though. Generally you're only doing it for extremely talented players like Bruce or Longoria, and like you said, it's during years where it's perfectly reasonable to expect improvement or maintained production.

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Originally Posted by HoustonGM

You know what's more likely to set back small market teams than locking up young, pre-arb/arb players to long-term deals?

Signing mid-30's league average pitchers to three year extensions worth $12 million per year

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That was completely retarded. Dude had an option for the same money for 2011, absolutely no reason to do this now.

Yeah, extending Arroyo rather than just picking up his option is a head-scratcher. However, Jockety seems to be doing a few things right :). A big key will be how much of a bump making the playoffs gives to revenue. Anyway, Bruce at $63 million seems a much better bet than a player eight years older at $126 million. Bruce will be younger in 7 years than Werth is now. And Fangraphs had them producing near equal value this year, though that depends heavily on defensive metrics.

The Reds ought not be a "small market" team -- they used to outdraw everyone in the National League but the Dodgers. The potential fanbase covers half of Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia and practically all of Kentucky.

john Fay at cincinnati.com says

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A good portion of Bronson Arroyo’s salary for 2011 is deferred.

Arroyo was set to make $13 million under the option that the club picked up.

However, his new 3-year, $35 million contract has deferred money and will pay him to 2021

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