No, the Big Contracts Aren't the Problem

I was just listening to an interview by Jeff Wilpon in which he discussed the Mets' likely strategy for this off-season. His message was that the team is unlikely to look to build primarily through free agency, that they will probably shy away from massive contracts, that when they've gotten in trouble in the past it's been because of too many big contracts, and that they might try to emulate the model of the Red Sox from this past off-season, when Boston signed a large number of mid-level free agents to short but multi-year deals. This gave them depth, an awful lot of actually solid/good baseball players who could form a decent mix even if some of them got injured, which some of them have, and the Red Sox are leading their division. Of course, another AL division leader is the Detroit Tigers, who recently signed both Prince Fielder and Justin Verlander to $200 million deals, and the other leader is the Oakland Athletics, who never sign any free agents 'cause they don't have the money. So, you know. Perhaps the empirical verdict isn't so clear.

But I was struck by Wilpon's description of the Mets' own past. Is it true that they've gotten in trouble from their super-sized contracts in the past? I don't think so. Here's the thing: the Mets have given out three enormous free agent contracts in their history. All three were among the better signings in team history. It has been, in fact, those more mid-level contracts that haven't worked out, and that have created baggage for the team.

First, the three big names: Mike Piazza, Carlos Beltran, Johan Santana. Piazza signed for 7 years and $91 million dollars, an all-time record for a few weeks, after he had been acquired during the 1998 season from the Dodgers via the Marlins. Over the course of those seven years he racked up 26.5 bWAR for the Mets, led them to the NLCS in 1999 and the World Series in 2000, was an All-Star six of the seven years, set the all-time record for most home runs by a catcher... you get the point. This was a good contract.

How about the Beltran deal? He also signed for seven years, this time for $119 million. The first year was a tremendous disappointment, obviously, though he was still an above-average player given his well-rounded skill-set, but then starting in 2006 he just raked. MVP-level production that year, and oh yeah, he led the Mets to the seventh game of the NLCS (when, sure, he took the final strike, but it's not like his OPS was over 1.000 that series or anything...). Ultimately Carlos was an All-Star for five of his seven years in New York, for two of which he was half-injured, and he won three consecutive Gold Gloves in '06-'07-'08. It added up to 31.1 bWAR, making Beltran one of the best position players in team history and well worth the price. Oh, and then at the 2011 trading deadline Sandy Alderson flipped his last half-season to the pennant-desperate Giants for Zack Wheeler, a top pitching prospect who's just reached the Major Leagues and looks like he might contribute to the seriously awesome young Mets rotation going forward. This one worked out real good.

Then we come to Santana, a more complicated case. The argument against the Santana contract is that he only ended up pitching for three-and-a-half of his 6-year, $137.5 million contract, only produced 15.2 bWAR over those four years of pitching, and the team never reached the post-season during his tenure with them. The argument in favor is that he had a 3.18 ERA over 109 starts with the Mets, and if you exclude the last five of those which came after his ankle got stepped on at first base by Reed Johnson of the Cubs that number falls to 2.84. (Holy shit, five terrible starts can ruin your career stat-line...) In 2008 he put up a Cy Young-caliber performance, leading the league in ERA and innings pitched, a 7.1 bWAR performance. He didn't quite manage to pitch the team to the post-season, but he gave it his all and the team wouldn't have been anywhere near contention without him. Then there was the whole "first no-hitter in team history" thing. Personally I wouldn't hesitate in saying that I think this was a good signing; a more coldly calculating analyst might disagree, I suppose.

So what are these "big contracts" the team has gotten in trouble with in the past? Well, the big three are Oliver Perez, Jason Bay, and Luis Castillo. The team shelled out about $125 million over eleven combined years, three for Perez and four for the other two, in return for 5.2 combined bWAR and -6.6 wins above average. Those were terrible contracts overall, and arguably they were pretty bad contracts at the time they were inked.

I don't think it's a particularly plausible lesson from all of that that big contracts must be avoided because they're always just albatrosses with benefits vastly outweighed by the price-tag. Perhaps one might say that it's unwise to sign mid-level free agents and pay them as if they were top free agents, even if you only do it for three or four years, as the team did with Bay and Perez. But there's no particular reason to think that, when you find yourself in a position to sign a truly elite player to a long-term mega-deal, it will cripple your franchise. If the Wilpons want an excuse not to sign any of the top free agents this year, well, honestly the top free agents this year aren't that great. But in general I don't think the history of the Mets supports that agenda.