Adam LaRoche killed a huge Elk this past week for his hunting show Buck Commander. LaRoche (who I’ve never liked much — not sure why) posted a picture of it on Twitter and my first thought was damn that is one big ass elk …
Dan Haren had this to say: “Poor elk, just minding his own business eating some leaves and boom, dead. At least you’re having fun.”
LaRoche is puzzling to me for reasons that have nothing to do with his elk. One reason why he may have felt the urge to go out and shoot stuff was because his team declined his $15 million dollar option. If my employer declined to pay me fifteen hundred I’d be bummed. I tend to blow my stack every time my health care premium goes up. Now what might be especially annoying to LaRoche is that another first baseman in the same league got $15.3 million after hitting .332 with 10 homers and 31 RBI to his .259 average, 26 homers and 92 RBI. That other first baseman is Michael Cuddyer and his qualifying offer will actually pay him more than LaRoche stood to make in Washington.
Confusing isn’t it?
You might point out that one team is a contender and may be inclined to spend more, but It is in fact the contender who discarded LaRoche and his gold glove caliber defense. The Nationals have a glut of infielders and wish to move Ryan Zimmerman to first (who by the way hit .280 with 5 homers and 38 RBI last year), thereby weakening a defense already ranked 20th in baseball. Make sense yet?
The Rockies, who saw an awful lot of money go to their disabled list last season, are offering $15.3 million to a guy who only played 49 games and will be 36 on opening day. In virtually the same breath they let it be known they are willing to part with Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez who are due to make $36 million combined next year, and who together played just 161 games in 2014.
If that doesn’t make your head spin, how about the guy who was saddened about the Elk … Dan Haren had a $10 million option kick in for 2015 even though he had an ERA over 4.00 and got shelled in the playoffs. I wouldn’t be so sad.
On the Mets, Jacob deGrom and Juan Lagares made just under $1 million and combined for a WAR of 4.2, while Curtis Granderson and David Wright made $33 million and combined for a WAR of 2.9. Weird enough?
At some point, no matter how dense some of these front offices are, no matter how determined they are to throw money around, it has to occur to them that players are aging faster and that big free agent contracts are becoming albatrosses more often than not. The free agent mega-deal may soon become a thing of the past. Nevertheless, in the here and now many teams continue to spend.
Pick a team, any team … what the hell lets go with the Reds. Their top four players by salary were Joey Votto, Brandon Phillips, Homer Bailey, and Jay Bruce, who earned $42 million in 2014. Those four had a combined 1.8 WAR. Now lets take the top 4 players on the Reds for WAR. They would be Todd Frazier, Devin Mesoraco, Billy Hamilton, and Kristopher Negron, who combined for a 14.5 WAR and earned $2 million … that’s right two million between the four of them.
How about a team with a bigger payroll and a winning record, the Angels. Their top four players combined for 20.1 WAR. Those players were Mike Trout, Howie Kendrick, Erick Aybar, and Kole Calhoun. They earned a combined $19.3 million ($24.2 million if you count Trout’s signing bonus). Their four highest paid players (Pujols, Hamilton, Wilson, and Weaver) earned $70 million dollars and had a combined 4.4 WAR. Yikes!
The Giants? Buster Posey, Hunter Pence, Pablo Sandoval, and Brandon Crawford led the team with a 16.1 combined WAR, earning $35.2 million. Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Pence, and Posey led in salary at $63.5 million with a 10.3 WAR. The world champs had the lowest salary / WAR differential of all the teams I looked at. Incidentally, Madison Bumgarner made $3.5 million in 2014.
You wonder why any team would offer a long term deal to anyone over the age of 29? Post steroids, players are falling off sooner and declines are much steeper than they were even as recently as 6 or 7 years ago.
The Nationals probably did the right thing declining LaRoche’s option, but they replaced him with someone just as brittle and even more expensive, while the Dodgers are on the hook for $10 million for Haren and his over 4.00 ERA. The Mets better hope against hope that Wright ages well, and the Rockies? The Rockies have lost their minds. Maybe it’s the thin air.
The more I look at these salary numbers vs. performance value the more I become mortified at the thought of the Mets trading any of our prized youngsters away for anyone over the age of 29. Now more than ever, baseball is a young man’s game, and crazy amounts of money thrown at over the hill players with declining skills isn’t going to change that.
