McCann - a bad gamble ESPN insider part one

[leaffie]

McCannDaniel Shirey/USA TODAY SportsIf the rumors are true, Brian McCann's free-agent contract will be sky high.

 

For the Atlanta Braves, the 2013 season ended prematurely, with the franchise getting dispatched in four games by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Division Series. There's little time for the Braves to ponder that unpleasant coda, as the team's starting catcher going back to summer of 2005, Brian McCann, will hit the free-agent market.

 

That McCann will come at a hefty price is not in doubt, and it's unlikely the Braves will be willing to bring him back. Earlier this week, one MLB general manager told Andrew Marchand of ESPN New York that McCann's next contract could top the $100 million mark. But does McCann's value going forward really match that price or would that be a case of paying for past rather than future performance?

 

 

Don't pay for the tools of ignorance

 

 

Eclipsing the $100 million mark is no longer a groundbreaking contract, with baseball history now having 46 deals of $100 million or more. However, you don't see a lot of catchers topping that mark. Joe Mauer's eight-year, $184 million contract and Buster Posey's nine-year, $167 million deal lap the field, by far the richest among those that have worn the tools of ignorance. One reason to wonder about McCann's future value is the very nature of playing catcher, a grueling physical position.

 

McCann is no longer a young player and the contract extension that expires this month bought out a few years of his free-agent eligibility. He enters the market coming off his age 29 season (Mauer was 27 when he signed his contract, Posey 26) with a lot of tread worn from his tires.

 

He already has 1,046 games behind the plate under his belt -- or in the case of a catcher, on his knees -- and the position tends to wear down players in their 30s. Only 26 other players in baseball history accumulated 900 games or more behind the plate before their age 30 season. Not counting Yadier Molina for obvious reasons, only nine of the 25 catchers on that list played 600 games at catcher over the rest of their career.

 

 

Posey got $167 million, but he was younger and better than Brian McCann.

 

 

Even among those survivors, most of those catchers did not age gracefully. Gary Carter's last year as a force was at age 32 and his knees were shot after nine surgeries. Jason Kendall bounced back well from a gruesome ankle injury, but was done as an underrated star by age 30. Time caught up with Bill Dickey at 32 and Benito Santiago, a four-time All-Star and two-time Gold Glove winner, spent his 30s as a journeyman stopgap.

 

Even more concerning in McCann's case is that he already has specific injury concerns, rather than simply the more generalized concern we have about catchers. He already has had one season, 2012, ruined by a torn labrum that required surgery and after coming back this past May, didn't start at catcher in 41 of the team's remaining 132 games.

 

The idea that a team could move him to first base or designated hitter later on isn't even a consolation. Mauer and Posey both have enough offensive value to play other positions, with a career OPS+ of 136 and 144 respectively. McCann is at 117 for his career (115 in 2013), so even if he holds up physically behind the plate for three or four years, he's likely to be a below-average 1B/DH by that point (all first basemen, including backups, had a collective OPS+ of 116 this year).

 

Because no projection piece would be complete without consulting the evil supercomputer under my desk, I ran McCann's numbers through ZiPS to get a baseline of what to expect from him in the coming years. Because ZiPS compares players on a positional basis, the risks of playing catcher are built in to the projections.

 

ZiPS sees McCann continuing to perform well in 2014, hitting .263/.339/.462, good for a 115 OPS+ and 3.0 WAR. (FanGraphs and Baseball Reference had him at 2.7 and 2.2 WAR, respectively, in 2013.) Problem is, it's all downhill from there, with McCann profiling as a below-average player by the fourth year of his new contract.

 

Marchand's GM source figured McCann would get a six-year deal. Using $5.1 million per win as a guideline and 5 percent salary growth, that comes out to 13.1 WAR and a six-year, $73 million market value. Playing first base or DH, he would only be projected to be worth 2.0 WAR in 2014, demonstrating the idea that his bat isn't enough to consider an easier defensive position to be a good fallback position.

 

A shorter contract that covers just his projected years as an average-or-better player comes out at four years, $58 million, but given the lack of impact bats in the free-agent lineup and the likelihood that this is his last big contract, a team might have to get into the $20 million a year range to land him.

[G-Snarls]

A shorter contract that covers just his projected years as an average-or-better player comes out at four years, $58 million

 

That's what teams would LOVE to get him for, but the author is right. He'll get a much better deal than that.

[Abomination]

I'd be happy with 4/60 plus an option, but that's about it. I'd rather have JPA back there at 2M than McCann at 20M for 6 or 7 years, and that's saying something.

[GD]

I'd be happy with 4/60 plus an option, but that's about it. I'd rather have JPA back there at 2M than McCann at 20M for 6 or 7 years, and that's saying something.

 

I dunno, I'd take McCann.

[Abomination]

I dunno, I'd take McCann.

 

Well, I didn't mean JPA back there for the next 6 or 7 years. McCann at the end of that contract is going to look every bit as bad as some of the other monster deals signed recently. JPA can be cut and replaced at will.

[Boxcar]

It's truly amazing that after Pujols, Fielder, Hamilton, Johan Santana, Rodriguez, etc. these teams never learn from their mistakes.

[GNick]

He'll get the big contract but it won't be in Toronto

[jaysblue]

He'll get the big contract but it won't be in Toronto

 

The Yankees need a catcher badly, so I'm sure they will go hard after McCann. Either the Yankees or Dodgers.