The Jays and Josh Donaldson Talked Extension, Didn’t Get Anywhere
6 years ago
Today in fairly unsurprising, but nonetheless noteworthy news: the Jays and Josh Donaldson are kind of far apart when it comes to trying to find a fair number for a contract extension.
Were this not the case, they’d probably have had an extension in place by now. It is, however, disappointing stuff — made only somewhat less disappointing by the fact that… uh… the team might have a point on this one.
Of course, we don’t know what number the Jays are willing to offer — we know there is a number; Ross Atkins said as much at a recent Pitch Talks event (“we have come up with a clear walk-away that we would be willing to commit to him for him to remain a Blue Jay probably for the rest of his career”) — and I’d be very willing to bet that it’s lower than what most fans would like. But some of the stuff Donaldson is saying just doesn’t seem — to me at least — to jibe with the current realities of the market (especially for a player who will be 33 years and four months old in the first week of the first year of his next contract.
A few thoughts on this:
- The word “unfair” irks me a little, as did that bit as a whole. Donaldson’s ultimate point is surely right, because the more finely tuned the data can be, the better off the assessment will be, and so basing numbers off a very generalized aging curve could definitely do a disservice to certain players. But I can’t believe that teams aren’t doing much more sophisticated work on aging that that. Not only that, the data is the data. It’s not “unfair,” it just might not be getting applied in a way to get the most meaningful information out of it.
- Does the fact that he’s talking about “longevity” and “bringing rain” until age 39-40 mean that he’s looking for a contract that will last that long??? Because even in the most optimistic scenario for him — which, given the way teams have shown their willingness not to pay old free agents this winter, is certainly not one he should be banking on — that’s a serious stretch. His age 39 season would be the seventh season of his next contract. As I said on Twitter, any team would take him for three years (age 33-35). Plenty still would go to four. Some of those would probably go to five just to get his signature on a deal. Are there enough of those to extract a sixth year from someone? Starts to get hard to believe there, I think.
- Has any player ever thought he was going to break down in his mid-30s? Which isn’t to say that Josh will, but that what players believe about their own ability to stay healthy isn’t exactly reliable — a point agents probably ought to do a better job of driving home to their clients. You don’t become a Josh Donaldson without being supremely competitive and supremely confident, I don’t think, so I understand why he would want to think that way, it’s just…
- José Bautista was supposed to be the guy who could break the aging curve through new age fitness and nutrition techniques, but age caught up to him hard and fast. It always wins. And while José is but one example — and an example of a player who hit free agency ahead of his age-36 season, it’s worth noting. Still, his story ought to resonate with Josh — and I’m sure it’s an example the Blue Jays will use to illustrate why they hold firm and can’t let themselves get sentimental. Had they met in the middle on Bautista in the spring of 2016, that deal right now would be a problem.
- Scary as the aging stuff may be, I don’t think anyone would expect the 32-year-old Donaldson to turn in a José-Bautista-at-age-36 season season anytime soon. Like Atkins said at Pitch Talks, and like Donaldson says he believes, the Jays would certainly do a deal at the price they want. No doubt he’d take one, too. So what might the two sides be willing to do? If I had to guess, I think the Jays would be willing to settle at four years and $80 million, and Donaldson would presumably take five years and $175 million. Again, completely guessing, but I think the Jays would go north from there, and Donaldson would go south. The crucial question is; by how much? Because if those guesses are anywhere close to correct, that’s a pretty significant gap.
- Are they good guesses, though? I know there will be more money to be spent next winter than there have been this winter, and more big spenders looking to spend it, but how much is that really going to change for players looking to get paid big money into their late thirties? Machado and Harper, who will both be 26 on Opening Day 2019, will absolutely get their mega-deals, and then maybe the teams that lose out on them will consider splashing cash on Donaldson. But I don’t know. And if Donaldson spends a bunch of time hurt or his performance takes a dip in 2018, then I definitely don’t know. There’s a lot of risk he would be taking here by going to free agency with the biggest drivers of his market, his 2018 play and his health, still needing to play out. (If the opposite happens, and he signed on somewhat team friendly terms now and then had a typical, healthy Josh Donaldson season, while he might end up missing out on tens of millions of dollars, he’d at least still be a very wealthy man.)
- The notion that talks were cordial and may yet reopen are, at least, good, but it’s not looking great for the chances of Donaldson staying long-term with the Jays right at the moment. But were they ever? As much as this feels like big news, it’s more just an affirmation of the status quo.
- Perhaps when we hear what J.D. Martinez gets from the Red Sox — a deal that, at the time of this writing, is reportedly getting very close to happening — we’ll have a better idea of where Josh’s market might realistically go. Last month for the Athletic I looked at a group of twelve players, six who performed just a little bit better by WAR in their age 27-31 seasons than Donaldson, and six who performed a little worse (while trying to find those who did so while being in the same ballpark as Josh with respect to wRC+ and the defensive component of Fangraphs’ WAR). My group averaged 35.4 WAR from 27 to 31; Donaldson’s total for that span was 35.6. Their average wRC+ was 148; Donaldson’s was 149. From age 33 to 37, the years of Donaldson’s next contract, they averaged 17.8 WAR between them. At $9 million per win, that’s about $160 million over five. Craig Edwards of Fangraphs did a similar thing on J.D. Martinez recently, based on both some similarly chosen comps as well as more standard application of the aging curve, and projected him out to just above 16 WAR over the next seven years. Could be somewhat similar total dollar numbers.
- UPDATE: Martinez details are rolling in, and it’s interesting. It’s a five year deal, with an opt-out after year two. Bob Nightengale says it will be for $110 million. There’s not much value to Donaldson to have an opt-out, so that’s probably not an aspect that would be copied, but the price tag is indeed interesting. The aging curve that Edwards used at Fangraphs puts Martinez at 14.2 WAR over five years. This means that, if we buy the 17.8 WAR average as Donaldson’s baseline, Josh should certainly be in line for more than that. But man, if Martinez can only get five years, even that seems maybe a tall order for J.D. Teams are being disciplined.
- UPDATE PART TWO: And the other thing about Martinez as a comp is the fact that, though their WAR totals aren’t comparable, if you worry about Donaldson’s defence (which I probably don’t think you should yet, though his metrics have an ugly trend to them; UZR by year since 2014: +15.5, +9.2, +4.2, -0.9) and think maybe he’s it’s really the bat that we need to think about most, he and Martinez (who provides no defensive value — especially now with Boston, where he’ll mostly DH). Donaldson’s last four years by wRC+: 130, 154, 155, 149. And Martinez? 154, 136, 141, 166. If you’re paying Josh more than Martinez, you’re basically doing it for defence. You’d also be banking on a similar decline despite their age difference. Neither sounds especially smart. So…
- This ought to go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: obviously Rogers should just kick the Jays some extra budget money to make sure they can pay to keep their star player at a fair price for both sides without constraining anything else the Jays want to do, rather than making them play hardball for every dollar all the damn time. But such is not reality, unfortunately. I guess we’ll just wait and see…
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