Looking at if the player will be worth his contract is a very simplistic view to use when determining whether the Phillis should have exercised his option. Let’s say we know, for a fact, that Feliz will be “worth” $6 mil next year, exceeding the value of his contract by 1 million. Let’s say the Phillies have the ability to sign another player (Player B) to an 8 million dollar contract, but we KNOW he’ll under perform his contract by 1 million dollars.

What is the right move to do? We get extra value out of Feliz, because he exceeeded his contract value, and we’d lose value on Player B because he under performed, but we actually got more value from Player B than we got from Feliz, and maybe that marginal value is worth the 3 million dollars difference (the 1 mil saved, the 1 mil lost and the 1 mil difference in value). I’d take Player B any day of the week and lose the 1 mil on his contract because the marginal value to the team will be greater.