Phillies, Ryan Howard ink five-year extension through 2016

That’s a lot of Subway sandwiches.

Just got on the phone with his good friend Reggie Jackson….

Every monday should have good news like this. Fuck yes.

Thank God

nooooooooooooooo

The important question is why was it necessary at this time to do such a thing?

So he’ll be 36 in the final year of this contract. I suppose it could be worse.

I understand the “big body” concerns, but Howard’s body is somewhat different from Mo Vaughn’s or David Ortiz’s. To me, his body type is about halfway between those guys on one hand and Frank Thomas on the other.

I’m not against choosing Howard over Werth, as I indicated in my earlier post. This deal does seem a bit pricey though. And I would have prioritized extending Rollins first over extending Howard.

I personally disagree with this move…but oh well.

I think Howard is much more replaceable than Werth, and would rather hand 100 million to a guy who works counts deep and plays his position extremely well.

No idea if this is really good or bad. Ryan is getting better all around but Werth is much more needed. 1B is basically a power position all around the MLB now, wouldn’t have been hard to find at least someone who can hit 25-30 HR at a more reasonable price for 5 years.

If there is one thing Amaro has been consistent at in his short tenure as GM, it has been tying a lot of money up in players who are or will be on the wrong side of 35 when their deals expire (or begin). I’m very nervous about this deal.

I mean, wow.

As taco pal said above, there’s definitely reason to think that Howard will age better than Mo Vaughn and David Ortiz. The man has gotten himself in great shape, and he’s an offensive force to be reckoned with.

On the other hand… wow. $125 million is a helluva lot to commit to someone’s Age 32-36 seasons, especially when they only have one plus tool and provide no value on the defensive spectrum. I definitely agree with those who said that Rollins should have been extended first.

Honestly, I’m still processing this. “Nervous excitement” is probably the best way to describe my mood right now.

Am I adding up these numbers wrong?:

20+20+25+25+25 = $ 115 M

Isn’t this deal for $ 115 M/5yr and NOT $ 125/5yr? (with a possible sixth-year option of $ 23 M making it $ 138/6)

Or am I missing something here?

Either way, that’s a lot of cash and I’m not sure yet how I feel about it (especially considering Howard’s 2010 OPS+ of 99).

And yes— this seems like weird timing to me unless Amaro is also talking with Jason Werth on the side (does anyone know?).

It’s a done deal, regardless. Makes me wonder what Pujuls will get.

The team does seem as though it is not going to settle for “small market” status. At some point, a big contract will blow up, and it will be interesting to see how that will affect things going forward, if at all.

I am not upset to see Howard signed – he has been a good citizen; he has produced; he has worked on weaknesses (fielding/weight and conditioning). He has demonstrated through significant actions (training/working out) that he sets and achieves goals.

He may suffer injuries, but the implication that he may eat himself out of the league, a la Ortiz/Vaughn/Fielder seems more unlikely to me each year.

Lots of cash, yes. Lots of risk, yes. Could the money have been spent better? Maybe. Was this abysmally stupid? Absolutely not, imo.

It was for 25 mil a year and people were like WTF, nobody is getting 25 mil a year. I am not so sure they should. Nobody should ever feel bad for Chase, but his 15 mil a year is a pittance now.

What’s funny is I railed on the Rollin’s and Utley contracts. Not cause I didn’t want them here, but because the Phillies gave up so much leverage when they signed them. I have no idea what they think Howard will provide them in 3+ years from now.

“but his 15 mil a year is a pittance now”

Hey, brother, can you spare a pittance?

:)

Here is Bill’s take. The money quote, at least as far as I’m concerned:

Most Phillies fans will love the extension, as it keeps a fan favorite in town for a long time. Stat-savvy fans immediately dislike the deal. Most Phillies fans will come to loathe the deal in several years when the Phillies are hamstrung by Howard’s relatively large salary and declining production.

Matthew Carruth from Fangraphs isn’t even that charitable.

Even if you think baseball’s salary per win goes up to $4.25 million this coming offseason and rises at a 5% clip every winter through 2017, Howard will need to produce an average of 4.75 wins from 2012 through 2017 just in order to justify his salary. If you factor in that Howard gets (even more) long-term security from this deal, then that average production levels goes up to 5.3 wins. In other words, Howard will need six seasons that were better than his 2009 season, except over his 32-37 years.

is that people don’t start calling Ryan Howard the next David Ortiz. Their bodies are just way different to warrant a valid comparison of aging. Ortiz is and was much heavier than Howard and do I even need to mention that Ortiz was busted for PED

This deal doesn’t upset me, and here’s why (a lot of this is not stat-oriented…but bear with me).

1) Howard has kept his nose clean for his whole career. You’ve never heard him badmouth the organization, whine about his dollars, get a drunk driving arrest, or engage in any petty crap. He seems to have good charachter and has his head on straight despite playing in Philly, with one of the toughest and most demanding crowds and he’s streaky. By itself, this is meaningless (ie…Paul Bako might be an upstanding guy…but who cares?).
The odds of Howard doing something dumb to derail his career are minimal, so that minimized the long term risk.
2) Howard has never had an extended DL stint. I’m not sure he’s ever been on it honestly, and if so..it’s probably been the 14-day pulled hammy variety. He’s also lost weight over his career which makes him less likely to wear out earlier (ie..NOT Ortiz and Vaughn).
3) Howard’s fielding appears to have improved during his career. This is not a product of luck, it’s either effort or acquired learning, and I’ll take either. One means he tries hard, one means he’s talented. Don’t really care which it is, both are good.
4) The Phillies might actually be entering excessive spend territory. I’ve lauded Steinbrenner and the Yankees because I wish the Phils spent money like they did. Moves like this make it plausible, albeit still unlikely. (caveat – if this were the case, we’d have probably retained Cliff Lee, but maybe something’s changed in the last couple months?)
5) The bulk of this contract will be spent on Howard during his prime(ish) years. At 36 he’ll be on the tail end. Odds are the last year or two won’t be as good as the rest of them….but if you were Ryan Howard…would you want to sign a contract that expired when you turned 34 or 35? Hell no. So realistically, that’s not an option unless you crazily overpay for the other years. 36 isn’t a horrible age, it’s definitely on the downslope, but not on the cliff.

The Phils are overpaying, but not on an insanity level, consider it a premium they’re paying a hometown good guy who’s singlehandedly carried the team for up to a month at a time.

Now….my hope is that this contract was bugging Howard and he’ll quit having crappy ABs and drill a few into McCovey cove this weekend.

Nice knowin ya Mr. Werth

there aren’t many guys who play like howard plays who age well. and thi contract is reall overrating him. Its like even the org doesn’t recognize that his RBIs are due to utley, not howards awesomeness. he’s a very good plaer. he’s not gonna be a great player when he’s 33, 34, and forget about 36. I’ve never been a big fan of his and this just seems stupid to me. we’re really working hard to make ourselves into a low budget yankees-old and expensive. there are definatley better ways to spend this mone. its like people think that he’s 27 years old. i hate ruben Amaro

I’ll tell ya what’s ridiculous: 10:15 start time. Way past my bedtime. Go Phillies!

Howard is a potential Hall of Famer. Phillies can’t replace his slugging via free agency or through their minor league system. Signing him now is great. The market will inflate, but only by the teams that have money (Yanks, Dodgers, Mets, Cubs, RedSox, Tigers, WhiteSox, Angels). Werth & Moyer are most likely gone after this year, Raul & Lidge after next year. Gotta extend JRoll next.

This deal really has very little to do with Werth, since the extra years dont kick in until after Werth is long gone. If the FO already decided they cant make the math work for Werth, the next move is lock up Howard. Your alternative is to lose both of them.

What deal was everyone expecting?? He is already making $20M. Did you think he would make less in his first FA deal. Did you think he would sign a team friendly 3 year extension?? This is a pretty average deal. It carries a lot of risk, just like any other deal in baseball. It could also be a good deal that keeps a premiere slugger in philly until his mid 30s. And they got it in before Pujols cashes in for 8 years @ 35M a year.

i would say the a-rod’s current deal sets the benchmark for pujols. ryans deal just reinforces that pujols gets 30M/yr. good luck cards. (not really)

wow five years, given his age I thought three. Then again I’m not saavy in the contracts department but balls thrown in the centerfield over J-Roll’s head will make me really wince a couple million times harder.

I know I will catch some flak for this, but I welcome it.

WAR is a useful stat, but like many other stats it tries to take a very complicated observation (success at playing baseball) and distill it down to a single, objective, easy-to-compare number. But like any other stat, it’s inherently biased towards certain variables, and more importantly cant possibly account for all variables. Its just one piece of information, meant to be used in combination with lots of other information. Some people seem to worship WAR like its some kind of end-all be-all of a player’s value.

There is a lot to look at when analyzing this deal, Howard’s projected WAR in 5 years is only ONE thing to think about. And how ridiculous is it to try and predict his WAR in 5 years, let alone what the market value of that is.

If I had that magic number I would be worth 125M too ;)

So, basically, I’m pretty ambivalent about this signing.

- Choosing Howard over Werth = OK in theory
- 5 years/$25 million per = too much
- From ages 34-36, Howard will likely be very overpaid
- But I don’t think he’ll be David Ortiz either
- Signing both Howard and Werth = very bad idea

Basically, I think this deal was too generous, which, almost by definition, means that we would have been better off letting Howard walk than signing him to this deal. But I don’t see it turning into an enormous Vernon Wells-style albatross either. If Howard only gives us $20 million of inflation-adjusted value for our $25 million in 2014, that won’t be good, but it won’t be a team killer either.