This is an example

[sharksrog]

This is an example of a smart team trying to lock up one of the best prospects the game has seen:

Wander Franco’s big league career spans just 70 games and 104 days, but Yancen Pujols of El Caribe, a news outlet in Franco’s native Dominican Republic, reports that the Rays have put forth what would be a record-setting contract offer to the 20-year-old shortstop (Twitter thread). Exact terms aren’t known, but Pujols indicates that the offer is at least ten years in length and would land somewhere in the $150-200MM range. That’d go well beyond the eight-year, $100MM contract Ronald Acuna Jr. signed in Atlanta — the current record for a player with under a year of Major League service time.


As an aside, after a slow start Franco enjoyed a lot of success in those 70 games. But his expected stats weren't as good as the actual ones. That's a small concern, but Franco's minor league history and everything he's got going for him supercede it.

You may remember that the Giants had Franco's brother of the very same name (Wander Franco), but the Giants' Wander was older and not nearly as good. The Giants have since released the older brother. In case you wonder about Wander.

A year ago at least one observer predicted the Giants' Marco Luciano would replace Franco as the game's #1 overall prospect. That hasn't happened yet, and if anything I would say that Marco's star has dimmed slightly. He's still considered one of the game's top prospects though. And observers are gaining appreciation for Luis Matos. The previously mentioned Kyle Harrison took a big step forward this year, as did one of Mordy's favorites, Jairo Pomares.

If some of these top Giants prospects mature properly, and the Giants can lock them up early, they could form the foundation of a success they could maintain in the future.

[reedonly]

Unless the player is a guarenteed superstar, that kind of thinking might be risky. You could justify a contract like that for a Tatis Jr but I'm not sure if you remember that a few years ago, Yoan Moncada was described as a similas kind of can't miss prospect similar to Franco. Five years later, he has been very erratic, led the league in strikeouts, and seems to have settled in as a .260 hitter and expect about 15 home runs. So much can happen in a few years. As Mad Bum showed, he could lead your team to a World Series victory or two but it could also come crashing down in a dirt bike accident.

[sharksrog]

The idea behind wrapping players us early is twofold:

First, it's much better to make a smaller mistake than a big one. The Giants have used this strategy with two players -- Posey and Bumgarner.

Buster was locked up later in his career, and his contract was kind of a hybrid -- somewhere between a true early deal and what Buster could likely have made had he become a free agent. The deal worked out well, and if Buster hadn't retired, the Giants would gladly have exercised the option year of that contract.

Where it worked out spectacularly was with Madison. The Giants locked him up for a comparative sone.

The second advantage is that if a team decides to trade star player before the end of the contract, the lower salary facilitates that. The Rays, for instance, have already used that to advantage with two players who went to the Giants -- Matt Moore and Evan Longoria. With Longoria, it should be noted that the Rays are paying some of Evan's contract for the Giants. It should also be noted that Evan is on the SECOND long-term contract he was locked up with by the Rays. His first contract was even more team-friendly than Madison's.

The Giants repaid Madison a bit when they likely could have avoided paying him during his recovery from the dirt bike accident but didn't do so. I wonder if the old regime had still been in place if the Giants would have bid even higher and re-signed Madison. Certainly there was at least one poster here who supported that idea.

[sharksrog]

The White Sox signed Moncada to sort of a hybrid deal. Yoan had originally been signed by the Red Sox for a $31.5 million bonus paid over three years. Through the 2019 season, he was paid close to the major league minimum, since he wasn't yet eligible for arbitration, for which he would have been eligible in 2020. The White Sox extended Yoan through his three arbitration years and through two free agent seasons, with an option for a third. Including bonuses, they paid him $1.8, $6.8, $13.8, $17.8 and $24.8. and $25 million (with a $5 million buyout).

Yoan hasn't reached the heights expected of him, but while the White Sox have paid him only $8.6 million over the past two seasons, Fan Graphs has valued his performance at $49 million. He will very likely earn his full contract, and the White Sox might wind up exercising his option, even though he would be his oldest under the contract and the option would pay him the contract's highest annual amount.

While wrapping up a young player carries the risk that the player is less proven than a free agent, it also carries a much lower injury and age-decline risk. If the White Sox buy out Yoan, he will be just 29 at the time, and if they exercise the final year's option, he will be under contract with them through age 30.

For well over a decade we've been advocating for wrapping up players early, Reeder, and in general, these contracts have worked out better than free agent pacts.

Over their Giants careers, Madison and Buster were paid $57.5 and $168.3 million. Their performances were valued at $238.9 and $429.8 million. That value was based only on the regular season. Obviously both players -- especially Madison -- added extra value in the postseason.

Fan Graphs calculates the players' values based on the number of dollars paid to free agents divided by the value they contributed.

Bumgarner illustrates how effective this strategy can be. If he had completely washed out, it wouldn't have been a total disaster for the Giants. And since he performed about as well as expected, he rewarded them with more than four times their investment. Because they waited longer, Buster was a lot more expensive, but he still rewarded the Giants with two and a half times their investment.