For The Next Five Years, Batting Leadoff...

The big news today is that Brian Roberts and the O's have agreed (pretty much) to a four year, $40 M extension.

There were rumblings about it for a while now, but I was hoping that they'd make it a four year contract (starting this year and going through 2012) instead of an extension (starting next year and going through 2013).

In the 2009 projection post about about Roberts, I looked at what his decline would have to look like to justify various deals.

3 year, $30 M extension:

Year

PA

H

2B

3B

HR

BB

BA

OBP

SLG

wOBA

WAR

2010	600	152	38	4	7	57	.281	.350	.405	.343	2.7
2011	575	144	35	3	5	48	.274	.336	.381	.326	1.7
2012	550	136	32	2	3	42	.269	.325	.358	.311	0.7

3 year, $36 M extension:

Year

PA

H

2B

3B

HR

BB

BA

OBP

SLG

wOBA

WAR

2010	600	152	38	4	7	61	.283	.357	.408	.348	3.0
2011	575	145	37	3	5	53	.279	.346	.391	.335	2.1
2012	550	139	34	2	4	43	.275	.333	.374	.320	1.2

These assumed gradually worsening defense and baserunning, as well as inflation in baseball salaries. The free agent economy has gotten worse (less than a month ago I thought Orlando Hudson would get around 2/$18 M - now he's looking for 1/$5 M) and so the dollars per win is probably not going to be quite as high as I anticipated. That means Brian will need to play a little better to be worth the same amount of money, but I'll disregard that for the sake of the argument.

4 year, $40 M extension:

Year

PA

H

2B

3B

HR

BB

BA

OBP

SLG

wOBA

WAR

2010

600

152

38

4

7

61

.283

.357

.408

.348

3.0

2011

575

145

37

3

5

53

.279

.346

.391

.335

2.1

2012

550

139

34

2

4

43

.275

.333

.374

.320

1.2

2013

525

130

31

1

3

37

.267

.320

.354

.308

0.4

That - like the 3/36 one - doesn't seem unreasonable. That problem is; the more years you roll the dice with an aging second baseman, the more likely you are to come up with Neifi Perez (for example). Roberts would be worth $40 M total for those four years, but he won't be worth $10 in 2012 (closer to $7.7 M) or 2013 ($2.8 M). Since the years in which Roberts should be a bargain (2009-2011; though maybe just through 2010) are the ones in which the team is least likely to be competitive, I'm not particularly excited.

Of course Roberts could age very well and still be an above-average player at age 35, but it's probably even more likely that he's a replacement level player at that time. I haven't disagreed with Andy McPhail's moves very often (and usually when I do I end up eating some crow), but this is another one of those occasions.

On the bright side, Brian is great in the community and a fan favorite (and so I see Peter Angelos' fingerprints on the extra year). He's still a very good player right now and I'm happy to have the chance to watch him play in an Orioles' uniform. Plus I won't need to lose sleep over one of the the holes the team will need to fill in the infield in the coming years.

Congratulations to Brian, the team, and the fans - I'll be cheering for him to prove me wrong.