Note: This was originally published on Pine Tar Press on January 5, 2016.
With the Royals pursuit of free agents, one of the big rallying cries to avoid big contracts this year is because of the slew of players who will be eligible for free agency. One of those players is Mike Moustakas, who could potentially be among the most affordable of any of the Royals big free agents in a couple years. He’s joined by Lorenzo Cain, Eric Hosmer, Alcides Escobar and Wade Davis as players the Royals may miss the most after the 2017 season. Of those players, the best bargain could be Mike Moustakas if the Royals reach an extension with him now.
The case for Moustakas is interesting because his 2015 season was the first one in which he was above average offensively. He has been above average defensively in every year of his career since his rookie season, so he hasn’t been without value, but third basemen don’t typically get long-term deals based on defense only. Because of that, it’s important to recognize the not insignificant risk the Royals would be taking on striking a deal with the man they call Moose.
Also, because of the lack of a track record for Moustakas, there aren’t too many comparable contracts out there. I did take a look at a few third baseman who have received contract extensions, and that should at least give us some interesting numbers to look at.
I personally think the best length of an extension for Moustakas would be five years. That would buy out two years of arbitration and keep him on board for three more beyond that. He’d hit the free agent market at age 32 and get a chance for a pretty decent pay day if he’s a quality player and the Royals would get a few years with him that they wouldn’t have otherwise.
Now that we have the length out of the way, let’s take a look at a few players who signed extensions.
Kyle Seager is the first name to come to mind because he signed his extension heading into his age-27 season, just like Moustakas is now. He’d been a much better offensive player heading up into this past year, but was somewhat comparable to Moose’s 2015 season. He was a .262/.328/.429 hitter with a 116 OPS+ leading up to this past season when the extension started. He had a 118 OPS+ in the three seasons leading up to the deal, which is just two points lower than last year’s version of Moustakas. Here’s how his deal breaks down:
2015: $4 million
2016: $7.5 million
2017: $10.5 million
2018: $18.5 million
2019: $19 million
2020: $19 million
2021: $18 million
2022: $15 million club option
This deal is probably the best framework we’ll see for a Moustakas deal, but two things make it imperfect for Moustakas. First, the track record with Seager is far greater than what we’ve seen from Moustakas. Second, Moustakas has already been through a year of arbitration and isn’t expected to make much more through that process in year two than Seager got in what would be his first year. Let’s keep this one in mind.
Evan Longoria signed his first deal awhile back, as in right after he was called up in 2008. That deal was worth $17.5 million over six years with club options for the 2014-2016 season. This one is interesting to look at for the later years of the deal:
2012: $4.5 million
2013: $6 million
2014: $7.5 million option ($3 million buyout)
2015: $11 million option
2016: $11.5 million option
Following the 2012 season, though, they guaranteed the 2014-2016 option and gave Longoria an additional six years for $100 million. These aren’t quite as relevant to Moustakas, but they go as follows:
2017: $13 million
2018: $13.5 million
2019: $14.5 million
2020: $15 million
2021: $18 million
2022: $19.5 million
2023: $13 million club option ($5 million buyout)
In total, he’s guaranteed $144.5 million over the 15 years he’s under contract with the Rays. That’s about $9.6 million per year. I’m going to use that number probably in the Moustakas number.
Ryan Zimmerman also has two separate deals that might be worth looking into. He signed his first deal prior to his first season of arbitration eligibility. That deal was worth $45 million over five years and was broken down as such:
2009: $3.325 million
2010: $6.25 million
2011: $8.925 million
2012: $12 million
2013: $14 million
This right there might be the closest thing to a baseline for Moustakas, though the difference is it covered two free agent years instead of three, but that’s a pretty easy adjustment to make. The latest deal was reached for six years and $100 million.
2014-2018: $14 million
2019: $18 million
2020: $18 million option ($2 million buyout)
Zimmerman was better than Moustakas coming into that first extension, but he also didn’t have a season as good as 2015 was for Moose. He was also three years younger, though, so it might even out a little bit.
Let’s look at one more deal and then get to talking about the possibilities for the Royals third baseman.
Matt Carpenter signed an extension after just one full season, though he was very good in that full year, hitting .318/.392/.481 (after a .294/.365/.463 season of 114 games). What’s interesting is that he signed the deal heading into his age-28 season, but he hadn’t even reached arbitration yet. His contract details are:
2014: $1 million
2015: $3.5 million
2016: $6.25 million
2017: $9.75 million
2018: $13.5 million
2019: $14.5 million
2020: $18.5 million option ($2 million buyout)
After the first year of the deal, the five years and $51 million looks like a pretty decent framework for Moustakas as well.
Okay, let’s get to Moose.
As I mentioned above, there’s considerable risk offensively because it’s hard to say if 2015 was a fluke or if it’s something he can sustain. But with his defensive ability, it’s a decent enough risk that Moustakas will at least provide positive value even if he regresses some offensively. Heading into this exercise, my thought was that a five year, $45 million extension would make some sense, but I think it might take a touch more than that.
MLB Trade Rumors predicts that he’ll earn $5.7 million in arbitration in 2016. If he plays well, he should probably be able to make about $9 million in 2017. So there are your two pre-free agency years.
Because the Royals are taking on some risk, I think it makes sense to drop his 2016/2017 salaries a bit to help them take advantage of the team still together. I’d give him $4.5 million in 2016 and $7.5 million in 2017.
That leave his three free agent seasons. Pablo Sandoval averages about $18 million per year in the first three years of his deal (covering his 29-31 seasons) and Adrian Beltre averaged $16 million per year in his free agent deal with the Rangers. Moustakas doesn’t deserve as much as either of them. So that leads me to giving him $13 million per year over the final three years of his deal. I say make the contract escalate each year, so we see something like this:
2016: $4.5 million
2017: $7.5 million
2018: $12 million
2019: $13 million
2020: $14 million
That’s a five year deal worth $51 million. But, hey, why not throw an option in there for 2021 for something like $18 million? Make it the seemingly standard $2 million buyout that we see in other contracts and that brings the total guarantee for this deal to 5 years, $53 million with the chance to get to 6 years, $69 million.
Another option would be to cut the deal to four years and just give him two years of $13 million per year in his free agent seasons. That deal would be four years and $38 million, which is half-million more than they gave Alex Gordon before the 2012 season and identical to the deal they gave Zack Greinke prior to the 2009 season. Maybe that’s the way to go. It’s worked out for the Royals before.
Either way, I think I’m on board with locking Moustakas up now if the Royals can get him and his agent to agree to it. You may have heard that Scott Boras doesn’t often recommend contracts like this for his clients, so this may all be moot, but interesting to see how Moustakas stacks up and what he might cost if the Royals engaged him today in discussions.