or "I love the Rays front office."
Today, the Rays signed 2B/RF Ben Zobrist to 5 year deal
with $18 mil guaranteed through 2013
club options at $7 + $7.5 mil in 2014 and 2015
So why is this a big deal?
Last year, Zobrist was worth 8.3 Wins Above Replacement.
WAR calculates the total # wins a player adds to his team over the course of a season, comparing his performance to a "replacement player," or an average Triple-A call up.
For Zobrist to be worth $30 mil, he would need ~1.5 WAR per year! In reality, he will probably earn 4.0-5.0 WAR in the future, and considering 1 WAR is normally worth $4 mil, the money adds up fast.
Why $4 mil? an avg player’s true talent win rate can be found w/ a 3-yr weighted avg of their win values, then multiplied that value by .95 to factor in aging.
Do this across the mkt, the value can be expected to inflate to $4.5 in 2014, but in the name of conservatism, let's say $4 mil.
Note: those options hint that Zobrist could have gone up for contract arbitration after 3 years. This is a huge benefit to the Rays.
The scale for arbitration is 40%, 60%, 80% for each yr of play. Assuming year 1 is worth 5 WAR, and if he digresses 0.5 WAR a year, Zorilla is worth 17.5 WAR by the end of 5 yrs...
In $$$:
(20 x .40) + (18 x .60) + (16 x .80) + 14 + 12 = 57.6 mil
That's a $30 million profit!!!
This is assuming he would gather 2.5 WAR in 2015. Could he generate more? Yes! more than likely! That $30 mil is a minimum, and could go way up.
Great move. Go RAYS!
