If you enjoy the analysis that Dave Cameron does on contracts, he suggests in
this that 3/$36MM is risky but not crazy. He was comparing the consensus estimates of the crowdsourcing exercise readers do on Fangraphs to his thoughts about the players. Here is his take:
20. Adam LaRoche, 1B: 3 years, $36 million
I endorse this price with some hesitation, as LaRoche is clearly coming off a career year at age 32, and this could look like a silly overreaction to recent performance if some of the improvement isn’t real. Still, the increased power and reduced K% (relative to league average) give some hope that there’s been sustainable changes made, and he doesn’t have to carry them over for that long to be worth $36 million. If he’s even a +3 win player in 2013 and then ages normally, this is a deal worth doing. If he goes back to being a +2 win guy, then it’s probably a bit of an overpay, but there’s enough potential there to make it worth a shot.
If the crowd thinks this is what he is getting, then the team will make a qualifying offer, which he will reject, and then the team will get into a bidding war for him.
Poll
