STRAS EXTENDED!!! (7 years, $175 million)

[Minty Fresh]

please baby jesus

freak that.  Please, adult Jesus.  Or any Jesus.  Even Jesus Flores.

[spidernat]

I'm totally fine with the deal as long as it doesn't impact my seats behind the plate.

[NJ Ave]

I'm against signing pitchers to 7 year deals. Outside of Felix (Kershaw was an arbitration buyout too), we haven't seen a long-term deal be a great (hell, even good) idea. I guess the Grienke deal was a good one, but he also opted out, so there's that.

Right, and I understand this point of view even though I think it becomes problematic that the best pitchers in the game all sign 7-year deals - so you're essentially saying that the team has to (a) develop guys like Scherzer/Strasburg etc. on a regular basis or (b) rely on pitchers who are 2nd tier or below carrying the team. Because there's no option (c) where you magically convince a pitcher to sign with you for 5-6 years when everyone knows he'll get 7 elsewhere.

But even this argument is separate from the argument that you get screwed by these opt-outs. Why exactly? It seems to me that you get screwed when the guy opts out AND you sign him to a new long-term deal, but that's an entirely different decision point. If we took the next 3-4 years of Strasburg and said thanks and farewell at that point, there's very little additional risk here and some major upside.

[BrandonK]

I'm totally fine with the deal as long as it doesn't impact my seats behind the plate.

MASN isn't going to pay for all these pitchers!!

[shoeshineboy]

I still don't understand this point of view.

Okay, people make the point that the only guys who don't opt out are guys who get injured/start to suck. Well yeah, but aren't all baseball contracts fully guaranteed, besides the odd option year? So even if there isn't an opt out, you're not insured against having to pay the albatross contract of a pitcher who gets injured.

And second, who's to say it'll make sense for the Nats to re-sign him in 3/4 years? There are plenty of scenarios I could envision where you let a 30/31 year old pitcher walk instead of re-signing him. All you need it pitcher development, team regression, or a combination of both to make it make sense.

Third, what's the alternative - that we DON'T SIGN HIM AT ALL? That's BETTER?

Agreed. I think this is a creative contract that has risk and reward on both sides, but is generally favorable to the player. I still don't think he gets 7 yr at 250 on the open market with opt outs. He may have been the big FA pitcher out there, but he has never been Cy Young, rarely pitched past the 7th, had TJ, back issues, and a total of one playoff appearance. People love his stuff, but a lot of teams would factor those things in compared to the other pitchers on the list of contracts with greater AAV. I think he would have gotten more, but not necessarily that much more. The opt outs are a huge incentive for him to sign this deal. It pays him big, protects him against injury later in the year that would certainly impact his offseason market value, and provides him with a chance to jump and strike it rich elsewhere if he ends up dominating for years and can get 35M a year elsewhere, or simply wants to get a ring.

It is a good deal for both sides to have longer-term visibility and flexibility. I like it. It is a good commitment and allows them to structure something similar for Harper (which they need to do.) It also puts some pressure on the franchise to continue to invest in success so guys don't take the opt outs.

They also had to be looking at the fact that they are likely to have guys like Giolito, Ross, and Turner on the cheap for years to come.

[BrandonK]

Right, and I understand this point of view even though I think it becomes problematic that the best pitchers in the game all sign 7-year deals - so you're essentially saying that the team has to (a) develop guys like Scherzer/Strasburg etc. on a regular basis or (b) rely on pitchers who are 2nd tier or below carrying the team. Because there's no option (c) where you magically convince a pitcher to sign with you for 5-6 years when everyone knows he'll get 7 elsewhere.

But even this argument is separate from the argument that you get screwed by these opt-outs. Why exactly? It seems to me that you get screwed when the guy opts out AND you sign him to a new long-term deal, but that's an entirely different decision point. If we took the next 3-4 years of Strasburg and said thanks and farewell at that point, there's very little additional risk here and some major upside.

I agree, it's great if it's only a 3 year deal (at $25M/yr, that's the going rate -- I'm not mad about it), but the likelihood and risk behind a deal like that is huge. I think the FO does think that TJS guys have a certain amount of bullets in them before they either get hurt again or are simply not effected, so they probably are looking at that being somewhere between year 4/5 of this deal, and hoping he does opt out.  We'll see. I think it's more likely to go south, but obviously I'm not rooting for it.

I'm fully in the camp of drafting high upside arms every year and developing them, and signing bats (not like that's worked for the Nats, but historically bats do age better). Fill in the back end of the rotation with E-Jax deals every year (or just mediocre talent that can get you 5 IP), but have a fluid rotation year in and out. Just my thought -- a lot easier said then done. We'll see what the Mutts do with all their arms...

[shoeshineboy]

If we took the next 3-4 years of Strasburg and said thanks and farewell at that point, there's very little additional risk here and some major upside.

This. Let's just say the guy dominates for 3-4 years and then leaves. What the hell is the difference between that and signing a guy for 3-4 years? You paid the guy for the time. To me, the risk is always on the injury or the performance tanking. In Strasburg's case, given his stuff, his relative age, and his delayed development due to no real time in the minors and DL time, the biggest risk is injury versus declining performance over the life of the contract. Having a guy leave after 3-4 years of dominance to go get paid more from the open market is not a risk. It's just the business.

[shoeshineboy]

And I am not really a fan of long term deals like this for pitchers, but as deals go, this isn't bad for a guy who, if healthy, should be hitting his stride in terms of experience over the first half of this deal. We want those years.

[BrandonK]

MLB.com makes a good point -- we just gave the A's a big boost by signing Stras before FA. Any team hoping to sign a FA SP this offseason will probably have to look for a trade. Beane should be getting some nice offers for Sonny Gray.

[Minty Fresh]

MLB.com makes a good point -- we just gave the A's a big boost by signing Stras before FA. Any team hoping to sign a FA SP this offseason will probably have to look for a trade. Beane should be getting some nice offers for Sonny Gray.

Might we be one of those teams interested?   

[JCA-CrystalCity]

So apparently the deal is that if he opts out, he gets only the deferred money from the years where he stuck around. So if he opts out after three years, it's 3/45 with an extra 30 mil deferred for 3/75. (My source here is Dave Cameron at FanGraphs.)

Think about this.  Suppose he opts out after 2019.  It is 3/45 for the next 3 years, then he can take another 3+ year contract at a young age, and his team can front load that because he'll have an extra $10MM a year kicking in in 2024.  Of course, if he's not good - say the Nats only get 4 years out of him - he gets another $75MM by not opting out, making those "bargain" years up front cost closer to $40MM+ undiscounted.  That's a lot of protection for him that Boras has bought, especially if he believes the Nats views about the risks of TJ elbows > 6 years after surgery.

[PC]

The grass is never greener, Stephen.  NY, Boston, Chicago, LA...all pits.

Tell Bryce that, while you're at it.

[Elvir Ovcina]

Think about this.  Suppose he opts out after 2019.  It is 3/45 for the next 3 years, then he can take another 3+ year contract at a young age, and his team can front load that because he'll have an extra $10MM a year kicking in in 2024.  Of course, if he's not good - say the Nats only get 4 years out of him - he gets another $75MM by not opting out, making those "bargain" years up front cost closer to $40MM+ undiscounted.  That's a lot of protection for him that Boras has bought, especially if he believes the Nats views about the risks of TJ elbows > 6 years after surgery.

The biggest risk here is that he gets hurt this season.  That injury risk alone - for someone already with a TJ and six years (five of actual pitching with that ligament) in the bank - has to be worth double-digit millions for someone who had an EV as high as Strasburg's.  The secondary risk is that he does very well for 3 years, uses the pending opt-out to negotiate a Sabathia-like extension, and then proceeds to either get injured or pitch like Sabathia over the life of that contract.

[imref]

so the worst case for the Nats is 3/$75 for strasburg.  I don't see any real downside.

Cameron likes it:

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/stephen-strasburgs-extension-is-a-win-win/

[imref]

he's an ace

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/stephen-strasburg-is-the-ace-we-always-wanted/

[Mr Clean]

Trump also shot his mouth off about Strasburg: http://www.csnmidatlantic.com/washington-nationals/old-donald-trump-tweet-resurfaces-shows-he-was-wrong-about-stephen-strasburg-washington-nationals

[UMDNats]

And I am not really a fan of long term deals like this for pitchers, but as deals go, this isn't bad for a guy who, if healthy, should be hitting his stride in terms of experience over the first half of this deal. We want those years.

Agreed.

He's younger than most FA pitchers, so we're looking at maybe 3-4 of peak performance  before decline as opposed to just 1 or 2.

[Expos]

Love it.

Now I can keep my framed Stras jersey up for a few more years!

[Mr Clean]

Boras said Stras has 4 pitches and is working on another.

[BrandonK]

Boras said Stras has 4 pitches and is working on another.

Cutter? Sinker?

4 seam FB, change, slider, curve is what we've seen this year.

[imref]

Strasburg to Boras, 'leave me alone as much as possible' on contract talks.

[BrandonK]

So this was Boras' doing?

[PC]

Mark Zuckerman ‏@MarkZuckerman  28m28 minutes ago

Among those who came to Strasburg's news conference: Dusty, Harper, Scherzer, Maddux

[Mr Clean]

Cutter? Sinker?

4 seam FB, change, slider, curve is what we've seen this year.

He didn't name the pitch. Maybe Stras will break it out soon

[mitlen]

I'm totally fine with the deal as long as it doesn't impact my seats behind the plate.

We're the reason he's stayin'.