Steve Sommer from Play a Hard Nine posed one of the most intriguing questions of the UCB’s preseason roundtable Monday: Buying out a prospect’s arbitration years has become a trend among MLB clubs. Do you see the Cards taking a similar path with Colby? If so what kind of parameters do you have in mind?

We agreed with Justin Adams that buying out arbitration years for young players is a smart practice. And it’s not only for "budget-minded" teams, either: The Boston Red Sox extended Dustin Pedroia after the 2008 season, and the New York Mets extended the contracts of Jose Reyes and David Wright near the end of the 2006 campaign. And more recently, Ryan Braun, Dustin Pedroia and Mark Reynolds have traded lucre for certainty. The following table shows the date when those players, along with Grady Sizemore, Hanley Ramirez and Evan Longoria, signed their extensions, age at signing, career WAR in $ at signing and yearly contract amounts for the extensions (option years are in brackets):

*New contract replaced current year
^Bonus is factored into first year of new contract
#Depends on whether Braun is considered Super 2

The Cardinals themselves aren’t averse to buying out young players — Adam Wainwright signed a four-year, $15 million extension (which could grow to six years) after a mere two seasons — though they have yet to commit to as many guaranteed years as some of the clubs in the above table.

The nearest comp for Rasmus is probably the contract that Cleveland (small-market) gave to Grady Sizemore (centerfielder), who had only a year and a half under his belt and 6.4 WAR (when he signed what was essentially a seven-year, $33 million deal at the beginning of the 2006 season; Rasmus has 2.2 WAR ($21.2) so far but could come close to or eclipse Sizemore’s total by the end of 2010 — with a CHONE-projected 3.4, he would have a career 5.6 ($25.2) after this season — and would be about the same age as when Sizemore signed (23). Something slightly under that range would be appropriate for both the Cardinals, who can diversify their assets, and for Rasmus, who can’t (as JC Bradbury brilliantly articulated when describing the dynamics of club buyouts). For while Rasmus might offer the same toolset and value as Sizemore, he’s nowhere near the marketable commodity that Sizemore was when Cleveland locked him up. The reality is that Rasmus isn’t now, nor will be, the face of the Cardinals: That honor is held by Albert Pujols, at least for the next couple of years, and either him or Matt Holliday for several after that. The Cardinals should consider a five- or six-year contract with Rasmus at the end of this year, assuming he stays on course, perhaps for as much as $30 million. Here’s an example scenario for the end of the year, based simply on the average yearly values of the eight players in the above table and Rasmus hitting his CHONE projection:

If Rasmus stays healthy, the Cardinals would almost certainly get their money’s worth from their centerfielder on that schedule. It would probably make sense and be possible to go beyond a mere five-year extension and buy a second or even third of Rasmus’s free agency years. It would be a big deal for the Cardinals, but they’ve shown — by drafting and signing Rasmus in the first place, and by signing a free agent at the height of his bargaining power in Holliday — that they’re willing to go big these days.

This entry was posted by Pip on Friday, March 19th, 2010 at 6:19 pm and is filed under analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.