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Writings on baseball by Matt Barnard and Dan Stein.
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2.03.2003
Just shameful. The lack of updates over the past couple days has been a result of a convergence of not much news and being occupied with other things. I realize a lot of baseball blogs don't update over the weekend, but as we're trying to bust into this field and get some consistent readers, we're trying to be as content-laden as possible and update a lot. So here we go. Burrell signs six year, $50 million extension with Phillies First of all, Pat Burrell is worth this kind of commitment, so good for the Phillies for being able to recognize that and lock him up for awhile (he'll be 32 by the time this deal is up in 2008). The structure of the contract is bizarre, as it's extremely heavily backloaded for some reason...perhaps to offset the cost of Kevin Millwood this season, which is going to run the Phillies almost $10 million. Anyway, Burrell gets paid just $1 million in 2003, $4 million in 2004, $7 million in 2005, $9.5 million in 2006, $13 million in 2007 and $14 million in 2008 (according to espn.com). While this is obviously going to get a little bit hairy in 2007 and 2008 (as he may not be worth $13+ million a season), his average salary each year over the life of the contract is about $8.3 million, which strikes me as pretty reasonable for a guy like Burrell. Just looking at his raw offensive numbers from 2002 (only his second full season in the majors), he posted a line of .282/.376/.544, which is pretty damn good. While he's not a terrific outfielder, he hasn't been one all that long and is only 26, so there's some room and time for improvement. In any case, his offensive abilities more than outweigh his defensive deficiencies. Taking a quick look at guys similar (along with their similarity scores) to Burrell at his age as of the end of the 2002 season, courtesy of the indispensible baseball-reference.com: 1. Jesse Barfield (946) 2. Carlos Lee (938) 3. Albert Belle (938) 4. Mike Marshall (936) 5. Fred McGriff (933) 6. Richie Sexson (933) 7. Willie Stargell (932) 8. Paul Konerko (931) 9. Richard Hidalgo (929) 10. Greg Walker (928) There are some pretty good names on that list, and Burrell's got a shot to be as good as any of them (I'm referring to the good ones, not Greg Walker or Mike Marshall, and they weren't all that bad either) over the next 10-15 years if he can continue to improve his plate discipline. He's shown the ability to improve, as his walk total rose dramatically (from 70 to 89) last year as his OBP rose 30 points (.346 to .376), which is a really good sign. This contract locks Burrell up through much of his peak and seems a wise investment for the Phillies, who are doing a nice job of solidifying some major cogs in their lineup for years to come in Bobby Abreu, Jim Thome and now Pat Burrell. - |