Posted by Jtpsops on 10/25/2016 10:24:00 PM (view original):
I didn't say anything stupid. Part of the post turned out to factually wrong, but that didn't impact my point in any way. It was and remains a horrible contract, only ever met with applause from the advanced metrics crowd because Heyward is "the greatest defensive RF of all time!!"
If I recall correctly, dahs mocked me for daring to compare Heyward to Alex Gordon. Seems like a pretty fair comparison. Might even be an insult to Gordon now.
I'm pretty sure you don't recall correctly. Going into last offseason I'm fairly certain I rated Heyward as the 3rd-most-valuable COF in baseball, and Gordon as 4th. So that's about as close as it can get. Obviously neither guy came close to living up to that standard this year. But based on the preceding 4 or 5 seasons, I still believe that was a reasonably fair valuation of these guys. Going forward I'd think you'd actually have to drop Gordon a lot further than Heyward. Neither of them hit this year, but Heyward still played elite defense. Gordon hasn't played particularly impressive defense in either of the past 2 seasons, and it's looking more like it wasn't just an anomaly and age and injuries really have caught up to him in the field. That hurts his upside going forward.
Mike already made my primary point for me earlier in the thread. One of the things that made Heyward so attractive going into the offseason was his age. Most guys enter free agency at the back end of their traditional prime - that is, somewhere around age 30. Heyward hit free agency before his age 26 season, before even the beginning of his traditional prime years. Consider that Heyward, at the end of his 8-year deal, will be the same age as Chris Davis will be at the mid-point of his 7-year deal. Looking through the lens of last offseason, would you prefer Davis, the guy who showed as a great power bat with a solid glove, to Heyward, who showed as a great fielder with a solid bat? For 2016, probably so. But over the life of the contract? I'd have wanted Heyward. And it's for precisely this reason. If Davis starts out with a mediocre season - which he did - it really hurts his potential to live up to the contract. Based on the standard career progression for big power hitters outside the steroid era, odds are the last 3 seasons of that contract are basically throw aways. He needs to produce the value to live up to that contract in probably 4 of the seven years, and now almost all of it in 3. That's a tall order. Because of Heyward's age, he still has 7 potentially very useful years. 87.5% of his contract is left for him to make up for this season, and none of them are years in which he couldn't be expected to play up to his potential.
Note, I'm not arguing that Heyward
will rebound. But he certainly has the potential to do so. This is where one of his most desirable attributes a year ago starts to come into play, and I don't think it's fair to decisively call his contract a bust (or "******," in JTP parlance) already. Also, you can't totally downplay the impact of his defense. The Cubs as a team played
great defense, and he contributed to that. I think most of you know that I don't buy into FIP on an individual basis, but when you have an entire pitching staff beat their FIP by 0.62 runs/game I think that says something. Especially when you consider that of their 4 veteran starters, 3 of them (Arrieta, Lackey, and Lester) have generally had their ERAs match their FIP on a career basis, and the 4th (Hammel) has traditionally performed worse than FIP would suggest. Basically, the Cubs defense saved their team over half a run a game. And Heyward was the best fielder on that team. Also, after next year, it seems that there is a fairly good chance he could be tested out more regularly in center field. Dewees is probably the closest CF prospect for the Cubs, and I don't think Cubs fans are getting particularly excited for his arrival. If Heyward holds his own in CF - he certainly did this year in limited opportunities - it limits the amount by which his bat needs to rebound in order to be a useful player.
Also, how has nobody pointed out the irony of tec showing up in this thread exclusively to call BL an argue monkey yet?