[image title="matt-holliday" size="full" id="13031" align="center" ]This time last year, the Mark Teixeira rumors were in full swing. The Orioles had offered him 140 million. The Nationals and Red Sox were reportedly offering him similar deals. The Angels were trying to get him to stay. But the Yankees swept in with a mega-offer and won the bidding at 8 years, 180 million. That’s a huge contract. Bigger than it feels. Part of the reason that Teixeira got it was because so many teams were willing to shell out the big cash for him. Had the Yankees not stepped in, there would have still been ample competition to up the price tag.
This year, we appear to be observing something different. We’re knee-deep in the winter meetings, and over a dozen teams are “interested” in Matt Holliday, but we’ve heard almost no news about teams preparing large dollar contracts for him. I haven’t heard one offer rumored, and no team appears to be actively negotiating with Holliday. This should come at no surprise: in a recession, most teams are aiming to reduce payroll, not add to it. The big buyers like the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox appear to be looking for cheaper options, and large-market teams like the Cubs, Astros, Tigers, White Sox and Phillies don’t look ready to spend.
At this point, speculation has to center around Seattle, the Mets, and maybe St. Louis to be the favorites for Holliday. They all have the payroll room and the need for the slugger. However, this doesn’t seem like a group ready to spend huge dollars, does it? St. Louis has always been responsible with contracts, and the Mets already have 110+ million on their payroll committed. Seattle has a lot more flexibility, but the top-end of an acceptable payroll for them is smaller than for the other teams, and they still need to extend Felix Hernandez.
I think that the Yankees may get back in to the fray here. The knock against Matt Holliday has never been that he is a bad player, just that the Yankees don’t want to put another huge contract on the payroll long term. With fewer bidders, his price will come down. How about a 5 year, 90 million dollar, backloaded contract? Sure, its a far cry from Soriano or Wells money, but it’ll sure be the biggest contract handed out this season. And Holliday won’t be too much of a geezer when the deal is over, so he can seek another job somewhere. According to Fangraphs, Holliday has been well worth that money over the past 4 years.
And seriously, imagine this lineup:
Jeter SS
Granderson CF
Teixeira 1b
Alex Rodriguez 3b
Matt Holliday LF
Jorge Posada C
Swisher RF
Cano 2b
Someone DH
And really, it wouldn’t be that much of a payroll increase over 2009. While the Yankees have pledged to reduce payroll in 2010, they are swimming in revenue with the new Stadium. Joe at RAB made the payroll argument really well last night,
In the end, I’m not sure the Yankees will stick with their $200 million payroll projection. They say it now, and maybe that gives them some leverage in negotiations, but if the Yankees find themselves in a position where improving the team means going over that target mark, I don’t think they’ll hold back. They’re already deep into this, too deep to cut back when they might need one more move to put them over the top.
What do you guys think? What is the maximum price you would be willing to pay for Matt Holliday?
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35 Responses to Will Matt Holliday Struggle To Find A Mega-Contract?
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TIQ IQ
To me Holiday would be overkill and could start a rebellion against YAnkee overspending nationally.People i talk in the midwest already think baseball is screwed because of inequity of spending.
Pigs get fat, Hogs get slaughtered.
That’s an argument that I’m actually pretty receptive too. I wonder if the Yankees have it the back of their mind.
That said, its complete and total BS. Baseball has more parity than professional sport in the United States.
It’s called football and no baseball doesn’t have more parity… The Chiefs and Raiders beat last year Super Bowl winner!
To me it comes down to pitching, I want to add another starter and by adding Holliday it takes away that option! Our rotation isn’t deep and one injury could send the whole thing into a tail spin, with Sheets or someone it takes 2 injuries to make you start worrying.
why not take that 5/90 deal and give it to lackey?
3 good pitchers, resign AP, Hughes as a 5, joba as setup heir apparant to Mo. BP is better, Starters are better so BP isnt as much an issue. Lineup, plug away in LF. Teach Montero to play left. When Romine comes up you have them both in lineup instead of trading 1 away due to too many catchers. IDK
If money wasn’t an option, would you rather have Holliday or Lackey on your team? Lackey has had health issues, and hasn’t been an ace over the past few seasons. I’d definitely love to have Lackey on my team, but I think that Holliday is the better player.
That said, you’re basically right that the argument works for Lackey too. If the market is low, why not buy low? I’m not sure though if there are as few bidders on Lackey’s services as on Holliday’s. We’ve heard a lot of teams be more interested in the pitcher. He’ll also likely be looking for a smaller deal than Holliday, which makes him more attractive.
You don’t teach Montero to play left until he absolutely forces you to do so. Also, I’d rather have Montero in right where his great arm and lesser range would play better.
I agree- I have been swayed by Chris on this. If you can get him at less than 6 years, it makes sense. He is a middle of the order bat, and is probably a better bet going forward than Crawford, who is the other “long term” option at the position. I say go for it.
If you had asked me during the year, I’d have said I want the Yanks to stay as far away from Holliday/Bay as possible. But if Holliday’s market is depressed and the Yanks can get him at a price of tens of millions cheaper than previously predicted, I’d be on board with getting a player of his caliber at a perceived discount. The added benefit would be that it would force Boston to retain Bay or to trade a whole host of assets for an impact bat. It never hurts to force our chief rival into reactionary mode.
I won’t lie, however, Holliday’s subpar showing in AL from April-July does give me some pause. While I accept that Oakland isn’t a great hitter’s park, Holliday simply didn’t look good for 2/3rds of the 2009 season.
In any event, like I said, 5Y/$90M would be a bargain for the market’s best free agent and would give the Yanks another righty bat besides A-Rod.
I would say his signing will ultimately be our downfall late in the year when we can score runs all night but can’t figure out why we can’t win because our starters aren’t going deep enough into games, we have no setup man to get to Mo and Mo is blowing more saves because he is 40. We already saw him blow saves on big HRs he didn’t do the year before, it can only get worse. Our lineup with Granderson is already a video game, we need pitching!
If you could get him that cheap go for it. DH swisher and let melky play right, sign sheets or harden to an incentive laden deal and call it an off season. That would be almost unfair to the rest of the AL east though. I think my red sox friends would start crying on the spot.
Why would you DH Swisher and have Melky play RF? Who would play LF in your scenario?
Forget I wrote that…I’m an idiot…obviously Holliday would play LF.
In any case, I’d rather have Swisher playing RF and trade Melky for a cheap bullpen arm.
yeah holliday in left in this scenario and I would trade melky as well for a bullpen arm if possible but if they are both going to be in lineup id rather have melky play the field than swisher, though im not saying swisher plays a poor right field at all
I suppose Melky’s got a bit more range and a slightly better arm (although I’m not so sure about the arm anymore…Melky missed a ton of cutoff men the past two years, it seemed like). But, defense aside for a moment, I’d stil rather hang onto Swisher’s bat.
I guess I’d take a slight hit in RF defense for an OBP machine with 25-HR pop in RF. After all, Melky and Gardner are the same person and Gardner’s got better wheels on base. One of them is redundant…
Melky has bad arm numbers because he tends to trust his arm a little to much, it’s stronger than Swisher’s by far but he chunks up a lot of bad throws just to throw home. Swisher would still be in the lineup in that guys scenario he would just play DH.
Jeter, SS
Granderson, CF
Tex, 1B
Arod, 3B
Holliday, LF
Posada, C
Cano, 2B
Swisher, DH
Melky, RF
Garnder and Melky couldn’t be more opposite…. Melky has much less speed and has a lot more power, Melky has the much better arm strength but Gardnder takes better routes to balls, Melky hits well in the lineup but is terrible off the bench as Garnder is a complete weapon off the bench. If one was going to play the field I would rather it be Melky to have Gardner’s speed come off the bench.
One thing to keep in mind is the age of these guys (as of March 2010), Matt Holliday-30, Curtis G-29, Nick-29. Five or six year contracts have to be out of the question, we don’t want to go back to the collapse of the mid-60s. Back then we had four or five guys retire at about the same time.
Our line-up with Matt in it, would be great but, for how long?
No to mention Holliday in LF, Tex at 1B, Arod at 3B, Jeter at SS how long can you have those positions locked up with aging players and huge contracts you can’t move all of whom will start declining at once.
We need pitching!
I’d go 5 yrs/$105 million — but, hey, it’s not my money!
I would not enough is enough
I agree with the premise that Holliday might struggle to find a mega-contract. Once Boston fills their LF spot, whoever remains (Holliday or Bay) will lose a lot of leverage because there just aren’t many big market teams with a LF need and the willingness to spend now. I think this is probably obvious to most people in baseball which is probably why you aren’t hearing a lot of people jumping to try to sign Holliday right now. I’d assume that there are others (Angels?, Mariners?) that would be interested as the price comes down.
Personally, I wouldn’t be interested in Holliday unless he could be had for something ridiculously low (say $60/4 years). He’s just not the kind of guy I really want to lock into a long term deal unless its well below market. I’m not saying that I really think he’s due for any age-related significant decline over that period. I just don’t like him enough to want to add another long term contract and give up more flexibility.
One last question: would you rather add $18 million to next year’s payroll for Matt Holliday or to bring back both Damon and Matsui. Even leaving aside the lesser year commitment, I think I’d prefer Damon/Matsui.
I’d much rather have one year of Damon/Matsui to four, five or more years of Matt Holliday only because I prefer the flexibility you get with one-year deals. I don’t get the feeling, however, that Damon is interested in a one year contract.
I would much rather have Matsui DH for 1 year, let Melky start in LF and sign Sheets to start for 1 year and be done. It costs less overall money than Holliday by himself would and it solves the DH, LF and SP problem and still allow you to cut the payroll in the end.
Holliday is a big waste of money!
No Damon’s not interested in a one year deal. Neither is Holliday. I prefer Damon for two years and Matsui one year to Holliday for 4-5 years which is probably more realistic. My point though was even leaving aside the benefit of a shorter commitment, would the team be better next year spending $18 to get just Holliday or to get BOTH Damon and Matsui back? I think you’d get more bang for you $ next year from Damon and Matsui without even considering the flexibility issue of future years.
The one catch is the 40-man roster. Currently, the Yanks have 37 players on their 40-man (including Pettitte and Granderson but subtracting Coke, Kennedy and AJax). The Yanks will be adding a 38th by getting the Nationals to pick for us in the Rule V draft this weekend. To keep Damon and Matsui would put us right at 40 which means the Yanks couldn’t sign a #4/#5 starter along the lines of a Sheets/Harden type.
Obviously the Yanks can trade for a starter but assuming they make no more major roster decisions other than figuring out the DH/LF spot(s), Holliday gives them more flexibility in 2010 even with a 5 year deal.
I generally prefer to stick to one year deals when I can but I’d almost rather have Holliday/starting pitcher than Damon/Matsui and no other pitchers.
I’m assuming making room on the 40 man for a couple more players isn’t going to be a big issue. Wang is probably going to be non-tendered. If they bring in another starter, they could non-tender Mitre as well. I’d DFA Edwar without thinking twice about it. And there’s always the possibility of further trades to make room. They don’t really need so many utility guys and I could see trading Miranda as long as they bring in someone to DH.
I don’t know that I really think they need both Matsui and Damon back but I’d prefer them for $18 than Holliday.
Both Matsui and Damon aren’t a good choice because Melky can play better D than Damon and Damon’s decrease in power next year won’t help his value, I say let him go now while we can and find a starter while bringing back Matsui!
I would prefer Holliday for 5 years than Damin for 2 or even 1. I’m not a huge fan of his, but I’d like to have a middle of the order guy without all of the health issues not to mention JD/HM inability to play the field at all.
That’s Damon, not Damin.
Holiday, long-term mega-bucks added….what have you been smoking?
Pitching, starting pitching is what’s needed.
I agree, people act like we have a deep rotation, in case people didn’t notice we only used 3 starters in the playoffs. If we have to do that next year I bet we don’t even make it to the world series! We can’t stay pat in our rotation we need at least one more starter added to the rotation to go 4 deep with pitchers who have experience. I don’t like Lackey for all the money but a guy like Sheets is perfect.
That would be a good deal 5/90, he is going to be the big winner this offseason, but will 90 mil be enough for Boras
I really doubt it when it’s half of what Tex got last year!
I had that feeling too, someone will give him close to what he wants, St Louis needs him the most, but with Albert coming up on his new contract, all their money will be going there
So what do you give the chances of the Yanks signing him, EJ? I know it’s a shot in the dark, but I like guesses.
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