image courtesy of UPI.com
Last season, Jayson Werth submitted a stellar .296/.388/.532 line with 27 homers to finish off a 3 year span of sustained excellence in which he averaged over 5 WAR per season. This past offseason, the Nats rewarded him with a contract that will pay him $126 million through his age 38 season. The Nats thought they were getting a cornerstone outfielder with some good pop who would, along with Ryan Zimmerman, lead the team into October within the next few years, once Bryce Harper, Stephen Strasburg et al were ready.
So far this year, Werth has been a vast disappointment, posting a below average .215/.319/.362 line with only 9 home runs and looking overmatched in right field to boot. In sum, Werth has “amassed” a paltry .4 WAR through 89 games played, putting him on pace for less than 1 win above replacement for the entire season. To put that number in perspective, Corey Patterson has .8 WAR for the season, and when Corey Patterson outperforms your $17 million right fielder, something has gone terribly wrong. All this ineptitude has elicited boos and chants of “Werth-less” from the crowds at Nationals Park, and did I mention that there’s still 6+ more years left on his contract? Is it even possible to defend such failure?
Well, maybe? First, we should start with the contract. According to Fangraphs, Werth was worth over $20 million each season from 2008 to 2010. The Nats are paying Werth $10 million this year, and that salary will gradually increase until 2015, when Werth will make $21 million per year through 2017, when the contract expires (thanks to Cot’s Baseball Contracts for the details). So by those figures, if Werth were able to somehow return to his 2010 production level and sustain that performance through the end of the contract, the Nats would actually be slightly underpaying Werth. Had he been, say, 26 at the time of the deal was made, this contract would be much easier to defend.
Alas, Jayson Werth is 32 years old and is only going to get older. No one in their right mind thought he would be able to sustain that performance for 7 more years when he signed that contract. The contract becomes even less defensible when we consider that the Nats will be paying Werth more money at the stage of his career when he will almost certainly be his least productive. At the time of the deal, Nats execs rationalized the back-loaded nature of the contract by saying that the team will be contending within the next couple years, which will lead to more attendance, and in turn, more revenue, which will make it easier for ownership to afford the contract in its twilight years. Now I must say that I admire the confidence of the Nationals front office, not to mention their ability to spin for the sake of PR, but you should pay players how much they ought to be paid, not how much you’re able to afford based on your “potential” (read: not yet existant) revenue. If the Nats fail to reach their potential (very possible) and the Jayson Werth contract leaves ownership hamstrung in 2015 or sooner, you can bet on a lot of upset (former?) Nats fans.
Another rationale behind the deal was the notion that the Nats “needed” to overpay to show potential free agents that they were “serious” about paying the money it takes to win. This logic sounds good, until your team ends up like the Chicago Cubs or Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, paying half decent players like Alfonso Soriano and Vernon Wells exorbitant amounts of money to lose baseball games. Well run organizations pay players what they deserve (or, in the case of the Tampa Bay Rays, less than that).
I think we can conclude that the Jayson Werth contract is a bad one, but that being said, it’s not my money. The Lerners have, by all accounts, pretty deep pockets. As long as the team continues to grow into a contender, a bad contract doesn’t really matter. And my primary concern is just that: how much will Jayson Werth contribute to a Nats contender? Looking at his line from this year, there is not a lot to love, but Werth’s peripheral numbers suggest he is the same player he has been for the past three years. For 2011, his BB% (12.3%) and K% (23%) are right in line with his career figures (12.3% and 24.5%, respectively), which suggests that his approach at the plate has not changed much, if at all. His .257 BABIP is, however, nearly 70 points below his career average, which accounts for his career-low batting average. He’s still making contact, and once those balls start falling in for hits, he’ll be back in the .260-.270 range that’s been his career norm, with an OBP of around .360.
The greater concern for Werth this season has been his lack of power. His .140 ISO so far this year is 60 points below his career average. His ground ball rate is a career high 45%, and the transition to Nationals Park has not been good, as his HR/FB has dropped to a career low 10%. Those figures become even more unsettling when you consider that at over 400 PAs for the season, Werth has now reached the point where batted ball percentages begin to stabilize, according to fangraphs. That being said, his career high 13.1% popup rate should come down, so there is still hope for improvement in terms of power. ZIPS projects a .244/.346/.424 line for Werth for the rest of the season, and that seems about right, maybe even a little conservative. Werth is a good player who has suffered from poor luck so far this season, but he should turn it around for the rest of this season. The problem is, with the Phillies and Braves in control of both the division and wild card races, the Nats are not contenders this year. More important than this year for the Nats is whether Jayson Werth will contribute to a potential contender in the years to come.
The short answer? It’s not looking good. According to Baseball Reference, the players who are most stastically similar to Jayson Werth through their age 31 seasons are Brad Hawpe and Jeffrey Hammonds. That’s not a good sign. Now, Werth is almost definitely a better player than either of those guys, but the track record for players like Werth after age 32 is just not great. Werth’s career batting line is .261/.361/.466. Through his age 31 season, Trot Nixon rocked a decidedly Werth-like .278/.366/.478 line, including a peak at ages 29 and 30 when he posted wOBAs of .412 and .379, respectively. Sounds a bit like Jayson Werth, no? After 32, Nixon batted .256/.356/.364. I bolded the slugging percentage because, well, ouch. And the Nats could very well be paying $126 million for that. Jayson Werth may buck the trend, and maintain some semblance of his former self through the rest of the contract, but the odds are not in his favor. This could get ugly.
So far this year, Werth has been a vast disappointment, posting a below average .215/.319/.362 line with only 9 home runs and looking overmatched in right field to boot. In sum, Werth has “amassed” a paltry .4 WAR through 89 games played, putting him on pace for less than 1 win above replacement for the entire season. To put that number in perspective, Corey Patterson has .8 WAR for the season, and when Corey Patterson outperforms your $17 million right fielder, something has gone terribly wrong. All this ineptitude has elicited boos and chants of “Werth-less” from the crowds at Nationals Park, and did I mention that there’s still 6+ more years left on his contract? Is it even possible to defend such failure?
Well, maybe? First, we should start with the contract. According to Fangraphs, Werth was worth over $20 million each season from 2008 to 2010. The Nats are paying Werth $10 million this year, and that salary will gradually increase until 2015, when Werth will make $21 million per year through 2017, when the contract expires (thanks to Cot’s Baseball Contracts for the details). So by those figures, if Werth were able to somehow return to his 2010 production level and sustain that performance through the end of the contract, the Nats would actually be slightly underpaying Werth. Had he been, say, 26 at the time of the deal was made, this contract would be much easier to defend.
Alas, Jayson Werth is 32 years old and is only going to get older. No one in their right mind thought he would be able to sustain that performance for 7 more years when he signed that contract. The contract becomes even less defensible when we consider that the Nats will be paying Werth more money at the stage of his career when he will almost certainly be his least productive. At the time of the deal, Nats execs rationalized the back-loaded nature of the contract by saying that the team will be contending within the next couple years, which will lead to more attendance, and in turn, more revenue, which will make it easier for ownership to afford the contract in its twilight years. Now I must say that I admire the confidence of the Nationals front office, not to mention their ability to spin for the sake of PR, but you should pay players how much they ought to be paid, not how much you’re able to afford based on your “potential” (read: not yet existant) revenue. If the Nats fail to reach their potential (very possible) and the Jayson Werth contract leaves ownership hamstrung in 2015 or sooner, you can bet on a lot of upset (former?) Nats fans.
Another rationale behind the deal was the notion that the Nats “needed” to overpay to show potential free agents that they were “serious” about paying the money it takes to win. This logic sounds good, until your team ends up like the Chicago Cubs or Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, paying half decent players like Alfonso Soriano and Vernon Wells exorbitant amounts of money to lose baseball games. Well run organizations pay players what they deserve (or, in the case of the Tampa Bay Rays, less than that).
I think we can conclude that the Jayson Werth contract is a bad one, but that being said, it’s not my money. The Lerners have, by all accounts, pretty deep pockets. As long as the team continues to grow into a contender, a bad contract doesn’t really matter. And my primary concern is just that: how much will Jayson Werth contribute to a Nats contender? Looking at his line from this year, there is not a lot to love, but Werth’s peripheral numbers suggest he is the same player he has been for the past three years. For 2011, his BB% (12.3%) and K% (23%) are right in line with his career figures (12.3% and 24.5%, respectively), which suggests that his approach at the plate has not changed much, if at all. His .257 BABIP is, however, nearly 70 points below his career average, which accounts for his career-low batting average. He’s still making contact, and once those balls start falling in for hits, he’ll be back in the .260-.270 range that’s been his career norm, with an OBP of around .360.
The greater concern for Werth this season has been his lack of power. His .140 ISO so far this year is 60 points below his career average. His ground ball rate is a career high 45%, and the transition to Nationals Park has not been good, as his HR/FB has dropped to a career low 10%. Those figures become even more unsettling when you consider that at over 400 PAs for the season, Werth has now reached the point where batted ball percentages begin to stabilize, according to fangraphs. That being said, his career high 13.1% popup rate should come down, so there is still hope for improvement in terms of power. ZIPS projects a .244/.346/.424 line for Werth for the rest of the season, and that seems about right, maybe even a little conservative. Werth is a good player who has suffered from poor luck so far this season, but he should turn it around for the rest of this season. The problem is, with the Phillies and Braves in control of both the division and wild card races, the Nats are not contenders this year. More important than this year for the Nats is whether Jayson Werth will contribute to a potential contender in the years to come.
The short answer? It’s not looking good. According to Baseball Reference, the players who are most stastically similar to Jayson Werth through their age 31 seasons are Brad Hawpe and Jeffrey Hammonds. That’s not a good sign. Now, Werth is almost definitely a better player than either of those guys, but the track record for players like Werth after age 32 is just not great. Werth’s career batting line is .261/.361/.466. Through his age 31 season, Trot Nixon rocked a decidedly Werth-like .278/.366/.478 line, including a peak at ages 29 and 30 when he posted wOBAs of .412 and .379, respectively. Sounds a bit like Jayson Werth, no? After 32, Nixon batted .256/.356/.364. I bolded the slugging percentage because, well, ouch. And the Nats could very well be paying $126 million for that. Jayson Werth may buck the trend, and maintain some semblance of his former self through the rest of the contract, but the odds are not in his favor. This could get ugly.
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