PADRES sign SHIELDS

you'd have to think that sooner or later his velocity and/or effectiveness would have to decline
4 years is a really good over/under call
but because there's a draft pick attached, i'd probably pass

 

^funny you should say that
because if [as the last paragraph suggests] his price drops to 3 years/$50MM...
then i say do it

James Shields And The Difficulty Of Finding $50MM In February
By Jeff Todd [February 2, 2015 at 11:06pm CST]

Entering February, James Shields remains far and away the most eyebrow-raising name left on the list of open-market players. Shields ranked third on the big board of MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes coming into the hot stove season, but he has yet to sign despite the fact that we are now closer to the start of camp than we are to 2014.

It is somewhat difficult to assess how Shields reached this point and where he might expect to go. We here at MLBTR argued nearly one year ago that he was not likely to reach nine figures given his age, yet not more than a month ago he was reportedly in position to do just that. But momentum has never really seemed to gather towards a signing.

Regardless of the reasons why, surely, having entered the winter with an expectation that he would take home an average annual value approaching $20MM over four or five seasons, Shields should still manage to at least gain admission into that ballpark — right?

I’m not so sure, and recent reports suggest the same. While the still largely-unknown particulars of Shields’s market and the state of negotiations are the most important factors, precedent does suggest that the downside could go lower than merely giving up that fifth year.

This is not the first time in recent memory — or, if you prefer, the qualifying offer era — that the free agent market has been left with an unsigned, top-tier player heading into the month of February. Last year, Ervin Santana (6th) and Ubaldo Jimenez (11th) had to wait until after Valentine’s Day to sign, while 14th-rated Stephen Drew lasted through to the summer. In the 2012-13 class, No. 3 free agent Michael Bourn and No. 10 Kyle Lohse both languished.

Based on the experiences of those players, Shields faces an uphill path. To wit:

• Santana ($15MM) and Drew ($14.1MM, prorated) both ultimately settled for far less in terms of dollars and years than had been expected (see here and here);

• two mid-range arms in Lohse and Jimenez both had different experiences but landed within range of expectations, with the former perhaps earning more toward the lower end of his curve and the latter doing just the opposite;

• the most analogous player to Shields in terms of quality, perhaps, was Bourn, who entered the offseason accompanied by whispers that he might be looking for a deal approaching nine figures before settling for $48MM.

The Jimenez example shows that the market can still pay out at full price in February, perhaps especially for a starting pitcher who would upgrade virtually any team’s rotation. But all the other situations are less than inspiring, even when acknowledging their innumerable independent quirks and small aggregate sample size.

Let’s look back a bit further, using MLBTR’s Transaction Tracker (with filters applied). The tracker is admittedly sporadic before the 2006-07 signing year, but is solid to that point and dips back even earlier on more significant deals.

The results are actually somewhat startling: beyond Jimenez, only one single player — J.D. Drew, Valentine’s Day 2007, five years and $70MM with the Red Sox — cleared even the $50MM barrier. Indeed, only three other players — Max Scherzer (7/$210MM, 1/19/15), Matt Garza (4/$50MM, 1/26/14), and Prince Fielder (9/$214MM, 1/24/12) — signed for over $50MM in the second half of January. The bottom line is that it is late to find big money.

While it would be foolhardy to suggest that these highly context-specific data points tell us something immutable about how much Shields can earn, they do support the intuitive idea that Shields faces a greater possibility of a slide in earning capacity. That is all the more true, perhaps, given that he apparently values non-monetary elements enough to have already rejected a $110MM offer (though that reported figure has yet to be lined up with a plausible offeror).

What we do know (or think we know) about this specific market does not paint a rosier picture. Earlier today, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney cited (Insider link) rival agents who feel that Shields may need to jump if he gets three guaranteed years at a reasonable price tag. Truly interested teams are somewhat scarce, and all have reasons not to plunk down anything approaching $100MM, as Olney’s colleague Jayson Stark recently wrote.

To be sure, plenty of time remains for the market to re-develop and the cost to go back up, to say nothing of a (perhaps unlikely) scenario in which Shields waits to see if injuries or other issues crop up this spring. But if Shields’s AAV does indeed fall below the expected $18MM to $19MM range, a three year pact could well land at or below the $50MM mark. Of course, as the above discussion shows, even reaching that threshold at this point in the offseason timeline would actually represent a rather unusual achievement.​

 

dilbeck makes a good argument
of course he neglects to state what would be a good/reasonable offer
if it's 3 years + an option in the $50-55MM range, sure
otherwise, not so much...

It's time for the Dodgers to go after James Shields
by Steve Dilbeck | Los Angeles Times — 8 hours ago

Hmmm, are things getting interesting enough for the Dodgers to take a serious run at right-hander James Shields?

Certainly looks like it. In which case, they absolutely should.

Shields never appealed to me as the great ace he was being marketed as early in the off-season and looking for a $100-million deal. Only now it’s February, he’s still unsigned and looking plenty less expensive.

History says it’s very difficult for a player to sign a significant deal this late in the off-season, when most teams have filled in the blanks and exhausted their winter spending budget.

The Dodgers, too, are done with their heavy lifting. Their rotation is set and they most probably feel there is no screaming need to add another starter. And signing a 33-year-old pitcher to a long-term deal hardly seems in line with the long-term plans of President of Baseball Operations Andrew Freidman and General Manager Farhan Zaidi.

Yet there are several reasons to believe the Dodgers will take another look at Shields.

He’s a local boy (Hart High School) who has said he would prefer to pitch on the West Coast. Shields pitched his first seven seasons for Freidman with the Tampa Bay Rays. He’s been extremely durable, pitching at least 200 innings in his last eight consecutive seasons. And, of course, the Dodgers have the money.

The Dodgers’ current rotation includes Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Brandon McCarthy and Brett Anderson. The Dodgers already spent $48 million on McCarthy, who was sensational for the Yankees the second half and awful for the Diamondbacks in the first half. Anderson hasn't pitched over 85 innings in any of his last four seasons.

Signing Shields would make Anderson a long man, which might not be a horrible idea given his injury history. It would also cost the Dodgers a draft pick, but then they already picked one up when Hanley Ramirez signed with the Red Sox, so that’s something of a push.

Of course, it comes down to just how far Shields’ price has fallen. Four years and $70 million would still keep him out of the Dodgers’ sites. But should he plummet into the $50-million range, they have to pursue him. They are trying to win now, right? Hell, they gave that much to McCarthy.

And if Shields is no ace, he’s still an upper-tier pitcher. He went 14-8 with a 3.21 ERA and 1.18 WHIP for the Royals last year. His signing would push the Dodgers past the Nationals as the team with the best rotation in baseball.

In all likelihood, the longer this plays out, the less it will cost to sign him. And if they can ink him to a reasonable deal, that doesn’t rule out going after a David Price, Jordan Zimmerman, Johnny Cueto or a Jeff Samardzija next winter.

“You never say never,” Friedman said at the end of December, while saying the Dodgers’ rotation was complete.

Nope, never a good idea. And as time has developed, it looks like a good time to make new plans.​