FanPost

Baez: An exploration of the financial inplications of callup timeframe

Wow. That is an academic and clunky title. Oh well, no one reads these things anyway anymore...

I spent a little time this morning just exploring the finances of calling Baez up now and resigning ourselves to "Super 2" status vs. waiting until after the Super 2 deadline. Now here come the disclaimers: This is not to say that the only thing that matters are the dollars and team control. If he is ready and we think that he can help the big league club now and it is deemed "worth it" by whatever metric the front office uses, then, by all means, call him up. The purpose of this post is simply to debunk the myth that there are not significant financial implications to "Super 2" status when we are talking about an All-Star caliber talent, even if some of the arbitration years are being bought out.

A bit of explanation now about the methodology I employed here. 2014 salary is a blend of what Baez would be making in the minors and majors all prorated. 2015 and 2016 are the ML minimum salaries at a guessed at rate of inflation of 2%. This may be off by a bit depending on economic conditions. Completely arbitrarily, I assumed that the Cubs would buy out Baez's last two arb years and the first three of Free Agency. I'm sure that you can argue with some of my numbers here on salaries per year. The important part, though is that I included identical salaries that come one year later if he is called up after 7/1. I used Giancarlo Stanton as a comparable for a first year of arbitration figure. The rest of the numbers are somewhat arbitrary, but I am assuming that Baez turns into a perennial all-star player here, obviously.

Baez Salary No long term Contract Buy out last 2 arb years and three FA years
Call up after super two (7/1 for this example) Call up now Call up 7/1 Call up now
2014 $ 460,321 $ 264,726 $ 460,321 $ 264,726
2015 $ 510,000 $ 510,000 $ 510,000 $ 510,000
2016 $ 520,000 $ 520,000 $ 520,000 $ 520,000
2017 (no arb/First Arb year) $ 535,500 $ 6,500,000 $ 535,500 $ 6,500,000
2018 (1/2) $ 6,500,000 $ 9,500,000 $ 6,500,000 $ 7,500,000
2019 (2/3) $ 9,500,000 $ 13,000,000 $ 7,500,000 $ 8,500,000
2020 (3/FA) $ 13,000,000 $ 17,500,000 $ 8,500,000 $ 11,000,000
2021 (FA/FA) $ 17,500,000 $ 18,500,000 $ 11,000,000 $ 14,000,000
2022 (FA/FA) $ 18,500,000 $ 20,000,000 $ 14,000,000 $ 17,500,000
2023 (FA/2nd contract?) $ 20,000,000 $ 24,000,000 $ 17,500,000 $ 24,000,000
Totals $ 87,025,821 $ 110,294,726 $ 67,025,821 $ 90,294,726

Anyway, there are the numbers. Another important thing to remember with the callup date is that it gives the Cubs another year of evaluation before having to decide on the numbers for a long term contract. I hope that this isn't the case, but another year of evaluation may have been helpful for Castro. Regardless, the question that must be answered is whether an extra year of evaluation and another year on the back end of the contract as well (as the additional money) is worth two plus months of Baez in 2014. I would tend to argue that it isn't, but that is purely from a business perspective.

I hope that this is helpful to the conversation. Feel free to do whatever you want with it, anyone on the site. Post it other places, use it with your friends, hack it up and come up with your own figures if you want, tell me I'm a moran :), whatever. Regardless of what happens, let's all root like heck for Baez to be a monster. The future is bright, even if it isn't as close as we all thought that it may be a couple of years ago.

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