Scott Boras Explains Jayson Werth's 7-Year/$126 Million Dollar Deal With The Washington Nationals.

Lol. That’s right. If Bowden gave the deal, Werth would hit 200 for the next 7 years.

I didn’t pick up on that right away. The Boras influence doesn’t bother me but so much. Yeah, he’s expensive but I think that Rizzo knows that he ultimately wants young players regardless of their agents as the foundation of his team. The bigger concern with Boras isn’t the free agents its that Espinosa, Harper, and Strasburg are all Boras clients. Will we be able to have foundation guys that stay with the franchise for the long haul? Or are these guys counting the days until they get the big payday on the open marketplace. Extremely unlikely that these guys will be taking Zimmerman like deals to buy out their arbitration years as well.

Of course, the Phillies probably have solved the problem of having Boras client by getting enough depth that one client doesn’t stop the show. How influenced are the Phillies by Boras clients?

But my opinion is that it’s vastly overblown in the media how much of it exists. It takes two elements to become a “destination” for free agents: money and winning.

Obviously, the Nats have just one part of that equation right now. Whether Werth helps to get them to the second part is debatable. The core of the Nats franchise, the players that could comprise the core of the first truly good Nats team (Desmond, Espinosa, Strasburg, Zimmermann, Ramos, Flores, Norris, Harper), are still 2-3 years away from being fully formed MLB players.

At that point, all those players will be in their early to mid 20’s. Ryan Zimmerman will be in his prime (and a very expensive free agent).

But Jayson Werth will be in his mid-30s, at a point in his career when players decline and break down. Hopefully, Werth’s decline will be slow and gradual. But if history is any indication, he’ll be a shell of the player that “earned” his just-signed contract or worse, he’ll be the Nats version of Albert Belle, Mo Vaughn or Richie Sexson.

Will Werth help this team be better the next couple of seasons? Perhaps. Will he be here when the Nats finally make the playoffs. I’ll bet the under on that. And it’s not simply because I’m the voice of gloom and doom (a mantel I wear proudly). I’m looking at this realistically.

Realistically, the Nats don’t have a shot at making the playoffs for the next 2-3 years. They just don’t have the pitching talent. Period. I’m sorry to be so “negative” on the 3rd day of February.

Rizzo said at Werth’s press conference that Werth’s “best years are ahead of him.” But players just don’t get better as they get older, unless they’re getting help from somewhere (see: Bonds, Barry and Clemens, Roger.)

The other point, and this is a big one, is if the contract wasn’t bad enough, it includes a no-trade clause. So even if they wanted to get out of it at some point, they can’t.

Sending the Lerner’s money is one thing. Spending it blindly is another. In 2-3 years, this type of signing would make perfect sense. An acquisition like werth is a “final piece”, not a building block. I remain of the opinion that Jayson Werth is not the type of player to “bet the bank” on. Mike Rizzo, for better or worse, bet his job on Jayson Werth. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.

Andruw Jones was one of the best centerfielders in the game during the period I believe. Werth plays right field. I think the better comparison is to think about what would happen if you shifted Werth to centerfield. He’d probably be significantly worse as a centerfielder. For the Nats this year, that would have been a huge upgrade. We’d have been able to boot Nyjer to the bench with a power bat and could work on easier to find outfielders on the corners.

I think that what Dave is trying to say is that power bats in Centerfielders are extremely valuable.

I think Rizzo looked at his system and didn’t see anything in the corner outfield and felt that this was one of the positions that he could upgrade through free agency. Where I do support the “Werth is better than Jones” is that we are trusting that Rizzo’s character and scouting analysis matters here. Didn’t Andruw Jones start eating and overswinging his way to the bench? Did LA distract him from focusing on his game once he got his payday?

A key thing with this acquisition in Rizzo’s mind is likely to be his belief in Werth’s character, training habits, and body type as a potential to stave off some of the potentials of age. Now whether he can scout players late in their careers as well as he can scout young talent remains to be seem. That seems to be the real question under examination. I think it’s a question that we ultimately don’t know with the limited data we have and I’m willing to admit that I don’t know and wait and see.

That said, there are some kind of eerie parallels with the Werth signing and the Mcnabb signing.

Thanks for telling me how wrong I am. I try to respect everyone’s opinion on here and not be rude when offering a differing opinion.

I don’t have a problem with Jayson Werth, the player. He’s a fine player and I understand how good a player he’s been. For the last three years, playing his home games in the band box known as Citizen’s Bank Park, and hitting fifth or sixth in a very potent lineup. Before that, he was an often-injured nobody.

My problem is not with Werth, it’s with his contract. Rizzo gave Werth one of the top half-dozen highest free agent contracts in history. He’s paying a very good player like he’s one of the elite in the game, at a point in time when the Nats simply don’t have the pitching to be contenders. And it’s just as likely he’ll be done being a very good player by the time the Nats core is ready to contend than continue his current production into his mid-to-late 30s..

Andruw Jones totalled 55.3 WAR, an average of 6.14 WAR per year (acc’d to Baseball-Reference) over a nine year period playing CF everyday while with Atlanta, so let’s not get confused here. Werth started 53 games in CF in four years with the Phillies.

You state that Werth’s been a “5 WAR player for the last three years”, when that’s simply false. In 2008 it was 4.2, 2009 it was 3.2 and last season was 5.2, his only season where he’s earned that much. So before telling someone they “Couldn’t be more wrong”, you may want to have your basic facts correct.

Citing Werth’s injury history as evidence that he’ll get better as he gets older is faulty at best.

The graph you linked to does nothing to show that Werth will continue his performance, it simply shows his numbers side-by-side with Jones and illustrated my point in beautiful color-line detail how short a time Werth has been a quality player.

The side-by side you didn’t do is here: comparing Werth to Howard to Utley which proves my point exactly: Werth has not discernably been the best hitter on his own team the last few years and definitely the less valuable player over the course of their careers, yet he’s now being paid as one of the top players in the entire game.

The Fangraphs post you reference but didn’t cite to is here, where they conclude the same thing I do (my emphasis):

While [Werth’s contract] is significantly more than he was originally expected to get, it is not the drastic overpay that it appears to be on the surface. That’s all market rate analysis, however. There is a larger question to be explored, and that is whether a team in the Nationals position should actually be paying market rate for a premier free agent when it appears that the rest of their roster won’t be capable of helping him make the playoffs for at least a couple of years.

You are perfectly welcome to believe this team is “about 5 games under .500 now.” I’d love to see your math on how you come to that projection. You’re also welcome to believe that “Add Strasburg and Harper and I believe the playoffs are a realistic 2012 goal.” It’s good to have hope as a fan. I don’t discount the possibility that either could happen.

But it’s just your opinion. Just like it’s my opinion that Werth’s contract could end up being one of the worst baseball contracts in history.