No baseball contract is a sure thing at the moment it’s signed. From Jason Kendall to Gregory Polanco, no club knows that better than the Pirates.
The eight-year, $70 million extension Ke’Bryan Hayes signed with them Thursday, however, has a lot of potential to be an enormous bargain for the club over time. Bigger, even, than the $51.5 million extension they signed future MVP Andrew McCutchen to in 2012. Or the $31 million extension they signed Starling Marte to in 2014.
The reason is that Hayes’ glove should prove to be a pretty consistent source of value regardless of any ups and downs he may have at the plate.
In 2021, when Hayes struggled with his bat amid a slew of nagging injuries, Fangraphs says he was still worth 1.5 Wins Above Replacement almost entirely on the strength of his defense. His offensive contribution to the overall figure was actually negative.
Granted, it’s just a one-year sample size. But defensive performance tends not to fluctuate nearly as much as offensive performance, which means Hayes should be a 1.5-WAR player as a baseline most years.
And that kind of production alone represents a ton of value compared to what it would cost in the trade and free agency markets — possibly enough to pay for the contract on its own on a dollars-per-WAR basis.
Consider that in 2020 — baseball’s last pre-pandemic market — teams spent an average of $9.1 million per WAR in free agency, per Fangraphs.
At that rate, you can estimate Hayes’ glove alone — at 1.5 WAR — would be worth about $41 million in just the three free agent years that the Pirates have bought out at the end of the deal.
That’s without factoring in the inflation the market is likely to see before he reaches those years; any production in the years he otherwise would have spent making the big-league minimum or working his way through the arbitration system; and any offensive production above replacement level at all.
Yes, you read that correctly.
The total value of his defense on the market over the life of the deal, meanwhile, would probably be about $109 million in 2020 dollars.
That figure is a bit misleading because no other team was in the market for those services and wouldn’t have been until 2027 at the earliest. The Pirates were always going to be able to pay less than market rate because of the generous years of minimum and arbitration control MLB’s collective bargaining agreement gives clubs. That’s why they had the leverage to get Hayes to sign a deal like this in the first place.
Still, it puts in perspective the value Hayes’ defense alone represents — and the way this deal positions the Pirates to get his offensive production as almost pure upside.
That’s no small thing either. Fangraphs’ highly respected ZiPS projection system expects Hayes will be worth about 2.5 WAR overall in 2022. If we assume his defense represents about 1.5 of that total, that means his bat would be worth 1 WAR.
A modest number, to be sure. But even that level of production across his three free agent years would be worth $27.3 million in 2020 dollars. Combined with his defense, you’d expect he’d be worth about $68.25 million in those years alone. Almost the value of the entire deal.
And even at 2.5 WAR per year over the life of the deal, Hayes would be worth about $182 million total on the open market, which makes the $70 million he will make look like a pittance.
Whether Hayes will live up to that kind of production offensively in the long run remains to be seen. If he can’t improve on his 2021 struggles and stays in the sub-.700 OPS range most years, then this will probably be more of a break-even deal for the club in the end.
But, hey, that’s a pretty nice worst-case scenario to work from if you’re general manager Ben Cherington. Especially with Hayes’ 2020 breakout — during which he hit .376/.442/.682 — still front of mind as an example of what he’s capable of with the bat.
If he gets anywhere close to that level of production on a regular basis, then that’s when we can begin comparing this deal to the McCutchen and Marte pacts as among the best management has ever struck.
We’re a long way from that point today, and it certainly seems reckless to discuss the richest single contract in team history as if it’s totally without risk.
Purely from a dollars perspective, though, there’s a lot to like here unless a ton of people both inside and outside Pittsburgh are completely wrong about this player’s potential.
Adam Bittner: abittner@post-gazette.com and Twitter @fugimaster24.
First Published: April 8, 2022, 12:50 p.m.
