The Milwaukee Brewers announced a huge extension for outfielder Ryan Braun this afternoon. On top of the $40.5 million that the Brewers owed him on his previous deal through 2015, the club will pay him an additional $105 million between the $10 million signing bonus and his annual pay from 2016 to 2020. MLB.com’s Adam McCalvey has lots of details about the contract on his blog but the summary of the summary is this: it’s a huge contract.
It’s an especially huge contract for the Milwaukee Brewers to be handing out. They’re one of baseball’s smaller markets and committing $145.5 million (the total value of the deal from 2011-2020) is a huge deal, especially when that player is already 27 years old. The Brewers’ payroll has been right around $80 million each of the past four seasons, except for 2010 (their payroll that year was $90 million); Braun is now due $19 million a year from 2016-2018, $18 million in 2019, and $16 million in 2020. Obviously that’s a ways into the future and we have no way of knowing what the Brewers’ payroll will be in those years, but this is not chump change for Mark Attanasio’s club.
There’s plenty of reason to ask whether or not Braun is worth the huge amount of cash; Braun is one of the hitters in baseball that falls into the “very good but not great” category, he plays a non-premium defensive position poorly, and the huge amount of money that this extension owes him won’t even kick in until after Braun’s 32nd birthday. All signs point to Braun having a very good career, but this deal rewards him like one of the best in the league. These are all fair questions, I think, but they’re hard to answer without knowing baseball’s financial reality in 2016, let alone 2020.
Instead, let me pose a different question. In the sabermetric world, players are defined by wins above replacement and dollar values are put on wins relative to league payroll. In 2011, a win is valued at $4-5 million. But what is a franchise player worth? More specifically, what is being able to pay a franchise player worth to a non-megamarket? The Brewers aren’t going to be able to afford Prince Fielder this winter. That much was clear even before this Braun contract. They weren’t able to lure CC Sabathia away from the bright lights of New York, and it’s possible that after 2012, both Shaun Marcum and Zack Greinke will hit the free agent market (or, in an even worse scenario, are traded before then if the Brewers fail to contend next year). So what does being able to pay a very good player to stay in blue and gold for what should amount to most of his career do for the Brewers’ fanbase? How many more tickets and jerseys does that sell? What does it do in convincing free agents that the club is serious about spending the money it takes to win? It’s impossible to quantify this sort of effect, but it’s something the Brewers have to be considering when handing out a deal like this.
Signing Braun at least partially rewrites what could be a very ugly narrative for the Milwaukee Brewers over the next 16 months. Now, they can afford to keep some of their talent. It won’t be a complete exodus from Milwaukee, even if Greinke and Marcum join Fielder. The question, though, is what that’s really worth. Does it make up for the difference between what they’re paying Braun and what he’ll actually be worth on the field? The Brewers obviously think it will, and they’re not alone. The Twins (with Joe Mauer) and Rockies (with Troy Tulowitzki) have also recently rolled the dice with with huge long-term contracts to keep “franchise” players in one place. It’s a risky deal for Milwaukee, though, and we won’t really know how risky it is for five more years.
