Hi everybody, so today I'm going to make a comparison between two very similar players, who by some reason are or have been treated very differently throughout some point in time along their careers. Before I give you their names, I'll give you their stats to really empathize the proximity of talent level among them.
Through his first 3204 Plate Appearances, this is what this player compiled a
297/350/439 Slash-line
6.9 BB% 12.8 K% 141 ISO
346 wOBA 109 wRC+
20 DRS Overall
23.3 WAR
Through his first 3052 Plate Appearances, this other player compiled a
290/342/421 Slash-line
6.7 BB% 18.6 K% 131 ISO
332 wOBA 107 wRC+
92 DRS Overall
23.5 WAR
Both after putting up these numbers became Free Agents, the first one as a 30-year-old FA got a 153/7 deal, the second one will turn 32 right at the beginning of the season and heads into this year's Free Agent class expected to make around 70/4, Trade Rumors predicts he gets exactly that, Dave Cameron of FanGraphs has him at 68/4.
As you probably already know by now, the first player is one Jacoby Ellsbury, the second is Lorenzo Cain.
So when you look at those numbers and then look at what they got and/or will get does that make any sense at all, you can tell me that Elsburry had that magnificent 2011 season where he had a 150 wRC+ and a 9.4 WAR, but that is the definition of what an outliar year is, folks should put a page of his numbers that year next to the word outliar in the dictionary, why because before that he had 2 full seasons with a wRC+ of 91 and 98, because of his other abilities those were still very good years with a combined 6.2 WAR in 08 and 09, in 2010 he played in just 18 games, in 2012 after the huge year he played half a season with a 683 OPS, 84 wRC+ and a 1.2 WAR, the year before Free Agency he had a very good season 298/355/426 slash line, 112 wRC+ and 5.6 WAR, with that in mind no team should have signed him with the expectation that he'd come even close to duplicate the 2011 performance, it was just completely unrealistic, and he still got 153/7, 4 years ago, since then the market has increased every year. Now today 4 years later Lorenzo Cain only a 1 year and a half order than Elsburry was back then, on a market that pays more than it did is expected to make half what Jacoby did on a much more consistent career, both hitting and on defense, less Stolen Bases and showing some signs of decline on defense, not the same CF this year and last as he once was but still nonetheless a very good one, certainly better than Elsburry, and despite the huge headstart that Jacoby got with that outliar year, they still enteree FA with roughly the same hitting numbers 109 to 107 wRC+ edge to the former Red Sock. Now you tell me am I nuts or there's something really wrong here. Lorenzo will get too little and Jacoby got WAY, WAY too much and now looks like an albatross.
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