Circling back to Dylan Cease’s future after Carlos Rodón’s contract
Carlos Rodón closed the book on his White Sox career by signing a two-year, $44 million deal with the Giants on Friday. He also settled the book on another case of going year to year, rather than signing the kind of extension that so many teams try to engineer for young players of his caliber.
That two-year contract allows us to complete the picture on what he earned over the course of standard extension, as teams usually sought for one or two club options to delay a player’s free agency. We can neatly compare him to José Quintana, a fellow career-long starter who attained Super Two status. The Sox signed him to an extension in March 2014 after Quintana notched the first of five consecutive 200-inning seasons.
Rodón doesn’t have a 200-inning season. Hell, he’s only qualified for the ERA title once, and by a slim margin (165 innings in 2016). Nevertheless, despite all of the false starts due to injuries and surgeries and a non-tender toward the end, he’s still going to come out way ahead by betting on himself.
| Year | Quintana | Ródon | Difference |
| Arb 1 | $3.4M | $2.3M | -$1.3M |
| Arb 2 | $5.4M | $4.2M | -$2.5M |
| Arb 3 | $7M | $4.45M | -$5.05M |
| Arb 4 | $8.85M | $3M | -$10.905M |
| FA1 | $10.5M | $21.5M | $95K |
| FA2 | $11.5M | $22.5M | $11.095M |
| Total | $46.65M | $57.95M | $11.3M |
Imagine if Quintana hit the market in after 2018, coming off a decent year with the Cubs and five consecutive above-average seasons before that. He’s getting way more than two years and $22 million. Instead, the Cubs exercised those options just in time for Quintana’s decline, and now he’s only been able to land a couple of one-year deals worth $10 million total since.
Putting it another way:
| First 7 years | GS | IP | ERA | ERA+ | bWAR | fWAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quintana | 215 | 1314 | 3.60 | 114 | 24.3 | 24.7 |
| Rodón | 121 | 669.1 | 3.79 | 110 | 11.5 | 11.9 |
Rodón will make twice as much as Quintana over the following two seasons despite pitching half as much over the same stretch of career.
This doesn’t mean that Rodón didn’t earn what the Giants gave him, or Quintana was foolish to sell his services that cheaply. At the time Quintana signed the deal, there was a growing sense that such extensions were no-brainers for teams, but the guaranteed money still remained tempting.
Rodón just shows why those deals have lost their allure. He was almost a poster boy for securing money early thanks to shoulder and elbow surgeries. Instead, e shows how quickly somebody with his talent can make up any deficit.
That’s why I said that Dylan Cease should be paying attention to what Rodón commands on the open market, even before he switched to Boras over the winter. By fully harnessing the power of his stuff over the course of a full season, Cease is already ahead of where Rodón stood two-plus years into his career. If Cease can stay healthy, he’ll be in line for a steeper set of arbitration raises, and if he can time another 200-strikeout season closer to free agency, he’ll have his own sizable deal awaiting him.
What Rodón shows is a scenario where Cease doesn’t stay all that healthy, and it’s still not that bad. Rodón plugged the most direct route to free agency into Google Maps, and while it led him into potholes, twists, turns and missing guard rails, he still found the shortcut worth taking.
It’s not worth sweating about because Cease is under team control for four more seasons, and he and the White Sox have so much important work in front of them during that time. It just explains why the bargain extensions of yore are so much harder to strike. When it comes to somebody with riding any kind of prospect stock, if he’s already made the majors, it might be too late.
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I like where we’re at with Cease. Four years of control left, and after a solid 2021 he looks ready to really turn the corner.
Rodon got a $6.58 million draft bonus. Cease got a $1.5 million bonus. They have financial security to hold out to free agency that Quintana didn’t. I’m still shocked they were able to get Robert to sign an extension for less than $100 million guaranteed, which is a testament both to Hahn’s skill at navigating such deals as well as the goodwill the organization has engendered with Cuban players.
The Mets are trading for Bassitt. I wonder if the Sox were trying to get him.
Sox reportedly in on Manaea, but there are definitely other suitors.
Sox to sign Joe Kelly to two-year deal.
Josh Harrison to White Sox. I like it. He is flashy and hits and fields well when he tries. I think Timmy will make him try! Good clubhouse guy, too.
I don’t …He likely won’t even league average at second
Harrison will be 35 in July but he did have a nice first half last year with the Nats before he was traded to to the A’s where he was not so good. I’m not counting on much but it’s not impossible that he’ll get on base and contribute.
Harrison’s three-year track record is a disturbing trend of decent highs and absurd lows.
His 2018-19 were horrible. But every other year was decent to good. And he will hit 9th. Now go get a right fielder and a pitcher. Apparently they are in on Manaea and Mahle.
Might want to look at his post-trade performance with the A’s last season; not encouraging.
Yes, that wasn’t good- his overall yearly numbers were pretty good though.
I like both moves. Harrison is a good contact guy. OPS .741 in 558 PAs last year. And Kelly is a solid arm in the pen. Hendriks, Graveman, Bummer, Kelly, Crochet is a pretty darn good back end of the pen.
Steamer projects him to be worth around 1 war ….that is bad
I don’t mind it. He might be good. Or might just be ok until one of the other internal options forces the issue. Or he could be bad! That’s what you get with a $7 mil or whatever commitment.
Oh goody. A 35 year old second baseman for 5M who is probably only marginally better than Garcia, and a reliever who is 33 and has a career ERA around 4. And just like that, we know that they will never, ever spend like a team whose true intention is to win a World Series. This team is an utter waste of time.
Steamer actually projects him to be worse than Leury. Some good ole fashion dumpster diving from the Sox, but hey at least we got more bullpen help.
Kelly is actually a decent reliever I won’t knock that signing
I won’t knock it unless they go the rest of the offseason without signing a legit right fielder, a real backup catcher, an actual second baseman who isn’t a utility player at this point, or some real starting pitching depth. Then I’m gonna be wondering what the point was.
“The money will be spent”. And so it goes. I almost wish they hadn’t signed a CBA. These types of moves are so pitiful that Sox fans should feel insulted. Instead of getting a legit 2b with real upside, or trading for somebody better like McNeil, they sign Garcia… and somebody about as good as Garcia. Reinsdorf can go fuck himself.
This is the best comment of the year so far.
Jeez, and I thought I was being a bit of an Eeyore about these moves.