Looking at Drew II

Rob Neyer takes a look at what all of these high priced free agents have to do to earn their outrageous salaries next year.

Drew signed a five-year contract that will pay him $70 million, which works out to $14 million per season, otherwise known as average annual value (AAV). Last season, Drew's WARP was 7.3 and he earned 19 win shares. Essentially, if he can duplicate his 2006 numbers in 2007, he'll be worth that $14 million. Roughly speaking, that means 150 games, a .285 batting average, 20 homers and 90 walks. Does he have to do that every season to justify his salaries? No, because of that general salary inflation we mentioned earlier. If we assume that salary inflation will continue at roughly the same pace it has for many years now, Drew's $14 million in 2011 will be akin to approximately $10 million in 2007 dollars. Which is a good thing, because Drew is 31 years old. Like nearly all free agents, Drew is likely to suffer a performance decline over the course of his latest contract. Assuming he does reach those aforementioned statistical benchmarks in 2007, it becomes a race of trend lines: Will general salary inflation balance general decline with age?

This sounds about right to me also. Last week in looking at drew I posted that if he does his career average but stays on the field for 156 games he would put up some very good numbers. In fact he would exceed what Neyer says is needed. Makes me feel better about his potentials.