Khalil Greene signs 2 year deal

by jbox on Feb 3, 2008 12:33 PM PST in News

Padres get Greene for two years, offered longer

The Padres will never have to sit across an arbitration table from Khalil Greene.

The shortstop gave up the rights to two possible years of arbitration yesterday by agreeing to a two-year, $11 million guaranteed contract with the Padres.

The Padres had been seeking to sign Greene to a three-or four-year deal with an option to keep him a Padre beyond the end of the 2009 season, when the shortstop first becomes eligible for free agency.

But the shortstop rejected talks about a longer-term contract.

See we kept our heads, remained cool and everything worked out. The important thing was nobody panicked when we heard the risk of arbitration.

Tweet Comment 18 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Glad they got this done

And while I'm bummed that it couldn't have been longer, I think this might be an effort from both sides to establish Khalil's true value over the next few years.

Khalil might have nixed a longer deal because he wanted more money than the club wanted to give. He could see a shorter deal as a way to cement his value and force the team to pay him what he's worth. On the flip side, the team might be unwilling to give in just yet, and two more years would hopefully give the team some greater confidence in his abilities.

A good move by the Padres overall, and hopefully the precursor to a longer deal.

by Phantom on Feb 3, 2008 1:22 PM PST reply actions

Let's hope that....

....the manufacturer puts out a patch to fix that low OBP bug.

good move though. in a weird way Khalil has become part of the heart and soul of this team. everybody on the team loves him and he still has a ton of potential. he's the little brother that's already playing with his brother's friends. he may never be the leader of the team, but the other guys love to see him succeed that he can really get them fired up just by playing well.

he's lucky he has so many fans though. i've read moneyball several times over and he is exactly the player that this braintrust hates to spend money on. they put almost zero value in fielding. it's all about getting on base, hitting to all fields, having a good eye.

one thing i never understood about him, and maybe pitchers just figured this out, but when we first moved to Petco and right-center even deeper Khalil kept hitting liners out there and getting triples. then the next year, when right-center was moved in a little bit, he seemed to stop and started pulling the ball a lot more. i never understood why. if he could consistently hit it into right-center he'd be racking up the doubles, right? i'm sure it's a lot more complicated than that but it always bothered me a little bit.

by John Gennaro on Feb 4, 2008 6:56 AM PST reply actions

NO DUDE!

The Moneyball philosophy is in finding out what statistics are truly representative of a player's value and then capitalizing on the fact that other teams are stupid when it comes to that.

Fielding percentage is the absolute worst way to judge how good a fielder a player is and yet it's what gets touted for Gold Gloves and the like. It is a MYTH that so called "Moneyball" organizations don't place value in fielding. These organizations don't overvalue fielding and know that fielding percentage is a subjective, crap statistic. Moneyballers don't place value in fielding percentage.

by Dex on Feb 4, 2008 7:56 AM PST up reply actions

I can tell

A lot about people by what they think Moneyball is about. Those who say "OBP" are at one level of thinking, those who say its a strategy to run a baseball team are at another, and then there are those like me who actually think it is a business strategy book and not a baseball book.

"I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day. " ~Frank Sinatra

by Sammy G on Feb 4, 2008 10:49 AM PST up reply actions

fielding?

I'm not sure I understand the difference between "not caring about fielding" and "not caring about fielding percentage".

While I certainly agree that the Moneyball philosophy is finding things that other teams ignore or value too much and choosing to find the value in the stats or finding which ones to ignore. What I seem to remember is an entire chapter about how losing Terrence Long was not a big deal even though he was a fantastic center fielder because they would replace him with somebody who had a higher OBP.

I think in terms of Khalil, finding a mediocre fielding SS with a .400 OBP that's 3 million a year or less would be something this braintrust would like to do. I think the fact that Khalil's best baseball trait is his fielding is a big part of the reason this deal was for 2 years instead of 6.

Now, the longer I've thought about this deal the more I see why they did it:

Kouz is young and Iguchi is a liability at 2b. Khalil's range helps both of these guys worry more about their bat than their fielding, which is what we got each of them for. I guess this could qualify Dex's assessment that they like Khalil's fielding, or how it can help the other infielders, but don't care about his fielding percentage.
He's one of the biggest fan favorites
He still has time to grow, and he still has potential to be a .300 hitter.

by John Gennaro on Feb 5, 2008 3:52 AM PST up reply actions

fielding is not fielding percentage

This is why Steve Garvey isn't in the Hall of Fame. Everybody knows his fielding percentage is a bullshit way of determining how good a fielder he was considering he never played more than an inch off the bag. The old adage is true. The best way to get a high fielding percentage is to run the hell away from the ball when it's hit to you.

by Dex on Feb 5, 2008 4:29 AM PST up reply actions

Khalil killed long-term talks, not the team

Also, it's important to know that the SS you describe doesn't readily exist. The pitching staff would also be furious with ditching Khalil.

by Phantom on Feb 5, 2008 8:06 AM PST up reply actions

Iguchi

Since when is Iguchi a liability at second? All I've heard and seen says that he is solid.

by Billy Almon on Feb 5, 2008 8:43 AM PST up reply actions

Front office

I think what he was saying is that fielding percentage is a terrible measure of a player's defensive value. Who wouldn't consider taking a .400obp, mediocre fielding shortstop for cheap? It is definitely nice to have great defense, but defense is only one part of any player. It's like the comparison between Adam Everett, probably the best fielding shortstop in the majors over the last decade, and Derek Jeter, one of the worst fielding shortstops in the majors over the last decade. Everett is ridiculously better than Jeter in the field. But Jeter more than makes up for it on offense. Overall, even with his defensive liabilities, he is worth more than Everett. (If you've read the Fielding Bible, you know where I am pulling this from). Derek Jeter is your mediocre fielding, .388obp shortstop. How much does he make?

It's not that the front office doesn't care about defense, it's that they put a certain value on it. Khalil, even with his low OBP, is still a good combination of offensive and defensive value. It's a shame that Petco absolutely destroys Khalil's offensive numbers. On the road last season he posted an .840ops. For a shortstop that can field above average, that is pretty darn good. That is exactly what Jeter put up last season, but Khalil is a superior defender. Imagine if he was playing for some other team and putting up those kind of numbers at home and on the road. He would be worth quite a bit. I would be interested to see his BABIP at home on the road, and how that splits...

The front office tried to sign him for more years, but he didn't want it. At the same time, you have to remember that Khalil will be turning 30 when this contract runs out, and that is traditionally the start of a players decline. Signing him long term for cheap would have been awesome, but you could say that about a lot of players.

by osbug on Feb 6, 2008 6:40 AM PST up reply actions

money gaslamp ball

other teams see a lower percentage output from their friar franks. whereas we heavily invest in sushi and the like they would rather go big on pretzels which, indeed, only shows marginal return at Petco. I hope that explains it well enough.

Bring back Balboa Stadium.

by calipatrick on Feb 5, 2008 6:57 AM PST up reply actions

Khalil: won't back down

Nice photo of Khalil. Age him twenty years and add a beard and you've got Tom Petty at the Superbowl last night.

by Billy Almon on Feb 4, 2008 10:10 AM PST reply actions

omigosh you are right!!

Christina

by Christina on Feb 4, 2008 10:26 AM PST up reply actions

Overrated Deal

Don't get me wrong, I don't like seeing players go to arbitration either, but saying this is a good deal is a bit overrated. Bottom line he was going to be a Padres in 2008 and 2009 -- barring a trade -- without this deal.

Maybe I'm thinking too far ahead here, but in 2010 we will need a SS. Currently, we have 0 SS prospects and you can't get a SS through free agency nor can you convert any current prospect to SS. It would also be impossible to draft a SS that will be ready by 2010. A good deal, in my opinion would address these issues by locking up our current major league SS past 2009.

This seems to me like an okay deal. It comes with two major risks:

You (potentially) lose your SS in 2010
You end up overpaying for an unproductive SS in 2009 (unlikely, but still a risk).

There are 2 benefits as well:

You don't have to argue with a judge about a well-liked player's value
You may get good value in 2009 if Greene becomes a superstar (somewhat unlikely, he's much more likely to maintain his current level of production).

In the grand scope of things you can overlook this for now considering our bigger issues are keeping a healthy roster together for 08 and figuring out what the hell happens when the LF, CF and RF need to be replaced for the 2009 season.

by Wonko on Feb 4, 2008 2:50 PM PST reply actions

counter argument

You are assuming that the Padres could get a longer contract done before the arbitration hearings, but if the brass felt this was not likely AND spending a couple of hours explaining why the player you arbitrating against does not deserve and extention could have a very negative impact on the possiblity of getting an extension.

I actually think this deal is a positive, as KG and the padres were not far off on their arbitration numbers. Now they can focus on the value of an extension.

"I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day. " ~Frank Sinatra

by Sammy G on Feb 4, 2008 4:23 PM PST up reply actions

So basically

The only positive thing about this deal is that it's not a negative.

by Wonko on Feb 5, 2008 1:10 PM PST up reply actions

meh

Avoiding arbitration is a positive, and that is basically what this deal does. It allows them to focus on other issues, as arbitration cases have the ability to bogdown the front office and not take advantage of other opprotunities that come along. Of course the deal would have been great if it was for 6 years and $32M, but that wasn't going to happen.

"I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day. " ~Frank Sinatra

by Sammy G on Feb 5, 2008 3:17 PM PST up reply actions

6 year, $32M?

I can't imagine a 6 year deal for that little being offered to anybody these days. What player in his right mind would sign for that? Also, I like the deals that are getting made right now. I, for one, am still counting on extra money when the cable deal is renegotiated. We're not getting too locked down. Personally, I think this was a "fan favorite" deal.

by Dex on Feb 5, 2008 5:43 PM PST up reply actions

Isn't that not until 2011?

But you are right, they'll be more cash in the coffers once the Padres get out from under the lousy Channel 4 deal. My understanding is that it's one of the worst cable deals in all of baseball. Also, once they stop paying for the stadium that'll help with cashflow as well. They still have to pay for all those cost overruns incurred from lawsuits. It's a common misconception that taxpayers paid for the cost overruns.

by Wonko on Feb 6, 2008 1:10 AM PST up reply actions