Dodgers rightfielder J.D. Drew opted out of the final three years of his $11 million per year contract last week, passing up the remaining three years and $33 million on his deal to test what he could draw on the free agent market. The conventional wisdom is that Drew made a mistake.
However, based on the first week or so of free agent transactions this off-season, not only did Drew not make a mistake, it looks to me as if his decision to opt-out was a no-brainer. Drew (28 RCAA/.393 OBA/.498 SLG/.891 OPS for 2006; 146/.393/.512/.904 career) is probably the best outfielder in this year’s free agent pool and maybe even the position player overall. With the upper end of of this year’s market looking like 5 years and $80 million or so for a player of his caliber, the 31 year-old Drew will probably earn an additional $20-30 million of guaranteed money and almost certainly do much better than $33 million over 3 years. Yeah, he’s not the most popular guy in the clubhouse and he has had injury problems, but he’s coming off a solid season in which he played a career-high 146 games. Some team needing solid production from the left side of the plate (which team doesn’t) will probably pay him the premium over his prior contract that prompted the opt-out.
Drew’s opt-out reflects the reason why the Stros probably won’t be much of a factor on the free agent market this off-season. Drew is good, but he’s not as good as the Stros’ Lance Berkman, who is entering the third season of his six year deal that pays him about $14 million a year. There is no way the Stros are going to pay someone like Drew more than Berkman, even though Drew probably will end up making more than Berkman from some other team.
That’s why retooling a Major League Baseball club on the free agent market is really not a practical approach except for a few big-market clubs — it’s prohibitively expensive. Better to maintain the farm (and fiscal sanity) with good prospects and then tap the free agent market only when it is likely to produce a player who will propel the club into playoff contention.