Originally Posted by
nsacpi
I'm glad I did this exercise. It clarified a few things for me. If you look at just the 2015-2018 period, you have a case but not an overwhelming one for scenario 1. The case becomes quite a bit stronger if you extend it out to the latter years of an imagined contract for Jason.
The other thing it clarified is if you take ramadon's information about Jason's salary demands (the number $200 million sticks out in my mind), then even with that (whether it be 25M/year for 8 or 20M/year for 10, or even 25M/year for 10) the case for going for scenario 1 is a strong one.
It goes without saying there are many uncertainties. Would Jason have settled for a little less. Say 22-23M. What kind of career will he have over the next ten years. There is uncertainty from Markakis, Miller and Jenkins. But less given it is spread out over three players (the principle of diversification at work).
Finally, there is variance in the year to year expenditure pattern that comes into play. For 2015, we have more flexibility with scenario 1 than scenario 2 interestingly enough. But scenario 1 gives us less flexibility thereafter. This is potentially a non-trivial issue depending on what the budget for 2016 and 2017 turn out to be.
There are a host of other little wrinkles. For example, Jason could play center for a couple years, but Markakis can't. Given our current roster configuration this is the kind of subtle little thing that is not captured by just adding up dollars and WAR.