AJ Burnett Signing

Recently, in real life, AJ Burnett signed a 1 year, $16M deal with the Philadelphia Phillies. My initial reaction when I heard that was that's way too much money. Let's take a look at Burnett as if he was a HBD player to see how accurate that reaction was.

Age: 37 --> he's 5 years into his "ratings decline". Not a good start for PHI.
MLB Years: 14 (irrelevant)
Contract:  1 year, $15M guaranteed. Mutual/Player option for 2nd season. (Mutual worth $15M, Player option worth anywhere from $7.5M to $12.75M). Up to $1.75M in performance bonuses each year.  Also includes a limited no-trade clause. That seems like a very generous offer from Philly...Burnett is solid, but is he worth $33.5M* at this point in his career? I certainly don't think so. *Max amount he could make under the current deal

Last Year: 30 starts, 10-11, 191 IP (1 CG), 3.30 ERA, 209 K, 1.22 WHIP, 3.12 K/BB OK, he's better than I thought even at age 36, but still, $33.5M seems excessive. 

The ultimate test: I found a spreadsheet, which can be downloaded here, that calculates Wins Above Replacement for all players, based on position and performance. It also includes a feature where you can input X amount of dollars per Win Above Replacement, and it will give you the salary the player earned. After doing a little research, in 2013, the average MLB player had a salary of $3.39M and a 1.33 WAR. So, in 2013, every Win Above Replacement was worth $2.55M. I crunched the numbers to see what sort of money Burnett deserved vs. what he got.

Burnett, 2013: 4.90 WAR, worthy of $12.8M.
Contract: $15M guarenteed
Verdict: Philly overpaid, but not by as much as I thought. I maintain my view that the incentives are excessive.

Feel free to weigh in with your opinions here or in the World Chat