Back in November, I wrote about the importance of improving the current staff before the Big Three are ready. I was hoping for a number 2 starter to bump everyone down a slot in the rotation, and then the team went in the opposite direction, trading away Jason Vargas. That left us here:

1) Felix

2) Iwakuma

3) Ramirez

4) Beavan

5) Noesi? Furbush? Hultzen?

Counting on any more than zero WAR from Noesi, et. al. would have been somewhat optimistic, considering Noesi lit up the leaderboards for -0.7 fWAR last season, Furbush hasn’t started in more than a year, and Hultzen gave up a walk rate of 14% in the high minors last season. The addition of Saunders to the rotation adds an expected 2-ish wins for the M’s this season because he is effectively replacing a steaming pile of manure—from a baseball perspective, anyway.

Getting to know Saunders a little better basically requires that you remember that guy mentioned up there named Vargas. Check out the similarities over the last three seasons:

William Perlman/THE STAR-LEDGER via USA TODAY Sports

Saunders throws a little harder, though neither throws fireballs, and he gives up fewer fly balls. Vargas had a slightly better K/BB ratio, and edged Saunders in ERA and park-adjusted xFIP. In the end, both contributed equal amounts of WAR to his team. But we have to remember that Vargas was playing in a ballpark practically built for him. While WAR does account for ballparks to a certain extent, it’s not tailored to adjust for individual players. Vargas had a special relationship with SafeCo that should have made his wife jealous. Even if we account for moving in the fences, Saunders can probably still expect to get extra value out of the marine air, solid outfield defense, and whatever other voodoo is at work in SafeCo.

And hey, if the salary reports are true, Saunders will cost less than Vargas this season. So it’s kind of like we got a cost-controlled Kendrys Morales,  along with a cheaper Jason Vargas, for Jason Vargas. If you can’t tell, I really like this signing.

I find the Felix extension—if it’s true—an interesting case study in how a particular team’s situation can make potentially make a difference in both how negotiations are conducted and how fans perceive the result. But before I get into that, let’s get right to the data. Below I have the King’s year-by-year values to this point—taking the average of Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference WAR. The last column is his approximate free-agent value over that time.

Here, I have attempted to estimate some reasonable boundaries for how he will perform going forward. In the favorable outcome, I have also allowed for 7% inflation. In the less favorable outcome—including an injury shortened year in an arbitrarily chosen 2016—I only accounted for 5% inflation. I hope this gives us some reasonable boundaries for the expected value of his contract. Notice that I’m considering this a 7-year contract for $175M because for all intents and purposes, that’s what it is.

I would consider the left option to be a little optimistic. Though our King is only 26 years old, he has already logged 7+ seasons of more than 1600 innings. His arm’s age is probably a little older than his birth date would imply. The outcome on the right might be a little pessimistic, but perhaps better accounts for injury and lost value. But if we look at these boundaries—which are admittedly guesses at best—the contract doesn’t look all that bad.

Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports

There’s one major issue, though, that I haven’t discussed. Hernandez signed* this contract for what we believe to be $175M two years before free agency. There is currently no competition for his services. He said he wants to stay in Seattle, and the front office said they want him to stay in Seattle. Hernandez and his agent, Alan Nero, shouldn’t have had any leverage in the negotiations. Except they obviously did. Felix is getting free-agent money and free-agent length during a time when there’s no free-agenty competition for his services.

Last off-season, Matt Cain signed an extension one year before free agency. Cain, 27 at the time with 7+ seasons of wear and tear, got six years for $127M—$21M per season—with a vesting option for the seventh year. Vesting options aren’t quite as team-friendly as team options, but still team-friendly for sure.  Cain is probably only slightly less valuable than Hernandez. In fact, Hernandez’s top B-R comparable is Cain. Over the last five seasons, Cain’s ERA in his pitcher-friendly ballpark has been 3.09. Hernandez’s in his pitcher-friendly park, 2.92. It’s hard to measure Cain by fWAR because he defies it, but bWAR suggests Cain is worth about one less win per season. That, perhaps justifies his $21M-per-year contract (with vesting option) to Felix’s $25M-per-year contract (with extra year). Or maybe both contracts—being the largest of their kind—simply represent the high end, and they’re both bad deals for the team.

In the end, the contract is not awful, and I’m as glad as you that the King’s court will be in session every fifth night in Seattle for a long time. It just hurts a little that we couldn’t get a more team-friendly deal. Maybe one that doesn’t use up 30% of the team’s payroll until my hair goes grey. It seems like the fans’ decade of suffering might have given Nero the leverage he needed to strike a player-friendly deal. But I quibble…

*Pending

http://www.sports-betting-insights.com/images/Sportsbook2.jpg

If you want to look at your team’s chances of winning, sometimes the best place to go is Vegas. After all, Sports Books wouldn’t still be around if they got it wrong all the time. I have listed all the MLB teams below with their odds against to win the 2013 World Series (yes, you can already bet on that).* To interpret odds against in this format, think about it this way: If you were to bet $100 on a team, and that team won the 2013 World Series, you would win the amount shown under Odds Against (plus your bet). That 700 for the Tigers really just means 7-to-1 odds.

So there’s Seattle down at 8000. A one-dollar bet on the M’s would net you 80 bucks if they won the whole thing. A one-dollar bet on the Angels, though, would only net you 7 bucks. In the third column, “Pay Probs,” I’ve included the break-even probability. In other words, if a team’s true probability of winning the WS is actually greater than the break-even probability, then it’s a smart bet.

So how does Vegas make money? I’m glad you asked. If you add up all those break-even probabilities, you get 139.7%. Those “pay probabilities” can’t be true probabilities because they’d have to add up to 100%, and so the casino is essentially stealing the other 39.7%. Pro-rating the probabilities correctly gives us the fourth column, with each implied true probability noticeably lower than the implied break-even probability.

Vegas sets the initial odds, but then routinely adjusts those odds based on how people are betting. If no one seems to be betting the Mariners, for example, they’ll make the payouts higher until people see it as a “good bet.” Thus the true probabilities—scaled from the Vegas odds—are functions of both Vegas’ computer nerds, and the masses of bettors. Basically it’s an adjusted Wisdom of the Crowd. As of right now, Vegas and the bettors have combined to give Seattle less than a 1-in-100 chance to win the 2013 WS. But you have to believe that M’s chances are better than 1-in-80 before you start betting. Tricky!

*According to sportsbook.ag on February 6th, 2013.