You (probably) can hold out for more than the $15 million a year Boston is reportedly offering you, Jason Bay.
Based on his hitting, Jason Bay would be a "five win" (above replacement, or WAR) player. At $4 million a WAR, (the going free agent rate), Bay should be worth something like $20 million a year, at least for the first two years. (Maybe with third and fourth year cuts to $18 and $15 million to reflect his aging.)
But the conventional wisdom is that Bay may be worth as little as $12-$14 million. That's not misguided, because Bay is now MINUS at least one and a half wins on defense. Even since he hurt his knee in 2007, he has very limited range.
This leads to a low ultimate zone range (UZR) score. On the other hand, he is a fine defender in the "traditional" sense, making few errors on the balls he can reach.
Bay would be a valuable addition to the team that is light on hitting, but has strong defense in center field, hopefully from a player that is under club control for all, or most of the four years that Bay would want on his contract.
That team, by the way, is, or rather was, the Pittsburgh Pirates. That's because they had an outfielder named Nyjer Morgan who meets the above description. Maybe Bay's new team should be the one that now has Morgan, the Washington Nationals.
Nyjer Morgan's WAR is 4.5, actually more than Bay's 3.5 (5.0 on offense - 1.5 on defense). A lot of people overlook this, because Morgan gets his WARs in a "strange" way.
Because he has no power, Morgan is only 1.5 WAR on offense, about league average. But he is 3.0 WAR on defense, because he has exceptional range.
Not only does he play center field exceptionally well, but he appears to be doing part of the job of the left and right fielders.
But Morgan can achieve this only if players on either side of him need help. That's where Bay's fielding weakness would actually be an "asset," because it would allow Morgan recapture those 1.5 WARs.
We could expand Morgan's range and limit Bay's, allowing him to play "perfect" defense within those limits, while getting the full benefit of his hitting.
Bay and Morgan would produce 8.0 WARs between them or $32 million of value. Basically, if you get a Nyjer Morgan to "fix" Bay's defense, Bay would be a $20 million producer, based on offense.
Now the Pirates have a center fielder, Andrew McCutchen, which is why they (unwisely) traded Morgan to the Nationals for Lastings Milledge. But McCutchen costs about half a game on defense, which is why he should have been moved to right field.
McCutchen and Morgan have been buddies before playing for the Pirates, which is why McCutchen would consent to this. Nate McLouth wouldn't, which is why he was, and had to be, traded.
OK, so the Pirates don't pay "full price." But Bay as a standalone might command only a little more than Bobby Abreu's $9.5 million per year over two years.
(They had similar value, according to FanGraphs, in 2007-2009 but Bay is four years younger, meaning that Bay can be signed for four years instead of two, and for more money.)
The Pirates should have talked "contract extension" with Bay in 2008, offering $10 million a year (and being prepared to go to $12 million), before trading him. Because of the configuration of their outfield, they could have paid something close to "market rate" for Bay while getting top value for him.
He wanted to stay then, although it's unlikely that he'll come back, having tasted something different in Boston.
Pirates' management has made a number of shrewd standalone trades. But I nevertheless fault them for not considering the systemic impact of those trades.
They traded Jason Bay before knowing what they had in Nyjer Morgan, then traded Morgan without realizing what he was worth. They did pick up one win ($4 million a year) for the "tied" trade of Sean Burnett for Joel Hanrahan in the Morgan-Milledge deal.
But if they could have paid Bay-Morgan an average of $17 million a year ($12 million to Bay, $5 million to Morgan), and had gotten $32 million of annual production between them it would have far outweighed what they actually got for Morgan.
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