Who Did it Better? Comparing the Moncada Extension with the Kepler/Polanco Extensions

[Matthew Taylor]

On March 5, the Chicago White Sox inked third baseman Yoan Moncada to a hefty, five-year contract extension. How does this extension compare to the five-year deals signed by Max Kepler and Jorge Polanco last offseason? Let’s dig in and take a closer look.The Money

 

According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the White Sox and Yoan Moncada came to terms on a five-year contract worth $70M ($14M AAV), with a club option for a sixth year at $25M.

 

While at their base, their contract lengths were equal to that of Moncada, the salary attached to Kepler and Polanco’s deals were significantly less. Last offseason, the Twins signed Max Kepler to a five-year, $35M deal ($7M AAV) with a club option for a sixth year at $10M. In turn, Polanco signed a five-year, $25.75M deal ($5.15M AAV) with a sixth and seventh year club option at $10.5M and $12M, respectively.

 

Clearly, in terms of money, the Minnesota Twins came out ahead of the White Sox with these contracts. Even if you combined the total salaries from Kepler and Polanco’s extensions it would still equate to less than the total value of Yoan Moncada’s extension with the White Sox.

 

The Timing

 

Yoan Moncada is 24-years-old with just over two years of MLB service time under his belt. By signing his extension, the White Sox are buying out Moncada’s final year on his rookie deal as well as all three years of his arbitration. If the Sox pick up Moncada’s sixth-year option, this contract would also buy out the first two years of the third baseman’s free agency and allow him to become a free agent at the age of 30.

 

At the signing of his contract extension, Max Kepler was 26-years-old and was arbitration eligible as a Super Two prospect. By extending Kepler, the Twins bought out his arbitration years as well as up to two years of his free agency. Polanco signed his extension as a 25-year-old in his last year of pre-arbitration and was put under team control for up to three free agent years.

 

While each of the players were at a similar spot in terms of service time, what really separates the Moncada extension was the fact that he was signed at the absolute peak of his value, coming off of a season in which he posted career highs in BA, HR, RBI and OPS. Conversely, when Kepler and Polanco were signed to extensions, they were coming off of very disappointing seasons. In 2018, the season before signing their extensions, Kepler posted career lows in BA, SLG and OPS. Similarly disappointing, Polanco was coming off of a season in which he served an 80 game suspension. The timing of these contracts allowed the Twins to get their guys for an absolute bargain, while the White Sox had to pay a premium by signing Moncada off of a career year.

 

The Players

 

Coming off of a 2019 season in which he was worth 5.7 fWAR, one could argue that at 24-years-old, Yoan Moncada is already the best player among himself, Kepler and Polanco. In 2019, Yoan Moncada finished 10th in the American League with a .915 OPS along with an exit velocity which was seventh best in baseball. After posting strikeout percentages in the 30s in his first two full seasons in the majors, Mocada improved in his plate discipline and trimmed down his K%. Moncada had a great 2019 season at the dish, but with that came a good amount of luck as he posted an unheard of .406 BABIP, which was by far the highest in baseball.

 

In the field, Moncada still has some area to improve, as he has posted a negative DRS in each of the past two seasons at third base. While he hasn’t put it all together in the field yet, Moncada has all the tools to be a great third baseman with his strong arm and great athleticism.

 

The Verdict

 

Yoan Moncada is an excellent player who just got handed a really good contract by the Chicago White Sox. Although the White Sox have to miss out on the bargain that is his arbitration years, they get to delay Moncada’s free agency by two years and keep him under team control through his peak seasons of speed and athleticism. The issue for the White Sox, and where the Minnesota Twins get to claim victory over signing the better extensions, is that they are paying a premium by extending Moncada after a career year. The Minnesota Twins were able to extend Polanco and Kepler before their breakouts and as a result were able to sign them to extremely team-friendly deals. Comparing that to the amount of money that the White Sox had to shell out to Moncada, you can see just how good of a deal the Twins got.

 

How do you think the Kepler and Polanco extensions compare to the extension that Moncada just signed with the White Sox? Leave a comment below and start the conversation!

 

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[Brock Beauchamp]

The Moncada deal is interesting and one I'd sign in a heartbeat but the Kepler and Polanco deals are outright steals in comparison.

 

Moncada might be the better player in the long run (probably likely) but getting two players for 50% more who are likely to be MLB starters and have pretty big upside themselves is a big get.

[Trov]

Clearly the difference is the timing of the type of seasons the player was coming off of.  Sox hoping Moncada will continue to improve and will come out to be a bargain, but if last season was more a blip and not the norm for Moncada, they will regret the contract. 

 

For Twins, they took a chance on two guys that had shown some level of promise, but were on low years.  The players did not bet on themselves and took the money when it was there.  Both had bounce back years, that the front office was expecting and the players may have lost out on significantly more money, but hard to say no to life changing money, when at any moment an injury can end your career, or drop your value.   

[Tomj14]

Tough to compare these 3, first Moncada was the highlight of the Sale deal, so it was almost a must to sign him.

But timing is always the factor in deals like these. Ask Yellich and Betts, and the two different outcomes of their decisions.

IMO both teams are going to be happy with their deals.

[Darius]

Moncada is a hell of a player. He hit .315 with 25 HRs and an OPS over .915 OPS in 130 games last year.

 

It’s hard to compare the players because Moncada is on a different level, IMO. Polanco and Kepler are very nice players, but I think Moncada is a legitimate MVP superstar caliber guy. I don’t think we’ll ever see better performances from Polanco and Kepler than we saw last year....and Moncada still out OPS’d both by 60-70 points while being 2-3 years younger.

 

I’m a big fan of Moncada. I’d be thrilled with that deal. He’s going to be a pain in our rear end for the foreseeable future.

[BodieInSD]

When the final Twins White Sox series came around last year, I made it a point to go to see Moncada in person.  

 

If anyone else remembers, he played like carp.  Granted it was in the last 2 weeks (or so) of a very long and bad season for the White Sox, but Moncado looked worse defensively than Sano and played a pretty much lazy looking series - especially for a guy who had MVP caliber numbers.

So if he was simply a young player not used to the grind of a 162 game season, or maybe a little banged up at the end of the year, or simply sick and tired of playing more or less meaningless baseball on a poor/bad (though improving) team,  I came away FAR from impressed.  The season long numbers do say that he is much better than the player I saw that weekend, but my lying eyes were really glad that the Sox thought he was a building block!

[Craig Arko]

The Twins of course.

 

[jkcarew]

"Moncada...was signed at the absolute peak of his value, coming off of a season in which he posted career highs in BA, HR, RBI and OPS"

 

Really? It was his AGE 24 season! Do you think the price will get lower? 5 years from now, am I happier I bought Amazon when it was up...or Proctor and Gamble when it was down?

 

Not that Polanco and Kepler are P&G, necessarily...the Twins got good deals. But, we have apples and oranges here. There's every indication Moncada is going to be significantly better offensively than Polanco/Kepler.

[Brock Beauchamp]

"Moncada...was signed at the absolute peak of his value, coming off of a season in which he posted career highs in BA, HR, RBI and OPS"

 

Really? It was his AGE 24 season! Do you think the price will get lower? 5 years from now, am I happier I bought Amazon when it was up...or Proctor and Gamble when it was down?

 

Not that Polanco and Kepler are P&G, necessarily...the Twins got good deals. But, we have apples and oranges here. There's every indication Moncada is going to be significantly better offensively than Polanco/Kepler.

Before anyone crowns Moncada the next coming, it needs to be noted he had a .406 BABIP last season.

 

He’s certainly a *very* nice player but he’s going to need to keep growing as a hitter to compensate for the inevitable BABIP normalization, which will significantly drag down his future OPS.

 

He can probably compensate somewhat but we shouldn’t be looking at his triple slash and assuming it will only rise in the future.

[twinstalker]

 

The Twins of course.

 

Ok, first, I had to watch all 3:33 of this. Second, young-ish Carly kind of turned me on. Third, I look forward to the next Carly video with great anticipation.

[howieramone2]

Reinsdorf found his checkbook and America's Team will need to be dealt with in the future. Yankees first.

[highlander]

Falvey and company are looking very astute in their decision making prowess. Try finding a really bad decision. Not everything works out, but problem mistakes are tough to find.

[BodieInSD]

 

Falvey and company are looking very astute in their decision making prowess. Try finding a really bad decision. Not everything works out, but problem mistakes are tough to find.

Agree with your lines.

But, the biggest difference to me is the willingness to take bigger gambles - not absurd, budget-breaking gambles but slightly ones than the Twins have been known for in the past.

 

Donaldson and Maeda are examples.  The previous regime would likely never have traded for Maeda.  Not because of any risk that the trade might have or might not have worked out (and that is to be seen) but because Graterol was under team control and can be paid the minimum and Maeda is not (though his contract is VERY  team friendly).

 

And if the stories of the contract negotiations are true, Donaldson would not have been signed.  Assuming that they would have made the opening offer, they would likely have never budged in adding the final option year.  And while his contract is big, it looks much more manageable in today's financial climate than Mauer's did back in the day.

 

The Twins will never be in position to compete financially with the Yankees.  If they make a mistake in signing someone, they simply sign or trade for the best available replacement and dispose of the contract however they can.  The Twins pretty much have to live with their mistakes. 

 

Falvey & Co. seem to make very few mistakes.  There are two ways of doing that.  One is to do nothing - no action, no failure attached to that (non)action action.  The other is to be good at your job.  Long-time Twins fans have seen both.  I much prefer the latter.

 

[jkcarew]

 

Before anyone crowns Moncada the next coming, it needs to be noted he had a .406 BABIP last season.

He’s certainly a *very* nice player but he’s going to need to keep growing as a hitter to compensate for the inevitable BABIP normalization, which will significantly drag down his future OPS.

He can probably compensate somewhat but we shouldn’t be looking at his triple slash and assuming it will only rise in the future.

Good catch on the BaBIP. And yes, he's going to need to continue to grow as a hitter. But, at age 24, that's not exactly unlikely, as the language in the article insinuates.

[Brandon]

What was the total WAR of all three players? Since Minnesota's obligation is 10 million less. It would make sense to compare the value of both Kepler and Polanco vs the value of Moncada. The Twins clearly won this competition. Also Moncada has the advantage of already signing a 31 million contract back in the day if I remember correctly. He could afford to wait for the numbers he wanted. He will have 100 million by age 30...