Yeah, But Bay Got to Play Some of Those Road Games in Colorado

As you know, Jason Bay signed a four-year deal with the Mets guaranteeing him $66 million.  Meanwhile, Matt Holliday has reportedly rejected a five-year $80 million offer from the Cardinals and a five-year $82.5 million deal from the Red Sox.

The Red Sox have since signed John Lackey with the money they offered Holliday and signed Mike Cameron to fill the outfield position.  It remains to be seen whether Holliday’s agent Scott Boras can find another team to enter to the bidding or whether he can convince the Cardinals to bid against themselves, as he has famously done with other teams and other free agents in the past.

Assuming that Holliday signs for the Cardinals at about their current offer, is Holliday worth another guaranteed year and another $15 million guaranteed than Bay got?

In Holliday’s favor, he’s sixteen months younger than Bay and a much better defensive leftfielder than Bay, at least if you trust fangraphs’ UZR ratings.  On the other hand, through 2009, Jason Bay has a career road OPS of .898, while Holliday’s career road OPS is only .808.

That’s a big difference, even taking into account that Holliday has played very few games in Coors Field as a visiting player.

My point is that just about everyone considers Holliday to be a better player than Bay in large part because Holliday’s batting numbers have been so grossly inflated in Colorado.  Given Holliday’s age and giving him the utmost credit for his better defense, Holliday might be worth an extra year and an additional $15 million, but if Boras can squeeze any more out of a team than that, the team is making a mistake.