What's A Weak Hitter Worth?

You may have noticed that someone named Jonathan Lucroy recently agreed to an $11 million, five year contract with the Milwaukee Brewers. No deadly weapons were aimed threateningly at GM Doug Melvin's head, which surely had you shaking yours. Lucroy, after all, is a second-year backstop with a .260 batting average, 16 home runs in 700 at bats and no particular minor league pedigree.

Isn't professional sports truly the land of lottery tickets? Should Melvin instead have gifted his young catcher a hearty backslap and an expression of confidence that he'd be employed in the Majors in five years?

Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is, probably not. This is a deal with high upside and relatively little risk, which you can expect to see repeated league-wide.

In his first full season, Lucroy hit .265/.312/.391 last year for the Brewers. It's not exactly fantasy owner heaven, but it's slightly above average at catcher. Lucroy gets high marks for his skills in shin guards and at 25 can reasonably be expected to improve.

Without any behind-the-plate prospects on the farm, Milwaukee has locked up its backstop for the half decade he is most likely to excel. They are promising Lucroy roughly what he would earn during his pre-arbitration years and roughly what he'd earn in arbitration thereafter if he maintains his performance -- a win or two over replacement. (If Lucroy exceeds that, he can earn an extra $2 million.)

The alternative would be to roll the dice and hope to get . . . whatever detritus is out there. When Buster Posey's season evaporated in a home plate collision last year, the Giants lost five wins and the Wild Card. His replacements hit hardly better than Posey in a cast.

Having established cost-certainty at catcher, Milwaukee can turn its attention to keeping its pitching assets -- most notably Zack Greinke and Shawn Marcum, who qualify for free agency after this season.

So what's in it for Jonathan Lucroy, his wife and baby Ella? How about five guaranteed years of seven-figure paychecks? In the unlikely event that he turns into the next Mike Piazza, Lucroy can break the bank in 2018. Your wife would be okay with that, right?
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