Adrian Gonzalez Extension

Jorge Says No had an interesting take on the Adrian Gonzalez extension question. I agree with him that something would have to be done this offseason. I think the longer it plays out, the more likely the two parties disagree on total value, and the more likely AG is traded. But I think the figures he throws out are very un-Padre like:

So how about this deal for Gonzalez and the Padres?
(5 years/$70 million)
Here is the contractual breakdown:
2010: $9 million
2011: $12 million
2012: $15 million
2013: $16 million
2014: $18 million

That replaces the $4.8M in 2010 and the 5.7M in 2010 he is currently contracted for and adds on three years. In the Moores/Towers world, I think any extension would have been added onto the existing deal, with no restructuring of the current amounts. I cannot see the figures for 2010 and 2011 doubling, that would be a deal breaker before anything even got started.

But we are now under the Moorad/Hoyer regime, and we fans have no track record with these two. But for Moorad, we can use his time at the d-backs and look for similar situations using Cot's Baseball Contracts.

The first comp that makes sense is Brandon Webb. He received a three year deal prior to 2004, covering 2004-2006 with an option for 2007, which I believe covered him until free agency. Before 2006, he received a 4 year extension, replacing the last year of his previous deal and the option year. For those two years, which were extremely club friendly at $2.5M and $4.5M respectively, he was essentially given the old contracted rate, the IP incentives were just added to the guaranteed money and no new money was added to the deal. Then the contract went up modestly by $1M each year until 2010's option of $8.5M. All in all, a very favorable contract for the team, which stayed favorable even after the extension.

Then next comp to consider is Dan Haren. He signed a four year deal with Oakland in 2005, covering 2006-2009 with an option for 2010. The option would have covered his first year of free agency. He was traded to Arizona before the 2008 season, and in August of that year signed a 4 year extension covering 2009-2012 with an option for 2013. In the original deal, here is what he was scheduled to make in 2009 and 2010:
2009 $5.5M with $0.75M in incentives
2010 $6.75M with $1.0M in incentives

This was replaced with:
2009 $7.5M
2010 $8.25M
2011 $12.75M
2012 $12.75M
2013 club option $15.5M

So, in both cases, the salaries under the existing contract did not change very dramatically.
So the d-backs added $1.75M to the exiting contract, before really ramping up the salaries in the new contract years.

Using these two transactions as the new model, I would expect the Padres to come up with something like this:
2010 $6.0M
2011 $7.0M
2012 $11.0M
2013 $13.0M
2014 $15.0M

That's 5 years, $52M. It adds $2.5M to the existing contract, and then spikes his salary to cover the next three years with figures that are club friendly to a small degree. It also allows the Padres a few years to get the payroll back to the $70M level where they can better afford AG's salary.

This does undervalue AG to a certain extent, but I think he would give a decent home town discount, on top of the usual San Diego discount everyone has to give to play here. It could be win-win.