Erick Aybar Gets His Extension Too

As Jerry Crasnick reported, the Angels are expected to announce a 4-year, $35 million extension for Erick Aybar on Thursday when the short stop receives his 2011 Gold Glove. If those numbers are correct, Jerry Dipoto did a nice job locking up the middle of his infield after signing Aybar’s double play mate, Howie Kendrick, to a similar 4-year, $33.5 million extension this offseason. Give credit to Dipoto. Rumors swirled Aybar was looking for a deal in the 5-year, $50 million range.

Joe Soriano over at Call to the Pen did a nice job breaking down Aybar’s value and projected WAR (wins above replacement) over the course of the extension. Aybar is coming off his career year in 2011, a 4.0 fWAR (Fangraphs wins above replacement), while scoring his first Gold Glove at short. The award, and his defense in general, are debatable, since his advanced metrics have been all over the place during his Major League career. But he probably left money on the table considering the increasingly weak free agent markets due to these types of extensions.

Let’s say a win is still worth ~$4.5 mil on the open market, Aybar would have to be worth just an eight WAR over the duration of the extension. That makes the decision to extend him an easy one considering he’s right in the peak years. While he isn’t off to the best start hitting a paltry .171/.209/.220, it’s early in the season and the negotiations might have weighed on him a bit.

With Aybar and Kendrick locked up, that leaves Jean Segura blocked for the near future. Segura is still just in Double-A but profiles to be a solid first division starter at second or short. Time to have faith in Dipoto to not flip a quality prospect for a bullpen arm.

Sorry for the lack of nonsense in this post, I promise to make it up in the future.