- Jun 10, 2014
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Your an excellent poster on here Mort, and make great observations, but I just don't quite agree with you on the value of Trouba. Just like you, I think he's a great young defenceman, that's still developing, with great upside, and would love to see the Jet's sign him, for something reasonable, and that will be Chevy's mindset as well.
I guess you think he's worth quite a bit more than I do, but that will be largely determined by how he plays this year, and the kind of numbers he puts up. He's nowhere in the league of Erik Karlson, or Aron Ekblad in my opinion.
Thing I don't like is the "grandstanding"- the holdout and so forth. If I was his father I'd tell him to sign for $ 6-7 mil per year over 4 years, so he'll have financial security for the rest of his life. After that 4 year period, if he proves he's a top elite defenceman, he can then go for the "mega dollars." Right now though-it's not there.
Don't forget, he's taking a big risk right now- he could break his leg, or crash into the boards and break his neck and be paralysed. I think what's happening with Trouba is largely being orchestrated by agent Kurt Overhart, and I think he's getting bad advice
We'll probably lose him in the long run, just like we did with Keith Thachuk, but I do agree with you, it be great to sign him. He'd be best to pad his bank account now-"for sure" and sign a bridge deal for about 4 years.
If you were his father he would probably never have held out and would be signed now for the same deal Scheif got - but ...... Nobody liked the holdout. I'm not sure what you mean by grandstanding. Those things don't enter into the assessment of his market value though.
7 mil x 4 years would = more than 8x8 which is where I put the upper limit. I think this is where you are finding disagreement with posters suggesting higher AAV's. The longer the term, the higher the AAV. You seem to be looking at AAV as being some absolute number, player X is worth 5, player Y is worth 7, etc. It should always be player X is worth 5x4 or 7x8 or whatever the numbers are for that player. There is never a time when you can offer a player a choice between signing 5 mil x4 years or 5 mil x8 years and see those as equivalent offers. The stage the player is at in his career also affects it. A young player will take 5x4 every time and hope to sign another 4 year contract for much more later. An older player will be all over the 8 year offer because he doesn't expect to be that good in 5 years time.
Sorry that got a little long winded. The point is that there are a lot of factors to consider beyond simple AAV.
The mindset will be to sign for something reasonable on all sides. There will be widely differing ideas of what is reasonable.
You concede he is young and still developing. Both sides will have their own idea of where and when he will peak. Chevy needs to weigh that anticipated peak value against the risk of losing him.
If it had been up to me I would have made him an offer he couldn't refuse this off-season - betting on that future peak value. If he refused it, I could have been confident that we would never sign him. I would then have started looking for a trade. Not saying he would have been gone by now. That would depend on the offers.
My offer would have been above what you think he is worth - arguably above what he has demonstrated he is worth. As I said, it would have been a gamble on his future value.
I'm not the GM and you're not his father .... so here we are.