Hunter Pence and the Giants have settled on $13.8 million as an appropriate salary for 2013.
That seems a lot, considering that Pence is a space alien who seems to just now be learning how baseball players are supposed to behave. Considering also that Pence finished 2012 with a 743 OPS. Granted, he did drive in 104 runs. But nobody pays for RBI any more, right? Those are so 20th Century. Is this just Brian Sabean thumbing his nose, once again, at those sabemetricians on the other side of the Bay? Those guys can be in movies and stuff; we'll just keep winning World Series, and we'll just keep overpaying decent players while we're at it.
Maybe not. according to FanGraphs, Pence has been worth $42.1 million over the last three seasons. If you divide $42.1 million by three, you get $14.something million. Toss in a few extra hundred grand for Pence's outreach work with other space aliens, and $13.8 million is actually a bargain. You know, sabermetrically.