from Amazon
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Francoeur
Even during his awful 2008 season, his marginal revenue product (MRP) contribution for his play in the field was approximately $12 million.
One of his readers:
JC, if your model says Francoeur was worth $12 million last year as a sub-replacement player, your model is wrong.
JC:
My model is not wrong, it’s output differs from your intuition in this case. I have designed a method underpinned by basic economic theory and the estimation of the marginal physical product of players. If you would like to point to where the model is making mistakes, I would be happy to hear your suggestions.
Another reader:
Putting aside the replacement level debate, league average OBP/SLG last year was .331/.413. Francoeur produced a .294/.359 line. Even ignoring defense and positional adjustments, it seems very counterintuitive to me that a line so far below league average is worth $12 mil in MRP.
I ditto this last reader’s very basic sanity check on the model. Among the 246 players with at least 350 PA, Francoeur was the 7th worst hitter in MLB. It is clear that JC’s model gives an enormous value for the player simply being on the field no matter how terrible he was playing.
Here’s my sanity check:
1. You start with MLB payroll for each team (say $90MM)
2. Figure about 57% to nonpitchers (say $50MM)
3. Figure that each of the 8.33 positions (if you include full-time DH) get an equal amount (say $6MM)
4. Figure that free agents get about double that (say $12MM)
So, an average player for a position, who is a free agent and plays 162 games should get around $12MM. Francoeur is not only a below-average hitting corner OF in 2008, he was way below-average for all hitters. In order for his incredible horrible hitting in 2008 to be undone, he’d have to be easily (not “close to”, not “very good”, but “easily") the best-fielding RF in MLB.