THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Tango, did you look at the complete charts by any chance?  As a non-subscriber I don’t have access to it, but I believe those three teams are at the very top of the “spend over slot” list.  It’s my understanding that these are outliers and that most other teams are much lower and so it would be a mischaracterization to say that “teams are paying 2.5 times the slot”.  However, I haven’t seen all of the data so I might be mistaken there.

Good point.  I suppose those are the top 3 overspenders.

I’m not a subscriber.

That article only lists the top 3. The Pirates total signing bonuses were $17 million. After the Royals (3rd, $14 million), the Cubs are next highest at $12 million (Dbacks just a few dollars less than that). There were 7 teams that spent between $10,978,700 and $11,994,550 (Cubs). So you had 10 total teams spending more than $10.978 million. However, there are 7 teams that spent between $2.786 million and $3.967 million. There were 11 teams that spent less than $4.7 million on signing bonuses.

Those figures are for all 50 rounds. There is usually maybe only a player per round that goes over slot after the 10th round so those numbers are similar to the top 10 rounds figures Tango posted above. For example, the top 10 round signing bonuses for the Pirates was $16.445 million. Their total for all 2011 signing bonuses was $17.005 million. The Cubs spent $2.5 million on a 14th rounder and there’s a player here or there as I said that goes way over slot after the 10th.

I know that the bonuses this year set a record. There was several who signed for more than $5 million and the total money spent set a record. The difference in the slot compared to this year and last was marginal. Teams went more over slot this year than they had in the past.

I think MLB is silly to regulate this. Look at the teams who spent the most money: Pirates, Royals, and Mariners. The top 3 from 2007-2011 is the Pirates, Nationals and Royals. If you regulate how much the Pirates and Royals can spend in the draft, you’re hurting their chances of contending in the future. Average signing bonuses over those 5 years was $31 million per team. The Pirates and Nationals were over $50 million. The Yankees were at $33 million and the Cubs were at $32 million.

The small market teams are spending big money in the draft. I don’t think you can take that away.

Perhaps, but the mechanisms are somewhat different. White speed limit signs tell you that if you go to fast you might get a ticket. Yellow speed limit signs tell you if you go too fast you may flip your car and kill or severely injure yourself.

In that way, the yellow signs are more effective than the white ones in reducing speed. The speed numbers on a yellow sign are only a suggestion, but the lower the number the higher difficulty turn the driver expects.

Is this the case in the MLB drafting system? Do suggested slots really provide any new information about the negative aspects of exceeding them, if any? My first guess is no.

David,

You are definitely correct but you also need to consider how many top 5 picks teams like the Pirates and Nationals have had. The Red Sox have spent nearly as much as both teams without ever being higher than 19 or something like that…

That’s a good point, Brent. I still think a hard slotting system is going to most hurt the smaller market teams who have been willing to spend a lot of money in recent years. The other thing we need to consider is international free agents and I’m pretty sure the Pirates have spent big there too. If these teams aren’t going to increase their payroll at the big league level, they need to have the option to outspend teams on amateur talent. If it some point we see the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Angels and Mets making up the top 5 then maybe we need to think more about it, but for now I don’t see how a slotting system does anything other than helping the large market teams.

I also don’t know how you could limit the amount spent on international free agents. Something about that just doesn’t seem right to me.