THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Yeah, Hossa’s decision was amazing.  What a guy, just wants to win.

I’m going to go hang myself.

I should also note that since the NHL payroll is half that of MLB, that Hossa giving up 85MM$ is akin to an MLB player giving up 170MM$, relatively speaking.

Hossa forego having the 2nd best contract in the NHL after Ovechkin, in order to play under a 1 yr deal.  And hockey is pretty much a hazardous sport.

So, that’d be like Teixeira not signing an 8/180 deal, but rather a 1/15 deal (while letting runners run into him at first base about 10 times a game).

Halladay signing a 3 yr, 60 MM$ extension is somehow supposed to impress me in comparison?

Oh, and Hossa was a free agent.  Halladay was still under contract.

I think the weirdest part is that he actually started off restristing it to baseball:

That’s the story here: Not the first trade, not the second trade, and not the third trade. The story here is that one of the best players in baseball took somewhere between 35-50 percent of his market value to facilitate a trade, leaving somewhere between $60 and $100 million in guaranteed money on the table. This is a staggering upset, one for which there is virtually no comparison in baseball history.

That’s the 2nd paragraph.  Tango quoted the 4th which is basically the same things except upping the ante from baseball to all of sports.

Just a rhetorical flourish after having already used up the only baseball line?

Yes, exactly.  I noticed that too.  He clearly kept himself to baseball, which made me very happy.  But he had to go an’ dun it.

Even to baseball, it’s not that big a deal.  Look at for example Evan Longoria.  If there’s one player that left a ton of money on the table, it’s Longoria.  He could have EASILY signed a deal like Cole Hamels (not selling out his free agent years).  He could have signed a 7/30MM deal or something like that (if you remember, Longoria would have entered free agency after 6 years and 170 days of service… which is 7 years in calendar time).  Remember, Nomar and Vlad, TEN years before Longoria, signed off on all their arb years (and no FA years) for 5/23 and 5/28.  There’s been a bit of inflation since then.

Instead, Longoria gave up alot of FA years for relatively little back.

You want to talk about players who leave money on the table, talk about the most valuable asset in MLB: Evan Longoria.  His deal is so fantastically good for the Rays that it makes him virtually untradeable. 

You’d basically have to give up the farm (the entire farm system) to get Longoria.

What about Pedroia? He left tens of millions on the table with his Red Sox contract. Wakefield’s contract was also incredibly favorable to the Red Sox, but not so much in total dollars.

Yes, I talked about alot of these guys.  Pedroia, Utley, Mauer.  These guys left tons.  Nothing matches Longoria though.

But that’s my point though regarding Halladay.  It’s no big deal, when compared to others, and nothing compared to Longoria.

I think the point is not how much was left on the table, but how much was left on the table KNOWINGLY.

I’m not sure Longoria signed such a pitiful deal because he just really really wanted to play in TB, or to have some guarantee immediately.

Likewise, Wakefield did not know he could have made $8 million for the past few seasons.  When he signed that deal, a few league average pitchers had signed for around $4 or $5/year.  It wasn’t until the next year, if memory serves, that Kris Benson’s contract kind of adjusted the market for a while.

Halladay presumably knew he could have gotten more money, or a longer contract elsewhere, and probably could have gotten more from the Phillies, but I think the author was also sort of marveling at the idea that his sacrifice was not done out of ignorance but instead with his family life in mind.

"I’m not sure Longoria signed such a pitiful deal because he just really really wanted to play in TB, or to have some guarantee immediately.”

Like I said, Longoria could have just as easily signed a deal like Nomar, Vlad or Cole Hamels: sell away all his arb years, and none of his FA years.  So, there’s your “some guarantee immediately”.

I should also note that since the NHL payroll is half that of MLB, that Hossa giving up 85MM$ is akin to an MLB player giving up 170MM$, relatively speaking.

I don’t think that this is quite right.  The question needs to be assessed from the perspective of the player giving up the money.  NHL dollars spend as well as MLB ones.

I’m wondering if perhaps Halladay’s deal is riskier than Hossa’s. Odds of something catastrophic happening in 3 years’ time (the length of Halladay’s contract) that would damage your marketability is much greater than the odds of it happening in 1 year (Hossa’s contract.)

Obviously, Hossa put more money at risk, but has less chance of losing that money. That’s all I’m saying.

The best part of the Hossa thing is that he actually ended up tearing his rotator cuff.  The Blackhawks signed him without doing a physical (to a deal that pays him about $60MM), found out that he had a shoulder injury and fired their GM.

God love the NHL.  I suspect Halladay won’t be so lucky if he tears his rotator cuff.