THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

There were still a ton of crazy signings in 2007-2008.  I don’t know if I can believe every team just decided to act smart all at the same time.

The teams may have approached last winter’s market with what looks like intelligent valuations, but that does not mean they didn’t use illegal means to get there.

I would not discount the economic impact in any way.  If the owner cuts your budget, guess what: you will be releasing players that you wanted to keep.  Never mind not offering free agents money, but guys on your ballclubs were being cut.

And it’s not like with Raines et al, where the only team bidding on their services was the original team. Boras is saying that they all colluded to keep overall salaries down for every single player (outside the Yanks, I suppose)?  So, for example, if Abreu was worth 10MM, we are supposed to believe that Selig sent out “slot money” kind of edicts that Abreu can’t go above 7MM, and that all the teams were competing for Abreu with a max known salary?

Exactly what is the process that teams would have followed to make this collusion charge work?  I’d like to hear from real-life examples as to how it would have worked.

It seems to me that you can’t even talk about collusion without specifically defining what is legal and what is not.  If I am a GM and I call one other GM and casually discuss a player and what I think his value is and what I may or may not offer for him, is that collusion?  If a GM in the other league calls me and asks for help or advice is that collusion?  If I discuss with one or more teams who I am interested in and what I might offer them, is that collusion? 

And the MLBPA should not be discussing this without citing some specific examples of something the teams did or they think they may have done that is against the rules.

Just because Scott Boras (or any agent) says something, it doesn’t mean he believes it.

If there is profit in crying collusion, agents will do so even if they don’t believe it. It’s part of the job description. The only thing that matters is whether or not they can sell the case. It’s Lawyering 101.

Perhaps I am just being cynical. You be the judge.

I suspect it won’t get much play, but I found this statement from Tango’s post very interesting:

Teams understand the valuation of players far better than the MLBPA does.

One thing that supposedly drove the salary explosion in the early post-FA days is that once players had agents and lawyers on thier side they had a significant negotiating advantage over the GMs of the period who were most often old time baseball men who came up through the traditional ranks.  I recall that in the 80s Bill James was hired to consult on arbitration cases by an agent and he claimed the team presentations - in terms of data handling and whatnot - to be amateurish.

MLB seems to still beleive that thier front offices are at a negotiating disadvantage because every year the industry brings together all of the scouting directors before the draft to try to browbeat them, er teach them that they only need to negotiate to the pre-determined slots.

I think it’s pretty likely that 15-20 years ago player agents were better able to value players (in terms of economic return on production) and more able negotiators than many team FOs.  With the turnover in the GM ranks to include people with more business savvy and the significant influx of saberists on the team side, it does seem pretty likely that the balance of power has strongly switched to team side.

I look back and find it hard to see why Abreu got less than Dunn, Burrell, Bradley, and Ibanez.  He’s the only one of the group who got less than he’s worth.  In this case I think his problem was being the last to sign, the others had multiple bidders but after they all signed the Angels were the only team that cared to spend on an OF.

I don’t think it was collusion, but I wouldn’t categorically rule it out.  I think it’s possible that some sort of mild collusion had the effect of making the owners pay out in a rational manner.  They approached the free agent market rationally back in 2003, but it was short lived and they were spending like drunken sailors just a few years later.  So I’m not convinced they are all of a sudden treating Fangraphs as the salary bible.

The salaries (and years) being offered kept going down as time went on.

And I don’t know that you can have “collusion” and a “rational market” at the same time.

If a rational market says that free agents should get 4.5MM or 5MM per expected win, and if players are getting that, and the players are being forced to play in specific cities, then what law exactly is being broken?

The Raines case was different because in those years the only teams offering the players the money was their original teams.  So, there was a clear hands-off policy.

If for example Bud Selig hired me to explain the way I value players, and I’m doing this in front of 30 GMs, is this somehow collusion?  I’m describing a way to pay players in a rational way, without forcing anyone to abide by my instructions.

"are NOT being forced “

Right: explaining to the other teams why player X is only worth $10 million is NOT collusion.

This came up somewhere in a discussion of “The Winner’s Curse”—explaining the curse to the other bidders will tend to drive prices down.  Not because of any agreement to eliminate competition, just out of the understanding that it’s a better strategy for them *independent of what the other bidders do*. 

Collusion says “If you do X, I will do Y.” Saying “it’s in your interest to do X no matter what I do” is not collusion at all.

Clarification:

Collusion says, “If you do X, which is not your best strategy, I will do Y, which is not MY best strategy, but we will both gain over our otherwise best strategies.”

The way I phrased it in post 9 was not correct, and could be a number of things: collusion, threat, or just a statement of my best non-collusive response to your strategy.

I’m left wondering how MLBPA might employ analysts (aside from rare arbitration hearings.) I worked on stats packages for several arb-eligible players who ultimately settled with their teams.  But if a team values the player differently, how do my stats help?  If Brian Sabean thinks J.T. Snow’s defense was worth 10 wins at first base, how could I convince him that Adam Dunn was 10 times the player?

Hawerchuk/11: Maybe they could provide analyses for the major free agents, and pass those on to the respective player agent?  That would be an effort to make sure the agent is aware of every positive attribute of his client in negotiations.

In any case, this is nothing compared to what Raines, Dawson, Morris, and Parrish went through.

If the commissioner’s office takes prints out Fangraphs, and sends every team a report showing what each free agent’s value over the last 3 years, that should be OK.

If they do that, and then Bud Selig tells every GM “Don’t pay a penny over that amount, don’t worry, everyone is getting the same message and are all on board” then he’s crossing the line.

The agents and other personnel used and hired by the players and MLBPA are master negotiators.  That has nothing necessarily to do with their skills at evaluating players.  If I were negotiating salaries for players on behalf of a team, while I would draw circles around them in terms of analysis and player evaluation, they would ultimately eviscerate me because I have no skills in negotiating contracts.

The players I analyzed were with a major agent.  He put out big glossy brochures about each of his clients for prospective teams.  But would it matter if they had sabermetric analysis in them?  Teams that care - like the A’s - have their own system that they use; and teams that don’t would be swayed by other arguments that wouldn’t quite appeal to serious analysts. 

I’m reminded of an interview I had with McKinsey in another lifetime.  The interviewer told me: “You’re very good at using facts, but you have to think of other ways to convince people of your arguments.” (Or as Sarah Palin put it: “I ask myself, does any of this really matter?")

I fundamentally disagree with this idea - in most legitimate businesses, factual arguments should and do hold sway.  I can certainly think of counter-examples, of course. 

Contract negotiations in baseball are on the margin.  Scott Boras starts out with a number that bears no relationship with a player’s actual value - $30M a year?  It hardly matters what A-Rod’s actual value was once things start playing out in the press.

My point was at the macro level, not the micro level.  At the micro level, I’m sure there’s plenty of b.s.-ing that has nothing at all to do with the fundamentals.  Very few deals get to arbitration anyway.

At the macro level, the MLBPA is losing this fight.

are there even any good examples of cartels working perfectly anywhere in history?  that OPEC blows their quotas consistently is common knowledge.  selig can’t even get teams to pay attention to his asinine draft slotting system.  the competitive advantage for breaking any cartel agreement and signing a player over what Selig or MLB decrees would be far too great.  Especially since getting caught means exposing everyone else violating the CBA.  i agree that this would be practically unenforacable and silly for boras to suggest.

The one that gets me is what Lewis exposed in Moneyball: teams and agents talking before the draft to pre-draft deals.

This is such non-news that I never heard about it pre-Moneyball, and post-Moneyball is considered ho-hum.

I also have no doubt this happens in the NHL as well with free agents.  The free agent signing period starts Jul 1.  And on Jul 1, guess what: you have a wave of free agent signings.  Now, how could that be?  Almost certainly the agents/GMs are talking, and just waiting for the “offical” signing.

Agents have their hands as dirty as everyone else.  They are not any cleaner.  In any case, I do not believe teams work in concert in the least on this matter.