THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Taking this thought exercise a step further and converting to baseball values rather than dollars, if a win is worth ~ $4 million, then a run is worth ~ $400K, and so Cliff Floyd’s intangibles have been valued at about one run.

I buy that; it wouldn’t surprise me if his “leadership” is worth a run over the course of the season.  Maybe even a few.

If he gets some guys to call it a night at closing time instead of staying out hours longer… if he takes some extra time in the cage and a few of the younger guys see his effort and spend a little more time in there themselves.... if he can help diffuse some clubhouse distractions or personality clashes… I can see that adding small minute percentages to some of his teammates’ performances over the course of a season.

I always liked Wes Parker’s story about how he disconnected his phone in 1970 and stopped going out at night.  He hit .319/.392/.458 vs a career .267/.351/.375 (which was, admittedly, pulled down by the low-offense era that he started his career in.)

BP puts his performance at 33 runs better than his 5-year average leading up to 1970.  Win Shares estimates it around 36 runs. 

We can use this (or Dave Parker w/ and w/o drugs or Dennis Martinez w/ and w/o alcohol) to estimate the theoretical maximum value of intangibles.  One run seems like an underestimate.

But, you know what… everybody looks for reasons for their improved performance, because it helps them convince themselves (and others) that they can do whatever they wanted, if only they wanted.  It’s hindsight bias.

I’ll also say… in terms of the drugs and the phone and the going out at night… I don’t believe Cliff Floyd and only Cliff Floyd could have had that impact on someone.  Say Parker had a 50% chance of getting it together in the absence of Floyd, but Floyd bumped the chances of him giving up the partying to 55%.  I’d credit Floyd with 5% of the improved performance.

This is sort of ridiculous to try to think about, but I wonder if there’s some way to go wisdom-of-the-crowds on this.  Ask 100 people what the impact of intangibles is, and maybe the mean will be pretty close to the true value (if we could ever figure it out).

In a strange way, maybe my favorite post ever on this blog. Short, well-argued, concrete. Makes the point perfectly.

Mike - I don’t think Parker’s guilty of hindsight bias.  He basically saw what would happen if he got enough sleep and didn’t show up for games hungover.  The funny thing is that he was so bored, he went back to his old life in 1971 and was out of baseball two years later.  Now that you can make so much more money as a baseball player, guys are much less likely to follow this path.

Replacement-level players are a part of every team’s roster, almost by definition. So, on my team I’m going to make sure that the players I select from this class are rich in intangibles. Maybe it will help a bit, but at least it won’t be a disruption. Whether that’s worth an extra 400 grand is the question, but my guess is that it probably is.

I don’t doubt that it’s worth an extra 400K (the equivalent of 1 run).  Indeed, I would have gone as high as 3 or 4 runs.  I’m surprised that Floyd signed for as little as he did.  I guess in a buyer’s market, the discount value is greatest for heart and determination.

Hawerchuck, maybe I’m confusing hindsight bias with illusory correlation.  It’s been a while since I took college psych courses.

Bottom line is this: we all like to explain things, especially when the explanations allow us to (a) feel in control, and (b) feel better about ourselves.

For example, I know for a fact, I have never gotten rejected when asking a girl out.  Sure, some of them have said no, but they don’t count because I wasn’t interested in those girls and basically I wasn’t really trying.  When I try, I totally succeed every time.

I’m not calling Parker a liar, nor am I saying one’s off-field life has no impact on on-field performance.  All I’m saying is, that explanation is kind of the equivalent of the classic “I could do it if I wanted to, but I don’t really want to.”

I would guess that Replacement level players that are in the majors as a group are significantly above zero when it comes to intangibles. I think we can reasonably safely assume that if you are no better than replacement level in your measurables the tolerance for even mild other negatives will be very low and hence those players in this “talent bracket” that manage to stay major leaguers will typically be “team player” types with nice helpful personalities.

Also given past inefficiencies in player evaluation for things that can be measured I would not neccesarilly trust the MLB market in intangibles to be efficient and rational.

Bjorn: it may not be efficient, but if anything, it would be larger than expected, wouldn’t it?  Or, are is the suggestion that all 30 GMs have decided to value leadership and determination on a conservative scale?

I’m not sure Floyd is being paid even $350,000 for his intangibles.  My sense is that veteran players who have been good-to-great in their prime almost never make league minimum, no matter how far their talent level has declined.  I suppose we’d have to compare salaries of players like Floyd to younger repl-level players who were never regulars to see if my intuition is right, but I think it is. It’s probably just a matter of basic respect within the culture of MLB to pay these guys something over the minimum.  In fact, I would have guessed the minimum for a player like Floyd was around $1M—so maybe the recession is having an impact already!