THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Carmona: reported as 4/15, 1.169 service.

He’s already got a contract for 2008, so this is really a 3/14.5 deal, starting in 2009.

Starting in 2009, he would have been a Super2, and eligible for arbitration.  So, this deal covers the first 3 of his arb years.

This deal pays him for 3.0 WAR this year, with 0.4 WAR of aging.

What does Marcel think?  He’s a .570 pitcher, with only 162 IP.  That’s a little low, since he was mostly a reliever 2 years ago.  Let’s bump him up to 180 IP (20 games).

Replacement level is .370 in the AL, so he is +.20 wins for 20 games, or a 4.0 WAR pitcher.

Whoah.  Did the Indians just pull a fast one here?

For him to be a 3 WAR pitcher today, he’d have to have a combination of:
.570 pitcher, 135 IP
.550 pitcher, 150 IP
.530 pitcher, 169 IP
.510 pitcher, 193 IP

He should have signed a 4/22 deal (including 2008).  At least a 4/18 deal.

I see also that the Indians have option years, which further makes this a bad deal for Carmona.

Wow.  This must be the new market.  Shields (possibly a super 2 next year), signed a 4/11 deal (including 2008).

MLB teams will be signing these hot young pitchers as fast as possible after this signing.  This is really incredible.

And just 7 or 8 years ago, Mark Prior got this kind of deal.... out of college!

How the tables have turned on MLBPA.  I cannot believe that payroll is less than half of revenue (NHL and NBA, with their caps are at 55% or so).  If the players were smart, they’d INSIST on a payroll cap, and giving up arbitration for earlier free agency (4 years or age 27).

The entire strategy of MLBPA seems to have been predicated on the owners being foolish enough to behave as if they had a gun to their heads. 

This seems to be gone now. 

Welcome to Moneyball.

I’m beside myself here. 

Mark Mulder, going into the 2008 season, has 7.167 years of service.  That means, going into the 2002 season, he had around 1.167 years of service.  That’s what Carmona has.

http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2004/12/st-louis-cardinals_111971260115041890.html

According to Cot’s, he signed a 4/14.2 deal, for years covering 2002-2005.

This is virtually identical to Carmona!

And that was 6 years go. 

What did Marcel think of Mulder back then?

http://tangotiger.net/marcel/

Here’s Carmona, 2008 and Mulder, 2002 according to Marcel, with Carmona’s numbers first:
K/BB: 114/52, 128/55
ERA: 3.78, 3.93

Carmona was born Dec 1983.  Mulder was born Aug 1977.  That’s 6 years apart.  They were the same age.

This is really incredible.  It’s as if the free agent market has moved at an accelerated pace, while the pre-arb market has not moved at all.

And not a single person in the press has said word one?

I’m hoping deals arrive soon for Joe Saunders, Ervin Santana, and Jered Weaver. 

I doubt Weaver will sign something like this though, he’s a Boras guy.

According to Rotoworld: “The Indians have options for $7 million in 2012, $9 million in 2013 and $14 million in 2014. The price of the first option could escalate by $1 million and the price on the other two by $2 million each”

Even with the options escalated, he seems underpaid. And you have to wonder what it takes to get the maximum value.

One thing about Carmona: his FIP last year was (by my numbers) 3.83, which may indicate that he got a bit lucky with his 3.03 ERA.  BABIP wasn’t overly bad at 0.284. 

But still...If Marcel understood FIP, he might forecast Carmona a bit more pessimistically.  But without running the numbers, I imagine this still works out as, at best, a break-even for Carmona.  The Indians know what they’re doing…
-j

I think I’ve seen this talked about before, but I’m not really sure. When evaluating a contract, is it best to look at total years/total money?

What I mean is, say with a big, long contract like Zito or Soriano (maybe bad examples since I think it’s obvious, especially with Zito, that the deal is awful), is it best to look at the contract at the end of X years and say “Ok, that turned out to be good/bad” or do you say “that was a good deal for the first Y years, but in those last two he was below replacement as a 36-37 year old and making $18 million dollars.”

Can a deal be good and bad (from the perspective of the team getting appropriate performance for the money)? And at what point is giving an extra year or two worth those first years? Are the final years on long term deals of FAs actually more important than the dollar amount because a guy like Zito will most likely be wasting a roster spot at the end of that deal. The Giants have the money, but they’ll still only be able to field 25 guys.

Justin, actually according to the THT stats, Carmona’s FIP last year was 4.05 meaning his ERA benefited from a whole whopping run of luck.  He might not have an incredible run like he did last year but he will definitely regress much less than say Kyle Kendrick will this year.

Eric,

I tend to prefer my own numbers to those someone else has calculated...and in the case of FIP, that’s particularly the case because I haven’t been able to reproduce THT’s FIP using their stated equations.  One should be able to back-calculate their additive constant and have it be the same across players (at least within a team), but the times I’ve tried it hasn’t worked out.  So I’m not honestly sure how they get to their FIP numbers, though mine are usually close to theirs (as they are in this case).

My numbers on Carmona are from my piece on the Indians last year:
http://jinaz-reds.blogspot.com/2007/09/postseason-profile-cleveland-indians.html
I used the FIP equation published on THT’s website, and I calculated the coefficient to force FIP=ERA (probably MLB ERA in this case, ‘cause I get sloppy by league differences at times).  I sometimes also do a park factor correction on the HR totals, but I don’t think I did that in this case.

As for Carmona, I think “definitely” is a bit too strong.  But in general I agree--as I said, if Marcel knew about DIPS, he would probably be a bit more pessimistic about Carmona than he is.  Still, there’s only so much you can teach a monkey, eh?
-j

The FIP fangraphs has for Carmona is 3.90, so basically right down the middle… might want to just use that. His xFIP, according to THT, was 3.99 in 2007.

I tend to prefer my own numbers to those someone else has calculated...and in the case of FIP, that’s particularly the case because I haven’t been able to reproduce THT’s FIP using their stated equations.  One should be able to back-calculate their additive constant and have it be the same across players (at least within a team), but the times I’ve tried it hasn’t worked out.  So I’m not honestly sure how they get to their FIP numbers, though mine are usually close to theirs (as they are in this case).

***

Justin,

Could it be that you’re not including HBP? THT does.

JD, there are a ton of variables that go into a contract being bad or good, but the primary factor is whether a player was overpaid for, given his talent/performance projection which essentially tells us how many wins a player will add to a team as compared to some baseline.

If a contract is way high, then a team probably (but not definitely) did not know how to properly evaluate that player, which is an egregious mistake since all of these projection systems are as good as each other and most of them are freely available on the internet.  Even if a team overpays for a player, that does not necessarily mean that it was a bad signing or that it is not “good” for the team or even profitable for them.  For example, it might have been a profitable signing and the reason they overpaid is that there were no cheaper alternatives.  But generally when a team overpays a lot for talent, it means that they are bad at evaluating that talent, and if they underpay, it means that they got lucky or smart, who knows, but either way, it was a “good buy” at least.

As far as long-term, short term, etc., we can figure out the value of a contract no matter how long and what the status of a player is in each year, and then compare that to how much is paid.  To do that, we extend the projection assuming that a player will play less amount per every subsequent year, due to injury and age, and his rate performance will decline after about age 27 or 28 and increase prior to around 27, etc.  We also assume FA salary inflation of 5-10% per year or whatever.  So we can put an “exact” dollar amount on a contract, whether it is long or short, based on the talent of the player (wins above replacement), his age, his status (FA, arb-eligible, etc.), salary inflation, etc.

Obviously, and as you point out, there are many considerations for each individual team in terms of whether or not a short or long-term contract is particularly good for that team.  We usually don’t get into that here - we use a one-sized fits all valuation process.  Obviously that is not correct, but at least it can usually tell us how much the average team would have paid for this player, given his age, status, and true talent level, if all teams knew exactly what that true talent was, given the current market value of a marginal win.

Could it be that you’re not including HBP? THT does.

Nope, I include HBP.
-j

Justin,

Are you excluding IBB from the BB totals?

studes,
That might be it!  I don’t remember seeing that in your equation--though I do see it there now.
-j

Arizona signed Chris Young for 5/28, which could turn into 6/37.5 (link on name). Cot’s has Young with 1 year and 45 days service time.

I don’t remember seeing that in your equation--though I do see it there now.

Pretty sneaky of me, eh?

Just curious, do you rate contracts replacing arbitration and their value considering the difference from what they’d get through standard arbitration and injury chance?

If a free agent signed this deal, it would be an entirely different story, but a 24 year-old pitcher with a single good season and another 5 years until Free Agency would be justified in cutting a deal to guarantee salary, especially with a significant innings increase like he had in 2007, no?

(This isn’t to say that the team options are a good deal, but buying out his arbitration years at a discount seems to be rather standard, doesn’t it?)

Evan Longoria: 6/17.5 (plus a one year option followed by a two year option; 9/44 possible)

Service time… uh, what does six days come out to?  0.03?  Jeez.

Brilliant (for the Rays).  This deal is through 2013, and the club holds an option for 2014.  The ONLY reason they hold that option is because they kept him in the minors (otherwise, he’d have been a free agent). It’s a cold-hearted business, but Rays management made alot of money here by holding that option.

He is being valued at just 2.0 WAR, with 0.2 wins in aging.  Talk about Longoria selling low.  Sheesh.

***

This is ENTIRELY the fault of the MLBPA.  The minimum salary in the NHL is HIGHER than in MLB, despite the fact that the NHL revenue and payrolls are half that of MLB.

The minimum salary in MLB should be set at close to 1 million$, if not 1.25 million$.  While the minimum salary in the NHL is almost 0.5 million, the average salary of first year players is probably closer to 0.6 million. 

The MLB teams are preying on the players’ incredible lack of pay in their first 2 or 3 years (400-500K per year) to sell them on the idea of guaranteed payments to take them through their arb years as multi-millionaires.

The players have only themselves to blame for this fiasco.

On the other hand, this huge imbalance in pay allows teams like the Rays to compete for talent.

MLBPA is acting like a Mickey Mouse organization, and MLB teams are tripping all over themselves trying to lock in prices that have barely changed since Nomar and Vlad started the trend TEN years ago.

And still, the press is only concerned about birth certificates.  What a truly horrible and disgusting state of affairs this is.

(Yeah, yeah… poor millionaires… boo hoo hoo.  Consider it said.  No need to repeat it.)

Underpaying young stars will become a much bigger issue in the next couple years as more teams take advantage of long-term deals like this one.  Remember Jonathan Papelbon’s mini-tirade earlier this spring?  There will be more of those.

I do hope we don’t see MLB have an NBA or NFL-style system.  There needs to be a way to pay young players, but still keep them with their original team longer.  Players developing with one team is a great baseball tradition.

I completely agree with #19, but have an even better example than the Nomar and Vlad contracts from 10 years ago.

When Hamels complained about his deal the Phillies were set to play the Braves in an exhibition game.  A local repoerter had some qotes with Smoltz as an elder statesman of the game and Smoltz talked about how he was renewed as a young player and he let it bother him and got off to a slow start.  That was the focus of the story.  But in telling his story Smoltz mentioned that he was renewed in ~1991 at 355k.  Hamels was renewed with the same service time at ~500k in 2008. 

I don’t know the exact revnue figures in the early 1990s, but overall MLB revenues have gone up something like 400% while these low service time players like Hamels are getting renewed at a 50% premium over what similar players were getting 18 years ago!  I’m not even sure if that increase is keeping up with inflation never mind the massive revenue growth in baseball.

For the last couple of decades the MLBPA has been fighting for top end salaries and arguing that the rising tide would lift all boats.  But now that player payroll as a percentage of revenues has fallen so dramatically it’s hard not to accept that that philosophy stopped working some time ago.  It’s time for the younger player to take a more active role in the union and start to fight for higher wages from the bottom up.

I’m with you all the way Philly.

***

It seems that it’s always been this way though. 
Here’s what these columns means:
year: duh
Minimum: minimum salary as best as I could infer
800th: the salary of the 800th highest paid player
avg800: average salary of the top 800 paid players (*)
800thIndex: the value in “800th” divided by the value in “avg800”

year Minimum 800thPlayer avg800 800thIndex
1993 $109,000 $109,000 $1,110,698 9.8%
1994 $109,000 $109,000 $1,148,424 9.5%
1995 $109,000 $109,000 $1,163,994 9.4%
1996 $109,000 $112,000 $1,178,347 9.5%
1997 $150,000 $150,000 $1,385,877 10.8%
1998 $170,000 $175,000 $1,555,544 11.3%
1999 $200,000 $205,000 $1,816,423 11.3%
2000 $200,000 $200,000 $2,073,669 9.6%
2001 $200,000 $203,500 $2,435,787 8.4%
2002 $200,000 $202,000 $2,518,588 8.0%
2003 $300,000 $300,000 $2,650,453 11.3%
2004 $300,000 $300,000 $2,576,707 11.6%
2005 $316,000 $316,000 $2,723,727 11.6%
2006 $327,000 $327,000 $2,894,291 11.3%
2007 $380,000 $380,000 $3,075,911 12.4%

(*) It bothers me to no end when average salaries are reported, and you don’t know if that’s for 750 players or 832 players or whatnot.  The more players you count, the lower the average, since all those extra players undoubtedly earn the minimum.

As we can see, it seems that MLBPA and MLB have a basic agreement that the minimum salary is around 10% of the league average.  And in fact, the minimum salary of 2007 is the highest it’s ever been, proportionately.

***

Here is how the 500th highest salary compares to the average of the top 800 players:

year 500th 500thIndex
1993 $245,000 22.1%
1994 $226,000 19.7%
1995 $220,000 18.9%
1996 $225,000 19.1%
1997 $275,000 19.8%
1998 $325,000 20.9%
1999 $450,000 24.8%
2000 $475,000 22.9%
2001 $550,000 22.6%
2002 $500,000 19.9%
2003 $500,000 18.9%
2004 $500,000 19.4%
2005 $500,000 18.4%
2006 $600,000 20.7%
2007 $575,000 18.7%

1999 was the peak for the “middle class”, but otherwise, it stayed at roughly 20% the whole time.

***

Here it is for the 250th highest paid player every year:
year 250th 250thIndex
1993 $1,100,000 99%
1994 $1,100,000 96%
1995 $900,000 77%
1996 $1,000,000 85%
1997 $1,420,000 102%
1998 $1,600,000 103%
1999 $2,000,000 110%
2000 $2,300,000 111%
2001 $2,750,000 113%
2002 $2,800,000 111%
2003 $2,900,000 109%
2004 $2,500,000 97%
2005 $2,750,000 101%
2006 $3,000,000 104%
2007 $3,450,000 112%

The overall average is 102%.  So, historically, the 250th highest paid player is roughly the same as the average of the top 800 paid players.

Lots of ebbs and flows, but we can see that after 1996, there was a takeoff in the “upper middle class” salaries.

***

Finally, the top 100 salaries:
year 100th 100thIndex
1993 $3,000,000 270%
1994 $3,250,000 283%
1995 $3,450,000 296%
1996 $3,250,000 276%
1997 $3,610,000 260%
1998 $3,950,000 254%
1999 $4,750,000 262%
2000 $5,375,000 259%
2001 $6,125,000 251%
2002 $6,367,542 253%
2003 $6,850,000 258%
2004 $6,500,000 252%
2005 $7,250,000 266%
2006 $7,666,667 265%
2007 $7,758,503 252%

The average is 264%.  We can see that it’s really the 1993-1996 time period where things were really imbalanced.

More study needed…

Very interesting data.  I would have thought more of an imbalance.  Several years ago I saw a report comparing the average salary to the mean salary and as I recall the average was over 2M and the mean was in the 800k range.  Unfortunately, most stories about salary growth do no include that comparison, but I’ve always assumed that the average salary (now over 3M I beleive) has gorwn much faster than the mean.  As a result pre-Arb players who mosly make up the bottom half were falling further behind.

Another positive about a 1M minimum salary is that it would provide a much bigger financial pay off for the career minor leaguer/fringe MLB player.  Certainly a few months of 400k pay is pretty attractive, but for the guys who don’t get pensions and never sign multi-year deals it won’t last long or really make up for the slave wages paid to minor leaguers.

In the 1987-96 drafts about 1500 players made the majors and ~67% ended their careers with less than 10 WARP usually piecing together partial seasons.  Those kinds of players - a majority - would be the ones that would get the biggest marginal benefit from a large jump in MLB minimum and it’s hard to argue that baseball has done much financially for those kinds of players.

Philly: your use of “mean” is really “median”.

Mean=average.

Yup, that’s what you get for quickie post before heading out the door…

My long post got eaten, so I will just provide the link this time.
vr, Xei

Hanley Ramirez signs for 6/70 (link on name).

Hanley: 2.014 years.days of service, entering 2008.

He’d be arb-eligible in 2009-11, and FA in 2002.

Hitting: .383 wOBA, making him +2.5 WAA

Fielding: yech.  Fans see him as -1.0 wins relative to average at position.  UZR is disgusted by him at -2.0 wins.  Dewan is at -1.5 wins.  Let’s go with an average at -1.5 wins

Position: he gets +0.5 wins

Repl: in the NL he gets +2.0 wins

He plays all the time, so let’s give him 90% playing time.

WAR = 0.90 * (2.5 - 1.5 + 0.5 + 2.0) = 3.15

He’s young, so his aging curve will be fairly modest.  Let’s drop him by 0.25 wins rather than the stand 0.50 wins. 

Presuming he’s got a 6yr deal (not an “extension"), and including his service time, then the fair value would be 6/55 deal for him.

If it was a 6yr extension, meaning the contract starts in 2009, then 6/68 is the fair deal.

Seeing that there were alot of contracts signed at a discount for guys in Ramirez’s salary class, his fielding has not been discounted at all.

Kazmir: 3/28.5 extension, starting in 2009.  He has 3+ service years entering 2008.  So, his 2011 season would have been a free agent year.

Hard to figure out how good he is.  Let’s make him a .575 pitcher, with 20 full games, with a league repl level of .390.  That makes his WAR entering 2008 as 3.7.  He’s very young, so we should give him a modest aging curve.

I’ve got him at a 3/35 deal as a fair value with fairly aggressive aging.

I think Kazmir has sold himself short here.

I forgot to mention: if you make him a 2.7 WAR entering 2009, and drop him by 0.5 each year, that would be worth 3/28.5.

2.7 WAR on 20 full games is a .525 pitcher.

Ryan Braun: 8/45, starting in 2008.  Entering 2008, he had 129 service days, which may have made him eligible for super2.

Hitting: +3.7 wins above average per 162.

Fielding/position: presuming he’s an average fielder in LF, then he’s -0.5 wins.  If he’s worse than average, he’s -1.0 wins.

Repl level: +2 wins per 162

Playing time: let’s give him 85%.

Obviously, very rough calculations.  He was a top draft pick (5th or something, in the same draft group as Zimmerman and Tulo), so we have more information for regression. 

WAR = 0.85 * (3.7 - 0.7 + 2) = 4.25

He’s 24.5 years old, so we give him low aging for the first few years, then the normal 0.50 aging for the rest.  Let’s say 0.40 wins lost per year.

I get: 8/64 (with the service time knowledge).

Looks like the standard discount that non-millionaire ballplayers give (Tulo, Utley, et al).

To get a 8/45 deal, with 0.40 wins in aging, would mean to start him as 3.6 WAR for the 2008 season, and going down from there.

Interesting clause in Braun’s contract (link on name):

“If he qualifies as a “Super 2” arbitration-eligible player following the 2009 season, the total value of the deal will jump from $45 million to $51 million. Braun’s salaries for his arbitration-eligible years would be $3.5 million in 2010, $5.5 million in 2011, $7.5 million in 2012 and $9 million in 2013.”

They seem to value it as a % of 12.75 million.

3.5/12.75 = 27%
5.5/12.75 = 43%
7.5/12.75 = 59%
9.0/12.75 = 71%

I have a question about aging and young players. When talking about young players like Hanley and Braun, you give them aging (low, albeit), but shouldn’t young players be progressing and not declining every year?

Thanks

Hyltzn, players in general (batters) get better until the age of 27 or 28 and then get worse thereafter.  Obviously that varies from player to player, although it might be next to impossible to figure out an individual player’s own aging curve.

We do know that certain classes of players have different aging curves.  For example, players with speed seem to peak a little later and have a less steep decline, I think.

There is also evidence that college drafted players peak later than high school drafted ones.  The reason for that is probably that high school drafted players tend to be more physically matured, so that when you draft an 18 yo HS player, it is really like drafting a 20 yo, physiologically.

There may be some other classes of players that we can identify with different aging curves, but I am not aware of them.

Also, it is difficult to say exactly what the peak age for hitters is.  It appears to be around 27, but selective sampling and the fact that the league may get better overall every year might make it actually later than that. 

In recent years, peak age also appears to be a little later, but that could be due mainly to PED’s.

Finally, each component has vastly different peak ages and the shape of the curve, but when we talk about “peak age” in general and whether players get better or worse with age, we are talking about overall production, as measured by something like lwts, EQA, OPS, or wOBA.

The rate stats will improve, but the PA will usually not.  Injuries are killers.  Overall, you get a slight decline.

You can look at the Win Shares aging that I posted to see that.

Thank you very much, guys. Makes sense now.

So the Yankees signed Sexson today.  A bunch of people I know said this was good because he can hit lefties, yada yada yada...and this seems to be a fallacy among people who even work in MLB (I know a few people who work with the Washington Nationals and they share similar views on certain RHB being able to hit LHP, i.e., Kielty).  However, I remember Tango and MGL saying that there is no platoon effect for RHB and it’s like a large number of PA before the regression is less than 50% or something.  I think this is one area that even “so-called” sabermetricians and people who work in baseball still believe...can Tango or MGL chime in about certain RHB being signed to hit LHP when aren’t most RHB projected to hit the same (around average) against LHP?

RHB have the platoon advantage over LHP. Always have. Take a look at B-Ref’s splits for illustration:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/bsplit.cgi?team=TOT&year=2008&lg=AL

The fallacy isn’t in believe that RHB hit LHP better, simply in believing that there are RHB that hit LHP especially well, relative to their performance against RHP. The platoon differential regresses very heavily toward the mean.

The fallacy isn’t in believe that RHB hit LHP better, simply in believing that there are RHB that hit LHP especially well, relative to their performance against RHP.

Colin, I am pretty sure that is what johnp means.

That being said, I am pretty sure that Giambi being the much better hitter overall is going to be better versus LHP than Sexson, but it is probably pretty close either way (update: I was wrong - see below).

People also tend to forget that when you platoon, you only get the benefit for around 63% of the game, when the starter is on the mound.

I ran the Yankees in my sim against a LHSP (Perkins) with Giambi as DH and then with Sexson.  They do a little better with Sexson, around .075 runs per game or .15 wins for 20 games, nothing to write home about.

Sexson does NOT have a bad projection, BTW.  It is a little worse than an average first baseman.  Another one of those (many) players with whom people equate their true talent with this year’s stats (which are not terrible either - a lwts of -3 per 150).

MGL, that is exactly what I mean.  Everyone believes the Kielty’s, etc. of the world hit LHP better than average RHB and therefore have some sort of “value.” Let me tell you, most major league teams believe this too...MGL and Tango talked a little about this in The Book.

On the opposite end, someone like Branyan IS valuable because there is a platoon effect for LHB.

MGL, good point about the 63%.  I assume that includes the starter and whenever a LHP is brought in as well, right (which is not very often - can’t be more than a few % points of the 63%)?  I think the best alternative is to just platoon two players, with the LHB as the one with the platoon effect and the RHB as average overall.  This is an area I think doesn’t get talked about enough…

I don’t think they’re platooning Sexson and Giambi, though. With Matsui on the DL they’ve got a rotating cast going through the 1B/DH spots. Most of Sexson’s playing time probably comes at the expense of Wilson Betemit.

Yeah, I was talking in general.  It’s still not a bad signing by the Yankees even if he does take Betemit’s spot...however, I’m a little surprised Sexson is only -3 runs this year for a 1B.  I know we don’t care about his stats this year (generally speaking), but his lwts has got to be a lot worse than -3; I don’t know how many starting 1B are having a worse year than him, in fact.  I ran Sal’s THT projection and given the last 4 years of data and this year’s stats, Sexson is expected to hit around a .760 or so OPS (I may be off some points as I forgot the exact number).

Anyway, this talk is for another thread, I just wanted to touch base on people believing Sexson is a LHP hitting god and how little we discuss this issue...even on this blog.

Tango,

I am trying to put together a spreadsheet of this type of thing, so I’d love to be able to compare my numbers to something.

Would it be possible for you to do a projected contract for Casey Kotchman now that he was traded to the Braves. I have some numbers in front of me, but when it comes to service time and how much people are paid, I feel like I could be pretty off.

Interesting trade, Kotchman and Teixera.  Teixera is a very good player, probably 4.5 WAR (4 offense and .5 defense).

Kotchamn is not nearly as good, although he is still young and should get a little better.  I have him as 2.5 WAR.  (In my sim, Teixera actually comes out as 3 wins better than Kotchman against a mix -75/25- of RH and LH starting pitchers.)

Teixera’s contract is a bargain at 12.5 mil.  He should be making around 20 mil, so the Angels get 1/3 of 7.5 mil in equity, or $2.5 mil.

They lose a lot though in Kotchman, as he is only making 1.45 this year his first year of arb eligibility (I guess he was a super-2).  He is worth 11 mil as a FA, so the Angels lose 1/3 of that this year alone, or 3.7 mil.

So they have lost a net of 1.2 this year.

However, does Teixera help them get into the post-season?  Hardly.  They have a 99.8% chance of making it without him!

How about IN the post-season?  Let’s say that Teixera is 2.5 wins better (per 150) than Kotchman.  That means he is .0167 wins better per game.  In a 5-game series, that increases their chances of winning by 3%.  In a 7-game series, it is 3.6%.

So their chances of winning the pennant with Teixera rather than Kotchman are increased by 3.4% and their chances of winning the WS by 2.7%.

So just to pick up another million or so in equity, a pennant or WS would have to be worth an extra 30-40 mil or so over and above just getting into the playoffs.  I don’t have the BP book in front of me which gives those kinds of figs so I don’t know what they are.  If a pennant or WS is worth 100 mil to a team, then Teixera gives them 2-3 mil or so in extra equity.

How about losing Kotchman for the next 4 years?  He’ll be getting better by about .5 wins a year over the next 3-4 years so his average WAR over those 4 years is around 3.5, worth 19 mil per year with 10% inflation per year (usually inflation cancels out age decline for FA players - but not in this case).

Let’s say that he averages around 45% of his FA value in arb money over the next 4 years (20/40/60/70 or something like that).  That is 8.55 per year.  That is a loss of 10.45 mil per year for 4 years or 42 mil for the Angels.

This seems like a very bad deal for them.  Very bad.

They lose over 43 mil in the next 4 years just from losing Kotchman for 4 1/3 years including this year.  They gain nothing for getting into the post-season as they are already nearly a lock.  They increase their chances of winning the pennant by 3% and the WS by 2%.  For that, it cost them 43 mil, although most of that is future money, which is worth maybe 35 mil now.

Sounds like a pretty stupid move by them.  If you asked them if they would fork over 30+ mil in cash to increase their chances of winning the pennant and WS by 2-3%, what do you think they would say?  That is the question they needed to ask themselves.  It took me about 10 minutes to come up with it.

Aren’t they only losing 3 1/3 years of kotchman?

Yes, Braves get 3 1/3 years of Kotchman.

Angels get the value of 2 draft picks assuming Teixiera does not resign with them.

Does Kendry Morales have surplus value? or is a he a replacement level player?  I’m not sure, but if he has value then the Angels can deploy it in 2009.  They don’t get any value of Morales if he’s stuck in AAA and not much if he gets 120 AB or so as a backup.  Of course they could have tried to trade him, though I don’t know what the interest level is on him.

If Kotchman is worth 11 mil per year, then he’s worth about 37 million over 3.3 years.  I think he’s due about 400K the rest of this year, and using 40/60/80 over the next 3, the Braves will pay him about 17 million.  I’m not sure how much the pitcher, Steve Marek, is worth.  He’s not a high level prospect. 3 million maybe?

For this the Angels get 2.5 million in Teixiera equity, draft picks are worth 10 million I think (Victor Wang had this in his CC Sabathia article, but I can’t find it right now)

So the Angels are paying an extra 10 million for improved chances in the playoffs.  Really, that doesn’t sound so bad, I’m stepping away from the ledge.

Kotchman, entering 2008, was a +1 win above average per 162G relative to all hitters.  This year he’s a bit below that, but since he’s young, he might still have a similar forecast as of right now.

Tex was +3 WAA per 162, and he’s hitting right where he should be.

Fans see both as great fielding 1B.  (UZR likes Kotch more than Tex).  Let’s call their glove and position a wash.

Let’s give Tex 80% playing time and Kotch 75%.

Let’s also give Tex 0.5 wins in aging and Kotch 0.4 wins.

Tex’s forecast is split between AL and NL, so let’s make the average player in Kotch’s league +2.5 wins per 162 above replacement, and Tex as +2.25.

Adding up:
Tex = .80 * (+3.0 +1.5 -1.0 +2.25) = 4.6 WAR
Kotch = .75 * (+1.0 +1.5 -1.0 +2.5) = 3.0 WAR

(MGL had a 2 WAR gap, I have 1.6, which is within reasonable estimates.)

Tex should get paid in 2008 4.6*4.4+0.4 = 20.6 and is getting 12.5, so he’s at +8.1MM per 162G.  With one-third of the regular season to pay, that’s 2.7MM of profit for the Angels.  They also get the extra chance of going farther in the playoffs, plus the 10MM value of draft picks.  Total value must be around 20MM to the Angels.

Kotch had 2.144 entering 2008, meaning he’ll be a 3+, 4+, and 5+ player in the next 3 years as an arb player.  He’ll be paid at a 40% discount.  If he were to sign a 3yr deal entering 2009 as a 3 WAR player with 0.4 in aging, he’d be 3/42 as a free agent and 3/26 as an arb player.  That’s a savings of 16MM of value to the Braves starting in 2009.  In 2008, he is worth, for the rest of the season 4.5MM and he’s getting paid about 0.5MM for rest of season, giving the Braves another 4MM in value.  Total value is around 20MM to the Braves.

The Braves also get a minor league player, and I don’t know who that is, or what he is worth.

All-in-all, it seems like a fairly well-balanced trade.  Good job to both the Braves and Angels.

***

(MGL: the improvement on Kotch’s rate stats have to be balanced against his lessening of playing time.  Hard as it is to believe, anyone older than 22 or so will have a decline in their 5-yr stats.  Google Tulo and Win Shares in this blog, and you will see.)

Tango, why are you giving Tex .5 wins in aging and Kotch .4 wins?  Is that per year or just for next year?  Either way, that can’t be right.

Tex is on the downside of the aging curve, and Kotch is on the upside.

Why does Tex get more playing time than Kotch?  Because he is a better player?  Because he is a switch hitter and Kotch would get rested some of the time against lefties?  Wouldn’t a younger player automatically get a little more playing time due to fewer injuries and less need for rest?

Kotchman will have 2.5 years of service at the end of this year, according to Cot’s contracts web site.  At the end of 3 more years, he will have 5.5 years of service.  That qualifies him for FA?  Don’t you have to have at least 6 years at the end of a season to qualify for FA?  Or is that 2.15 years that Cot’s has as of the beginning of the year?  I can’t tell from his “games played” log.

If 2 teams net around zero in terms of dollars of “equity” in a trade, why do you call that “good for both teams?” How about they were “both spinning their wheels, wasting their time, kissing their sister,” etc.?  It is rare for two teams to benefit in a trade, since trades are usually zero sum transactions.  Obviously occasionally they can both benefit because each team may have different needs, but I would guess that that is a relatively rare occurrence (that both teams gain in a trade).

In order to get draft picks when you lose a FA, don’t you have to offer him arbitration first?  How often is this done?  All the time?  How often does a FA accept that arbitration if offered?  Is that always for a one-year contract?  And of course the player has to be a Type A, B, or C to get anything right?  I have never heard of a FA signing with their original team through arbitration.  Has that ever occurred?  Am I reading the rules correctly?

Man, lots of questions! 

Tango, why are you giving Tex .5 wins in aging and Kotch .4 wins?  Is that per year or just for next year?  Either way, that can’t be right.

According to my quick Win Shares Aging Curve:
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/win_shares_aging_curves/#13

If we take a 4.5 WAR player (say a 25 Win Shares player), that guy will average over the next 5 years: 19.5 win shares if he’s 25 years old, and 17.2 win shares if he’s 28 years old.  So, even if you are on the slope upwards rate-wise, your drop in playing time actually puts you on an overall slope downwards overall.

So, I’ve come to use a shorthand of say 0.1 wins at age 24, 0.2 wins at age 25, 0.3 at age 26, 0.4 at age 27, 0.5 at age 28 and older.  For Kotch, that means around 0.4.

Tex is on the downside of the aging curve, and Kotch is on the upside.

Tex is pretty close to the flat part.  They are a bit less than 3 years apart in age. 

Why does Tex get more playing time than Kotch?  Because he is a better player?  Because he is a switch hitter and Kotch would get rested some of the time against lefties?  Wouldn’t a younger player automatically get a little more playing time due to fewer injuries and less need for rest?

Just basic history.  It’s possible that Kotch may deserve more based on his youth, but even this year, Tex has more.

Kotchman will have 2.5 years of service at the end of this year, according to Cot’s contracts web site.  At the end of 3 more years, he will have 5.5 years of service.  That qualifies him for FA?  Don’t you have to have at least 6 years at the end of a season to qualify for FA?  Or is that 2.15 years that Cot’s has as of the beginning of the year?  I can’t tell from his “games played” log.

Entering 2008, Kotch has 2 years 144 days.  So, at the end of this year, he will be 3+ (entering 2009).  4+ entering 2010, and 5+ entering 2011.  Then a free agent.

This is the file to use (post 27):
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php//site/comments/request_mlb_service_time/#27

Bookmark it.

If 2 teams net around zero in terms of dollars of “equity” in a trade, why do you call that “good for both teams?” How about they were “both spinning their wheels, wasting their time, kissing their sister,” etc.?  It is rare for two teams to benefit in a trade, since trades are usually zero sum transactions.  Obviously occasionally they can both benefit because each team may have different needs, but I would guess that that is a relatively rare occurrence (that both teams gain in a trade).

It is a fair trade in equity, except this is a case of trading today for tomorrow.  Most of your chances for the World Series bundled in 2008, or spread out between 2008 and 2011.  That’s the trade.

MGL/52- There is deadline during free agency where if you sign a type A, B, or C player before that deadline, the team that loses the player automatically gets draft picks.  If a free agent is signed after the deadline the team that loses the player only gets picks if they offered arbitration to that player.  I believe arbitration is offered almost all the time and sometimes teams have informal deals where the team and agent agree to have arbitration offered but not accepted by the player (I think the Padres have been noted for doing this a few times).  If a player accepts arbitration, it is always a 1 year contract.  I believe one year Greg Maddux accepted arbitration from the Braves.  The next year I believe the Braves did not offer arbitration because they could not afford it if Maddux accepted again.

Btw, Tex will probably be worth a 5/80 to 5/100 deal in the offseason.  I’ll know better after the season finishes.

Michael Barrett and Todd Walker were both free agents that accepted arbitration, if I recall correctly.

If we take a 4.5 WAR player (say a 25 Win Shares player), that guy will average over the next 5 years: 19.5 win shares if he’s 25 years old, and 17.2 win shares if he’s 28 years old.  So, even if you are on the slope upwards rate-wise, your drop in playing time actually puts you on an overall slope downwards overall.

So, I’ve come to use a shorthand of say 0.1 wins at age 24, 0.2 wins at age 25, 0.3 at age 26, 0.4 at age 27, 0.5 at age 28 and older.  For Kotch, that means around 0.4.

Still makes no sense to me.  Forget about Tex and Kotch.  A 23 year old player will gain like .5 win a year in aging.  A 28 year old player will lose like .25 win a year in aging, maybe more.  How does a 28 yo gain .5 per year?

In fact, I have no idea what you are doing.  You say .1 for a 24 yo?  .1 what?  Why would a younger player get less playing time as he ages and an older player get more playing time?

You may be right about everything, but I have no idea what you are doing or saying when you quote those numbers.

In Kotchman and Tex’s case, there is no doubt that we have to assume that Tex will get worse rate-wise from now on (the only part of the aging curve that is flat is from 26-28), and that Kotchman will get better for at least a year or two and then be pretty flat for the remainder of the 5 years.  That we know.  And that is a pretty bog difference between them in 5 years.

Whether one will see his playing time diminish more or remain less than the other is another story.  I would agree that because Tex is much better and is a switch hitter, he will probably get more playing time going forward.  I would not argue with that for those reasons alone.

My standard aging is an aging loss, not gain.  So, when I say my standard aging, I mean that you need to subtract 0.5 wins each year.

#54-

You’re exactly correct on the arbitration deal. In the case that a team wants their draft picks and doesn’t want to keep a player, can they not just offer something really bad to that player?

Hyltzn.  Well this I know.  If you offer something bad/low in arb, the player will likely win.  In baseball arb, you and the player submit a figure and the arb panel picks one or the other.  Let’s say that a player is worth 10 mil in the arb panel’s estimation.  And let’s say that the player submits 15 mil and the team submits 1 mil.  The player will likely win and get overpaid.  Most sides submit something close and fair in arb.

Now, what I don’t know is that if a team offers arb to a FA, does the player know what $ figure the team is offering before he has to decide whether to accept arb or not? (and are both figs submitted blindly?)

What I also don’t know is if the player accepts arb, can the team and the player then negotiate a one-year or multi-year contract and cancel arb? 

If the player accepts arb, then I assume that he MUST play for that team one way or another.

Ah, yes, I completely forgot about the whole “players submit their own offer” part.

Apparently, the White Sox are going after Griffey Jr. I don’t see how he’d be an improvement at all. I imagine this is to get Paul Konerko out of the lineup, another declining slugger, which would move Griffey to center(Swish to 1st) which would be terrible defensively for the Sox. Not only that, but I imagine Griffey and Konerko have similar projections the rest of the way.

I have Konerko projected at +2 wins on offense, Griffey +1.5. Griffey gets half a win for “playing” center field as a positional bonus, loses about two wins by actually taking the field.

Yeah, this trade is bad. And we don’t even know what the Sox are giving up yet!

Reds fans are holding their breath and hoping this doesn’t fall apart.  #63 isn’t even factoring in Griffey’s pro-rated salary over the past few months.  Assuming that goes with Griffey....wow.

Word ‘round the campfire is that they might get Lance Broadway for him.  A 24-year old pitcher who might work as a #5 starter next year is a better return than I could have imagined.
-j

I also read Brian Anderson’s name being thrown around.

Griffey, entering 2008, was forecast as a +1 win hitter above average per 162G.  This year, he’s a bit worse than expected, and so, he’s probably closer to a true +0.5 win as a hitter.

He’s a horrible fielder, which I top off at -2 wins for fielding and positioning, reasoning that anything worse means he’s a DH.

With a 2 WAR adjustment for playing in the NL, that makes his WAR, per 162G as:
WAR162 = +0.5 -2.0 +2.0 = +0.5

Guys who are +0.5 wins above replacement, per 162 G, are basically one year away from being out of the league.  His salary should be close to 1MM a year.

I cannot fathom any trade that the Whitesox can make that will make this a breakeven trade for them. 

To further compound the error, if they intend to put Griffey in CF, they will have basically thrown millions of dollars down the toilet.

Just wait until MGL has his say… I have no doubt he has Griffey in a worse light than I do.  I’m the optimist here!

Ok, my understanding (still lots of research to do) is that the Reds are sending Griffey + $4 million (the remainder of his 2008 salary) in exchange for two guys who are at best C-level prospects.

So, essentially, the Reds are sending him away to avoid paying his $4 million buyout in 2009.  That $4 million should be worth almost a win on the free agent market.  Griffey would produce no wins above replacement, with the team or off the team, and his option year is worth $16.5 million.  So not paying the option year is the best outcome for the Reds.  That they got two scrubbish players (I know nothing about them) is a bonus.

So, at first blush anyway, this is a win for the Reds.
-Justin

Sal’s QD Marcels spreadsheet gives .256/.343/.461 for Griffey; my Marcels SQL gives .263/.349/.484. So between a .351 - .361 wOBA.

Am I missing something here?

.351 is +8 runs per 700 PA above average, in-line with what I’ve said.

Also chop him down bit for his running.

Playing time?  Sal’s spreadsheet forecasts 654 PA’s (based on ytd usage), which he hasn’t done since 1999.  He’s been healthy so far, but he’s not a sure bet to last the rest of the season.
-j

Griffey is a replacement player no matter how you look at it.  How often does a team make a trade to GET a replacement player?  That HAS to be one dumb*** team.

I have Griffey as +1 above average in offensive production, -4 in baserunning (that is what Tango is missing), and who the heck knows, but probably -20 in CF or -12 in RF AT BEST.

Do any math you want with those numbers or anything close and Griffey is a replacement player.

Tango, while your -20 limit is correct in terms of a player’s REAL value, what if he plays for an NL team?  They have to put him somewhere in the field (assuming a non-pinch hitter).  Also, while YOU may know a player should be a DH (and thus his true value must include a -20 limit on defense), if the team that owns him does not know that or for some other reason does not play him as a DH (such as if they already have a good DH who cannot play in the field), then his value TO THAT TEAM can include more than -20 on defense.

So while there is nothing wrong worth saying that the true (theoretical/optimal) value of a player can never include more than -20 on defense because then he would be a DH, be careful in using that -20 limit when telling people a player’s value in the context of a trade or in the context of a player’s actual value to his team.  If someone wants to know the value of Griffey as a CF’er or a RF’er (isn’t that what people want to know?), your number is going to be too optimistic.
We don’t give Jeter’s value as a CF’er, do we?  Why should we give Griffey’s (or any other player) value as a DH when he is not going to be a DH?

We can have two values for a player.  One, the position he plays or will likely play for his team, and two, his value given the optimal defensive position for him.  You can’t just do that for players who should be DH’s.  You have to do that for ALL players who should be playing another position.

I forgot about his arm, which is a rag at this point in his career (never was great, I don’t think).

That is -3 in CF and -5 in RF.

So our (my actually) most optimistic projection has him as replacement.  That is bad.  Really bad.

Looks like you’re using .338 as average; average OBP this year is .330 in the NL and .333 in the AL. Change that, and I’m still coming up with +13 runs from my projection. The half-win for baserunning is probably what I missed.

I do very rigorous park and opponent adjusted lwts computations.  Here are those, per 630 PA, since 04 for Griffey:

Year, lwts per 630 PA, Actual PA
04 10.4 348
05 35.9 555
06 -3.4 472
07 14.5 623
08* -7.2 351

* Not opponent adjusted

Do a Marcel from these and remember that he is in that steep part (downward of course) of the aging curve.  The regression is toward the mean of a big, left-handed, 39 year old player.

Entering 2008, PA forecast should be 50% of 2007, 10% of 2006, plus 200.  If someone has 700 PA in back to back years, then he has a forecast of 620 PA.  That’s pretty much the limit really.

***

Colin/73: Ideally, you need to baseline the player’s performance to the average of each year.  So, Marcel’s forecast entering 2008 for the average player was a wOBA of around .338.

You also need to remove pitchers, which I imagine you did not.

Anyway, you need to compare Junior’s current performance to the average in his league (sans pitchers), give it the appropriate weight, and include his pre-season Marcel.  All-in-all, pretty close to +0.5 or so.  As MGL said, include his baserunning, and he’s an average offensive player.

MGL: he should also be playing 1B, and I’d have to think he would not be worse than Frank Thomas (at his peak), and even Frankie was limited in his damage at 1B.  Notwithstanding this point, I agree with your main point.

MGL data in post 74 implies a weighted +10 runs per 630 PA (without regression).  That is, you weight his 2008 at 100% (meaning n=351) and his 2007 at 80% (meaning n=498) and so on.  That’s +10 per 630 PA.

The total weight is n=1578.  You add n=200 of league average performance, and now his regressed performance is +9 per 630 PA.

Furthermore, he is old.  You further regress his performance understanding that he’s in a slope downwards.  That’s probably another 3 runs right there, making his new forecast as +6 per 630 PA.

Add in his baserunning, and he’s pretty much a league average hitter according to MGL.  As I said, my quick estimate was +0.5 wins as a hitter.

Question about free agent compensation, following on the discussion in #52, #54, and #60…

Griffey’s contract has an option for 2009, and therefore the White Sox will (you would think) buy that out at $4 million this offseason.  So that’s a loss for the White Sox.

However, if they buy out the contract, will they also get the opportunity to offer arbitration and therefore get the free agent compensation?  Griffey qualified as a class-A free agent last year according to Elias’s widsom (though not by much--click my name for link).  But if he’s a class-A free agent again this offseason, then the free agent picks would be carry the $10 million value discussed above.  The Sox negate a fair bit of that with a signing bonus (right?), but it might help the Sox’s cause here… -j

Pitchers were removed. You can look at what I did on my blog (click on name for link). Full SQL is posted.

I have Griffey as a -.3 WAR (baserunning into account) player per 162. Maybe I’m weighing his current performance too heavily.

Also, the two teams are splitting the contract for this season, and the buyout clause for next season. So the White Sox are paying an extra, unnecessary $4 mil ($2 mil for the rest of this season, and $2 mil for his buyout clause), while the Reds are saving themselves $4 mil.

Colin,

Good job.  I didn’t do a code inspection, but it didn’t look like you (or Sal I suppose) forecasted the PA correctly.  As I said, it’s 50% of previous year, 10% of two years ago, plus 200.

Also, I told Sal that I thought using “EXP” was a mistake.  Who in the world knows what EXP (x) would represent, other than x=0 and x=1?  0.9994^daysAgo is far cleaner and more intuitive.  To me, anyway, as a layperson.  Not to mention that it’s easier to understand too.

Anyway, if you intend to keep working on the Marcels like this, I may have to simply just donate my code at some point.  So keep it up, and we’ll see what gives.

77- I’m pretty sure they can still offer arbitration.  However, I’m not sure you would want to give them the full $10 million value of draft picks since we aren’t quite sure if Griffey will still be a type A and the White Sox might not want to offer Griffey arbitration since if he accepted they would probably have to pay him something around $12 million.

Arbitration can definitely be offered to players after club options are declined.

However, Griffey is very clearly a tricky player to offer arbitration to.  As has been pointed out no team should give up a pick for a near replacement level player, but then no team should trade for one either.  It just takes one.

From a compensation perspective it might be best for Chicago if he actually slipped from Type A to Type B.  The upside is one fewer pick, but a potential signing team no longer has to give up a pick for a poor player.  It’s also true that many type B FAs agree not to accept arbitration if offered and therefore guarantee that comp pick when they leave. 

That could definitely be the case here where Griffey might be willing to do that as “thank you” for a shot at the playoffs.

The “correct” way to project PAs, as I understand it, is:

CREATE TABLE player_PA
AS
SELECT b1.playerID
, ROUND( b1.PA * .5 + b2.PA * .1 + 200 ) AS PA
FROM ( SELECT playerID, SUM(AB+BB+HBP+SH+SF) AS PA from bdb.batting WHERE yearID = 2007 GROUP BY playerID) b1
, ( SELECT playerID, SUM(AB+BB+HBP+SH+SF) AS PA from bdb.batting WHERE yearID = 2006 GROUP BY playerID) b2
WHERE b1.playerID = b2.playerID
GROUP BY playerID;

(I first implemented the Marcels for 2008 using only the 2005-2007 stats, to see if I was doing it right. Everything was essentially in agreement - a hit or PA here or there difference.)

Unfortunately, that gives me PAs per 162 games, which isn’t what I need. I suppose I could do:

.5(2008_PA / 106 * 162) + .1(2007_PA) + 200

And then prorate that out to the remaining games. (106 being however many games you were into the season.) Has anyone ever told you that you have an awfully clever monkey?

And I can change the weight formula to:

POW(0.9994,(2008-yearID)*365) AS weight

I think I’d also have to change the regression PAs to 240 - I really have no idea where 213 comes from to begin with.

It’s really no skin off my back either way; I really don’t understand why .9994 instead of .9995 or .9993 or what have you, so I don’t have a dog in this fight at all. Add in a reliability column, and I think I pretty much have everything covered.

Well, except for one thing - I know you say to rebaseline everything to the projected average at the end. Wouldn’t it make more sense to do that before running the projection? That saves you the trouble of having to figure a league mean for every player you want to project as well.

Doing this quick:

Jason Bay entering 2008 was estimated as being a bit below a +2 WAA hitter.  He’s exceeded his forecasts, so he’s probably around a +2 WAA hitter per 162G.

The Fans thought he was a bit above average as a corner OF through 06, and was below average in 07.  UZR concurs exactly.  (Great job fans!  See, to UZR, all of these are samples.  But, if UZR knew that the fans actually estimated a 15 run decline in his ability, UZR would give a far better estimate.) Presuming he’s over whatever injury he had, he’s probably a bit above average as a fielder in the corners, which would make him overall average for fielding+position.

Giving him 85% playing time, and we have:

WAR = .85 * (+2.0 +0.0 +2.0) = 3.4 WAR

Fabulous.  Entering 2009, he will be a 5+ player, meaning that’s it.  One last season before free agency.  He’s owed 7.5MM for 2009 and 1.9 for the rest of 2008.  That’s 9.4MM of salary.

Dude is worth around 1.1 WAR for the rest of 2008 and 2.9 WAR for 2009, for a total of 4.0 WAR, which should cost a bit over 19MM.

That’s a 10MM value that the Redsox obtained from Jason Bay being underpaid.

What did we say Manny was worth?  2.5 WAR?  That leaves him as 0.8 WAR for the rest of the season at almost 4MM of value.  He was being paid almost 7MM for the rest of the season.

In this case, the Sox traded something worth 4MM for something worth 19MM.  So, they obtained 15MM of value here.

The cost however is Bay’s 9.4MM of salary plus Manny’s 7MM of salary, for a total of over 16MM of salary.

So, a straight up Bay for Manny, with the Sox picking up the entirety of Manny’s contract would have been a fair trade.  The Sox threw in prospects because of Manny’s peripherals.

***

From the Dodgers side, they get a 4MM property that is mortgage free.  For that, they give up prospects.  I have to believe that Andy Laroche is worth more than 4MM.

So, if the Sox took a bit of a hit, and the Dodgers took a bit of a hit, then it’s the Pirates that must have made out real good here.

Funny how you can do the analysis in 5 minutes yet teams spend hours on end discussing trades that when the smoke clears are bad for them (Dodgers).  As I said, there are probably not 5 teams that “know” that Manny is only worth 2.5 WAR.  IF the other 25 teams even knew what WAR was and what it exactly means, by guess is that they have him valued at around 4-5 wins.

Boston I am pretty sure did the same (or a similar) analysis, but they got rid of Manny for other reasons and got the best they thought they could in return.

Of course, if they don’t make the post-season, I am pretty sure that the fans will blame it on getting rid of Manny.  I hope that Epstein does not turn out to be the fall guy for that like Depodesta and the LoDuca (and other) trade(s).

When you win one World Series after not winning one for 86 years, you get a 10 year pass on anything you do.  When you win 2 WS, you’ve been given a lifetime pass.

Then again, (many) Redsox fans are (now) so thin-skinned that they will make sure to give a good kick in the a$$ to anyone they don’t like any more (Pedro, Manny, anybody really), no matter what they’ve done for them.

I sure hope Cub fans don’t become like that when they finally win one.

As for the quick analysis: I would encourage more people to do it this way.

Too often, I see analysis that falls into two camps:
1. Giving conclusions without presenting the evidence.  “I think it’s a good deal, because...” Those are basically b.s. analysis.  You’ve decided on a conclusion and look at half the picture.  I skip over such posts.

2. Go through so many mathematical gymnastics that your head is spinning by the time you reach the end, that you have no idea which way the conclusion will go, and you have to accept the summary on faith.  I skip over such posts.

I’m not saying that my way is the best way, but at the least, I don’t subject you to cr-p, and I allow you to insert your own expectations if you don’t agree with some part (like Manny’s fielding or Bay’s hitting) that the conclusion can change, but that YOU are the one that is making it change, legitimately.

And even if you think I do subject you to cr-p, it’s honest and quick.

re: Tango #84

Great analysis; always helpful to see a quick intelligent view of the trade (particularly after listening to NY talk radio). But, I think you have one error from the Sox perspective: you shouldn’t factor in the $7mm of Manny’s salary. That’s a sunk cost - they would’ve paid it whether or not they made the trade. The only new financial obligation they’re taking on is the $9.4mm for Bay. So, the math should be $15mm - 9.4 = $5.6mm. So, about $5.5 million vs. the value of Hansen and Moss.

Good point.  They are paying an extra 9.4MM for an extra 3.2 WAR (or an extra 15MM of property value).

So, for their 5MM+ of savings they had to lose prospects.

Great, thanks for the correction.

People really overvalue Manny’s defense. I posted something similar to the analysis that you did at a forumm and people were saying I was overanalyzing and rationalizing, along with telling me that I was overvaluing defense.

I had Manny as 3 WAR per 162, and just straight up 2.7 WAR given his playing time. I wasn’t too far off.

I’ve got pitcher Marcels available now as well:

http://otherfifteen.blogspot.com/2008/08/2008-pitcher-marcels.html

It will be interesting to see what the UZR’s are for Manny in Dodger stadium (and beyond) and what the reaction to these numbers will be from the Sox fans who have always claimed that his poor numbers are the result of the monster.

Why would the Dodger UZR’s be any different (more or less) from Manny’s road UZR’s over the last 5 years?  Anytime I hear that Manny is not a bad fielder - that his fielding metrics are distorted by Fenway, I simply point to his road fielding metrics!  We got plenty of those.  We don’t need to wait another 5 years (he probably won’t last that long anyway) at Dodger Stadium. People seem to forget that players play half their games away from their home park. If Manny were even close to average away from Fenway (which he ain’t) then maybe we could discuss his defense…

MGL, what have been Manny’s UZRs at home?

I don’t have the numbers handy with me, but he has been quite a bit worse at home, even with park adjustments, but I don’t do the park adjustments in Fenway very well.

But on the road, IIRC (again, I don’t have the numbers in front of me), he has been like -12 to -15 (per 150 games) or something like that.

I’ll check though.

OK, Manny on the road:

07 -15 (per 150) in 51 games
06 -28 (per 150) in 48 games
05 -11 (per 150) in 80 games
04 -15 (per 150) in 51 games

Total of -17 per 150 in 230 games.

Please pass this on to all those who think that the metrics are only bad on Manny because of Fenway. He is a really bad fielder (most likely).  Period.

Thanks. Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

I’ve always said that that if we don’t trust park adjustments and/or if we think that a park affects a player in a peculiar way, if we have a lot of data on a player, why not just look at their road stats?

That is not to say that a player should not get credit or get docked for however his home park affects him, but if we are trying to determine some kind of context-neutral talent, why not look at road data if there is enough to create a decent-sized sample.

Is the $7 million not used in the trade valuation?  There’s an ongoing debate in the office about whether or not the $7 million should be counted against the Red Sox or whether it’s a sunk cost and thrown out.  Someone enlighten me…

You look at the deltas.

The Redsox payroll commitment has gone up by 9.4MM dollars for 2008/09 for all the players involved.  And for that they get Bay in 2009 (the Bay in 2008 is basically a wash for Manny in 2008).

The cool thing for the Sox is that they probably would not have offered Manny arbitration, for fear that he might actually accept.  And so, with this trade, they were able to monetize that by getting a player who was fairly underpaid.

Not to mention that Bay himself will come with 2 draft picks post 09 as well.

Pretty sweet on the Sox part.