THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I was thinking 160/8… not what I’m projecting his performance to be worth, just what I think he’ll get based on his agent and the precedent of Barry Zito. oh mr. Zito…

How close did we get with A-Rod?

6 years 140

The current average after 59 (or 54) votes is: 6.3/142, 22.5MM per year.

***

The ARod thread:
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/vote_how_much_for_arod/

Where I wrote:

Ok, after 99 votes, you guys think:

7.4 yrs @ 31.5 = 233MM

This means either a 7/221 or 8/252 deal.

He signed 10/275, plus bonus money.  So, we were definitely at the low-end.  Only 8.9% of the voters had him at 10 years (none had him greater).

When you have a rare commodity that is valuable and lots of people/entities want, you have to assume that it will be purchased at an irrational price in an auction.  So if the guesses are too rational, they will be too low.

#5 generally true. However, as far as I remember, no one but the Yankees made an offer to ARod.

Same thing with his first big contract in Texas.

Other bidders?  Scott Boras doesn’t need an stinkin other bidders!

Great point guys!  Zito, Kevin Brown, Mike Hampton, and the list goes on and on and on…

***

After 80+ votes: 6.2/141, for an annual salary of $22.7MM. 

Knocking out the bottom and top 10%, and we get the same results.  So, look for a 6/136 to 7/159 deal.

The odds of that is about two-thirds.  That is, two-thirds of respondents voted for 6 or 7 years, with a total value of 130 to 160 million$.

***

BP readers: http://baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=1104

6/144, $24MM

Looks like everyone is in the ballpark here…

After 100+ votes: no change.

I agree with MGL’s #5, which is why I voted for 8 years, 180 million.  Players signing a year before free agency, like Santana last year, seem to get rational contracts.  The top free agents in open bidding tend to get contracts that will shock us, at least for awhile.  Then the market catches up to them and it’s no big deal.

A kid just getting into baseball today, looking back on Kevin Brown’s 7 year, 105 million dollar deal, will wonder what the big deal is.  Soriano’s 8 year, 136 million is no biggie today.

Zito and Hampton stick out because they have been so terrible at pitching, if they even were able to put up decent seasons their contracts would quickly lose any notice (moral of the story - do not offer megabucks to a lefty starter who can’t do any better than a 151-99 K/W ratio.)

And if we go a long way back in time, when hearing about the “100,000 infield”, it’s hard to stop for laughing.  How did they get ballplayers to play for so little?  You can’t even run the night shift at McDonalds for 100K a year anymore.  Not to mention that some of us have passed and others are coming close to being the “100K office worker surfing baseball sites”

I think this survey would be better if you asked for mil/year and years as opposed to total value and years. Total value and years are not orthagonal parameters.

Just my .02

Matt

I don’t necessarily disagree.

On the other hand, when 90% of the respondents are answering 5,6,or 7 years, then it really wouldn’t matter, would it?

You can have say:
5x21=105
6x23=138
7x25=175

And the average if you ask for years and annual salary is 6x23.  And if you ask for years and total salary, it’s 6/139.

You get virtually the same number.

You’d have to come up with some pretty extreme numbers so that it wouldn’t work out the same.  And the data in the poll certainly doesn’t show anything like that.

We are looking pretty good with the guess (from ESPN):

As expected Friday, the New York Yankees officially tendered an offer to free-agent pitcher CC Sabathia.

The offer is expected to be six years in length and have a total value of slightly more than the record $137.5 million deal that pitcher Johan Santana signed with the Mets before last season.

After 129 votes: 6.3/141, 22.4MM/yr

That makes it a 6/135 or 7/157 deal.

From MLB.com via Shysterball:

“The Yankees made a record-breaking six-year, $140 million offer to free-agent starter CC Sabathia on Friday as the first part of their plan to overhaul their starting rotation, Hal Steinbrenner, one of the team’s co-chairmen, confirmed.”

Pretty close there.

We called the first offer, but I still think what he actually winds up signing for will blow us away.  The Yankees are prepared to offer more.  They know it, CC knows it, and Boras knows it.

Rally/10--

What about the contract Vernon Wells signed after the 2006 season (7/$126)? While it doesn’t fit in the Hampton/Zito category, it’s not looking too good right now.

Middle relievers have been the same way recently. The O’s gave Bradford $10.5M over 3, the Mets gave Schoeneweis virtually the same thing, and the O’s also gave Jamie Walker 3/$12 (wow has that blown up in their face). Linebrink got 3/$19 last season because he’s better than those three above, and now when Damaso Marte signs for 3/$12 it’s just the going rate. What used to be ridiculous soon becomes the norm.

7/160
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2008/12/10/2008-12-10_cc_sabathia_deal_with_yankees_includes_o.html

We said:

After 129 votes: 6.3/141, 22.4MM/yr

That makes it a 6/135 or 7/157 deal.

Nice!

Tom, what do you have CC as?

If I
- call CC a .625 pitcher, with a .380 replacement level, and 23.5 “complete” games in 2009, and then
- use the Rule of 10 (drop winning percentage by 10 points, drop IP by 10%) for each year, and
- apply the 4.84MM$/win and increase by the 10% inflation rate each year, I get this:

Year WAR Salary
2009 5.8 28
2010 5.0 27
2011 4.2 25
2012 3.5 23
2013 2.9 21
2014 2.3 18
2015 1.7 15

That total is 25.4 WAR, and 158MM$ for 7 years.

BINGO.

It isn’t really close to a 7/160 deal.  He’s going to opt out after three years the majority of the time that he’s healthy.

Tango, what exactly does .625 mean? You use this often, and I’m not really sure what it translates to. I asked this on fangraphs but realized it wasn’t exactly on topic so I said to ignore it.

From 2005-2008, among pitchers with at least 800 IP, the best pitchers were probably: Santana, Halladay, Webb, Oswalt, CC, who had a total of 329 wins and 172 losses (sounds like Clemens’ career!).  That’s a .657 win%. 

Apply a little regression, say about 20% toward .500, and you get .626.  So, I’m calling him a .625 pitcher.

Does that answer your question?

That sounds extremely simple, and is a little unsettling. Everyone on that list played for a below-average offense, except for maybe CC, I think. I always thought it had something to do with a WAR calculation, not pitcher win-loss records.

It doesn’t. It’s just a way to express a pitcher’s skill level in terms that everyone can understand. I believe that’s one of the reasons why Tom uses Win%, though there might be some other, technical reasons as to why he does.

Does someone with a better feel for free agency than I have know how much an option like the one reported to be in Sabathia’s contract costs? I don’t think the full details aren’t out yet but Cot’s reports than the first 3/69 are guaranteed and Sabathia has an option after 2011 for the last 4/92.

Let’s suppose for simplicity that in 2011 he has one shot to cancel his contract or keep it. If he had told the Yankees, “Hey I don’t want that option, but I’d like to be paid more in return,” how many more dollars do you guys think Sabathia a) would have b) should have picked up?

If it’s easier to work with a concrete example, maybe look at K-Rod and his contract, which appears to be 3/37 plus a club option on 1/14. How much less would/should he have gotten if the Mets instead gave him a 3 or 4 year guaranteed contract instead?

Also can you guys think offhand of a recent example of a player who exercised an opt-out and ended up signing a contract that was clearly worse than the one he was previously under?

Right, I’m using their ERA and FIP and whatnot, and then expressing things in terms of win%.

We KNOW the EXACT baseline for win%: .500 is average.  What does an ERA of 3.3 mean?  Well, it means nothing unless you also happen to know if the context is a league of 4.1 or 4.3 or 4.8, etc, etc.