The Market
I want to address the issue of market value that seems to be coming up a lot lately. There seems to be a school of thought that MLB is a captialist ideal where each player’s actual value is determined by what the top bidder is willing to pay for his services. The comment “Player X is worth his salary because that’s what the market is.” is idealistic crap. Using a free market ideology to justify huge contracts for non-superstar players is flawed thinking.
The baseball market is a zero sum game. Because the 30 franchises each have 25 roster spots, all major league players are competing for one of 750 jobs. Every time a player who is not one of the 750 best available gets a job, someone gets bumped to Triple-A who has major league skills. Financially, it works the same way. MLB as an entity spends about $3.1 billion per year on player salaries. Those dollars aren’t evenly distributed throughout the franchises, however, that is still the total pie that must be divided 750 ways.
A player’s actual value, of course, comes from his performance on the field. In a perfect market, the best players would get the most money and it would continue on down to the fringe major league types making the league minimum. However, as we all know, MLB is not a perfect market. There are inefficincies that can be exploited for a competitive advantage.
The late Doug Pappas invented a system he called Marginal Wins, which basically holds that a team of players making the league minimum plucked out of Triple-A could win about 50 games in a season. Therefore, what teams are actually paying for are wins above 50, the theoretical replacement level performance of a team of fringe players. He published a slew of essays for Baseball Prospectus on the topic, and they’re worth reading if you haven’t already. I’ll skip the details and just move on to the summary, for brevity sake.
Essentially, most winning teams pay approximately $1.5-$2 million per Marginal Win as a whole (the 2004 Mariners paid about $5 million per marginal win). If you have a higher payroll, you can afford to pay a bit more for the marginal wins to reduce risk. A team like Tampa may have a good marginal win/dollar ratio, but that’s because they haven’t spent enough to be competitive. The goal, obviously, is wins, not optimal win/dollar spending. However, a team that spends its money efficiently is going to win more than a team that doesn’t, given equal payrolls.
This is the problem a lot of us have with the signings of players like Delgado, Sexson, Koskie, Glaus, Ortiz, Wright, Pavano, Vizquel, etc… The market in the 2004 free agent period is severely out of touch with intelligent spending. The difference in performance between most of the free agents and what can be obtained for a fraction of the cost simply does not support the dollars being paid out to these players. The middle class of baseball has become extremely overpriced.
Because of the way the system is setup for players who do not have service time to qualify for 5th year arbitration or free agency, the big values among the players belong to that group. It is a unique advantage for a team to get premium performance for small dollar amounts, giving themselves the ability to spend a bulk of their payroll on star players. However, a weird reaction to the Alex Rodriguez contract has caused the price of superstar players to fall while shifting that surplus money to average or slightly above average players. This is a market inefficiency and one that can be exploited.
Currently, the optimal roster construction would be a collection of highly paid, elite players surrounded by a roster of pre-arbitration eligible role players. The system is designed to reward teams who develop prodcutive players from within the organization. Attempting to build a roster through free agency, paying “what the market will bear”, is a great way to spend a lot of money on a bad team.
People criticize us for saying that we can never be pleased, no matter how good a player the Mariners sign. This is pretty obviously not true, as the feed on Saturday will be one giant party if Adrian Beltre is signed by then. However, it goes to a point; the Mariners have consistently struggled at filling out the roster from the two tiers of players that return value; unique superstar talents that cannot be replaced and homegrown players producing in their pre-arbitration seasons.
Spending $12 million per season on Richie Sexson simply continues that tradition. Even ignoring the risks surrounding his injury (which is fool hardy, but is another post all together), his expected performance from 30-33 will not put him in the superstar elite class. He’s going to be a good player making great player money, returning less marginal wins than should be expected from a player with his contract.
I realize a large majority of the fan base are just happy that we’re spending money. However, unspent money still has value. The choices are not Free Agent A or Free Agent B for whatever the top bidder is willing to pay. There are hundreds of options available, and limiting ourselves to a Sexson/Delgado comparison is missing the big picture.
Comments
102 Responses to “The Market”
Dave,
Could you give a list of 15-25 players you consider “upper class” players? You mention a list of “middle class” players including, some of which I’d agree with, and a couple of which I don’t. I’m just curious to see who you consider the tip-top best players in MLB are…
What I just don’t get is, this team is so obviously outclassed by the likes of the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels (the list goes on)…that handcuffing this team with Sexson/Delgado contracts for the next 3-4 years is just plain stupid. Spend a little more…get Beltran and Beltre, who play positions you NEED. The tickets you sell will offset the difference between what you give Sexson/Delgado and what Beltre/Beltran will demand.
This team needs an overhaul, not a bandaid.
More specifically, how is a player like Delgado, who’s posted several MVP-caliber seasons, considered a middle class player? Or do you classify him that way because he’s getting up in years?
Well, I would consider him middle class player, because by the time he gets into the latter half of his contract, I would doubt he’d still be putting up MVP-caliber seasons.
Fantastic post, Dave. Thanks as always.
I usually enjoy your posts a lot. But this one, I only have one comment. You said “People criticize us for saying that we can never be pleased, no matter how good a player the Mariners sign. This is pretty obviously not true”.
It is not true? Are you guys ever happy of any signing?
If Mariners go after Beltran and pay him as he demands, that is over paying him. If they don’t overpay anyone and end up not landing anyone, that is wrong also. So I just like to know what can they do to make you happy? Is it to get everyone from your forecast list?
I think at some point being critical helps the team to grow. And at others, it is just getting old.
Excellent post. I can’t speak for anyone else, but personally I’m far more bothered by inefficient use of funds than a non-use of funds. That the A’s take the division from the M’s year after year doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the fact they do it with far less payroll. I’ll support a losing team, but not a stupid one.
The M’s are a business, and I respect that. Only one team wins the WS each year, and only 8 get into the playoffs. You can’t expect to be in the WS every year, even if you’re the Yankees. But if you’re in the top eight in terms of payroll, you should at least be in contention for the playoffs every year. If you aren’t, you’re not doing a good job of running your business compared to your peers; if you don’t even manage a winning season, you’re doing a terrible job.
There is also the issue of the defensive spectrum…a player who can handle a challenging defensive position and hit like Delgado would be an elite player but good hitters who can only play a less challenging position like 1B are easier to find.
Sure. For me, these are what I would consider to be the 20 best players in baseball right now, and in a perfect market, would be the 20 highest paid players as well. They are not really in order.
Barry Bonds
Alex Rodriguez
Albert Pujols
Jim Edmonds
Scott Rolen
Vladimir Guerrero
Manny Ramirez
Lance Berkman
Todd Helton
Adrian Beltre
Eric Chavez
Ivan Rodriguez
Carlos Beltran
Bobby Abreu
Johan Santana
Randy Johnson
Curt Schilling
Ben Sheets
Jason Schmidt
Mark Prior
There’s a few other guys you could make arugments for. Miguel Tejada, if you believe his 2004 was legit. Roger Clemens, if he doesn’t retire and continues to defy age. A healthy Roy Halladay, maybe. Jim Thome or David Ortiz? Maybe. But, in general, I think it’s pretty clear that the current incarnations of Delgado/Sexson cannot be put in that class.
KJR says its a done deal w/ Sexson
Dave,
You state that “unspent money still has value”. Please clarify this: Do you mean in the sense of investment in team advertising, the stadium, the stock market? Any examples would be useful, because on the surface I do not agree, at least not in the M’s case where lack of funds for salaries is not currently a large concern.
Thanks for the list. I think my list would look pretty much identical…I guess I’d just include Delgado somewhere there – I don’t consider as a down year for him. He hit for average and power and production in the second half, after a struggling, injury-plagued first half.
I like your list.
(1) If Boras askes 10 years, 200 million for Beltran and min 7 years, 90 million for Beltre – is it worth it? We have seen such huge contracts bite many teams in the last few years.
(2) I realize a large majority of the fan base are just happy that we’re spending money
I dont think this is true. If the M’s decide to pay 4 years, 50 million for getting Pedro now (add to that a non-MRI in the physical), I dont think many will be happy. Also not many will be happy with signing Omar Vizquel at 37 for a lot of $$.
Melvin Mora, maybe? Mark Loretta, if you believe last season?
I was referring to unspent money in the free agent arena. The Brewers essentially got Carlos Lee for free yesterday because they were willing to take the $15 million he’s due the next two years. Any team with $20 million in free payroll could have had Manny Ramirez last offseason. Spending money on the current crop of free agents, simply because those are the players currently available, is not wise. It is better to take a pass on giving a bad contract to someone and wait for the right opportunity to acquire another player than it is to simply make a move.
Every dollar and roster spot that is spent poorly by the opposition automatically creates an undervalued player somewhere else. The key is to realize when a player becomes overvalued, and then find out which player is getting the short shaft because of it.
I’m not Dave but I know the answer: Delgado’s not a middle class player right now, necessarily, but he probably will be half way through his 4 year contract. Anyway, Dave, incidental to this line of thinking is the complete lack of creativity shown by the Ms. Why are they seemingly fixated on 3 guys? Are they actually pursuing other avenues, even though we don’t hear anything about it?
Unspent money stil has value if it allows you to pick up a good player in July. Alas, the M’s never do. Likewise, unspent money has value if it enables you to make an offer you otherwise couldn’t in the following year. Which has more value: the millions tied up in Crillo’s contract, or those same millions available to dangle for Beltre?
I don’t see how anyone can suggest that people here will “never be happy” when they continuously give examples of what would make them happy. And examples of deals other teams make that they think were good.
Now, I agree that, in principle, the “neveer be happy” thing is epidemic on the internet… I just don’t see that it applies here.
I do think sometimes everyone will make market corrections. A deal that may seem like a bad idea one week may seem good the next, given new market information.
And I have read many, many posts here this offseason praising Bavasi for his patience and his judgement so far. Praising the deals that he doesn’t make is as good as praising the deals that he does.
Two responses RE: No. 6. It’s just not true that Dave is impossible to please.
First, he always praises the M’s when they make moves he likes. The Garcia trade is a prime example: (http://ussmariner.com/index.php?p=1482)
Second, if he seems pessimistic, maybe it’s because the team did basically the opposite of what Dave laid out as a wise course of action last year (http://ussmariner.com/index.php?p=2039) It’s not Dave’s fault if he says “these are the moves I would like, these are the moves I would hate,” and then the team does the latter.
Are there folks that are impossible to please? Sure. But not the USSM guys.
#13
1) Beltran won’t get 10/$200….and I would give Beltre 7/$90 right now.
2) The Mariners have holes to fill and one of them ISN’T 1B/DH. It’s inconceivable to me that they might spend $108m for 4 years of Sexson/Delgado, but most likely WON’T spend $210m for 7-8 years of Beltran/Beltre. It doesn’t make sense. You will get more production in the next 3-4 years out of Beltre/Beltran AND, get this, STILL have them both, in their late 20′s/early 30′s.
re 16
Let me add: Delgado is likely to be a middle class player during the latter part of his contract. AND…..those are the years that the Ms are more likely to compete and need the extra flexibility.
Also…
Given that the M’s FO is STILL making stupid mistakes…the critiquing is getting old AND is being constructive. Heh.
Phelps was just DFA’d. He would be a good, cheap pickup.
#19: So what makes you think that Beltran is going to settle for/sign a 7/$90 deal right now?
I think the biggest problem is that M’s fans assume that the M’s could offer “X” player “Y” contract and that they’d sign it yesterday.
Like the top 20 list, but would take out Edmonds and add Ichiro!
Dave,
Excellent post. That is why I have become such a big fan of this site. There is virtually no hope of ever getting this analysis from one of the main stream papers. I believe that high praise is always justified when you and your mates produce such good work.
I agree with almost everything in the post – except the contention that the Mariners have never played the system right. We had Griffey and A-Rod and Randy and Edgar during their cheap years and did quite well. We just never replaced them with new stars from our minor league system.
Now we are paying for it, literally.
This post will probably be pretty unclear, because there are a lot of things about this particular market that I just don’t know enough about to make definitive judgments.
I’ll readily admit that I know absolutely nothing about the percent of a team’s revenue that’s generally spent on player salaries. However, is it possible to view the more player-friendly market as either A) the players getting a piece of the increased ratings MLB saw this year, or B) the players demanding and receiving a larger portion of revenue? I ask because from a labor perspective, obviously, this market is a huge plus. While this doesn’t justify a team we all love making a stupid signing when viewed against the larger market, I think there’s a pretty reasonable argument to be made that the players deserve as high a percentage of MLB’s revenue as they can possibly get. This is especially true if the rumors that last year’s “reasonable” market was a result of collusion on the part of upper management have any validity.
If it’s the case (and I don’t know if it is or not) that several teams are making sizeable profits while refusing to spend a whole lot of money (the Mariners come to mind rather quickly), then a labor market that demands they spend more to remain competitive seems to me to be a positive. This, of course, assumes that the current market is an accurate reflection of the players’ value in relation to the revenue they generate for MLB.
If the market forces the Ms to pay $12 million for a pretty good player, that contract shouldn’t be viewed as unreasonable because it takes up a huge chunk of what the Ms WANT to spend. It’s only unreasonable if it takes a disproportionate amount of what the Ms can AFFORD.
For me, it comes down to a pretty simple question. Will the teams “forced” to sign these seemingly-huge contracts still be profitable after putting up the money it takes to be competitive in this market?
If so, then I say mahzel tov to the players for getting what they deserve for their services.
If not, then shame on the owners for their stupidity.
#16 I don’t think we can say a complete lack of creativity at this point, to me this is really Bavasis first off season. It was certainly true in the past but I am taking a wait & see approach right now, And I have to say I like what I have seen ( or havn’t seen) so far. We have not jumped on the bad contract/middle of the road player so far and we seem to be pursuing several angles. It’s just a gut feeling but I feel like Bavasi has been playing possum a little and has been working some backup plans as well. At any rate I certainly prefer what’s going on now as opposed to past years where it was obvious what the M’s would do or the would do absolutely nothing.
#22, he said Beltre for 7/90, which is the rumored demand.
Isn’t there an inherent problem with this system of thought? If all teams played by the ‘correct’ rules, and ‘correctly’ valued free agents, all teams would arrive at an almost identical amount to offer. Is the ‘correct’ way for teams to handle this situation to simply than allow the free agent to choose between the equal contract offers? Or, isn’t it more likely (but is it ‘correct’?) that teams will begin to bump up their offers above the original, fairly-valued offers? But, what does this result actually mean? If there are 5 teams who are willing to pay x dollars for the services of player y, is the original fairly-valued offer actually correct? Based purely on ‘statistics’ perhaps. But based on the market? Now, in the case of a team bidding against itself, the result will always be ridiculous.
I have a small issue with this statement:
A player’s actual value, of course, comes from his performance on the field.
I think this is also a bit idealistic. I would claim that a players value to the team is more about their ability to get fans to come to the games, buy merchandise, watch the games on TV, etc… than it is about on the field performance. The 2 are clearly correlated, but they are not identical. I think this sometimes causes teams to favor well-known names over less well known ones who might perform marginally better.
Seems to me that if you’re going to get value for a middle-class player in this year’s “market”, you should get it in the form of a 1-year contract: Garciaparra ($8M), Woody Williams ($3.5M), Hidalgo ($5M). Tough to go wrong with those deals.
You underestimate the fan base if you really think that most are just happy the M’s are throwing money around.
Not only can baseball overall be viewed as zero sum, each individual team is, too. All teams have to try to put the best team together based on their limited resources. Spending too much on one player takes up dollars that aren’t available elsewhere. The 1997 M’s were a classic example. As soon as the M’s traded away multiple prospects (on the cusp of cheap major league production) for three extremely overpriced relievers, it was obvious the M’s weren’t going to have enough quality minimum wage players around in the coming years to be able to afford to extend Randy Johnson’s contract. Those trade deadline deals back then sealed the Big Unit’s fate. So signing Sexson and Delgado at “market” prices (or Beltre and Beltran, for that matter), won’t mean much if the M’s don’t plan well elsewhere. As I’ve commented before, signing two producers won’t mean as much if you have to let two go to pay for them, unless, of course, you already had enough to begin with (the M’s are now at least three big bats away from a full bag).
KJR says Sexson’s been spotted in town, likely for a physical. Looks like the nightmare is true. I feel like the deal will turn out bad (Sexson will get reinjured or won’t produce like he has…and then Lincoln will say “Hey, we were facing pressure from the fans on this one. They forced us to overspend our boundary, and now look what happened. See? Spending doesn’t work!”
I think the biggest problem with attributing signings to “what the market will bear” is that players sign contracts in a market that differs from year to year. This is why you have A-Rod signing for $25 million a year and Vlad signing for 15 per. The only way that signings will accurately reflect the market would be if a CBA negotiated price brackets for various performance levels, and no contract could extend past the length of the agreement.
As it is, players benefit or suffer from the completely unpredictable nature of “the market” as it happens to exist when their contract expires. That’s why A-Rod’s salary is 66.6% higher than Vlad’s even though nobody in their right mind would assert that A-Rod is 66.6% better than Vlad. While it may suck, I think it’s unfair to players negotiating their contracts to view them in terms of what other elite players have signed for in previous years.
All that said, Sexson for 12 million a year is a really, really bad deal in any market.
Commennts and questions.
You say Sexson at $12 million per year would make him a middle class player making “great player money.” How do you determine what consists of “great player money?” Is is the average of the yearly contracts for the top 20 elite players you listed (why 20? why not 22? why not 12?), or is it tied to expected marginal win/$ return (e.g., for $12 million you get 4 wins/year, or $3 million per marginal win, which is too high)?
You also say that the “optimal” roster construction is a group of highly paid, elite superstars surrounding by pre-arb and FA-eligible “role players.” How is that true? Are we taking into account profits to owners? It seems that the “optimal” roster construction — taking profits into account — would be a roster full of pre-arb and FA-eligible superstar players, guys like Hank Blalock, Mark Teixeira, Vernon Wells, Miguel Cabrera, Victor Martinez, etc. OR, if profits be damned (but I guess marginal wins/$ be damned, too), a roster full of highly paid superstars. Is this all done on a marginal win/$ basis?
I agree with the general conclusion, which is that the system rewards developing your own cheap talent and that simply replacing high-priced FAs every year is not a good way to build a team (that either makes you the Yankees if you have $200 million or the Orioles if you don’t).
To me, it seems as if the free agent market behaves much in the same way as the stock market. Sometimes, equities are priced too low, sometimes too high. The trick then, is to buy when prices are low AND when they are high, averaging out. Anaheim is going to have luck with this if they continue to spend. They’ll have bought Vlad super low, they’ll have bought Finley super high – but they’ve still got two solid outfielders. Where the M’s have problems is that they didn’t buy any quality when the prices were low, and if they try and load the boat while the market is at its highest, they are possibly going to limit themselves in spending if the market takes a dip.
Also, we’re buying tech in 2001, which isn’t smart.
Re: 9 — Scott Rolen?? No way. I’d certainly take him over Jeff Cirillo, or well, most of the people who’ve been at 3rd recently for Seattle, but on that top 20? I don’t see it. I’d put Jim Thome there, though.
…and I still wish we’d go after Kevin Millwood…
And, yes. Maybe the Mariners would do better if they switched every base to being first base and had three first basemen in the lineup! It’d do wonders for the Abbott and Costello routine, too. “Who’s on first?” “Which first?”
I didn’t read Doug’s series on this, so pardon if this is all covered. But given that there are a finite number of roster spots available to each team, isn’t it possible that passing on all the guys whose marginal wins/$ salary is “right” leads to a situation where you become Tampa Bay, with a good marginal wins/$ number but 65 wins to show for it? I imagine a scenario where Beltran, Beltre, Delgado, Sexson, Pavano, Clement, Lowe, Rentaria, and Varitek are all “overpaid” in this analysis, so we are left with “good” contracts (good value) but a roster full of mid-class players. If there are only two elite players available (Beltran and Beltre), we can’t afford to sign them and don’t want to afford to sign the best of the middle class, aren’t we left with a $60 million payroll and a team full of Matt Stairs, Ron Villone and Joe Randa?
#38. My comment should read “passing on all the guys whose marginal wins/$ is “not right,” meaning they are overpriced in that analysis.
Certainly the Sexson deal isn’t optimal, at least from a win-shares standpoint anyway.
We have to remember to take things in perspective though. Baseball is a business and despite our hardcore stat-fanatic rantings about spending OUR ticket money in the most effecient way possible (and Chucko’s claims along these lines) the Mariners are opperating on slightly different goals.
If viewed from the Mariners F.O. goals, the Sexson deal could be a bargain. NW boy returns to his roots may not exactly thrill those of us who like the number (ie. raw wins) side of baseball, but it certainly translates as an intriguing (and perhaps “inspiring”?) story for the casual Mariner fan–And if it “inspires” the general Mariner fan into buying game tickets then the Mariner’s Front Offices’ #1 goal has been met.
The worst aspect of the Sexson signing is all the puns we’re all about to be hammered with (I expect at least a 3:1 ratio of Sexson puns to HRs)
Let me get a few out of the way:
“Sexson in the City!”
“Sexson Appeal!”
“Sexson, Lies and Rock n’ Roll”
“Sexson! …Now that I have your attention…”
Well, obviously, the ideal roster would be something like an all-star team, but I was speaking within the reality of an actual constrained payroll that won’t allow such a thing.
And, I listed the top 20 or so because someone asked me to. If they’d have asked for 5, I would have listed 5. My general point was that those elite players are much harder to replace than the merely good ones. It’s the pyramid theory. Baseball talent isn’t distributed evenly among human beings. The few at the top of the pyramid are worth more due to their rarity. Getting 10 wins from one roster spot may be worth twice as much money as getting 7 wins from that same roster spot, even though 10 is obviously not 7×2. The elite player, the impossible to replace franchise guy, is worth spending on, even at bad marginal win/$ rates, because they are so hard to find and provide an advantage in only consuming one roster spot while producing several players worth of value.
Pedro now confirms on ESPN that he’s a Met – joining a long list of past-prime big names that have graced Big Shea since 1962 – Mays, Kingman, Foster, Staub, Carter, Hernandez (although it worked out pretty well for those two), Coleman, Piazza, – and maybe soon Sosa?
Of course one could reasonably expect Pedro to be running his mouth.
Actually, I think the Sexson signing may be a PR miscalculation on the part of the M’s as well. Yes he’s local but, remember, the common fan doesn’t really follow baseball all that closely and they’ve probably never heard of Sexson because he’s never played in a big market or been in the playoffs. That would also be true of Adrian Beltre but, when doing the cursory examination, its kinda hard to ignore the 48 HRs last year. With Sexson, people will ask, “why haven’t I heard of this guy if he’s so great”. When the answer given is that he didn’t play last year because he had reconstructive shoulder surgery I think people are going to say “Why would they spend all that money on a guy who is injured”. Hmmm…kinda like we all are asking now.
No market for anything is based on actual “value” because “value” is subjective. Ichiro has more value to the Marniers than he would to Detroit, for example. Also, when you’re filling out those 25 spots with players of varying ability, you might need one superstar pitcher to put your team over the top, and if there’s only one player who fits that bill in a given offseason, he has more value to your team than many others.
Market economics is about perceived value.
Is Troy Glaus worth more than $11 million/year? I think most people here would agree that he’s not, but the Diamondbacks thought he would be. That doesn’t mean the player market is broken, just that it’s occasionally wrong.
Frankly, I don’t hear anybody saying “Player X is worth his salary because that’s what the market is.†The more accurate quote would be, “Team Y thinks Player X is worth his salary because that’s what they chose to bid.†Just like the stock market, what seems like a good value right now could be a real stinker in mere hours. Those that don’t think it’s a good value don’t pay the price.
Every transaction is a gamble. Teams base thier bids on (usually) optomistic projections which sometimes turn out to be horribly wrong, but sometimes wrong in the direction best for the team, too.
“Using a free market ideology to justify huge contracts for non-superstar players is flawed thinking.”
For sure, anybody who claims the free-agent market is a perfect representation of actual value has a few screws loose, because like I said, no market captures, or is designed to capture, actual value. But each team CAN justify the contracts given to anybody based on thier own information, projections, and perceived value to that specific team. Some teams are just better at translating predicted value to actual future value.
Re-read what I just wrote and realize something didn’t come out right. Beltre did play in a big market and was in the post season but I still think the common M’s fan has no idea who he is because last year was his first big season. Before that, he was anonymous. Either way, I don’t think Richie Sexson sells all that many tickets.
Dave, great post. I follow the logic, but not the numbers. Can you confirm them? $3.1B for 750 players comes out to $100M payroll per team and an average player salary of $4M. I’d have thought the numbers were closer to half of that.
I concur that it seems insane to spend 4/64 for Delgago when you could have Beltre for 7/90 (which is 3 years tacked on at only $8M/year). Heck, I’d rather pay 7/100 than take Delgado’s contract.
Very well said. I used to be a critic of the sabremetric, marginal spending etc. crowd and all that but you guys have won me over simply becuase in the end you guys are using more intelligence than the Mariners good old boys club front office.
I agree with the general conclusion, which is that the system rewards developing your own cheap talent and that simply replacing high-priced FAs every year is not a good way to build a team (that either makes you the Yankees if you have $200 million or the Orioles if you don’t).
Uh, what I meant to say after that is- heck, even the Yankees are finding this out.
Dave enjoyed your post Wow Cardinals have 4 of 20 top players.
Could you list players that are on the fringe on the way up please?
Could M’s not have made a better offer for Carlos Lee Would’t he improve M’s?
RealRhino– yes, that’s a fair question. (The philosophy you’re criticizing might be called the “Calvin Griffith philosophy,” for anyone who remembers the early-80′s Twins.) But note Dave’s paragraph in the original post here:
Currently, the optimal roster construction would be a collection of highly paid, elite players surrounded by a roster of pre-arbitration eligible role players.
In other words, the core of the team will be technically overpaid, if viewed through a strict MarW/Mar$ lens. But to get to the playoffs you’ve got to get some of those guys. (You just want to make really sure you’re getting the right ones.)
The policy makes a certain amount of sense in general (since have a small but highly valuable core allows maximum flexibility in filling out the team with role players), but even more so given the post-A-Rod “market inefficiency… that can be exploited” to which Dave refers. If superstars are undervalued by the market, then even by MarW/Mar$ they come out better than midrange free agents.
The ideal metric, though, isn’t MarW/Mar$ (although I don’t blame Pappas for having used it, since it makes for a more straightforward explanation). It would be more like (Marginal Wins)*(Marginal Revenue per Win) – (Marginal Salary) (or MW*MRPW-MS, if you like). In other words, if you know how much extra money the average win brings in to the team, you can tell how much the players’ performances were worth economically; and by subtracting the marginal salary, you arrive at how much the players’ performances were worth to the team (viewed as a business).
One difficulty with that, of course, is that it’s hard to know very precisely how much revenue a win brings in (indeed, a precise estimate would be impossible even with full access to the team’s books, because it demands knowledge of what the revenue would have been with an extra win or loss). But a look at the team-by-team revenue from Pappas’ “The Numbers” series of a few years ago convinces me that $1.5M-$2M is a reasonable figure in general, for most teams.
Another difficulty is that the marginal revenue/win “for most teams” isn’t valid for every team. The difference between the Bronx and Oakland (or, if they still had a team, Montreal) isn’t just that the Yankees have more money to spend, but that a win in New York brings in more money than a win in a smaller city. From the data that Pappas showed, my best guess was that a win was worth about $1M (or less) in Montreal, Oakland, and Minnesota; $1.5M in some of the midrange cities; $2M in Boston, Baltimore, and Queens (i.e. Shea Stadium); and $2.5M or more in the Bronx. For example, if Jason Giambi had signed for $13M/year in Oakland, he might have been overpaid even with an MVP-level performance; but at $17M/year with the Yankees, he was actually underpaid in his first season or two there (before this year’s unfortunate events).
The other factor is the playoffs. The difference between a 95-win team and an 85-win team is worth more (economically) than between 85 and 75. Therefore, any player (above replacement level) is worth more to a team on the cusp of playoff contention than to a team that would be a fair distance from the playoffs with or without him.
From the Mariners’ perspective this winter, the above principle means that the more of a player’s value they can get in 2006 and beyond, the better a signing it will be. 2005 is unlikely to be a contending year, but if all goes well it could be a roster-building and momentum-building year for 2006 and beyond. And it’s in the contending years (if there are to be any) that this winter’s signings will contribute the most value.
(Further note on the MW * MRPW – MS metric suggested above: If we use $2M as a standard MRPW for large market teams, and count Texas as such, then A-Rod’s Texas years were close to break-even, at something like 10W * $2M/W – $20M = 0. Chan Ho Park, on the other hand, comes in at 0W * $2M/W – $14M = $-14M. This is why many of us contend that, as much as we may dislike A-Rod’s smarminess, he wasn’t what ailed the Rangers in ’01-03.)
(And, you know… if the M’s had fired Woody around the end of ’96 and replaced him with Billy Beane, with instructions to build a team around the Griffey-Alex-Unit-Edgar-Bone core… the entire ballplayer marketplace might be different now. Think about it.)
That’s why he’s Super Reader Paul Covert.
#43 (Sonic) – don’t underestimate the M’s marketing/propaganda machine. For those who don’t know Sexson, they will see a series of touchy-feely articles from Finnigan & Co. talking about what a great guy he is, and repeating his hometown and height in alternating sentences. Then, they will make Richie the focus of one of their cute TV commercials. I wouldn’t be surprised if they integrated some Randy Johnson references (another tall guy) to give Richie some more “positive feelings by association”. Hell, they might pair up Richie with Edgar in a commercial – after all, anything associated with Edgar has to be gold, right?
Sorry, I meant #44 (not 43)
(And, you know… if the M’s had fired Woody around the end of ‘96 and replaced him with Billy Beane, with instructions to build a team around the Griffey-Alex-Unit-Edgar-Bone core… the entire ballplayer marketplace might be different now. Think about it.)rub it in, why don’t you….
Forgive my ignorance, but do we have good evidence that the M’s FO is still actively considering its 2 Firstbaseman/no Thirdbaseman strategy this offseason. Or is this just based on Jim Street’s column.
I guess we could call this the “Who’s on Third” strategy.
Why, it’s zack on December 14th, 2004 4:20 pm
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wow… outstanding discussion y’all.
Dave – I think you mischaracterised the captalist ideal. You said:
“There seems to be a school of thought that MLB is a captialist ideal where each player’s actual value is determined by what the top bidder is willing to pay for his services. The comment “Player X is worth his salary because that’s what the market is.†is idealistic crap. Using a free market ideology to justify huge contracts for non-superstar players is flawed thinking.”
You’ve described a meritocracy, and the free market is not a meritocracy. The player’s can’t be gauged by his salary, but his perceived value can. And that’s the capitalist ideal. That’s why marketing exists in the world. No one tries to seel you a product based solely on what it does. Toyota tries to link their product to an adventurous outdoor lifestyle that has nothing at all to do with ther cars. If they sell a lot of cars, that doesn’t mean they have the best cars; that means they were the best at selling their cars.
And that’s the capitalist ideal, which is how I think the player’s market works. So it is a sort of capitalist ideal, but any suggestion that that implies a meritocracy is absurd.
Thanks, Dave.
Mr. Kenny– sorry about that; it’s not like I’m exactly thrilled about it either….
On the general issue of the “capitalist ideal” in determining valuation: I think part of what’s going on here is a confusion between value to a consumer vs. value to an investor. If I pay $5 for a burger, fries, and a coke, then that meal (however nutritionally questionable it might be) is worth $5 to me. It’s a subjective valuation, and might be different to somebody else (maybe even negative). But it’s not an economically “right” or “wrong” choice; it’s just a choice.
Team management, however, does not generally invest in players out of personal taste (except maybe when Mr. Yamauchi set aside some extra cash to make sure we got Ichiro). They invest in players because they think that the players will repay the investment. Therefore, the question in cases like Glaus’ contract is: Will he bring in enough revenue to Arizona to justify the team’s expenditure on his salary? It’s possible that he might; but it would require an All-Star level of performance over the life of the contract, and at this point the odds seem against it.
And it’s in that sense that one can argue that such a contract is an objectively poor decision.
#52 – Enjoyed the post. I just wanted to point out that some players are able to create revenue outside of their contribution to wins. This, I think, is particularly true of superstar players and warrants them being paid more per MW. This combines with the crowding out effect that is present when a team acquires a player to give them salaries that, rightfully, pay more per MW than lesser players. For example, adding two players who add 5 MW’s is not nearly as valuable as adding one player who adds 10 MW’s because adding two players uses up valuable resources (10 players at a time with a DH, 25 roster spots, 40 spots on the 40-man etc.). Because of this, I would expect that salaries are exponentially related to expected performance. I’m not as familiar with what the baseball literature has to say on this as some people around here may be, but LeoneForThird has a nice post from a week or so ago that supports this position, though the data work is pretty simple (just look for the pretty graphs). I guess my point is that, even it we properly account for everything in your post, valuing a MW as the same for all players is somewhat flawed, IMHO, but on the right track. I’m guessing you may have already known this.
#54-God forbid the M’s try to create a positive vibe around a team that lost 99 games a year ago. Get a grip, it’s baseball people.
#52. Two things. You say (of these highly paid elite players) “you need a couple of those guys to make the playoffs.” How do we know that assumption is warranted?
Dave, in one of your responses you say something like, “In some cases it might make sense to pay twice as much for a 10-win player as for a 7-win player, even though 10 wins obviously isn’t as much as 7×2,” because of the scarcity of 10-win players and the finite number of roster spots for each team. My question is how do we know what the cutoff is? IOW, why can’t the same be said of the 7-win player vs. a 5-win player, and a 5-win player vs. a 3-win player? How do we know that Sexson or Delgado don’t fall in the former half of the equation? Because they aren’t “elite,” based on some subjective cutoff point?
I’m hearing a lot of difficult stuff, some not easily reconciled. For example, I first hear that you should look at marginal wins/$ to see if a player is overpriced. But then I hear that in some cases, the player with a lower marginal win/$ number might be a better sign because of his scarcity. So how do I know whether the Carlos Beltran whose marginal win/$ is worse than, say, Bucky’s, is any better a signing than Richie Sexson, whose marginal win/$ is also worse than Bucky’s but may be better than Beltran’s? I guess in general the question is how does one know the point dividing players with bad marginal wins/$ numbers who are good signs because of their “eliteness” and players with bad marginal wins/$ number who are bad signs because they are “overpriced?”
Couple questions:
Would this market, then, handle another long-term contract, even if the average per year were slightly lower than what that player may want in a shorter-term deal? If so, would a 10 year deal be prudent to someone like Beltre (even if it’s 7 with 3 mutual option years)? Following this, then, would 10 years at $85-100 million be insane to offer Beltre?
I may be crazy, but I might take that risk for Beltre. Would Boras be inclined to go for a higher average $$/season or a longer term contract?
If we’re going to go ballistic, let’s do it on the right player.
Pretty Please?
MFan– thanks. Yes, your observation is correct. I did implicitly acknowledge it in the fourth paragraph of #52 (on how having “a small but highly valuable core allows maximum flexibility in filling out the team with role players”; please pardon the grammatical typo in that sentence!).
I don’t think it would be exponential, though (unless you were just using “exponential” as shorthand for “any function which increases faster than linear”). “Exponential” in the strict mathematical sense would mean that every win added would multiply the player’s economic value by some factor. A more proper term for what you probably meant would be “polynomial” (y = a*x^b+…). One example of that would be if a player’s economic value were proportional to the square of his win-column value, so that a VORP 100 MVP-caliber player would be worth as much as four VORP 50 All-Stars, or as much as twenty-five VORP 20 league-average regulars. That also seems like an overestimate; my guess is that the exponent should be somewhere between 1 (linear) and 1.5. For example, if you use $ = W^1.35, then a guy with 100 runs (about 10 wins) VORP is worth about as much as two guys at 60 runs VORP each, which seems intuitively about right. (I’m not sure how one would set up a study to establish the right exponent; maybe someday I’ll think of something– or maybe somebody else already has, I don’t know.)
In any case, I agree that the effect is real, but don’t think it materially affects the conclusions of Dave’s original post or of my comment above.
The other non-linear effect is that of merchandising or other revenue not directly related to the win column, where the fact that fans happen to like a particular player adds to his economic value. This primarily comes into play with superstars like A-Rod, Ichiro, Griffey in his prime; but it can also be argued that most of Dan Wilson’s value to the team is in this category.
Dave,
I understand what your reasoning is in your post. I also totally agree with your notion that the elite players are being undervalued and the mediocre players are getting overpaid in this offseason. However, one thing that is implicit in your comments is that the ‘elite’ class of players is something that is relatively clearly defined, and that the players on the tier just below this are just not good values.
The hole in this logic is that you are basing these ideas on past performance plus some projections about how these players will do in the next few years. However, there is a big difference between guys like Troy Glaus, Carlos Delgado, Richie Sexson, and Magglio Ordonez and guys like Corey Koskie, Kris Benson, Russ Ortiz, and Omar Vizquel. In the former group, you have ‘elite’ level players who are coming of injury-marred seasons. In the latter group, you have players who are either mediocre over their entire careers or clearly past their primes. If you did your list of the 20 best players at this time last year, Sexson, Ordonez, and Delgado would definitely be on that list (with perhaps the exception of Sexson, although I think he is debatably as good as Abreu, Pudge, and a few of the other players). Your list is based entirely on 2004 performance. Further, a lot of those players would not be good signings right now.
The point is, it is not a clear fact that Sexson will not perform as well as Beltre in 2004. Beltre is younger, and his age could mean that he will be better over the course of a 7-year contract. But there is a very real chance that Sexson will bounce back %100 from his injury by spring training and continue to put up numbers like he did from 2001-2003. At that level of performance, he would be earning a 10 mil/year salary. I am not saying that he is clearly a top-10 player, but he will also not command top-10 money.
I know that you will argue that you have to take into account that Sexson might not bounce back, and that, given the type of player he is (big power hitter, 1B), he does not project to continue to play like this. However, I do think that people are overstating the injury point of view regarding Sexson. The guy was a very dependable player for years before 2004, and for every Shawn Green case out there, there is another guy who did come back from a shoulder injury to regain his skills. You just don’t hear about those guys as much because fans don’t complain about them.
The thing is that the M’s plead that they’re not able to sign the Belts because they can’t afford it. Well, the continued tendency of the team is to overpay the WRONG people.
For example, does anyone seriously think Dan Wilson is going to produce more value to the team next year than some AAAA replacement-level catcher will? I don’t.
Yet the M’s are giving him what, 1.75 million? And the ML minimum is what, around 300K? That’s 1.4 million that the club could’ve had to spend on someone GOOD.
You do that 4 times, now you’ve got 5.6 million more than you had before. 5.6 million is enough to upgrade from Delgado to Beltre, no?
That’s where the M’s go wrong, time and again.
Paul
Enumclaw, WA
Re 69:
Not that I necessarily advocate it, but I think the FO’s thinking is this:
Edgar Martinez was The Mariner, the one everyone associated with the team. Now that he is gone, Dan Wilson is the guy associated with the team, the humble veteran. To keep the butts in the seats, you need to have one guy everyone can respect and get sentimental over. Dan Wilson is that guy.
Hey, do you think Major League Baseball would be better suited if they were to institute a hard salary cap (NFL) or a soft salary cap (NBA), or are they better off keeping things the same?
I am in favor of a hard, LOW salary cap. Like 80 million.
If teams can’t afford to give a guy 20 million a year, the players will stop asking for so much.
#71
If you have a dumb front office, you want a salary cap, period–it damn near guaruntees a profit. A smart front office can work with anything…you just have to keep the adding machines going longer…and you can snooker dumb front offices a lot more easily.
OT, but the Official M’s Press Release talks about the Rule “V” Draft… Gosh. Even the Press Release Writers can’t get it right…
And no, I am not Howard Lincoln. You then lower profits by lowering ticket prices and beer prices.
RealRhino(re. #65): The intuitive explanation of that relates to the “winner’s curse” (see Walt Davis’ #12 here or Gary Huckabay here; I seem to remember Derek posting on this also recently, but can’t find it at the moment). In an open bidding, the winner will usually be someone who overvalues the investment. Therefore, free agents will in general sign for overvalued contracts (relative to the revenue they’ll bring in). So unless you’ve got a knack for spotting free agents whom all of the other teams are undervaluing, the way to maximize MW/M$ is to avoid free agents entirely (except for above-replacement journeymen who slip through the market and are left begging for a job in February).
But to avoid free agents entirely is (for most teams) to consign oneself to the Stairs-Villone-Randa territory that you mentioned (correctly) in #39. The exception is Oakland, which has structured its entire organization around the need to maximize the value it can get from the cheap guys (although even Oakland is overpaying Chavez, relative to the value of a marginal win in the Oakland economy).
So, upon further review: I’ll acknowledge Oakland as an exception to the general rule I was stating; but as a general tendency I believe that the rule still holds.
(Sorry if this ends up as a repeat post; my first attempt seems to have vanished into the ether.)
RealRhino (re. #65): The general rule I was stating (“you need a couple of [big-ticket] guys to make the playoffs”) is not without exceptions; most notably Oakland in recent years, which has structured its whole organization around the need to maximize the contribution from cheap guys.
It’s also technically true that sometimes a mediocre team lucks into the playoffs with 85 wins in a weak division; what I meant would be more properly phrased as “…to have the sort of team that can be counted on as a playoff contender even if they’re playing in a strong division.”
As to why I believe in that as a general rule, though: It’s because of the “winner’s curse” (see Huckabay’s article). In open bidding for an investment property, the winning bidder will usually be one who overvalues the investment (unless everyone else in the market undervalues it!). Therefore, the way to maximize MW/M$ usually involves ignoring competive free agent bidding entirely, consigning oneself to the Villone-Randa territory you described (correctly) in #39.
Again, it’s only an approximate rule, with exceptions; but I believe the approximation is a helpful one.
#67 – I did just mean exponential as a shorthand for greater-than-linear. I was just commenting on the general shape of Value as it relates to VORP. Whether it’s exponential or quadratic etc. is a question for the data. LeoneForThird regresses Salary on VORP and VORP^2 for contracts struck in each of the last two years. He finds that the coef. on VORP^2 is positive (not sure about significance). I also didn’t post to counter any points you or Dave made, but instead to further the idea that investing a greater dollar amount “per win” in superstar players is defensible.
One comment I see a fair bit is “players taking the hometown discount.” Most recently this came up with regards to Carlos Beltran. Oftentimes, the M’s seem the only team willing to give a player a hometown bonus. This seems to be the case for Richie Sexson. I’d probably peg him as a player who’d be worth, oh, a 4 million 1 year contract with incentives to drive it up to around $12, a mutual option for 2006 (player at $4, team at $8, again incentives) a a team option ($10 + incentives) for 2007. Wishful thinking. Delgado might be worth 4/$40; possibly even 4/$50 He’s been a fairly consistently strong player. It’s unfortunate he’s coming off a monster contract, though.
Regarding value. The asking price for Beltre is 7/$90. Compared to other signings this seems a great value. If this were an eBay Buy It Now, I’d suggest jumping on it, but I doubt Boras would operate that way. Beltre’s asking price seems to be an ideal starting point (from his point of view.) I suppose he hopes that multiple teams will put in offers of that, and he can build up from there. Hopefully the M’s will remain in contention. I think their current offer (5/$62?) is possibly a lowball. If another team tops them (Dodgers?) then the M’s would have room to increase. Jumping to 7/$90 doesn’t seem a bad move (add two $14 years at the end, sure.)
Beltran, IMO, is not worth as much as Beltre, which would probably put those 5/$70 offers reported from Houston/NY about right. Of course, that won’t happen. Beltran will probably sign for somewhere between the current offers and his asking price of 10/$200 (or between “realistic” and “ridiculous”.) Since it seems you’re going to have to overpay him slightly, I suppose the question is how much is he worth overpaying. If reports about Manny Ramirez are true, is it more worthwhile to offer Beltran a 7/$120 contract (though I probably wouldn’t offer more than 7/$110) than trading for Manny? (Not for the M’s… we need someone who can field. ^_^)
Hrm… rambling, really.
Dave,
I agree with the general economic analysis. But as a fan my reaction is ultimately “who cares” What I mean by that is I am rooting for the team to win, do I care rather they win with a 65 million or 165 million payroll? Once you accept that ticket and concessions prices are set by what the market will bear then how much the team spends on payroll is pretty much immaterial. As a fan I want the team to put a winning team on the field, if Richie Sexson is a 40 HR, .550 SLG excellent D 1Bman as a fan I want him, if the Ms pay 2 million too much the only way that affects me is if they create an artifical self imposed salary cap, but if they are willing to put more of their profits into payroll then sign the guys they need.
Now if Sexson is a major injury risk and won’t be a 40 HR masher then I don’t want the team to sign him unless he is super cheap, the issue is that he isn’t a productive player not whether they are payign him 11 mil or 9 mil.
I guess the short version of this rant was if the guy is a good sign at 8 or 9 mil then signing him for 11 or 12 mil is an issue for the Ms owners to worry about not us as fans. If he isn’t even worth 8 or 9 mil then he is a bad sign period. It seems to me we all basically agree that Stars and Scrubs is the way to go, avoid the over paid mid tier Spezios of the world. now the question should be who are the Stars, as long as the Ms sign the Stars who cares if they spend a mil or two extra on some of them.
Now if you want to argue that Sexson isn’t a Star, then that is a different debate. I would argue that Beltran and Beltre are the clear stars to feel safe signing for long term deals. Delgado or Sexson for the next 3 years are stars, but wouldn’t want to go longer than that. Other than those 4 I’m not sure there are any other FA hitters worth signing.
Oh, just to clarify, I meant that only Beltre, Beltran, Delgado and Sexson qualified as stars worth signing, lots of cheap hitters are out there, with Phelps being the latest.
I’m convinced. Give Beltre whatever he asks for. If they are seriously considering paying Sexson/Delgado $12 million, give Beltre $14 million. Why not?
#81: Why not? Your guess is as good as mine. It’s obvious to me, it’s obvious to you, it’s obvious to D, D, and J, but it seems to be non-obvious to Bill Bavasi.
Also, considering the number of people commenting in threads the last few days about how we should all be happy that the FO is signing slugging players like we’ve been asking for along and what’s our problem anyway, there’s a small but vocal minority of readers here who can find the ‘on’ switch on a computer but not find any of the mulitple essays on why Sexson is a bad injury risk (including one by that no-name Will Carrol guy) and thus don’t see the difference between Sexson and Beltre.
*shrug*
Gads! The Giants just waived Pierzynski!
Well, I could care less ’bout one’s personality; nonetheless, A.J. Pierzynski was know to be somewhat arrogant and pompous when he was with both the Twins and Giants — although, isn’t the Mariners own Bret Boone that way, too — but yeah, we’ve already got our two catchers, so the fact that Pierzynski is available doesn’t really matter.
81 and 82, isn’t the Ms offer the largest Beltre has? Bidding against themselves makes no sense, Boras won’t have him sign until he is convinced there is no more money out there, if some team outbids them then they should go higher.
“Every dollar and roster spot that is spent poorly by the opposition automatically creates an undervalued player somewhere else.”
This assumes there’s some limit on total payroll and that MLB is at that limit. I don’t see any reason to think that’s the case.
“Any team with $20 million in free payroll could have had Manny Ramirez last offseason.”
Actually this is probably wrong too. A more accurate statement would be “Any team who thought Manny Ramirez increased revenue by more than $20 million could have had him for free.” Money badly spent becomes sunk costs, and any intelligent business ignores sunk costs when making future decisions (although they probably should fire the person responsible).
Good lord! How long are the Mariners deals going to be “in the works”? This was supposed to be a done deal Sunday night, and while I’m not very excited about Sexson (especially w/ length of contract more so than dollars), I just wish there was something FINAL on it. Either he’s signing or he’s not! None of this agree in principle stuff, just say he’s signed or he’s actually taking a physical and that’s the holdup. I’m just sick of all this guessing by everybody. Tell us what is going on Bavasi!!
CNNSI has a report from the LA Times stating the Dodgers have made significant progress in resigning Beltre
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/scorecard/12/14/truth.rumors.hotstove/index.html
Bavasi is just a corporate stooge who lucked into a career as the son of a “baseball person”. Mariner brass are marketing a product — winning games is not their primary agenda despite the hopes and delusions of hardcore fans. This makes the hand wringing, hyperventilating and genuine caring about signing marginal free agents even more pathetic.
OK, Jim, then riddle me this:
How is it craptastic Seattle teams didn’t draw flies, with the same ad agency they had when “Sodo Mojo” brought in people in 2001? How is it craptastic teams in good stadiums (Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Cincinnati) don’t draw either? If it was as easy as marketing, the M’s could sign 25 AAA players every year at 300K, win 50 games, and market the hell out of them and make money hand over fist, right?
#90
And you can’t market a product without winning games; if you don’t believe that, then you understand even less about baseball than the Mariner brass.
Re #90:
I think we underestimate management. They know that if they have a contending team, they can make marginal improvements and keep the stands full. However, Seattle is a fairly “bandwagoner” city, so I think that Lincoln and friends realize that they now have to do SOMETHING to keep butts in the seats. The bottom line is to make money. They aren’t stupid. They know that after a 99 loss season they have to do something big, so they can be at least a marginal contending team which keeps the stands full. The bottom line is that if you lose, fans stop coming.
RE #89 Is there anything other than that? And does significant progress mean they finally offered him a deal? That statement means about…. nothing.
re 93
Let me elucidate further.
Lincoln et al know that they can keep the stands full with a contending team. They also know that the 2004 was not a contending team. They are not so stupid as to believe that minor efforts to improve the team will keep fans in the stands and wins in the standings. So they WILL have to spend money and bring in free agents to improve the team.
Where they may NOT be so sharp is in discerning that a) the money has to be put in rising stars and not in players who are entering their decline, and b) to get a bigger bang, you need to pay substantially for that bigger band, above and beyond the “smart” spending they thought was sufficient.
(and to resume a thread from elsewhere, there may be a c) that Seattle requires an over and above monetary bonus to make up for its real disadvantages).
I understand position wise Beltre fits the M’s better than any other FA out there right now. But with all the Balco crap does anyone get concerned when someone jumps from the 20-23hr range to 48hr’s? 2004 for Beltre was absolutely nuts and I’d love to believe that he will continue. I only hope for Beltre it’s just a sign of natural physical maturity.
On another subject, did the Braves even offer Arbitration to Drew? If not, why aren’t the M’s all over him. With all the fuss over Beltran/Boras 10yr/200m quest, I’d say skip it. Go hard after Drew while no one is paying any attention.
As I understand it Beltre in his previous year was coming off some serious surgery which derailed him. No magic creams required to account for his jump in production.
I think Boras is delibrately holding off on any discussions on Drew while Beltran is in play. I think he perceives Drew will get a higher contract from one of the teams on the rebound who bid up Beltran but didn’t get him. The Angels have already taken themselves out of the Beltran sweepstakes by grabbing Finley; he doesn’t want the pool shrunk further.
I understand Beltre’s injury in 2003, but the 23 hr’s he hit that year was his high for his career. I do like the fact that the guy played in Chavez Ravene definately a pitchers park. I also like the fact that the guy has been getting a lot of AB’s every year since he came up. He hasn’t been injured other than the appendectomy last year.
If Boras is keeping Drew locked away in a box for now that makes sense. Although it was the Angels who were calling on Palmero & Vlad’s agent last year about Palmiero when they stumbled on one of the bargains of the year.
There’s a great post over at the U.S.S. Mariner about the baseball market, the point of which is to effectively debunk the notion that the baseball market is the ideal capitalist environment. Dave’s right for a lot of reasons, many of which he very e…
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