INTRODUCTION
This post has been in the work for five months. I wanted to see for myself how good each free agent signing was in terms of the market, so throughout the off-season, I kept track of how much money each Major League free agent signed for. I used each player's past three seasons and included an aging curve to estimate how useful he will be to his team for the length of the contract. These are their stories (dun-dun):
METHOD
I found the average of each player's previous three years WAR from Fangraphs, Baseball-Reference and Baseball Prospectus. Then I used an aging curve to determine what a team might be expecting from the player in the future.
I split relief pitchers from all other players because their market is different than everyone else.
Buyouts are included in the guaranteed salary, but options are not. If a player has a 3 million dollar option with a 1 million dollar buyout, only the guaranteed buyout money is included in the average yearly figure. I also tried to exclude non-guaranteed contracts, though some may have slipped through the cracks (I barely caught Casey Blake's).
This isn't meant to be a highly precise representation of how teams valued players. If you read my work for any amount of time, you can tell that I shy away from factoring everything into an analysis. I prefer to do quick and dirty, in the ballpark type of stuff, while acknowledging the limitations of what I have done. So take this for what it is: a simple career average plus aging curve dollar per win graph.
Obligatory Bowden-on-a-Nats-Segway photo!
AP Photos / The Washington Times, Peter Lockley
By Bill
I've done my fair share of ripping GM-turned-internet-and-radio-baseball-expert Jim Bowden, particularly on Twitter. More in the last few weeks than previously, I'd say, but I did quite a bit of it before that, too. He makes it pretty easy.
Near the beginning of the offseason, Bowden wrote a piece that seemed like one of the most ridiculous things he'd ever come up with, called "Pricing the free agents" (Insider only). In it, Bowden listed what he saw as the top 50 free agents, and attempted to predict the contract they would receive, or, in his words, an "estimate of what I would pay the top 50 free agents if I were a GM of a club that had the budget and need for that kind of player."
Very nearly every prediction seemed absurdly high to me, and to many others. I admit, I mocked it quite a bit (I can't take the time to scroll back and find examples because it was too long ago, but they're there if you want to look). Four years for Madson? $30 million for Cuddyer? Please.
But as the chips started to fall and players signed, it became clear that he was probably not as far off as many of us assumed. As we went further along, it became clear that he wasn't off at all. The bloom might be coming off the rose a bit as some holdovers end up going at bargain prices, but still, almost all of Bowden's picks have been close enough to be considered right on.
Here's a chart of the top 25 players on Bowden's list who have signed big-league free agent contracts (some have accepted arbitration, like David Ortiz, and a couple haven't signed yet, like Roy Oswalt). The first two columns are Bowden's predictions for contract length and average annual value (AAV), the next two are the actual length and AAV at which the player signed, and the final two are the amount by which Bowden missed (in either direction) on those two numbers:
As you've probably noticed by now, I'm not any kind of mathematician or economist. I may really like baseball's numbers, and even have a solid understanding of most of them, but that doesn't mean I'm good with numbers in any kind of larger, more useful sense.
I do know this, though: money is worth more now than it will be tomorrow. If you were to give me a million dollars right now, that would be totally awesome, and then theoretically, I could turn around and put it in an interest-bearing account that pays nightly and have, like, $1,000,020 tomorrow. So if you gave me the same million tomorrow instead, it would still be enthusiastically welcomed, but it'd be worth that $20 less to me than it would've been today.
Or: if you give me $1,000,000 today and I spend it all on Christmas presents right now, odds are that thanks to the inflation that almost always happens, I'll be able to buy a bit more with it than I would if I stuffed it under my mattress, left it there for a year, and gave my family and friends a very happy 2012 holiday season instead.
This is all pretty simple stuff -- or complicated stuff, explained with an annoying simplicity, but with basics that are easy enough to grasp -- and I think most people get it for the most part. You might work at a job at which your pay gets a cost of living or inflation adjustment every now and then, or notice that everything costs more now than it did when you were a kid. Whatever it is, people know, if they think about it, that agreeing to pay a baseball player $25 million in ten years isn't the same as paying him $25 million right now.
What I'm wondering is why that isn't considered more frequently in the way fans and analysts look at baseball contracts. Because I can promise you (and you'll see the evidence below), the teams don't forget it.
One of the biggest stories this offseason has been the woefully inadequate free agent compensation system. The Yankees sign AJ Burnett and give up a 3rd round pick? The Brewers only get a 2nd for losing CC Sabathia? And talented players like Juan Cruz, Orlando Cabrera, and Orlando Hudson are still looking for work in part because teams are unwilling to part with the first round pick to sign them? It's gotten so bad that the Royals are sniffing around Hudson, trying to take the Nationals' lead and get a good player in a bad market (and in their case, they'd give up a 2nd rounder). That's a major problem, especially for the players' union, who signed off on the arrangement (and is therefor responsponsible for the players twisting in the wind). And for Major League Baseball, who clearly wants its best players employed and doesn't want to have to endure a potential fight over right of employees to, you know, work.
And so there is good and strange news today (actually Sunday) from LaVelle E. Neal III, a beat writer for the Minnesota Star Tribune. According to Neal,
"There have been rumblings that Major League Baseball, which is aware that Type A free agents like Juan Cruz and infielders Orlando Hudson and Orlando Cabrera have been hindered by the compensation rules, are willing to make it easier for teams to sign then trade those free agents. For example, Arizona could sign Cruz to a contract that the Twins are willing to take on. The Twins and Diamondbacks would then work out a trade for Cruz. The Twins could land Cruz without losing a draft pick."
(h/t to MLB Trade Rumors) Normally, new signees can only be dealt after June 15 without their consent. The deal Neal is discussing would allow Cruz, Hudson, and Cabrera to be dealt in an NBA-style sign-and-trade because they would waive their right to veto the trade.
Unless there is some complicated legal language in the player contracts, this deal would have to be predicated on trust. Trust that the player will actually veto the trade, and trust that the team won't send the player to a team and situation he wouldn't otherwise want to go. But this represents a creative solution around the compensation system for the time being, until the league and union can institute a new system that makes more sense and is less easily exploited.
As for the move itself that Neal is discussing, Juan Cruz would prove an excellent acquisistion for the Twins, provided they do not give up any of their young hitting. The Twins have been active in the reliever market, talking to everyone of consequence but never pulling the trigger (no, Luis Ayala doesn't count). But Cruz was clearly the best non-closer available this offseason, and has had three consecutive excellent seasons, and four out of five (especially out of the bullpen). He strikes out well over a batter per inning, and gives up very few hits. Cruz would stabilize the 8th inning for the Twins, allowing Guerrier to return to the 7th and maybe even get a rest every few days (Gardy won't rest until he's run every Twins middle reliever into the ground. Meanwhile, Joe Nathan gets paid $6 million to throw 70 innings.). And when Neshek comes back at the tail end of this year, or even next year, the Twins have an extra arm to make their pen that much more awesome or to deal. However, The Common Man will disavow any knowledge of the previous paragraph if Delmon Young (if he hit better, wouldn't "Demon" be an appropriate nickname?) is included in any deal.
Finally, The Common Man would like to make a programming announcement. He's noticed, over the past few weeks, that when he talks about baseball his traffic has skyrocketed. Indeed, on Friday, he peaked at nearly 300 visitors. Much of this new traffic has been because of The Common Man's recent association with bloggers like Shysterball, wezen-ball, It Is About the Money Stupid, Way Back and Gone and a few other places. So, ever cognizant of the way the wind blows, The Common Man's going to give this baseball blogging a try. He'll continue to write about politics and film and TV and explosions and awesomeness, but he is committing himself to post at least once about baseball every damn day. That means more posts, and probably shorter ones (if The Common Man can contain his verbosity). Consider it an experiment designed to coincide with The Common Man's growing excitement over the coming season. He hopes you will approve. Here are some fireworks to celebrate:
