FA WAR, what is it good for

Red(s)HawksFan

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No to Kike or kiermayer. You just went through this with the pitching staff. You pinned a lot of your hopes on Sale, Paxton, Hill and Wacha…and they are all currently broken…who could have foreseen this coming!!!
There is no such thing as signing a pitcher who is guaranteed to not be "broken" at some point during a season, no matter their history or their salary, whether it's Michael Wacha or Marcus Stroman or Max Scherzer or Clayton Kershaw or Eduardo Rodriguez or Jon Gray. That's just to name a handful of 2022 free agent pitchers who have spent time on the IL this year.

FWIW, Hill is not currently broken, he's scheduled to start tomorrow. Paxton was signed with the full knowledge that he was recovering from TJS and wasn't going to be back until late in the season, so no pinned hopes dashed there. And if you foresaw Sale getting hit directly in the finger by a line drive, you should be playing the lottery.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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Of course no one could predict all the injuries but the pitchers the Sox signed all has relatively low upside- and that’s kind of what you get when you are interested in pitchers willing to sign very short term deals. You need high end pitching to compete; yet if the Sox give a ton of money to Rondon or Manea or whomever; they may find themselves in the whole Sale/Price situation before long. Not sure what the solution is but I think the team needs to assume more long term risk if they wan to see any kind of short term reward. It’s a big off-season to see what they can get for their minor league depth of talent.
 

nvalvo

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Of course no one could predict all the injuries but the pitchers the Sox signed all has relatively low upside- and that’s kind of what you get when you are interested in pitchers willing to sign very short term deals. You need high end pitching to compete; yet if the Sox give a ton of money to Rondon or Manea or whomever; they may find themselves in the whole Sale/Price situation before long. Not sure what the solution is but I think the team needs to assume more long term risk if they wan to see any kind of short term reward. It’s a big off-season to see what they can get for their minor league depth of talent.
On the one hand, you're right about the dynamic. If you don't grow your own high-end SPs, you have to either trade a whole pile of prospects for them or sign a 9-figure contract — or both.

On the other hand we're almost done paying off our half of Price's deal and Chris Sale gave us all of 5 and 2/3 innings this season, so the potential downsides of that approach are quite conspicuous to Red Sox fans right now. For every Max Scherzer or Jon Lester, who signs a huge deal that pays off handsomely for the signing team, there's two or three Madison Bumgarners, David Prices, Steven Strasburgs, Patricks Corbin, Chris Sales, Joses Berrios, etc...
 

Cesar Crespo

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The Lester deal was technically a bad deal if you go by $9 mil per WAR. 12.3 WAR for $155 million. So if that's paying off handsomely and considered a good outcome, I want no part of it.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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On the one hand, you're right about the dynamic. If you don't grow your own high-end SPs, you have to either trade a whole pile of prospects for them or sign a 9-figure contract — or both.

On the other hand we're almost done paying off our half of Price's deal and Chris Sale gave us all of 5 and 2/3 innings this season, so the potential downsides of that approach are quite conspicuous to Red Sox fans right now. For every Max Scherzer or Jon Lester, who signs a huge deal that pays off handsomely for the signing team, there's two or three Madison Bumgarners, David Prices, Steven Strasburgs, Patricks Corbin, Chris Sales, Joses Berrios, etc...
Ultimately, unless you are cranking out a ton of impact players from your system, you are going to have to sign some risky FA deals that might turn out badly if you want to win. The Sox are in the unenviable position of needing to acquire a ton of productive major league players, quickly, until their prospects (who may never be ready) are ready. They need to build a core through trades and free agency, ideally his off-season. Good luck.
 

nvalvo

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The Lester deal was technically a bad deal if you go by $9 mil per WAR. 12.3 WAR for $155 million. So if that's paying off handsomely and considered a good outcome, I want no part of it.
That's good by the standards of FA pitching contracts.

edited to add: Eovaldi's given us 6.3 WAR for $68m. That's pretty close to the Lester return.
 

Cesar Crespo

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That's good by the standards of FA pitching contracts.

edited to add: Eovaldi's given us 6.3 WAR for $68m. That's pretty close to the Lester return.
$9 mil/WAR is considered average. How is $12.6/WAR good?

Or is $9mil/WAR only positional players? What's the average $$/WAR for FA SP signings?
 

nvalvo

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$9m is $/WAR for all FAs, yes. Thinking about this is making me want to study this a bit more systematically — maybe load the last 20 years of completed FA deals into a spreadsheet and see what we can learn.

But until I do that, it's just impressionistic: SPs have so much risk! That makes some "below average" signings on a $/WAR basis nonetheless positive outcomes. There is just so much downside.
  • Patrick Corbin has given the Nationals 3 WAR so far for $93m (AAV x years).
  • David Price's deal looks like it will be about 11 WAR for $217m.
  • He was great during his first extension, and I'm actually optimistic about Chris Sale going forward, but his second extension has so far been ~1 WAR for like $88m.
  • Gerrit Cole's current $/WAR number is like $10m — 9.6 WAR for ~$108m, and that's the prime years of the deal, so it will likely look worse going forward.
  • Then you get rare deals like Scherzer's with Washington that was worth 41 WAR for $210m, or like $5m/WAR. People wade into this market in the hope that they'll get one of these.
There are waaaaay more disasters than there are windfalls in this part of the market. So yeah, in context, being within walking distance of the overall average is a pretty good outcome for a long SP deal — paying Jon Lester retail prices for a few WAR isn't franchise-crippling, but having Sale and Price at the same time makes you deal Betts, and having Corbin and Strasburg at the same time makes you deal Soto.

Now, sometimes you need to make a bad deal to get your team over the hump. I think Dombrowski's deals for Price and Sale were good moves — we had an amazing 2018 season and won a title! — even if the $/WAR calculations flat-out sucked. I live in Chicago, and you sometimes hear Cubs fans say that Lester was the best FA signing in the history of the franchise. If Cole has a good postseason, Yankees fans won't be sweating the $/WAR number. But the time to do things like that is when you have a promising young position player core in place, as Boston, Chicago, and NY all did when they signed those deals.

(FWIW, this is why I think the kvetching about Paxton's deal is failing to consider the scope of what the alternatives really were. We're making a bit of a speculative downpayment to have a decent chance of avoiding a corner of the market where teams almost always lose. We'll see if it pans out, but that is very likely worth it!)
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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The Lester deal was technically a bad deal if you go by $9 mil per WAR. 12.3 WAR for $155 million. So if that's paying off handsomely and considered a good outcome, I want no part of it.
Respectfully, I have a very hard time believing this is any sort of standard for thinking a FA deal is a bad one.

Lester signed a 6/$155 deal with the Cubs.

He provided:

77-44
1002 IP of 115 ERA+ pitching
12.3 WAR
10+ wins and 170+ IP in 5 out of the 6 years of the deal.
And of course he played a big part in their first WS title since 1908.

If the standards for a "bad" FA deal are a slight overpayment per WAR over the course of the contract despite more than expected durability and performance, I would respond by saying I believe those standards are too high.

All FA contracts are risks. But when we become so focused on mitigating risk instead of focusing on getting actual good baseball play, I think we begin losing sight of the forest for the trees.

Now, a real example of a bad contract? Chris Sale's contract extension, signed in 2019 and which began in 2020:

5/$145
5-2
48 IP of 149 ERA+
One TJS surgery and numerous other injuries.
0.5 WAR for $90 million so far.

I'm more than happy to overpay a bit per WAR if it also comes with a guarantee that the pitcher won't completely flame out and provide nothing.
 

snowmanny

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While I agree with the general notion that pitchers get hurt, the other thing about Lester, as others have mentioned (“durability”), was that he in fact never got hurt. 2008-2021 he was out there. I don’t know how you calculate that value but it is worth something.

In fact, the Red Sox had a couple other always available guys during this championship stretch, namely Wake and Lowe. They of course had off-the-norm pitches. (Wakefield had some DL stretches, I think due to his back, later on).
 

moondog80

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Where does 9 mil per WAR come from? 2015, when he signed the deal? 2020, when it ended? An average over those 6 years? And for who? 9 mil per WAR might be a disaster for Oakland or Tampa, but a bargain for the Dodgers and Yankees.

Wherever this number comes from (Fangraphs, BP), they know that it's not some immutable law of physics, but a general guideline, and I'd wager that they'd say the Cubs got a decent enough return on Lester, especially when you consider that they had him for 4 playoff runs, one of which resulted in winning the WS. Maybe not a HR, but a solid line drive up the middle. Could even be talked into a double in the gap.
 

nvalvo

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Where does 9 mil per WAR come from? 2015, when he signed the deal? 2020, when it ended? An average over those 6 years? And for who? 9 mil per WAR might be a disaster for Oakland or Tampa, but a bargain for the Dodgers and Yankees.

Wherever this number comes from (Fangraphs, BP), they know that it's not some immutable law of physics, but a general guideline, and I'd wager that they'd say the Cubs got a decent enough return on Lester, especially when you consider that they had him for 4 playoff runs, one of which resulted in winning the WS. Maybe not a HR, but a solid line drive up the middle. Could even be talked into a double in the gap.
I think this is right. I think the $/WAR concept is important, because it makes tangible that it is impossible to build a winning team entirely in free agency. But beyond that it is important not to get dogmatic about it.

Lester was a great move for the Cubs. He cost what he cost because of his market, but it was a move they really benefited from.
 

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I think this is right. I think the $/WAR concept is important, because it makes tangible that it is impossible to build a winning team entirely in free agency. But beyond that it is important not to get dogmatic about it.

Lester was a great move for the Cubs. He cost what he cost because of his market, but it was a move they really benefited from.
Also, lots of people here have said (reasonably so) that the Mookie extension with the Dodgers was an overpay, and yeah it could well be.

But so far, beginning in 2021 when the extension kicked in:

8.4 WAR
$35 million (17.5 million per year).

4.167 million per WAR. There is some signing bonus stuff that ought to be factored in there of course but math is hard and I'm just trying to make things simple. His salary will climb through 2030 (peaking at $30 million) so the math will change but so far the Dodgers have gotten themselves one hell of a bargain. If you score big at the beginning of a FA deal then IMO it's more than OK to overpay a bit at the end. The problem comes in extensions like Sale's where you get nothing from the get go.
 

chrisfont9

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Now, a real example of a bad contract? Chris Sale's contract extension, signed in 2019 and which began in 2020:

5/$145
5-2
48 IP of 149 ERA+
One TJS surgery and numerous other injuries.
0.5 WAR for $90 million so far.

I'm more than happy to overpay a bit per WAR if it also comes with a guarantee that the pitcher won't completely flame out and provide nothing.
fWAR has him at 1.0, as does bWAR. Which of course is a nitpick and doesn't really alter your point. But it is remarkable that this is his production, considering his Sox career started with two seasons of 7.6 and 6.2 fWAR.
 

moondog80

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Also, lots of people here have said (reasonably so) that the Mookie extension with the Dodgers was an overpay, and yeah it could well be.

But so far, beginning in 2021 when the extension kicked in:

8.4 WAR
$35 million (17.5 million per year).

4.167 million per WAR. There is some signing bonus stuff that ought to be factored in there of course but math is hard and I'm just trying to make things simple. His salary will climb through 2030 (peaking at $30 million) so the math will change but so far the Dodgers have gotten themselves one hell of a bargain. If you score big at the beginning of a FA deal then IMO it's more than OK to overpay a bit at the end. The problem comes in extensions like Sale's where you get nothing from the get go.

Evaluating the deal Mookie now is like Trump evaluating the vote total before the mail ballots have ben counted. Yeah, we all figured the returns would look good now. But the question has always been, when does he go south? If it's after 2030, that's probably OK. But what if it's after 2025 and you still have seven years left?
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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Evaluating the deal Mookie now is like Trump evaluating the vote total before the mail ballots have ben counted. Yeah, we all figured the returns would look good now. But the question has always been, when does he go south? If it's after 2030, that's probably OK. But what if it's after 2025 and you still have seven years left?
That's fair, I merely wanted to note that the Dodgers are already WAAAAAAAAY ahead on the calculations (they'd already received $75.6 million in WAR value if the $9 million per WAR figure is used).

Coming out ahead early in FA deals is another way of "winning" them.
 

moondog80

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That's fair, I merely wanted to note that the Dodgers are already WAAAAAAAAY ahead on the calculations (they'd already received $75.6 million in WAR value if the $9 million per WAR figure is used).

Coming out ahead early in FA deals is another way of "winning" them.

Sure. Teams generally know that the deals won't be paying off at the tail end and try to get enough surplus value at the start, which the Dodgers are doing so far. Not sure when they hit the inflection point of enough accumulated value where it's a net gain no matter what, but we are not close to that point.
 

Philip Jeff Frye

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Sure. Teams generally know that the deals won't be paying off at the tail end and try to get enough surplus value at the start, which the Dodgers are doing so far. Not sure when they hit the inflection point of enough accumulated value where it's a net gain no matter what, but we are not close to that point.
And teams must think about the later years of these deals as being, at least to some extent, deferrals of payments for early year production. It makes sense if you think that revenues will increase in the future, particularly broadcasting revenues which everybody in the business seems to take as a given, and that luxury tax thresholds will also increase as a result.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Sure. Teams generally know that the deals won't be paying off at the tail end and try to get enough surplus value at the start, which the Dodgers are doing so far. Not sure when they hit the inflection point of enough accumulated value where it's a net gain no matter what, but we are not close to that point.
Some would say it already happened because the Dodgers won a WS. That's a boring answer though, and one could argue that was before the extension kicked in. But 40.6 WAR. He's at 8.5 right now.

At least if you use $9 mil/WAR. If he keeps up his current pace, he should earn his contract in year 8. The next 6 years are his age 30-35 seasons.
 
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moondog80

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Some would say it already happened because the Dodgers won a WS.
Maybe. Let's take the extreme case and see he produces nothing the rest of the deal -- would you take a WS now in exchange for 29 mil of AAV for 10 years? Maybe that's not a bad trade -- I genuinely don't know where I'd draw the line.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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Maybe. Let's take the extreme case and see he produces nothing the rest of the deal -- would you take a WS now in exchange for 29 mil of AAV for 10 years? Maybe that's not a bad trade -- I genuinely don't know where I'd draw the line.
A flag flies forever. I don't think the Cubs regret giving Heyward that contract despite poor production because they won it all. But they're a special case.

I suppose there's a limit to how much a team would be willing to pay in order to get a WS title, but I'm not sure I know that line. The Dodgers of course print money to an unbelievable extent so for them it's not much of a risk.
 

biollante

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Aren't the Red Sox 3rd in Revenue after the Dodgers and Yankees ?
Are injuries to blame for being under .500 ?

I don't know what FA WAR is good for, but I do know that this year is making me cry.
 

moondog80

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A flag flies forever. I don't think the Cubs regret giving Heyward that contract despite poor production because they won it all. But they're a special case.

I suppose there's a limit to how much a team would be willing to pay in order to get a WS title, but I'm not sure I know that line. The Dodgers of course print money to an unbelievable extent so for them it's not much of a risk.

You do have to factor in draft penalties, but this is an important point. If the Dodgers are willing to proceed that as if the Betts deal doesn't exist, that changes things quite a bit.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Maybe. Let's take the extreme case and see he produces nothing the rest of the deal -- would you take a WS now in exchange for 29 mil of AAV for 10 years? Maybe that's not a bad trade -- I genuinely don't know where I'd draw the line.
I edited my post because WS win is a boring answer and I don't necessarily buy it. Maybe if it was 2004. I think there's a chance he ends up being worth his contract anyway but I doubt the Dodgers get much surplus value. Plus it's possible they would have won the WS even if they didn't give him the extension. He still would have been on the team. So... I'm sticking to that. Dodgers didn't need to give Mookie the extension, he was under their control.

I think the correct thing to do is to target the Trevor Story's or maybe even Xander's who might take 5-6 year deals thru their age 30-35 seasons. You don't get any of the dead end years and you have a better idea of how he'll hold up in his ages 30-35 seasons. A player who was good at 29 is more likely to be good at 30 than a player who is good at 25.

And while $9m/war in FA might be the average, I don't think it's a good use of resources if you end up at exactly $9 mil/WAR when it's attached to mega deals. If the Sox signed Devers to a 10y/315m year deal and he put up 10 identical seasons to 2021, would people be happy with that? I mean, maybe some would. Is that the player you want to lock up all those resources to? It's not an awful result, but it's pretty meh. If you are offering him 10y/315m, you want 2022 production. At least for the first half of the contract.

Lester is probably a bad example and more a semantic argument than anything. But if Jon Lester is considered a good outcome, it shows you how bad the value in FA actually is. He had 1 great year (5.6WAR), 2 decent ones (2.8, 2.7), 2 Workhorse years (0.8 WAR, 0.6 WAR, 352.1 ip) and one bad year that was shortened to Covid (-0.2 WAR) and then was bought out for $10 million. That's what $155 million gets you. Or by ERA+ (114,171,101,125,96,86). His era+ for the Cubs was 115.

I hope the Sox build with 2024 in mind. Use 2023 to break in the wave of pitchers (and a few positional players) coming up, sign a few stop gaps for a year. Then use 2024 to break in the wave of positional players. For the positions that are empty, sign a couple Trevor Story's to 5-6 year deals to fill out the team since they'll have cost controlled players. Sign a few pitchers to 1-2 year deals if need be. Then when those cost controlled players are up for FA, so are the older Trevor Story types, freeing up money to sign the home grown talent who will take Trevor Story deals, continuing the cycle forever. Avoid spending big money on any FA pitching because almost all of them come with injury history and because Jon Lester is considered one of the better outcomes. Rely heavily on the farm for pitching, whether that means developing arms or trading prospects for for arms.

Long story short, mega deals should come with mega production. If it's coming with $9m/war, meh.

If you knew for an absolute fact a player would provide 4 WAR every year for the next 10 years, would you offer him 10years/360 million? Does position matter? Ok, let him play any position you want.
Honestly, I think I'd rather sign a player for 10/360 who would be guaranteed to provide 8 WAR his first 5 years and 0 WAR the last 5. I wouldn't want to do either. Only 10+ year deals I like are the ones that buy out like 4-5 years of arbitration. I'd might be looking to do that with Casas and Mayer. That's risky too though. Had the Dodgers locked up Cody Bellinger after 2018 it would be panned right now as an unnecessary commitment.



Baseball really is broken. If players were FA after 4 years of service time instead of 6, how much does the $$/WAR go down? Probably a question for another thread.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Aren't the Red Sox 3rd in Revenue after the Dodgers and Yankees ?
Are injuries to blame for being under .500 ?

I don't know what FA WAR is good for, but I do know that this year is making me cry.
I'm guessing the Sox aren't close to $9mil/WAR in FA signings. Maybe not even overall. I can calculate the last one real quick.

The Sox are at 17.8 WAR this year. According to Spotrac, the payroll is $247 million. The Sox are paying $13.9 million/WAR.
Yankees have 41.6 WAR on $264.6 mil. They are paying $6.5 mil/WAR
Dodgers have 40.4 WAR on $321.7 mil. They are paying $8.0 mil/WAR

Again, don't know how much of that is FA signings/extensions (I'm assuming extensions fall under the same $9mil/WAR) and how much is from cost controlled players. That would require a bit of work.
 

The Gray Eagle

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A flag flies forever. I don't think the Cubs regret giving Heyward that contract despite poor production because they won it all. But they're a special case.
Joe Posnanski wrote about this very thing today:
https://joeposnanski.substack.com/p/good-contracts-bad-contracts?r=14o87p&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

In his seven seasons with the Cubs, Heyward has never once been worth the $23 million. The closest he came, according to FanGraphs, was 2018, when he hit an empty .270/.335/.395 in just 127 games. FanGraphs has him being a very good baserunner that year.

In all, FanGraphs has Heyward worth about $71 million over the length of the contract.

So that’s the very definition of a bad contract, right?

But … is it? Because, as Cubs fans will tell you, Heyward played a pivotal, perhaps even imperative role in Chicago’s 2016 World Series victory. True, he hit only .109 in the playoffs (after posting a 68 OPS+ during the season) but his rain-delay speech during Game 7 of the Series has become the stuff of legend, and I know there are numerous people in and out of the organization who will insist the Cubs don’t win that game without it.

Now, you can believe that or not believe that; for the point of this exercise, let’s just say that Heyward’s leadership was the difference-maker for the 2016 World Series. We’ll never know for sure, but let’s just say that the Cubs don’t win that World Series if Jason Heyward is not on the team.

Now ask the question again: Is that a good or bad contract?
The key question IMO is are you trying to build the most efficient roster possible, or are you trying to win things? An efficient roster is great and can help you win things, but it shouldn't be the ultimate goal by itself.
 

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Joe Posnanski wrote about this very thing today:
https://joeposnanski.substack.com/p/good-contracts-bad-contracts?r=14o87p&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email



The key question IMO is are you trying to build the most efficient roster possible, or are you trying to win things? An efficient roster is great and can help you win things, but it shouldn't be the ultimate goal by itself.
To me this is so obvious is doesn't really require an answer. The 2007 Sox were a great team that gave us wonderful memories despite overpaying for Julio Lugo.

Efficiency doesn't win you another higher tier WS trophy. They still award the same one no matter how finely you spent your money.
 

Cesar Crespo

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The Dodgers didn't need to extend Betts to win the 2020 WS, though. He was already under contract.

If Chris Sale signed his extension in August of 2018 instead of March 2019, does that make it a good contract?
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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The Dodgers didn't need to extend Betts to win the 2020 WS, though. He was already under contract.

If Chris Sale signed his extension in August of 2018 instead of March 2019, does that make it a good contract?
I suppose it depends on when the extension kicks in. I delved into the Mookie numbers above without including the 2020 season for the very reason you mention. In the years or the actual extension Mookie has given the Dodgers tremendous value and is technically vastly underpaid per WAR value.
 

Cesar Crespo

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In the years or the actual extension Mookie has given the Dodgers tremendous value and is technically vastly underpaid per WAR value.
You'd hope so considering it's year 2 of 12. That's how most of these contracts work. Tons of surplus value in the front to make up for the declining years at the back end of the contract.

If you finish out Mookie's season this year and give him 122 games (2021 total, gives him exactly 10 WAR in his 2 years with the Dodgers which is a total coincidence) Mookie is on pace to reach equal value in year 8 of the 12 year contract.

If he finishes the contract out at his current pace, he will provide 20 WAR over value, or $180 million.

If he does manage to do that, he would be 29th All time in Career WAR.
 

Rovin Romine

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To me this is so obvious is doesn't really require an answer. The 2007 Sox were a great team that gave us wonderful memories despite overpaying for Julio Lugo.

Efficiency doesn't win you another higher tier WS trophy. They still award the same one no matter how finely you spent your money.
Efficiency creates opportunity to spend your remaining money well.

Really though, I think the WAR/$ analysis falls short if it does not consider the player's role and the alternatives. Meaning, sometimes you just need to sign the best-at-the-time option available to you. The question is, does that signing negatively impact other choices in your team-building.
 

Niastri

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If we have positive 1-2 average WAR contributions from Duran, Wong, RHernandez, Casas, Dalbec, Houck, Crawford, Seabold, Winckowski, and Whitlock next year, all making the minimum salary, we can afford to spend $230 million on the other positions. This means we can afford several expensive mistakes and still be competitive, because of how much value comes from our "free" players. That said, we also have several tens of millions already accounted for next season.

I'm glad we didn't trade the farm for expensive upgrades this season.
 

scottyno

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Also, lots of people here have said (reasonably so) that the Mookie extension with the Dodgers was an overpay, and yeah it could well be.

But so far, beginning in 2021 when the extension kicked in:

8.4 WAR
$35 million (17.5 million per year).

4.167 million per WAR. There is some signing bonus stuff that ought to be factored in there of course but math is hard and I'm just trying to make things simple. His salary will climb through 2030 (peaking at $30 million) so the math will change but so far the Dodgers have gotten themselves one hell of a bargain. If you score big at the beginning of a FA deal then IMO it's more than OK to overpay a bit at the end. The problem comes in extensions like Sale's where you get nothing from the get go.
"trying to make things simple" by ignoring a huge part of the salary and not just using 1/12th of his 365m salary for each season is a choice I guess. Not a very good one though if you're trying to argue how big a bargain he's been so far. But yeah, it's no shock that while still in his prime he's vastly outperforming 17.5m, not sure what that shows though.
 

Rovin Romine

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If we have positive 1-2 average WAR contributions from Duran, Wong, RHernandez, Casas, Dalbec, Houck, Crawford, Seabold, Winckowski, and Whitlock next year, all making the minimum salary, we can afford to spend $230 million on the other positions. This means we can afford several expensive mistakes and still be competitive, because of how much value comes from our "free" players. That said, we also have several tens of millions already accounted for next season.

I'm glad we didn't trade the farm for expensive upgrades this season.
The other point is that they have to construct a balanced club. If they spent all their dough on Judge and scrubs, even with stellar years from the above, we'd have a lineup with 4 or 5 easy outs and be trotting out a couple of batting practice pitchers every 3rd game.
 

scottyno

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Smiling Joe Hesketh

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"trying to make things simple" by ignoring a huge part of the salary and not just using 1/12th of his 365m salary for each season is a choice I guess. Not a very good one though if you're trying to argue how big a bargain he's been so far. But yeah, it's no shock that while still in his prime he's vastly outperforming 17.5m, not sure what that shows though.
His salary in 2021 and 2022 is 17.5 a year. That’s just…facts. Not sure why you’ve chosen hostility about it.

The larger point is that what usually gets overlooks at the late end of these deals is the extreme bargains they often are at the early part of the term.
 

scottyno

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His salary in 2021 and 2022 is 17.5 a year. That’s just…facts. Not sure why you’ve chosen hostility about it.

The larger point is that what usually gets overlooks at the late end of these deals is the extreme bargains they often are at the early part of the term.
I mean, it isn't really. You even admitted it wasn't, but you chose to ignore the signing bonus because "math is hard". If you're going by that you really should have started them 65m in the hole, but that wouldn't fit your agenda.
 

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I mean, it isn't really. You even admitted it wasn't, but you chose to ignore the signing bonus because "math is hard". If you're going by that you really should have started them 65m in the hole, but that wouldn't fit your agenda.
Please stop reading things into my statements that simply aren't there.

I was quite clear up front that I was merely looking at yearly salaries, because I was truly surprised to see that early in FA contracts there was a lot of excess value going towards the team that I didn't think had been talked about enough in contract evaluations.

Any further complaints about my "agenda" can be taken to my PMs. Thanks.
 

JMDurron

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Just looking at baseball-reference, I wonder how the shortened 2020 season should be factored into $/WAR discussions for deals that overlap that season. The reduced WAR from a shortened season will make those deals look worse than equivalent deals that ended before/started after the abbreviated season.

Obviously, this would be irrelevant for a Chris Sale-level dumpster fire of a deal, when the player’s production is unaffected by season length. It seems pertinent for comparing Eovaldi’s deal to other equivalent ones over different timeframes, though.
 

JM3

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I guess I'm confused why you would use anything but AAV to make calculations for Mookie (it's apparently $30.4m).

https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/los-angeles-dodgers/mookie-betts-15744/

We're not going to be sitting here in 2043 & saying ooooo Dodgers paid 50 y/o Mookie Betts $11m this year but received 0 WAR.

But yeah, the whole $/WAR thing really once again shows how ridiculously important cost-controlled talent & developing a farm system is.
 

JM3

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Just looking at baseball-reference, I wonder how the shortened 2020 season should be factored into $/WAR discussions for deals that overlap that season. The reduced WAR from a shortened season will make those deals look worse than equivalent deals that ended before/started after the abbreviated season.

Obviously, this would be irrelevant for a Chris Sale-level dumpster fire of a deal, when the player’s production is unaffected by season length. It seems pertinent for comparing Eovaldi’s deal to other equivalent ones over different timeframes, though.
Yeah... the correct & easy adjustment is to look at what they actually got paid in 2020.

For Eovaldi, it was $6.3m, so his contract turned out to be a 4/$57.3m deal, so his 6.3 WAR (that's the # cited up thread, I see 6.9 on Fangraphs?) would be worth $9.1m/WAR, but that will hopefully decrease further by the end of the season (& would already be $8.3m/WAR if his WAR is 6.9).

https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/boston-red-sox/nathan-eovaldi-8761/#:~:text=Current Contract,a total salary of $17,000,000.
 

scottyno

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I guess I'm confused why you would use anything but AAV to make calculations for Mookie (it's apparently $30.4m).

https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/los-angeles-dodgers/mookie-betts-15744/

We're not going to be sitting here in 2043 & saying ooooo Dodgers paid 50 y/o Mookie Betts $11m this year but received 0 WAR.

But yeah, the whole $/WAR thing really once again shows how ridiculously important cost-controlled talent & developing a farm system is.
Yeah, and how killer big contracts can be.

Going by fangraphs value the Dodgers are paying David Price $32m since the trade. He has given them 7.5m worth of value plus the likely minimal amount he gives them the rest of this year. And that's with them getting lucky that he opted out of 2020. They paid Betts $10m in 2020 to generate $13m worth of value.

So between the 2 the Dodgers traded 17 team controlled years of 3 players for negative regular season value. I'm sure they'd say it's worth it because they did win, but they could have easily lost that year with Betts, or they could have easily won with Verdugo instead, we'll never know.

A fair valuation of Betts extension value to date is that he's ahead of what he's being paid, but if he wasn't ahead in years 1 and 2 of a 12 year deal something went very very wrong. and the fact that he isn't really that far ahead should be pretty concerning. Guys getting $30m a year for 12 years need to be racking up $50 and $60m worth of value in their prime years, because they almost certainly won't even be close to $30m in value by the back end.
 

JMDurron

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Yeah... the correct & easy adjustment is to look at what they actually got paid in 2020.

For Eovaldi, it was $6.3m, so his contract turned out to be a 4/$57.3m deal, so his 6.3 WAR (that's the # cited up thread, I see 6.9 on Fangraphs?) would be worth $9.1m/WAR, but that will hopefully decrease further by the end of the season (& would already be $8.3m/WAR if his WAR is 6.9).

https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/boston-red-sox/nathan-eovaldi-8761/#:~:text=Current Contract,a total salary of $17,000,000.
The adjustment was correct & easy enough conceptually, the trick on my end was figuring out where that info was easily found.

Somehow, I've never previously clued in to spotrac as a critical MLB info reference, I've always started at b-ref and peeked at Fangraphs whenever I can't find what I'm looking for at b-ref. Glad to see that spotrac's very obvious and easily found "Adj. Salary" column provides the info that I was missing. Appreciate the linkage.
 

JM3

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The adjustment was correct & easy enough conceptually, the trick on my end was figuring out where that info was easily found.

Somehow, I've never previously clued in to spotrac as a critical MLB info reference, I've always started at b-ref and peeked at Fangraphs whenever I can't find what I'm looking for at b-ref. Glad to see that spotrac's very obvious and easily found "Adj. Salary" column provides the info that I was missing. Appreciate the linkage.
Sorry, the use of both "correct" and "easy" comes off super heavy-handed in hindsight.

I do think it's a very valid point you made regarding discounting 2020 & that's why I went to try to figure out how to solve the problem.

I use Spotrac as a jumping off point for all salary stuff (only exception is Overthecap for NFL comp pick cancellation charts). Started with NFL & expanded that use to NBA & MLB.

Something else that may make sense to look at in the $/WAR calculations is the future value of $. Mookie's AAV seems to factor in the future value of the deferred $, but for example $25m now is worth a lot more than $25m in 2032, & it's quite likely that salaries will be significantly higher in 2032 so a free agent win will probably be worth significantly more than $9.5m by the end of the contract (even if the specific player is still not producing anywhere close to that level when they're 40).
 

mikcou

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Yeah, and how killer big contracts can be.

Going by fangraphs value the Dodgers are paying David Price $32m since the trade. He has given them 7.5m worth of value plus the likely minimal amount he gives them the rest of this year. And that's with them getting lucky that he opted out of 2020. They paid Betts $10m in 2020 to generate $13m worth of value.

So between the 2 the Dodgers traded 17 team controlled years of 3 players for negative regular season value. I'm sure they'd say it's worth it because they did win, but they could have easily lost that year with Betts, or they could have easily won with Verdugo instead, we'll never know.

A fair valuation of Betts extension value to date is that he's ahead of what he's being paid, but if he wasn't ahead in years 1 and 2 of a 12 year deal something went very very wrong. and the fact that he isn't really that far ahead should be pretty concerning. Guys getting $30m a year for 12 years need to be racking up $50 and $60m worth of value in their prime years, because they almost certainly won't even be close to $30m in value by the back end.

I dont think the Dodgers are at all concerned about the 12 years of cost control of Jeter Downs and Connor Wong. Neither of those guys is likely to hit 1000 PAs in the majors - they just arent good at all.

Guys like Verdugo are nice to have on cheap deals, but they also arent particularly hard to find (or expensive for that matter).