|
|
Post by brady2705 on Jan 14, 2019 21:41:05 GMT -5
I've seen a lot of posts (here and elsewhere) citing $9M/WAR as market value. I've seen that used to estimate free agency contracts, and I've seen it used to approximate the fair-trade-value of players. Just tonight, I saw the following snippet from a fangraphs article:
- "the average WAR produced from 26 years old through age 35 is 34.8 WAR. That’s easily $300 million contract territory"
What I've never seen is a primer/explanation on the calculus driving this gospel. What is the legitimacy here? It's fair to assume Harper or Machado are 5+ WAR players, but nobody's offering them $45M+ AAV contracts. What would Trout be worth as a 7+ WAR player, $63M per? That's crazy. The arithmetic here is off. Is a 1 WAR player really worth $9M? Is a 3 WAR Ender Inciarte really worth $27M/per season? I think not.
And I don't think I'm the only one. I think the GMs of baseball have wisened up to the absurdity of what the analytical community is taking for granted without questioning, and it explains why markets have been so slow for 2 straight off seasons.
Thoughts?
|
|
|
|
Post by Fumbduckery on Jan 14, 2019 22:30:03 GMT -5
I have thought that $8-9M per WAR has been way off for years. I just thought maybe I was being stupid and didn't understand something about it.
I was involved in a discussion today in another forum, where a poster tried to say Harper is in the conversation with Trout as the best player in baseball. As I did some research, mostly on Trout because I know Harper's numbers, here's a few things I found. Harper has an average yearly WAR of 4.2 and Trout has a yearly average WAR of 9.2. Trout only has 700 more career PA's, and he has a career WAR of 64.7 to Harper's 30.7.
So Harper is clearly not even in the same ballpark. He had that one monster year, and for some reason people want to act like that's what can be expected from him every year. He's done it once in 7 seasons. Incredibly, that 9.3 WAR year he had was simply an average season for Trout. He's had 5 seasons with a WAR of 9.3 or higher. He also had another season with an 8.9 WAR, and one year with a measly weak 6.9 WAR when he missed about 40 games. He's had a 10.1 year, a 10.0 year, a 9.8 year and a 9.6 year. And these WAR numbers are all according to Fangraphs. Baseball Reference has him with two 10.5 years and a 10.2. Simply unreal.
|
|
|
|
Post by TheCoronaManCometh on Jan 14, 2019 22:49:00 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by PABraveFan on Jan 14, 2019 22:49:15 GMT -5
I have thought that $8-9M per WAR has been way off for years. I just thought maybe I was being stupid and didn't understand something about it.
I was involved in a discussion today in another forum, where a poster tried to say Harper is in the conversation with Trout as the best player in baseball. As I did some research, mostly on Trout because I know Harper's numbers, here's a few things I found. Harper has an average yearly WAR of 4.2 and Trout has a yearly average WAR of 9.2. Trout only has 700 more career PA's, and he has a career WAR of 64.7 to Harper's 30.7.
So Harper is clearly not even in the same ballpark. He had that one monster year, and for some reason people want to act like that's what can be expected from him every year. He's done it once in 7 seasons. Incredibly, that 9.3 WAR year he had was simply an average season for Trout. He's had 5 seasons with a WAR of 9.3 or higher. He also had another season with an 8.9 WAR, and one year with a measly weak 6.9 WAR when he missed about 40 games. He's had a 10.1 year, a 10.0 year, a 9.8 year and a 9.6 year. And these WAR numbers are all according to Fangraphs. Baseball Reference has him with two 10.5 years and a 10.2. Simply unreal.
Looking at those numbers he may be the first player to get a $.5 billion contract! |
|
|
|
Post by TheCoronaManCometh on Jan 15, 2019 2:38:22 GMT -5
I have thought that $8-9M per WAR has been way off for years. I just thought maybe I was being stupid and didn't understand something about it.
I was involved in a discussion today in another forum, where a poster tried to say Harper is in the conversation with Trout as the best player in baseball. As I did some research, mostly on Trout because I know Harper's numbers, here's a few things I found. Harper has an average yearly WAR of 4.2 and Trout has a yearly average WAR of 9.2. Trout only has 700 more career PA's, and he has a career WAR of 64.7 to Harper's 30.7.
So Harper is clearly not even in the same ballpark. He had that one monster year, and for some reason people want to act like that's what can be expected from him every year. He's done it once in 7 seasons. Incredibly, that 9.3 WAR year he had was simply an average season for Trout. He's had 5 seasons with a WAR of 9.3 or higher. He also had another season with an 8.9 WAR, and one year with a measly weak 6.9 WAR when he missed about 40 games. He's had a 10.1 year, a 10.0 year, a 9.8 year and a 9.6 year. And these WAR numbers are all according to Fangraphs. Baseball Reference has him with two 10.5 years and a 10.2. Simply unreal.
Looking at those numbers he may be the first player to get a $.5 billion contract! That’s why MLB has the luxury tax, so teams can remain competitive. When Trout becomes a free agent, based on $/War he’d get like $80 mil a season. Only a few teams could realistically do that, and they would, no doubt about it, but that would make MLB unwatchable, because there would be perpetual parity. Honestly, that’s why $/War has stagnated. It’s been $9 mil for 1.0 War, roughly, for a few years now. |
|
|
|
Post by brady2705 on Jan 15, 2019 18:24:22 GMT -5
So what I'm taking away from this is the $/WAR is based on total anticipated WAR over the life of the contract. I *suspect* (but would need to go investigate), that this implies longer-term contracts are made with the assumption that teams underpay for performance in the early years, and overpay in the later years, but it balances out. I wonder if the recent trend to stear away from Stanon/Heyward-esque long term pacts is changing this. If Machado/Harper only secure 7-8 year deals (as opposed to 10+ year deals), I think it would confirm that line of thinking. With teams doling out shorter deals because of the crippling effect from long deals like Pujols/etc, but the AAV for players not significantly rising, I think $/WAR is coming down. It has to be. I'd be curious what the math is on the last 2 offseasons, specifically on short (1-2) year deals. I'm assuming there's a place where we could compare contracts against forecasted WAR over the life of those contracts? I bet for the last 2 years, it's probably closer to $5-$6M per WAR. |
|
|
|
Post by Drkirby on Jan 15, 2019 18:57:08 GMT -5
So Swanson is a 27MM player? Yeah ok.
|
|
|
|
Post by keystone61 on Jan 15, 2019 19:30:16 GMT -5
I have thought that $8-9M per WAR has been way off for years. I just thought maybe I was being stupid and didn't understand something about it.
I was involved in a discussion today in another forum, where a poster tried to say Harper is in the conversation with Trout as the best player in baseball. As I did some research, mostly on Trout because I know Harper's numbers, here's a few things I found. Harper has an average yearly WAR of 4.2 and Trout has a yearly average WAR of 9.2. Trout only has 700 more career PA's, and he has a career WAR of 64.7 to Harper's 30.7.
So Harper is clearly not even in the same ballpark. He had that one monster year, and for some reason people want to act like that's what can be expected from him every year. He's done it once in 7 seasons. Incredibly, that 9.3 WAR year he had was simply an average season for Trout. He's had 5 seasons with a WAR of 9.3 or higher. He also had another season with an 8.9 WAR, and one year with a measly weak 6.9 WAR when he missed about 40 games. He's had a 10.1 year, a 10.0 year, a 9.8 year and a 9.6 year. And these WAR numbers are all according to Fangraphs. Baseball Reference has him with two 10.5 years and a 10.2. Simply unreal.
Looking at those numbers he may be the first player to get a $.5 billion contract! Thing is, as good as Trout is, even he probably won't be worth that on a long contract. He'll be 30 in the first year of a contract. Will he be worth 10/500? It's hard to say, but it seems like a reach to me. |
|
|
|
Post by TheCoronaManCometh on Jan 15, 2019 22:44:43 GMT -5
So what I'm taking away from this is the $/WAR is based on total anticipated WAR over the life of the contract. I *suspect* (but would need to go investigate), that this implies longer-term contracts are made with the assumption that teams underpay for performance in the early years, and overpay in the later years, but it balances out. I wonder if the recent trend to stear away from Stanon/Heyward-esque long term pacts is changing this. If Machado/Harper only secure 7-8 year deals (as opposed to 10+ year deals), I think it would confirm that line of thinking. With teams doling out shorter deals because of the crippling effect from long deals like Pujols/etc, but the AAV for players not significantly rising, I think $/WAR is coming down. It has to be. I'd be curious what the math is on the last 2 offseasons, specifically on short (1-2) year deals. I'm assuming there's a place where we could compare contracts against forecasted WAR over the life of those contracts? I bet for the last 2 years, it's probably closer to $5-$6M per WAR. $/War is an average of what is given to free agents during a given year. At the end of the day it’s an average. The poster above mentioned Swanson being worth $27 mil AAV. That wouldn’t happen, but one doesn’t have to look far to see that there are teams willing to dole out huge chunks of money for a big time defensive player, with potential on offense. See: Heyward, Jason. $/War is what a player is worth in value. If the figure was unrealistic, it wouldn’t be a stat worth any value, and yet it’s used constantly, by everyone from fans to GMs. You’ll find a much richer conversation on this topic over at talking chop. Mostly because they have guys who do this stuff for a living and lots of fans who ask questions about it. I love this place, but it’s a small collection of fans. None of us use this stuff on a daily basis. I find it interesting, but I only know like 25% of what’s out there. |
|
|
|
Post by TheCoronaManCometh on Jan 15, 2019 22:58:35 GMT -5
I should add that $/War is fluid. All it is is money given out by Owners to FAs, divided by the War teams think the player will accrue over the life of the contract.
You’re dead on about teams not giving out long term deals because of this. It’s clear teams are getting hosed at the end of deals because they’re paying a high AAV and they’re not getting the War to justify it. I believed teams initially did these deals because they thought the War accrued early in these contracts would offset the later years, but it’s clearly a flawed theory. You also have to account the competitive aspect of it. Teams also sold their souls in these deals because they wanted to win these players, but teams are wising up. 5 years ago Machado and Hooper would already have signed. Their agents are negotiating based on an ecosystem that doesn’t exist anymore.
The luxury tax and QO system is suppressing salaries because the upper echelon teams don’t wanna get taxed and the lower and mid echelon teams don’t wanna lose picks. You could be right that $/War could drop, or it could remain stagnant; it has for a couple of years now.
|
|
|
|
Post by Fumbduckery on Jan 15, 2019 23:04:19 GMT -5
So what I'm taking away from this is the $/WAR is based on total anticipated WAR over the life of the contract. I *suspect* (but would need to go investigate), that this implies longer-term contracts are made with the assumption that teams underpay for performance in the early years, and overpay in the later years, but it balances out. I wonder if the recent trend to stear away from Stanon/Heyward-esque long term pacts is changing this. If Machado/Harper only secure 7-8 year deals (as opposed to 10+ year deals), I think it would confirm that line of thinking. With teams doling out shorter deals because of the crippling effect from long deals like Pujols/etc, but the AAV for players not significantly rising, I think $/WAR is coming down. It has to be. I'd be curious what the math is on the last 2 offseasons, specifically on short (1-2) year deals. I'm assuming there's a place where we could compare contracts against forecasted WAR over the life of those contracts? I bet for the last 2 years, it's probably closer to $5-$6M per WAR. The poster above mentioned Swanson being worth $27 mil AAV. That wouldn’t happen, but one doesn’t have to look far to see that there are teams willing to dole out huge chunks of money for a big time defensive player, with potential on offense. See: Heyward, Jason. Dude, Heyward had a career OPS of .761 and a career wRC+ of 111 when he signed his big contract (and that was with over 4000 PA's). Please let's not put Dansby in the same conversation as him! The deal with Heyward at that point was that he had been a decent and at times good offensive player and there was a hope or thought by many that he would eventually find a resurgence with his power. |
|
|
|
Post by TheCoronaManCometh on Jan 16, 2019 3:46:58 GMT -5
I didn’t. I was only implying that teams don’t pay guys with a .760 ops and 111 wRC+ $185 million contracts, unless they believe those numbers will improve. Heyward is just one example of why teams are now weary of handing out big contracts.
|
|
|
|
Post by keystone61 on Jan 16, 2019 12:33:41 GMT -5
I'd have to say the realistic value of WAR is closer to $5 million than it is $9 million. On the low end (1.0 to 2.0 WAR players), maybe it's close to $9 million, but not on the top end, unless you believe that Trout is worth $90 million per year.
|
|
|
|
Post by Fumbduckery on Jan 16, 2019 13:51:22 GMT -5
I didn’t. I was only implying that teams don’t pay guys with a .760 ops and 111 wRC+ $185 million contracts, unless they believe those numbers will improve. Heyward is just one example of why teams are now weary of handing out big contracts. My point would be that Heyward had given people plenty of reason to think he could hit at a really good level in the big leagues, he had produced seasons with a wRC+ of 134, 121 twice and 120 in another season. There was actual tangible proof that he could hit. Dansby, not so much. |
|
|
|
Post by TheCoronaManCometh on Jan 16, 2019 21:27:09 GMT -5
I'd have to say the realistic value of WAR is closer to $5 million than it is $9 million. On the low end (1.0 to 2.0 WAR players), maybe it's close to $9 million, but not on the top end, unless you believe that Trout is worth $90 million per year. Trout is worth $90 million in value, not in actual dollars, if a team considers him a 10.0 War player, on average. |
|
