Seems like for the near future, every time the Yankees or Red Sox win the World Series will have to deal with the complaints that teams are “buying championships.” This discussion on Baseball Think Factory is an example.
One of the reasons I think I had such a spectacular burnout with this sport is that once you get as deeply involved with something as I was, you wind up developing an opinion on just about everything. Because of my natural inclinations, whenever a topic came up that I wanted to argue about, I’d dive head first into a series of studies, calculations, research (etc.) in order to support the point I was trying to make.
This is an excellent habit for researchers; every statement you make ought to be supported by a set of verifiable facts. But as a hobby and for someone with my relatively fragile mental state, it’s just exhausting mentally.
So I’ve told myself that whenever I get the urge to do 5 different mini-studies on 5 different topics in one 24 hour period, I need to step back, take a deep breath and let someone else carry the water for a while. I’ve found you never run into a shortage of people wanting to argue with you (especially if you have some minor degree of fame in the field), so it’s up to you to set limits on yourself.
With that in mind, there’s studies to be done here. Most payroll and winning studies (like the one Zimbalist mentions in the article), should be done using opening day payrolls, so that the causes always precede their effects. With the unbalanced schedule, you may need to make strength of schedule adjustments to be completely thorough. You then still need to deal with reverse causation issues involving the fact that winning one year often leads to higher payrolls the next.
But for right now, I’m not going to do any of these things. I’ll simply comment that of course all teams who won a World Series bought it in some shape or form. An amateur team has never won the World Series (at least not this version of it) and so to get the players, managers, farm system, front office and other stuff necessary to do it, somebody has to cut some checks. It should not be surprising that the more checks that are written, the better chance the team has at success. There ought to be some relationship there. I guess the point of discussion is how much and what to be done about the structural advantages a team like the Yankees might have.
3 responses so far ↓
1 tangotiger // Oct 30, 2007 at 6:34 am
It really doesn’t matter how much you spend in dollars. It’s what you are buying. For example, if an Accord will give me 20,000$ in value, it doesn’t matter how much I spend for it (15K, 25K, 40K). I’m getting a 20K asset value.
Similarly, a marginal win is worth around 2.5MM each. If the Angels or Cubs are going to spend 5MM for an ARod win, they aren’t “buying” more. They are spending more. They are still buying his 7 wins above replacement.
That’s what you want to figure out: how many wins are you buying.
And this is what studes does with his “Net Win Shares value”, as he figures out how much each team spends for each class of player.
2 Crisp-y Piazza Cust // Nov 1, 2007 at 2:55 am
At the same time, a player 7 wins above replacement is a rare commodity and just because you pay double the rate per win, it doesn’t necessarily mean that money can be spent elsewhere for those 7 wins. In some cases it can (say on a team with many holes, like the Giants) but on a team with a bit more depth, like Anaheim, spreading the money around might not be able to upgrade enough spots to equal an A-Rod.
At least on the FA market, I don’t think there are enough players better than current LAA options where 7 wins could be bought.
Money is a complicated issue though. Salaries tend to fluctuate and who back in 2001 thought A-Rod’s then monster contract would end up being a decent contract. This next one likely won’t be in terms of performance, but with a player like A-Rod who will likely be chasing history he can bring a different economic value to the table beyond results. Certainly not in the “he pays for himself” Boras terms, but A-Rod should certainly be able to garner a team lots of extra revenue over the course of his contract. Going out on a limb I’d say if Andruw Jones got a 7 year, 140 million dollar deal and A-Rod got a 7 year, 210 million dollar deal, I think in terms of actual money A-Rod’s actual price (minus the money he’d bring in additionally over a player like Jones) I’d say the difference in dollars is really only 30-35 million dollars over those 7 years.
A-Rod is certainly worth 4-5 million dollars more per year than Jones
3 tangotiger // Nov 1, 2007 at 9:03 am
But teams are not paying for “rarity”. They actually pay quite linearly.
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