Moneyball Revisited: How Much Did We Overachieve?
by danmerqury on Oct 5, 2009 6:43 PM PDT
39 comments
We all know about the size of our payroll. We all know that it makes us trade away, buy low, and otherwise obtain undervalued players. It's been seven years since the 2002 Moneyball draft, and our payroll hasn't gotten any bigger relative to the league. In part 2 of my apparent Jack an Idea From Another Website and Use It to Make a Cool Chart series, I found out how much we truly overachieved.
First things first: The idea came from Beyond the Box Score. Go there. They rock.
This chart simply shows how much the 2009 A's overachieved. To calculate the numbers, I pulled performance dollars from Fangraphs and subtracted their 2009 salary. Fangraphs converts their WAR numbers (wOBA, FIP, and UZR based) into performance dollars by finding out the average market value of a 1 WAR player and extrapolating. (More information here.) Last year, it came out to around $4.5 MM per win. All of the salary numbers came from Cot's Baseball Contracts. For the players who left or came to Oakland midway through the season, I calculated their prorated salary based on how long their stay with Oakland was. For the players that Cot's didn't have salary info for, I assumed the league minimum ($400,000).
Couple things:
- The players that Oakland didn't have on their payroll for a full season are Matt Holliday, Adam Kennedy, Jack Hannahan, Orlando Cabrera, Scott Hairston, Craig Breslow, Russ Springer, Edgar Gonzalez, Brett Tomko, and Clay Mortensen. Some of these were trades and some were waiver pickups.
- Included in the calculations are $1.5 MM that we paid St. Louis as part of the Holliday deal and $250,000 that we paid Orlando Cabrera as an "assignment bonus". Also, Jason Giambi got a full $4 MM from Oakland, even though he didn't play the whole year. I didn't include the $1.5 MM buyout for Giambi, as that's on the 2010 payroll.
- The small line on both sides of the chart indicates $10 MM worth of production over salary.
- I used a 20 innings pitched, 100 plate appearances cutoff, with two exceptions.
- If you're getting paid almost 18% of the entire team payroll, you're on the chart, even though you only played in, say, 8 games. Also, Duchscherer's on the chart for the same reason.
- Brett Anderson and Ryan Sweeney are really, really good.
- Some good news: Out of the players that didn't produce as much as their salary, numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 are off the books in 2010. Number 6 is Scott Hairston, who has had injuries all year.
- Out of these 39 players, we spent $59.3 MM. We got $165.1 MM worth of performance, which is good for 36.5 wins above market value. Not bad, Billy.
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Dude, and I thought the chart in 2006 was cool!
This. Rocks.
You are teh awesome.
Maybe you can find one made by Go F**k Yourself San Jose... -Poppy
by Leopold Bloom on Oct 5, 2009 7:20 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
This is nifty!
I care about your fantasy team.
by stormtown on Oct 5, 2009 7:21 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
But, how did this compare to what the rest of the league did.
Don't believe in yourself.
Believe in Me who believes in You.
by Zonis on Oct 5, 2009 7:34 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Scale is screwed up
Obviously teams with 165 m payrolls don’t go 10 games under .500, so I am guessing that this methodology comes out with every single team in the league performing way over expectation.
Would be easy enough to normalize so that you equal the actual salary.
Also, it is beyond baffling to me that Dana Eveland could be in the positive.
by SeanR on Oct 5, 2009 7:35 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
This is based on free agent salaries.
Dave Cameron over at Fangraphs found that teams, on average, pay around $4.5 MM per win. But the calculation only takes free agents into account. A young player at roughly league minimum ($400,000) would only have to produce 0.09 WAR to be at market value. Obviously, they go over that line. So, yeah, most teams are overproducing because of players who haven’t yet reached free agency. But Beyond the Box Score has the Astros at only $17.95 MM and the Nationals only $32.27 MM over market value. No, market value isn’t the average, but our $105 MM over market value is better than those two, at least.
I’d have to do all the calculations by hand for the rest of the 30 teams, to get a true team average, sadly.
Lay down, black gives way to blue.
Lay down, I'll remember you.
by danmerqury on Oct 5, 2009 7:47 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
The average player had a $3.26m salary in 2009 ... (As of opening day)
That would probably be a more logical baseline to be working off of …
"It's for your own good. Big strong Devo knows whats best for Poppy" -- Mossback
by devo on Oct 7, 2009 12:04 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
This is a situation where it's particular relevant
whether that average is mean or median. I assume you’re quoting the mean and the median would be considerably less.
"Go ahead and overachieve, you scrappy Brett-Favre-colored walk-takers." —Rev Halofan
by iglew on Oct 8, 2009 5:15 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
A devo sighting !
I just asked where you were a few days back. Glad to see you here, devo.
by IM4Oakgal on Oct 9, 2009 11:05 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Some good news: Out of the players that didn’t produce as much as their salary, numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 are off the books in 2010. Number 6 is Scott Hairston, who has had injuries all year.
No, unfortunately.
Eric Chavez 3b
6 years/$66M (2005-10), plus 2011 club option
* 6 years/$66M (2005-10), plus 2011 club option
o signed extension with Oakland 3 /04
o $3M signing bonus (pad in $0.5M installments, 2004-09)
o 08:$8M, 06:$9M, 07:$9M, 08:$11M, 09:$11M, 10:$12M,
11:$12.5M club option ($3M buyout)
He is off the books if he retires though :-(
Is this the real life-
Is this just fantasy-
Caught in a landslide-
No escape from reality-
by Daniel777 on Oct 5, 2009 8:55 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Gah!
My mistake.
Lay down, black gives way to blue.
Lay down, I'll remember you.
by danmerqury on Oct 5, 2009 9:20 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
nvm it's not a massive mistake
I find it fascinating that Gio “out-valued” Holliday, and hilarious that Cros was the no-doubt last place healthy player.
Looking at Cust on the graph, does this strengthen my argument that we should either non-tender or trade him? His value bar is going to disappear with his arbitration raise, presumably to around $5mil.
Is this the real life-
Is this just fantasy-
Caught in a landslide-
No escape from reality-
by Daniel777 on Oct 6, 2009 1:26 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
most of the pro-Cust camp
is expecting a bounce-back year from him. So his performance would go up along with his salary.
by colin on Oct 6, 2009 7:44 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Pretty much.
If we got 2009 Cust again in 2010, he probably wouldn’t be worth the arby raise. It really depends on what Jack Cust shows up next April. He was worth over $11MM in 2007, even with that outfield defense.
Lay down, black gives way to blue.
Lay down, I'll remember you.
by danmerqury on Oct 9, 2009 8:37 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
"was worth over $11MM"
People have been making claims like this more and more on AN. It would be too tedious for me to register my objection every single time, but every couple of weeks we need a reminder of what this really means. What you really mean is that FanGraphs’ formula measures Cust’s value at $11.7 million.
If you say that Jack Cust hit 26 home runs in 2007, there’s no need for interpretation. He really did hit them, you can count them yourself, and there’s no dispute. But when you say he “was worth” $11.7, you are first relying on a compound formula which attempts to measure Cust’s contribution in wins, and then another formula which attempts to quantify the dollar value of a win. In each formula there is a great deal of statistical modeling, some assumptions, and some omissions, whereby “wins” aren’t actually equal to wins and “dollars” aren’t actually equal to dollars. These shortcomings are openly acknowledged by the very people who provide the stats, who make it clear that their model is a model and should not be read literally as actual dollars.
Now probably you know all this, but you don’t enlighten anyone who doesn’t by saying Jack Cust is “was worth over $11MM in 2007”. I’m not saying it isn’t a valuable metric, but would it really kill you to instead say “FanGraphs’ model measures Jack Cust’s value at $11.7 million”?
"Go ahead and overachieve, you scrappy Brett-Favre-colored walk-takers." —Rev Halofan
by iglew on Oct 10, 2009 1:50 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
I agree with this
Especially when the money is FA dollars and therefore guaranteed to overstate things (like in dan’s post: every team in baseball was at least tens of millions over value).
At best, the Fangraphs value number shows you the most you should be paying someone (as in, if you’ve paid more you got screwed). I’m not sure at all that if you’ve paid a little less than the value number you have anything to brag about. The opportunity cost probably greatly outweighs the benefit.
"There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want" -Bill Watterson
by nevermoor on Oct 10, 2009 7:46 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Disagree completely with the second paragraph...
it just means that on average FAs get x$ per WAR. It is definitely not the “most” you should spend, which depends on roster needs. Your idea would lead to a no-FA strategy, which would lead to a great showing in the “wins per money spent” category, but not a very good showing in the “wins” category. Not signing any FAs would be a huge opportunity cost…
With stout hearts, and with enthusiasm for the contest, let us go forward to victory. ----Hero Defector Montgomery
by mikeA on Oct 10, 2009 10:30 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
I stand corrected, to a point
If you make a conscious decision to overpay for someone (presumably because the marginal wins are worth it to the team), that could be fine.
That said, I think there are usually some free agents who are likely to outperform their market rates (say, Branyan), guys who are steady performers, and guys who get huge contracts despite obvious risks (say, M. Bradley).
In general, if you’ve paid more than $x per WAR on a free agent, you’ve made a bad deal.
"There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want" -Bill Watterson
by nevermoor on Oct 10, 2009 11:55 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
I agree generally (although not necessarily in terms dan's comment) and would say
1. quoting those “worth such and such” numbers is either confusing or meaningless to most people, even most people who like to look into the various stats; and
2. often (again not in this case) the purpose of quoting those numbers is just to present some big number of millions and millions of dollars for effect as much as anything else. And “was worth 11M” does not have any clear meaning by itself.
3. (Hmm… Why aren’t the “wins” equal to “wins” and “dollars” equal to “dollars” or “actual dollars”? Seems to me they are.
4. I also agree with you, and I think I’ve said before, that it bugs me when people just spit out the season-WAR number from fangraphs, especially when the defense number is extreme.
Thinking in terms of these dollar numbers is uncharacteristically useful in the case of Cust, though, since the team faces a choice between Cust/no Cust+sign DH/noCust+don’t sign DH, and comparing production in terms of money in those scenarios is pretty useful.
With stout hearts, and with enthusiasm for the contest, let us go forward to victory. ----Hero Defector Montgomery
by mikeA on Oct 10, 2009 10:49 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
His slash numbers have deteriorated all 3 years he's been with us
So it looks like the rest of the league have “figured him out”
And his fielding is atrocious.
I’m not predicting a bounce-back, and if he was “the fountain of good health” like Billy Beane was saying then his waning SLG is worrisome too.
Don’t get me wrong, I like him a lot, but I think we could get a DH who could actually play the field presentably for $5 mil.
Also with the “bad-body walk/power machines” you have to know when to hop off them because they seem to decline quickly.
Is this the real life-
Is this just fantasy-
Caught in a landslide-
No escape from reality-
by Daniel777 on Oct 10, 2009 2:29 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
It doesn't make much sense to treat pre-arb, arb, and FAs the same way
and all of the $ numbers are in reference to the FA market.
So…..
Some good news: Out of the players that didn’t produce as much as their salary, numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 are off the books in 2010. Number 6 is Scott Hairston, who has had injuries all year.
That will be true of pretty much every team, and if the player’s absolute value is high, it is not good for them to be coming off the books (not that we have (m)any of those.)
Out of these 39 players, we spent $59.3 MM. We got $165.1 MM worth of performance, which is good for 36.5 wins above market value. Not bad, Billy.
All 30 teams will have x (some kinda high number like 36.5) wins over market value, so that number doesn’t really mean anything without the average. And even if you compared teams, all you’d be doing is making a list of which teams have a lot of free agents relative to players in their first few years, and that type of list is of dubious value.
With stout hearts, and with enthusiasm for the contest, let us go forward to victory. ----Hero Defector Montgomery
by mikeA on Oct 5, 2009 9:08 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
but the graph's purty!
Maybe you can find one made by Go F**k Yourself San Jose... -Poppy
by Leopold Bloom on Oct 5, 2009 9:24 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
indeed it is
Gio and Duke should take note of the fact that there is no black in it.
With stout hearts, and with enthusiasm for the contest, let us go forward to victory. ----Hero Defector Montgomery
by mikeA on Oct 5, 2009 9:29 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
AND - we should get rid of those black unis they seem to love!!
"The trouble with baseball is that it is not played the year round." Gaylord Perry
by BERRYJO on Oct 5, 2009 9:32 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
i see what you did there.
"If you hit .440 with 20 bombs, you don't have to do s---. You don't have to bring a glove to practice, just hit and leave whenever you want. You can bring a 40 and smoke a cigarette and call me from the parking lot asking me what time the game is, and I'll tell you. You can even say 'F--- you, Steve!' Actually, don't say that, that wouldn't be very nice." -Steve Friend, Head Coach, Chabot College Gladiators Baseball
by flipgatey3 on Oct 10, 2009 1:15 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
I don't know if that first part is true.
Off the top of my head, Toronto (Wells), Anaheim (Matthews, Jr.), Chicago (Soriano), Cleveland (Hafner), and San Francisco (Zito, Rowand) have underproducing players that are sticking around for many, many years.
And this isn’t really meant as a rigorous sabermetrics research piece, or else, yes, I’d have separated players based on contract situations. It’s really just a graphical representation of how much our players would be worth on the open market.
Lay down, black gives way to blue.
Lay down, I'll remember you.
by danmerqury on Oct 5, 2009 9:31 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
IOW, we'd have to pay someone a buttload of money to take Chavez off our hands.
Well, that part’s right…
Maybe you can find one made by Go F**k Yourself San Jose... -Poppy
by Leopold Bloom on Oct 5, 2009 9:41 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
No, it's not that
a graph of how much our players would be worth on the open market would just be a graph of their WARs. It’s a graph of WAR relative to salary, which is why almost all of the players on the left side are in their first 3 years, and almost all the players on the right side are post-first-three-years. A FA who is “worth the money” would be at 0 on that graph. E.g., Arod this year would be in the yellow negative part of the graph, and clearly he is worth more on the open market than Sweeney.
With stout hearts, and with enthusiasm for the contest, let us go forward to victory. ----Hero Defector Montgomery
by mikeA on Oct 5, 2009 9:45 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
I misspoke.
This isn’t a graph of how much they’re worth on the open market, it’s a way to see how much value we’re getting. For a team like the Yankees, they can afford to have A-Rod underproduce, because an underproducing A-Rod is still better than any other 3B out there. They can look at WAR totals, contract be damned. We have to hunt to find value. For us, production over salary is crucial. That usually means young players pre-FA and pre-arby, which is why the left side is dominated by young guys. Of the post-arby guys we had, Adam Kennedy, Matt Holliday, and Russ Springer (barely) were worth it.
Actually, a graph like this of the Yankees could be interesting, since almost everyone on the roster is a free agent or eligible for arbitration.
Lay down, black gives way to blue.
Lay down, I'll remember you.
by danmerqury on Oct 5, 2009 9:57 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
x depends on where you set replacement level
but since a league-average payroll is in the ~$90M range, 81-x-y=20, where y is the number of wins a purely replacement level team would have.
Linda's in the cold ground, won't see her anymore
Somewhere out on the highway tonight, the drunken engines roar
It's just one of those things, one of those things
-- Al Stewart, "Accident on 3rd St."
In memory of Nick Adenhart and all victims of drunk driving
by PaulThomas on Oct 5, 2009 10:58 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Standing out amoungst the crocked and half seasoners....
ladies and gentlemen, Bobby Crosby
by bobnothing on Oct 6, 2009 12:50 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Woo hoo!
We came out more than $100 million ahead! Go Billy!
Wait, but we still sucked….
"Go ahead and overachieve, you scrappy Brett-Favre-colored walk-takers." —Rev Halofan
by iglew on Oct 6, 2009 1:58 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Is this the game thread? Hello?
Sigh.
I'm here to talk about the past.
by 67MARQUEZ on Oct 6, 2009 7:36 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs
If you want it to be
let’s go Oakland
-
damn another walk
-
error!
no way
effin’ cros dropped the ball
—
rally!
no… just another tease…
fire geren!
100% Athletics, 100% Baseball. 2009 Athletics, 40% Baseball.
by fruitattack on Oct 6, 2009 10:50 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
hmmm
This is like editing a wiki but with html options…
-strikeout- strikethrough
100% Athletics, 100% Baseball. 2009 Athletics, 40% Baseball.
by fruitattack on Oct 6, 2009 10:51 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Dropping all that dead weight will be nice
Crosby, Giambi (kind of, since the A’s pay the buyout) and Nomar. It would seem that payroll will drop next season, unless they sign some high priced FA (Please NO, it was a huge let down this season). Unless arbitration even things out. What about a multi-year deal for Kurt Suzuki?
You have to include smiley faces - Poppy
;- ) :- ) :-O : -> : -] : -}
by micdog2001 on Oct 6, 2009 11:45 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Payroll 2010
I have been expecting a pretty big drop in payroll next year as well. For a dreamer like myself, I have been planning the best ways to maximize production from that money (no way to the FA unless his name is Matt Holliday [ ;-) ] ).
However, we also have to keep in mind that income also dropped this year and is likely to be below expected once again next year. As a result, I don’t think that we can expect any sort of money spending (or money saving). I would not be surprised if the expected decrease in payroll matches the decrease in working budget for 2010—thus don’t get your hopes up for another big signing in the international market or spending seven figures on 15 draft picks either.
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by nobodyinparticular on Oct 7, 2009 12:38 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Not to be negative
But haven’t we had 3 straight losing seasons. Where’s the chart for that?
by fansince1980 on Oct 8, 2009 8:52 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Huh?
Lay down, black gives way to blue.
Lay down, I'll remember you.
by danmerqury on Oct 9, 2009 8:34 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
You could probably make one pretty easily.
"We've come a long way, and I'm not talking about Virginia Slims, either." - Art Howe
by EastCoastA on Oct 9, 2009 10:44 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
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