The other day The Hardball Times wrote that Alfonso Soriano is not overpaid. I'm a big fan of anyone who doesn't talk about Soriano in a way that makes him seem like he's a lazy, overpaid player. However, THT relied on fWAR, which uses UZR as its defensive metric. His 2007 UZR is so high that my iPad probably won't let me type it out. It's ridiculous to think his defense was that valuable just as it's ridiculous to think that Darwin Barney's DRS this season is in any way realistic. It isn't and it wasn't for Soriano either.
fWAR has Alfonso Soriano being worth 18.7 wins since he signed his 8-year contract. On the other hand, Baseball Prospectus' version, WARP, has him at only 12.3. Baseball Reference's version, what we usually call rWAR, has him at just 5.8.
By using fWAR, The Hardball Times reached the right conclusion, but if we use either of the other versions it's not even close to true. BPro's WARP is right in the middle of the other two and if you averaged the three you get just over 12 WAR. That's over 6 WAR less than what Fangraphs has and if we ran the numbers again we'd find that he is most definitely overpaid.
I'm not sure we should really be saying overpaid though. Yes, relative to what he's produced for the Cubs he has earned more money than you'd like, but that's not how contracts work. The team that signs the player is most often the team that bid the most. In other words, no other team considered an offer so high. Because of that, it's safe to say that in all such situations the team that signed the player overpaid. If you're willing to pay something that no one else is, it's very likely you have overestimated the value of that player.
You can’t put a price on Hope.
josh wrote:
Yep. It’s pretty funny sometimes though when you look in your farm system and find an Aramis Beckham or a Tyler Soriano.
@ Suburban kid:
Every now and then they throw in a generic Asian guy too.
GBTS wrote:
False. Hope Solo makes about $25k a year for the USWNT
I didn’t agree with the “not overpaid” conclusion either, but it was nice to see someone point out that Soriano was pretty awesome early in the contract, and might not be worth negative eleventy billion runs with his glove.
/mispelled rant with SORRYANO is all caps used liberally
Cubs are falling back into a heated race with Colorado for #2 pick after their swoon in Pittsburgh. Boston could easily end up with a top 5 pick.
Cubs have to go 7-6 at home to finish above .500 at Wrigley. So they have to go no better than 1-8 on the road to also lose 100. That sweep really fucked their chances of accomplishing that. Thanks a lot, Pittsburgh.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
/200 word, single sentence post in agreement with Slackerano used liberally
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
+1 LSA rec’d NAMBLA x100 this.
Also, I’d use “SorryAssholo”
Mish wrote:
(dying laughing)
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/09/10/mlb-investigating-waiver-wire-leaks-involving-the-red-sox/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
49ers woo
@ Berselius:
I honestly didn’t know that leaking this information was an issue. Now I know, and knowing is half the battle.
im going to need to shutdown my twitter feed for the Packers Bears game this week. It was nuts how overloaded it got just during the bears game alone.
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/09/10/mike-trout-is-first-player-to-reach-10-war-since-barry-bonds/
For some reason I thought Matt Kemp had 10 WAR last year, but it was actually 7.8.
@ dylanj:
Congrats on the win. Niners looked pretty great.
it was a good game B. Kind of surprised you didnt use Cobb more. He was making some plays.
@ dylanj:
Someone on FO made a Darren Sproles comp on Cobb. It would be pretty awesome if it works out that way.
Cobb looks like a player.
That GB secondary had a really bad day.
@ Berselius:
Agreed. Like you, I just thought it was bad analysis. It would be like Paul Sullivan looking at rWAR and reaching the conclusion that he’s flat out sucked for the Cubs.
(dying laughing) http://espn.go.com/blog/dallas/texas-rangers/post/_/id/4891105/jurickson-profar-i-acted-scared-to-see-same-pitch
man those scab refs were BRUTAL for both sides.
@ dylanj:
They gave SEA an extra timeout in the SEA-AZ game.
@ dylanj:
The GB punt return TD where they threw the flag on one of the two illegal blocks and then picked it up…WTF. That and the extra TO to SEA were the worst instances, by far.
@ mb21:
I saw it as progress that someone was using multiple years of defensive data instead of two months, at least (dying laughing).
Anthony Dixon was the guy who got blocked in the back- after the game he said another ref ran over and convinced the ref who thew the flag to pick it up. Just insane.
Do far all the analyses of Soriano’s value have omitted LAR. Leadership above replacment. We know that is high. He’s like another coach/ESL sports psychologist. That’s got to add $5M to his value alone.
@ SVB:
His UBAR (unnecessary boos above replacement) is also off the charts, which has a huge net impact on the team’s performance. Think of how much worse Clevenger or Mather would be if they didn’t have to worry about fans using all their boos in Soriano.
@ SVB:
I thought he had a negative LAR for being lazy and leading Castro down the path of hedonism and slackertude.
You can’t use single-season LAR metrics. I’ve argued this time and time again.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
That’s one of those things that only works if you’re a rookie, I think.
Larry Wayne got a standing O in New York. That is one popular Caucasian.
@ josh:
Is that Bruce Wayne’s little brother? Gotta applaud Batdude.
@ Berselius:
Larry Wayne Jones, that is (or is it Larry-Wayne? Or Lar-Wayne? Or “El-Dub”? or maybe “Chipper”?)
josh wrote:
Are you saying Castro and Soriano are LARbuddies?
@ WaLi:
GLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!
(dying laughing)
New Comic: http://www.obstructedview.net/comics/sweep.html