This has been a pretty bare year for free agency. Aside from Greinke and Hamilton, there haven’t really been the impact talents available like in previous years. That’s only going to get worse.
However, there is something interesting to note. For under $150 million, a GM could have signed an entire 25-man roster out of free agents and won over 100 games. Here is that list.
| 2013 | AAV | WAR | |
| C | Molina | 1.8 | 0.8 |
| 1B | Pujols | 24.68 | 4.6 |
| 2B | Hill | 5.5 | 4.6 |
| SS | Hairston | 3 | 1.5 |
| 3B | Ramirez | 12 | 5.4 |
| RF | Beltran | 13 | 3.6 |
| CF | Cespedes | 9 | 3.4 |
| LF | Willingham | 7 | 2.9 |
| DH | Encarnacion | 3.5 | 4.6 |
| SP | Iwakuma | 1.5 | 1.9 |
| SP | Chen | 3.7 | 2.4 |
| SP | Kuroda | 10 | 3.4 |
| SP | Saunders | 4 | 1.3 |
| SP | Maholm | 4.75 | 1.9 |
| RP | Papelbon | 12.5 | 1.6 |
| RP | Nathan | 7.38 | 1.9 |
| RP | Affeldt | 5 | 0.7 |
| RP | Broxton | 4 | 1.6 |
| RP | Rodney | 2 | 3.7 |
| RP | Dotel | 3.5 | 1.1 |
| RP | Oliver | 4.5 | 1.9 |
| Bench | Repl | 0.5 | 0 |
| Bench | Repl | 0.5 | 0 |
| Bench | Repl | 0.5 | 0 |
| 143.81 | 54.8 |
That’s $143.81 (the midpoint, almost exactly, between #5 and #6 in payrolls last year[Tigers and Rangers]) million, and 54.8 bWAR (good for 103.8 projected wins).
Clearly, this is an onerous undertaking even considering. You’re on the hook for the Pujols’ contract as well as Papelbon, though it’s interesting to note that those are really your only 2 incredibly bad contracts (you can maybe lump in Ramirez’). You could lose their 6.2 WAR, go to 97.6 wins, and drop to ~ $106 million in payroll, just under the Cardinals!
Of course, there is no way any GM could have signed this collection of free agents. However, it’s also important to note that no team is without it’s intrinsic resources. The Astros have under $12 million dollars in payroll obligations, and I mean that literally. They also have some worthwhile pieces (Altuve, Castro) that they wouldn’t need to acquire, though the cupboard is bare in Houston probably more than any other team I’ve ever seen. It used to be possible to wisely spend into contention. I think that window is closing, but likely slower than we think.
The one thing I think we should all take away from this is as recently as last year, you could find a worthwhile option at basically every position (catcher and shortstop were the two areas that were harder to fill, and Reyes’ contract is too awful for even a fictional team). The better GMs can still have an advantage in this marketplace, and I believe we have one of the better GMs.
I wonder how much that advantage to large market teams is going to exist in its current state. More and more teams are signing long-term players with fewer than 6 years of service time. Free agents were typically players in their late 20s so you were already paying for players beyond their prime. Now that teams are locking these guys up even later than that it seems it’s going to be much more difficult for high spending teams to acquire talent via free agency.
dmick89 wrote:
Exactly. It certainly feels like the beginning of a sea change brought on my the new CBA. We’ll have to wait and see, but I was certainly surprised with this team’s quality.
@ Myles:
Yeah, it’s kind of amazing what you can do each year if you really want to contend. I’m still a little disappointed the Cubs didn’t opt try to contend quicker than they have. I think a team with the resources the Cubs have should never have to wait 4 to 5 years to contend and that’s unfortunately the direction they went.
I didn’t want the Cubs to sign every expensive player available of course, but I think they could have hurried the rebuilding process along by signing a player or two they had no interest in. Same thing goes for trading for someone like Justin Upton. He’s precisely the kind of player you part with a good amount of young talent like a Javier Baez for.
Isn’t replacement level much lower? For some reason I thought it was in the 30s or 40s
http://www.buzzfeed.com/copyranter/and-yet-another-kate-upton-fashion-shoot
Berselius wrote:
Replacement level indeed was lower during the FDR administration.
@ Berselius:
.300 winning percentage, which is 48.6 wins.
I think WARP used to use a .200 winning percentage before Colin reworked it. Not sure exactly what it used now, but it’s probably close to .300. rWAR might use a higher replacement level, but I’m not sure.
There was 518 total position player rWAR in 2012 and 357 pitching rWAR.
fWAR, position player 669 and pitchers 461.
1130 total fWAR
875 total rWAR
I know Fangraphs uses .300 and rWAR, according to their own sites, uses .320.
432 bWARP, 280 pWARP (712 total WARP)
dmick89 wrote:
Suburban kid wrote:
What can I say, I’m a shitting machine
Berselius wrote:
I take bWAR replacement-level to be 49 wins. I’m not sure why I do, but I do. If they use .320 as replacement level, this team instead wins 106.6 wins and we can actually trim it a great deal. If I’m a GM, I’m building a team to have an expected win total of 93 games (so +/- 4 games still puts me at a good chance to make the playoffs), so you’d have 13.6 wins to play with (though it certainly doesn’t work exactly like that).
Myles wrote:
Is this Jerry? He played 4 innings at SS last year. Had just 267 total PA.
Interesting post. Career years for EE, Aaron Hill, Rodney… Decent rebounds for broxton and nathan… A couple better than expected IFAs in Iwakuma and Cespedes. Actually worth a shit seasons from Chen, Saunders, and Maholm.
However, the relievers would take a pretty big WAR hit in all being on the same team, I think.
@ GW:
If we used projections and say the team is exactly replacement level, they’d have to add 51 wins to get to 100. 51 wins multiplied by $5.5 million per win and you get a shitload of money.
Not every player makes $5.5 million per win so you could probably get there, but it would be tough.
Rizzo ——-> Not ‘Merican.
GW wrote:
I Believe In Jerry Hairston
@ dmick89:
Yeah, I think it’s completely unrealistic. At the start of last season, this team would be looked at as having a really weak starting rotation, lots of big bats, very shaky defensively, and with the potential to lose half the team to the dl for extended stretches.
My point with the ‘pen is that LI plays a huge role in the WAR calcs. This team has 4 guys who were primary closers (Papelbon, Rodney, Nathan, Broxton pre-trade and during Chapman’s injury) along with Affeldt who had a handful of save opps. I’m not sure about Dotel and Oliver, but they may have gotten a few, as well. Start adjusting their LI’s, and their WAR numbers would go way down.
GW wrote:
If a GM could more accurately predict reliever volatility, I think that would be a huge advantage. I think it’s probably the area that is the least known and most valuable to uncover. I think most teams are approaching a very high level of intelligence regarding the offensive side of the ball, and it’s been very well researched. Starting pitching is nearing that level of understanding. Reliever volatility, to this point, seems far less understood (hence, Valverde gets 9 million).
Without relievers, this team still has enough WAR to win 91.3 games.
Oh, and I looked up EE. His was a $3.5M club option with the Jays, not a free agent deal
@ Myles:
reliever volatility is largely based on small samples.
The problem is that even if you could predict the breakouts (good luck), you are ignoring all the injuries. Also, if a team like the Astros had tried to sign a fraction of these guys, it would have significantly impacted the market for the rest of them (their prices would have gone up).
Oh, I know. I’m just saying that even in the absolute worst way to buy wins (free agency, as opposed to trades/waiver claims/draft and develop), you could have “theoretically” fielded a very good team. I’m not advocating buying your whole team, but I am saying that it’s not as poor a tactic as people might think at first blush. If the average win in free agency is $5.5 million, that doesn’t stop you from signing Aaron Hill (4.6 wins, 5.5 million) and the like, and those players can be very valuable and not very expensive.
GW wrote:
Ugh, I tried to avoid options, but I couldn’t do it 100% because I was working off memory/mlbtraderumors (which doesn’t count club/player options, apparently.) Maybe sign Eric Chavez to DH (.9 million, 1.5 WAR).
I also didn’t include a single player making under a million bucks, like Shawn Camp or Jeff Francis. Slightly more cost-savings there.
@ GBTS:
Without looking it up, I’m going to guess you are saying that Rizzo has declared for the Eye-Ties in the WBC.
I don’t know much about Rizzo, but was he born in Italy? Did he ever live there? Is he a citizen? If he is, great, but if he just visited the place and has an Italian sounding name then the WBC is a joke.
/knows-nothing-about-Rizzo’s-personal-life
@ dmick89:
I don’t remember the exact rule but it’s something like parents, grandparents, or father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate have to be from the country.
What difference would it make if he was born there? He obviously has a family connection to the place. I doubt he would bother playing in the WBC for a team other than the US unless he felt pride in his Italian heritage.
You can easily make arguments that the WBC is a “joke”. But it’s still a lot of fun and could eventually turn into a more legitimate competition.
dmick89 wrote:
He really digs the never-ending pasta bowl at Olive Garden
Looking at Rizzo’s wikipedia page (which doesn’t mention the word Italy), man he has a weird batting stance.
@ Myles:
Are you looking at the right Rizzo?
There is an Anthony Rizzo who is an italian filmaker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Rizzo_(filmmaker) )
He might have risen from his grave and is playing in the WBC.
Suburban kid wrote:
What are the rules for other international competitions? I’m asking because I don’t know. I’m fairly sure you couldn’t decide to be a US Olympian just for the hell of it. I doubt strong connection or great great grandpa’s uncle live there would be enough.
Why have countries at all if the players can elect to play wherever the hell they choose? Why not just have everyone sign up for the WBC and then have a draft or randomly assign players to teams called the 1s, 2s and 3s?
mikeakaleroy wrote:
You heard it here first…Rizzo is linked to Dark Helmet.
dmick89 wrote:
Fuck the 3s, 2s for life
@ Rice Cube:
@ dmick89:
I recall this being a stink in the Olympics because Chris Kaman (an American) elected to play for the German basketball team because he had German ancestry. In the Olympics, once you declare for one country I don’t think you can switch to another country later barring a hostile takeover or something.
Also, it seems many American coaches will coach for foreign teams in international play. It’s kinda weird.
@ dmick89:
THe Olympics, World Cup, etc. make their own rules. In fact, each country in those competitions make their own rules. But no one is pretending the WBC is at this level of competition.
The point of this is that with a few helpful ringers with a weak connection to the country, places like Italy and the Netherlands can send their best players to play with and against the best in the world. This motivates the players and coaches and clubs and leagues in those countries, and it brings news coverage of baseball inside their countries. I live in Ireland and baseball in never ever on the news, except a 20 second report the day after the last game of the World Series. If Ireland was in the WBC, it would be on the national news every day. It would be a huge shot in the arm to the fledgling baseball community resulting in hundreds or thousands of inquiries by kids, parents and young adults where they might be able to play baseball. MLB would then support that interest by sending equipment, coaches, and money to help make the increased interest turn into actual growth in the number of active players and coaches.
If you didn’t enjoy watching the Dutch and the Japanese and the Canadians and the US last time, then you didn’t really watch.
also:
WBC games >>>>>>>>>>>>Cactus/Grapefruit games
@ Rice Cube:
That’s odd, but I suppose if it’s fairly standard for international competition, so what. It just seems odd that you’d create a tournament pitting nations together allowing individuals to choose where they want to play for whatever reason they see fit.
http://web.worldbaseballclassic.com/wbc/2013/about/rules.jsp#player_eligibility
@ Suburban kid:
You make a strong argument that it’s in the best interest of baseball and I think you summed up why it is pretty well. Still seems odd that you can basically choose where you want to play.
@ dmick89:
A little more difficult than simply choosing according to the info that WaLi posted.
@ dmick89:
Yeah, but you can’t. I guess it’s true that there are a lot of Hispanic American players who could choose to play for a grandparent’s homeland, but they still need some kind of connection to that country, like Rizzo has to Italy through his fairly recent ancestors. (most Italian immigration to the US was between 1890 and 1920).
You make it sound like players can choose to play for any team.
Rizzo can’t play for Israel or Germany as far as I know, and Dempster can’t choose to play for South Africa or Venezuela or Korea.
New shit: http://www.obstructedview.net/commentary-and-analysis/sammy-sosa-would-like-you-to-remember-he-once-hit-a-lot-of-homeruns-and-you-loved-him.html