Graphic - Putting a Price Tag on Winning
The linked chart compares baseball teams’ payroll spending over the last decade with their won-loss record. The graphic provides confirmation of what everyone already knows...spend more...win more (unless you are the Mets).
over 1 year ago
ShawnK
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I gotta problem with this. It doesn’t reflect the Tampa Bay model well. That is, keep the payroll as low as possible during your down cycle – $40-50M when you’re losing – and add FA parts when you’re on the upswing – $60-75M when you’re winning more than 85 games. So you lose 100+ games in your down-cycle with a $40M payroll and 95 games with a $70M payroll. On average you look like the Royals and Indians. But in fact – for 3 out of 10 years – you’re one of the best teams in all of baseball with 1/3 the payroll of your next closest competitor.
Bottom line: you can win a WS with a 20 percentile payroll. You just hafta be smarter – and luckier – than Royals/A’s/Pirates/Orioles of the world.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
That isn’t strictly the Tampa Bay model. That’s what almost every small market team is doing. Even if the small market team doesn’t really spend on FAs (like Tampa), it costs more to keep those better players around through arbitration and long-term deals. Every small market team is going to have to end up spending significantly more when they expect to be good.
I have to agree with this. Chuck, what gives you the idea that the Indians do anything different from this?
The Indians spent a grand total of $4.6 million this season — total — on five free agents. Some of those were non-guaranteed and/or minor league deals.
The Rays don’t appear to have any free agents on the roster more significant than Gabe Kapler. They did have Pat Burrell on a two-year deal for $16 million, but they DFA’ed him in May.
The difference between the $40 million and the $70 million isn’t free agents, it’s how many homegrown players you have in arbitration, and how deep into it. For them or for us.
by Jay on Oct 2, 2010 8:50 PM EDT up reply actions
I’ve got an issue with the premisebased on the title, “Putting a Price on Winning”. Who’s price? The Yankees? Then it’s more than $2M a win. The Mets? The Cubs? The Dodgers? You’re still looking at ~$2M a win. But if you get down to the Twins or Rays then it’s about half that. In fact – for the Rays anyway – It’s <$0.8M a win. It’s a mis-applied metric.
We’re using this whole, “money buys success” BS as a fig leaf for our FO. I don’t buy it. If you’re looking for a championship any time soon, we’re gonna hafta outperform the Yankee/Mets/Cubs and start performing like the Twins/Rays.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
The Rays don’t draw, so I don’t get what we’re supposed to like so much. They’re going to do the same thing every small market team does-watch a lot of their stars walk.
So if they don’t draw, they’ve got even less revenue then we do, right? And yet they’re outplaying us by over 25 games. So, yeah, we’re not like them, they have even less money and are still far outpacing us. You OK with this?
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
Last time I checked the Indians never had to give away 20k tickets just to get people to show up to the last home game of the year when they had won 90+ games. And they never had 10 straight 90+ loss seasons. I mean, if that is what we are supposed to do be like the Rays are in 2010 then I guess 2019 will be great when win we 97 games, lose the WS, and draw 1.8 million fans.
No argument here: the TB fans don’t appreciate nor deserve this team. But what’s that got to do with their performance?
The Tampa FO has done a remarkable, almost unprecedented job assmbling this team. But that relates to my original premise: money is not the only factor. A good – no make that great – FO can overcome limited resources.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
At the start of the decade, the Athletics were about as good as these Rays for seven years. The 08-10 Rays have won a handful more games than the 05-07 Indians, and the Indians did it without the help of even a single Top 10 draft pick.
Unprecedented, my ass.
by Jay on Oct 3, 2010 2:26 PM EDT up reply actions 3 recs
Sure, let’s cherry pick, shall we? You’re right one year in that seven year run the A’s led the league in wins. One in seven. Looks like the Rays – this year – we’ll be at or near the top in total wins at the start of their run. But the A’s run was waaaaaaay back when the “Price Tag on Winning” was considerably lower, and the disparity in payrolls was less. So yeah, the A’s did well – that’s why I said, "almost unprecedented". But I can see why you didn’t acknowledge that – in doesn’t fit your narrative, so you dropped it.
And let’s not ignore the Twins. Five times this decade they’ve won at least 90 games. Pretty impressive for a small market team in the age of the high "Price Tag on Winning".
And again, you’ve turned this into me attacking the Indians FO. I’ll admit that I’m nowhere near as enamored with Shapiro and Company as you are. I think that their five years of bad to poor drafts will hamstring us for at least another three years. But that’s not the issue at hand here. All I’m saying is this: limited financial resources is not an insurmountable obstacle to winning the World Series.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
Led the league in wins? The A’s won 103 and 102 games in consecutive years!
I fired Shapiro a year ago. I don’t know what you want from me.
There was greater disparity, yes, but the Rays are functioning almost entirely without free agents, so the increase in disparity doesn’t really affect them at the moment. Wouldn’t matter if the Yankees are spending $150 million or $250 million on all their free agents, the Rays are at $60 million either way.
I’ll admit that it was easier to do ten years ago than today, but you’ll have to admit that Beane invented the techniques the Rays are using today. It’s entirely possible that without Billy Beane, the guys running the Rays wouldn’t even be in baseball now.
by Jay on Oct 3, 2010 5:31 PM EDT up reply actions
Again, I’m not disputing Beane’s success. Far from it. But you must admit, he seems to have run out of ideas.
Here’s all I’m saying: We, the Cleveland Indians, can, if we’re very, very smart, – and lucky – can win a WS sometime in my lifetime. I’m not giving up just because our payroll will probably never exceed $110M. But I’m not giving the FO any slack either just because they’re handicapped.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
Hm.
He may have run out of ideas. There may not be any truly high-leverage ideas left, now that the Yankees and Red Sox use sabermetrics with $200 million payrolls.
Here’s a proposition I find more likely: None of this really works for a small-market club unless they get both lucky and good in the draft. Beane looked like a genius with the benefit of Hudson-Zito-Mulder. The Rays look great with the benefit of a half-dozen #1 overall picks.
The Indians looked nearly as good with a rash of lopsided trades for prospects who largely panned out — again, not just lucky and not just good. It took both.
My point? Without luck, you get zero or one year in the playoffs, like the 2008 Brewers, instead of two out of three, like the 2008-2010 Rays.
by Jay on Oct 3, 2010 9:01 PM EDT up reply actions 4 recs
I like the Brewers as an example here. They were being touted as an organization that had been drafting well and looked to have a solid core that would net a few playoff performances.
Yeah, nobody really talks about the scrappy, well run teams that don’t really get anywhere, which, come to think of it, describes the more recent Athletics pretty well.
Hard to say. They had a great coincidence of talent on both sides of the ball: they obviously had the pitching but they also had two players that would win MVPs (Giambi and Tejada) and one who many thought would one day win one (Chavez).
This year, the pitching was excellent (led league in ERA) but they could not have been much worse offensively (bottom 4 in AL for R/g-only prevented from being worse by the historically inept Mariners and Orioles). And, there’s not a lot of help on the way. Chris Carter should be better than he was but a lot of their starters are little more than replacement guys and the system is not loaded offensively.
Mauer, Morneau and the dwarfs certainly qualify as “both lucky and good in the draft.”
I’ve made this point before indirectly, but there really are two very different Twins teams. The 01-04 Twins were a decent team at best, winning multiple division titles in a division with literally no other good teams after 2001. They got a little bit lucky in the regular season, were exposed badly in the postseason. They outscored opponents by an average of just 42 runs per season — compare that with the peak Athletics, which (again) outscored opponents by an average of 161 runs for the same period of four years.
If you look at the 2004 Twins roster, you can see that it bears no resemblance to the current club.
Now there’s the 06-10 club. The 2006 Twins were their first really good team this decade, the first one to beat out another good team for a playoff spot, the first to outscore its opponents by more than 65 runs — 118 to be exact. In 07, a step back — not unlike the 06 Indians or the 09 Rays.
In 08 and 09, they won the division on the final day and lost it on the final day. In both cases, they had decent competition (obviously), but in neither case did they reach 90 wins. Good teams, not great. I’d still say these clubs were better than the 02-04 clubs.
Now in 2010, another really good team. They caught lightning in a bottle with some very reasonably priced free agents — 10.1 WAR from Pavano, Thome and Hudson — all one-year deals, for a total of $13.5 million. That is some freakishly good luck on dumpster diving there. But it’s mostly a homegrown team.
They are and will remain flush with new-stadium money for a few years, but they’ll be paying Mauer and Morneau $30 million, which will absorb the most if not all of the new money. Had the new stadium not been opening right now, these players would have been traded.
I’m not trying to downgrade them with the “lucky but good” construction, but I don’t believe a team with less than $100 million payroll can win merely by being good anymore. I don’t think you believe it either, but you seem to give other clubs’ management a free pass where you won’t give one to the Indians, based on some pretty modest differences in result.
by Jay on Oct 4, 2010 9:05 PM EDT up reply actions
I don’t think you believe it either, but you seem to give other clubs’ management a free pass where you won’t give one to the Indians, based on some pretty modest differences in result.
The difference I notice is that he gives the benefit of doubt to teams who have done better recently than the body of work.
See: Oakland and Cleveland vs. Tampa and the Twins
You left out the part where they lose the best closer in all of baseball and a former MVP for half the season. Not all of their luck was “good”.
And you’ve got to be more than just lucky to beat the Yankees in their own division with 30% of their payroll. You’ve gotta be damn shrewd too. And, oh yeah, you gotta have a clue come the Draft.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
Current Rays management drafted exactly two of the current Rays — #1 overall David Price and #3 overall Evan Longoria. It is not at all clear that they would “have a clue” come the #14 overall pick, or that Shapiro’s people would not have picked those same players, given the same opportunity.
Morneau produced 4.2 WAR this season, the same as he did in his alleged MVP season — 10th in the league, right in between Choo and Mauer. It was unlucky that he went down, of course, but it’s untrue that the Twins got less out of Morneau this season than was expected.
As for Nathan, yeah, that is some brutal luck. On the other hand, Nathan’s acquisition is another one of those things where you have to say, really good, but even more lucky.
“damn shrewd”
I don’t understand what’s so shrewd about drafting players in the top 5 nearly every year for about 7 straight years.
Of course, you’re going to be good. What will really impress me is the road the Rays are on moving forward … are they truly ingenious talent evaluators, or just an epically crappy team that was able to amass talent through the marxism of the MLB draft?
Marx said “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” I’m not sure that describes the Major League draft at all!
'If I'm not here, 'I'll be somewhere else.'' Andy Marte
draft is always hit or miss, David Price could of been the next Brian Bullington (its a great list of #1 overall picks and their failures over the last 20 years….Price is truly the exception!).
There are guys on the team that contribute that aren’t first round picks: Matt Joyce (traded for E-Jack), Matt Garza & J.Bartlett (in D.Young), Carlos Pena (found on scrap heap), Sean Rodriguez (in Kazmir trade), Zobrist (Huff Trade), John Jaso (not a 1st round pick), Carl Crawford (not a 1st round pick), James Shields (not a 1st round pick), Wade Davis (not a first round pick), Benoit (injured last year, signed to a minor league deal), Soriano (acquired for Jesse Chavez [I think]), So, its not just drafting high that has benefitted the Rays….KC, Pitt, Baltimore, and others have a history of drafting high.
What gets lost with this Rays team is the turnover from 2008.
3/5 of the starting rotation gone or in diminished role (Kazmir, Jackson, Sonnanstine).
Closer (Percvial)
Primary Set Up man (JP Howell injured)
2b (Aki Iwamura)
RF (Hinske/Gross)
C (Dionner Navarro [very diminished role])
DH (Cliff Floyd)
So, 3/5 of starting rotation, primary setup man, closer, catcher, 2b, and RF all changed out and they win the AL East in 2 years. I find that to be pretty impressive.
Who ever said that it was only fist-round picks that was benefitting them?
Chuck praised the current Rays regime’s skill in the draft. I answered that specific point. You lost the plot entirely.
by Jay on Oct 5, 2010 9:45 PM EDT up reply actions
not really lost the point, probably responded in the wrong spot in the thread. Speeding through at lunch time and not really paying attention.
I was comenting on emd2k3 <I don’t understand what’s so shrewd about drafting players in the top 5 nearly every year for about 7 straight years.>…not on anything you had said at all.
Incidentally:
1. The Rays are “at the start” of their run? Seriously? Not only are they self-evidently in year three, having gone to the 2008 World Series with basically the same core, but they’re just a few short weeks from losing Crawford, Peña, Qualls, Soriano, etc. to free agency.
2. No serious person could say those A’s teams weren’t a notch better than these Rays teams. Those A’s averaged 161 run differentials over four consecutive seasons. The Rays have never had a 161 run differential in their entire history.
Wasn’t the “start of their run” in the year 2008 (for tampa bay)? I don’t understand what you mean by that phrase.
In the new Geico commercial, Marte sings "Let me be myself" on Wedge's front lawn (with the cavemen).
by V-Mart Shopper on Oct 4, 2010 5:04 PM EDT up reply actions
Oh, Jay already said this.
In the new Geico commercial, Marte sings "Let me be myself" on Wedge's front lawn (with the cavemen).
by V-Mart Shopper on Oct 4, 2010 5:06 PM EDT up reply actions
I figure the Rays are good for 5-7 years before they blow it up and start all over again. So they’re ~3 years into it with 2-4 more years left. So……it’s still the beginning.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
This is not going to turn out to be one of your better predictions. Entropy, my friend … we are all regressing to the mean of utter chaos, all the time.
by Jay on Oct 4, 2010 9:06 PM EDT up reply actions
You need to review your thermo. Entropy can be reversed with work. If you sit on your ass, you’re absolutely right. Gotta keep movin’ dude, gotta keep improving.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
2010 WAR Leaving Tampa:
Crawford: 6.7
Pena: 0.9 (-2.7 Defensively, ouch)
Qualls: 0.3
Soriano: 1.7
Total: 9.6
I haven’t looked at the contract status of others on their team, but I assume they have other FAs. Pena and Crawford were already in arby, so it’s not like it destroys their payroll, but it will be tough to replace the production, especially on offense.
Maybe Desmond Jennings figures it out.
by afh4 on Oct 5, 2010 10:11 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
This is suggesting defensive metrics should be totally ignored.
by afh4 on Oct 5, 2010 5:37 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Why would we expect all small market teams to be at the same place on the sinusoidal curve you’re purporting? Were you hanging around Rays sites in 2005 or 2007 calling them a failure and holding up the Indians as a standard?
by afh4 on Oct 3, 2010 10:19 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Did they outplay us in 2007? Or did we outplay them in 2007?
In the new Geico commercial, Marte sings "Let me be myself" on Wedge's front lawn (with the cavemen).
by V-Mart Shopper on Oct 4, 2010 5:02 PM EDT up reply actions
It’s not a fig leaf; it’s reality.
The Indians had their up-years as the Rays are having now. We’ll see how good the Rays are over the next five years.
by Jay on Oct 3, 2010 8:47 AM EDT up reply actions
for two years (arguably three, counting 2005) out of the last decade the indians were one of the best teams in baseball. So how exactly are the indians not doing as well as the rays?
I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.
by notthatnoise on Oct 3, 2010 11:29 AM EDT up reply actions
What we’re supposed to use a consultant’s web page as a true representation of how the Rays succeeded? YDW, you’re shewder than that.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
I think the Indians doing badly is a fig leaf for your being an insufferable curmudgeon.
by Jay on Oct 3, 2010 8:49 AM EDT up reply actions 3 recs
Here is a little something I’ve been working on…it pertains to draft, W-L, attendance, and payroll from 1997-2010 for the American League. I see a lot of commentary going back in time involving Rays, A’s, Twins, etc.
http://tribetalk365.blogspot.com/2010/10/american-league-draft-war-review.html
Hopefully, the above data will help in explaining some of the up and downs of some organizations.
For the sake of discussion, I calculated the 2010 WAR Cost to be just under $1m ($994k)
Check my math:
2010 Total Salaries: $2.7B
Minimum Salaries: $300m (400k * 25 * 30)
Wins: (81 * 30) 2,430
Wins are not wins above replacement.
A replacement-level roster generally is believed to win about 60 games, so league-wide there should be only 630 WAR to get. (Some players will have negative WAR, however, so the total of all positive WAR players will be closer to 700.)
Also, there are more than 25 players on a big-league payroll for the year, because of players on the DL, and also players who replace those who are DFA’ed. In both cases, two players are getting paid for one spot. So you probably want to go with more like 30 to 32 players for your replacement-level salaries.
I get something like $3.7 million per marginal win. The Mariners, however, spent $85 million on one marginal win.
by Jay on Oct 5, 2010 9:56 AM EDT up reply actions
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