Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 814: Why Don’t the Best Free Agents Make Even More Money?

Episode Date: February 9, 2016

Ben and Sam discuss why teams don’t pay a premium for elite free agents and why players who switch positions might not always do so smoothly.

He said my son temptation is one thing that I've defeated. Listen to me. I want a single bill from you. Nonetheless, none more. I told him I didn't have it. Then close my door. Tell me how much it done it cost. Good morning and welcome to episode 814 of Effectively Wild. Daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives brought to you by the Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I'm Sam Miller along with Ben Lindberg. Hi Ben. Hello. Big, uh, big number in baseball history, 814. One of the most important numbers, I would say. Really?

Yeah, it's how many home runs Babe Ruth would have hit if he'd hit 100 more. It's a theoretical milestone. A magical number in baseball history. Anything to talk about? Well, there's a report from Buster Ol Only that the league and the players are making progress on a new slide rule. Slide rule is a thing, but this is the paper kind of slide rule. It's going to say something about players touching second base or will have clearer language. So in a follow-up to our conversation from yesterday, is this the sort of rule change where you think there should be a grace period or the old rule should be grandfathered in

for a year or two while people adjust? Well, I don't think that you need to worry about people adjusting. I think that it's hard for me to imagine that any significant investment that a team has made on the presumption of the old slide rule existing would be threatened by this. Like you signed Chase Utley thinking that he can hurt

someone occasionally. Yeah, exactly. Now I would say generally I would err on the side of giving of slow rollouts of rules, but I don't really see any scenario where it would be necessary here. So no, go ahead and make it happen as quickly as possible. It's a stupid rule. All right. Anything else? Nope. All right. So I want to talk about a couple of Russell Carlton, recent Russell Carlton articles today. So the first one, I want to start with a question, Ben. If a win above replacement is worth seven, say seven and a half million dollars, how much is a two-win player worth? 15 million. And now how much is a five-win

player worth? 37 and a half million. Now, I think that most, I've had this conversation about a thousand times in my life, in real life and in fake life, but it seems like, in fact, you would much rather have one five-win player than two two-and-a-half-win players, or two two-win players and a one-win player, or certainly more than five one-win players. You would agree with that? Yeah, because you're concentrating the wins in one roster spot instead of using another one for the same amount of wins. That is exactly right. same amount of wins. That is exactly right. And it is also, if you have a six win player and a no win player, it's much easier to upgrade than, you know, it should be easier to upgrade cheaply if

you're a clever GM with his eyes on the prize than if you have, you know, a whole bunch of two win players or something like that. So there's that as well. So it seems very obvious that the value of a win should not be perfectly linear like that. And that in fact, the five or six win players, fifth and sixth wins, should presumably be even more valuable than the first and second wins. And it's been demonstrated time and again, that this is not how Major League Baseball teams actually treat it. That in fact, it doesn't seem like they would pay more for a four-win player than they pay for two two-win players. It's odd, and yet it seems to be the case.

Now, Russell, finally getting back to Russell, wrote a piece on opt-outs a couple weeks ago that looks at why the opt-out has become so in vogue because, you know, why the opt out has become so in vogue, because, you know, clearly, it's two, two parties determining that this is a good way of rewarding players, you know, in a sort of way, other than just giving them more money or asking for more money. So what is it about this opt out that is appealing? Why is it now and so on. And And I think that one of the interesting things I took from this piece is not just that teams don't pay six win players more than they would pay three two win players. But in fact, they pay them quite a bit less. It seems like the higher you go, the less the 7.5 million per win framework holds.

And so Russell explained this. He named it the Guinness effect. And this is, if you read the article, you would understand. If you don't, there's no way you would. So I'll explain it. The Guinness effect comes from the time that Russell tried to set a Guinness world record. Did not know that.

That's something else I learned from this article. So he was going to go for a world record and when he sent his question to the Guinness world records company to ask they said, yeah, sure, do it like this, this, this, this, and this.

And by the way, try to only beat the record by a little bit. Don't blow it out of the water. Just beat it by a second if you could. He was a college radio DJ, and he was inquiring how long he would have to broadcast to have the longest continuous broadcast. That is true.

I was debating in my head whether it is more interesting to tell listeners that or whether it's actually more interesting to leave them wondering what record Russell would be qualified to attempt. But it's been taken out of my hands and I'm not too upset. All right. I'm going to quote Russell here. Why shouldn't I just go all out? And if it's not broken for 50 years, so be it. Because it gives someone else a chance to have their moment in the sun. And that's how nice people act. That's our culture. And I don't, I think it's also possible that, well, I think that it's also possible that

for the Guinness, Guinness' sake, it's not about altruism so much as that a lot of churn and a lot of attempts are good for their business. I don't know. But anyway, that's irrelevant. In fact, in fact, the more I think about it, the Guinness attempt is irrelevant to Russell's point, maybe, but I'm not sure. Anyway, the point is that there seems to be a similar ceiling to what teams are willing to pay at the upper end of the free agent market.

And if you look at what top free agents sign for, they seem to sign for discounts. And we all know this kind of intuitively when we think about a Mike Trout free agency. A Mike Trout free agency ought to get something like $50, $60 million per year. And in fact, while we don't have a Mike Trout free agency to compare it to, we know that he would not actually get $50 or $60 million, I think, right? Probably not. I think that if Mike Tr actually get $50 or $60 million, I think, right? Probably not. I think that if Mike Trout were a free agent this offseason, he would be, well, he would be 23.

But he'd be the most attractive free agent in history. And still, I think probably you'd be looking at something like 11 years and 400, maybe. Okay. Is that right? Does that seem right to you? it's hard for me to say it's hard to know because he would want to know you know he would get an opt-out and all that but anyway he would not get 50 or 60 million dollars clayton kershaw didn't get 50 or 60 million dollars and russell demonstrates that players at the very top actually don't get paid

what they're worth relative to other free agents. So I don't necessarily accept that this is exactly the same thing as the Guinness effect. But I do wonder, A, why you think it is that free agents at the top end don't get paid per win? B, if you were a team and you had this knowledge, if you would take advantage of it? Well, is it possible that you are concentrating more of your risk in one player if you're paying that player a very large percentage of your payroll? Like even if he is projected, I mean, if you have one player who is projected for six wins and two players who are projected for three wins, you would think that you would

pay the $6 million guy more per win because you get to keep a roster spot and still get the same win projection. But you also probably have more risk, right? Your risk of getting nothing is greater, I suppose, because there's a chance that the guy could have a season-ending injury and there's less of a chance that both of your three-win players will have season-ending injuries. So you're opening yourself up to a potentially catastrophic loss if your six-win player who you're paying more per win than anyone else gets hurt in a way that costs him a lot of time.

So maybe it's partly that. in a way that costs him a lot of time. So maybe it's partly that. Maybe it's partly just because the reaction to it would be so strong. Even as it is when players sign big contracts, media members and fans are always shocked that it's that much. Even though players are getting a lower percentage of league-wide revenue than they used to, even though there's inflation and there are all kinds of really good reasons for player salaries to keep climbing. People are always

shocked and appalled when it actually happens. And so if you were to go above and beyond the market for someone, then people would be even more shocked and appalled. And maybe there's also the fear that if you pay a premium for a star player, then your average player won't necessarily see it that way. And we'll think, well, if the star player is getting that much, then I should get the percentage of that that I am of that player's production and not price in the premium that you're getting for keeping a roster spot. So if you pay someone else $40 or $50 million a year or something, then suddenly the less good guy is going to want $20 or $30 because that's just the way that people work. Yeah, I think there are a lot of interesting things in that paragraph that you just said. I don't know if I'd be worried about the less good player

demanding more money from me, but there's some evidence that, or I think you could call it evidence, there's some evidence that having large salary differentials in a clubhouse is not great for chemistry or not great for, I don't know, whatever, that it creates some tension between players, and I'm sure everybody expects that their Albert Pujols is, or their Robinson Canoes are going to get paid a lot more than, than they are, but it might be that there is that some gravity keeps salaries, uh, you know, tethered in a, in a fairly real realistic spread, uh, so that it's not well, a, so that it's not too big a gap. These guys are all

fairly comparably rich once they get to free agency. And maybe at a certain point, if you really paid the top guys what they were worth, maybe that wouldn't be fairly comparable anymore. The other thing is that you could imagine that the guy who's making $12 million and you sign your Mike Trout for $60. I'm not sure that the guy who's making $12 thinks, well, I should get $15 or I should get $60. But especially if Trout doesn't perform, he might say Trout is taking money that the club could be spending on me. on me. And it becomes sort of more obvious that what huge portion, what huge percentage of the club's payroll is going to that one player. And if he doesn't perform, you could be mad as a player, not just as a fan. I mean, as a fan, we've all been there. But as a player, you could be especially mad that he's sucking up so much of the club's resources. And maybe if you just move up

incrementally, like to the 30s, that's not quite so obvious. Another thing that you mentioned is the risk, the distribution of risk. And I think this is included. I mean, I know this is the risk of injury. The risk of getting nothing is included in a projection system, which is taking, you know, all the different possibilities for a player's season and career and kind of merging it into one. But it is still the case that Mike Trout is, you know, not really any less likely to suffer a season ending injury than, you know, Brennan Bosch is. And so while you're willing to pay Trout a lot more for the performance that he gives you when he's healthy healthy there is certainly a kind of

an equalized risk of you know the the season ending or even the career ending injury that might make it hard to commit an even more excessive amount to such a player so that seems that seems irrational but reasonable and i forget i thought there was another thing that you mentioned, but that was interesting to me, but now I can't remember. Well, the backlash. Oh yeah, the backlash. I don't know that I think the backlash is significant. For one thing, I think that there's a, I mean, who are you worried about the backlash from? If you're worried about backlash from other owners, fine, fine. But teams have been getting – teams have been spending more than other owners wished they would since 1974 or whatever year Catfish Hunter got his free agency.

I mean, this is just – this is a standard part of – I mean, this is why collusion doesn't really work, is that everybody wants all the other companies to go along with their collusion, but then they actually want to cheat on their own. And this is, I mean, I think that it's probably the case that every big contract makes some owners roll their eyes and get mad and say, ah, you're the one who's doing this to the industry. You can't. But they all do it, so whatever. Now, if you're worried about backlash from the fans, if it's your own fans,

I don't think any fan is mad when you sign a top five player to a top five price. They're mad when you sign a mediocre for or a player they see as mediocre for a big price i think they're mad if you sign a top five player to a big price and then he's horrible but that's going to happen even if it's a 30 if he's making 30 40 50 or 60 i'm not sure it matters you do make yourself a target if you're the player. Some players seem to want to make themselves that target or seem to just want to be the biggest and the best and the highest paid. And it's validation for them that they are making the most money. And then there are other players who maybe think that and then it turns out that it's both a blessing and a curse or or they just don't want to be that person and like we saw with a rod for instance when a rod got his big contract that seemed to make him less well liked because he was just making such an extraordinary amount of money it just you know the sort of fan who just reflexively says these guys are making too much money and

people who are of more value to society perhaps are not making a fraction of what this player is making. And so there is just a reflexive anger against that. It's really against the system, I guess, or the way that we value certain skills. But there is that sort of, you know, resentment towards people who are making more than you and making just an incredible amount more than you. And so maybe you don't want to make yourself the poster boy of high paid baseball players. Yeah, I think that you're I think that's a really smart thing that this might not just be about clubs not willing. It might not even be exclusively about clubs not willing to go that high. I wonder whether there's some aspect or some element of players not wanting to go that high. Obviously, if a player is worth $50 million this year,

the player wants $50 million. But if he can camouflage that $50 million behind us, say $30 million base contract, and then get his riches in ways that are a little less obvious, then maybe that's better. And so that's kind of, in a way, I think maybe what Russell was getting to, that that's what the long-term deal is. That's why the players, the better players, sure, they get more than everybody else per average annual value, but they probably don't get as much as they could in average annual value, especially during their peak years. But instead, they get length. They get the seven-year contract and the eight-year contract. And as Russell points out, everybody knows that the last couple of years of that contract are basically free money. And it's a way of, because they're not going to be good by that point. And so it's a way of getting your money, but getting it in a way that doesn't necessarily push you up to, you know, $15 million higher than

anybody else has ever made. And maybe the opt-out is the same way. It's basically a player saying, all right, look, in my career, I'm going to make, you know, $400 million. Is there a way to structure that $400 million that doesn't put a target on me quite so obviously, and the opt out seems like a great way to do that you you get paid, you also get your bite at the apple again. And you're never quite necessarily so much a target because you're not maxing out your year by year. And yeah, that might be the answer. That might be the answer to the question that we sometimes bring up of will there be a player whoever says, you know what, forget taking discounts for length and security. I'm going year by year.

I'm getting my $50 million a year that I'm worth and then hitting free agency every year, which seems like a somewhat rational thing to do if you really want to max out. But maybe players have just determined that that's a good way to make people mad at you for some reason. Yeah. Well, if you're the $30 million man or the $40 million man or the $50 million man. And you look like a total mercenary. Yeah. Well, no matter how good you are, you're going to slump. You're going to have a bad playoff series because one of your slumps will coincide with those five games in that series.

And then people will be mad, because if you're the $50 million man, you're always supposed to be good. And people will be extra mad when you aren't good. The other thing with the opt-out that Russell sort of mentions, and that you just mentioned, is the mercenary angle. So maybe you open yourself up to some criticism by taking the shorter deal in the opt out or just taking the opt out in general, just because you are reserving the right to leave. It would be like if you got married and you reserved the right to an annulment after two

years or something that would engender some resentment because you're not fully in. And so maybe people would think the same thing about players who take an opt-out after one year or two years because if you're signing an eight-year deal or a 10-year deal, there's a good chance that the end of that contract is going to be painful for the team and the fans. But at least the guy wanted to be there for 10 years. He was signing away the rest of his career and saying, I'm part of this team for the long haul. Whereas if you're an opt-out, you're just kind of have one foot in one foot out.

Ben, a headline just came in front of me on my computer. Red Lobster sales skyrocket after Beyonce's formation shout out. And then the deckhead is, is anybody really surprised by this? Do you believe this? And are you surprised by it? I guess I believe it. I don't. I just don't. I don't believe that Red Lobster sales have skyrocketed because it was mentioned in a lyric.

I don't know. What's the basis of the claim? I don't know. What's the basis of the claim? The company claims that sales were up on Sunday, the day after she dropped the song. So I guess this is Super Bowl Sunday. I guess they're comparing year over year Super Bowl Sunday sales. On Sunday, the restaurant chain's sales were up 33% over the last year, which is, I think, bad grammar. I think they mean over the same day last year, which is, I think, bad grammar. I think they mean over the same day last year. Now, they're saying Super Bowl Sunday sales went up.

How much business is Red Lobster getting on Super Bowl Sunday? It's not really traditional Super Bowl food, like nachos and Red Lobster. Yeah. So we're really perhaps talking about a small sample here. I'll wait and see. Okay. All right. The other Russell piece is the one that I want to mention is the one that came out today, Tuesday, and it is about the defensive spectrum.

And the basis of the defensive spectrum, or as you might say, defensive spectrum, is that a shortstop is a better defender than a second baseman and could presumably move over to second base and be a very good second baseman. If he can handle shortstop, he's probably a very good second baseman and probably a very good third baseman. And if he's a center fielder, he's probably a very good right fielder, a very good left fielder.

And because things get oversimplified, probably if he's a shortstop, he can probably handle left field as well. Although that's obviously something that would probably vary a little bit from player to player. And so based on whether he's Hanley Ramirez or not. Yeah, exactly. And so Russell looked at how shortstop, you know, how primary shortstops have actually done when they've gone over to third base, as well as how primary second baseman have done when they've gone over to shortstop, as well as how primary shortstops have done when they've gone to center field, as well as how, you know, utility guys, the ones who've played a lot of places have gone when they've played first base and looked at all of these kind of movements to see how they did as a group. And while acknowledging that in his words, there's a sample bias because managers might be moving the guys that they think are best able to thrive at these out of position positions, as Russell puts it, which I think is a very nice and elegant way of saying it. Since we pay managers to introduce bias into this sample, it's possible that this is what we're seeing. But the point is that Russell found that in fact, utility guys

seem to play better at, say, third base than shortstops do at third base, which is sort of surprising. We've been led to believe that shortstops are great defenders and can move seamlessly wherever they need to go up and down the defensive spectrum because they're already at the top of it. And this is not a totally inconsequential assumption because this is what war is based on with positional adjustments. There is a specific amount of runs a player gets for playing shortstop that presumes that he would be that good at second base or better, you know, even better at second base. And in fact, it's not necessarily the case that you can move seamlessly up and down the spectrum, at least without practice or at least without particular skills and do it as seamlessly as the models would assume. So I just wanted to bring this article up, bring it to your attention,

and see whether anything about it was notable to you. Well, it sort of makes sense. I haven't read the article yet. I assume Russell points out why this might be that the utility infielder might not be as skilled as the full-time shortstop, but he has experience playing those positions. That's exactly right. Do you want me to read a little bit? Sure. All right. I'll read two paragraphs toward the end. But back to determining a player's value, we want to model reality as closely as possible. A shortstop who's only played shortstop and does so at an average level would actually probably put up merely average defense if he suddenly found

himself at second base. So he's not a star second baseman as the model assumes he's just average. He might learn the position and take to it, but our models assume that he would put up above average defense instantly. That's a dangerous assumption. The evidence suggests that a fielder needs some seasoning at the position he's playing. At this point, we don't know how much seasoning, but to properly value a shortstop and to give him credit for, well, he could go to third and just nail it there. We need to ask whether he's ever played third before. If not, we need to temper that value a bit. I don't know that there's an easy way to shoehorn that into war, but it would be a better reflection of reality. Maybe have a previous positional diversification factor in the

calculations. You may also want to think about how quickly the player learns it's going to matter. And then that's when he gets to handling Ramirez, which you brought up. And before this, he suggests that this might be a player development thing where it could be as simple as making sure that even if you know a player is a shortstop, you know, Raul Mondesi is obviously going to be a shortstop in the Royals. I doubt had him play anywhere but shortstop coming up the system, but it might make sense to do it anyway, that there's a long-term investment in having him be familiar with other positions and to think of himself as accessible at other positions. So yes, Russell does bring that up. And I guess that sort of explains Ben Zobrist a little bit, that sort of explains Ben's obris a little bit or helps explain him because in the past, there's been a suspicion that maybe the opposite would be true, that when you are shifting from one position

to another all the time, you might be worse at those positions, right? Or I guess that you'd be worse than a full-timer at that position, but not necessarily that you'd be worse than a full timer at that position, but not necessarily that you'd be worse switching from one to another than a full timer would be. But so maybe that helps explain why teams do seem to be cultivating that type of player and why that type of player like Ben Zobrist is able to be a good defender at a bunch of different positions at once. But I mean, teams do. I think they know this. I think they understand this, that when they move a player from one position to another, generally it's not just, hey, you're a shortstop

and so you can automatically play third base. And so we just penciled you into the lineup at this new position, go out there and be good immediately. And that's not how teams generally handle the position switch i mean even in hanley ramirez's case i think he worked over the offseason with people on the red socks and he showed up early to spring training and he did extra practice so there was at least the knowledge or the understanding that he would take a little time to acclimate to that position even

though theoretically he should have the skills to do that. And the fact that he didn't, I mean, I think it was, it was a spectacular failure and I certainly didn't see that coming. You know, I think there was some acknowledgement that there was risk in moving a guy to a position he had never played before. But I think most of the time when people acknowledge that risk, they also said, but he's a shortstop. And if he can play a pretty bad shortstop, he should be able to play a decent left field. And it just totally crashed and burned. And then after the fact, people talked about his mentality and his mindset and how he's very hard on himself. And, you know, some people say he

doesn't work hard enough. And other people say that he gets discouraged if he struggles at something. And so there was all that that came up that people said the Red Sox should have known that he would not respond well to this, which, you know, I certainly heard more often after the fact, after it had failed than before the fact. So I don't know whether that's just something that's easier to say in hindsight, but you know, I mean, often it, it works fine. You know, you give a guy some time and you tutor him and, and he's able to, to switch. I think everyone realizes that you can't necessarily do it in a day. I remember there was a time when the angels didn't really have anybody who could

play left field and they moved Alexi Amorista and Howie Kendrick out to left field with an afternoon's notice. And that was not their first choice. In fact, by definition, they couldn't both be their first choice. But it was amazing because I forget which one of them. I think it was Amarista. It was the first time he'd played in the outfield since like short season ball, maybe DSL. And he made a leaping catch running straight back in his first game. It was pretty impressive. So let me ask you,

you don't have the answer to this. Of course, I'm asking you to speculate. But if you have a league average shortstop, and let's say there's nothing particularly notable about this player's, you know, dimensions that would make him suited for one position over another. So he's not, you know, he's,

he's, let's call him Ian Desmond or, you know, Eric Ibar or something like that. A guy with reasonable athleticism and reasonable, uh, physical build. You've got a league average shortstop and a league average second baseman. How many days, and the shortstop has never played second base, never played anywhere but shortstop, at least at any reasonably high level. How many days, uh, how many starts at second before you think that that shortstop will be a better defender at second than the second baseman is?

I'd say a month. Oh, wow. A month. Wow. Assuming this is like a mid-season change. Yeah, right. Because there's less time to work on things. You know, you have to work on your hitting and you have to travel and you have to do interviews. And so it's harder to work on these things than it might be over the winter or in spring training. So it's just a on the fly mid season change. Yeah, I'll say a month.

So my my speculation probably would have been like three or four days. And so I guess that's what Russell is. That's what the point of of russell's article is that there's people like me are probably over uh over assuming now uh let me ask you the exact same question but it's a uh above average it's a it's a league average shortstop and a league average left fielder how many days huh i don't know like it's an easier position and yet it's a bigger adjustment because you're moving from fielding grounders to fielding fly balls which so you would think that in the long run the league average shortstop would be better relative to league average left fielders than he would be if he were to move to second right relative to league average second baseman and And yet at the same time, it's a completely different job description that the, you know, because playing second base is, it's not the same as shortstop, but it's largely the same.

You're fielding ground balls and it's different angles and you're playing a different role in the double play pivot and all that. But it's as close as you can get to the job that you were doing before. Whereas outfield is very different. So I guess I would I'd have to say longer, I suppose, to to be consistent. So I'll say six weeks, six weeks. OK, now that then there are maybe there there are some guys who just can't do it, you know, and it would be hard to predict. there are some guys who just can't do it you know and yeah it would be hard to predict and maybe henley ramirez was one but there could be some guys who would just be great at fielding ground

balls and just would not be able to judge fly balls yeah i would well yeah i would have said probably three weeks for this short stop to left field but acknowledging that there would be some guys who it would be never and some guys who would be two days. Yeah. And that I wouldn't necessarily know intuitively exactly what traits would make one guy a never and one guy a two days. Yeah. Now, so then to move to the outfield, would you agree that an average center fielder,

even if he's basically only played center field since high school, an average center fielder is better in left field than an average left fielder on day one maybe day two okay and and let me okay and last thing if you had an average left fielder who's never played anywhere but left and an average right fielder who's never played anywhere but right the positional adjustments treat them the same correct yeah now if you move to the right fielder to left how many runs worse do you think he should be on day one huh yeah and we've talked about that before because we've with russell's article about left and right fielders switching based on the handedness of the batter and whether it might make sense to move a better right fielder to left or vice versa, depending on who's hitting. And he found that it might make sense statistically,

but you don't really know how players would adjust to being forced to, you know, see the ball from different angles from one play to the next. So I guess, I don't know, maybe four runs over the course of a season or something. Okay. All right. That's all. I would guess, by the way, on that one, I would guess, I mean, a guy might be in right field because he's a little bit less mobile and a guy might be in left field because he has a worse arm.

And so those traits, but assuming those are equal, I would say that by day two, I'm calling those guys equal. Okay. All right. So you can send us emails. We'll do an email show tomorrow at podcast at baseballperspectives.com. You can

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