Did We Get Free Agency All Wrong?
We’ve heard all offseason that baseball teams are getting smarter. One of the strategies employed by those smart teams is to wait players out in free agency to get good deals. Todd Frazier signed for two years and $17 million, Eduardo Nunez received only $8 million in guarantees, Carlos Gomez just signed for $4 million, and Logan Morrison only received $6.5 million. Plenty of quality free agents remain, and the market isn’t looking robust. It certainly seems as though teams are winning and that the strategy of waiting has paid off.
Travis Sawchik found that the free agents who signed contracts during the early part of the current offseason ended up receiving about 5% less overall than their FanGraphs crowdsourced estimates predicted. In light of research by Max Rieper at Royals Review, that boded poorly for players. Rieper, who compared actual contract values to those estimated by FanGraphs crowdsource estimates over several years, found that players who sign early in the offseason typically fare much better (relative to the estimates) than those who sign later.
At first glance, it would appear that several prominent, recent free-agent signings seem to fly in the face of Rieper’s findings, though. As Ben Lindbergh mentioned in his recent post on the players’ share of revenue, Yu Darvish, Eric Hosmer, J.D. Martinez, all signed at or above their crowdsourced estimates. I would add the Brewers signing of Lorenzo Cain to that list, as well.
Is it possible that the waiting game hasn’t actually hurt free agents? Or is there something else going on here? With more data available, it might be time to revisit Rieper’s study with the current offseason included.
Rieper found that free agents signing before January 1 in the 2014 offseason through the winter of 2016 received 10% more in guarantees than their crowd estimates. Those who signed after January 1 in those winters received 19% less than the estimates. Last offseason’s crop of free agents fared even worse by this measure. Those who signed early ended up with contracts discounted by 26%, and those who signed after January 1 received roughly half of what the crowd thought they would receive. It’s quite possible this didn’t go unnoticed. With even more teams appearing to take a similar tack this winter, the result has been the slowest offseason ever.
The results this year have not been as extreme as what we saw a season ago. A 5% cut for those signing early is a departure from 2014-2016, but not to the same degree as last year. The players who have signed since January 1 have received 15% less than the estimates from the fall. If we include opt-outs, the percentage cut is probably closer to 5%, mirroring the players who signed before the new year. That number probably understates the effect, though, as 11 of the top-50 free agents remain available. Some of them seem unlikely to receive their crowdsourced predictions, as seen below.
| Name | Crowd Estimates ($/M) |
|---|---|
| Jake Arrieta | 110 |
| Mike Moustakas | 85 |
| Lance Lynn | 60 |
| Alex Cobb | 56 |
| Neil Walker | 39 |
| Greg Holland | 36 |
| Jonathan Lucroy | 33 |
| Carlos Gonzalez | 22 |
| Lucas Duda | 18 |
| Jeremy Hellickson | 18 |
| Jon Jay | 8 |
If the players above end up receiving half of their crowdsourced figure, the New Year’s discount for 2018 would roughly double, to 28% — or approximately what we’ve observed in the previous four years.
Perhaps the Cain, Darvish, Martinez, and Hosmer are all anomalies, then. By this measure they are, at least. But instead of separating players by signing date, what if we separate them by expected contract value? With help from data compiled by Max Rieper, I put players in buckets based on the estimated contract amount. Here’s what I found.
| Crowd ($/M) | Actual ($/M) | Difference % | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Above $80 M | 2408.5 | 2595.3 | 7.8% |
| Between $40 M and $80 M | 1770.0 | 1675.0 | -5.3% |
| Between $10 M and $40 M | 2137.5 | 1723.6 | -19.3% |
| Up to $10 M | 182.0 | 232.5 | 27.7% |
Generally speaking, the larger the contract, the more likely the crowd has been to miss on the low side. As you see here, contracts estimated for $80 million and up have resulted in actual deals worth 7.8% more than that. If we move the bar up to $100 million and above, players have received 11% over expectations. The crowd tends to underestimate the big deals and overestimate the small- to medium-sized contracts.
And this makes some sense in the context of Rieper’s study: in a typical offseason, the big contracts tend to get signed early, with the lesser players falling in line after the market has been set. By January, we usually have only those lesser players remaining and fewer holes on teams to fill. The crowd tends to overestimate the contracts for those players, and we subsequently view those players as bargains. If we ignore the time aspect, that fits in line with what we’ve seen so far this offseason, especially with the recent, large signings. Here’s what the players with at least $50 million crowdsourced projections have gotten so far this winter.
| Date Signed | Crowd | Actual | Difference | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yu Darvish | 2/13/18 | 125 | 126 | 0.8% |
| J.D. Martinez | 2/19/18 | 110 | 110 | 0.0% |
| Eric Hosmer | 2/19/18 | 95 | 144 | 51.6% |
| Lorenzo Cain | 1/26/18 | 68 | 80 | 17.6% |
| Zack Cozart | 12/15/17 | 60 | 38 | -36.7% |
| Wade Davis | 12/29/17 | 60 | 52 | -13.3% |
| TOTAL | 518 | 550 | 6.2% |
Of the free agents who have signed so far, it appears as though it’s the ones who signed early that took the discount. Notably, this table omits all the players yet to be signed. Once Jake Arrieta, Alex Cobb, Lance Lynn, and Mike Moustakas finally land with a team, we will likely see these numbers go down. Moustakas will likely take a significant hit, but it is too early to say much about the remaining free-agent pitchers. If Arrieta signs for $80 million and the other three sign for $40 million each, we will see a 10% discount for the top players, which would represent a departure from past trends. Not counted in any of the deals above are opt-outs which Darvish, Hosmer, Martinez, and Hosmer all received. Including the opt-outs would take the estimates — even after the rest of the players sign — close to break-even for the top players.
The free-agent season has been dreadfully slow, and we’ve seen a lot of discounts along with a handful of big contracts at or above the expected market. Even after all the free agents sign, payroll is likely not to increase this season relative to last one. We’ve had to rearrange our expectations this winter because it has been abnormal. Of the top six free agents on Dave Cameron’s list from November, five have signed for significantly more than originally thought when considering opt-outs. Without considering opt-outs — and adding the expected 10% premium from the crowdsourced estimates to the top free agents — if Arrieta signs for $90 million, the top-six free agents will sign for what we might have predicted before the offseason began.
I don’t think we got free agency wrong, but it isn’t really clear that all the waiting depressed prices significantly. This is especially true for the top free agents, and won’t be close to last year’s situation. The middle class of veterans appears more likely to suffer the brunt of any team strategy to delay signing players, but that is the case in most years. We’ll know more in the next month.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
Well, a lot of us did get Rieper’s study all wrong.
This is the link to Rieper’s study:
https://www.royalsreview.com/2018/1/2/16829504/mlb-teams-are-learning-to-wait-out-the-free-agent-market-slow-offseason
This is the key quote:
“This shouldn’t be much of a surprise of course. The most coveted players are going to be inked to deals sooner. The players that sign later are those less desired, or who perhaps misread the market. Often times this seems to be sluggers with defensive concerns, and of course, the previous draft pick compensation system weighed some free agents down in the market.”
It’s easy to fundamentally misinterpret Rieper’s article if you don’t read all the way to the end of his piece (where this quote is located). What he’s saying is that low demand for free agents leads to people signing later. It does not mean that people signing later leads to low demand. When you think about it, the latter interpretation makes no sense.
Craig touches on this here, but I think it deserves a little more explanation. There were a lot of free agents who were happy to wait. Hosmer had a pretty big offer from the Padres…he waited and (presumably) got a better offer. Darvish was waiting for an offer from the Dodgers that never came, and finally just took the bird in hand. The Cubs actually called Arrieta and asked if he was interested in the contract they were negotiating with Darvish, so presumably he also could have gotten a nicer offer. Holland actually turned down the Wade Davis offer.
What’s happening–and what is shown by this chart–is that the players who had demand got their contract anyway, even with all the waiting. The players who didn’t have a market, like Logan Morrison, had some trouble. What’s happening is that a period of waiting wasn’t a good indicator of supply and demand anymore,. for various reasons.
If we all take away one thing of this article, I hope it is that the the date on the calendar is an outcome of supply and demand forces…but there is more than goes into it too.
Thanks for this, well said.
there are very few details about that Arrieta “phone call”. I wouldn’t assume what you assumed from it.
Yeah, I wouldn’t call it ironclad evidence, But since Boras is still (officially) holding out for a Price/Scherzer type contract for Arrieta, there is some indirect corroboration. There’s some smoke.
Sadtrombone, you make major, major contributions to this site with your comments. Thank you. This is a terrible thing to ask, and I apologize in advance, but could you tell us more about yourself? Employment backround, baseball experience, things like that. Even, are you a musician?
I’ll take the downvotes to mean that people don’t want to hear more about me. Maybe another time.
They probably thought it was a terrible question to ask, and they are correct. I’ve thought to ask several times, but your excellent comment above finally made me do it.
Maybe another time. I’ll discuss it when if it’s relevant. But for now: I’m no one you’ve heard of, just a person who strongly prefers econometrics to machine learning.
Officially? Show me a direct quote from Boras.
A direct quote from Boras is anything but official.
https://www.fanragsports.com/mlb/inside-baseball-picking-jake-arrieta-new-team/
I’m pretty sure Boras knows somewhere, deep in his heart, that Arrieta’s deal is going to be nothing like David Price or Max Scherzer’s deals. But if Arrieta rejected the parameters of the Darvish deal, this would line up with that.
A story by Jon Heyman pretty much is a direct quote from Boras.
I would think that it represents Boras’s public position quite well, yes. 🙂
Why would Hosmer get a (presumably ) better offer by waiting ?
To me, it looks like Hosmer is the big outlier on that list skewing the results. And there were rumors that Hos got his deal due to Boras successfully executing an end around with ownership. So, I wouldn’t put that one entirely on the Padres front office.
Really just thinking out loud. If the teams are getting smarter, is it not possible that the crowd is also getting smarter? I think we’re assuming that the crowd estimates are a fixed number, not a variable. But it is just as much a variable as the actual contract, no?
Do any long time readers still look at contracts the same as 3 years ago? 2-years? Last year?
I think that the crowd as been evolving as much as teams. Even more. Our opinions change on our own accord, without having to also convince a 150 year old billionaire owner to come around as well..
ding ding ding we have a winner in our contest “Name an example of measurement invariance over time”
.
.
.
(translation: dodgerbleu is definitely right)
This. You can’t measure two variables at the same time.
I’m just going to point out that the crowd was batshit crazy when it projected $60MM for Wade Davis. He signed for way more than he should have been expected to sign.
I assume people were comping him to Melancon, who signed for about $60M last offseason.
Closer-quality relievers are making a lot because starters pitch less and the playoffs are more important now, creating more demand. Colorado probably offers the pitchers they want a full price to get them. Add these two together and you get a big salary.
The rise of the opt out is a game changer for free agent contracts. It caps the upside for the team, while still locking in downside. The fans nailed the total contract value for JD Martinez, but the two opt outs and the front loading of the contract make it much more valuable to the player than a simple, 5 years, $110 million deal. This is based on the original details of the deal before the even more complicated tweaks based on the physical (original: $50 million guaranteed over the first two years, declining annual salaries after year 2, and an opt out after years 2 and 3).
Yes.
And I think we also should look at the AAV that the players are signing for; the crowd might have been low on the total money because they were also low on the years; Darvish, Hosmer, and Cain both signed for more years than the crowd expected.
There might be a tendency to amplify the flaws in top free agents (“I wouldn’t do more than X$ for Y Years). The middle class may suffer from the opposite problem–the crowd may look at them on a $/WAR basis without being able to account for the amount of competition from like-kind free agents when the market opens and GM’s can react as signings start to define future cost.
This is a good point, and the trade market amplifies this effect especially if several teams are rebuilding.
What I love about fangraphs is articles like this: you are all willing to acknowledge that you might have gotten something wrong and try to better your understanding. Awesome article!
This is not a common characteristic of Fangraphs articles. Every media outlet has to engage in this to some extent – it is inevitable.
“Has to” is not the same as “does”, unfortunately.
Fangraphs writers and commenters are some of the most intellectually honest folks on the internet.
I dare you to go sift through the comments at MLBtraderumors. You will lose 1 IQ point for each comment you read.
Perhaps. The author at least linked to Lindbergh’s recent article at the Ringer, but given that a dozen or so offseason articles at Fangraphs were based in some way on bad assumptions about the players’ cut of MLB revenues (and thus, what might be done about the CBA from the MLBPA’s perspective to combat a purported problem that doesn’t actually exist) , it will be interesting to see if the willingness you mention is really there.
Yes, I’ll say better late than never to linking to Lindbergh’s recent article.
As far as I recall, however, this article is the first time that a Fangraphs writer has acknowledged that there’s a robust debate questioning whether Nathaniel Grow’s underlying information was correct, despite numerous commenters (including me on some occasions) pointing to the 2016 AP Study that Lindbergh mentions and links in his article. That study also quoted Tony Clark basically agreeing with that AP report on behalf of the MLBPA, which has access to revenue information under the CBA. It’s possible I’m not recalling some occasions when writers here at Fangraphs acknowledged the debate, but the norm was to cite Grow’s prior work without even a parenthetical acknowledging the debate about those numbers. That’s despite several fairly detailed comments questioning both Grow’s numerator (including William Juliano pointing to work at his site, The Captain’s Blog) and denominator (particularly the treatment of operating costs at both MLB Network and MLBAM).
I do see that Fangraphs now appended an editor’s note somewhat walking back Ring’s article from a couple weeks ago (including the statement that “reasonable people can disagree on the proper methodology and calculus for determining the players’ share of baseball revenue”). I’m pretty sure that Ring or an editor has also subsequently removed the more incendiary language from what she originally wrote, which used terms such as “lies” and “obviously false” to describe Manfred’s claims. ( https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/rob-manfred-might-have-just-made-a-mistake/ )
The editor’s note to that article is embarrassing. Completely misses the point. It’s not an issue of “reasonable” people having two different interpretations. It’s about not doing one’s homework and talking out of one’s ass without any expertise or empirical basis for one’s hot take.
Better late than never, but the readership kept making this argument over and over again in the comments section during the endless parade of columns about the slow off-season and possible collusion.
Craig clearly lost the 2 out of 3 rock, paper, scissors contest for who had to write the article.
The frequent commenters here disagree about everything. We likely make up disagreements where there is none. The extent to which the frequent commenters *agreed* about this one was borderline shocking.
While a wise person once said “Don’t read the comments” I think it would have been a good idea here. The whole “New Year’s Day” effect was pretty obviously wrong, and not really what Rieper intended anyway.
The author did not admit being wrong.
The concluding paragraphs begins, “I don’t think we got free agency wrong.”
I was reading through these looking for you, Thom : ). As an admission of bad process, this article is a weak as it could possibly be.
Teams are playing stars and scrubs (elite relievers are stars) in free agency, which is optimal. The very best free agents have gotten paid, and the rest have not (my guess is Bruce and Cozart got lucky, and their teams could have saved money by waiting). This suggests that much of the crowd is using an excessively linear interpretation of player value.
When several teams are rebuilding and selling veterans, it can cause much of the FA market to crater. This is why the MLBPA needs to focus its influence on improving competitive balance above all else.
For Bruce, possibly, but Cozart was in a better position on the FA market since he was an option at 2B, 3B and SS. It’s probably not a coincidence that he signed shortly after the Angels added Ohtani.
Isn’t it a little misleading to just use the guaranteed totals here? For instance, yeah, the total guaranteed to Darvish was predicted at $125mil, but that was over 5 years not the 6 the Cubs signed. So the NPV and AAV are lower than the prediction.
That would be true if Darvish had just signed a simple 6 / $126 million contract, but that’s not what he reportedly signed.
Darvish has a player opt-out after 2019 with reportedly higher AAV before the opt-out ( 2 / $45 million before the opt out, then 4 / $81 million after). https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/02/cubs-to-sign-yu-darvish.html
Player opt-outs have real value relative to just headline years and guaranteed money, particularly if opt-outs are paired with front-loaded money as in Darvish’s deal. If the comparison for the totality of Darvish’s deal is a straight 5 / $125 million deal with flattish AAV and no opt-outs, then I wouldn’t say that Darvish’s actual contract is worse for him than the crowd-sourced projection.
The comment section has been pointing this out very clearly for over a month.
“Generally speaking, the larger the contract, the more likely the crowd has been to miss on the low side.”
Well, you’ve got four buckets here. The middle two are negative, and the other two are positive. So … no, I don’t think this assertion is proven. We’ve been saying all along that this year’s market hampers the middle-class FA (if you can call an annual salary of over $3 million “middle class”), and that’s what these buckets seem to show.
Seems to me that there’s healthy demand for “stars” — and a Hosmer or a Darvish might only be “stars” in the eyes of their respective new GMs — and a healthy demand for “useful pieces” at the other end. Probably a useful observation if you’re an agent representing a member of the “middle class” like Moustakas or Cobb or Lucroy, because next year, you can factor this in to negotiations. With your client, if with nobody else.
I’d be interested to see a plot of each individual FA this year (after all the dust settles) on an over- and under-estimate. I suspect it would look vaguely like an upended binomial with a skew in favor of the guys at the bottom end of the pile.
I think what we did not get wrong is that fringy and older free agents have a hard time. The days of 31 year olds signing 200+ contracts are probably over. Even JdMs deal wasn’t all that great for a top10 hitter in the league (5/110).
But top free agents on the right side of 30 are continuing to make big money, it is the guys older than 30 or average-ish guys who have a harder time due to the knowledge of aging curves.
how does a guy like jake arrieta not have a team? too many teams don’t want to win and the owners pocket the money at the expense of the game and fans. time to strike.
What do you mean “we,” Kemosabe?
I just completed a similar analysis based on Dave Camerons projections which I find more credible than the crowd, limiting it to top 50 FA.
Relievers (-5%)
Position Players (-15%)
Starting Pitchers (-25%)
I think Jeff Passans article in November where GM’s said they would delays signings to get the best deal will be Exhibit A in the upcoming Collusion Grievance hearing
Also, some pretty good players look to be unsigned into March. This is unprecedented and MLB will have its work cut out explaing this to an arbitrator.
MLB explanation seems to be a conspiracy theory where a dozens different agents and 50+ players all decided to make unreasonable demands w/o historical precedent.
Or is it a Coincidence theory where 30 separate analytic departments on teams with different player needs, different places on the win curve and vastly different financial resources all come up with similar valuations for all players in the blink of Eye?.
Folks point to next years FA class but how many teams really will be in on Harper or Machado and if Kershaw is extended next years class for SPers is not great yets teams with awful SPing seem uninterested in many decent SPers
Perhaps they know MLB will be dejuicing the ball. Their recent announcement all teams will be using temperature conditioned rooms for ball storage (which should actually increase HR) makes me wonder if thats just a cover story for the decline to come. Should be interesting to see.
LT? 26 teams nowhere near the threshold. The other 4 teams are well below being 40 million over when the harshest penalties kick in. Nope.
Another really poor article in this series with the typical misleading information.
First (as others have mentioned in comments) MLB released the data to Ben LIndberg at The Ringer, showing what many commentators have pointed out to Craig/Travis/Nathaniel/Rian/Meg et al from the start: that player share of the revenue-at-issue is around 50%.
https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/2/21/17035624/mlb-revenue-sharing-owners-players-free-agency-rob-manfred
In reality, these authors already knew that, but were distorting the issue by focusing on a concept of ‘revenue’ that wasn’t at issue. By refusing to discuss the revenue at issue (baseball related net revenue), the authors continued to peddle Boras/CAA talking points.
Second, this article does not admit being wrong at all. The headline asks “Did we get free agency all wrong?” and the concluding paragraphs states “I don’t think we got free agency wrong.”
Third, consider again this poor, anti-factual journalism where the author says “Even after all the free agents sign, payroll is likely not to increase this season relative to last one.” There is absolutely zero evidence to support this claim. The author links to his own article entitled ‘payroll might decrease for the first time in a long time.” His underlying article is noncoherant comparison between Opening Day 2017 payroll and February 2nd 2018 payroll: with no projections or estimates of remaining 2018 spend. The sum of the work falls far short of making a serious argument that 2018 Opening Day payroll is ~50% “likely” to fall short of Opening Day 2017 payroll.
The Travis/Craig/Nathaniel/Rian/Meg ‘every team should spend more in FA’ series of articles was IMO the worst ever at fangraphs- so tonedeaf and anti-factual. This current article is not a change from that poor work but an continuation of it.
As commentator WilliamNYY pointed out to Nathaniel at the very first instance, Nathaniel’s work had several flas, notably leaving out $14m per team in players benefits.
The Ringer dramatically beat fangraphs on a story that the old fangraphs would have excelled at reporting: there was a false but popular meme on ESPN, being pushed by charlatans like Boras, Olney & CAA, that could be proven wrong by a careful and methodological look at the relevant data.
But the new ESPN friendly ‘faux 538’ fangraphs style left the Ringer to provide the intelligent discussion of the issue, making use of the facts.
you seem like somebody who would make more convincing points if you made a conscious decision to be less of an asshole about the whole thing.
Internet etiquette is highly variable from user to user.
Calling work poor isn’t too harsh- it’s a heads up to the new authors’ that their work might not be up to standard and explaining why.
The hyper-protective ‘how dare you say something negative you asshole’ posts are self defeating imo.
The click-generating, damn-the-facts pivot for fangraphs is Newsweek-esq and has generated a good deal of authentic negative feedback from readers: perhaps more than on any other fangraphs articles.
William in particular was dismissed rudely by Nathaniel- who refused to discuss the points. Williams’ initial posts calling polite attention to these details was down-voted and drew the occasional ‘how dare you asshole’ post as well.
It isn’t credible to suggest that simply sugar-coating every contrarian point will appease the readers with sensitive standards- unique takes are almost by definition unpopular.
Really bad other articles in this series with wrong information.
The first (as others have mentioned in the comments), MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL publication details to Lindbergh curves in Bell, shows that many commentators showed Craig/Travis/Nathaniel/Rian/Meg et Al from the outset, players share issue is around 50% of income.
https://VVV. Bell. COM/MLB/2018/2/21/17035624/MLB free sharing Rob Robred
In fact, the author knows about this, but they have distorted the problem by focusing on the concept of “income” does not have a problem. Declining to talk about the disputed revenue (basketball recipes), the author continues to transmit the voice of Pine/CAA.
Secondly, this article doesn’t get it usually is. “No middle man we all wrong?” the title is asked, his last paragraph, written by admin “I think we have the Agency is wrong. ”
Third, I think the poor, hit this reality, in which the author says: “even after all the free agents so the likelihood earnings will rise this year is durability. There is absolutely no evidence to support this assertion. The author refers to his article, titled “wages may reduce, for the first time, for the first time”. the basic story is similar to the payments to be made by early February 2 years 2017 and 2018 year salary, with no screening and assessment costs for the remaining year of 2018. Thuy’s work is very lacking a serious debate is staffing in the year 2018 year opened by 50% “maybe” without sending the ship in the year 2017.
Travis/Craig/Natanijel/Rian/Meg “every team must spend more in a series of articles OS” MPO is the worst on Fangrafama to tonedeaf and against common sense. This change in work, but keep.
As one commenter VilliamNII only in the first case, Nathaniel Nathaniel than we’re having some problems, leaving 14 million each team in favor of the player.
Win the game talking about Fangraphove old man Fangrafi Ranger poiastvovan report: all right, and wrong, but so common on ESPN, pushed by the Grifters as bora, detliži and CAA, I can see the intelligence wrong by carefully shaped and method on the data they have in genus.
However, the new ESPN-friendly style fongraphes foo 538 to ring provides an intelligent debate on this issue, use an event.
#bringbackfongraphes
MLB’s new commissioner is the free sharing Rob Robred.
Its all about the luxury tax and the aging curves. I don’t think anyone expected the Yanks and Dodgers to firmly stick to their guns about re-setting the luxury tax and I think MLB GM’s have realized that players are aging worse than ever, so no long term deals for older players, especially power hitters. Plus, there were a raft of guys who are not palatable to modern GMs: Hosmer has a great reputation as a fielder, but the numbers say otherwise. Moose hit tons of dingers this year that would previously have gotten him a big deal, but he also forfeited his fielding and OB%. Nunez won’t take a walk, so his value is down. And, there are a glut of starting pitchers who look good, but not great.
Heck Yonder Alonso looks like a major overpay in hindsight.
I think everyone expected the Yankees and Dodgers to work their way under the cap.
Re this line: “What are we to make of the Darvish, Cain, Hosmer, and Martinez deals?”
Who uses isolated cases to make an argument for the population as a whole when the population as a whole is already known ?
The market for top guys is inelastic, while for mid-level guys, it’s less so.
Nothing surprising there.
( Speculating ): the $ saved in the mid-range in part is going to paying more for gambles on the low end. Besides the low-end number is tiny.
Yeah, the market for the top guys is similar to that of a fine painting. The market for the mid-level guys is essentially a commodity.
Money isn’t necessarily the only consideration. Was Hosmer necessarily holding out for more money, or was he holding out for a team with a better chance at contending?
Are you saying the Padres are the team with a better chance of winning thaqt Hosmer held out for? Or are you saying he was holding out for a contender but accepted the Padres as a fallback?
Saber,and the faithful get it!
Fewer teams value the back of baseball cards.
Process,and informed projections finally rule.
Twins fan since 1961,baseball has never been better!
Regarding the chart showing “Crowdsource projection accuracy: 2018” – PLEASE stop aggregating totals that way! You need to show *absolute value* of the misses, not a simple summation. Otherwise:
Player 1 estimate:1 year, 30 MM
Player 2 estimate: 1 year, 2 MM
Actual 1: 1 year, 16 MM (- 47% from guess 1)
Actual 2: 1 year, 16 MM (+ 700% from guess 2)
Aggregate: 2 year, 32 MM (0.0% from total of guesses 1&2, or get I was spot on!)
Absolute value of misses: missed by a total of $28 MM. (or, “hey, I suck at this!)
Aggregate tells us nothing. Absolute value tells the story.
Thanks for your time! *hops off soapbox, stumbles like a doofus*
Or, you know, if this place still had anyone reasonably competent in statistical analysis, we could talk about error in terms of root mean square or root sum square
I wonder if this is just a manifestation of roster construction being optimized when you pick one quarter over three dimes. There is probably more room to investigate whether we are making mistakes with how we look at the cost of a win on the market. If the middle class veterans on the market are losing demand while the top end types are holding steady, that suggests to me that teams aren’t looking at player value in a linear fashion. It’s quadratic where the three and four win players are worth an AAV and cost per win of X, but the lower tier players are not worth the same cost per win with draft capital lost as part of compensating them. Can’t win anything with a roster of 25 guys who all fall under 3 WAR a piece.
I just wanna take a second to respond to the question in the title: “Yes, Craig. You and other Fangraphs writers got free agency all wrong.”
If that were the whole article, it would’ve been an improvement.