The Yankees and the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment
My wife is a school psychologist here in the Pittsburgh area, so naturally I learn about the profession and the field. One test of interest, and some amusement, that she’s discussed involves children and the concept of delayed gratification. Testers use all sorts of sugar-laden incentives for the evaluation. The tester presents a child with a cookie or chocolate or something else and informs the four-year-old that, after a short period of time, if the child can avoid the temptation to indulge in the first snack, that said child will receive a second. (I’m not sure such a test of will power would be all that easy for adults, either.)
The study, I believe, traces its origins to the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment conduced in the late 1960s by psychologist Walter Mischel. The kids tested were given one marshmallow, and then a second if they were able to endure about a 15-minute wait. Follow-up studies found that the children who were able to wait generally had better life-outcomes, though the experiment is not without their critics. The Atlantic revisited the study in 2014:
Studies showed that a child’s ability to delay eating the first treat predicted higher SAT scores and a lower body mass index (BMI) 30 years after their initial Marshmallow Test. Researchers discovered that parents of “high delayers” even reported that they were more competent than “instant gratifiers”—without ever knowing whether their child had gobbled the first marshmallow.
While such a study and its small sample is, of course, imperfect, I think reasonable people can agree there are many merits to delayed gratification for children and adults.
So that brings me to the New York Yankees. The club is somewhat surprisingly resides in first place in the AL East more than a quarter of the way through the season, and boasts of the second-best run-differential in the American League (+53), trailing only the Astros (+58). BaseRuns suggests the Yankees actually deserve to be a game better than their actual standing (27-16).
Yankees GM Brian Cashman had sold Yankees ownership on the idea of delayed gratification last summer when the club traded Carlos Beltran, Aroldis Chapman, and Andrew Miller prior to the deadline. Back in March, I detailed how Cashman sold a rare Yankees rebuild. Of course, this wasn’t a dramatic teardown in Florida/Miami Marlins-fashion. The Yankees were still FanGraphs’ staff writers most common pick to secure the No. 2 Wild Card spot in our preseason predictions.
But few saw so many things breaking right for the Yankees: Aaron Judge‘s feats of strength, the improvement of Aaron Hicks, the prospect of Luis Severino and Michael Pineda both finally winning over some favor with the BABIP Gods. I could go on, but outside of Masahiro Tanaka and the injury to Chapman, a lot of things have gone right. And the Yankees have not yet dipped into the what was named the second-best farm system according to Baseball America’s preseason rankings.
There was this idea, or maybe it was just my idea, that the Yankees would wait and have another wave of talent reach the majors to join Judge, Severino, Gary Sanchez and company before going all-in on veteran talent after next season in what will be a historically good free-agent class. The Yankees appeared to be following the Chicago Cubs’ blueprint.
Now they appear to be ahead of schedule.
Said Cashman of last season’s partial teardown:
“I had recommended strongly that we push the reset button for our benefit,” Cashman told FanGraphs in March. “Probably starting [last] June, I had a lot of dialogue regarding what we should do and Hal Steinbrenner was telling me, ‘Well, I’m not thinking the way you are at this moment in time, but keep making recommendations.’ In my dialogue with ownership, [I said], ‘Every decision we make should try to put us closer to the next world championship. We want that to be in the upcoming season, but that doesn’t mean that is necessarily going to be the case.’ We have the most championships in the history of our sport, but we’ve been pursuing excellence for a 100 years plus and we don’t have a 100 championships. So there’s no embarrassment for not winning something [every season].”
So are the Yankees close enough to their next world championship in 2017, to, say, add a major piece like Gerrit Cole, who many in the public are beginning to link to the club? Of course, any ask from a club with a Cole-like asset to sell would likely begin with the Yankees’ top prospect, Gleyber Torres. That might end a lot of phone calls.
Still, should the Yankees begin considering cashing in some of their prospect chips?
FanGraphs’ projections have the Yankees playing over their true talent level to date. FanGraphs’ depth charts forecast the Yankees to go 62-57 the rest of the way (a .522 winning precentage) with a run differential of +26. That’s the eighth-best overall projected run differential for the rest of the season, and fourth-best run differential in the AL. That’s certainly not bad, but it’s also certainly not the profile of a title favorite.
On one hand, that forecast doesn’t seem worthy of betting too heavily upon, in terms of surrendering prospect treasure for an upgrade. On the other hand, it looks like a team that would have its odds of winning a division improved in a meaningful way with a significant buy — and every win could be critical in a wide-open AL East. But the value of midseason pick-ups often does not equate to the media attention surrounding them. Last summer, for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, I studied the 2012-15 deadline-trade markets. Of the 70 major-league players acquired, 45 produced negligible or negative value — below replacement level — through the remainder of the season. Another 20 recorded more than one win above replacement for the team adding them, and five created two or more wins above replacement.
It’s perhaps an argument for delayed gratification, in favor of keeping the club’s top young assets, and hoping for the best in 2017 and 2018 and planning to be the best in 2019 and beyond. Instead of gobbling up a few impact months and/or years in the short term, the Yankees can create a greater window of opportunity by standing pat, or largely standing pat. The Red Sox have tried the opposite approach under Dave Dombrowski and, for as great as Chris Sale and Craig Kimbrel are, FanGraphs’ projections have the Red Sox (89-73) finishing just one game better than the Yankees (88-74). The Yankees have a 3.5-game edge entering play Wednesday.
Sure, the Yankees could use another quality rotation arm. That’s true of most teams. But perhaps Tanaka will turn his season around. That prospect is a plausible and significant in-house improvement. There doesn’t appear to be an injury issue with Tanaka. Chapman will return. And a productive offense could soon return Gregory Bird, who was the star of the Grapefruit League, and is another fly-ball power hitter, who seems to be an ideal fit for Yankee Stadium II.
The Yankees are ahead of schedule, but their best days still rest ahead. So they are perhaps best served by waiting on the second marshmallow.
A Cleveland native, FanGraphs writer Travis Sawchik is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Big Data Baseball. He also contributes to The Athletic Cleveland, and has written for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, among other outlets. Follow him on Twitter @Travis_Sawchik.
That experiment is awesome and should be used more often as an example. Kudos for thinking of it.
They did a version of that with adults and cell phones. It was hilarious, as they weren’t allowed to touch their phones and the phones were on the table in front of them. The experimenters started calling their cell phones and texting them and most of the adults ended up picking up their phones once they heard the ringtone or it started vibrating lol.
Even when I was a little kid I had great control. I’d hold out for 2 marshmallows and asked if I could get 4 marshmallows if I waited. I kept doing this with the teacher until he realized he couldn’t pay off on his promise all at once.
That, young people, is how control can get you 1,048,576 marshmallows a day for 64 years.
Just like his namesake, “Shirtless Bartolo Colon” never gets old.
Happy 44th Bartolo!
This is also what Bobby Bonilla would have gotten if he just asked the Wilpons to buy out his contract in marshmallows.
An interesting thing about it is that there’s some evidence that kids’ willingness to delay eating the marshmallow is very strongly affected by their confidence that they’ll actually get the second marshmallow if they wait.
‘”Being able to delay gratification—in this case to wait 15 difficult minutes to earn a second marshmallow—not only reflects a child’s capacity for self-control, it also reflects their belief about the practicality of waiting,” says Kidd. “Delaying gratification is only the rational choice if the child believes a second marshmallow is likely to be delivered after a reasonably short delay.”‘
This is why I’m skeptical of the conclusions from the Stanford version of the experiment, particularly when those conclusions conform so neatly with the latent Puritanism in our culture. Put simply, we as a society fetishize delayed gratification way too much.
Great article. And the best part is, instead of trading for top talent, perhaps we’ll see the likes of Torres (now up to AAA), Frazier, and Adams making an impact at the MLB level by year’s end. Wishful thinking!
If your team acquires Bartolo Colon, does that mean you didn’t wait for the second marshmallow?
It means that your team will quickly be out of marshmallows.
Is getting Cole really instant gratification? He hits free agency after 2019, so he is (injury aside) someone who would help them compete in the more realistic 2018/2019 windows and not just this year.
It’s obviously all about price, but they really might have the prospects to pull off a Cole deal without Gleyber. Even Gleyber may be expendable if you think the Yankees are going to give the keys to the bank vault to Machado when he’s available, or Donaldson, who will also be around and be cheaper.
That’s what I think people are missing. Trading for Darvish for example, a rental, would instant gratification. They’re trading possible long term affordable contributors for a 3 month rental. Trading for Cole or Quintana, or any player with club control for the next few years, is using your resources to maximize your chances.
But what is Cole going to cost compared to Darvish? And this seems to be ignoring the fact that Cole hasn’t really been that good for almost 2 years. A starter with a FIP of nearly 4 in the NL not only moving to the AL, but to the AL East, and to Yankee Stadium (as a righthander) may not end well.
Sure, if the price is the same, you take Cole of Darvish because of the extra 2 years of control. But if they want to win this year, Darvish gives them a better chance, and could cost a fraction of what Cole will.
100% agree on Cole. Potential is there but for the last couple of years he has been up and down.
The point was that trading a prospect for a player with 2 or 3 years of club control isn’t instant gratification, it’s adding to the window.
Yeah, my point was less about Cole as a player and more that (1) he’s not just a short term fix and (2) the Yankees, unlike many organizations, have more going for them in terms of assets than simply tradeable players, they can trade out of the prospect pool knowing that they have the budget to fill out holes via free agency.
Obviously you wouldn’t want management to go overboard with the second point, but it does make a difference if you’re trying to figure out just how much you’re mortgaging your future by trading minor league players.
I call that “conversion”. Instead of a package of prospects that theoretically would total to more value if the upside is hit, you acquire a fairly young and controllable piece with more certainty. Both are still as much about “later” as “now”, but you are swapping upside for floor.
A rental, on the other hand, is an overpriced piece that you see as the missing link to a championship run. That is definitely a “take the marshmallow now” move.
I think trading Gleybar Torres would be eating the marshmallow now. But the Yankees have a lot of prospects who will be eligible for the next rule 5 draft. They should look to cash some of them in, even if it’s just to add a depth rotation option for the stretch run.
I strongly agree with this, and the people who disagree don’t know the state of the Yankees system. They have unbelievable depth but a lot of those prospects are just about to become Rule 5-eligible. There is no way they’re going to be able to protect all of them. It might not land them anything big but they might as well cash in their chips.
I got curious because I thought maybe I was wrong. Here are the guys who will need to be added to the Rule 5 next year: Clint Frazier (FV55), Gleyber Torres (FV60), Dustin Fowler (FV50), Tyler Wade (FV45). Not losing those guys. Probably not Albert Abreu (FV45) or Domingo Acevedo (FV40 but I’d be shocked if they gave up on him) either. That’s six guys right there. They might also want to protect Ian Clarkin or Thairo Estrada, both of whom look pretty good right now. That’s 8.
And that’s a problem because there’s only four guys (six if Tanaka opts out and they non-tender Chris Carter) who are free agents after the season. And you’d think they’d want Pineda and likely Tanaka back if they opted out (assuming that if Tanaka opts out it’s because he has value)…or they’d need to replace them with other pitchers. Or maybe they want to actually go shopping in free agency. The Yankees have been known to do that.
They can knock guys like Miguel Andujar, Domingo German, Luis Cessa, Ronald Herrera, Rob Refsnyder, Mason Williams, Kyle Higashioka, Ben Heller, and Gio Gallegos off the 40-man but they just added them to protect them from the draft this winter, so maybe they’d be trade bait. None of these guys would bring back a big return but whatever they would get would be better than losing them in the Rule 5.
And beyond that you’ve got some borderline prospects like Billy McKinney, Eric Swanson, Rashad Crawford, Abi Avelino, Zack Littel, Leonardo Molina, Jordan Foley, JP Feyerheisen, and Tito Polo. These guys are pretty borderline and it wouldn’t hurt too much to lose them (and some of them might slip through the cracks in the Rule 5) but a lot of them were just picked up last year when they sold off, so management thinks good things of at least some of them. For example, they got at least one of those guys for Ivan Nova.
Pick up reliever depth. Buy low on a starter you think you can turn around. Get a bat in the corner infield in case Bird and Headley stay cold. It doesn’t matter. Just buy something.
I believe the key point is Cashman has something he hasn’t had in a long time: leverage. The ‘2019 World Series Confirmed’ Plan is still the goal, regardless of what happens this year. That’s Cashman’s plan because it is what he’s been working up to.
The team has prospects to get a major impact player. I don’t think they should seek their impact player until we see how Bird pans out. And accordingly to The Plan, Cashman has time to wait before making a decision at first base.
I hope Cashman seeks to dump Ellsbury this season. Frazier is doing quite well in Triple A and Hicks got off to a hot start. I would much rather see a four-man outfield rotation of Hicks, Gardner, Frazier, and Judge than Ellsbury in the mix. It makes sense because, like I said, it fits with the plan.
My little prediction: if Headley continues to struggle, I can really see Torres coming up. It wouldn’t be the worst thing as the Yankees have been moving him up the levels quite quickly. Getting a look at Torres at the ML is the best case because, and I’ll say it again, it gives Cashman more leverage on what to do when Machado and Harper become free agents.
Harper to the Yankees is a no-brainer.
Cashman is not going to be taken by Boras.
My prediction: If Lerner is still alive, I don’t see how Boras gets anyone to outbid him. Harper stays with the Nats, Boras gets his record breaking $500 million contract, but with payments deferred until 2050.
It’ll be nearly impossible to dump Ellsbury on someone. That’s one of the worst contracts in baseball that isn’t completely dead money.
That’s a bit of a stretch. He’s a 2 win player at worst, making him overpaid by maybe $20 Million from 2018-2020. The Pujols contract is literally 4 times worse.
Curious what the downvoter disagrees with!
I really do hope he’s moved by the deadline. I could see Cashman sending second tier prospect along with him to get the deal done. There’s just no feasible place for him if the Yankees want to follow through with their youth movement
“Dump.” You’re saying none of the 29 other teams would take Ellsbury at no cost to them (ie the Yankees are on the hook for his entire salary)? That seems unlikely. It’s a bad contract, but not a terrible player. Separated from the salary, some team would take him. If the point is just to free up an outfield roster spot, the Yankees could certainly make it happen.
Exactly. What would he get as a FA on a 3-year deal after this season? Maybe 3/$35M. Even if it’s less than that, there is SOME amount of money the Yankees could include (or some bad contract they could take) to get someone to take him.
If they were to trade him right now, I bet the Giants and Nationals (just to name 2) would be in on him if the price was right.
Yeah I don’t see the Yanx moving any of their top 3 prospects this deadline (Torres, Frazier, Rutherford), so I think they’re out on guys like Quintana and Cole. If Tanaka continues to be awful, I can see them maybe moving someone on the Fowler / Mateo / Sheffield level for a premium rental like Darvish. If Tanak can turn it around, I could see them perhaps go for a lesser rental like Estrada or Vargas.
Also if Headley continues to struggle , I can totally see them calling up Torres and using him all around the infield (but mostly at 3b). Torres’s starts by position this year: SS – 19 / 3B – 7 / 2B – 6. Also might be worth noting that yesterday in his 1st game at AAA, he started at 3b.
I think Tanaka will turn it around. Pineda is finally not being bad luck’d by BABIP and still showing elite swStr% and K-BB rates. Sevy is still only 23 and he’s showing he is at least solid #3 starter but he can definitely excel beyond that. Monty is definitely interesting to see how he’ll pan out and Chance Adams looks great by all indications.
If the Yanks are in a strong spot to compete for the WS, I hope Cashman resists the temptation to add pieces. There’s no piece I’m particularly excited about who would put the Yanks over the edge. Maybe with Darvish but he’s a rental and goes against ‘The Plan’. The most drastic change would be to move Headley and call up Torres. Torres is quite versatile (like you mentioned) and gives Girardi more options.
Yanks are a playoff competitive team right now – not quite a World Series competitive team. I’m hoping a healthy addition of Bird, and great Headley/good Torres puts them to a WS contender.
So the Yankees and Pirates are talking Cole for Torres straight-up, and the Yankees are the ones who hang up first? Cole has just under three years under team control (and three potential postseasons) and probably 10 wins over that time.
If Cole could be relied upon to consistently give 200 innings, I’d agree with you. However, given his durability issues I’d much rather have the position player.
What do think Torres would do for the next 3 seasons in terms of WAR? Expecting 3 wins a season from one of the top prospects in baseball isn’t that unreasonable. And he’d be doing it at a tiny fraction of the cost of Cole. Oh yeah, and then you get to keep him for 3 more years after that.
If Cole was in the AL with his mid to high-3 FIP, then MAYBE. But you trade your top prospect to get a near-guaranteed difference maker, and Cole is nowhere near that.
Prospects, especially young ones, are inherently unknowns. Fangraphs predicts 10.5 WAR over his first six years, and you don’t just treat present value=future value, you would discount future value, then yes. I think Cole is worth more.
Of course. But there is a balance to be struck. And when “top” prospects (as in guys who literally among the few consensus top prospects in the game) get traded, it is for near-guaranteed difference-makers (i.e. Chris Sale), not middle of the rotation starters with questionable health, which is what I believe Cole is in the AL.
Does a middle of the rotation starter have a lot of value and will he command a big contract? Sure, but Mike Leake (this year’s hot start aside) doesn’t win you championships. When you’re dealing with the luck inherently required in a short series, you pay for a Chris Sale if you’re going to trade one of the top few prospects in baseball.
In other words, if you want to take a chance on Cole, you’d be better served taking a chance on a (looking at the list of upcoming free agents) Chatwood for a fraction of the price, or a Lynn or Estrada (assuming they are available) for a bit more.
Chris Sale cost a whole lot more than Torres is worth. Moncada alone is worth much more, plus two more top 100 prospects. And Mike Leake is your comp for Cole? Gerrit Cole is one year separated from a 5.5 win season, and has a career FIP of 3.07. Injuries are a concern, but he’s not a mid rotation guy. That’s just plain wrong.
Agreed, but if you want to pay for 2015 Gerrit Coloe, then be my guest.
And I didn’t really intend to say that Leake and Cole are of similar quality – sorry, I should have been more clear. The comparison I was trying to make was that they are both guys who will generally give you quality innings, and can turn in a big performance, but not types that you would fully expect to go out and dominate on any night. Those are the guys that are worth paying for, but Darvish looks like the only one even close to that who should be available this year, and I don’t think he’s worth Torres.
One other thing I should have been more clear about – I was talking about Sale as an example of the type of pitcher you trade a top-3-in-MLB prospect for (without much specific regard for his contract). The White Sox got Moncada + the others because of Sale’s contract.
If Sale was a free agent after this season, then Torres + a couple lesser prospects for Sale in July would be pretty reasonable I think. I’d argue that the difference in value between Chapman and Sale (for a playoff-bound team) is in the same ballpark as the difference in value between July 2016 Torres and present-day Torres, if you get what I’m saying.
Torres was traded for a half year of a closer last year. He’s gained *some* value since then, but not even close to that much.
I’d argue that he HAS gained “that much” value, especially after his showing in the AFL. Just as an example, he went from #41 in 2016 to #2 in 2017 by Baseball America. I can’t find the 2016 Fangraphs rankings at the moment but I bet it was similar.
“Of the 70 major-league players acquired, 45 produced negligible or negative value — below replacement level — through the remainder of the season. Another 20 recorded more than one win above replacement for the team adding them, and five created two or more wins above replacement.”
Everyone in baseball should read this and take it to heart.
“Every decision we make ought to move us closer to our next world championship”.
If you stop to think about it, Cashman just summarized what the goal should be for EVERY general manager.
Well, except for the eight teams where it would be worded “our first world championship.”
Honestly, I could see the Yankees keeping Gleyber (of course) but moving a package of people blocked by upper level minor league guys. Andujar and the rest of “1B” kinda guys before the others showed up this year. I could see them trying to pry Quintana from the White Sox in July (if they move Frazier, suddenly Andujar becomes interesting to them) then proceeding to open the checkbook on someone like Lance Lynn if the Cards don’t lock him up in the offseason. There’s also Ross, Chatwood, Cobb, Wade Davis, Cahill, Fister. There’s a crapload of cheap and expensive value there for them to hold onto assets and properly evaluate Montgomery more and the rest of that group (Mitchell, Cessa, and Green)
For the last 3-4 years all we heard was wait until Gary, Severino, Judge and Bird are ready and we lose some big contracts. Well, they are all up although Bird has been hurt yet again Arod, Beltran, Teix are gone (although Arod is getting paid one last time)
As for the sell, Chapman and Beltran were in their walk years. They basically swapped 2 years of Miller for 5 years of Chapman and collected some prospects who have yet to impact the MLB club . They also got Warren back.
Its been 4 years (going on 5) and about 1billion in salaries and taxes without a single LDS appearance. Enough with the rebuild nonsense. Every team is constantly rebuilding. Get a front line SPer and go for it.
“Get a front line SPer and go for it.”
Good idea. Who?
Marshmallows suck, Stanford should know better. Sugarcubes next time, please.
Just neighing.
Did you look at how many WAR the prospects produced? If your odds of getting help are 25 in 70, there is value there. The question is, how much risk should a team tolerate for what price, and the answer isn’t NEVER make a prospect trade. It’s about risk and reward. Maybe the prices are too high, because of the odds, but the answer isn’t never trade for the present.
“The Red Sox have tried the opposite approach under Dave Dombrowski”.
That is only slightly true, and mostly false. Yes, under DD Boston has not delayed gratification, but that ignores that Boston ALREADY had engaged in delayed gratification for a couple of seasons before DD arrived. The team didn’t go with “the opposite approach” – it began to transition from years of successful prospect development into being a “win now AND later” team.
Delayed gratification, if it offers improved rewards, is a good thing. But if you ALWAYS choose the “delayed” outcome, you never actually cash in and get to enjoy what you have been accumulating. Seeing as the Yankees were seemingly just starting this process, whereas Boston was emerging from it, it is rather to compare the two, because they aren’t directly comparable.