What Are Teams Paying Per WAR in Free Agency?
After a quiet 2020 offseason, and in advance of the ongoing lockout, the early 2021-22 free agency period saw a sudden burst of activity. Teams shelled out more than $1.5 billion in new contracts, a record-breaking pace. Not only did they act earlier in the winter than we’re used to, they also spent far more than last offseason. Is free agency fixed? We’ll need to dive into the data to find out.
See, “how much money was spent on free agents” is an inexact measure of teams’ spending appetites. Imagine an offseason where, due to strategic contract extensions and a wildly immoral use of cloning technology, the only players on the free agent market are 37 versions of Alcides Escobar and 25 copies of Jordan Lyles. Free agency spending would crater, and it would be hard to blame teams for it. It’s not as though you have to give the best player on the market a $300 million deal; contracts are, obviously enough, affected by the caliber of player signing the contract.
Rather than come up with some new form of analysis, I decided to use a methodology advanced by former FanGraphs writer Craig Edwards. The idea is straightforward: take players projected for 2 or more WAR by Steamer in the upcoming season, apply a naive adjustment for aging, and project how much WAR each free agent will accrue over the life of their contract. Like Craig, I applied some discounting for playing time projections. That lets us create expected $/WAR numbers for each year’s free agency class:
| Offseason | 2+Proj WAR |
|---|---|
| 2018 | $9.3 M/WAR |
| 2019 | $7.8 M/WAR |
| 2020 | $9.5 M/WAR |
| 2021 | $5.5 M/WAR |
| 2022 | $8.5 M/WAR |
Last year’s free agency class had it rough. With teams licking their wounds after an abbreviated and crowd-less season, they offered far less in free agency. The raw numbers show how little money was being thrown around, and even that understates it. Out of the 18 free agents projected for 2 or more WAR, only five received contracts of three years or longer. Not only were teams hesitant to spend on a per-win basis, they stayed away from long-term deals while doing so.
The early results from the current free agency period suggest that this decline was a one-off. Before the 2020 season, 12 of the 15 contracts signed by players who were projected for 2 or more WAR were for three years or longer. This year, 14 of the 20 similarly-projected free agents who have signed received three years or more. After a brief blip of short-contracts-only thinking, the length of contracts appears to be rebounding.
Despite that rebound, teams are still paying less per win on the open market than they did before the COVID-shortened 2020 season. The total outlay this year might be higher than, say, the Gerrit Cole/Anthony Rendon/Stephen Strasburg bonanza that took place in the pre-2020 offseason, but that’s because the players who have signed project to accrue more WAR. Merely among players who have already signed – which excludes 10 of our top 25 free agents – the players projected for 2 or more WAR in 2022 project to be worth roughly 175 WAR across the length of their contracts. That number checked in at 135 in 2020 after all was said and done.
In other words, this year’s class is deservedly getting paid for its future contributions. That helps explain both why so many teams have needs in free agency and why so many deals have been signed. Teams lost good players – better than the ones who reached free agency in any of the last four years – and there were good players available in free agency. Absolute dollars spent only matters so much, and this year’s overall outlay is mostly in keeping with previous years after accounting for that.
While we’re here, we might as well update Edwards’ other investigation: is the cost of WAR still linear? I used the same methodology as his last study. The key step here is removing all reliever contracts, as teams compensate them differently (read: more money per projected WAR) than starters and position players. Since there are rarely (if ever) any relievers in the 2+ WAR cohort, removing them makes the comparison more even. Here’s that analysis:
| Offseason | 2+Proj WAR | 0-2 Proj WAR, No RP | Difference | % Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | $9.3 M/WAR | $8.0 M/WAR | $1.3 M/WAR | -13.8% |
| 2019 | $7.8 M/WAR | $5.3 M/WAR | $2.5 M/WAR | -32.1% |
| 2020 | $9.5 M/WAR | $8.0 M/WAR | $1.5 M/WAR | -15.8% |
| 2021 | $5.5 M/WAR | $4.8 M/WAR | $0.7 M/WAR | -12.7% |
| 2022 | $8.5 M/WAR | $6.5 M/WAR | $2.0 M/WAR | -23.5% |
Of note, my data for 2020 low-WAR players differs from Edwards’ previous finding. He had that group at $6.7 million per projected WAR. My guess is that this is due to the number of low-WAR players who had not yet signed when he ran his analysis. Several of them projected for 0-ish WAR; adding those players increased the dollar-per-WAR metric there. It’s also possible that our cohorts and WAR projections differed; I used Steamer exclusively, whereas Craig may have used a Depth Charts blend. In addition, the numbers for this offseason could still change meaningfully — the signed 0-2 WAR group only numbers 19 players so far, while it frequently ends up numbering in the low 100s in regular years.
What does this mean going forward? There still appears to be a meaningful discount applied to role players and part-time contributors. While salaries are rebounding, they haven’t even reached the levels that prevailed before the pandemic, much less outstripped them. Teams might yet shell out record contracts this offseason. As of now, though, they haven’t – and they’ve continued to pay a premium for stars while the middle class of free agency gets a discounted rate.
Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @benclemens.
“What does this mean going forward? There still appears to be a meaningful discount applied to role players and part-time contributors.”
Maybe it’s semantics, but I think this is more about a premium being paid for concentration of WAR in a single player / roster spot. A four-win player is more valuable than two two-win players because of the potential for additional contribution at the additional roster spot (as well as the scarcity of roster spots).
It speaks more to the issue of using replacement player as benchmark to value. If it were “wins above average” or “wins above replacement starter” we probably have more consistency
I doubt it as the below average players making money would mess it up. WAR seems linear to me for most ranges except really close to zero and really far from zero. Around zero, the differences in projected WAR and the estimate of replacement level drive up the variance. For far from zero, teams pay a little surplus for the elite players and some perceived elite players that would still not be linear for wins above average.
WAA = WAR – 2.0 more or less.
It moves the zero axis, and then we say that teams pay $/WAR for above average players at a higher rate than they do for below average players. Which…is the same thing
I’m going to respond again, because I’m pedantic 🙂
First, a player who accumulates WAR <0 has pretty clearly had a bad season. Theoretically a team could have improved on that player by simply plumbing the depths of their AAA squad or making a minor trade for another org's surplus. This player actually hurt his team's chances of winning ballgames, and that's unquestionably bad.
Now, a player who accumulates between 0-2 WAR did not necessarily have a bad season. He most certainly posted below average aggregate results, but he did help his team win. Albeit less than the average MLBer did. Maybe he was a mediocre player who chipped in minuscule bits over the course of a long season, but lots of 0-2 WAR guys are good players with small roles, or good players who missed time due to injury. For one example, MLB is overrun with terrific bullpen arms who garner less than 2 WAR because they don't throw enough innings to accumulate more than that, but absolutely help their teams to win. For another, a team may have a 4th OF or 2nd C who would start for most of the rest of MLB. He performs at a high level when he does play, but only gets 200 PA on the season because he's buried on the depth chart. Those guys all earn positive WAR, but maybe not enough to translate as positive WAA.
When you see a guy with negative WAR, it's easy to shorthand it as "this guy sucked". The tendency with negative WAA would be the same, but there's a lot of room just under 0 WAA to have guys who actually performed at a higher than average level but over a lesser span of innings.
On the team level, however, WAA might be more useful. A 0 WAR squad would, it's supposed, win about 45 games in a season. That's a weird and arbitrary place to be. A team that was 0 WAA, however, would post something close to a .500 record.
The Giants in 2021 seem to have screwed all that up. Look at pre and post season WAR accumulation.
That’s the general assertion, but how true is it? It’s extremely difficult to find eight productive, 2 WAR or better players for your lineup, and this also creates the problem of paying the additional gentleman you’ve made room for.
In addition, your 4 WAR player is creating room for… who, exactly? This will probably vary team to team. For example, the Tiggers might sign a 4 WAR 2Bman on the grounds that this lets them try a rookie in the OF, gambling on his production, and minding less if he puts up replacement level production since you’re able to project getting 4 WAR instead of 2 WAR by signing, let’s call him… Javy.
Still, you’ve created other problems for yourself. Instead of betting something like two 2/20m-ish contracts for, I dunno, let’s call them Eduardo and Mark, you’re committing to a couple of expensive years at the end of Javy’s 6/140m deal you really, really don’t want.
In short, I’d be curious whether there’s any compelling evidence that getting 4 WAR from one roster spot is actually better, overall, when all factors are included, than getting 2 WAR each from two roster spots. We’d probably have to start by seeing what the historical price per win turned out to be for projectable 4 WAR FAs.
Two things that may be worth considering…
-There are approximately 5x as many players projected for 2 wins in Steamer (35 or so) than projected for 4 wins (7 or so). So if there is a small advantage then scarcity will magnify this difference.
-A 2 win player doesn’t actually improve several rosters, taking them out of the running entirely for 2-win players. And those rosters also tend to be right at the cusp of needing a talent infusion to compete for the playoffs–say, taking an 85 win team to an 88 or 89 win team. So there’s a lot of motivation for those teams to snap up 4 win players and zero for them to go after 2-win players.
That said, there are definitely “stars and scrubs” rosters where two 2-win players should be as advantageous as one 4 win player. The Guardians and Rangers are the two foremost examples. It’s very nice that they have a star position player or two now, but at least at the moment it doesn’t seem more valuable than spreading it around to different positions.
This would matter more if bad teams actually cared about finishing 81-81. But they would rather tear down and aim for a future 90-95 win team. Their fans prefer this too. So the real market for 2 Win players are the Win Now teams with holes and money to spend. That’s way less spots than the total MLB starters.
The numbers are interesting, but the interpretation about whether players are being paid “fairly” or not has always been weird to me and continues along that path here. $8.5M per expected win is not fair or unfair in any absolute sense, since the only standard we have for fairness is what they were paid in previous offseasons, which themselves could be unfairly high or unfairly low. The concept of fairness is negotiated (and as a result) contested every single offseason.
In Ben’s defense, while there has been plenty of this type of discussion on this site, I don’t think “fairness” entered into the piece as written at all. It reads to me as a candid discussion of the numbers and how they compare to the last 5 years.
Presumably the union and owners are discussing what slice of the pie is “fair” for the players at large to receive at this very moment. I’m sure if we get any actual public data out of that there will be other pieces writing about the outcomes.
I think it’s fair to call out his presumption that people will know what he means by “fairness,” but I agree that he’s clearly comparing it to historical trends rather than some arbitrary or personal morality
I’m sure there isn’t a lot of urgency to sign the 0-2 WAR players. Out of curiosity…what’s the breakdown for available vs. signed players by group?
If you look at Roster Resource’s tracker you can find it fairly easily–just filter bit “signed” and sort by projected WAR. According to that, there are 36 players who are projected for 0-1.9 wins in 2022 and signed to major league deals. Considering that Steamer is a bit pessimistic on Canha at 1.9 wins, you can make that 35 if you want.
Looks like about 90 players are projected for between 0.2 and 1.9 wins, which isn’t exactly a fair comparison but I just don’t see how many of the guys projected for under 0.2 wins are getting major league contracts (you could say the same about most of the hitters in that 0.2-0.5 win bucket too). Just looking at the list of unsigned guys, there are definitely some guys who I think can serve as good depth (like Josh Harrison) or are interesting buy-low candidates (like Jakob Junis) in that group, as well as some interesting relievers (McHugh, Tepera, Chafin, Kenley Jansen). But I’d be really surprised if Julio Teheran or Jake Arrieta or Mike Fiers are getting a guaranteed contract at this point.
@sadtrombone Speaking of (piling up )reclamation pitchers, do I recall correctly, that you’re Mets fan? I’ve been dismayed by the FO’s apparent belief that giving 110-plus starts to Walker, Carrasco, Megill, Peterson, Yamamoto, and perhaps one more starter in Kikuchi’s tier will get it done. It’s startling, really, as was watching AAA fodder that might have a little something left go off the boards.
The first four named put up ERA+’s between 73 and 90, and none of them have a recent or in two cases any history of success by the underlying numbers. It’s not a rotation, it’s not projectable to anything like 162 starts. I suppose it was predictable, adding an Eppler to an Alderson, given the former’s failures and the latter’s endless neglect of the back of the rotation, but it’s still startling to see an ostensible contender behaving like this.
I’m not exactly a Mets fan, but I do find them fascinating for a number of reasons. Although those reasons have changed over the years.
It’s a good rotation but it is old and top heavy. It does seem interesting that in the massive spending spree they didn’t manage to bring back Stroman. He was a fantastic fit for them. All of the other guys left on the free agent market who are worth signing have injury questions, but they’ll probably have to sign one and hope that enough of the current group makes it to June while the other guys complete their rehab. Not exactly a foolproof method, as the Mets found out this year.
Thanks for replying. Yes, they were strongly rumored to be going after both Scherzer _and_ Gausman, but in the absence of the latter appear to have shrugged and figured someone like Kikuchi will do, somehow.
Unless there’s a deal in the works for Manaea?
I will say that the big surprise for me this offseason was the premium paid to starting pitchers in two very different situations…high-risk but high-upside pitching, the guys who could pitch at the front of a rotation in the playoffs if they’re healthy…and starting pitchers who are close to replacement level.
Syndergaard and Verlander are both coming of TJ and haven’t pitched in two years, and they both turned down the QO (which I thought they would be a lock to take) and then exceeded it. In Verlander’s case, he exceeded it by a lot. And then Max Scherzer, who is legitimately a great pitcher but also fairly high risk because he’s 37 and has had back problems and was last seen with a dead arm, got something like 3/$130M. We saw this last season with the Yankees chasing upside–the guys who you hope could turn in a top level pitching performance in the playoffs, even if their availability and sharpness is in question. But it seems to be much more widespread now.
On the bottom end of the market, Jordan Lyles and Michael Wacha are both total messes and haven’t been good in years, and they both not only got guaranteed contracts but got about $7M. But there’s not really a lot of upside remaining and they’re not much better than replacement-level. And by definition, replacement level pitching shouldn’t cost much at all because there’s a lot of them hanging out.
Meanwhile, the Gausman, Ray, Stroman, and E-Rod deals clocked in right at what we might consider “normal”. I think that this is telling us something. First, I think that teams are realizing how valuable a guy like peak Verlander is in a short playoff series, and they’re willing to gamble even though he’s a huge risk. Second, there is just a huge shortage of guys we might consider 4th and 5th starters out there right now. Some of this may be due to arm injuries, some of this is probably due to losing a year of development for prospects. But the Red Sox and Orioles were so worried about not getting enough starters that they were willing to guarantee decent money to Wacha and Lyles even though there are huge numbers of roughly equivalent or even better starters left out there (Kwang Hyun Kim, Tyler Anderson, Michael Pineda, Zach Davies, JA Happ, Brett Anderson, even Martin Perez). This indicates that at least two teams think that those guys are going to get signed pretty fast once the lockout is lifted, that there is still robust demand.
Well said.
Wacha has upside and demonstrated it last year with the Rays when they had him scrap his curve (I believe). His splits were very encouraging. I’d take a $7MM flier on him just the same as an $8MM flier on Heaney for the same reasons – upside.
“Dead arm” is a fancy term for fatigue. He was tired because he was trying to pitch in ways he wasn’t conditioned to pitching in. No one was really concerned about Max Scherzer’s health.
I think that some teams were more willing to sign pitchers who were willing to take 1-year deals. Of the 21 free agent starting pitchers who signed, 9 took 1 year deals, and 3 each took 2-year, 3-year, 4-year, and 5-year deals.
“Dead arm” can also be a fancy term for “cryptic injury” — cryptic either because it hasn’t been diagnosed yet and the guy is trying to pitch through it, or it has been diagnosed but he’ trying to pitch through it anyway… and nobody wants to talk about it. It wasn’t so long ago that guys often went from “dead arm” to surgery, or before that, from “dead arm” to “out of baseball.” Or, yes, it could be just fatigue; but enough people remember the ominous history of that term to be understandably wary when it is uttered.
You almost convinced me but then you added Martin Perez and lost all credibility.
To be fair, Wacha probably is a better bet than Perez. But not Lyles.
So 2019 teams believed that above average players were especially valuable due to roster spot limits and/or star player rarity but in 2020-21 they decided role players are valuable after all due to the importance of depth and avoidance of negative WAR playing time? 2022 so far has been almost like 2019 but could devolve into 2020-21 as more role players get signed? Fun!
If the playoffs are expanded, would the assumption be that we’d see teams pay less for WAR?
Teams would at least pay less for premium players. I assume that if the playoffs were expanded, teams would take an approach of aiming for average players/fill in the gap players, since you’d really only need to shoot for slightly above average to make the playoffs than shooting for good/really good.
Could another possible consequence be shifting of budgets from position players and toward SP / RP who can have an outsized impact on single games / series?
You’re right. There’s a growing literature on how the shift towards more pitchers and fewer innings for starters has caused a decline in pitcher salaries.
I don’t see any decline in pitchers salaries. Syndergaard, the poster boy for “potential”, and Verlander, great, obviously, but aging and TJ are elephants in the room, both exceeded their QO with nothing but hope on which to build a reasonable basis for the contracts and I will never understand 3 years for 130 million for anybody, (unless a Pedro clone, circa 1999, could be found). Relievers are getting paid much more today than just 6-7 years ago. Only elite closers got paid until about 2015 when the Yankees gave Andrew Miller $9M. With 14 pitchers on a staff there is no question that pitchers are receiving a larger percentage of payroll than ever before.
It’s an interesting position, but we still have the matter of bright teams aiming to avoid having to play an additional round in the postseason, a hindrance far more likely to keep you from winning it all than adding any one player in the game helps you to win it all..
WAR predictions are going to be a little weird- STEAMER has to adjust for pandemic effects. As such the WAR predictions could be qualitatively different year to year and direct comparison might be inappropriate (or not, I’m not convinced either way).
Very good analysis. I wonder if the trend of towards underpaying for role/part time players will only accelerate. The teams who aren’t going to be competitive have little incentive to pay much above MLB minimum for any open slots on their rosters, and even less incentive to bring up younger talent and miss the opportunity for service time manipulation. A part time player who provides, say 1.5 WAR in 100 games might be valuable to a team on the fringe of competition, or even a highly competitive team who loses a quality player for a couple of months during the season. But a team headed for 50-75 wins? Why bother–bring up a younger player who isn’t considered a real prospect, or a vet on a very inexpensive one, and cut him loose when you don’t need him anymore.
The only issue is that attendance is affected by teams being at the tail ends of winning percentage (very high or very low). So there is definitely value in winning 70 games over 50.
It’s a good point, but I’d love to see the numbers on it. The complete tear-downs/tanks don’t seem to have any interest in trying for 70, and I’m assuming they must be looking at net dollars.
It would be interesting to integrate prior performance into the chart in a direct way.
Simply note how much WAR a given year’s FA class (say the 2022 class, signable during the 2021-22 offseason) compiled in previous years: in 2021, in 2020-21, in 2019-21, and in 2018-21.
So does this mean Correa’s agents are gonna ask for 10 years, $425M and maybe even get it?
Honestly, it may be worth breaking down even further. I think the 2-3 WAR players are getting squeezed down, while the 4+ WAR players are taking the majority of the $/WAR
For sure. Low numbers make it a little dicey but 2 WAR and 0 WAR guys ought not be in the same cohort. I’d like to see this done with each WAR assigned its own bucket.