When the 2013 Crowd Gave Bad Advice

Of course it would take a sample size of so many decades of FanGraphs Contract Crowdsourcing before The Crowd could be properly evaluated for their salary-creating acumen. I will not hesitate, however, to deliver swift and mighty judgement upon The Crowd based on just their (your) inaugural year of estimations.

A few weeks ago, one Carson Cistulli shared an exhaustive chart showing how The Crowd’s aggregate contracts compared against the actual salaries that 2013’s free agents actually received. This is only one dimension with which The Crowd’s collective wisdom can be judged. Now that the free agents of 2013 have played the 2014 season, we can also begin to make strong guesses (and/or swift and mighty judgements) as to whether The Crowd or The Real-Live GM proposed a contract that more accurately reflects a given player’s competitive value.

Tomorrow, a look at The Crowd’s successes: five contracts that are perhaps even more discerning than the contracts proffered by The Real-Live GMs. But today, a look at The Crowd’s collective failures — five contracts that, were they executed by The Real-Live GMs, would be cause for those Real-Live GMs to question (and/or have already lost) their job security.

These five contracts have been selected not out of a set of rigorous objective criteria. However, their short length (all five players were signed by Real-Live GMs to one-year contracts) invites the arrival at conclusions. None of these five players had what one would call a “good” or even a “mediocre” season in 2014. While The Real-Live GMs who designed these contracts no doubt regret their decisions, in each case The Crowd proposed a much larger commitment, in terms of both years and dollars, for these players. In the financial tables below, one can see The Crowd’s aggregate proposals for the number of years (cYRS), average annual value (cAAV), and cumulative contract totals (cTOT) offered to these players, compared to the contracts that they would agree to with The Real-Live GMs (aYRS/aAAV/aTOT).

Jesse Crain – Houston Astros

The Financial Situation

cYRS	cAAV	cTOT	aYRS	aAAV	aYRS
2.1	$6M	$12.2M	1	$3.3M	$3.3M

In the first half of the 2013 season, Crain pitched a sterling 36.2 innings of relief for the Chicago White Sox, posting a 0.74 ERA and 1.52 FIP. Even though Crain was injured from the beginning of July and onward — with the Tampa Bay Rays giving up Sean Bierman and Ben Kline so that Crain could rehab for a few months in Florida — The Crowd saw it fit to give Crain one of baseball’s larger middle-reliever salaries.

The 2014 Performance Situation

IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	FIP	WAR	FG$
0	0	0	0	0	0	N/A

In 2014, Crain’s rehab tour moved on to Texas, where the Astros made Crain their third-highest-paid player (behind Dexter Fowler and Scott Feldman), only to see him never take the field. This winter, it’s unlikely that Crain will receive a contract any larger than $3.3M, with his last in-game appearance now approaching 18 months ago.

Stephen Drew – Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees

The Financial Situation

cYRS	cAAV	cTOT	aYRS	aAAV	aYRS
3	$11M	$32.8M	1	$10.1M	$10.1M

Following his performance as starter for the World Series Champion Red Sox, Drew was presented with a qualifying offer by Boston, and The Crowd believed that Drew would either be resigned by the Red Sox, or was a valuable enough option to one of the other 29 teams that he would be worth the lost first-round draft pick. After a winter of contractual stalemate, Drew re-signed in Boston in the middle of May.

The 2014 Performance Situation

PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	wRC+	WAR	FG$
300	.162	.237	.299	44	-1.1	-$6.3M

If Drew and his representation thought that it was difficult to sign a contract last winter, then this winter will pose a real conundrum. There is perhaps an argument to be made that the lack of conventional Spring Training, plus the midseason arrival in Boston, plus the midseason departure for New York all combined to throw off Drew’s internal ballplayer circadian rhythms. Or: Drew will not be entering negotiations from a place of strength.

Josh Johnson – San Diego Padres

The Financial Situation

cYRS	cAAV	cTOT	aYRS	aAAV	aYRS
1.6	$10M	$16.3M	1	$8M	$8M

With just 56 combined starts from 2011-2013, not to mention a history of long-term injury going back to 2007, 2008, The Crowd still favored giving Johnson a multi-year deal. Even though the Padres were confident enough in Johnson’s health to sign him (remember the Orioles passing on Grant Balfour), they still felt the need to get creative with the contract. Johnson would have received a not-insignificant bonus ($1.25M) if he made at least 26 starts in 2014, and a 2015 vesting option of $4M if Johnson were to make less than seven starts on the season.

The 2014 Performance Situation

IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	FIP	WAR	FG$
0	0	0	0	0	0	N/A

Much like Crain, Johnson was the third-highest-paid player on his team, with nary an inning to show for it. The Padres have already declined that $4M 2015 option, meaning that Johnson’s future in the game must be frightfully limited. It must be colossally frustrating for Johnson to see his elite performance get undercut with injury after injury — here’s hoping that he can call Brandon Webb for moral support.

Paul Maholm – Los Angeles Dodgers

The Financial Situation

cYRS	cAAV	cTOT	aYRS	aAAV	aYRS
2.1	$7.1M	$14.8M	1	$1.5M	$1.5M

As a totally serviceable starting pitcher for the Braves in 2013, The Crowd saw it fit to give Maholm a serviceable starting pitcher’s money. Seeing as the Braves voluntarily picked up Maholm’s $6.5M 2013 option at the end of the 2012 season, the numbers proposed by The Crowd did not, at the time, seem unreasonable.
The 2014 Performance Situation

IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	FIP	WAR	FG$
70.2	4.33	3.57	1.02	4.96	-0.8	-$4.1M

For reasons that I’d think are very inside baseball (i.e.: confidential), nobody signed Maholm until February, at which point the Dodgers signed him to an uncharacteristically prudent contract. Even though Maholm’s 2014 season mostly just served as a foil for the early-May arrival of Clayton Kershaw, Maholm was the 23rd-highest-paid member of the Dodgers last year, so the lack of value in his contract was not terribly noticeable.

Kendrys Morales – Minnesota Twins, Seattle Mariners

The Financial Situation

cYRS	cAAV	cTOT	aYRS	aAAV	aYRS
2.5	$10.8M	$27.3M	1	$7.5M	$7.5M

Although the two players are quite unalike in appearance and style, Morales followed nearly the exact same trajectory as Drew. Morales was presented with a qualifying offer, turned it down, and was forced to wait until almost midseason to finally get signed. Also like Drew, Morales was traded from his original slumping team to a team that was trying darn hard to make the playoffs before pulling up just short.

The 2014 Performance Situation

PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	wRC+	WAR	FG$
401	.218	.274	.338	72	-1.7	-$9.5M

The similarities with Drew continue: Morales followed up that jumbled timeline with easily the worst performance of his career. Seeing as the Twins only paid Morales for six weeks or so before flipping him for a prospect in Stephen Pryor, they are perhaps the only party mentioned in this post who can be proud of their actions here. Meantime, the Mariners fell one game short of the playoffs after giving Morales and his below-replacement bat 239 late-season plate appearances — it is they who most obviously have egg on their faces.