When the 2013 Crowd Gave Good Advice

Yesterday, I heaped swift and mighty judgment upon the Contract Crowdsourcers of 2013 for their (your) contract proposals that were considerably more fiscally irresponsible than the contracts that were actually proposed to the players at hand. Between the injuries that befell some of the players mentioned yesterday — rendering their one-year contracts more or less entirely useless — to the career-worst years that befell the healthy, it was a veritable carnival of inefficiency, disappointment, and waste.

I told you the bad news first. But there is indeed good news! Here are five instances in which The Crowd’s proposed contracts are, I would argue, more beneficial to the team than the contracts that the teams actually agreed to. In three of the cases studied below, The Crowd’s noted tendency to underestimate both the years and average salary given to upper-tier free agents played to The Crowd’s advantage — when it comes to free agents who disappointed in 2014, no doubt The Real-Live GMs would much prefer to have a lot less guaranteed cash remaining on the books. In the other two cases, The Crowd bestowed modest multi-year deals upon players that were ultimately thrived on one-year deals — and who will be hunting for increased compensation this winter.

In the charts below, the columns cYRS, cAVG, and cTOT refer to the number of years, the amount of annual compensation, and the amount of total compensation that The Crowd gave to the players. The columns aYRS, aAVG, and aTOT list what the player actually, non-hypothetically received. The complete results of the 2013 Crowdsourcing can be found here.

Bronson Arroyo – Arizona Diamondbacks

The Financial Situation

The above chart does not even convey the entirety of the contract that Arroyo signed with Arizona. Also included is an option year for 2016, in which the Diamondbacks will either pay Arroyo $11M to play on the team, or they will pay him $4.5M not to play on the team. A not-insignificant investment, either way.

The 2014 Performance Situation

After nine straight seasons of at least 199 innings pitched, our collective trust in the sustainability of the position of pitcher absorbed a mighty blow when Arroyo was felled with Tommy John surgery in June. As intriguing as it was that Arroyo was inducing ground balls at a rate nearly ten percentage points above his previous career high, the Diamondbacks are committed through Arroyo’s age 39 season.

Carlos Beltran – New York Yankees

The Financial Situation

Upon this contract being signed, nearly one year ago, Dave Cameron wrote in these same FanGraphs pages about how this deal was a symbol of a rapidly inflating free agent market. Quoth Cameron: “Carlos Beltran, as great as his career has been, is probably currently overrated. It’s not that average players don’t have value, but they probably shouldn’t cost $15 million a year for three years, plus the loss of a draft pick, especially for their age 37-39 seasons.”

The 2014 Performance Situation

As it turns out, Beltran was not even able to provide that league-average performance that Cameron proposed as inefficient. If the Yankees had listened to The Crowd — who essentially proposed a 2-year/$30M deal compared to the actual sum of 3-years/$45M — the Yankees would not be on the hook for $15M to Beltran in 2016. Even that bit of relief could really help out those 2016 Yankees, who have already committed $170.7 in payroll for that season.

Shin-Soo Choo – Texas Rangers

The Financial Situation

Perhaps it’s just me, but even with the aforementioned inflation in baseball’s free agent market, there still seems something special about any contract that breaks the nine-digit plateau. These astronomical levels of compensation should at least be reserved for somebody whose greatness is recognized widely enough to be an All-Star, right? (Which, despite three 5+ WAR seasons to his credit, Shoo has never appeared in the Midsummer Classic.) While The Crowd came very nearly to the same Annual Value that the Rangers offered Choo, The Crowd elected not to keep Choo on the books for the 2019 and 2020 seasons.

The 2014 Performance Situation

…And then Choo promptly delivered a career-worst season. In the middle of his plight, August Fagerstrom gave a thorough breakdown of the problems that ailed Choo in 2014, the Korean’s greatest strengths turning into weaknesses. But even if Choo “justified” his salary with three or so WAR, the Rangers ended with the AL’s worst record an the MLB’s worst run differential: it was perhaps unadvisable that the team make long-term investments of any sort.

Nelson Cruz – Baltimore Orioles

The Financial Situation

With the burdens of both a lost compensation pick and 2013’s PED suspension hanging over Cruz, he remained a free agent until February. And even then, the Orioles only signed Cruz after they lost their first-round pick in the 2014 draft by signing Ubaldo Jimenez. The Crowd, meantime, was more confident that Cruz’s slugging skills had not left him, and bestowing him with a multi-year commitment.

The 2014 Performance Situation

Given Cruz’s seventh-place finish in the 2014 AL MVP race, plus his MLB-best 40 home runs, the Orioles’ gamble on Cruz turned out to be perhaps the most team-friendly contract given out in all of free agency. Even though The Crowd proposed a higher annual value for Cruz, the Orioles would have improved the longer-term health of their franchise had they abided by The Crowd’s deal. Ostensibly in pursuit of an always-fickle championship window, the Orioles would certainly like to have Cruz on their 2015 — but if they are to do so, they will have to sign Cruz when his stock is highest, as opposed to during last year’s all-time-low in Cruz-stock. Cruz has declined Baltimore’s $15.3M qualifying offer and is no doubt on the hunt for a premium long-term contract.

Hiroki Kuroda – New York Yankees

The Financial Situation

Having signed four consecutive one-year contracts, going back to his tenure with the Dodgers, Kuroda may simply be phobic when it comes to commitment — or perhaps flexibility is more valuable to Kuroda than long-term commitment as he nears age 40. Rounding up The Crowd’s proposal to a two-year deal, the Yankees would have been wise to have Kuroda under contract for 2015 if at all possible.

The 2014 Performance Situation

In 2014, Kuroda was the only Yankees pitcher to make more than 20 starts. The only one! Between the injury-prone Michael Pineda and Ivan Nova, plus the $23M owed to salary albatross C.C. Sabathia next year, the Yankees would no doubt like to have pitching’s Old Faithful around for some semblance of stability in the rotation.