Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
April 25, 2008
Family First
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Paul Hagen notes many young players are signing long term deals to secure their fortunes:

As Rays executive vice president Andrew Friedman put it: "Some guys prefer to secure at least their first fortune and put themselves in a position to go out and get even deeper in [owner Stuart Sternberg's] wallet."

That, apparently, is the way the Rangers players look at it. Kinsler said that he talked to Young at length before deciding to commit for $22 million over five seasons with just 2 years of big league service.

"A lot of people think Mike took a club-friendly deal [$10 million for 4 years, which he then parlayed into a 5-year, $80 million extension]," he noted this spring. "But the important thing was to make sure he had taken care of his family first and that he could concentrate on just playing baseball. Hopefully this illustrates ... that it's not about dollars."

Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard has been a notable exception to this way of thinking, of course. That doesn't make him wrong. Just that his approach is a little different than a lot of younger players these days.

I'd also argue that Howard isn't really that young. He's well into his peak years at seasonal age 28, because the Phillies kept him in the minors a long time. So unlike a lot of these youngsters signing long term deals, Ryan would be beyond peak at the end of a contract. If you sign a long term deal and hit the free agent market at 28, you're going to get a huge payday. If you hit it at 33, there's a good chance you won't do as well. Ryan's best bet for big money right now is arbitration, and that's the route he's taking.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
April 01, 2008
Lake Woebehere
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Everyone on the Florida Marlins receives a salary below the major league average.

Boosted by his new deal with the New York Yankees, A-Rod tops the major league baseball salary list at $28 million, according to a study of contract terms by The Associated Press. The 33 players on the Marlins' opening-day roster and disabled list total $21.8 million.

"The Marlins? It's amazing," Rodriguez said. "And they still seem to find a way to be very competitive. They have a great pool of talent; they made some unbelievable trades, so they have great personnel people. To win two championships in 11 years, that's really admirable, and I'm very proud of that organization, being from Miami."

For the first time in baseball history, the average salary topped the $3 million mark. The 855 players on Opening-Day rosters and the DL averaged $3.15 million, up 7.1 percent from last year's starting average of $2.94 million.

The Marlins' highest earner doesn't even make the average. Pitcher Kevin Gregg tops the Marlins at $2.5 million.

That's just sad. I think Florida's finally reached the point where they are going to be about as uncompetitive as any team in baseball. St. Louis Browns bad.

Posted by StatsGuru at 06:42 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
March 28, 2008
Salary Database
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Via River Ave. Blues, LoHud offers this interactive salary database. It should be a valuable research tool.

Posted by StatsGuru at 07:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 04, 2008
Change in Compensation?
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Dave Yeager contributed $50 or more to the Baseball Musings pledge drive and dedicates this post to his blog Soul Kerfuffle.

Are more young players complaining about their salaries this season? It started with Prince Fielder, but Cole Hamels, Jonathan Papelbon and to a certain extent Jeff Francoeur didn't like the offers contracts they received. After describing the contract as a "low blow," Hamels had this to say:

The Phillies are "very business-savvy," said Hamels, who is expected to be a "Super Two" player after this season. "When you know you can have a guy for a certain amount, why go up? I mean, truly. If you're running a successful business, I don't know why you really would."

But in the next breath, Hamels said he would remember this.

"That will affect down the line certain things that come up," he said. "You can't just all of a sudden throw everything out at [a player] at the last second and think that's really going to make him happy, because you still have checkmarks for what [the team] didn't do in the years before."

There's tension here because some teams, like the Indians and Rockies, recognize good talent at a young age and pay accordingly. Other teams, like the Phillies and Brewers are happy to go year to year. The players, however, are becoming more savvy as to their actual worth, and are starting to realize that the rules are screwing them out of money.

Remember, the MLBPA did not want full fledged free agency. They like the six-year limit for free agency because it keeps the supply of free agents low, so their salaries go higher. With more and more teams ignoring free agents building from within (see Yankees and Red Sox, this year), the great young player realize they are getting exploited so Gary Matthews and Carl Pavano can earn $10 million a year. If one of these four end up with a career ending injury, they've missed out on earning millions of dollars.

Major League Baseball would be better off making every player a free agent whenever his contract expired. That would keep the supply high and damp down salaries, but it would also benefit the great young players. It would change the compensation structure so players were paid for what they accomplished now, not in the past. If I were commissioner, I'd be using these four young men to push for such a deal.

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Posted by StatsGuru at 06:22 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)
February 21, 2008
Pay for Play
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My latest column at SportingNews.com looks at which players are providing the least bang for the buck while playing under big money contracts.

Posted by StatsGuru at 10:12 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
January 29, 2008
Efficient Spending
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Rich Lederer graphs team payroll versus wins for 2008 to see which teams spent efficiently. The NL West comes out as an interesting division, where the three low payroll teams did much better than their higher paid rivals.

Posted by StatsGuru at 01:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Tracking Reds Money
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On Baseball and Reds does a nice job creating a Google spreadsheet with salary commitments for the Reds over the next few years. As the graph makes clear, the Reds have lots of room to improve the team with free agents over the next few seasons if they decide to go that route, or signing young players to long term contracts.

Posted by StatsGuru at 12:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 23, 2008
Ballplayer Futures
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A great idea, baseball player futures. These are intended to increase the pay scale of minor leaguers. Of course, you could solve this problem more easily by making all players free agents whenever their contracts expire.

Posted by StatsGuru at 04:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)