If we miss the playoffs this year, trade Manny and sign Schoop

[Can_of_corn]

Interesting discussion. It is certainly an observable fact that the top players do not get paid proportionately to their WAR (i.e., a 6 WAR player doesn't make triple what a 2 WAR player makes). The concept that a 6 WAR player is harder to find than three 2 WAR players (and is therefore more valuable than all three of the others combined) sounds good in theory, but I don't know of any team that actually pays players in accordance with that logic.

Of course not, because of the associated risks and guaranteed contracts.

If one of the absolute top tier guys, a Trout, a Harper, a Machado were willing to take one year deals I think they would easily break the current records for yearly salary.

[CheeryO]

This.

Linear valuation of WAR ridiculous.

Linear valuation of performance in general is ridiculous when discussing salaries.

But WAR is a linear statistic, so it's impossible to use WAR to analyze player performance without thinking in linear terms. A 4 win player is worth twice as much as a 2 win player who is worth twice as much as a 1 win player. This is how WAR in and of itself works.

[CheeryO]

Of course not, because of the associated risks and guaranteed contracts.

If one of the absolute top tier guys, a Trout, a Harper, a Machado were willing to take one year deals I think they would easily break the current records for yearly salary.

It didn't work out for Tim Lincecum. Lincecum rejected a 5 year $100 million extension with Giants in 2011. Instead he accepted a 2 year $40.5 million deal. I'm not sure what Lincecum's reasoning was other than he maybe he was thinking he could improve on his 2011 performance and get even bigger deals in two years. Or maybe he wasn't thinking in terms of money and preferred a shorter term contract for some other reason. But in his case the Giants were not willing to pay significantly more money for a shorter term deal.

[Can_of_corn]

It didn't work out for Tim Lincecum. Lincecum rejected a 5 year $100 million extension with Giants in 2011. Instead he accepted a 2 year $40.5 million deal. I'm not sure what Lincecum's reasoning was other than he maybe he was thinking he could improve on his 2011 performance and get even bigger deals in two years. Or maybe he wasn't thinking in terms of money and preferred a shorter term contract for some other reason. But in his case the Giants were not willing to pay significantly more money for a shorter term deal.

By 2011 he was a four win player. And since he wasn't a free agent, it isn't surprising that his pay was in line with what he would have made in arbitration.

[CheeryO]

Interesting discussion. It is certainly an observable fact that the top players do not get paid proportionately to their WAR (i.e., a 6 WAR player doesn't make triple what a 2 WAR player makes). The concept that a 6 WAR player is harder to find than three 2 WAR players (and is therefore more valuable than all three of the others combined) sounds good in theory, but I don't know of any team that actually pays players in accordance with that logic.

Yep. Thanks for putting it all so succinctly. WAR is a very derived and artificial stat. It's pretty clear it was never intended to determine salaries and it definitely does not reflect how salaries are or have been determined.

I see what Can of Corn is trying to say. He is arguing from the concept of scarcity, which is the most fundamental concept in economics. Something that is scarce costs more than something that is not scarce. Great baseball players should therefore cost more than good or mediocre players. Well, they do cost more. But like you point out just by looking at what they actually make does not mean their compensation is determined on a linear basis according to WAR. I haven't done the analysis (and am not going to) but, just for the sake or argument (like we haven't had enough of that already), it may be that the average 2 WAR player makes more than twice as much money than the average 1 WAR player (which would go against the example of tiered pricing I brought up earlier). But something other than WAR would come into play to cause this. WAR is for analyzing a player's value relative to a team's performance and does not reflect the economic reality of a player's worth. This may be (or maybe not) because another economic concept has come into play (I forget the term): as the quantity of something goes up, it's cost per unit goes down, in this case the unit is WAR. This may or may not be the case here.

[Can_of_corn]

For the record neither myself not anyone else is suggesting that WAR is the predominate factor in free agent salaries.

It is just a convenient tool to compare things.

I do think it is interesting that the value attached to a QO is pretty close to the the WAR value of a two win player.

[Frobby]

For the record neither myself not anyone else is suggesting that WAR is the predominate factor in free agent salaries.

It is just a convenient tool to compare things.

I do think it is interesting that the value attached to a QO is pretty close to the the WAR value of a two win player.

Yes, that is interesting, but I think it is a complete coincidence, given the methodology for calculating the value of a QO (averaging the top 125 salaries from the previous season).

I imagine there have been studies done that examine the relationship between WAR and salary on a non-linear basis.

[Ohfan67]

Yes, that is interesting, but I think it is a complete coincidence, given the methodology for calculating the value of a QO (averaging the top 125 salaries from the previous season).

I imagine there have been studies done that examine the relationship between WAR and salary on a non-linear basis.

I'm late to this discussion...and the discussion is confusing.

Escalating player salaries/escalating costs of performance set the value of WAR, not the other way around. The relationship is essentially inherently fixed. What am I missing?

[SilentJames]

At the risk of repeating things without going through the entire thread the REAL trade chip is Britton.

[CheeryO]

I'm late to this discussion...and the discussion is confusing.

Escalating player salaries/escalating costs of performance set the value of WAR, not the other way around. The relationship is essentially inherently fixed. What am I missing?

WAR is a value that indicates player performance on the field. It summarizes a player's overall performance as one figure. It has nothing to do with compensation. Though front offices and fans may have started thinking about WAR in terms of corresponding to what player compensation should be, that's using WAR to determine something else.

[CheeryO]

Yes, that is interesting, but I think it is a complete coincidence, given the methodology for calculating the value of a QO (averaging the top 125 salaries from the previous season).

I imagine there have been studies done that examine the relationship between WAR and salary on a non-linear basis.

Probably, but a player's age, injury history, their position and the budget of the teams with job openings would presumably contribute just as much if not more to player salary than a single performance indicator. Also, WAR's relationship to salary is going to be thrown by multi-year contracts and the salary setting process happening in the first 6 years in a player's career.

[CheeryO]

For the record neither myself not anyone else is suggesting that WAR is the predominate factor in free agent salaries.

It is just a convenient tool to compare things.

I do think it is interesting that the value attached to a QO is pretty close to the the WAR value of a two win player.

I bet WAR probably is one of the main factors used to determine salaries these days. But even if it is there are still curves going on. I'm no economist, but it's probably that the law of diminishing returns is kicking in once salaries reach a certain level. Still it must be that the curve increases between negative WAR players and those hovering around 1 WAR. It's not like negative WAR players owe their teams money, so the curve must increase for awhile before, once it reaches a certain level, it flattens out and curves the other way (I'm guessing).

The ideas are confusing because WAR is a linear stat for what it's intended to do: summarize a player's performance. But once you bring in money rarely is anything ever linear. And all of this business with WAR and whatever other performance metrics you can come up with, whether it's baseball or some other business, are descriptive, not necessarily prescriptive toward something else (in this case salaries) in an easily measured way.

[Hank Scorpio]

At the risk of repeating things without going through the entire thread the REAL trade chip is Britton.

Trading Britton and Machado could certainly make up for a lot of organizational shortcomings. Probably not all of them, though.

Boston is loaded with young talent that they are most certainly going to monetarily supplement and the Yankees are starting to revamp as well.

If Manny walks and we get a draft pick because we weren't honest with ourselves about our chances to bring him back I will be livid.

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[Ruzious]

Trading Britton and Machado could certainly make up for a lot of organizational shortcomings. Probably not all of them, though.

Boston is loaded with young talent that they are most certainly going to monetarily supplement and the Yankees are starting to revamp as well.

If Manny walks and we get a draft pick because we weren't honest with ourselves about our chances to bring him back I will be livid.

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Gotta figure that's the most likely scenario.

[Frobby]

First things first: fire Duquette. Someone has to take responsibility for the failure of this team.

You have an interesting definition of failure.