Is the cost of a win still linear? Fangraphs’ Craig Edwards says no.

[Frobby]

“Overall, it’s pretty plain to see that the cost of a win in free agency is no longer linear given the huge discount being applied to below-average players. As for why this is happening, there are multiple reasonable explanations, including the availability of more good, young players, good teams not adding once they’ve reached a certain expected win total threshold, and bad teams not trying at all.“

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/is-the-cost-of-a-win-in-free-agency-still-linear/

I don’t particularly like the methodology of this post, which merely looks at players above and below 2 wins, excluding relief pitchers.     I think that’s overly simplistic.   But, since this topic has been discussed on the board a few times lately, I thought I’d throw it out there.   

Also, here’s a related piece from yesterday: 
 

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-cost-of-a-win-in-free-agency-in-2020/

[Scalious]

WAR is a figure that samples every single MLB player.  FA is only a selection of those players. With a selection of teams trying to build a competitive roster. With a finite # of roster slots.

Top comment makes it simple. One 4WAR player> Four 1WAR players. In theory replacement level should compensate or that. Yet a team trying to win usually has more assets then league average. So their functional replacement level is greater then 0.

 

 

[Just Regular]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

the availability of more good, young players,

The way I am moving towards understanding this is I think teams think that 1st WAR of production is table stakes as I imagine Sig would put it.  Coaches and analysts are probably being given a little more credit for that, and apparent bargains like Iglesias are growing.  

The vibrant part of the competition is can your player development widget maker build that 2nd WAR reliably?  At the pinnacle can you churn out 3 WAR Muncy's ad Striplings and just kind of let your big stars relax through the 162?

The more abundant functional replacements are, the more valuable the few talents who can consolidate >2.5 WAR in a single roster spot.

I guess the nice thing for 2022 and after is if our Top 5-6 guys can become 2-3 real stars, there's a big supply of Iglesiases and Asdrubals for not too much to man the back half of the 26-man.