Q. What is a postseason worth?
A. If Cliff Lee's "four games" put you in the postseason -- and most divisions are decided by few games -- what is your trip to the postseason worth, ROI in U.S. dollars?
Not just the revenue from that one postseason. How about residual TV and radio income? How about positioning for other free agent negotiations? Does attendance change next year, if you brought in Cliff Lee -- and he put you in the playoffs? How many $4 Pepsis did the Phillies sell this year?
................
We've seen the value of a single postseason estimated at $20M, just through the most short-term direct effects. The dominoes may put it at a lot more than that. The Mariners just slashed their payroll by how much? That payroll was $20-25M higher just a few years ago.
What's a postseason worth? My wild guess is, in the range of $20m, just moshing off the M's payrolls.
You see why SSI's monotonous beat, preaching that the world is more complex than we give it credit for being.
.............
GM's get more excited, as a player like Randy Johnson or Cliff Lee start to hit the 90%, 95% coefficient of confidence. When a player is a guaranteed monster difference-maker, that's when they get crazy.
It's fine to say, Mark Teixeira makes us better during the stretch drive. But Cliff Lee? His World Series heroics are still echoing in our ears.
.
Q. How much value does Lee add through his effect on the other 24 players?
A. How about when you go into Boston for a four-gamer, and Lee pitches the first game and detonates the Red Sox? What is the effect on your team's performance the rest of the weekend? His effect on your self-belief, knowing that such a magnificent pitcher is on your side and not theirs?
Why does a Chone Figgins have an UP or DWN season? Does the back of the envelope tell us what is involved in ballplayers hitting their 75th, vs 25th, percentile in a given season -- or month?
You say, I don't have any mathematical evidence that self-belief affects baseball. My circumstantial evidence is this: 30 General Managers believe that a confident, winning environment gives ballplayers their best chance to play well.
.
Q. How does Stars & Scrubs fit in?
A. 4-for-1 trades are always very inefficient for the team acquiring four players. You can only put 25 men on your roster, and you already have more than 150 ballplayers in your org -- plus all of the external players that are available.
Prospects are redundant against each other -- and therefore less valuable than they appear. There are all sorts of variables that you can't isolate and quantify.
.
Q. And prospects are a renewable resource, right.
A. People talk about these prospects as though they were non-renewable resources. If your top 10 prospects are "assets" worth $3m apiece -- but you can grow another crop exactly like them next year -- then how are you "spending" $30m to give all ten away? They're back next year.
Notice in this article, Schuerholz explains that 4-for-1's are predicated on your system restock.
If, in theory, I've got two $3m "assets" in Tacoma and I've got to flush one of them anyway, am I really losing $3m to waive (or trade) one away from the traffic jam? Who says that I lost $3m? I cleared a spot at Tacoma, didn't I?
................
No calculation of player value is effective, if it misses the 3-D dynamic of the 150-players-to-make-25 pyramid. Gotta ask how your 4 prospects in, or 4 prospects out, affect the short list when you get to spring training.
.
Add comment