1
And this is why the baseball world is increasingly stratified today. Teams are unwilling to pay s civic civic money anymore...they want scrub money for average players and star money for dependable stars.
Stars & Scrubs terminology
In roto:
Star - expensive player, guaranteed* huge production, paid fairly ($25 roto, $15M real life)
Civic - average player, likely average production, paid fairly ($12 roto, $8M real life)
Scrub - Cheap player you take a flier on, hopefully paid unfairly ($3 roto, 0.4-1.0 real life)
In roto, you've got the constant choice between two Jarrod Washburns or a Felix and a Morrow. That's the Civics-vs-Stars-and-Scrubs paradigm.
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As far as I know, we originated this terminology on the STATS AOL board, and it spread across the internet to Shandler and then widespread... somebody can correct me if I'm wrong. If you can find a reference to "Stars & Scrubs" that pre-dates 1997, then Silentpadna and I will stop taking credit for invention of the paradigm. ;- )
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I still think that very few people 'get' Stars & Scrubs. Even Shandler his ownself, just a couple of years ago, published an 'study' of competing S&S vs Civics rosters and then froze the rosters yearlong to see which performed better.
Guys wrote in screaming, hey, you're missing the whole point of S&S, that you can manuever better, with the bottom half of your roster.
That's a good part of the point -- (1) your agility in swapping out the lower-paid guys. But you also get (2) the possibility of overperformance with the Scrubs.
Most roto champs also feel that (3) the Stars are more reliable than the Civics.
The $25 players are more likely to give you good ROI than the $13 players. Mark Teixeira might underperform his salary by 10% or 20%, but the man is going to get his 30 dongs. Jose Lopez or Yuniesky Betancourt, by contrast, might well give you $0 for your $12.
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In Roto, Ben Zobrist is of course a Star now, costing $25-30 or even more in a $260 league. But in real life, people see his salary and figure that he's a Civic or something.
In reality, Zobrist is a Scrub who hit the jackpot and overperformed his salary.
We constantly find ourselves hearing "Hey this roster over here was a Civics roster and it won!" when in fact it was a Stars & Scrubs construction.
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=== Civic + Civic player-pair, vs. Star + Scrub pair ===
The essence of Civics vs Stars & Scrubs is picking between a Silva + Washburn against a Lackey + Ryan Rowland-Smith/Field. (Pat Gillick is history's ultimate Civics GM, and Chuck Armstrong imitated him for several years. Hence the Batista-Washburn-Silva decisions.)
AFTER! we have the concept crystal-clear -- best seen in these 2 vs 2 choices -- then there is room for disagreement as to where a given player fits in.
Is Adam Dunn a Star, or is he a Civic? I think he's a Star, purchased at a (high-ish) Civic price. But we can debate what Dunn is, what Harden is, what anybody is.
Jack Wilson is a Civic. Russ Branyan has just evolved from Scrub to Civic. Franklin Gutierrez was acquired as a Scrub, but now the Mariners have a Star (roto) at Scrub pricing (real life). Gutierrez is a killer Scrub, the kind Mikey Jay crushes roto leagues with. Gutierrez won't be a "Star" for the purposes of roster construction until he's making $14M.
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The recent Brewers, with Fielder, Sheets, Braun, etc. and fringe players moving in and out, were Stars & Scrubs. Rosters like this do have some Civics, as the Brewers had Cameron. We're talking tendencies.
The 2009 Mariners were played as a S&S roster, with Silva powerflushed and then Scrubs cycling through the rotation. Betancourt was powerflushed and cheap players auditioned at shortstop.
Contrast the Hargrove Mariners, in which there was hardly a position anywhere on the field or rotation that didn't sport an entitled veteran.
A Civics roster can be identified by the fact that it's very hard to put a blue-chip rookie into it. Tim Lincecum himself wouldn't have been allowed to pitch for the 2004-05 Mariners. We got five MLB(TM) starters already, kid.
You can defeat Dr. D in a lot of arguments, but you don't want to pick this particular battle, probably. As far as I know, Silentpadna and I invented the concept. ;- ) Or at least identified and named it.
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S&S isn't an absolute, but it's a Golden Principle, like the 5 point in backgammon.
Cheers,
Dr D
Comments
2
That the skyrocketing salaries since 1975 have, as their first cause, the bidding wars for the superstars. Implying that GM's have always intuited the inherent value in the superstars.
At times, GM's have been too linear in the salary structure, paying the same $/win for ARod as for Raul. I am willing to pay a higher $ per Win for Barry Bonds than for Adrian Beltre. It frees my roster for bargains at the bottom end.
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But even then, they have "paid" the superstars in terms of added years on the contracts.
It says here that superstars are worth more per Win than civics. But the superstars seem to receive length of contract rather than height. Not sure why a Lackey tends to get 5 x $15m rather than 3 x $18m.
3
He's stated his dislike of long term contracts and preference for giving bigger money per year in the past. I think with the uncertain nature of baseball injuries...the correct financial model will eventually evolve and the superstars will no longer get 7 year deals...they'll get franchise money (40 mil per year is coming) and shorter contracts.
4
From a strictly S&S point-of-view, subtracted a deluxe Civic from the parking lot.
Question now is whether you take another $6-8M -- say Bedard's or Harden's money (?) and go after a Star like Lackey or Bay or whoever.
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Difficult to say where you put Bedard, Harden, Webb, guys who healthy are Stars but whose ROI (at 50% of a season) and cost is in the Civics strata.
When Mark McGwire was healthy off and on, we still considered him a Star, but a "gamble" star... you were going to double your money or lose it all...
5
interesting advantages and disadvantages compared to other teams.
Other teams don't want to miss out on the Net Present Value gained when they give out a long Teixeira contract. When it works out well, the long contract saves the team dough.
Capt Jack will make it up, if and when he saves the money after a potential target (Lackey, Branyan, whoever) hits the DL...
6
Mid-priced superstars with major question marks are not civics...they're not stars...and they're not scrubs. THey're gambles.
7
...it means we won't be signing Silva style contracts so we won't have year to year roster stability except with the young players (more flexibility each season and probably more variable outcomes in the standings unless we get a huge glut of prospects to come up together)
...it means we'll never get screwed on a contract but we'll probably miss a lot of the very elite free agents unless Z breaks his rule for the top top TOP guys.
and it means we'll always have lots of money available to sign players.
8
Vlad Guerrero fits it and I'd sure like to see him in an M's uniform next spring! Looks to be affordable and boy could he help upgrade the offense in a hurry. Somebody is going to get themselves a bargain here. Read some speculation of 1/$5M???
9
I seriously doubt he goes THAT low...but I'd be willing to give multiple years for bad Vlad. How about 2/16...civic money for a gamble-star.
You know what's really attractive about that? Since we signed Ken Griffey, we have to plan for like 40-60 games with Griffey as the DH...so given that...it would be nice if our primary DH could occasionally play the outfield when Griffey was the DH. Certainly Vlad is not a great outfielder, but he is passable and probably won't hurt himself doing it.
10
it is tough to swing the bat with authority while battling a torn pectoral muscle. He does take a mighty cut. They said the injury didn't affect his swing. Really? I don't buy that 100%.
Vlad BB/K looks like it fell off a cliff in 2009 (19/56) but he only had 3 IBB walks this year. Opponents knew he might sinlge, but weren't as concerned with him crushing the ball. Add another 10-15 IBB and things don't look so scary. His worst year by far in a decade and still OPS 794.
Still capable of playing RF if Gutz needs a day off put Ichiro in center. Probably no worse than Manny in LF.
Our cleanup hitter for the next 3-4 years is just sitting there waiting to be signed for a bargain.
11
to the Vlad contract speculation:
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2009/11/rangers-interested-in-guerrero.html
12
...but he hit .300/.347/.498 in the second half (mostly post pec-rippage)...so...I'm thinking he'll still be productive even if he's not a 40 HR hitter anymore.
13
We've definitely seen the bigger money on a shorter deal with older free agents (like Manny Ramirez) so I figure it's just a matter of time before it happens with guys in their prime.
The player is going to have to be a little arrogant, though. Someone that is sure they're never going to get hurt or decline ahead of the normal arc. It will be hard to turn down $140M guaranteed over 7 years for $90M guaranteed over 3 years, even though they're getting $10M more per year (for one example).
14
The recession won't be over next season so their's no need to panic over the bargains you see this offseason. It's time to go bargain hunting and go long. Build a dynasty not a stapled together 1-2 year playoff run. Right now their are plenty of players that have done well in AAA but haven't had a good look in mlb and can be acquired cheaply. Some names, Chris Shelton, Ryan Shealy(might not be good fit with M's since you already have chris Shelton), Dallas Mcpherson(back injury get him from SF and sign him for 5-6 years 20 million). Don't lock yourself up in just stars and scrubs look at the financial aspects and the minor league stars that are being discarded on the sidelines.
Also you have to think payroll. Honestly if you get 4 players for $20 mil a piece your left with $20 for the rest of the team. If you get a vlad for $10 million a piece and fill up you roster with vlads you won't have any money for pitchers..... Compound that big stars will be only here Short term and are filled with risk to repeat.
One way you can think of the contracts is like investing today in the stock market. You could buy when the market was down mutual funds which are fairly safe and dependable(the civics) and you'll get maybe 40% since the market is so undervalued. Or you go on a hunch on something like Bank of ireland(IRE) in march at $1 per share and sell it for $18 a share 6 months later. However to be bold enough to do something like this in baseball you need to 1) Recognize the untapped value 2) Have the disciple to hold onto the investment until maturity 3) Use it or cash it in for more prospects. Another side benifit of this approach is you could potentially get more draftable players since all the stars you produce are home grown talent. As such when their contracts expire then o we lost a A class star please give us a first round pick.
Cheers,
15
Nobody seems to have ever had the *confidence* to do that. Never thought of it that way.
16
:high ten: