My sense of the buzz is that teams do have more revenue to spend (from new media, etc.) but they are wary of spending it because they aren't sure if it will continue. From the ESPN group, anyway, they seem to be saying that the Mariners have the most to spend and the most willingness to spend it.
Two new lines of thought today:
(1) Trade Lopez (for pitching, presumably), Figgins to 2b and re-sign Beltre for 3b. So Figgins-for-Lopez instead of Figgins-for-Beltre.
(2) Less rich alternative to Bay: Cammy! Interesting. Feel good story, but also some very interesting mix-and-match opportunties with Saunders, Guti, Figgins.
In a bidding war, Bay will be paid in years, so a short-term option would certainly maintain the flexibility to blend in Saunders, Tui, Ackley, Triunfel sooner rather than later.
And talk about wanting to build around defense: if your FA signings are Figgins, Beltre and Cammy.
There is one thing genuinely broken, about the way Fangraphs information is deployed.
"Theo Epstein 'overpaid' for Joe Shlabotnik: he paid $12m per year and Shlabotnik's performance is worth only $10m. I see him drinking Diet Coke a lot. I'll bet he hasn't heard that aspartame lowers IQ."
WRONG!
Teams paid, on average, $10m for performance like Shlabotnik's. Any leap towards "$10m is 'correct' and holds true, at all points in time" is a clear logical fallacy.
Year after year, article after article, we see players lined up against these averages, and anything that deviates from average is "incorrect."
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Play $260 roto sometime. The inflation changes round by round! Take the reductio ad absurdum.
Say there are two players left** -- Adrian Beltre and Jack Hannahan. Everybody else has a full roster. You and John Benson have 1 empty slot each.
You have $23 left and he has $21 left. If you don't pay $22, you're committing a clear error, despite Beltre's pre-draft value of $12. $12 represented Beltre's fraction of available production THEN. $22 represents Beltre's fraction of available production NOW.
................
If the Red Sox (or Mariners) have $500 million available, and one player to spend it on, it is most definitely correct to pay more than average. The dollars-available-per-run have changed!
There are many reasons that a team might pay more than average for Joe Shlabotnik -- it might be flush with cash to spend, relative to its rivals. A given player might help them more than he would help another team. Or both. Or other factors.
There are reasons a particular player might NOT be worth $450,000 per run to a team. Maybe it already has three 1B/DH's. Maybe it has Dustin Ackley ready to play a position. Maybe a lot of things.
But if there's one thing that many of the Fangraphs columnists need to realize, it's that "average price" does not mean the same thing as "intelligent price."
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It doesn't change anything, fundamentally, to say "save the jack for next year."
The same economic principles apply in micro and in macro. The same Econ 101 principles apply to Washington State and to the U.S. government. The same principles apply to 2009 and to 2005-2009, and to December 2009.
You've only changed the universe under consideration; the $-per-run imperative still applies to the broader universe.
Granted, the industry does generally collude (IMHO) to avoid the pay-more-later effect. This is because that would cause many effects that are not to the teams' advantage. This has nothing to do with what a given player's worth in a given winter.
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=== NIMBY, Dept. ===
A minor point: Tango's reply about the 2009 dollar-per-run figure, "we'll know soon enough," is to the point, of course.
It doesn't address the question of last year, that we've been talking about here on SSI. I take it, that it's safe to assume that LAST year, the available dollars weren't significantly lower than 2007.
But Boras is whining, so maybe they were... I think Boras is whining that the $/WAR is not rising fast enough, since he claims revenues have doubled the last few years.
I predict that the next set of calculations will produce a $/WAR figure that is higher than $4.5 - $5.1m per win.
...............
People (offsite, that is, with present company excluded) complain that the $/WAR model must be broken, because they don't want to see (for example) Jason Bay paid $4.5m per win.
That's their right, to root against that -- to have their own judgment as to what Bay's next five years will bring, in any given city.
But it's not their right to call teams incorrect, stupid, etc., when they pay $4.5m per win, or more.
Cheers,
Dr D
Comments
Counselor, that is a lucid, well-thought-out objection. :- )
Supposing you had Figgins 2b and Beltre 3b... I wonder what the contract terms for Beltre would be.
Is the assumption going to be that his bat rebounds in Safeco? My fear is that the Safeco effect accumulates as RH hitters are psyched out by it.
My belief is that Beltre was playing hurt for most of the season -- (just like Branyan for most of the 2nd half). If there is one major area of concern about Wak, it's gotta be an inability (thus far) to tell a creaky player to sit his butt down and get right physically, and THEN he'll get back in the lineup. (Of course, with Sweeney/Griffey eating up two slots, Wak wasn't given a lot of tools to use in this regard.
You can pay Bay $4.5mil per W if you'd like in the short term and wait for him to be an albatross in the later years, I just don't think its a good idea.
It would be an awful idea for Seattle, maybe a somewhat questionable move for Boston (where hes a much better fit). There are better values out there this offseason.
if you want to assume his defense is a push in LF -- as the Red Sox seem to have told the M's that it is -- you can pay $3m per win for him in the early years and watch as it climbs to $4. :- )
Minus the defensive penalty, Bay earns a 4/$60m contract in the first 2.5 years.
But like we say, it's starting to sound like the question is moot.
Take away about 5 runs for the Boston effect and maybe hes worth $4mil per W for them at $15mil. Not a great deal, but around present market value.
I still wouldn't like it long-term for Boston, but it makes sense for the first couple years.
is the idea of "hometown discounts". I have seen several places now where they would love to pay Bay to play, but only at a "significant hometown discount". If you think about it this really makes no sense at all. In todays modern age (fast planes, internet video chat, etc.) what exactly is the player paying for when giving said discount? The only possible thing would be he gets to play for his childhood favorite team, but the childhood favorite things seems to mostly be beaten out of pro players by the time they go through the little league/american legion/high school/possibly college/6 levels of minors meat grinder.
In fact it seems like a hometown player is precisely one of these times where average is indeed NOT correct. But it is the TEAM who should be paying more. Certainly signing and Harden or a Bay would garner more interest in the Mariners from British Columbia, certainly the M's would gain the media and emotional bump of home town boy makes good, and all the good feelings and will that comes along with that, certainly the team will gain attendance for the locals that want to see the kid they coaching in little league or the kid that taught 3rd grade math to (in other words fans of the person, who would otherwise not be interested in a baseball game at all). Certainly my wife would rather go see the human element of "This guy grew up 200 miles away, was a huge M's fan growing up, and look now he is starring for them" instead of actual strike one, strike two, strike three.
So once again I ask, why in the world does the phrase "hometown discount" make any sense at all? It should be "hometown PREMIUM"!
If I was Harden's or Bay's agent this would be EXACTLY the argument I was making to DR.Z right now. In fact it wouldn't surprise me at all if this was one of the reasons we missed out on Harden. Z didn't want to pay the hometown premium. And he has already paid dearly for it in fan good will!