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March 10, 2009 You Could Look It UpThe Magic 15 Puzzle
In these times of economic difficulty, shrinking player payrolls, and elephantine superstar salaries, all it takes for a team to handicap its ability to add salary to address a need-say that key hitter that will put the club over the top in its divisional race-or even to shed salary to lessen the blow of a lost season, is one key mistake. As in all businesses, getting more for less is the name of the game, but baseball has an added dimension of difficulty for teams: they need to maintain flexibility while dealing with long-term guaranteed contracts. Some clubs are very good at managing their payrolls to meet these imperatives, while others stumble. Maintaining payroll flexibility is much like the venerable Magic 15 puzzle, in which one tries to order numbered tiles while moving them around a constricted space. Once clubs have defined that space in terms of what they consider an affordable payroll, they have to weigh the value of each piece of added salary very carefully. For a team with an $80 million payroll-and 16 teams spent less than that in 2008-adding a $15 or $20 million superstar carries very high risk. That player is going to take up a fifth to a quarter of the overall payroll, leaving very little breathing room for other star-level players, and despite players legendarily "carrying" teams, no team has won a pennant with only as much quality as a single 10-win player can provide. Last year, the defending NL pennant-winning Rockies spent $68.7 million on salaries, nearly one quarter of which went to Todd Helton. Helton got hurt and contributed less than one win above replacement, and the rest of the club, starved due in large part to his massive salary, lacked the ability to compensate. The poster child for payroll inefficiency and inflexibility may be the Houston Astros, with a solemn nod in the direction of the Seattle Mariners, who last season spent $117.7 million to win only 61 games. Houston's problem is one of having a few too many jumbo eggs in a very small basket. Their 2008 Opening Day payroll, above average at $88,930,414, has contracted a bit with the deletion of Ty Wigginton, Brad Ausmus, and a few of their cheaper players, but remains inflated by several immovable objects. Four players dominate Houston's payroll: first baseman Lance Berkman, who made $14.5 million in 2008 and will do so again in 2009; shortstop Miguel Tejada, whose $13 million 2008 salary will carry over to this season; starting pitcher Roy Oswalt, who will see his $13 million 2008 salary rise to $14 million this year; and left fielder Carlos Lee, who made $12 million last year but will see his salary jump to $18.5 million this year and remain there until 2012. That latter figure for Lee would have ranked as the sixth-highest salary in baseball in 2008. These four players represented nearly 60 percent of Houston's payroll last year and will consume and even larger slice of the pie this season. While the rapidly declining Tejada's contract expires with the 2009 season, Berkman, Oswalt, and Lee, all players on the wrong side of 30, will remain under contract-Berkman through 2010 or 2011, depending on whether his option is exercised, Oswalt through 2011 or 2012, depending on his option, and Lee through 2012. Of these, it's Lee who represents a particular problem. Though he was having a career year before a Bronson Arroyo pitch shattered his pinky on August 9 (forcing him to the DL for the rest of the season), his previously established career rates of .288/.342/.499 fall squarely in the good-not-great category, and even those numbers are severely compromised by his weight-hampered defense. In an age of contracting payrolls, Lee will remain an unshrinkable mass for the Astros through his 36th birthday, doing less and less while taking up more and more payroll space. For a team operating under small- or medium-market constraints, this is a huge handicap. The Astros have averaged almost $102 million in player salaries over the past three years while winning an average of just 80 games. The other end of the payroll efficiency scale is dominated by the likes of the Twins, Indians, and Angels. Over the last three years, the AL Central rival Cleveland and Minnesota teams have averaged about $67 million in payroll each, while averaging 85 and 88 wins per team, respectively. This is even more impressive in the light of the bad contracts both teams have to live with. In Cleveland's case, that would be the four-year, $57 million contract the team signed with designated hitter Travis Hafner in July of 2007, one which cost them $8.05 million last season and will ding them for $11.5 million this year. The Twins have made smaller-scale errors, anchoring themselves to replaceable talents like Michael Cuddyer and Jason Kubel through 2010 for a combined total of $22.1 million, not counting the price of 2011 options for both players. The Twins will also be paying $3.1 million to Milwaukee Brewer Mike Lamb this year. The Twins and the Indians have made just two post-season appearances between them over that span, but the Angels have gone to the big dance in each of the last two seasons. Their 2008 Opening Day payroll ranked just fifth in the AL, well behind that of perennial spenders Boston and New York. They've also ranked sixth in the majors over the last three years, and yet have averaged more wins than any other team, having won 89, 94, and 100 games from 2006-2008. Perhaps, though, the most efficient team in baseball last year was the Rays, with their $43.8 million opening-day player payroll, lowest in the AL, their 97 wins, and a World Series appearance. (The Marlins were even more efficient than the Rays, posting a .522 winning percentage with a payroll of just under $22 million, but this was more a fluke event than an item for future study.) The Rays showed that intelligent drafting and strong farm system production can provide an inexpensive roster base which can be augmented with intelligently spent free-agent dollars. The true test of this method will be their ability to maintain a relatively low payroll as success and experience push their players up the salary scale. In 2002, Baseball Prospectus's Doug Pappas proposed the concept of marginal dollars per marginal wins. Pappas suggested that a team playing entirely replacement-level players would win about 30 percent of its games, or 48.6 wins in a 162-game season. This team would be paid the major league minimum ($390,000 in 2008) and was assumed to have a 25-man roster, plus three players on the disabled list. In 2008, that team's payroll would have been $10,920,000. Every dollar a team spends over that minimum is more than it "has" to, but those marginal dollars do also earn the team marginal wins-victories they would not have earned had they only spent the minimum. The question is, how efficiently did the teams spend to get those extra wins? Here are the marginal dollars per marginal wins figures for the majors in 2008: AL EAST Team EstPayroll MargPayroll WPct MargWins M$/MW Yankees $207,896,789 $196,976,789 .549 40.3 $4,883,157 Red Sox $133,390,035 $122,470,035 .586 46.3 $2,643,314 Blue Jays $97,793,900 $86,873,900 .531 37.4 $2,321,466 Orioles $67,196,246 $56,276,246 .422 19.8 $2,847,412 Rays $43,820,597 $32,900,597 .599 48.4 $679,231 AL CENTRAL Team EstPayroll MargPayroll WPct MargWins M$/MW Tigers $137,685,196 $126,765,196 .457 25.4 $4,984,084 White Sox $121,189,332 $110,269,332 .546 39.9 $2,766,971 Indians $78,970,066 $68,050,066 .500 32.4 $2,100,311 Royals $58,245,500 $47,325,500 .463 26.4 $1,792,225 Twins $56,932,766 $46,012,766 .540 38.9 $1,183,456 AL WEST Team EstPayroll MargPayroll WPct MargWins M$/MW Angels $119,216,333 $108,296,333 .617 51.4 $2,108,820 Mariners $117,666,482 $106,746,482 .377 12.5 $8,557,518 Rangers $67,712,326 $56,792,326 .488 30.5 $1,864,734 Athletics $47,967,126 $37,047,126 .466 26.9 $1,377,626 NL EAST Team EstPayroll MargPayroll WPct MargWins M$/MW Mets $137,793,376 $126,873,376 .549 40.3 $3,145,257 Braves $102,365,683 $91,445,683 .444 23.3 $3,919,997 Phillies $97,879,880 $86,959,880 .568 43.4 $2,002,945 Nationals $54,961,000 $44,041,000 .366 10.7 $4,119,061 Marlins $21,811,500 $10,891,500 .522 35.9 $302,845 NL CENTRAL Team EstPayroll MargPayroll WPct MargWins M$/MW Cubs $118,345,833 $107,425,833 .602 48.9 $2,195,770 Cardinals $99,624,449 $88,704,449 .531 37.4 $2,370,382 Astros $88,930,414 $78,010,414 .534 37.9 $2,057,888 Brewers $80,937,499 $70,017,499 .556 41.5 $1,688,308 Reds $74,117,695 $63,197,695 .457 25.4 $2,484,772 Pirates $48,689,783 $37,769,783 .414 18.5 $2,045,147 NL WEST Team EstPayroll MargPayroll WPct MargWins M$/MW Dodgers $118,588,536 $107,668,536 .519 35.5 $3,034,797 Giants $76,594,500 $65,674,500 .444 23.3 $2,815,265 Padres $73,677,616 $62,757,616 .389 14.4 $4,352,727 Rockies $68,655,500 $57,735,500 .457 25.4 $2,270,013 D'backs $66,202,712 $55,282,712 .506 33.4 $1,656,560
Steven Goldman is an author of Baseball Prospectus.
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Interesting analysis, but I have a problem with your methodology. The way you have framed it, the 60th win counts just as much for a win above the "margin" as the 90th win does. This is obviously invalid, both from a competitive standpoint and from a marketing one -- the crowds ain't gonna come any more enthusiastically for a team that wins 60 games than for one that wins your replacement-level 48.6.
How does this analysis change if, say, wins above 80 count double, and wins above 90 triple, or something like that? Because those are the wins that it's really worth spending payroll bucks to achieve.
There is some small value to any win. Including from 49 to 50. But the gentleman's overall argument is entirely valid.
More to the point, you guys do have a table somewhere showing the marginal value of wins, don't you? How about meshing that with the data in this article?
You're right, of course, and that's why in BP's book "Baseball Between the Numbers" Nate Silver reconceptualized the metric to take into consideration how close a team was to the "sweet spot" in which spending a relatively few more bucks might produce a very substantial payoff by putting a team over the hump and into the playoffs.