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February 3, 2010 Prospectus Hit and RunThe Lay of the Land
In preparing a recent column regarding the Dodgers' payroll situation, I made reference to the competitive ecology in which the team competes. "Competitive ecology" is a phrase introduced into the Baseball Prospectus lexicon by Keith Woolner, who wrote about it several times in the context of market-size issues and better revenue-sharing plans. For my money, he summarized it best in a pre-BP post to a Red Sox mailing list that was far ahead of its time: I happen to feel that baseball teams inhabit their own competitive "ecology," in which teams can play each of many different roles and still be successful. Some teams will rely upon developing their own talent, pouring effort and resources into a farm system, and producing top-quality talent that they can retain for a few years at less than market rates (the Expos). Other teams will prefer to wait for talent to be proven, and then use their resources to acquire it, paying more than if they developed the talent themselves, but without the associated risks of "unproven" players (the Yankees). Talent development, marginal revenues, the value of a win, these are discussions we're still having more than 13 years after that post was written on October 27, 1996, the day after the Yankees ended their 18-year World Series championship drought. They're still interesting and relevant discussions, particularly as new tools are brought to bear upon them. With that in mind, I decided to take a look at the six divisions, integrating an approach I've used in the past with some of the recent work done by my colleagues. While this won't wind up covering every single element Keith outlined above, it touches upon several of them to provide an interesting lay of the land. Let's start with a simple look at division strength according to both raw won-loss records and Hit List Factors (the average of the actual, first-, second-, and third-order winning percentages from our Adjusted Standings page, used in compiling our weekly power rankings-see here for further explanation). Division W-L Win% HLF AL West 344-304 .531 .519 AL East 421-389 .520 .529 NL West 420-390 .519 .521 NL East 395-415 .488 .495 NL Central 468-502 .482 .471 AL Central 382-430 .470 .475 The AL West posted the majors' top winning percentage in 2009, as three of its four teams-the 97-win Angels, 87-win Rangers, and 85-win Mariners-finished with winning records. That's the first time since 2004 that's happened, though prior to that it wasn't entirely uncommon; leafing backwards through the calendar, it happened in 2002, 2000, and the strike-shortened 1995 season as well. They're all far cries from the 1994 season, when the 52-62 Rangers held first place when the strike hit. They topped the list thanks to some Pythagorean-based overachievement, particularly on the part of the Angels, whose win total exceeded their third-order projection by more than 10 wins for the second straight year, and by more than eight wins for the third straight year, both records. Such overachievement pushed their actual winning percentage ahead of their various Pythagenpat projections and to the top of this list. On the flip side is the AL East's relative underachievement in such matters, including the third-order shortfalls of the Blue Jays (9.5 wins) and the Rays (8.2). Those pushed the division's winning percentage behind that of the AL West and just one game ahead of the NL West. It's worth noting that both the AL West's raw winning percentage and the AL East's Hit List Factor were high enough to place them in the wild card era's top 10s in their respective categories. Since these division records are so weighted down by the .500 records that result from intradivision play and constitute anywhere from 35-48 percent of each team's schedule (44 percent for the four five-team divisions), it's helpful to look at the interdivisional actual (W0) and first-order (W1) Pythagenpat winning percentages: Division W-L W0 W1 AL West 230-190 .548 .527 AL East 241-209 .536 .552 NL West 240-210 .533 .526 NL East 215-235 .478 .491 NL Central 232-266 .466 .455 AL Central 201-249 .447 .454 AL West teams won nearly 55 percent of their games outside the division. Having taken their lumps from their rivals (23-34), even the last-place A's put up a non-disastrous 52-53 record outside the division, while actually outscoring opponents 513-494. The Mariners, just two wins better outside the division at 54-51, were outscored 458-408. Meanwhile, the AL East teams should have won about 55 percent of their interdivisional games, but every club in the division except for the Yankees lagged at least 25 percentage points behind their projected record in such contests. Most damagingly, the Rays went 44-46 outside the division despite outscoring opponents 446-428, both underwhelming showings for a team that went 40-32 inside the division. In the NL West, the Rockies (59-31) had the majors' top winning percentage outside the division (.656), helping them overcome a 33-39 intradivisional record to win the wild card. The Giants (50-40) made the division the only one with two teams at least 10 games above .500 in interdivisional play. The Dodgers (49-41) weren't quite so impressive outside the division, but they smoked their NL West rivals at a 46-26 clip. At the other end of the spectrum, the AL Central teams won just about 45 percent of their games outside the division. The Tigers (47-43) were the only team to post a winning record beyond the Central; the White Sox were 45-45 and the Twins were just 41-49. It was a similar story in the NL Central, where the Cardinals (45-37) and Astros (43-41) were the only teams with winning records against other divisions. The Cubs (36-46) were downright awful against outsiders, foiling their division-leading 47-32 record inside the Central and giving the team the dubious honor of the worst interdivision record of any team that finished above .500. In the NL East, the Phillies (49-41) were the only team above .500; both the Marlins and Braves went 45-45. All three teams had intradivisional records within three games of each other, and it was the Braves (.611) who had by far the best Pythagorean record among the three. Meanwhile, the Nationals (34-56) had the NL's worst interdivision record, though that was still better than their 25-47 intradivision record. The full data is here, for those who want to see more. Getting back to the overall records and Hit List Factors, in 2009, the two Central divisions bottomed out. That's the second time in three years that's happened; in 2008, it was the two Wests: Year Division W-L Win% HLF 2008 AL East 435-374 .538 .549 2008 NL Central 500-470 .515 .498 2008 AL Central 407-405 .501 .505 2008 NL East 396-412 .490 .495 2008 AL West 315-332 .487 .475 2008 NL West 375-435 .463 .474 Year Division W-L Win% HLF 2007 NL West 422-390 .520 .516 2007 AL West 333-315 .514 .502 2007 AL East 408-402 .504 .525 2007 NL East 405-405 .500 .504 2007 AL Central 404-406 .499 .490 2007 NL Central 459-513 .472 .469 Taking the past three years together:
Division Win% HLF
AL East .520 .534
AL West .511 .499
NL West .500 .503
NL East .493 .498
AL Central .490 .490
NL Central .490 .480
Not surprisingly, the AL East has been head and shoulders above the pack in terms of the strength of its teams, despite some Pythagorean underachievement, followed by the two Wests, which have been strong in two of the three years. The NL East has made a fairly weak showing, though they did produce the 2008 World Series champion Phillies. The two Centrals are in the basement, separated by just one-tenth of a point of winning percentage (.0001). Having gotten the lay of the land in terms of wins and losses, we turn our attention to money. Factoring payrolls into the equation, specifically end-of-year payrolls, which include salaries, signing bonuses, earned incentive bonuses, buyouts of unexercised options, deferred cash, and more (BP alumnus Maury Brown has got the details here), here's how the divisions ranked in 2009 according to Marginal Payroll dollars per Marginal Win, which is computed according to the formula (club payroll - (28 x major-league minimum)) / ((winning percentage - .300) x 162):
Division Avg Payroll Win% MP/MW
NL West $85,634,258 .519 $2,102,663
AL West $90,797,019 .531 $2,128,263
NL Central $93,843,462 .482 $2,795,709
NL East $97,489,694 .488 $2,838,477
AL East $119,028,142 .520 $3,028,880
AL Central $95,379,003 .470 $3,048,658
The two Wests, which had the lowest average payrolls of any division, were very close in terms of MP/MW, and got considerably more bang for their buck than the rest of the divisions. What may be the most surprising is the AL Central's relative inefficiency. While the Orioles ($4.4 million) spent more per marginal win than any AL club, the Royals ($4.3 million) and Indians ($4 million) both spent more than the Yankees ($3.8 million, not even high enough to crack the top five), while the Tigers ($3.4 million) and White Sox ($3.1 million) both spent more than the Red Sox ($2.8 million). Turning to the three-year picture, we see that aside from the AL East, there isn't much that's separating the teams by this measure:
Division Avg Payroll Win% MP/MW
NL West $85,968,141 .500 $2,311,548
AL West $94,038,461 .511 $2,436,833
NL East $87,713,776 .493 $2,461,417
AL Central $89,639,497 .490 $2,555,610
NL Central $90,966,392 .490 $2,600,034
AL East $119,257,244 .520 $3,034,541
The two West divisions remain the most efficient entries; while the AL East is by far the most expensive on a per-win basis, the two Centrals are getting very little for their money. That said, focusing solely on a Marginal Payroll dollars per Marginal Win basis is still rather simplistic. Building on the work of Nate Silver, Neil deMause, and the late Doug Pappas, last summer Shawn Hoffman introduced and then revised a more comprehensive model of payroll efficiency which incorporates the marginal-revenue-per-win curve and estimates of market size based upon gate receipts to calculate expected marginal revenue, while also accounting for the value of high draft picks for teams who finish at the bottom of the standings. In Shawn's articles on the subject, he's used opening day payrolls (which are easier to locate) and third-order wins (to strip out luck) in calculating payroll efficiency. I'm less interested in those distinctions here, so I've used end-of-year payrolls and actual wins. Shawn's Payroll Efficiency Ratings are expressed as a ratio of Estimated Marginal Revenue (derived from win totals and market size) to Expected Marginal Revenue (derived from payroll). Over a long period, that ratio for all of the teams is right around 1.0, but over the three years in question, it's off by a bit on either side: 1.07 in 2009, 0.91 in 2008, and 0.92 in 2007. Because I'm not concerned with inflation or gains in efficiency over time, I've normalized each year individually, so that a team or a division with a PER' of 1.20 can be read as one that's 20 percent more efficient than the annual average. Here's how the six divisions shake down over the past three years via my tweaks to Shawn's methodology: Division 2007 2008 2009 '07-'09 AL West 1.12 1.00 1.17 1.09 NL West 1.03 0.83 1.20 1.02 AL East 0.99 0.98 1.08 1.01 AL Central 1.16 0.98 0.82 0.97 NL Central 0.84 1.18 0.89 0.97 NL East 0.99 1.00 0.84 0.94 The AL West is the runaway winner in terms of recent payroll efficiency, having not fallen below the major-league average in any of the past three years thanks to the Angels, who at 1.44 rank as the game's most efficient team. The division holds its spot despite carrying the 2008 Mariners, who produced the time span's lowest PER' (0.44) via the distinction of becoming the first 100-loss team with a $100-million payroll thanks to the, um, expertise of former GM Bill Bavasi. It's also worth noting that despite Billy Beane's showing in Shawn's look at the entire decade, the recent numbers don't paint a particularly happy picture of the A's, who at 0.93 were below average in efficiency. The NL West's above-average efficiency is driven by the Rockies, who at 1.43 top the NL over this time span, with the Diamondbacks (1.15) and Padres (1.04) finishing above average as well. The Dodgers (0.92) were 40 percent above average last year, but they were at least 24 percent below average in each of the previous two seasons thanks to some awful salary decisions on the part of Ned Colletti (among them Juan Pierre, Andruw Jones, and Jason Schmidt). The AL East's above-average showing is driven by the Rays (1.33) and Red Sox (1.16), and dragged down by the Orioles' MLB-low 0.70; the Yankees, for those interested, come in at 0.92. The AL Central features the Indians and Twins both at 1.23 over the time span, and the other three teams between 0.81 and 0.89, with the Royals not surprisingly bringing up the rear. The NL Central's efficiency champs are the Brewers (1.16), followed by the Cardinals (1.09), with the Pirates (0.77) in the basement. As for the NL East, the Phillies (1.30) and the Marlins (1.06) are the only above-average teams, with the Nationals making the league's worst showing (0.71) and the Mets particularly poor (0.77), which is what happens when you miss the playoffs three years in a row despite carrying the league's highest average payroll. Finally, we turn to Matt Swartz's work on service-time contracts and wins. Matt's work classifies each team's annual WARP3 production by whether they received it from players with minimum-salary service time, arbitration-eligible service time, free-agent eligible service time, or players from Japan and other Asian countries with less than six years of service time. The minimum and arbitration-eligible groups constituted the Non-Market (NM) salaries, while the free agents and Asian players constituted the Auction Market (AM) salaries. What I like about this distinction is that it provides a neat breakdown from which one can infer teams' relative abilities to produce talent from within and to buy it on the open market, by extension providing something of a proxy for team age via the distribution of the two. Knowing, for example, that the average team produced 28.3 WARP via Non-Market salaries and 13.4 WARP via Auction Market salaries in 2009, a ratio of about two to one, we can see that the Dodgers (29.4 NM, 31.7 AM, 61.1 total) were slightly above average in terms of their in-house production and well above average in terms of their open-market production, a reflection of the team's superior resources and a surprising result relative to the widely-held perception that they're a young squad. On the other hand, the Astros (13.9 NM, 18.0 AM, 31.9 total) were well below average in terms of what they produced from within, a showing that jibes with their farm system's decrepit state, and a bit above average via what they procured from outside, though not nearly enough to make them very competitive. Expressing the results as per team per year, and ranking them according to the percentage of WARP they received from their Non-Market salaries over the three-year period:
-------2009------- -------2007-2009---------
Division NM AM Tot NM AM Tot %NM
NL West 30.2 13.2 43.4 31.1 11.6 42.7 72.8
AL West 30.5 11.3 41.8 27.9 11.3 39.1 71.2
NL East 30.9 10.3 41.2 30.3 12.4 42.7 71.0
AL Central 28.1 9.1 37.1 27.4 11.4 38.8 70.6
AL East 29.1 19.1 48.2 27.4 19.7 47.1 58.2
NL Central 22.4 16.5 38.9 23.2 17.1 40.3 57.5
As with some of the other tables above, one could probably devote a whole article to this data, but I'll hit just a few points before getting to the larger take-home messages. Here we see that AL East teams have received considerably more production out of their Auction Market salaries than any other division, including more than double what the AL Central teams received last year. The NL Central teams' internal production was by far and away the majors' worst in 2009, reflecting the relative weakness not only of Houston's system, but also those of the Cubs and Pirates. The NL East got the most out of their internal production thanks to the Phillies, Braves and Marlins, all of whom got at least 38.4 WARP via that channel. Integrating all that we've learned above, I'll close with the following observations about the past three years:
Nine tables and a whole lot of data later, that's the lay of the land, at least from one analyst's vantage on a dreary February day. Obviously, buried within these generalizations are the specifics of each team's competitive ecology, the details of which could fill 30 articles (or a book). While there's a lot of talk about that of the AL East and the effect those behemoths in Boston and the Bronx have on their rivals' spending and talent procurement plans, there's considerably less discussion about the competitive ecologies of other divisions. Here's to hoping that this is a small step in the direction of changing that. Special thanks to Shawn Hoffman and Matt Swartz for data assistance.
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"The NL Central has been the weakest division in the league, particularly hampered by poor internal talent development. No division receives less from their in-house resources in terms of either actual WARP or as a percentage of total WARP, thus making for a relatively inefficient division, economically speaking. The Cardinals and Cubs trail only the Yankees in terms of Auction-Market production over the past three years, receiving far more of it than they do Non-Market production."
It's a huge mistake following "less from their in-house resources" and "inefficient...economically speaking" with "Cardinals."
Outside Franklin, Carpenter, Ludwick, Holliday, most of the team they fielded last year was an in-house resource. Almost every regular position player was drafted by St. Louis and has never been outside the system. Wainwright wasn't a St. Louis draft pick, but he's never pitched in the MLB for another team.
Beyond that, a third of that auction market WARP belongs to Pujols, who was drafted by St. Louis. He's inflating that AM number, and doing it as the best player in baseball while being paid a lot less money than a heck of a lot of less productive players, like, say, Soriano, paid over $2.5MM more than Pujols last year, and a true 'auction market' talent who is with his 4th MLB team.
St. Louis' auction market WARP represents 56.7% of their NM + AM, or total, WARP in Swartz's piece. In comparison, the Astros' auction market WARP is 53.1% of their total WARP. Since the Cardinals have a division championship in that three-year span, and are a top-7 MLB team to the Astros'place in the bottom 7, and since the Cardinals have brought at least 500,000 and as many as 800,000 more fans into the ballpark than the Astros in each of the past few seasons, is it possible that despite having a slightly higher blend of auction market WARP, St. Louis is far more efficient with their resources than the Astros?
Without looking at the individual team data, I would guess that the Cardinals would be a slightly more efficient team because they have a lot more wins than the Astros during the time period in question. And not to disagree that Pujols was drafted by St. Louis, but given that he would have been an FA like 3 years ago, I think it's fair to put him in the "auction-market" category. If the Cards had not been willing to pay him a substantial amount (I'm not debating a home-town discount) of money, he would no longer be a Cardinal. The whole point of the NM/AM distinction is that teams don't HAVE to pay NM players what they are worth, but AM players have to be payed something more in line with it. So, yeah, Pujols is clearly an AM player. He's an incredibly valuable AM player, a great "bang for the buck", but still obviously less "efficient" than if he were making $500k as a third-year player.
Sure, I know he's an AM-er. I guess my point was more to highlight the notion of using the Cardinals as an example of a team that "receives less from their in-house resources" in comparison to others.
Would anyone suggest the Cardinals become "more efficient" by trading him for a vanload of cheap prospects? I would guess no.
Also, I think Jay is talking about team-controlled salaries when he talks about "in-house". So Colby Rasmus is in-house, but Pujols isn't in this context, even though he was drafted by the Cards. The biggest efficiency is pretty clearly finding fantastic players before they are arb-eligible. Once they have the leverage of arbitration and then free agency, they are not nearly as cheap (even if they are still great players). This is not a snub on the Cardinals (this A's fan would be ecstatic to have Pujols or Wainwright right on their current contracts), just to say that they are spending more money than, say, the Pirates, to get their lots more wins.
Wow, you've read a whole lot more into the juxtaposition between those two sentences than I intended to be there.
Nowhere do I say specifically that the Cardinals are inefficient; at 1.09, I actually declared them one of the division's efficiency champs a few grafs above that summary, particularly in a division where four of the six teams between 0.77 and 0.94.
Beyond that, it's true that the Cards' AM production is boosted by Pujols. He was developed from within, but with nine years of service time, he now commands an Auction Market salary, albeit a very reasonable one which contributes to the team's relative efficiency. He's provided 35 WARP during his three AM years while earning $47 million, a huge bargain which actually makes the team's standing look better here than it might otherwise be.
Over the past three years, the Cardinals have averaged 20.8 NM, 27.2 AM, and 48.0 total WARP per year, compared to the average team's 28.3/13.4/41.7. In other words, that's about 25 percent less production from their NM players than average, but double the expected production from their AM players (including Pujols), and a higher than average total production. All of which fall under the nuances which I allude to in the closing paragraph.