Is Beane's offer to Beltre foolish?

Athletics fans – all three of you reading this – if you have not already read my previous post, then you’re behind the ball. Quickly – Now! – go read my piece on Carl Crawford to catch up.

It’s been widely reported that Billy Beane, GM of the oppressed Oakland Athletics, is willing to offer Mr. Adrian Beltre a sum of $64 million dollars for his services over a term of five seasons, at the end of which (2015), he will be 36 years old. And according to Scott Boras, he’ll be headed to the Cooperstown; we’ll see about THAT.

Let’s run him through our Tom Tango framework (from the previous post, which I’ve already alluded to); because he’s another Big Fish on the market this offseason.

Assumption 1: He’s worth 4.05 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) in 2011. Why? If you weight his WAR in each season from 2004, i.e. his mega walk year for the Dodgers, to 2010, i.e. his near-mega walk year while not equally fantastic with  Boston, with a 50/50 split between Fangraphs’ and Baseball-Reference’s WAR figures*, and then you average those weighted WAR’s, you get 4.05 WAR. That’s simple enough, right? In any case, it’s what I’m using.

*We have the same phenomenon as with Carl Crawford, by the way, where Fangraphs loves Beltre and Baseball-Reference just likes him. I think it’s because Fangraphs is giving him too much credit for defense, or Baseball-Reference too little, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Assumption 2: He will regress at a rate of 0.7 wins per season, which seems at least somewhat likely if not being just slightly pessimistic.

Assumption 3: The dollars ($) per win above replacement will start at $4.5 million in 2010 and increase at a rate of 5% per season.

Plug it in and: VOILA! Using these assumptions he’s worth almost exactly $64 million over the next five seasons ($64.2 M), which is the exact offer believed to be on the table for Beltre at this moment. I love it when a plan comes together. To answer the question of my title: no.

Parity (or lack there of) and the best and worst of the last 1.5 decade

I long ago began putting together a spreadsheet by which I was determined to prove the disparity that exists within MLB. I’m not exactly sure that’s what the end result was, but none the less what I did find was interesting. Also, it no doubt solidified my previous belief that the Oakland A’s have been one of the greatest run franchises for a while now, and the Orioles one of the worst. My ultimate discovery provides some proof that there does exist a pretty vast chasm between the rich and the poor in Major League Baseball. More so than that though, it pretty conclusively shows that money does buy wins, just not absolutely.

I took all of the standings over the last 15 seasons (1995-2009) and all of the payrolls for each team over the 15 seasons. I was absolutely shocked to see that the Yankees had spent the most. Of course, I am being incredibly facetious. So the Yankees spent the most (~$145 mil per season) and the Florida Marlins spent the least (~$34 mil per season) and there were 28 other teams in between. I then simply added up all the money each team had spent and divided that number by 15 (for number of seasons) to determine each team’s average $ spent per season and ranked them accordingly. After that, I took all of the wins for each team (The Yankees had won the most – big surprise – and the Royals had won the least), divided those by 15 and ranked each team according to wins per season. The Yankees averaged over 96 wins per season over this period of time and the Royals, a measly 68 wins, or just 6 wins more per season than was needed to average 100 losses per season . Phew, that was a close one. That is more or less the extent of the data that I took a look at. But this is where it started to get interesting.

If money meant everything and every team who spent the most always had the most wins, you would expect that every single team would fall in line with their average payroll and average number of wins. Of course, we know that’s simply not true. Some teams have terrible GM’s. The Mariners had Bill Bavasi at the helm for several years, for example, while others have exceptional GM’s. Billy Beane – the obvious choice – of the Oakland A’s is regarded as one of the very best. I’ll also note that Tampa Bay has an exceptional (acting) GM in Andrew Friedman, unfortunately, he’s only been at it for a few years and thus his genius won’t quite be reflected in the results. Any who, once I had ranked each team by their wins and payrolls; I simply subtracted their win rank from their payroll rank to see whether they were positive or negative (+/-). What do I mean by positive or negative? Well, I wanted to see which teams had leap-frogged the ranks. Meaning, which teams had won more games than the field despite having spent less and thus won more games than expected were money the only factor in acquiring wins (ceteris paribus, if you will).

Within the MLB, 17 of 30 teams (57%) fell within 3 teams (10%) plus or minus of where they should have been. 22 of 30 teams (81.25%) fell within just 5 teams (17%) of where they should have been. So there definitely seemed, to me at least, that there was a correlation between money spent and wins. The 8 teams that were essentially outliers and didn’t fall within 5 teams (17%) of where they should have were the 4 best teams and 4 worst teams in MLB, as follows:

Best                                                  Worst


1. Oakland Athletics (+15)               1. Baltimore Orioles (-15)
2. Cleveland Indians (+12)               2. Chicago Cubs (-13)
3. Florida Marlins (+9)                     3. New York Mets (-10)
4. Minnesota Twins (+8)                  4. Detroit Tigers (-9)

As I said, the results of my playing around more or less affirmed what we already know. The A’s were brilliant for a period of time, despite their being extremely poor and the Orioles have been really bad for a really long time despite having a somewhat substantial purse to work from. I will provide some defense for Baltimore. Baltimore has had the unfortunate problem of having to play against the Yankees and Red Sox, year in year out. This could not have helped their ability to win a lot of games when each of their two foes were outspending them and by ever increasing dollars. The same can be said for the Jays who have played relatively well over the last decade and a half, nearly sneaking into the playoffs a few times and rarely laying in the cellar, and yet not once actually making it to the postseason.

I then thought it would make sense to look at each league, especially because over this period of time there’s an apparent talent gap. The AL is widely believed to be the better league by some amount and the results of the All-Star Game have definitely supported this. In the AL, 8 of the 14 teams (57%) were within 2 teams (14%) of where they should be based on payroll. 11 of the 14 teams (79%) were within 3 teams (21%) of where they should be based on payroll. In the NL, 10 of 16 teams (62.5%) were within 2 teams (12.5%) of where they should be based on payroll and 13 (81.25%) were within 3 teams (18.75%) of where they should be based on payroll. This is how they stacked up by league:

NL Best                                          NL Worst


1. Florida Marlins (+5)                   1. New York Mets (-5)
2. St. Louis Cardinals (+3)             2. Chicago Cubs (-5)
3. Houston Astros (+3)                   3. Colorado Rockies (-3)


AL Best                                          AL Worst


1. Oakland A’s (+6)                       1. Baltimore Orioles (-6)
2. Cleveland Indians (+5)              2. Detroit Tigers (-3)
3. Minnesota Twins (+3)               3. Seattle Mariners (-3)

Lastly, I stacked all 30 teams by win rank and then highlighted the 4 teams that improved on their $ expected rank the most, and also the 4 teams that did much poor than their $ expected win rank (i.e. my previous best and worst list). The best teams had an average win rank of 13, which is just slightly better than the middle of the pack. The worst teams had an average win rank of 21, which is just slightly below the bottom third of the all teams. And the rest? They conveniently equaled 15, an exactly average team. Weird.

Sadly, between the best very best of these teams that managed to perform despite their fiscal handicap, on average they were just slightly better than the middle of the pack and they only have two World Series’ between them, the Florida Marlins the proud owners of both. Luckily and on the plus side, the poor teams that aren’t capitalizing on their fiscal advantage have zero titles between them.

My conclusion in all of this is that money absolutely seems to be playing a huge role in determining how many wins a team has. On the other hand, this ‘study’ definitely exposed both the worst franchises in allocating money and the very best. Also, it would probably be nice to hear for some fans (such as those of the Pirates, Royals, Rangers and Blue Jays to name a few) that it’s not all their franchises fault that they can’t get to the promise land. With that, I would like to crown my team of this 1.5 decade. The honor goes to the Oakland A’s for the extraordinary work Billy Beane did in the early 2000’s. And my goat of the last 1.5 decade is the Orioles. At least they can say they had to play the Bronx Bombers and the Sox in the AL East, right?

Epilogue:

I want to mention that using my method, the Yankees and Red Sox basically had no shot at being considered the best franchises. The Yankee’s, for example, could only wish to have gotten a neutral (0) plus or minus rating which they did. To this, in the spirit of SNL’s impersonation (Fred Armisen) of Joy Behar on “The View,” I say "So what? Who cares?” The Yankees and the Red Sox play with every advantage each season, knowing full well they have a shot at winning the title. They have the money to sign free agents. They have the money for deadline deals. And, they have the money to cover up their mistakes. It was time, even in this trivial endeavor, to give the smaller guys the advantage.

Finally, why did the Giants do fairly well despite having “kick the tires” Sabean in the front office during the duration of this 1.5 decade? For one, Sabean had Barry Bonds. Perhaps you should read this post on FanGraphs on Bonds’ splits to grasp just how good he was. He was incredible and had no equal. Two, Sabean was using roughly the same information the rest of the franchises were using for a good portion of this 1.5 decade. Prior to the Moneyball revolution, Sabean would have and did fair just fine. He was always good at picking up some useful pitching and flipping, or more accurately dumping, his stud pitching prospects prior to them being exposed as duds. If you were to put a greater weight on the last several years you would see his true talent level start to expose itself. As Bonds aged (as well as the rest of the Giants’ rosters) and teams began using statistical analysis more, the Giants began to lose more and more games. This, because Sabean has been one of the slowest adapters in this era where more information that has ever been available is suddenly readily available, and yet, to date he seems all but content to just ignore it.It’s abundantly clear that doing so is a grievous mistake.

The Reds are alright

Billy Beane, continuing to treat players as inanimate objects by dealing them like a Vegas Blackjack dealer deals cards, moved Aaron Miles plus cash or another spare part (PTBNL, i.e. Player to be named later) to the Cincinnati Reds today for cheap and possibly useful utility infielder Adam Rosales and the speedy CF Willy Taveras. He then promptly discarded (DFA’d) Taveras much like Phil Ivy, Johnny Chan and the like would throw in a pair of 7 and 2 off suit. I won’t get into what I think of this transaction but the reason this particular move piqued my interest was the recent write-up of ESPN’s Rob Neyer on the NL Central for 2010 and more importantly, the Reds.

He quickly thumbed over the projected standings (as devised by CAIRO statistic projections) for the National League Central and offered the following:

Cardinals – 92
Reds – 85
Cubs – 84
Brewers – 81
Pirates – 70
Astros – 69

“Really, just one notheworthy item here, as the Reds look like serious Wild Card contenders.

How? Well, they did win 78 games last year, so it’s not like they’ve got terribly far to go. Joey Votto* is fast becoming a superstar, and young Jay Bruce still figures to someday get on base more than 30 percent of the time. But other than Bruce in right, what will the outfield look like? Will Willy Taveras be allowed to throw away hundres of plate appearances? How will Dusty Baker divvy up the time for speedster Drew Stubbs, Triple-A slugger Wladimir Balentien, on-base machine Chris Dickerson, and Doublt-A star Chris Heisey?”

Neyer’s “big finish,” as he himself would say:

“These projections are just snapshots, based on solid statistical assumptions and questionable assumptions about personnel decisions. I do believe that the Reds have the talent on their roster for a solid season. Whether the luck and the management line up behind the talent...well, that’s your proverbial “known unknown.””

So why would Taveras be thowing at bats away? Well, his wOBA (weighted on-base average) in 2009 was .259 when the league average was around .332. In 2008, he faired better but still well below average at .301. UZR did rate him favorably in the field in 2009, however, no amount of defense will dig you out of the black hole created by a sub .260 wOBA. Not even if that player had Roberto Clemente’s arm, Deion Sanders’ speed, Willie Mays’ grace and Ryan Freel’s fearlessness. It’s obvious the Reds front office has taken that decision out of Bakers hands. The Reds won’t be letting Taveras throw any additional AB’s away for them, unremarkably neither will the A’s.

It’s good to see that the Reds have some pretty exciting players already on their roster as well as some pretty nice pieces being developed on the farm, including the recently signed Cuban phenom with the blazing fastball from the left side, Aroldis Chapman.

(*) Joey Votto is an absoute hitting machine, young, under team control and affordable for the time being. I mentioned to a buddy earlier in the offseason that the Giants should attempt to move Matt Cain for Votto. This particular buddy thought my idea silly. In this case, I find my buddy very silly for thinking me silly.

Moneyball (and Beane) Evolving

In somewhat of a surprise, Billy Beane traded for a player that seemingly doesn’t fit the very Moneyball approach that he used to fight his way to the elite in the AL in the early 2000’s. ESPN.com recently featured an article from fangraphs written by Dave Cameron about this very phenomenon we’ve seen this offseason, a concerted effort by the so called Sabermetric franchises to improve their run prevention. The Boston Red Sox were a slugging team last year, the same mold they used in 2004 and 2007 to bring home World Series’. Last year they apparently had one of the worst overall defenses in baseball. Theo Epstein saw this (coupled with the fact that defense is currently under evaluated and undervalued), and made several strategic moves to improve the defensive prowess of his squad. Theo grabbed up Mike Cameron. Cameron is a good offensive player and an absolute vacuum in center field despite being 36 years old. This allows him to shift Jacoby Ellsbury over to left field where his weak arm will play better and he can certainly improve on his UZR which he had quite poor marks in 2009. Also, Theo grabbed Adrian Beltre to play the hot corner despite owing the ailing Mike Lowell around $12 mil in 2010. Beltre is a perennial gold glove candidate (he won in ’07 and ’08) whose skill in the field is undeniable. Scouts and UZR agree in this particular case. He then gave the contract he offered Matt Holliday ($82.5 mil) to John Lackey. In Moneyball, we learned that Billy Beane would stop at nothing to put a thoughtful hitter into the lineup (one who takes pitches and walks), even if it meant that the players glove was an absolute clunker. It’s clear that while, assuredly, he still is using the same philosophies he used during the early part of the last decade; they’ve evolved.

Kevin Kouzmanoff doesn’t do well that which Beane previously coveted so much in years past, get on base. In fact, Kouz barely kept his OBP above .300 in 2009. But before you think Beane has somehow swapped philosophies and lost his mind, it’s necessary to examine his thought process further. First of all, Beane lacked a player that could adequately play third base. He acquired Jack Fox from the Cubs earlier in the offseason, but Fox is more of a DH/ 1B type. Beane also has Eric Chavez to turn to. Oh, you probably assumed he was retired. Chavez hasn’t stayed healthy in several years and Beane has no confidence that that recent trend won’t continue. Smart bet. Kouz, like Beltre, is a pretty nice third baseman. He had his best UZR year in 2009 and broke the record for 3B fielding percentage which resulted in his glove heading to Cooperstown. He doesn’t have tremendous range but given his fielding percentage you can bet he makes just about every single play. Offensively, he’s not half bad either. His OPS doesn’t look like much but after taking a look at how he has performed on the road vs. at home you can see why his numbers don’t jump off the page.

Split: HR/ OPS


2007:
Home: 5/ .743
Away: 13/ .823


2008:
Home: 11/ .658
Away: 12/ .802


2009:
Home: 9/ .662
Away: 9/ .778

Kouz has horrendous home/ road splits because he plays half his games at the worst hitters park in MLB, Petco Park. On the road he is good for around an .800 OPS and more homerun power as well. He isn’t moving to a good hitters park, but the Coliseum will play smaller than Petco. Also, he will be moving to the tougher league so we should account for that as well.

Beane gave up Scott Hairston and Aaron Cunningham. Cunningham was a AAA player in 2009 and has nothing left to prove there. He has around a .900 career OPS in AAA but doesn’t have a great deal of power. Some felt Cunningham was a fairly steep price for Beane to give up (given that he has 6 more years of team control) but Beane probably has his reasons. What might those be? Beane may have soured on Cunningham or he may simply have had too many outfielders. I think it’s probably the latter. Beane already has the means to field 3 virtual center fielders in 2010. He signed Coco Crisp and still has Rajai Davis and Ryan Sweeney. That’s a pretty stellar defensive group. He’s also got the quality defender Travis Buck to back them up. Lastly, Michael Taylor (who was acquired from Toronto for Brett Wallace in the aftermath of the Halladay/ Lee blockbuster) is on the horizon. Taylor figures to be both a very nice offensive and defensive outfielder. Hairston (an OF like Cunningham) was shipped to Hoyer’s Friars too. He too was expendable because of the surplus of averageish outfielders Beane has. One has to understand that Beane handles his players more like chess pieces than human beings. He will swap any player at the drop of a hat if he feels the move will either strengthen his franchise in the short term, long term or both no matter the circumstances. Hairston is an above average corner outfielder and passable center fielder. And offensively? You won’t be terribly surprised to know that Hairston walks with similar frequency to Kouzmanoff which is to say, not very often. He too has pretty good pop but probably not quite as much lightning as Kouz. Beane also netted Eric Sogard in the trade. Sogard is a left handed hitting 2B who walks a ton (weird) but doesn’t have much pop.

All in all, Beane swapped 1 major league and 1 minor league outfielder for 1 major league and 1 minor league infielder when he needed just that, more infielders. The Major league players swapped were quite similar. Both have good power and play good defense but aren’t ideal in the sense that they don’t get on base enough. In terms of this transaction, I’d say the edge has to go to Beane/ Kouzmanoff. Beane gave up the superior minor leaguer in Cunningham but he probably felt he wouldn’t be terribly useful with Taylor’s ETA something like late 2010 or 2011. Also, while Cunningham looks to be a pretty decent contributor he’s still a prospect and thus a question mark.

This transaction does continue to show the shift in baseball towards the realization that it’s a zero sum game. As the defensive metrics become more reliable, the smartly run franchises like Boston and Oakland will look to capitalize. People have this perception that Moneyball was an approach to create a lineup with a bunch of players who got on base (or you might say made fewer outs) and little else. This is actually false. Moneyball actually was and is about attempting to acquire the undervalued. OBP used to be highly undervalued. Now that baseball realizes how important it is to avoid outs, OBP is far from undervalued. I think Beane and Theo are both realizing that the current market is undervaluing defense and are jumping on the opportunity to improve their clubs on the other side of the ball. The truly shrewd business men in baseball will continue to do this so long as such arbitrage opportunities present themselves. My personal belief is that eventually each team will use similar metrics to put values on players and statistics and the ability of teams to pounce on such instances of arbitrage will become increasingly difficult. Unfortunately, it will probably make it even more difficult for the poor franchises to compete with the Yankees and Red Sox. Of course, being a Giants fan, I can hardly wait for that day to come when the Giants continue to run their front office as if the internet doesn’t exist and RBI’s are an excellent barometer for offensive production.