Why it it so difficult to build with free agents.

[old nurse]

As the title states, why it is so hard to build with free agents.  This is a look back on what happened after the contracts were signed. What kind of return did the team get for the money.

 

Building blocks are those players that produce more than 2 war. Fangraphs defines a 2 war player as a solid player. They define a 3 war player as a good player. for numbers above that they have superlative kinds of words. For looking up WAR

 

I used baseball reference as it was much easier.  I excluded relief pitchers from consideration for several reasons. 1. I am not sure that WAR measures what they do well enough to compare them to position players. Over a 4 year period very few seem to break a cumulative 8 WAR. 2 is obtainable. That is a great reliever, not a solid one. It just did not seem comparable.

 

I used the ESPN tracker for years and dollars. For the contracts that have not been completed I used what Bref said they were paid. AAV might have been better as Pujols and Sherzer's contracts are pretty back loaded.

 

I did not give any discounts for injury plagued years. The player was still paid. If the player was released, the years and money counted. If the player retired, the years and money did not count. The Grieinke rule. If you opted out at three years, it was a 3 year contract. FWIW, that was the only great 3 year contract.

 

I wished I had a computer spreadsheet that I knew how to blow numbers into and do calculations on the data. Life would have been easier.

 

The data I present will be from players who signed contracts 4 years or longer.  I started looking at 2 year and 3 year contracts, but the numbers were looking horrid. Upon further consideration, I decided 2 and three year contracts are more bridging than building.

 

From the free agent class of 2006 to 2014 66 players signed long term deals. 6 of them averaged 5 WAR or more for the 4 years prior to free agency 12 4-5 WAR  25 the 3-4 WAR, 15 2-3 WAR. There were 7 7 that did not average 2 WAR the previous 4 years. Nick Markasis was one of these. In years 2-5 he was a 4 WAR player. Ervin Santana was another.   He has 5  solid years on his resume to go with the 5 bad ones.  Adam Dunn, Gil Meche, Jeff Suppan, Omar Infante and Brandon McCarthy were the other 5.

 

Of the 6 5+ War players Beltre and Cano were the only ones to maintain that. Pujols, A Rod,  Teixara faded from greatness, Matt Holiday faded to very good status.

Of the 12  4 WAR  Cliff Lee maintained, Max Scherzer became magnificent,  Buerle, and Sabathia were in the high 2. The other 6 averaged well below 2 but none have finished as a negative.

 

66 free agents. 20 have bwar that average 2 or more for this time period.  As a group they earned 1.833 billion dollars., played 116 seasons of baseball  and averaged earning 15.8 million a year. They accumulated 337.6 bwar. They averaged 2.91 WAR. Their cost ber bwar  comes out to 5.4 million.  Still should be less than 6 if one used AAV for Scherzer and Pujols. I am not sure  were back loaded enough to make a difference.

66 free agents. 46 of them were not so good. They played 209 seasons.  They accumulated 145.3 bwar. That averages out to .7 bwar per year. They earned 3.827 billion dollars. That works out to 18.3 million a year, or  26.33 million per war.

Given that this is over 9 years  the takeaway is that more than twice as many free agents fell below being a solid player than not. The players with a high bwar were not immune. to falling into mediocrity, 7 out of 18 below 2 war, half ended up below 2.5 for the contract. Of the 48 players who averaged below 4 WAR only 6 maintained an average over 2 bwar.  That is why it is hard to build with free agents.

 

[nicksaviking]

I think it’s just the nature of free agency. Guys don’t become free agents until after they’ve peaked. Forgetting the steroid era, what percentage of players are better in their 30’s then they were in their 20’s?

[Jham]

I mean, maybe one day they'll give a trophy for "most economical winning percentage" or play 1 World Series every 7 years, but until then, any one given season, your best bet is actually trying to field the best team and then dealing with the tail end of contracts when they come.

 

The key is to have super stars during their prime. Then add value wherever you can around them. You can trade for it, buy it, or draft it. Everyone knows you overpay for stars at the end of their deals. That's part of acquiring (or keeping) stars. Why not up the AAV and keep the years down? Well, 1) most of the time the teams bidding have luxury tax threshold issues and extending the cost out benefits the team. 2) why would you want to pay the same for less years? As we saw with Mauer, you can still usually get some production from the last few years. The small market teams look at long contracts as commitments. The large market teams see them as financing.

[sweetmusicviola16]

This opening day we will likely have at least 6 new FA's on the OD roster. None of these are guaranteed to be with the team beyond the present one. A 25% turnover just of new FA's alone. This in and of itself is a poor way to build. We need to be building continuity, not constant reshuffling of the deck. Lets hope that Polanco/Kepler are a sign of things to come. If they are where it ends then it is a waste.

 

On the other hand 2 young super stars are available to supplement a roster and all they will cost is cash and a draft pick. If you continue to wrap up the core on 5-7mil a year deals and factor in more young/cheap players on the horizon then paying one of these young stars is not an issue.

 

I'm not saying you build a team of FA's but when you are in a position to pick up one to supplement a team it is something that should be given great consideration.

[old nurse]

 

I think it’s just the nature of free agency. Guys don’t become free agents until after they’ve peaked. Forgetting the steroid era, what percentage of players are better in their 30’s then they were in their 20’s?

Well, Sherzer, Greinke, Cano, Betre and Hunter off the top of my head. There really wasn't and organized pattern on many of these players.   BJ nee Melvin Upton declined at 28. A quite a few player did well their last year.  Tracking WAR per year was looking too sporadic too continue. I would see on most of the 3 year people would have one good year and 2 bad ones. 2 year people generaly did not do well either year. That is why I quit trying to compute on them.

[darin617]

It's also very difficult when your team rarely signs many free agents either and goes with a few AAAA players on the major league roster instead.

[Doomtints]

Free agency in the MLB was designed to help owners who didn't want to participate. If a franchise wants to keep its head down and pay its players 90% less in exchange for having no stars on the team, they can do that because the rules allow the owners to hold all the cards until the player hits free agency.

 

It's a great con where fans in small markets have been convinced free agency is the devil's tool as their teams watch the playoffs from the outside 15 years of of 20 and the "big market" teams keep all of the capital (and play in the lion's share of playoff games).

 

It's a broken system, broken by the owners who feared free agency rather than letting the market play out for itself. Don't blame free agency, blame the owners for how players are treated before they hit free agency.

[old nurse]

 

It's also very difficult when your team rarely signs many free agents either and goes with a few AAAA players on the major league roster instead.

Should I have explained things better. In 9 years  30 teams cpild only find 20 free agents that averaged more than 2 war a season. Note that at 2 war that is Kepler the last 3 seasons. Old Terry Ryan did good. He picked Erv and was right

[old nurse]

 

 

Free agency in the MLB was designed to help owners who didn't want to participate. If a franchise wants to keep its head down and pay its players 90% less in exchange for having no stars on the team, they can do that because the rules allow the owners to hold all the cards until the player hits free agency.

 

It's a great con where fans in small markets have been convinced free agency is the devil's tool as their teams watch the playoffs from the outside 15 years of of 20 and the "big market" teams keep all of the capital (and play in the lion's share of playoff games).

 

It's a broken system, broken by the owners who feared free agency rather than letting the market play out for itself. Don't blame free agency, blame the owners for how players are treated before they hit free agency.

If you look at it as a system that pays players for what they did during the season they are playing then you are correct it is a very broken system. The bulk of the money has gone to player that have not performed. It is not the player's fault that got paid, On the other hand it is easy to see why some owners outside the larger markets might be risk adverse.