MLB Salaries

[earp]

Let’s just look at salary. How do you assign a negative value to a players salary if you’re dealing with teams who have virtually unlimited budgets? Those team only want the best players and don’t really care about salary and yet BTV seems to assume that salaries should be equally compared across all teams. Great distortion in just the salary input.
They put what their model says is an objective value on that player's production. That baseline value applies to any team who might have that player (and their contract).

But if a particular contending team thinks they need to add exactly Player X to put them over the top and win a WS next year, yes, they will probably "overpay" (essentially putting a value on Player X that is higher than their objective value) to get that player.

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT!

[OldRed]

Why do we care what a player gets paid?
Do we care what a Movie Star gets paid?
A Opera performer
Race car driver-Owner?
If it is a good product, we spend our money on it. We watch all the terrible commercials.
If it is a BAD Product, We have the STL Cardinals MLB team, and we do not watch the commercials!

With MLB shutting down again! maybe the Cards timed this right. Let MLB go away for a while. Then come back with a 10-year contract and a CAP $$$$

I'm for one don't care what anyone makes. If it is a BAD Product I don't go to see it.

[Goldfan]

Let’s just look at salary. How do you assign a negative value to a players salary if you’re dealing with teams who have virtually unlimited budgets? Those team only want the best players and don’t really care about salary and yet BTV seems to assume that salaries should be equally compared across all teams. Great distortion in just the salary input.
They put what their model says is an objective value on that player's production. That baseline value applies to any team who might have that player (and their contract).

But if a particular contending team thinks they need to add exactly Player X to put them over the top and win a WS next year, yes, they will probably "overpay" (essentially putting a value on Player X that is higher than their objective value) to get that player.

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT!

Exactly…..when you look under the hood of most of these new age equations the assumptions and variables aren’t reality. But fans don’t do the research and pass it off as gospel

[mattmitchl44]

Let’s just look at salary. How do you assign a negative value to a players salary if you’re dealing with teams who have virtually unlimited budgets? Those team only want the best players and don’t really care about salary and yet BTV seems to assume that salaries should be equally compared across all teams. Great distortion in just the salary input.
They put what their model says is an objective value on that player's production. That baseline value applies to any team who might have that player (and their contract).

But if a particular contending team thinks they need to add exactly Player X to put them over the top and win a WS next year, yes, they will probably "overpay" (essentially putting a value on Player X that is higher than their objective value) to get that player.

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT!

Exactly…..when you look under the hood of most of these new age equations the assumptions and variables aren’t reality. But fans don’t do the research and pass it off as gospel

As noted - BTV provides a good, neutral, third party evaluation to assess whether a particular trade is in the ballpark of being "balanced." That is all anyone is claiming.

And you can continue to not like WAR methodologies, but be assured that every MLB FO has some proprietary version of their own WAR methodology that they will use to assess the "value" of players (along with other inputs). That is not a coincidence. The battle of "jocks vs. nerds" is over and the nerds have already won.

[Goldfan]

Let’s just look at salary. How do you assign a negative value to a players salary if you’re dealing with teams who have virtually unlimited budgets? Those team only want the best players and don’t really care about salary and yet BTV seems to assume that salaries should be equally compared across all teams. Great distortion in just the salary input.
They put what their model says is an objective value on that player's production. That baseline value applies to any team who might have that player (and their contract).

But if a particular contending team thinks they need to add exactly Player X to put them over the top and win a WS next year, yes, they will probably "overpay" (essentially putting a value on Player X that is higher than their objective value) to get that player.

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT!

Exactly…..when you look under the hood of most of these new age equations the assumptions and variables aren’t reality. But fans don’t do the research and pass it off as gospel

As noted - BTV provides a good, neutral, third party evaluation to assess whether a particular trade is in the ballpark of being "balanced." That is all anyone is claiming.

MLB team objective>>>>WIN MLB GAMES
Gray trade as an example of “balanced”
Boston receives a 12-15game MLB winner for a couple years in exchange for an injury proned minor leaguer>>>>no MLB stats to gauge and a 5th SP, injury proned with below avg MLB stats. And Sox assume Gray salary after Cards send 20mil
If the goal is to win MLB games Boston is the clear winner. If Gray remains healthy on a good Sox team he should win double digit games
The Cards return was HOPE……there is nothing in past history with these 2 SP today to claim they’ll have MLB success.
But somehow BTV allocates a rather large advantage to Cards
Against SOX have plenty of $$$ so whatever they assume or pay should have no bearing on this evaluation

[mattmitchl44]

Let’s just look at salary. How do you assign a negative value to a players salary if you’re dealing with teams who have virtually unlimited budgets? Those team only want the best players and don’t really care about salary and yet BTV seems to assume that salaries should be equally compared across all teams. Great distortion in just the salary input.
They put what their model says is an objective value on that player's production. That baseline value applies to any team who might have that player (and their contract).

But if a particular contending team thinks they need to add exactly Player X to put them over the top and win a WS next year, yes, they will probably "overpay" (essentially putting a value on Player X that is higher than their objective value) to get that player.

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT!

Exactly…..when you look under the hood of most of these new age equations the assumptions and variables aren’t reality. But fans don’t do the research and pass it off as gospel

As noted - BTV provides a good, neutral, third party evaluation to assess whether a particular trade is in the ballpark of being "balanced." That is all anyone is claiming.

MLB team objective>>>>WIN MLB GAMES
Gray trade as an example of “balanced”
Boston receives a 12-15game MLB winner for a couple years in exchange for an injury proned minor leaguer>>>>no MLB stats to gauge and a 5th SP, injury proned with below avg MLB stats. And Sox assume Gray salary after Cards send 20mil
If the goal is to win MLB games Boston is the clear winner. If Gray remains healthy on a good Sox team he should win double digit games
The Cards return was HOPE……there is nothing in past history with these 2 SP today to claim they’ll have MLB success.
But somehow BTV allocates a rather large advantage to Cards
Against SOX have plenty of $$$ so whatever they assume or pay should have no bearing on this evaluation

The Cardinals got exactly what they wanted - potential for 2027, 2028, 2029. That's where their value is, and that's where BTV recognizes their value to be in the trade. I don't understand why that is so difficult to comprehend.

You have literally seen the same type of trade: veteran goes to a "win now" team in return for prospect potential to a "rebuilding" team happen a thousand times across MLB. Why are you so befuddled by the concept?

[Goldfan]

Let’s just look at salary. How do you assign a negative value to a players salary if you’re dealing with teams who have virtually unlimited budgets? Those team only want the best players and don’t really care about salary and yet BTV seems to assume that salaries should be equally compared across all teams. Great distortion in just the salary input.
They put what their model says is an objective value on that player's production. That baseline value applies to any team who might have that player (and their contract).

But if a particular contending team thinks they need to add exactly Player X to put them over the top and win a WS next year, yes, they will probably "overpay" (essentially putting a value on Player X that is higher than their objective value) to get that player.

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT!

Exactly…..when you look under the hood of most of these new age equations the assumptions and variables aren’t reality. But fans don’t do the research and pass it off as gospel

As noted - BTV provides a good, neutral, third party evaluation to assess whether a particular trade is in the ballpark of being "balanced." That is all anyone is claiming.

MLB team objective>>>>WIN MLB GAMES
Gray trade as an example of “balanced”
Boston receives a 12-15game MLB winner for a couple years in exchange for an injury proned minor leaguer>>>>no MLB stats to gauge and a 5th SP, injury proned with below avg MLB stats. And Sox assume Gray salary after Cards send 20mil
If the goal is to win MLB games Boston is the clear winner. If Gray remains healthy on a good Sox team he should win double digit games
The Cards return was HOPE……there is nothing in past history with these 2 SP today to claim they’ll have MLB success.
But somehow BTV allocates a rather large advantage to Cards
Against SOX have plenty of $$$ so whatever they assume or pay should have no bearing on this evaluation

The Cardinals got exactly what they wanted - potential for 2027, 2028, 2029. That's where their value is, and that's where BTV recognizes their value to be in the trade. I don't understand why that is so difficult to comprehend.

This leap where you just assume an injury proned minor league prospect is going to be impactful in ‘27, ‘28 ‘29 is laughable…..

[rockondlouie]

The battle of "jocks vs. nerds" is over and the nerds have already won.

Maybe not

I was glad to see C. Bloom is adding major league scouts, one's who will do the old fashion legwork EYEBALLING other teams players who they may then recommend to Bloom as trade prospects.

Metrics are simply one tool, a tool that tells the FO what HAS HAPPENED........NOT.......WHAT WILL HAPPEN.

I like them, have used them since I first read Bill James pamphlet (and it was a pamphlet) I bought from the back of my TSN long ago.

But they're not the be-all-an-end all and no one "has won".

The human element can't be quantified, nor can the weather, a players personal life situation, in-game situations, acquired experience, ect............

Solid tool, glad Bloom is smart enough not to rely solely one them.

[mattmitchl44]

Let’s just look at salary. How do you assign a negative value to a players salary if you’re dealing with teams who have virtually unlimited budgets? Those team only want the best players and don’t really care about salary and yet BTV seems to assume that salaries should be equally compared across all teams. Great distortion in just the salary input.
They put what their model says is an objective value on that player's production. That baseline value applies to any team who might have that player (and their contract).

But if a particular contending team thinks they need to add exactly Player X to put them over the top and win a WS next year, yes, they will probably "overpay" (essentially putting a value on Player X that is higher than their objective value) to get that player.

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT!

Exactly…..when you look under the hood of most of these new age equations the assumptions and variables aren’t reality. But fans don’t do the research and pass it off as gospel

As noted - BTV provides a good, neutral, third party evaluation to assess whether a particular trade is in the ballpark of being "balanced." That is all anyone is claiming.

MLB team objective>>>>WIN MLB GAMES
Gray trade as an example of “balanced”
Boston receives a 12-15game MLB winner for a couple years in exchange for an injury proned minor leaguer>>>>no MLB stats to gauge and a 5th SP, injury proned with below avg MLB stats. And Sox assume Gray salary after Cards send 20mil
If the goal is to win MLB games Boston is the clear winner. If Gray remains healthy on a good Sox team he should win double digit games
The Cards return was HOPE……there is nothing in past history with these 2 SP today to claim they’ll have MLB success.
But somehow BTV allocates a rather large advantage to Cards
Against SOX have plenty of $$$ so whatever they assume or pay should have no bearing on this evaluation

The Cardinals got exactly what they wanted - potential for 2027, 2028, 2029. That's where their value is, and that's where BTV recognizes their value to be in the trade. I don't understand why that is so difficult to comprehend.

This leap where you just assume an injury proned minor league prospect is going to be impactful in ‘27, ‘28 ‘29 is laughable…..

Clearly the Cardinals talent evaluation valued Fitts and Clarke highly enough to believe this was the best deal they could get for Gray.

Independent third parties, like BTV, evaluate it as being an objectively good return in prospect potential for the Cardinals.

Have you considered that it is just possible that it's YOUR evaluation that might be biased and overly pessimistic????

[mattmitchl44]

The battle of "jocks vs. nerds" is over and the nerds have already won.

Maybe not

I was glad to see C. Bloom is adding major league scouts, one's who will do the old fashion legwork EYEBALLING other teams players who they may then recommend to Bloom as trade prospects.

Metrics are simply one tool, a tool that tells the FO what HAS HAPPENED........NOT.......WHAT WILL HAPPEN.

I like them, have used them since I first read Bill James pamphlet (and it was a pamphlet) I bought from the back of my TSN long ago.

But they're not the be-all-an-end all and no one "has won".

The human element can't be quantified, nor can the weather, a players personal life situation, in-game situations, acquired experience, ect............

Solid tool, glad Bloom is smart enough not to rely solely one them.

As noted:

...every MLB FO has some proprietary version of their own WAR methodology that they will use to assess the "value" of players (along with other inputs)

Clearly, player assessment involves at least two things - first, an evaluation of the player's current abilities and then second, a method to project how that player's abilities are expected to change in future years.

With players who have a ML track record, the evaluation of current abilities (and hence value) can be more based on WAR metrics and the change in ability based on player aging expectations, with some modifications based on what is known about that specific player.

For minor league prospects, the evaluation of current abilities is likely more about observable and measurable attributes (FB velo and spin rate; secondary pitches and their attributes; strikeout% for batter based on level and age; etc.) with then projections based on how they are expected to grow and evolve.

I would expect either to be much more quantitative and systematic (i.e., analytic) than ever before. But there is more room for "expert opinion" (scouting) in prospect evaluation and projection.

[Goldfan]

Let’s just look at salary. How do you assign a negative value to a players salary if you’re dealing with teams who have virtually unlimited budgets? Those team only want the best players and don’t really care about salary and yet BTV seems to assume that salaries should be equally compared across all teams. Great distortion in just the salary input.
They put what their model says is an objective value on that player's production. That baseline value applies to any team who might have that player (and their contract).

But if a particular contending team thinks they need to add exactly Player X to put them over the top and win a WS next year, yes, they will probably "overpay" (essentially putting a value on Player X that is higher than their objective value) to get that player.

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT!

Exactly…..when you look under the hood of most of these new age equations the assumptions and variables aren’t reality. But fans don’t do the research and pass it off as gospel

As noted - BTV provides a good, neutral, third party evaluation to assess whether a particular trade is in the ballpark of being "balanced." That is all anyone is claiming.

MLB team objective>>>>WIN MLB GAMES
Gray trade as an example of “balanced”
Boston receives a 12-15game MLB winner for a couple years in exchange for an injury proned minor leaguer>>>>no MLB stats to gauge and a 5th SP, injury proned with below avg MLB stats. And Sox assume Gray salary after Cards send 20mil
If the goal is to win MLB games Boston is the clear winner. If Gray remains healthy on a good Sox team he should win double digit games
The Cards return was HOPE……there is nothing in past history with these 2 SP today to claim they’ll have MLB success.
But somehow BTV allocates a rather large advantage to Cards
Against SOX have plenty of $$$ so whatever they assume or pay should have no bearing on this evaluation

The Cardinals got exactly what they wanted - potential for 2027, 2028, 2029. That's where their value is, and that's where BTV recognizes their value to be in the trade. I don't understand why that is so difficult to comprehend.

This leap where you just assume an injury proned minor league prospect is going to be impactful in ‘27, ‘28 ‘29 is laughable…..

Clearly the Cardinals talent evaluation valued Fitts and Clarke highly enough to believe this was the best deal they could get for Gray.

Independent third parties, like BTV, evaluate it as being an objectively good return in prospect potential for the Cardinals.

Have you considered that it is just possible that it's YOUR evaluation that might be biased and overly pessimistic????

‘He gave up $10.6M of value in the Gray trade and received $23.7M of value per BTV or $13.1M of excess.’
The Cards have 13.1m Excess “benefit” from the trade…..what does this even mean??? People see this and run with it

[mattmitchl44]

Let’s just look at salary. How do you assign a negative value to a players salary if you’re dealing with teams who have virtually unlimited budgets? Those team only want the best players and don’t really care about salary and yet BTV seems to assume that salaries should be equally compared across all teams. Great distortion in just the salary input.
They put what their model says is an objective value on that player's production. That baseline value applies to any team who might have that player (and their contract).

But if a particular contending team thinks they need to add exactly Player X to put them over the top and win a WS next year, yes, they will probably "overpay" (essentially putting a value on Player X that is higher than their objective value) to get that player.

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT!

Exactly…..when you look under the hood of most of these new age equations the assumptions and variables aren’t reality. But fans don’t do the research and pass it off as gospel

As noted - BTV provides a good, neutral, third party evaluation to assess whether a particular trade is in the ballpark of being "balanced." That is all anyone is claiming.

MLB team objective>>>>WIN MLB GAMES
Gray trade as an example of “balanced”
Boston receives a 12-15game MLB winner for a couple years in exchange for an injury proned minor leaguer>>>>no MLB stats to gauge and a 5th SP, injury proned with below avg MLB stats. And Sox assume Gray salary after Cards send 20mil
If the goal is to win MLB games Boston is the clear winner. If Gray remains healthy on a good Sox team he should win double digit games
The Cards return was HOPE……there is nothing in past history with these 2 SP today to claim they’ll have MLB success.
But somehow BTV allocates a rather large advantage to Cards
Against SOX have plenty of $$$ so whatever they assume or pay should have no bearing on this evaluation

The Cardinals got exactly what they wanted - potential for 2027, 2028, 2029. That's where their value is, and that's where BTV recognizes their value to be in the trade. I don't understand why that is so difficult to comprehend.

This leap where you just assume an injury proned minor league prospect is going to be impactful in ‘27, ‘28 ‘29 is laughable…..

Clearly the Cardinals talent evaluation valued Fitts and Clarke highly enough to believe this was the best deal they could get for Gray.

Independent third parties, like BTV, evaluate it as being an objectively good return in prospect potential for the Cardinals.

Have you considered that it is just possible that it's YOUR evaluation that might be biased and overly pessimistic????

‘He gave up $10.6M of value in the Gray trade and received $23.7M of value per BTV or $13.1M of excess.’
The Cards have 13.1m Excess “benefit” from the trade…..what does this even mean??? People see this and run with it

What it means is that they expect the "value" of the production that Fitts and Clarke will provide in their, I think, 11 years of team control (5 for Fitts, 6 for Clarke) for the ML team will be greater than what the Cardinals will have to pay them during their pre-ARB and ARB years by a fair amount (about $23 million).

[rockondlouie]

The battle of "jocks vs. nerds" is over and the nerds have already won.

Maybe not

I was glad to see C. Bloom is adding major league scouts, one's who will do the old fashion legwork EYEBALLING other teams players who they may then recommend to Bloom as trade prospects.

Metrics are simply one tool, a tool that tells the FO what HAS HAPPENED........NOT.......WHAT WILL HAPPEN.

I like them, have used them since I first read Bill James pamphlet (and it was a pamphlet) I bought from the back of my TSN long ago.

But they're not the be-all-an-end all and no one "has won".

The human element can't be quantified, nor can the weather, a players personal life situation, in-game situations, acquired experience, ect............

Solid tool, glad Bloom is smart enough not to rely solely one them.

As noted:

...every MLB FO has some proprietary version of their own WAR methodology that they will use to assess the "value" of players (along with other inputs)

Clearly, player assessment involves at least two things - first, an evaluation of the player's current abilities and then second, a method to project how that player's abilities are expected to change in future years.

With players who have a ML track record, the evaluation of current abilities (and hence value) can be more based on WAR metrics and the change in ability based on player aging expectations, with some modifications based on what is known about that specific player.

For minor league prospects, the evaluation of current abilities is likely more about observable and measurable attributes (FB velo and spin rate; secondary pitches and their attributes; strikeout% for batter based on level and age; etc.) with then projections based on how they are expected to grow and evolve.

I would expect either to be much more quantitative and systematic (i.e., analytic) than ever before. But there is more room for "expert opinion" (scouting) in prospect evaluation and projection.

But we have to acknowledge advanced metrics...

Ignores the Human Element:
Metrics often overlook crucial intangible qualities such as a players motivation, clubhouse chemistry, leadership skills, and "clutch" performance (performing well in high-pressure situations).

Metrics has an Inability to Quantify Intangibles:
Factors like a player's mindset on a given day (e.g., personal issues, slumps/hot streaks) are challenging to input into a formula, yet they can significantly impact performance.

Plus there's no one true standard methodology (Re: Fangraphs fWAR calculated different from Baseball Referneces bWAR).

Finally, I've never trusted the way either WAR measures defensive metrics.

The most successful Managers utilize both data & their combined years of baseball experience and acumen (even, gasp....their gut!) when making in game decisions.

[mattmitchl44]

Ignores the Human Element:
Metrics often overlook crucial intangible qualities such as a players motivation, clubhouse chemistry, leadership skills, and "clutch" performance (performing well in high-pressure situations).

Some/much of this is going to be manifest in the player's measurable, on field production.

Whatever isn't is a small residual that you can generally overlook. How do we know that? Because WAR methodologies do a really good job of correlating team WAR with actual team wins.

If WAR methodologies are achieving that, it means there can't be significant factors that they are missing. So all of these "intangibles" can't add up to much or you would see it in a much lower correlation between teams WARs and team wins over comparing one to the other for all teams over multiple decades (lots of individual data points).

If you want to value a particular player say 10% more than their on field production warrants because you think they have "intangibles", maybe you can do that. But the vast majority of your value is always tangible production.

Metrics has an Inability to Quantify Intangibles:
Factors like a player's mindset on a given day (e.g., personal issues, slumps/hot streaks) are challenging to input into a formula, yet they can significantly impact performance.

WAR methodologies are not about making game-to-game tactical decisions. They are about making GM-level strategic decisions about the value of players to bring together on the roster.

[rockondlouie]

Ignores the Human Element:
Metrics often overlook crucial intangible qualities such as a players motivation, clubhouse chemistry, leadership skills, and "clutch" performance (performing well in high-pressure situations).

Some/much of this is going to be manifest in the player's measurable, on field production.

Whatever isn't is a small residual that you can generally overlook. How do we know that? Because WAR methodologies do a really good job of correlating team WAR with actual team wins.

If WAR methodologies are achieving that, it means there can't be significant factors that they are missing. So all of these "intangibles" can't add up to much or you would see it in a much lower correlation between teams WARs and team wins over comparing one to the other for all teams over multiple decades (lots of individual data points).

If you want to value a particular player say 10% more than their on field production warrants because you think they have "intangibles", maybe you can do that. But the vast majority of your value is always tangible production.

Metrics has an Inability to Quantify Intangibles:
Factors like a player's mindset on a given day (e.g., personal issues, slumps/hot streaks) are challenging to input into a formula, yet they can significantly impact performance.

WAR methodologies are not about making game-to-game tactical decisions. They are about making GM-level strategic decisions about the value of players to bring together on the roster.

WAR is formulated from those "in game" experiences.

[mattmitchl44]

Ignores the Human Element:
Metrics often overlook crucial intangible qualities such as a players motivation, clubhouse chemistry, leadership skills, and "clutch" performance (performing well in high-pressure situations).

Some/much of this is going to be manifest in the player's measurable, on field production.

Whatever isn't is a small residual that you can generally overlook. How do we know that? Because WAR methodologies do a really good job of correlating team WAR with actual team wins.

If WAR methodologies are achieving that, it means there can't be significant factors that they are missing. So all of these "intangibles" can't add up to much or you would see it in a much lower correlation between teams WARs and team wins over comparing one to the other for all teams over multiple decades (lots of individual data points).

If you want to value a particular player say 10% more than their on field production warrants because you think they have "intangibles", maybe you can do that. But the vast majority of your value is always tangible production.

Metrics has an Inability to Quantify Intangibles:
Factors like a player's mindset on a given day (e.g., personal issues, slumps/hot streaks) are challenging to input into a formula, yet they can significantly impact performance.

WAR methodologies are not about making game-to-game tactical decisions. They are about making GM-level strategic decisions about the value of players to bring together on the roster.

WAR is formulated from those "in game" experiences.

And it represents production over a full, 162 game season - which "averages out" those slumps/hot streaks, etc.