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absintheofmalaise
11-14-2007, 11:25 AM
Tangotiger (http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/article/do_teams_pay_more_for_top_end_talent/) has a very interesting post on his site regarding what wins cost a team for pitchers. It works out to be $4.4mm per win above replacement for all FAs, regardless of position.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Do teams pay exponentially more for top-end talent? (http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/article/do_teams_pay_more_for_top_end_talent/)

I don’t know. But, I’ll say “no”. Here’s how:
<hr> win% Innings G WAR Sal
0.375 090.0 10.0 0.0 $0.4
0.400 108.0 12.0 0.3 $1.7
0.425 126.0 14.0 0.7 $3.5
0.450 144.0 16.0 1.2 $5.7
0.475 162.0 18.0 1.8 $8.3
0.500 180.0 20.0 2.5 $11.4
0.525 189.0 21.0 3.2 $14.3
0.550 198.0 22.0 3.9 $17.3
0.575 207.0 23.0 4.6 $20.6
0.600 216.0 24.0 5.4 $24.2
0.625 220.5 24.5 6.1 $27.4
0.650 225.0 25.0 6.9 $30.7
0.675 229.5 25.5 7.7 $34.1
0.700 234.0 26.0 8.5 $37.6
win%: true talent win%. Consider .700 to be the absolute best you can shoot for.
IP: I made a sliding scale of IP to win%. Nothing based on anything, other than my gut. Looks reasonable enough.
G: It’s simply IP/9, or “full games”.
WAR: G*(win%-.375), with .375 being the replacement level for a pitcher (as a starter). Feel free to use anything between .350 and .400.
Sal: 4.4*WAR+0.40
The salary is a LINEAR relationship to wins. The .500 line looks reasonable, doesn’t it? The .600 line (Oswalts, Zambranos, Zitos, etc), seems a tad high, don’t you think? It certainly is not too low. But, if you believe the supply/demand argument, you need to be paying more for wins from these players.
Perhaps my model is biased somehow. That’s fine. Construct your own. I challenge you guys to come up with a non-linear model of wins to salary, that is believable at the high end, and at .500.

<!-- http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/member/1/ --> Posted by Tangotiger (http://www.tangotiger.net/) on 11/12 at 01:52 PM
(13) Comments (http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/do_teams_pay_more_for_top_end_talent/#comments) • • Sabermetrics (http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/category/Sabermetrics/) • Finances (http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/category/Finances/)

vnodnarb
11-14-2007, 11:39 AM
I'm still a little lost so maybe you can help me. 4.4mm = 440,000? And your table is saying a .500 pitcher should cost 11.4M and a .700 pitcher should cost 37.6M?

absintheofmalaise
11-14-2007, 12:00 PM
$4.4mm = $4,400,000.00
The table is from Tom Tango's site. His site is excellent. The table is for starting pitchers. The winning% is for linear wins. Google linear wins. I really can't explain it adequately. It is similar to linear weights for run expectancy. Every time a player gets on base there is a value attached to that event. It doesn't mean that they will score, it just means how much of a run that event is worth. It works the same way for pitchers.