Interesting Statistics

by lightup_thehalo on Jun 16, 2008 8:27 PM EDT

Hello to all you Dback fans. I thought I'd show you this interesting fact sheet. Now, I know your team has been sliding lately, but this shows that the Dbacks have one of the best teams in baseball for the total amount of money they pay their players. i actually support the Dbacks, I am a secondary fan of them, and i think this stat dhows how good they are. The Dbacks are one of the best franchises in baseball, and i wish them well. GO RATTLERS!!!

Money to record statistic click here

Tweet Comment 16 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

The problem with those numbers

Is that they are not accurate.

For example, the D Backs are paying 8 million to Russ Ortiz this year, so the 66 million being shown in that table is not correct. The actual payroll the D Backs are responsible for in 2008 is closer to 75 million.

And that doesn’t include the 20-25 million they will pay in deferred salary to players from the World Series team.

by shoewizard on Jun 16, 2008 11:38 PM EDT reply actions

Yeah, but you got to admit that was a hell of a night when we beat the Yankees

by Augie's Army on Jun 17, 2008 11:13 AM EDT up reply actions

I wasn't editorializing

Just clarifying the numbers.

by shoewizard on Jun 17, 2008 12:45 PM EDT up reply actions

A little hard the read the chart

but interesting, nonetheless - thanks for sharing

by dstorm on Jun 17, 2008 10:30 AM EDT reply actions

Startling to see

How the New York teams and the Dodgers are seriously underperforming based on their salary rolls.

I think for this purpose, excluding Russ Ortiz and the deferred debt makes sense, since we’re looking for what team is getting the most bang for its buck from the current roster. Russ Ortiz is not actually contributing to the current W-L record, so including him on the other side is perhaps arguable. If we weren’t paying him, would we be giving the money to someone else? Hard to see to which position it might have gone this year.

by Jim McLennan on Jun 17, 2008 1:39 PM EDT reply actions

Ortiz due 22 million

At the time he was released. That is money that could have gone towards a Hudson extension, or Webb or Haren extension.

The fact is the TEAM looks at that as part of the payroll budget. They didn’t tell JB he could spend 75 million not including Ortiz’s money. They allowed JB to release Ortiz, but the Ortiz money comes out of the payroll budget, plain and simple.

For rough purposes, the chart is interesting. But I am sure other teams have payroll issues in one form or another that makes those numbers incorrect. It looks like they are based off the USA Today payroll data base….which is simply the total payroll of the guys on the opening day or active roster, but almost all teams have payroll obligations beyond who is on the active roster. Some more than others. ;)

Still….just for shits and grins….per the table above:

Yankees, Mets, Tigers, Dodgers, Mariners
Thats a lot of steep red lines heading down hill

Avg Payroll of those 5 teams is 144 million
Avg Record of those 5 teams is 31.4 W, 37.6 L

Meanwhile, Ray’s, A’s, Marlins, D backs, & Brewers

Avg Payroll of those 5 teams is 52 million
Avg Record of those 5 teams is 37.6 W, 31.6 L

by shoewizard on Jun 17, 2008 2:20 PM EDT up reply actions

As much as I hate to say it

I feel somewhat sorry for the Yankees (braces himself for a hail of objects) in that they did for once go for a youth movement in the form of Kennedy, Hughes and Joba and yet the former of the 2 have been ‘busts’ whilst Joba has been put in an awkward transition phase.

Can’t really defend many of the other teams though they have been quite simply woefull especially Detroit and the Seattle

I’m still learning the whole world of baseball economics but if every team is suddenly going to go with this youth movement then won’t that drive down payrolls full stop? I know it’s only a small sample size (and admittedly the quality wasn’t out there) but look how players like Livo and Kyle Lohse struggled to get deals this winter, heck look at the players who HAD to retire or are pretty much gone, Green, Bonds, Piazza. If you look at alot of the big money on teams like the Mets and Yankees it’s with the ageing superstars of the “steroid era” . One has to wonder whether in 5-6 years time even teams like the Yankees/Red Sox et all will be paying out $120-180 million or whether the high water mark will creep down somewhat. Still again Im new so this might be total rubbish :D

So...time for another drink then?

by Wimb on Jun 18, 2008 10:09 AM EDT up reply actions

It appears that the trend is now

To pay absolute top dollar for the top players, and pay less for the mediocre veterans. Overall payroll might not come down….it will just be distributed differently, and be more top heavy.

But as all these teams have finally realized the market efficiency of going with young pre arb players….perhaps the NEW market efficiency in another couple of years will be in the FA market. Ha Ha….ebb and flow and all that.

by shoewizard on Jun 18, 2008 1:48 PM EDT up reply actions

Yup, and that's the right way to do things.

Unfortunately, the rest of the league is catching on. :-(

Have the Dodgers lost yet?

by DbacksSkins on Jun 18, 2008 5:30 PM EDT up reply actions

The best market efficiency

is to just be smarter than most everyone else.

See Beane, Billy

by shoewizard on Jun 18, 2008 5:36 PM EDT up reply actions

Do you see

Beane ever switching back to focusing on scouting, once the rest of the league fully catches on to SABR?

Have the Dodgers lost yet?

by DbacksSkins on Jun 18, 2008 5:58 PM EDT up reply actions

They never stopped focusing on scouting

There are a lot of misconceptions about how the A’s run their organization.

by shoewizard on Jun 18, 2008 10:17 PM EDT up reply actions

Care to clear up

those misconceptions?

Have the Dodgers lost yet?

by DbacksSkins on Jun 19, 2008 1:13 AM EDT up reply actions

If you have read

A lot of the interviews that Billy Beane has done, and things that have been written about the A’s since the book Money Ball came out, you’d find that the A’s in fact put a strong emphasis on scouting and player development.

Here is one example.

TSN: For many, the way you run the A's boils down to statistical analysis vs. traditional scouting. Is it that cut-and-dried?

BB: I don’t spend a lot of time trying to decide. J.P. Ricciardi (now the Blue Jays’ G.M.) was my righthand guy; he was my scout. One of the best scouts in the industry. The idea that we don’t rely on that in Oakland is foolish. To not take advantage of every piece of information is foolish, and for us, it’s all about risk management and probabilistic decision-making.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1208/is_39_228/ai_n6211203

Here is another interview that is interesting

http://www.bizofbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1229&Itemid=81

There are others, but I’ve been reading interviews that Beane does for years, and read many things about how the A’s are run. The book Moneyball might give you the impression that they don’t focus on scouting, but that was never true. They just focus on the other forms of analysis too.

Honestly, for a better assessment, you probably want to head over to Athletics Nation, and ask Blez. He’d be able to help you find more reading material about this.

by shoewizard on Jun 19, 2008 1:46 AM EDT up reply actions