Comments on: Free Agent Values: A.J. Burnett

By: Kolz13

Kolz13 — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 23:31:42 +0000

You got this one right almost to the penny.

By: Xeifrank

Xeifrank — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:34:36 +0000

What do your 5.50 and 4.50 FIP numbers translate to for calculating the WAR of an NL pitcher?
vr, Xei

By: David

David — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:30:54 +0000

he has great stuff, though, and there’s enough pitcher-starved teams in the majors that would be quite happy to take the risk of 3 years / $40 million or whatever. as an Orioles fan – if Burnett comes to Baltimore, he is immediately head and shoulders ahead of every other pitcher on our roster except Jeremy Guthrie. even if he “regresses” and puts up a 4.50 ERA and due to an injury pitches “only” 150 innings… that’s still better than every pitcher on our roster except Guthrie. for that much improvement, I think teams like the Orioles are willing to pay regardless of the injury risk.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:04:16 +0000

Man, this guys WHIP hovered close to 1.40 most of the season. A late season hot streak got his numbers to ‘respectable’ levels, but not a Cy Young candidate by any means.

I believe his current contract isn’t a bargain, but fair. Any higher is assuming a ton of risk with AJ and his million dollar arm, 10 cent head.

By: Tom Au

Tom Au — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:06:20 +0000

Basically, Burnett would be another Andy Pettite, more or less, both in salary and in performance.

By: Dave Cameron

Dave Cameron — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:31:49 +0000

The 190 IP forecast came from the Marcel projection, which uses the last three years of data to forecast playing time. In general, projecting playing time going forward is very hard. No one does a great job of it. The Marcel projections are about as good as it gets.

The nice thing about these calculations is that you can just adjust them if you feel like there’s a specific issue. If you think Burnett should only be projected at 170 innings, just swap out the numbers and do the math. You’ll find that it lowers Burnett’s value by a couple of runs.

And yes, MLB teams have a history of giving out long term deals at something like 90% of current value, which means that the underlying assumption is that future inflation will counteract almost all the risks of decline in performance and health. I’d argue that assumption is usually wrong, and that long term deals for most players have been a bad idea more often than not, but because that’s how MLB teams work, that’s the context we have to work in.

By: Conballs

Conballs — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:26:14 +0000

Dave – How do you factor in injury history? I know Burnett will surpass 190 innings if he makes 30 starts, but the fact that he only made 46 starts between ‘06 and ‘07, and only had one other season of 30+ GS, how does one factor that in? Does anyone really believe Burnett will throw over 900 innings over a five-year contract? He threw 850 innings over the last 5 seasons (averaging about 173 innings the last 3 seasons). What makes us think that number will increase now that he’s 32 on Opening Day?

Is the fact that the contract would not factor in market inflation over the course of the term enough to account for wear, tear and injury concerns?

Is there an adjustment for injury history? Please post the link if I have missed out.

By: Dave Cameron

Dave Cameron — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:09:48 +0000

It was $4.4 + $400,000 last year – the marginal value was $4.4, but league minimum players aren’t free, so you have to factor in the cost of a replacement level player in the calculation. Factoring in 10% inflation gets us to 4.84 + $400,000, but this is an historically awesome free agent class, so I think we’re going to see an even higher rate than normal, given the talent available.

If you want, feel free to adjust the number down if you’re more comfortable with another number, but I think $5.5 million per win will end up being pretty close this winter.

By: devil_fingers

devil_fingers — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:04:26 +0000

Nice post, but I’m wondering where you got the $5.5M/WAR figure. If there’s another post where you make the case for it, can you direct me to it? The reason I ask is because on my “salary chart,” I follow Tom Tango in having $4.84M/WAR as market value (it was 4.4 last year).