The Benefits of Letting the Closer Market Settle
The Phillies made the first major splash of the offseason by signing Jonathan Papelbon to a borderline absurd four-year, $50 million contract. The market was clearly flush with closers, or relievers capable of closing, and the Phillies paid a max type of contract for a 65-inning pitcher. Financial wiggle room was a concern before the move and the opportunity costs both realized and hypothetical — bidding farewell to homegrown talent Ryan Madson and perhaps prohibiting themselves from making more important moves elsewhere, respectively — suggested it was a poor move.
However, even without the Phillies context, signing any closer for that much money, over that many guaranteed years, is foolish. Relief pitchers are statistically fickle and don’t really offer a decreased level of injury risk. Over such a small sample of innings, it’s easy to temporarily mask true talent levels, especially when considering the general difficulty in evaluating relievers. By signing Papelbon to such a large deal that early in the offseason, the Phillies explicitly acknowledged their view that he was, by far, the best available option, and one worth spending big bucks on.
In this particular offseason, with so many viable closing options available, nobody is worth spending much money on since the differences between the closers are mostly nominal. The fact that so few closers were signed early in the offseason — besides Papelbon, both Joe Nathan and Jonathan Broxton signed lower-risk deals — indicates that teams are growing wary of doling out big bucks to pitchers occupying an overstated role. In the context of the current offseason, many teams are waiting to sign a closer, allowing the market to settle in order to ink one to a team-friendly deal.
The Marlins were the first to strike, by signing Heath Bell to a relatively reasonable three-year, $27 million deal. While even that might be considered an overpay, Bell on that deal is far less risky than Papelbon is on his. Signing Papelbon to that deal suggests one of two things: either the Phillies anticipated a rush on closers, which wouldn’t make much sense when so many were available, or his performance was so exemplary relative to everyone else that it was a no-brainer.
To the first point, while the saves statistic is still prominent, teams are beginning to gravitate towards turning certain relievers into closers instead of paying the premium for a veteran stopper. Not only aren’t teams rushing to sign closers, but some are actually going to fill the role internally, meaning even more of the free agents will have to settle for lesser deals. While it’s usually thought that the number of free agents at a position equals the amount of openings, the use of internal options limits the number of opportunities.
Secondly, sure Papelbon has pitched well over the past few seasons, but watch what happens when we play everyone’s favorite game — Guess That Pitcher!
Pitcher A (2009-11): 10.0 K/9, 3.0 BB/9, 2.87 SIERA, 3.32 xFIP
Pitcher B (2009-11): 10.8 K/9, 2.8 BB/9. 2.60 SIERA, 3.23 xFIP
Pitcher B is Papelbon. Pitcher A is Frank Francisco, who will probably end up signing for something like two years and $16 million. Papelbon has performed better over the past three seasons, but nowhere near enough to mitigate the cost differential. This game could be repeated with many of the free agent closers, even excluding Papelbon, and it would be tough to tell the differences. When that’s the case, how can any team justify paying one member of that group so much more than the rest?
None of this is meant to rail on the Phillies, or Papelbon himself, but rather to illustrate that making a splash when many viable options were available was risky and foolish.
The point was furthered when Bell signed his deal Thursday night, and will get cemented when Francisco signs the type of deal mentioned above, or Madson signs for three years, $24 million. Ultimately, that’s the major problem with jumping on closers. By waiting, even the good ones will end up accepting lesser deals out of sheer necessity. If it isn’t less overall dollars, the team-friendliness will come in the form of years committed. This is a situation where many of the options are similar enough that if Plans A and B sign elsewhere, Plans C-E are still enticing, without feeling like a team settled.
The Phillies didn’t avail themselves to this opportunity, and instead stubbornly stuck to Plan A. When spring training rolls around, it’ll be very interesting to look back at all the deals these free agent closers signed, because many are similarly talented, and most will sign for much less than they would in a more typical offseason.
Sadly, you are correct. Ruben is addicted to the heady rush of the big deal, even when it means bidding against himself. I think you’re low on the contract Madson will get, though. I’d guess 3years/$33 mm or maybe some Ruben Amaro Jr. Jr. will go nuts and offer 4/$40.
the phillies also give up a draft pick because they signed him before the new CBA right? that makes this even worse.
They will receive a pick in the first round right after the team who signs Madson, not forfeited by the signing team. Also they still get a compensatory pick.
But if they let Madson walk, didn’t give Paps 50mill, and signed some cheaper option, they would still get the picks for Madson and have their own.
So, they are still down a draft pick.
True, but if they resign Madson at 4/44 as reported, they are overpaying for a closer and not getting a comp pick, nor moving up in the first round (provided the team signing him doesn’t have a top 15 pick).
Hmm, lose a draft pick or win a World Series.. lose a draft pick or Win a World Series.. I just cannot decide what to do!
@DD. Well, they probably shouldn’t resign Madson either.
@The Real Neal. You act like getting Papelbon = winning world series. That is just silly.
I’m not railing them, i’m just calling them risky an foolish.
When comparing ‘cisco to ‘bon, why leave out the WAR numbers, especially when you’re trying to make a point about salaries?
Pitcher X (09-11): 6.2 WAR
Pitcher Y (09-11): 2.6 WAR
Assuming 5 MM/WAR, Papelbon is still an overpay, but the greater overpay is actually a 2 year/16 MM deal to francisco, assuming that AAV and not years is what hurts phillies financial flexibility.
I’m not really a proponent of using WAR for relievers. They are very tricky to evaluate and I feel much more comfortable using the underlying numbers.
I am not really a proponent of how often WAR gets overused on this site period, especially in single year format. I think the worst thing you guys could have done to the borderline stathead community is introduce an “all encompassing” value stat, and then repeatedly try and back off of it as all encompassing. The first message was received, the second, not so much.
Then help a non-stathead out:
Is your objection to using WAR for relievers based more in that it uses FIP instead of xFIP or SIERA or K/BB (because those are better measures of reliever performance), or because WAR lacks validity–it doesn’t actually measure what it says it’s measuring (player value) at such small (50-65 IP/year) sample sizes?
Or both?
I guess my difficulty is that by only looking at underlying numbers, a person can’t really criticize the Papelbon deal in anything but a relative sense (which is your conclusion, right?). But then, that sort of makes the general point that “you shouldn’t spend X% of team budget on closers/relievers” not really correct either.
@ Colin Fwiw, I used the 3-year WAR (150-200 IP) for Francisco and Papelbon. But I guess if WAR doesn’t have great validity for relievers, that doesn’t matter. Fair enough.
Jcxy,
Problem is with relievers like you mentioned in your comment, you still only have a 150-200 inning sample at best. Making even a three year WAR somewhat unreliable for projection.
Innings pitched is an underlying number and you disregarded it completely.
Honestly I’d rather have Papelbon at 3.5M/year more than Bell. Its really just the 4th year that hurts the Phils.
But you could have neither, and that would be the best situation.
Not if you’re the Phillies it’s not. They’re a high revenue team coming off of 5 straight playoff appearances, with another couple appearances on the horizon before they fall off a cliff. They’re in a position where they: a) can afford to overpay due to their revenue, and b) can’t afford to have a mediocre closer. With Papelbon on the team, at least they know he’s not gonna suck (well, anybody can suck, but there’s much more certainty of greatness with Papelbon).
I like Bell, but looking at his K rate, would anybody be surprised if he was subpar over the course of the contract? Madson might have been a better option than Papelbon, but the other options aren’t in the same class.
This comment was made the last time Fangraphs compared a better-known reliever to Frank Francisco — see the comments to http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/heath-bell-and-park-effects/ Franscisco is not durable and can’t stay healthy.
By citing only rate stats, not any counting stats, in comparing Pitchers A and B, the comparison is misleading and overstates Francisco’s worth. Given that this has now happened twice in the past two weeks or so, it’s either intentionally misleading or you’re not keeping up with what other Fangraphs’ writers have done recently. Please don’t twist the facts to match your narrative.
Perhaps the Phillies liked the dependability and durability that Papsmear has shown under the spotlight and pitching in a hitters park in the most difficult division in baseball over the last six years. What sets his price tag apart from the Francisco’s and Bell’s of the world is less variability in that you pretty much know what you’re going to get. Of course injuries can happen at any time, but they’re a greater likelihood for pitchers that have already shown an preponderance to being injured. Or maybe the Phillies just didn’t want to have to settle out of court the next time Francisco felt like turning the bullpen into Monday Night Raw complete with chair shots on loud-mouthed fans.
Not to say I didn’t enjoy the read, but it could have made mention of the fact that the Phillies are operating on a different section of the win curve than just about any other team while having such great revenue streams that they don’t need to worry about squeezing nickels. Teams like this define a guy that they want to sign and then go get him. As a Rays fan I can honestly say that that is an enviable luxury.
not for much longer
2009-2011
ShutDowns / Meltdowns
JP: 102/18
FF: 46/20
Holy shit.
Don’t think the point was really pap vs FF, more over waiting longer in the FA market when there are less jobs left available people get desperate, Mads still not signed if they waited til pap and bell were off the market they could probably now play hardball with him and maybe get a 2 maybe 3year deal. Similar argument as to why the dodgers were retarded for giving out the contract they did to the average outfielder i cant even remember hes so average right at the start of Free agency.
I think there are 2 points which are separate discussions.
The first was looking at rate stats and implying similar performance. I don’t think that’s always accurate, but can be.
The second point is jumping the gun with a contract. I think the Phillies knew who they wanted and just signed him and didn’t worry about what other teams are going to do. I also think PHL, perhaps due to the ups and downs of Brad Lidge wanted reliability.
Philly probably is not in a “be cautious wih your money” situation, although the case could be made (is being made) that they could be smarter. I think Philly is basically playing the next 4 years and will then see how things go.