Is Jon Garland really worth $5.3 million?
January 26th, 2010 | Published in Myron Logan, Sabermetrics, baseball, contracts, roster moves | 5 Comments
by Myron Logan
Daniel analyzed the Jon Garland signing earlier, concluding:
Expected to perform at a $7MM level for only $5.3MM, Garland provides surplus value, at a position of need. Not a bad signing.
Daniel is of course spot-on, and his approach to evaluating the deal is precisely how I would have looked at it. However, consider the question Aaron asked in today’s chat:
Why do you guys always use WAR as a universal stat. Aren’t wins worth more or less to different teams?
He makes a great point. A marginal win has a different value for each franchise. It is something that I’ve talked about along time ago, but neglected all too often. Let’s just consider one aspect; the team’s placement on the win curve. And just for the purposes of this post, let’s say the Padres were projected to win 79 games before acquiring Jon Garland. If you look at the chart in that linked post — Nate Silver’s wonderful research –a projected 79 win team has about a 12% chance of making the playoffs.
If we say that Garland’s addition adds two wins to the Padres projection, now they are an 81 win team. That increases their playoff chances by 6% — to a whopping 18%. If a playoff berth is worth $30 million — again, according to Silver, though obviously that figure is dated — Garland gets a $1.8 million playoff bonus. Now, are those two extra wins that he’s adding worth that remaining $3.5 million — the difference between Garland’s salary and the playoff bonus — without consider their impact on San Diego’s playoff chances.
Though Garland’s deal may have been a relative bargain, even in this year’s free agent market, the Padres are still paying a premium for his services. Due to his free agent status, and the fact that all teams can bid on him, his salary gets a major bump. Would the $5.3M the Padres gave Garland be better utilized on, say, locking up young players currently on the roster, future draft pick signing bonuses, international signings, and improving the scouting, player development, and analysis departments?
I don’t know the answer, but I think that consideration is definitely warranted. It is tough to criticize the Padres when they actually do spend money, putting them into a classic “damned if ya do, damned if ya don’t” situation. That said, their payroll sat at a mere $33 million before Garland’s acquisition, clearly showing that they are not necessarily trying to compete this season. Does it make sense to spend 13% of the payroll on one player, one player who likely is not going to change the season’s ultimate fate? Should they even be competing on the free agent market at this point?
Seriously, I ask questions because I don’t know the answers. $5.3 million is not going to cripple the franchise, but I’m just wondering if it could have been better spent elsewhere.
January 27th, 2010 at 5:09 pm (#)
Comments are open! Sorry, I posted from a different computer, and I guess the default was to not allow comments.
January 27th, 2010 at 5:23 pm (#)
If there was a good chance that the Padres would have spent the Garland money in other ways, I’d be on the same page with Myron. Using Garland’s 5 million in the draft or internationally could buy you 8-10 years of control each for multiple talented players. But if the major league and amateur budgets are separate, which doesn’t make a lot of sense but might still be true, then signing Garland isn’t robbing Peter to pay Paul. Peter was never going to get that money anyway.
With that, this looks like a very good signing to me. If we’re competitive in July, keep Garland. If we’re not comeptitive but he’s pitching well, move him. Probably get no more than a C prospect, but he’ll have protected Latos and some other arms from overwork. For 3.6 million by the end of July, that’s a good return.
LeBlanc and Stauffer should have ample chances to contribute, and if they don’t, it’s because Young is healthy, Correia and Garland continue to be effective, Richards steps up his performance, and Latos is efficient. That would mean we’re probably winning a lot of games and so their playing time is of minor concern. Odds are they get lots of innings due to injuries.
January 27th, 2010 at 7:17 pm (#)
Last week, Moorad told 1090:
“We expect the fans to support us because they believe that we are telling them the truth. We are telling them that we are investing every last penny that we can into that club on the field.”
And I remember him saying something about getting the fans back to the park being an integral part of the plan. If that’s the case, then it makes sense to show the fans that they’re serious.
January 27th, 2010 at 9:21 pm (#)
Good point, Ray. Most Padre fans, by far, are not aware of money-per-win calculations or the importance of controlled young talent. That’s not an insult, they just don’t obsess about those deep matters the way the typical Friar Forecast reader does. They’re also the fans who pay the bills and many of them felt betrayed by John Moores and, to some extent, by Sandy Alderson. Garland helps heal those wounds and he’s useful on the field too.
January 28th, 2010 at 12:07 am (#)
Nice points, guys.
One of the issues I was thinking about is how the budgets work. Like you say, if they were going to spend this money on this year’s roster, no matter what, then this is a good signing. That price tag for Garland is very reasonable, even in an already deflated market.
I’m not entirely sure that’s how the budgets work, and if it is then it does seem kind of silly.