Mookie Betts appreciation thread

BoSox Rule

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Don’t know why they ever did, or still do, wait until the middle of November and spread it out like they do.
 

Al Zarilla

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Don’t know why they ever did, or still do, wait until the middle of November and spread it out like they do.
It’s spread out even more this year than last year. Milking it all they can. Can’t blame them I guess when the alternative is Hot Stove with Vasgersian and Harold Reynolds all day.
 

Spelunker

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It’s spread out even more this year than last year. Milking it all they can. Can’t blame them I guess when the alternative is Hot Stove with Vasgersian and Harold Reynolds all day.
Spreading it out is fine. Waiting until the middle of November is less so
 

drbretto

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Didn't these announcements used to start during the WS? Like starting with game 4? Or even ending by game 4? I definitely don't remember it being this late before.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Didn't these announcements used to start during the WS? Like starting with game 4? Or even ending by game 4? I definitely don't remember it being this late before.
They've always been announced in November for as long as I can remember. And spread out over a few days. In fact, I remember it being one award per day over a couple week period. Like AL MOY on Monday, NL MOY on Tuesday, AL ROY on Wednesday, NL ROY on Thursday, then the following week they did the same thing with the CY and MVP. It's only recently that they started pairing the AL/NL winners of each award to the same night and show.
 

drbretto

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I do remember them being staggered like this, though I do't remember there being a week wait between categories or anything, but I swear I remember them being closer to WS. The WS has run into November a few times, though, so maybe it just lined up better.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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I agree that I seem to remember them being staggered in between the WS games and then with the 2007 ARod fiasco, they put the mandate in that no other news would be released during the Series, so they bumped it to after. The whole televised thing with the players on video phone is dumb though, just release it.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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FWIW, the 1986 AL Cy Young was announced on November 12 and the MVP was announced on November 18. Per the same source, the 1991 Cy Young was announced on November 13 and the 1997 Cy Young was announced on November 11. My mind jumped to Clemens because I remember reading his autobiography as a kid and in it he recounted being at home in Texas in 1986 and taking the phone calls from the BBWAA president (IIRC, it was 11am or something...far cry from the 6pm EST televised production).
 

LoweTek

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As I understand it award winner announcements are spread out to keep MLB in the news as long as possible into the off-season.
 

Cesar Crespo

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As I understand it award winner announcements are spread out to keep MLB in the news as long as possible into the off-season.
Yeah, same reason the NFL moved the draft and changed other things around as well. They also don't want to take attention away from the playoffs by announcing the awards during postseason.
 

DeadlySplitter

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it will be around 6:50. NL went first today, now AL. each segment on MLB goes through a long analysis process and interview process.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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So, the guy who wins totally knows right? The interviews must be pre-recorded or something because there's no way that all three players are supposed to gather like 20 family members to be around even if they lose.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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Mookie got 28 first place votes. Trout and Martinez each got 1. Martinez was 10 points behind Ramirez for third.

Martinez kept pace with Ramirez in first, second and third place votes, but what ended up making the difference was that JD got way more votes than Ramirez did at the 5-7 place spots, while Ramirez got very few votes outside the top 4.

In the end I think there are just enough voters who disregard the designated hitter that JD was not really able to make up the difference on a guy who pretty clearly was a consensus top 4 at least. Trout dominated second place and Ramirez wasn't close.

https://bbwaa.com/18-al-mvp/

Edit: And Bregman actually was quite close to JD.
 

LogansDad

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Mookie's gonna have a lot of bold, italics numbers on the back of his baseball card...
Shoot, this post just made me want to start buying packs of cards again next spring, just so that I can hopefully get that feeling of opening a pack and finding a Mookie card.

I know it's probably easier these days to just buy the cards, but damn that just wouldn't be the same.

He makes me feel like a kid again.
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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Speculation on Machado being offered 8/$28M per year makes me wonder what the Sox should offer. 10/300 feels about right. I’m hoping the Sox FO does it immediately after and Machado deal. Whatever it is.... offer 2 more guaranteed years and $2M more per year.

Edit- obviously to Mookie, not outbidding for Machado
 

ifmanis5

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Mookie was the best player in any sport in 2018...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-best-players-and-biggest-upsets-of-2018-in-almost-any-sport/?ex_cid=story-twitter
In a year that featured a number of standout performances, none was better than that of Boston’s 26-year-old right fielder. Betts earned American League MVP honors by becoming just the fifth player of the 21st century to crack 10.0 WAR in a single season — and he was the rare player to outduel WAR machine Mike Trout for the top slot in the league. Add in Boston’s World Series victory (which Betts punctuated with a home run in the clinching contest), and Betts had himself a year for the ages in 2018.
 

[icon]

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Bump...

I'm not sure 10/300 gets it done? What are we thinking here?

IMO Mookie at 24 is the rare player that I'd have zero problem locking up for a decade. Incredible skill, arguably perfect demeanor/mindset, young, etc... While no long term MLB contract is "low risk", IMO this is about a sure thing as you can find in the game.

Big question is, is this top of market for MLB salaries? I know the average salary declined a touch this past year. Is this the peak of big FA dollars? Or will $30MM a year be "Cheap" come the mid 2020's as this contract winds down?
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Mookie Betts is not a free agent until after 2020. He's not signing a long term deal until then. Seems futile to worry about it now, particularly given where the Red Sox' payroll stands. Even if he were willing to negotiate away his free agency, the increased hit against the luxury tax for 2019 probably eats away from whatever potential savings an early, "hometown" extension might represent.
 

Pitt the Elder

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Bump...

I'm not sure 10/300 gets it done? What are we thinking here?

IMO Mookie at 24 is the rare player that I'd have zero problem locking up for a decade. Incredible skill, arguably perfect demeanor/mindset, young, etc... While no long term MLB contract is "low risk", IMO this is about a sure thing as you can find in the game.

Big question is, is this top of market for MLB salaries? I know the average salary declined a touch this past year. Is this the peak of big FA dollars? Or will $30MM a year be "Cheap" come the mid 2020's as this contract winds down?
Not to pick nits, but Mookie turned 26 on October 7th, which changes the calculus in a meaningful way, I think. A 10-year contract through age 35 has a lot more downside than one through age 33, IMO.

I think the question for this group is: How do we think Mookie will perform for the next ~10 seasons? How much is that performance worth in today's dollars? I'm wading far outside my depth here, but let me give that a shot.

The first task is to estimate how much WAR Mookie will generate in each of the next 10 seasons. According to Fangraphs, a good rule of thumb is to estimate that a player loses 0.5 WAR per season starting with his age 30 season. Mookie's 3-year WAR average is ~8.0 WAR; therefore, let's assume he averages that from 26-29 and then drops 0.5 WAR each year after that. This projects Mookie as a 5.0 WAR player at age 35, which is still excellent, and he would total an astounding 69.5 total WAR over a theoretical 10-year contract. (We can certainly debate whether Mookie will still be a 5.0 WAR player at age 35, but this is where I'm starting my analysis).

The second task is to estimate how much that WAR is worth over 10 years and then convert that into a present-day value. Assuming $8 per WAR, and assuming a discount factor of 8.5% (I'm assuming that the value per win is increasing much faster than standard inflation), Mookie would earn an absolute value $556M over that 10-year period, which is equal to a present-day value of $377M in today's baseball dollars. For reference, a $300M contract paid out in ten $30M installments would have a present-day value of $197M. In short, based on my math, the Sox would realize a net present-day profit of ~$180M.

You can check my math here (please let me know of any mistakes):

AssumptionsValue
3-Year Avg WAR8
NPV Factor8.50%
$/WAR$8.00
Total WAR69.50
Total Value$556.00
Total Present Value$377.04
Total Contract$300.00
Total Contract NPV$196.84

SeasonAgeWAR Player ValueInflation FactorNPV PlayerContract ValueNPV Contract
2014211.80$13.70 - $- $- $-
2015224.80$38.10 - $- $- $-
2016238.20$65.80 - $- $- $-
2017245.30$42.80 - $- $- $-
20182510.40$83.10 1.00 $83.10 $- $-
2019268.00$64.00 0.92 $58.99 $30.00 $27.65
2020278.00$64.00 0.85 $54.37 $30.00 $25.48
2021288.00$64.00 0.78 $50.11 $30.00 $23.49
2022298.00$64.00 0.72 $46.18 $30.00 $21.65
2023307.50$60.00 0.67 $39.90 $30.00 $19.95
2024317.00$56.00 0.61 $34.32 $30.00 $18.39
2025326.50$52.00 0.56 $29.38 $30.00 $16.95
2026336.00$48.00 0.52 $24.99 $30.00 $15.62
2027345.50$44.00 0.48 $21.11 $30.00 $14.40
2028355.00$40.00 0.44 $17.69 $30.00 $13.27

Does Mookie accept that deal? I don't know, he's theoretically leaving a ton of value on the table. Would the Sox be justified in doing something as crazy sounding as 12/$400M? If you expect him to still be a 4-5 WAR player in his 36-37 age seasons, almost certainly yes. Is my basic assumption about Mookie's aging curve reasonable, or is he a risk of declining much faster than the average player? Or slower?

Btw, some interesting Fangraphs articles I looked at when trying to do my own calcs:
Edit: typos

Addendum:

I added a few articles that I thought were relevant to this conversation. A few additional observations:
  • Fangraphs tried to do a similar analysis for Albert Pujols in 2012 to determine whether or not he would be worth his contract. To no one's surprise, he hasn't been. What I find interesting, though, is that Pujols decline was much faster than what aging curves would suggest, which is a cautionary tale for any optimistic projections of Betts future. But...
  • The article Henry Druschel from Beyond The Box Score compares the aging curves of phenoms vs non-phenoms. While Betts would narrowly miss being named a phenom (his first 8+ WAR season was at age 23, not 22), I think it's fair to include him in that group. The key quote from the article: "Their WAR/600 doesn't begin to decline until their age-29 season, as opposed to age-27 for the non-phenoms, and their wRC+ stays almost at peak from age-25 through age-31, compared to the single-year peak at age-26 for the non-phenoms."
  • The 2011 article from Ryan Campbell shows that the aging curve declines much faster for heavy players relative to average players, which is another point in Mookie's favor.
  • The Fangraphs article by Eno Sarris about aging curves by player types is confusing to say the least. Historically, players with Mookie's profile - fast guys with good plate discipline - had much better aging curves, though data in the post-PED era (2005 onwards) shows less of an advantage. I tried to find other data to analyze how players like Mookie age and haven't been able to find anything yet.
 
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Mugsy's Jock

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So, has this now morphed into the "Mookie Betts Depreciation Thread"?

Yeah, sometimes I don't have a lot to add here. I know.
 

sean1562

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Will this calculus change at all if the "soft cap" is eliminated in the next CBA? How much could the Sox spend on payroll if they didnt have to worry about luxury tax? Would an overpay now be a significant underpay if we could just blow through that number?
 

EpsteinsGorillaSuit

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Pitt, I think there are a few aspects that your calculation misses are the actuarial adjustment for catastrophic injury/decline, as there is some risk of a career-altering or ending injury, as well as the risk of a season lost to injury after which the player recovers. Also, the amount that teams pay per WAR should in principle trend upward in time, not stay $8M/WAR over the next 10 years. These are opposing trends, however, so your calculation may be reasonable.

I also think your NPV discount rate of 8.5% is way too high, given that the Red Sox are all but guaranteed to be solvent in 10 years and the uncertainty of investment returns over the next decade. A more reasonable 4% discount rate makes a 10 yr/300M contract worth ~$240M NPV - meaning Mookie would be leaving a bit less money on the table.

There is a larger issue here, however, that involves a secular change in player compensation. The Red Sox are a ridiculously profitable enterprise, and they can easily afford to pay Mookie Betts $500M to play for them for the rest of his career. Even high payroll, successful teams are spending less on players as a percentage of revenues (to say nothing of the tanking ones), and this is likely to cause major labor strife and a different compensation structure in the coming years.

The real risk in giving Mookie such a contract now, beyond the normal actuarial risk, is that no one knows what future luxury tax/salary cap/salary floor/draft policies are going to be. At this point the ability to draft top talent and pay them hundreds of millions less than their on-the-field value is so attractive that it is both limiting total payrolls for teams with competitive aspirations and incentivizing tanking.
 

donchoi

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The first task is to estimate how much WAR Mookie will generate in each of the next 10 seasons. According to Fangraphs, a good rule of thumb is to estimate that a player loses 0.5 WAR per season starting with his age 30 season. Mookie's 3-year WAR average is ~8.0 WAR; therefore, let's assume he averages that from 26-29 and then drops 0.5 WAR each year after that. This projects Mookie as a 5.0 WAR player at age 35, which is still excellent, and he would total an astounding 69.5 total WAR over a theoretical 10-year contract. (We can certainly debate whether Mookie will still be a 5.0 WAR player at age 35, but this is where I'm starting my analysis).
Hey Pitt, appreciate all the effort.. I think projecting Mookie for 36.0 WAR between 26-29 could be a tad optimistic, especially considering potential injury. Since 2000, only one player has reached that mark in their age 26-29 seasons: Pujols racked up 36.2 WAR over that period, per baseball-reference.com. Mookie is certainly capable of that level of production, and I hope he does, but that's probably the upper limit of what he will do.

Probably more realistic to look at 7 WAR over that period (4 players reached that level), which will affect the expected value we would get out of Betts going forward.

Also hard to evaluate the value of a win and other factors over that long a period of time, as GorillaSuit mentioned..
 

Dewey'sCannon

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Will this calculus change at all if the "soft cap" is eliminated in the next CBA? How much could the Sox spend on payroll if they didnt have to worry about luxury tax? Would an overpay now be a significant underpay if we could just blow through that number?
I think that's a key question. I'm willing to bet that there are going to be some significant changes to the next CBA, and this might well be one of the. The current system is clearly not working as the parties intended - well, at least some of the owners may be happy that it has worked as a constraint on spending, but it has not had the effect of having the FA spending reallocated to other teams.
 

Pitt the Elder

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Hey guys, thanks for the feedback. I've made a few adjustments to my model, which you can see below:

@EpsteinsGorillaSuit, How would you suggest I try to account for the actuarial risk in my model? I originally assumed that the aging curves took this into consideration, but I suppose they represent some survivorship bias - *if* you're still playing from age 30 onward, you can expect to lose a 0.5 WAR per season. Also, these curves are often presented as a rate stat of WAR per 600 PA and the like, so it's likely meant to represent true ability rather than output. As you age, players' skill decreases AND they play less, which would have a compounding effect. We're seeing this in real time with Pedroia, who's true skill is significantly lower than it was in, say, 2007, but who's primary problem right now is staying on the field. Anyway, to account of this, I've changed my assumption that a player loses 0.5 WAR per season from 30 onward to 1.0 WAR per season.

As for $/WAR inflation, I was originally factoring that into my discount factor - 5% salary inflation + 3.5% uncertainty factor. But if we're being conservative, I think we can justify knocking that combined factor down to 4%.

Updated values:
SeasonAgeWAR Player ValueDiscount FactorNPV PlayerContract ValueNPV Contract
2014211.80 $13.70 - $- $- $-
2015224.80 $38.10 - $- $- $-
2016238.20 $65.80 - $- $- $-
2017245.30 $42.80 - $- $- $-
20182510.40 $83.10 1.00 $83.10 $- $-
2019267.00 $56.00 0.96 $53.85 $30.00 $28.85
2020277.00 $56.00 0.92 $51.78 $30.00 $27.74
2021287.00 $56.00 0.89 $49.78 $30.00 $26.67
2022297.00 $56.00 0.85 $47.87 $30.00 $25.64
2023306.00 $48.00 0.82 $39.45 $30.00 $24.66
2024315.00 $40.00 0.79 $31.61 $30.00 $23.71
2025324.00 $32.00 0.76 $24.32 $30.00 $22.80
2026333.00 $24.00 0.73 $17.54 $30.00 $21.92
2027342.00 $16.00 0.70 $11.24 $30.00 $21.08
2028351.00 $8.00 0.68 $5.40 $30.00 $20.27
AssumptionsValue
3-Year Avg WAR7
NPV Factor4.00%
$/WAR$8.00
Total WAR49.00
Total Value$392.00
Total Present Value$332.84
Total Contract$300.00
Total Contract NPV$243.33
 

EpsteinsGorillaSuit

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I think the above seems reasonable, and a pretty good argument for Mookie to request a 10 year, $350M contract. I expect he will do just that!

Those more knowledgable of MLB contracts may know of a reason why the following would be disallowed, but say Mookie and the Red Sox wanted to enter into a career-long contract, which would be pretty close to $350M/10 years. Could they instead agree to a $400M/20 year deal, front loaded in such a way that Mookie would not be sacrificing NPV?

The idea would be to release or buy him out when no longer productive, with this structure having the effect of reducing his luxury tax hit from $35M/year to $20M/year. The cap hit would impact the team long after Mookie stopped playing, but one would assume that the cap will be much higher 15 years from now, such that $20M would not represent a major competitive disadvantage. Other than MLB not approving of an obvious attempt to side-step the luxury tax, is there another reason why the Red Sox or Betts not want to do this?