Spend Less, Win More.
- Thread starter absintheofmalaise
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I read this today and while I enjoyed it, I was a disappointed in how little there was in the way of analysis. The article essentially presents a thesis, stated well in the Gladwell quote, and then briefly illustrates how the 2013 Red Sox fit into that concept. I understand the excerpt is for Slate so there shouldn't be an expectation of in-depth 'through the rabbit hole' sabermetrics and/or game theory but some of the best articles on other subjects do go into great detail of the arcane bits and really suck you in. This read to me like a really simple, watered-down article for non-baseball fans on one team spending less money and winning. Causation/correlation issues aside, I kind of wanted more meat.
Did anyone else feel this way? I like Speier so I really feel like this is more of a just a quick cross-marketing opportunity for Baseball Prospectus. As a fan of baseball, baseball prospectus, sabermetrics, game theory, economics and everything else the article could be about or represented, it left me a little cold.
Did anyone else feel this way? I like Speier so I really feel like this is more of a just a quick cross-marketing opportunity for Baseball Prospectus. As a fan of baseball, baseball prospectus, sabermetrics, game theory, economics and everything else the article could be about or represented, it left me a little cold.
Yep. We're agreeing a lot at the moment.
The piece mostly fit the 2013 Red Sox into the narrative without doing much to explain why it worked. This sort of thing always looks magical in hindsight when you massage whatever you want. Take the lead sentence:
I mean... what does that mean? Who decides who's "supposed" to be signed and why are they different than the other players?
The piece mostly fit the 2013 Red Sox into the narrative without doing much to explain why it worked. This sort of thing always looks magical in hindsight when you massage whatever you want. Take the lead sentence:
I mean... what does that mean? Who decides who's "supposed" to be signed and why are they different than the other players?
After the disastrous reign of Bobby the Fifth, Cherington was "supposed" to sign character guys -- and he did: Farrell, Gomes, Uehara, Napoli, Victorino and Dempster renewed the clubhouse. They also proved to be good value, with the possible exceptions of Gomes and Dempster, who were fairly priced.
The thing is that there is this narrative about the Punto trade changing their approach. But I don't think it did. Maybe they will not do gigantic mega deals like the Crawford and Gonzalez ones for a while (though even that much I doubt if the right player came along), but they still spent nearly to the luxury tax and got to the luxo tax when they acquired Peavy. So maybe they are less Goliath and more Voltron, spreading out their spending but still spending.
By the way, I also want to recognise for much of the non-SoSH or SABR etc audience, this is actually a very useful starting point to understand some of the different approaches taken by the Sox. I think Speir deserves credit for that, and I get that.
I have a pet theory about this, that I've never had a good name for... call it "David's Advantage", in the spirit of the article. It goes something like this:
1. "Goliath"-style roster construction (team full of superstar free agents) is intrinsically built to under-perform. Specifically, when signing a megabuck FA contract, getting par value for your dollar is not the average outcome, it is the best possible outcome. Everything else on the spectrum of possible outcomes is negative, downside, disappointment. "Goliath" contracts intrinsically tend to have a poor "performance realization rate" (I just made that up). That is, placed on some kind of matrix of WAR/$ or something, these contracts are overwhelmingly going to be below the curve, where performance is something less than 100% of what was paid for.
2. Following (1), it is therefore necessary, when attempting to build a roster of Goliaths, to not just over-spend, but to WAY over-spend. It is like inverse Moneyball, where the more you spend, the more you are paying for upper-limit ceiling, while getting median-line regression. It's not that superstar free agents are bad players (not at all), just that they are rarely as good as their paychecks on a consistent basis, and are virtually never better than what they end up getting paid. When that "WAR realization rate" is consistently below 100%, that means, in order to reliably win 95 games via payroll, you actually need to pay for something like a 100-win team, because you are only getting a percentage of what you paid for.
3. The alternative, building a roster with low-cost or middle-cost "Davids", means paying for less WAR or whatever, but also having contracts with both upside and downside. It is not merely possible, but almost inevitable, that at least some "Davids" will have a breakout year, or a lucky year, or a late-career resurgence, or in some way outperform what they are getting paid. Of course, some will also under-perform, and the overall team will tend to produce about what you paid for it, assuming a static roster. That is, some players will have a "performance realization rate" of over 100%, some under. Such is the nature of averages. (In fact, it's a safe bet that the most cheapskate teams fielding the least-promising players will tend to show the most out-performance relative to spend, but not necessarily enough to make them fun to watch. I'm more interested in the competitive Davids than the ones who died nobly.)
4. Following (3), the magic happens for the Davids when we consider the realities of roster flexibility. The Goliaths are trapped, in a sense, by already having "the best of everything": their contracts are not tradable, and cutting/benching people making $20MM AAV is not a realistic option. The roster is carved in stone. No such restrictions apply to the Davids: they can make legit trades, they can move slow fielders to first or DH, they can bring up exciting young prospects, give playing time to the people having a good year and bench the guys having a bad year, etc. An analogy might be early in a draw poker game where Goliath is committed to a straight-flush draw, while David is holding two pair, or something...
Note that this "advantage" does not mean that David will consistently be better than Goliath, just that David (smartly managed) will tend to have a higher "performance realization rate" than Goliath. E.g., David might spend on a pace to win 88 games, and achieve something from 86-95 wins, whereas Goliath might spend on pace to win 100 games, and win something from 92-98.
I have not figured out a good way to test or codify this yet, but deep in my heart I feel there's something to it.
Edit: i forgot to mention an extremely important component of my theory, which is the compounding long-term effect of FA decisions on the farm system. Draft picks are like pre-tax contributions to long-term savings, and investment in the farm system pays far more valuable dividends than spending on free agents. It just takes longer, and the effects are often indirect, so the benefits are less obvious. It's also something where the marginal value of any one draft pickdecision is often negligible, but the cumulative effect of consistently stewarding your draft picks wisely is huge... it's like the "starbucks effect" in personal-finance circles: each cup of coffee you buy is neglible in terms of its effect on you overall finances, but the difference between a cup of Starucks every day, versus the same amount invested and compounded over time, is huge.
1. "Goliath"-style roster construction (team full of superstar free agents) is intrinsically built to under-perform. Specifically, when signing a megabuck FA contract, getting par value for your dollar is not the average outcome, it is the best possible outcome. Everything else on the spectrum of possible outcomes is negative, downside, disappointment. "Goliath" contracts intrinsically tend to have a poor "performance realization rate" (I just made that up). That is, placed on some kind of matrix of WAR/$ or something, these contracts are overwhelmingly going to be below the curve, where performance is something less than 100% of what was paid for.
2. Following (1), it is therefore necessary, when attempting to build a roster of Goliaths, to not just over-spend, but to WAY over-spend. It is like inverse Moneyball, where the more you spend, the more you are paying for upper-limit ceiling, while getting median-line regression. It's not that superstar free agents are bad players (not at all), just that they are rarely as good as their paychecks on a consistent basis, and are virtually never better than what they end up getting paid. When that "WAR realization rate" is consistently below 100%, that means, in order to reliably win 95 games via payroll, you actually need to pay for something like a 100-win team, because you are only getting a percentage of what you paid for.
3. The alternative, building a roster with low-cost or middle-cost "Davids", means paying for less WAR or whatever, but also having contracts with both upside and downside. It is not merely possible, but almost inevitable, that at least some "Davids" will have a breakout year, or a lucky year, or a late-career resurgence, or in some way outperform what they are getting paid. Of course, some will also under-perform, and the overall team will tend to produce about what you paid for it, assuming a static roster. That is, some players will have a "performance realization rate" of over 100%, some under. Such is the nature of averages. (In fact, it's a safe bet that the most cheapskate teams fielding the least-promising players will tend to show the most out-performance relative to spend, but not necessarily enough to make them fun to watch. I'm more interested in the competitive Davids than the ones who died nobly.)
4. Following (3), the magic happens for the Davids when we consider the realities of roster flexibility. The Goliaths are trapped, in a sense, by already having "the best of everything": their contracts are not tradable, and cutting/benching people making $20MM AAV is not a realistic option. The roster is carved in stone. No such restrictions apply to the Davids: they can make legit trades, they can move slow fielders to first or DH, they can bring up exciting young prospects, give playing time to the people having a good year and bench the guys having a bad year, etc. An analogy might be early in a draw poker game where Goliath is committed to a straight-flush draw, while David is holding two pair, or something...
Note that this "advantage" does not mean that David will consistently be better than Goliath, just that David (smartly managed) will tend to have a higher "performance realization rate" than Goliath. E.g., David might spend on a pace to win 88 games, and achieve something from 86-95 wins, whereas Goliath might spend on pace to win 100 games, and win something from 92-98.
I have not figured out a good way to test or codify this yet, but deep in my heart I feel there's something to it.
Edit: i forgot to mention an extremely important component of my theory, which is the compounding long-term effect of FA decisions on the farm system. Draft picks are like pre-tax contributions to long-term savings, and investment in the farm system pays far more valuable dividends than spending on free agents. It just takes longer, and the effects are often indirect, so the benefits are less obvious. It's also something where the marginal value of any one draft pickdecision is often negligible, but the cumulative effect of consistently stewarding your draft picks wisely is huge... it's like the "starbucks effect" in personal-finance circles: each cup of coffee you buy is neglible in terms of its effect on you overall finances, but the difference between a cup of Starucks every day, versus the same amount invested and compounded over time, is huge.
SydneySox said:
See what the Yankees do every offseason. It's almost a forgone conclusion who they're going to sign, and they rarely disappoint, much to their eventual chagrin.
smastroyin said:
Yes and no.
The Punto trade was a do over for the Crawford deal, which they regretted, and a way to get rid of a clubhouse "bad guy" in Beckett. For that they had to give up a good player signed to a big (but perhaps worth it) contract.
Now they still had some contracts left, and when looking for their replacements they had to pay market value, so we cannot really expect payroll to be slashed because they got rid if 2 bloated contracts.
Drocca said:
Yep.
I don't think it's as simple as the Sox signing more affordable FAs to long term deals.
The article didn't mention the trades (including the fact we basically traded for Farrell) or the turnover in the coaching staff.
Also, the "they got good performances" argument rings a bit hollow. We did - looking at the FAs, but I think the "depth" issue shouldn't be discounted when discussing the 2013 title. We lost Hanrahan, Miller, Bailey. Drew and Ross had concussions. Buchholz was out for a huge chunk of the season.
I think there is really just one thing fundamentally wrong with this piece, and that's not really acknowledging that the Sox could adopt the no long term contract strategy because they had the star caliber talent in house to be competitive. Five of the top six in oWAR and two of the top three in dWAR were incumbents, as well as six of the top seven in pitching WAR.
They gambled. They got supporting players hoping that the stars they already had would have good seasons. They almost universally did, plus Daniel Nava and Shane Victorino did much better than expected.
Had the Sox been an actual 69 win talent level team, I don't think the same strategy would have had a chance of working.
They gambled. They got supporting players hoping that the stars they already had would have good seasons. They almost universally did, plus Daniel Nava and Shane Victorino did much better than expected.
Had the Sox been an actual 69 win talent level team, I don't think the same strategy would have had a chance of working.
smastroyin said:
I think you're right that the metaphor is a bit inapt, in that they're talking about bringing in several players and hoping a couple pan out as Davids rather than bringing in Goliath who might fall; what we're talking about is building the army rather than relying on the hero. ("Army of One" has to be the most ridiculous motto a military branch has ever adopted for just this reason.)
Of course, there's also the benefit of rotating Davids, which is what the deep depth is all about; one guy goes down and another guy fills in. But beyond the injury protection, looking back, it seems to me that Farrell had an amazing luxury in his options, and this is what I mean by not knowing who David is going to be ahead of time. Salty stops hitting? Put in Ross. WMB stalls? Play X at 3rd and Drew at SS. Hell, put in Gomes just because he feels like a winner, why the heck not? Farrell's choices generated a ton of discussion and often disagreement, but that's largely a function of the thing itself: he actually had options, and that's a very good thing.
yep said:
I still think that movie was some of Charlie Sheen's best work.
All kidding aside, as per what I wrote above, I largely agree. That's when I was doing my wOBA posts towards the end of the season, I threw Josh Hamilton in just for good measure. Get a bunch of guys with potential and invest in a staff who can spot who's playing well and who will pan out. That said, last year was absurd with respect with how the "high upside" guys the FO brought in all came up basically aces, and I think most of us assume while there was some skill there, there was also luck involved.
But here's to hoping that a significant amount of it was skill, yeah?
Interestingly, Speier wrote a similar article, "Blueprint of a Champion," for the 2014 Lindy's Red Sox In The Dugout magazine. I wonder if he included anything more substantial in it.
This is the part where some cliche about luck being the intersection of preperation and opportunity or something.Reverend said:
I want to write something heady about luck being something than can be harnessed and exploited if you anticipate it, and make decisions based on spectrums of probability, but I'm not really smart enough to do that.
Forgetting about Speier, thanks for the heads up on the magazine. I hadn't seen it mentioned anywhere else on the site.Frisbetarian said: