Friday, November 11, 2022

Baseball Players Have No Intrinsic Value

 

As all the world wonders over whether Aaron Judge will re-sign with your New York Yankees, the debate over whether or not the Yanks should sign him veers into the usual quagmire of logic.

"Ten years? Eight years?" we hear over and over again. "Why, Judge is 30! He'll be terrible by the end of that contract!"

He may well be. But that argument misses several big forests for the trees, starting with the simple fact that baseball players have no intrinsic value.

To begin with, ballplayers never exist in stasis. They always tend to get better or worse, for a wide variety of reasons.

Age is one. It's generally thought that—without the latest Joy Juice—most baseball players peak at about 28. There is considerable evidence that it might even be much earlier—maybe as young as 21-25 for many players—because that's when they're at top physical condition, other teams haven't learned to pitch to them yet, etc. (This seems to be especially true for "speed" players, which Judge is not, good as he is at stealing bases.)

Other players—usually the best players—manage to make adjustments to aging. They take on what my brother-in-law calls "manpower"—sacrificing power for average as they put on a few pounds. (I don't think this much applies in Judge's case.) Or they pay attention—to pitchers, to the game in general, and gain (at least a little) in field smarts what they lose in athleticism.

Then there are what Rumsy called the known unknowns: injuries; wine, women, and song; the general ennui of 21st century life (this, again, is not something that really bothers a lot of ballplayers).  

So yes, Aaron Judge is 30 years old, and therefore is more likely to get injured in the years just ahead, and likely to be a lesser ballplayer—perhaps a much lesser ballplayer—near the end of an extended contract.


There was, therefore, an argument to be made for Brian Cashman and HAL to really think out just what they wanted to pay Judge BEFORE the 2022 season and, if it seemed like too much, to trade him and use the new players and the money saved to make over the team in interesting ways.

They didn't do that.

There've been all sorts of things written about how Aaron Judge, a very rich man at 29, "gambled" on himself and won. That's true—but the real gamble is the one that HAL and Cashie took, and they lost. They lost big time. If Judge walks now, they will have lost a huge amount of potential value, in the players or prospects they COULD have had for him.

Too late now.

But getting back to that "intrinsic value" thing. 

The algorithmic amongst us like to think of ballplayers purely in a theoretical, statistical value removed from the rest of the world, or at least just compared to other ballplayers. That way of thinking has its uses, and can be a valuable thing to do.

But it doesn't reflect the SITUATIONAL value of a ballplayer.

For instance, you might want to overpay, in players or cash, for that reliever or that DH because he's the one, missing element that will get you over the hump, and make you a champion (See the 2016 Cubs, and Sweatsman). You definitely want to look at the box office and the TV ratings, and think about what losing a player might do to them.

The Yankees, in 2022, led the AL with over 3.1 million fans—a HUGE jump over 2021, when they drew about 1.9 million. 

If Judge walks, considering the team that we know Cooperstown Cashman will put on the field without him, attendance could easily plunge back to that 1.9 million mark—or considerably lower.  Conservatively speaking, considering Yankee Stadium prices, that could mean a loss of $120 million—or three times an "outrageous" Judge yearly contract of $40 million. 

And we're not even talking about TV ratings, or the money to be gleaned from those fans who like to watch the Yankees on their phones, or their two-way, Dick Tracey wrist radios.

Judge by himself likely cannot win the Yankees a World Series. But say things break right, and they do take one, thanks to him having a great postseason (Hey, it can happen: look at A-Rod, 2009!). That's a huge haul for the Yankees right there.

And then there's the Yankees' brand, which contrary to what Hal Steinbrenner seems to believe is maintained only by them winning. A lot. Years of rebuilding with his moax of a GM is going to go nowhere, and likely to reduce revenue and interest exponentially. 

The more years with Cashman and without Judge, means the more years blowing hundreds of millions of dollars that could be safely tucked away into Steinbrenner kiddie trust funds.

So will Aaron Judge still be a record-busting hitter at 38? No, he will not. But that's the wrong question.

The right question is, "Is Aaron Judge the only thing standing between the New York Yankees and a years-long, financial bloodbath?" 

I'd say the answer to that, is yes.







9 comments:


  1. Hoss

    how about if these idiots continue to bat him lead-off?

    ReplyDelete
  2. When they say, "it's a business," the lords of baseball really it's about the revenue stream. To the extent that you need players to put on a game, yes, they have value, but hey, it's about the money that the owners can make. Even when they perhaps did not care much for the game, the Lords of Baseball at least knew enough to pay lip service to the history, tradition and yes, even the mystique and aura, as the Mega-Ass Schilling once spat out of his drooling mouth. Now, just as in the rest of all things cultural, there is no pretense and no need to pay lip service.

    We live in the ultimate age of nihilism, cynicism and greed.

    Long live the revenue stream! I'm going to hang a poster in my bedroom of the revenue stream. I'm glad I'm not an impressionable young lad now. I was once and that's when I became a Yankee fan. And it was NOT the best of times for the Yankees back when, but it did not matter. They carried the mantle of Ruth, DiMag, Mantle and, in my childhood, Murcer.

    Fuck Hal.

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Joe...blame the analytics folks for that...as it has been pointed out, math has ruined the game of baseball...

    If I were Hal and Brian Brain, I wouldn't sign Judge. Let Rizzo walk with him. If no free agents want to come to NY, this forces the FO"s hand and they will have to go with youth. Hell, they think their rotation is already set...a recipe for disaster...

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  4. "The mantle of Mantle"? But seriously, good point, Bitty, back in the day they had more of an understanding of what the Yankees' brand is, even if they couldn't always live up to it.

    Now, they've just acquiesced to what cartels usually do, which is find a way for nobody to lose, even if they're not very good.

    The majors have always been a cartel, of course, but for many years the Yanks were interested in maximizing their profit by producing the best "product" they could—sort of the ideal of capitalism.

    But HAL would rather try juuust enough, rather than have his cartel companions mad at him. I suspect that's not all that unusual in pro sports. But he's in a seriously declining sport, and a city that's not going to be satisfied with taking its turn as champion every 20-30 years.

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  5. Horace, as usual you got to the "crux of the biscuit" in fine form. I remember when players being depreciated against taxes as they aged was talked about in the media. I haven't heard anything about the subject in a long time. Have the tax codes changed, or was I living in the "High Castle" when I read about the depreciation angle? Needless to say, if players are "depreciable assets" whining Hal is even more despicable, as of course are all owners.

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  6. Don't fret, we still have Donaldson to help the revenue steam.

    Serious question, do visiting teams get a percentage of the gate?
    The Yank have been quite a road draw and I think that the visitors used to get part of the gate.
    The Yanks draw pretty well. Does Hal get a slice as well?
    you'd think that the owners from say, KC would want them to stay good.

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  7. I thought gate splitting ended for the regular season a while back. They still split the playoffs, I think.

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  8. Good point, Hoss! Judge is probably worth more to the Yankees than to anyone else. If HAL can get his greedy head of his vault long enough to stop counting his earnings, maybe he can see that.

    ReplyDelete

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