Serious Baseball: Win Value Project, Carlos Beltran

Now that I don’t have to introduce the system again, as I did that in my first two articles in this series, these Win Value write-ups will be much shorter.

Let’s figure the Win Value of Carlos Beltran.

Beltran is the opposite of Lance Berkman (my last subject) in that he adds to his total value by fielding his position, and running the bases well.

If you recall, Berkman, while a very good hitter produced at a level below what his salary called for, and probably will in the future due to this aforementioned lack of agility in the field and on the bases

Beltran is a much better value…

It was in the midst of his 2004 season with the Kansas City Royals when Beltran was traded to the Houston Astros where he went on to star for the them in the post-season and assured himself of a large contract that off-season—his first as a free agent.

The New York Mets ended up being the team to give him that large contract when, in January 2005, Beltran signed a contract with them worth a total of $119 million over 7 years. The total value of the contract includes an $11 million signing bonus, of which $7 million was paid to Beltran in 2005, and $2 million paid in both 2006 and 2007. These signing bonus amounts are included his salary structure presented below:

2005: $17 MM
2006: $14 MM
2007: $14 MM
2008: $18.5 MM
2009: $18.5 MM
2010: $18.5 MM
2011: $18.5 MM

Actually, $8.5 million of Beltran’s salaries in the 2008-2011 seasons are being deferred and paid to him after the contract expires. Even though the Mets aren’t paying him that amount in those seasons, he is being paid that amount for those seasons so we’ll use the full $18.5 million salaries for the analysis.

Here is a chart showing Beltran’s season stats and win value for each season he’s played under the new contract:

Beltran was a disappointment in 2005 only providing 3.56 wins while his salary called for 5.05. He made up for that in 2006, though, by providing a whopping 8.7 wins while his salary called for 3.76.

While he didn’t perform as well in 2007 as he did in 2006 he still provided great value to the Mets providing 4.67 wins while only being paid for 3.41.

For the years remaining on his contract Beltran is being paid for the following:

2008: 4.11 Wins
2009: 3.74 Wins
2010: 3.40 Wins
2011: 3.09 Wins

Can he achieve these win totals?

According to The Book Blog a player in his decline phase should be assumed to deteriorate by .5 wins per year. Beltran, being 31 this season is already in this phase, so subtracting .5 wins in each future season leaves him the following projected win values (amount of wins he’s being paid for in parentheses):

2008: 4.17 (4.11)
2009: 3.67 (3.74)
2010: 3.17 (3.40)
2011: 2.67 (3.09)

It seems Beltran will be right around his perceived value for the next two years, while being slightly overpaid in the last two.

A player with Beltran’s skill set (good fielder, good base runner, good patience at the plate) has a great chance to “beat the age curve” by a tad and I think for the remainder of the contract, Carlos Beltran will be “spot on” if not better than what he’s being paid for.

It’s funny because at the time of this signing many people thought the Mets drastically overpaid for Beltran. Now, it seems he is actually underpaid!

The entire value of the Beltran’s contract calls for him to provide 26.56 total wins to be “worthy” of his salary. Using those projected total win numbers from above (for 2008-2011) and adding them to his actual total win values from 2005-2007 would put Beltran at 30.61 total wins at contact’s end. Meaning he ends up providing about 4 wins more than he was paid for.

Unless something goes drastically wrong in the next four seasons (injury?) the New York Mets definitely deserve a “tip of the hat” for this signing.

I hope those who read this article will email me at frnkbndy@yahoo.com, or post a request for me on one of the message boards that I hope this article reaches and request that I figure out another players win value. I will be more than happy to do so.