Win Value Project: Lance Berkman

Back to the Win Value Project…

I have to admit it, I love this idea, but it’s not mine in its originality. Analysts and writers far smarter than I, such as Tom Tango and Dave Studeman, have done, and are still doing projects just like this. But my study was vastly different than theirs (and inferior) in that it used different statistics, and different monetary figures.

Well, after a reception to my first article that can only be called tepid at best, I decided to get to work on overhauling this puppy.

One of the emails I received in response to that first article “linked” me to Tom Tango’s “The Book” Blog where I learned valuable lessons on how to figure out a player’s yearly W.A.R (Wins above replacement), found each player’s fielding runs as figured by Mitchel Lichtman’s UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating) system, and found more accurate dollar figures for my project.

Just as importantly, there were studies done there to show why the stats I was using in the Varitek article (VORP, and FRAR) were wrong.

I’m not going to lie; I delved right into the blog and started using Tom Tango’s numbers “digit-for-digit.” I did, though, have to calculate W.A.R. on my own. I am assuming my products are correct, but if they are not, I beg of any reader to email me and put me in my place.

I have also changed my concept of a team having its “own price” for a marginal victory. This is how I stated this theory in the original article:

“To do this I used a spreadsheet to figure out what each team paid for a marginal win in any given year. By using each teams total payroll, subtracting the league minimum and dividing that by the number of marginal wins they accrued (number of wins over 45) I was able to derive how valuable, in monetary terms, a marginal win was to each team…”

“One advantage any team has when signing a free agent is that the money they agree to pay a free agent in, say 2005, always remains the same. Regardless of inflation, or the rise in price of a marginal win, if a team paid player X $10 million dollars for two years in the off-season of 2005, the only way they had of measuring what they were paying for was their previous seasons “Price per Marginal win.”

This concept is silly in that it ignores the law of inflation, and fails to recognize that all teams, no matter how cheap, buy players in the same market. Just because the Kansas City Royals paid approximately $2.7 million per marginal win in 2004, doesn’t mean that is the number they should use to evaluate a free agent that off-season. They have to value him in a way close to what other teams would.

So what is this value? Based on numbers, again shown in The Book Blog, the price per marginal win after the 2006 season was $4 million. This price goes up 10% in each successive year due to inflation and that is why this past off-season that number had risen to $4.4 million.

This time around I will be using completely different dollar figures, and completely different stats, except for Equivalent Base running Runs (EqBrr) since, to date, there are no other publicly available base running metrics.

After adding each players W.A.R., UZR Fielding Runs, and EqBrr I came up with a number that represented how many marginal wins any player was worth in any given season.

Then I just took that player’s marginal salary, divided it by the price per marginal win, and saw if that player “earned” what he was being paid.

Let’s get to it.

Over on Talk-Baseball.com one of the readers of my first article asked me to figure the win value for Lance Berkman. While it took me quite a bit of time (as I was overhauling the system), here is that breakdown.

In the 2004 off-season Berkman was entering his sixth year of service and would have been a free agent after the season. He had asked for an $11 million annual salary for the 2005 season in arbitration, while the Houston Astros proposed $10 million. They settled on $10.5 million.

Then, in March of 2005 Berkman agreed to a six year $85 million dollar deal. The structure of the contract paid Berkman the already agreed upon $10.5 million in 2005, $14.5 million each season through 2010, and a guaranteed $2 million as part of a team option for 2011. Since his 2005 salary was already settled, the Astros, in all actuality, signed Berkman to a 5 year (2006-2010) $72.5 million deal (number excludes $2 MM guaranteed in 2011 as part of a team option).

It is important to note that Berkman was not a free agent at the time of the deal, so we shouldn’t use the full value of a “Free Agent marginal win” to figure his win value. According to The Book blog—again—estimates of what dollar figures to use for pre-free agency players are as so (based on years of service time):

20% - 2.x to 3 years less a day

40% - 3 to 4 years less a day

60% - 4 to 5 years less a day

80% - 5 to 6 years less a day

This means we would use 20% of the free agent marginal win price if a player signs a contract when he has between 2-3 years of service time, and so on down the line.

Since Berkman wasn’t a free agent at the time of the signing, according to the above chart the Astros are presumed to have paid him 80% of the free agent price per marginal win. This is what we will use for the analysis.

Assuming the rate of inflation is 10%, if I “backtrack” from the 2006 off-season (when the price per marginal win for a free agent was $4 million) I can figure out that the price per marginal win for a free agent rose as follows (figures are rounded to nearest thousandth dollar):

2004 off-season (when Berkman signed): $3.306 MM
2005 off-season (Berkman’s first year under new contract): $3.636 MM

and will continue to rise as so…

2007 off-season (this past off season) $4.4 MM
2008 off-season: $4.84 MM
2009 off-season (last off-season Berkman will be under contract): $5.324 MM

Here is a chart showing Berkman’s marginal win value in each season since (and including) 2006:

***Wins are figured by dividing runs by 10.5 (except for with WAR). This is different from the number I used in the Varitek article; 10. Again, this number comes from The Book Blog. ***

Berkman’s fielding and base running definitely leave a lot to be desired. Overall, though, due to his hitting, he is a net positive to the Astros.

Using the derived price per marginal victory (80% of free agent price) for each season and dividing it by Berkman’s marginal salary shows that Berkman hasn’t completely lived up to his end of the deal, thus far.

In 2006 the Astros paid him for 4.87 marginal wins and he provided 4.86...right on the money. Last season, though, Berkman had one of his worst years as a professional and only posted 3.20 marginal wins while being paid for 4.41.

Going forward the Astros will be paying Berkman to produce 4.01 marginal wins in 2008, 3.64 in 2009, and 3.31 in 2010.

Assuming that 2008 is Berkman’s age-32 season, it’s hard to believe he is going to post those types of numbers in his future seasons.

For what it's worth, I have Berkman as posting only 2.18 marginal wins in 2005. So if you take that into consideration you are looking at a player who has only surpassed the 3.5 marginal win level once in the last three seasons, and is over 30 years of age.

It seems that through 2010 Lance Berkman will be nothing but an all-hit, no-field, overpaid, lumbering first baseman.

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.Thank you