GMs, Managers, and the Almighty $ (in millions)

[Wally Mo Pena]

How does the old saying go? Money talks and something something…

In any case, in the world of baseball, there is no doubt that money wins and GMs/managers spin. There’s no salary cap in baseball, we all know it, we know the effect, and we’ve all heard a certain something spewing forth from the front offices and coaching staffs of our favorite teams as they try to sidestep the obvious (e.g. “We’re exploring all our options, internally and externally,” or “We’re going back to fundamentals,” or whatever your GM or your manager has told you they are going to do to help your team win.)

These are the facts though: teams with winning records spent an average of $72 million on payroll in 2005, while teams at or below .500 spent $44 mil. This isn’t headline news.

But at the same time, most of us have delivered a hearty slap to our foreheads at one point or another in reaction to a bad signing/trade/pitching move/lineup perpetrated by our front office or coaching staff. Others of us have spent large portions of the season unconscious on the floor due to the frequency of such slaps. There is a difference between GMs/managers, but it can be hard to see when the gaps in salary are so pronounced. To explore these differences in the past season I’m going to use modifications of two fairly well accepted methods: Marginal Wins/Marginal Salary and Expected W-L.

Generally Speaking

One way to look at how well a front office is performing is to look at how many wins above the “minimum” (marginal wins) a team was able to get compared to how much they spent above the “minimum” (marginal salary). This method (first published in baseball prospectus to my knowledge) lets you see how much a team paid for each marginal win, but can be a little tricky because you have to define the “minimums.” BP established levels I wasn’t happy with, and for this examination I have developed the figures of a $16 mil min. salary and a .300 winning percentage as a minimum or replacement level. PM me for more details on why.

Another modification I’ve made is to highlight as “good” only those GMs who were able to scrape together a season near or above .500, because the system falls apart at the lowest salary levels. Two teams with good ratios were TB and PIT, both terrible teams, mostly a product of how little they spend rather than a comment on their front offices. For reference, the average across all of baseball was to spend $1.8 mil per marginal win. The best front offices this year were:

Cleveland: at a surreal $.582mil/MW the tribe got their 93 wins on the super cheap, most of those coming in one Ebay auction that closed at 4am. That’s why you have to check people.

Milwaukee: second best at .748, their front office had reason to be proud of 81 and 81.

Toronto: barely missed .500 with 80 wins, not bad paying less than a mil (.925) for each MW.

Washington: lead by the savvy Jim Bowden, the bad news was that the Nats paid 8 mil more than the brewers for the same .500 record. The good news was that it was still only $1.006mil/MW.

Oakland: Mr. Beane rounds out the top 5, getting 88 wins at $1.012mil/MW.

Not a playoff team among them, but when the highest salary is 55 mil (17 mil less than the average winning team) these front offices are doing what they can. Honorable mention to the white sox, who at 1.175 used everything they had to win it all.

The front offices that spent the most carelessly this year were:

The Yankees: what did you expect with that payroll? Spending over $4 million per marginal win, nearly twice what the red sox paid for the same record, the bombers were the grossest example of using brute force to make the playoffs. They would have needed 106 wins just to get to the average spending per MW, which may explain the heat that Cashman felt during the year.

Seattle: $3.426mil/MW, yeech.

Dodgers: $2.903mil/MW… and you’re fired.

KC: $2.822mil/MW, see… not every cheapskate can scrape together a mediocre season

Sanfran: $2.784mil/MW, but it probably would have been a lot better if Bonds hadn’t been hurt all year and they hadn’t cracked down on steroid use.

The Art of the Pep Talk

It can be tough to evaluate a coaching staff. Is it the players that stink, or the instruction their receiving? Or in the reds case, which stink is worse? Certainly there are sophisticated trend analyses, but even these are suspect with factors like aging, variant team travel, chemistry, steroids etc.

One fairly straightforward method is to look at the expected wins and losses for a team (a very accurate statistic based on runs scored and runs allowed) to see which teams always seemed to steal victory from the jaws of defeat with a brilliant double switch, and which teams left a few wins on the field sending the runner (cough, Sveum). The accepted formula for expected wins is 162*(RS^2/(RS^2+RA^2), but I’ve used a modified version where all figures are taken to the power ^1.85, rather than 2, which is based upon more current statistical research.

The best managers (and coaching staffs) were:

Arizona: What!? Yes it’s true the dbacks played a nearly unprecedented 11.3 games better than predicted, while being outscored by a dismal 160 runs. Give credit where credit is due, they kept themselves in a playoff race (a ridiculous notion on it’s own with 77 wins) and could Easily have been in the basement. Players, bad as they might be, were being used at the right times for sure.

White Sox: Who didn’t see this one coming? Ozzie seemed to have the golden touch this year, and his championship team played 7.6 games over their prediction to prove it. That is very high for most years.

San Diego: What’s the only thing that beats a great manager with a terrible team (Arizona)? A good manager with a less terrible team apparently, which isn’t that surprising I guess. But the 5.4 games the Pads played over prediction were just what the upstart diamond backs needed to make the playoffs, so give Boche and his staff their due. They didn’t have much to work with, but they made it enough.

Yankees: In a weird twist, could it have been Torre that saved Cashman? Imagine if the pinstripes hadn’t played the 5.3 over prediction that they did. A) the Indians make the playoffs, B) they would have had an even worse MW/MS ratio. Torre may have saved both of them in the end.

Boston: at 4.85 over Tito is closer to normal, but still worth mentioning. The sox had a lot of pressure at the end of the year too, and the staff certainly made some smart moves to get them through.

The worst were:

Toronto: 8 games under, what happened? Undoubtedly some of those games went to the sneaky Torre and Tito, but it seems their GM actually did better than originally suspected, and the staff dropped the ball. With some changes they could really put some pressure on the teams at the top next year.

Seattle: I guess playing 6.6 under prediction explains their terrible front office spending a little, but not that much.

Mets: a tough division all the way around, and a mistake here and there cost the amazins 6 games that could have made the playoff race very interesting.

Oakland: they staged a crazy comeback so it’s hard to pin the 4.88 below on macha et al, especially when he had the A’s at 5 over last year.

Pittsburg: again, 4.82 below isn’t too far outside the margin of error for this stat, but interestingly the Bucs are the only team on this list to fire their manager.

So that’s it. When the BWAA gives me my votes i'd give executive of the year to Shapiro in Cleveland and worst exec to Bill Bavasi in Seatlle (as much as i want to give it to cashman, he did get to the playoffs). Manager of the year goes to Bob Melvin in arizona who actually manages in a stadium named after him he's so good, and worst goes to John Gibbons in Toronto.

Sorry this was so long those of you who made it this far. I just can’t believe the reds stayed off the bad lists. To illustrate my media southern ohio bias, I will mention that the redlegs played 2 games under prediction and spent 1.789mil/MW. Underwhelming at best.

[General]

Interesting article, Wally. Good job.

[missionhockey21]

(e.g. “We’re exploring all our options, internally and externally,” or “We’re going back to fundamentals,” or whatever your GM or your manager has told you they are going to do to help your team win.)

To Reds fans, Quote 1: The man in charge of getting the talent to win. Quote 2: Any coach we have hired in recent memory that stresses those but never seems to make significant progress in regards to that.

One way to look at how well a front office is performing is to look at how many wins above the “minimum” (marginal wins) a team was able to get compared to how much they spent above the “minimum” (marginal salary).

Some practical uses of those Economic terms I have been looking at this semster, awesome.

But seriously, great article Wally. Despite what I think I know about stats and such, I always come away from your articles at least learning a few things. Very interesting analysis.

+rep.

[suppy]

[Fishercat]

Very good research, and this certainly deserves some major rep. I had no idea the Indians were that efficent, and I'm surprised the Sox aren't one of the worst economic teams (although they're close to B5).

[redsrbetter]

rep all out man. You keep doing this and you should look into a different career bro. All together a learning experience for me as well.