Market Value in MLB

[PC]

The Nats run such a leak proof front office we don't get the standard gossip. We never know what's going on until it happens. Somehow people have taken not signing players to not trying. We have seen what Zimmerman signed for twice,what Gonzalez got and what was offered Desmond. None of these seem to scream underpaid or low balled to me. But then again I'm cheap

Zimmerman's and Gonzalez's contracts were extremely team friendly.

[blue911]

Zimmerman's and Gonzalez's contracts were extremely team friendly.

Both were comparable to what Pedroia and Lester had agreed to with the Red Sox. If that's team friendly, fine but it certainly isn't a low ball number.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

by the way, you may be right about your sense of the JZ talks.  He may be a rural kid who is satisfied already with the money he has made and decided to play with house money and see what he could get rather than go the more risk-averse route of taking an offer 4 years ago.  We don't know what the terms were of the offer.  There did seem like a pretty defined market price of around $30 MM for 5 years right at the time of the first arbitration.  If it was offered and turned down, then I agree that he was just going to take it to free agency.  If it was not offered, or if the Nats tried to discount it due to the TJ, then I think they fooled themselves.  We'll never know.

As for more generally with the Nats, the fact that Harper, Strasburg, Rendon, Espinosa, and others are all Boras clients probably means the Nats have fewer opportunities for deals trading certainty early for free agency years.  Ryan Z and Gio went for such deals, Ramos / Storen / Clippard did not, and I'm not sure the latter two should have gotten this type of offer due to the volatility of relievers.  It'll be interesting to see what they do with Roark if he has another good year.

[blue911]

I thought about Roark but he really isn't  a must sign guy. He's simply too old to want to lock up any of his free agency years.

[HalfSmokes]

If Taylor puts together a great season, he could be, young and a sixth round pick - so not already wealthy

[Count Walewski]

By definition, to me this term requires multiple buyers. So I'm never going to refer to an extension deal as "market value".

Theoretically, I guess you could attempt to compare players and answer the question "what would this person go for, if he were on the market" and do an extension that way. But the problem is that players are not 100% comparable. Sure, two guys might have very similar stats. But they will differ in age, they will differ in the soundness of their mechanics, in height, in past medical history, in what ballparks the stats were put up in, etc. And differences of time matter too. How many other free agents there are at the time matters. Which teams are in on the bidding matter. I'm skeptical that you can compute a true "market value" for ballplayers except by the actual free agent process.

[dracnal]

Comparing a player to other players to determine value is exactly how the process works now.  When teams and players go to arbitration, they are specifically picking a player they compare to and saying 'I am this guy,' vs. 'He really isn't. He's more like this other guy.'

Blevins goes in to arb and says 'My stats and upside make me the equal of Matt Thornton' and the Nats say 'Eh... no you're more a Treinen caliber,' then proceed to examine the player's flaws and faults in detail and trash him repeatedly. It's why arbitration tends to be so toxic, win or lose for the player.

**edit to add: I totally agree with your conclusion. You can't truly establish market value that way because that would ignore the fact that a market of one is a monopoly, not a market.