This is the 4th best picture I've ever taken on Wednesdays when it rains!

In our never ending quest to quantify every last aspect of baseball imaginable, Tom Verducci has determined which teams have gotten the most bang for their buck in terms of wins, championships, and smugness.  He starts by taking us through cost per win which has the Yankees as the clear loser spending $1.75 million per win as opposed to the Florida Marlins who spent a mere $430,000.  But of course how can we place a monetary value on a win?  After all the goal of playing the game is to win and the goal of winning is to collect as many bandwagon fans as possible (especially in Austin, TX) so that you can sell more merchandise.  And the goal of selling more merchandise is to make every other fan in the rest of the world hate your team.  And the goal of team hatred is…something to do with bankrupting Third World countries. I think.  We’ll get that finalized later.

So after we figure out how much each team spends per win, we offset that by determining what these teams have achieved with those wins.  Did they win a WS, make the playoffs or win a pennant?  Well then they get achievement points!  Subtract achievement points from cost per win and you get Efficiency Rating (ER!!!!).  The smaller the number the better your team is at wisely spending money.

And the winner of the Efficiency Rating Contest of Baseball Awesome? Read the rest of this entry »

We here at MLJ are aware that sometimes our posts are erroneous, filled with facts, or just completely made up horseshit.  Sometimes this is because we don’t care to look up the “facts.”  And other times, when we get really lucky, shit happens later that makes our posts inaccurate.  Today I present to you: Dave Roberts.

Earlier this week a brilliant, brilliant man wrote: “Did you know Dave Roberts…gets paid to play baseball.”  Unfortunately, this is now a half truth.  Dave Roberts is getting paid, but he is not playing baseball.

Yesterday, the San Francisco Giants announced that they were going to eat the remaining $6.1M left on Dave Roberts 3 year/$18M contract and cut him from the team.  I know what you’re thinking and the answer is yes, Brian Sabean is a full grown retarded man that could be replaced by an Aztec Day Laborer and cost the team less money with just as many mistakes*.

You see that picture up top?  That’s the only good thing Dave Roberts has ever done.  And for that one act I am entirely grateful.  But let’s be realistic, getting more than $50 and free equipment is way beyond his paygrade.

I mean, come on.  While I don’t agree with all the names on this list of the 44 worst contracts in existence, the ones for the Giants seem pretty spot on: Read the rest of this entry »

In light of this ridiculous economic environment we now find ourselves in, it’s time to take another look back at some of the moves made this winter.  First up, the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Arizona received a great deal of criticism for two moves that seemed to backfire on them that were made before the full effect of the economic downturn became apparent.  The first was allowing Randy Johnson to sign with San Francisco only to sign John Garland for more money and the second was losing Orlando Hudson in exchange for Felipe Lopez.

Both of these moves, if observed in a vaccuum, are inexcusable.  Orlando Hudson is far more valuable than Lopez in every aspect of baseball.  He hits for a higher average, gets on base at a higher rate, hits more home runs, and is so much better defensively that it wouldn’t even matter if Lopez were slightly better with his bat.

Likewise, Randy Johnson is superior to John Garland in almost every aspect, with the exception being that Garland can eat up 200 innings per season while Randy will be lucky to get 120 innings under his belt anymore.

But, it appears that the Diamondbacks, in making these moves, were trying to avoid overpaying these players in light of the dropping market.  Consider the following: Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the first installment of Who’s Spending Money Wisely. I will try to get back to this often since one of my favorite parts about baseball is team development through drafting and trades. One of my favorite graphs on this subject can be found here.

While interesting on many levels–nice juxtaposition of salary ranking vs. league ranking over time–it is by no means perfect. For one thing, the only way the Yankees could get a blue line is if they were in first place since they have spent the most money (consider the Kansas City Royals on May 2nd). For another thing, who cares if you’re winning more than your respective slot if your team is still awful? That is, what difference does it make if the Pirates are the 6th worst team in Baseball and spent the 6th least amount of money? Does that make it okay? Are they getting an equal bang for their buck? Does that satisfy the citizens of Pittsburgh?

This graph does, however, do a nice job of showing who’s doing the most with the least. So far, we must commend the following teams: Florida, Oakland, Tampa, and Arizona. All of these teams are producing far beyond their financial expectations (we’ll get into their preseason expectations at a later time).

And of course, let’s not forget to chastise the poor spenders in the group. I’m looking at you, Yankees, Tigers, Mariners (?!?), and Padres. We expect it of New York and Detroit, especially after this past offseason, but San Diego and Seattle are surprises. First of all, I had no idea that Seattle spent almost $118 million this year. I know Adrian Beltre and Erik Bedard were living large, but that’s amazing. Secondly, the Padres are the worst team in the Majors right now. Worse than Washington and Pittsburgh and Kansas City. The worst. How many experts picked these guys to compete in the NL West based on pitching alone?

As a point of record, here is the graph for last year.

EDIT: Last year’s graph isn’t working, so here’s 2006.

Welcome to the first installment of Who’s Spending Money Wisely. I will try to get back to this often since one of my favorite parts about baseball is team development through drafting and trades. One of my favorite graphs on this subject can be found here.

While interesting on many levels–nice juxtaposition of salary ranking vs. league ranking over time–it is by no means perfect. For one thing, the only way the Yankees could get a blue line is if they were in first place since they have spent the most money (consider the Kansas City Royals on May 2nd). For another thing, who cares if you’re winning more than your respective slot if your team is still awful? That is, what difference does it make if the Pirates are the 6th worst team in Baseball and spent the 6th least amount of money? Does that make it okay? Are they getting an equal bang for their buck? Does that satisfy the citizens of Pittsburgh?

This graph does, however, do a nice job of showing who’s doing the most with the least. So far, we must commend the following teams: Florida, Oakland, Tampa, and Arizona. All of these teams are producing far beyond their financial expectations (we’ll get into their preseason expectations at a later time).

And of course, let’s not forget to chastise the poor spenders in the group. I’m looking at you, Yankees, Tigers, Mariners (?!?), and Padres. We expect it of New York and Detroit, especially after this past offseason, but San Diego and Seattle are surprises. First of all, I had no idea that Seattle spent almost $118 million this year. I know Adrian Beltre and Erik Bedard were living large, but that’s amazing. Secondly, the Padres are the worst team in the Majors right now. Worse than Washington and Pittsburgh and Kansas City. The worst. How many experts picked these guys to compete in the NL West based on pitching alone?

As a point of record, here is the graph for last year.

EDIT: Last year’s graph isn’t working, so here’s 2006.