Marginal Value and Why I Don't Care if the Mets Bring Back Reyes

Quickly, who has been the most valuable Met this year?

Has it been Jose Reyes and his league-leading .336 batting average? Did Carlos Beltran have that distinction while he was here? Has David Wright's surge since coming back put him into the discussion?

No, no, and no -- if you are talking money, that is.

When you take into account the salary they are earning, the most valuable Met this season has been none other than Daniel Murphy. No, he does not have the highest WAR of any Met this year -- that distinction goes to Reyes -- but he has provided the most value at the least cost. That makes him the most valuable.

Below is a table with a majority of the Mets regulars, sorted from the highest WAR per dollar to lowest:


[I really hope you can read that.  I will provide the text version of that chart at the bottom of the post.]

Anybody with access to baseball-reference or fangraphs or who watches the game can tell you to a reasonable degree of certainty who is the most valuable player on the field.  But baseball is a business -- just like the other major sports -- and even though you and I might bleed blue-and-orange and think flags fly forever, for those who make the decisions it all comes down to money.  It's not that winning is irrelevant -- but winning almost always depends on having a strong financial position from which you can make moves in the future.

There is a very good (and very mathematically heavy and boring) article over at Baseball Prospectus which takes a look at the true costs and benefits to signing free agents.  In it, the author discusses the pricing of free agents (he calls it "the marginal cost of acquiring a player's contribution on the free-agent market") while also factoring in things such as the length of the deal (ex: a player gives up dollars in the first year for a guarantee of a longer contract at a lower average annual value) and the draft picks lost as compensation.  He provides a great example (I have edited out most of the math):

Which brings us to this next example, where the Tigers surrendered the 19^th pick in the 2010 draft to sign Jose Valverde to a two-year deal worth $14 million, which would be worth $22 million if the Tigers exercise a 2012 club option. Ignoring the draft-pick compensation, Valverde’s contract would look pretty good ... he would be worth $18.2 million if you ignore the draft picks.  However, the 19^th pick would ... 3.3 wins over the first six years, which ... is $10.5 million in foregone wins.

If you go to fangraphs, you'll see that at the bottom of each page they have a section for each player entitled "value."  In that section, there is listed the players salary, right next to a column which says "dollars."  The dollars column roughly amounts to how much a player providing that much value would cost on the free agent market.  Jose Reyes, for example, has posted 5.3 WAR so far this season, while the market in baseball generally values 5.3 WAR at a price of $23.9 million dollars.  Daniel Murphy, on the other hand, has provided 3.2 WAR which is valued at $14.3 million dollars.

Jose has been better, but Murphy has provided more bang for his buck.

So herein lies the problem:  once Jose Reyes - or any player - becomes eligible to test the free agent market, they are going to find someone to pay them what they are worth.  Or as is often the case, more than they are worth.  At that point, unless there is some kind of hometown discount being provided, that player is no more or less useful to your team than any other.  In fact, he may be LESS useful to your team specifically because you owned him to begin with -- by not allowing him to leave, you fail to get draft pick compensation that you would otherwise have.

For example, if the Mets were confronted with the ability to sign Jose Reyes or Hanley Ramirez, as free agents this winter, my only preference would become who would provide the better DEAL for our team.  I love Reyes, he is my favorite player.  But I'd rather see my team win without Reyes than lose with him.[1]

Back in 2005, when the Mets were on the precipice of their ill-fated dynasty, the world belonged to them.  In David Wright and Jose Reyes, the Mets had lucked into two all-star position players at almost exactly the same time.  Between 2006 and 2008, Reyes posted 6.1, 5.8, and 6.4 WAR.  In the same time span, Wright posted 5.2, 8.9, and 7.1 WAR.  All of those were All-Star campaigns, and in the case of Wright, what had a good argument as an MVP season.
But why did the Mets win so many games from 2006-2008?  It wasn't just because they had Wright and Reyes -- they still have Wright and Reyes.  It was because in 2006, Wright and Reyes made a COMBINED salary of less than a million dollars.  In 2007, they earned around $4.5 million dollars.  In 2008, they raked in less than ten million dollars.  As a whole, they earned approximately $15 million dollars while providing the Mets with value equivalent to what they would have to pay a free agent approximately $163 million dollars for.  That's $150 million dollars of profit.

So what did the Mets do when they had two, young, cost-controlled mega-stars?  They used the extra money that they had to PAY free agents.  They brought in Pedro Martinez, and Carlos Beltran, and Carlos Delgado, and Billy Wagner and so many others.  And for that stretch of time, the Mets were very, very good.  But when the Mets failed to win it all, it wasn't just a sadness that could be remedied next year -- it was the end of an era.  The window was, and remains, closed, for the Wright-Reyes Mets to be anything special.

Take an example of another very good team, last year's Texas Rangers.  They knew that they had a good, cheap nucleus of talent in Josh Hamilton ($5.5M), Ian Kinsler ($4.2M), Nelson Cruz ($440K), and others.  They could afford to pay free agent money to players that they thought would push them over the top -- like Vladimir Guerrero.

Even big market teams like the Red Sox cannot win without cost-controlled, home grown stars.  The Red Sox have players like Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Daniel Bard and Jon Lester under cost control -- so they could trade for Adrian Gonzalez and give him a lucrative contract extension, and they could pick up David Ortiz' contract option, and they could afford to make moves even with John Lackey's contract burdening them.

As for us, with Reyes and Wright reaching the point in their careers where they need to be paid what they are worth, it doesn't really matter if they are Mets or not-- outside of our weak, silly, baseball-fan hearts.  They will still be good players, but they will be no better for us than any other roll of the dice that we make on the free agent market.  Can a team built around a Wright and Reyes who are being paid market value still win?  Of course they can.  But the deck is no longer stacked in our favor.

For the next few years, the Mets are going to have to stand by and watch young, practically free superstars like Stephen Strasburg, Jason Heyward, Domonic Brown, Bryce Harper, Mike Stanton, Logan Morrison, Antonio Bastardo, Julio Teheran, Jonny Venters and a host of others provide All-Star if not superstar value for our rivals.  The question is -- do the Mets have reinforcements?  Can the Mets reload?

All of this, finally, brings us back to the table that we posted at the beginning of this article.  Although the Mets don't have any surefire stud prospects waiting in the wings to be our next Wright or Reyes, the Mets certainly do have a lot of cheap players who can provide value in 2012 and beyond. You don't have to be a stats nerd or sabermatrician to understand that having cheap players who can step into roles on a winning club has value.  You just may be surprised to learn how much.

Another way of looking at the above table is to look at the value provided beyond the salary they were paid.[2]  Sorting this way, Murphy is again the most valuable Met.  In third, however, is Jose Reyes, who has provided over $11 million in surplus value despite earning $11 million on this year's contract.  All in all, the Mets have 12 players who have provided more than $2 million in surplus value to the team, and even better, all of whom (except Chris Capuano and Reyes) remain under team control next year.

Add to these names (Murphy, Niese, Tejada, Davis, Dickey, Turner, Duda, Thole, Pagan, Parnell) the list of players we discussed last week in our Organization Report, and you've got yourself an excellent core of players to build around.

Would I like the Mets to resign Reyes?  Absolutely.  Would the Mets be a better team on the field for doing so?  Absolutely -- there is no player out there who can replace the value of a stud, in his prime, All-Star shortstop.  Will it make the Mets better suited financially in the future to compete with the other teams in the NL East?  Hard to say.

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[1]
The fangraphs values, and the generally accepted practice of attaching a dollar value to the WAR provided by a free agent, are misleading in that relative to the entire pool of players playing major league baseball, all free agents are overpaid.  As the salaries for players with less major league service time are strictly fixed by the rules and by arbitration, they can only wait for their free agent payday. 


[2]
The Top 12 Mets in providing value beyond their salary:

Value Beyond Salary WAR per $ IF Murphy $13,562,000.00 7.58 SP Niese $11,784,000.00 6.19 IF Reyes $11,724,000.00 0.47 IF Tejada $5,718,000.00 3.50 IF Davis $5,686,000.00 3.24 SP Dickey $5,179,000.00 0.76 SP Capuano $5,055,000.00 1.00 IF Turner $3,970,000.00 2.50 OF Duda $3,956,000.00 2.42 IF Thole $3,513,000.00 2.14 OF Pagan $2,618,000.00 0.40 RP Parnell $2,188,500.00 1.38

Reyes, Beltran, and the One Month Grace Period

When it comes to baseball, I am a strong believer that there is nothing better for you than playing the game. Getting reps, taking swings, making throws, seeing pitches, doing your regular routine - in my opinion, all of those things help more than any amount of working out or mental preparation could ever could. You just need to be near the game and to play.

With that said, I usually like to give players a week or two when returning from an injury before I really start evaluating them. With baseball being a game of milliseconds and millimeters, even the most imperceptible delay can be the difference between a home run and a harmless fly out.

In the cases of Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran, I was willing to give them longer than that. Not that I didn't hope or expect them to perform well - but I decided before the season that I would not make any conclusions about their future performance based on anything I saw from them in the first MONTH of play. Offensively and on the basepaths, that is. I think that defensively, it's a different kind of evaluation.

I did that for Beltran and Reyes this year the same way I did it for Wright last year. The same way I do that for a player on an opposing team. The same way I do it in fantasy baseball. It's not homerism - it's just an acknowledgement that baseball is a peculiar game and that it's silly to expect someone to come back to playing the game at its highest level on the planet without a delay.

Without any further adieu, I present to you the statistics for Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran, sans first month of play:

Carlos Beltran: .244/.360/.390, 750 OPS, .254 BABIP, 16 bb, 11 K
Jose Reyes: .301/.333/.461, 795 OPS, .313 BABIP, 19 bb, 36 K

Remember, of course, that the above line for Beltran does not include his double and home run from tonight. For both players, these present significant improvements over their season slash lines.

In addition, Beltran might be a victim of some bad luck -- his career BABIP is .301 and he's been hitting the ball at roughly the same rates as before, if with slightly less authority. Another 30 points of average, and that line is more like .274/.390/.430, which is something I'd sign up for.

As we turn our eyes to 2011, it is important that we do a good job - a smart job - taking inventory of what we have. Particularly of players like Reyes and Beltran, who are under Met control for 2011 but not for 2012.

Everyone who reads here will know where I fall on this topic, and I think it would behoove Mets management to take a good hard look at how Beltran and Reyes finish up this season, rather than how they started it, in making their evaluations going forward.

I'm Not Waving the White Flag Yet

But one thing that needs to be pointed out is that -- I mean, wow -- so many things have gone the Mets way this season. Almost all of the 'coin flips' heading into the season turned out in our favor, yet here we still are staring up at the Braves.

1. Jose Reyes came back healthy. Not amazing out of the gate, but healthy. And contributing.
2. Angel Pagan proved he could play every day.
3. Carlos Beltran came back later than we had hoped, but here he is, pushing Francoeur out of the lineup.
4. Wright's power returned.
5. Santana's elbow is ok, and he's pitching great.
6. Josh Thole and Jon Niese both are playing at the very very top end of what could have been projected for them at the start of the year.
7. RA Dickey came out of nowhere to pitch like -- and it's time to say it -- a legitimate #2 starter or ace (thus far)
8. Pelfrey has pitched more like 2008 than 2009.
9. The Phillies have suffered a ton of injuries.

All of these things, have broken in our favor, yet here we are. Our ace and our perennial all-star third baseman have each overcome adversity. Our two other all-star position players have returned from various career-threatening injuries. What more could you ask for?

I'm not throwing in the towel yet, but it is hard, very hard, not to wonder if the Mets have already given their all and fallen short. Eventually, not all the breaks will go our way.

Could it be better? Well... we do have a pythagorean W-L record of 50-43, one game worse than our actual record entering tonight. We have an 11-16 record in one run games, which is to some degree affected by luck. But for the most part? No.

We've gotten our breaks, and here we are in second place. Maybe Dickey and Niese will continue to dominate the National League. Maybe Santana will continue to outperform his peripherals. Maybe Pelfrey will recapture his early season dominance. Maybe Reyes and Beltran will round into the form they showed in their peak seasons. Maybe we will continue to avoid major injury.

It's still early, and as a Mets fan, dreaming is in your DNA. But it's getting late pretty early.

The Lineup Game

I don't usually play around with lineup construction (because it matters so little) but I heard one suggested on WFAN last night that I really liked. The show's host, who was a woman I had never heard before (usually listen during the day) had some really smart suggestions and had strong rationale for all of it. Here's how the order went.

1. Reyes
2. Pagan
3. Bay
4. Davis
5. Wright
6. Barajas
7. Francoeur/Carter
8. Pitcher
9. Castillo

She didn't seem to care whether Castillo was 8 or 9. In general, I like this idea. The question the Mets face now really seems to be what to do with Anegl Pagan if Reyes is back to leading off. Last night he batted seventh, which is a waste. He's been playing too well recently to bury down there.

I like the idea of leading off with Reyes AND Pagan, who are both dynamic speedsters with some pop, before getting to the heart of the order. I'd also bat Davis between Bay and Wright because of handedness. Barajas 6th is interesting but not crazy, not while he's hot. And then Castillo at the end of the lineup turns the lineup over -- he can bunt, he get get on base, and he can take pitches. As she mentioned, facing the Mets 7-8-9 when it was Barajas-Francoeur-Pitcher could end up in a lot of 5 or 6 pitch innings for the opposing team.

Anyway, that was her idea and I liked it. Not that it makes a huge difference.

On Jose Reyes' Position in the Batting Order

Relax, everyone. The fact of the matter is that Jose hits just as well in any position in the batting order, and where he bats is going to be irrelevant.

Jose's career numbers while leading off innings as compared to any other time:

- As first batter of the game, he has hit 300/335/439 for his career with 774 OPS
- As first batter of any particular inning, he has hit 293/334/436 for a 770 OPS
- In his career overall, he has hit 284/335/429 for an OPS of 764

He just stinks right now. This season he's hitting 221/275/298 overall but only 205/292/205 leading off any particular inning. He hit only 091/091/091 leading off the game this year.

Generally speaking, Reyes is a great player. In fact, he's about as close to a clutch hitter as we have - something I noticed years ago before I took the moniker of "Jose Reyes, RBI Machine" on the old metsgeek.com. Reyes has been incredibly clutch. For his career he has hit 286/363/462 with runners in scoring position for an 824 OPS, 16% above his career average. With two outs and RISP, those numbers shoot up to 270/375/493! That's an OPS of 868.

Moving him around isn't gonna change anything. He doesn't have his rhythm back and he's pressing. He'd do the same thing as a leadoff man. I might even prefer him as a leadoff man. These numbers are just to demonstrate how silly the debate has been. Jose would make a fine #3 hitter in this lineup if he was right... the key is to now have him fixed.

Guest Post: The Case For Batting Reyes Second

We are proud to feature yet another guest post this Friday morning at Fonzie Forever. Our good friend Sergio, an avid Mets fan and ballplayer, advocates below for something I've never even considered. I like that outside the box thinking. Anyway, enjoy.

Lineuping is one of my favorite end-of-spring-training things to do. The roster is set and now the serious part of the discussion turns from who should be on the team to where in the lineup the player should bat. I guess the idea in lineuping is to come up with a way to maximize the strengths of players, minimize weaknesses, and when there is a choice between two competing schemes that would each maximize two different players, to ask which one gives you a larger net gain in offense. It is an inexact science and all, which is part of the fun.

When it comes to the Mets, all offseason and spring training the question has been where to bat Reyes – and really the rest of the lineup falls into place when that question is answered. Most threads have argued for or against Reyes batting leadoff or Jerry Manuel’s idea of batting him third. And yet, surprisingly, hardly anyone has suggested batting Luis Castillo leadoff and Jose Reyes second. So after a winter and early spring of hearing a million lineup schemes – and I spent a lot of time on these threads – I say batting Reyes second is the way to go, but let’s look at all the arguments anyway.

Today Is a Good Day

No interesting spin, statistics, or analysis on this one, boys. Just the good news:

New York Mets shortstop Jose Reyes has been cleared to resume baseball activities after doctors determined his thyroid levels have returned to normal.

Mets general manager Omar Minaya said Reyes will resume full workouts Wednesday.

"It's a good sign for us today and, hopefully, it will be a good sign for the rest of the year," Minaya said. "Today is a good day."

Most teams take the health of their star players mostly for granted, but for us Mets fans, just getting our guys back on the field is cause for celebration.

As for when Reyes will be ready, that is still up in the air:

Though manager Jerry Manuel originally said Reyes likely needed 10 spring training games to be ready for regular-season play, Minaya did not want to speculate whether Reyes could appear in the April 5 opener against the Florida Marlins.

"Let's see how things go," Minaya said. "We are not going to say he is not going to be ready, but let's see when he comes out here how he gets himself prepared. The good thing is he came to camp in excellent shape. He is excited about being here, we are excited about him being here, but as far as Opening Day goes, we don't know."

Yay!

And now, just because I am happy... a clip of one of the greatest things the Mets have ever been affiliated with, the "Jose Reyes Spanish Academy."

Medical Opinion: Reyes' Thyroid Condition

The following article was written by Fonzie Forever contributor Hector Perez. Hector is a fourth year medical student and big-time Mets fan. We thank him for his awesome insight into this issue.[1]

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Jose Reyes is going to miss at least two to eight weeks for abnormal thyroid levels. Most readers are probably wondering why the long, variable recovery time and why Reyes needs to give up baseball entirely for the remainder of his recovery period. Some of the answers are contained within, but allow me to preface this article by saying that I have no knowledge of the intricacies of Reyes’ illness and, in particular, the clinical reasoning that went into the decisions passed down by the Mets team doctors. I have some clinical knowledge as a current Medical student, so I’m going to attempt to work backwards and try to evaluate best case and worst case scenarios for Reyes, using assumptions based upon the little we do know about the case.

Memo to Mets Fans and Bloggers: Calm Down About Reyes

To: Mets Fans and Bloggers
From: Fonzie Forever
Re: Reyes' Overactive Thyroid
Date: March 11, 2010

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Guys - take a deep breath.

I realize we live in a day and age where there is a 24 hour news cycle, where news and quotes are streamed instantly to our PDA's and where those who yell the craziest things from their virtual rooftops get the most attention. But please. Relax.

Yes, we got some bad news about Jose Reyes and his thyroid condition. Yes, Metsblog is reporting that Peter Greenberg, Reyes' agent, says it will "likely take 2-8 weeks" his thyroid levels to stabilize. I'm with you guys in that this is a terrible, unexpected thing to happen so far as our chances this season are concerned.

However, I call shenanegans on the media frenzy which has surrounded the allegedly "conflicting" statements issues by Reyes and by the Mets. Most media outlets reacted to the seemingly incongruous statements by the two parties with almost unbridled glee. More bad news for the Mets? And it's injury related? And we can spin this as organizational dysfunction? Hooray!!

On Jose Reyes Batting Third

I wasn't sure whether I was going to even respond to this silliness, but then Faith and Fear in Flushing took the words right out of my mouth:

Oh, rats. I swore I wasn’t going to get sucked into the Great Batting Order Kerfuffle of February 2010. These are the most pointless kerfuffles of any season, kerfuffling as they do six weeks before any manager has to submit any batting order that counts for anything. Didn’t Jerry Manuel make some noise about batting Jose Reyes third last year? Did Jose Reyes ever bat third? The answers are yes and no, respectively. In our first spring of blogging, a spitstorm erupted over Willie Randolph suggesting David Wright might bat eighth once the season started. Care to guess how often Wright batted eighth? Hint: His next time will be his first time.

Is Troy Tulowitzki Really the Best Young Player?

With all due respect to Evan Longoria, Justin Upton and Matt Wieters, the best young player in baseball right now is playing shortstop for the Colorado Rockies.

Not bad for a hook. But is this really the case? The writer for the
Boston Herald seems to think so.

I actually did not realize how good of a season Tulowitzki had last year. After a slow start, Tulo caught fire and ended the year hitting .297/.377/.552 with 32 home runs. Not bad for a shortstop with a great defensive reputation. But does that really make him the best young player in the game?



A closer look at his defensive statistics shows that Tulo's defensive reputation might be a vestige of his great defensive rookie season. His first year, in 2007, he posted a phenomenal +14.9 UZR in his time at shortstop. He had an injury shortened season in 2008 where he came in around average, and then last year posted a -1.2 UZR at shortstop.

Defensive metrics can, of course, be somewhat unreliable, but those statistics match what we can assume about Tulo in real life. We know that players defensive skills erode with age, and we know that he was injured for much of 2008. Could it be that his torn quadriceps tendon made him lose a step?

A commenter over at BaseballThinkFactory.org summarized the issue perfectly when he said, "you need to be very confident in Tulowitzki being the best defensive player in all of baseball to get him in the conversation" of best young player.

Who else is in that conversation? Firstly, it depends on who is a "young player." Troy Tulowitzki was born on October 10, 1984. Here are some players around that age or younger:

Prince Fielder, May 9, 1984
Hanley Ramirez, December 23, 1983
Matt Kemp, September 23, 1984
Tim Lincecum, June 15, 1984
Joe Mauer, April 19, 1983
Miguel Cabrera, April 18, 1983
Evan Longoria, October 7, 1985
Justin Upton, August 25, 1987
Ryan Braun, November 17, 1983
Brian McCann, February 20, 1984

David Wright, Jose Reyes, Clayton Kershaw, Josh Johnson... the list goes on. You can arbitrarily draw the line right at his exact age and disqualify some of the best ones, but either way, it is a competitive list. Troy Tulowitzki is a great player, but once again, you'd have to be VERY confident in his defensive or leadership skills to make an argument for Tulowitzki over Longoria, Upton, or Hanley Ramirez.

Tulo was worth 5.4 WAR last season. Prince Fielder, even though he plays first base, was worth 6.8 WAR last year. That is what 46(!) home runs and a .412 OBP will do for you. Evan Longoria, my pick, was worth 7.2 WAR last season. Even Jose Reyes, a great player but never in the "best" conversation, posted 5.5, 5.1, and 5.9 WAR in his last three healthy seasons.

What do you think?