MLB Surplus Value 2021
We’re about 23% through the MLB season as of 05/14/21 and I thought it would be a good time to see how teams’ spending is correlating to their success and who’s getting the most bang for their buck.
To do that I calculated my own version (I just did it how I thought was logical, not sure if there’s an exact science out there) of Surplus Value. Essentially I prorated, de-prorated?, all veterans’ salaries in 2021 and found their xWAR through this point in the season assuming $8M/WAR. I chose only veterans because anyone in arbitration or pre-arb typically has very minimal salaries, so limiting it to post-team-control years is much more reflective of teams’ ability to sign quality contracts. I also had to assume one WAR is worth $8M as that is the general consensus — but if anyone has a more accurate number please let me know.
I then took the player’s 2021 WAR and subtracted it from their xWAR to find their Surplus Value (SV). I also adjusted all the salaries I could find to reflect how much the team is actually paying them, so a guy like David Price is getting paid $32,000,000 between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers, but only $16,000,000 by the Dodgers so that is his salary on my sheet. The other $16M is accounted for in dead cap, which is big for the total team surplus.
Note: WAR is fWAR from fangraphs.com
Note: Salaries are courtesy of spoctrac.com
So what players’ have been getting their team the most total value so far this season?
Gerrit Cole (NYY) — $36,000,000 | 2.8 WAR | 1.77 SV
Mike Trout (LAA) — $37,116,666 | 2.5 WAR | 1.47 SV
Jacob deGrom (NYM) — $36,000,000 | 2.3 WAR | 1.44 SV
J.T. Realmuto (PHI) — $20,000,000 | 1.8 WAR | 1.21 SV
Danny Duffy (KCR) — $15,500,000 | 1.6 WAR | 1.17 SV
The top three, and maybe four for that matter show no surprises, although it is interesting that three of the highest-paid players in baseball have the highest value over their salaries. Clearly worth the money and well more. Danny Duffy is interesting as he is having a terrific season so far with 1.6 wins while only being paid like he should produce 0.4 wins thus far.
And since everyone loves to see the worst, here are the worst salaries per SV this season:
Miguel Cabrera (DET) — $30,000,000 | -0.6 WAR | -1.46 SV
Patrick Corbin (WSN) — $24,416,666 | -0.7 WAR | -1.32 SV
Stephen Strasburg (WSN) — $24,416,666 | -0.1 WAR | -0.99 SV
Justin Verlander* (HOU) — $35,000,000 | 0.0 WAR | -0.97 SV
Jason Heyward (CHC) — $23,500,000 | -0.3 WAR | -0.95 SV
*Justin Verlander is expected to miss the entire 2021 Season and hasn’t played a game in 2021
I also thought it would be interesting to see player’s with high SV%, because guys with high SV, typically are already getting paid a good amount because they are typically already solid. So here is some high SVs from guys with contracts ≤ of $5M
Matt Harvey (BAL) — $1,000,000 | 0.8 WAR | 0.77 SV
Freddy Galvis (BAL) — $1,500,000 | 1.0 WAR | 0.96 SV
Asdrubal Cabrera (ARI) — $1,750,000 | 1.1 WAR | 1.05 SV
Ryan Zimmerman (WSN) — $1,000,000 | 0.5 WAR | 0.47 SV
Jed Lowrie (OAK) — $1,500,000 | 0.8 WAR | 0.75 SV
Wow, good job Baltimore — they only have three veterans under contracts, the two above and Chris Davis (Yikes). They also have a little more than $10M in dead cap, but let's focus on the positives because they need a win.
How about some team numbers? What teams have the most SV this season and how are they doing in the standings?
Here are the top 10 teams in terms of SV this season, along with that number prorated to 162 games (SV/162):
San Fransisco Giants | 4.37 SV | 19.1 SV/162
New York Mets | 2.91 SV | 15.2 SV/162
Boston Red Sox | 2.80 SV | 11.6 SV/162
Kansas City Royals | 2.64 SV | 11.9 SV/162
Miami Marlins | 2.14 SV | 9.4 SV/162
Cincinnati Reds | 1.82 SV | 8.4 SV/162
New York Yankees | 1.82 SV | 8.0 SV/162
Cleveland Indians | 1.60 SV | 7.4 SV/162
Philadelphia Phillies | 1.41 SV | 6.0 SV/162
Los Angeles Dodgers | 1.37 SV | 6.0 SV/162
and the three lowest:
Houston Astros | -1.16 SV | -5.0 SV/162
Chicago Cubs | -1.23 SV | -5.5 SV/162
Detroit Tigers | -1.70 SV | -7.4 SV/162
The first takeaway is that this is Farhan Zaidi’s world and we are just living in it. The contracts of Anthony DeScalfani, Alex Wood, Kevin Gausman, Aaron Sanchez, and most importantly Buster Posey have all proven to be terrific value thus far. It also is not a surprise to see teams that have been playing really well like the Red Sox, Mets, and Indians crack the top eight.
But how as a whole has it been affecting team success?
There isn’t a tremendous correlation here, about the same as a solid ERA estimator lol. This is likely due to some of these teams have 2–4 veterans total and the rest are in their team control years so teams with many, factor into their success/failure much more.
When we limit it to teams with 10 or more veterans (counting dead cap, but that’s only one per team so it doesn’t change much)
We get a little better, as the R² increases to 0.32 and the relationship becomes more obvious, with outliers like Kansas City, Chicago, and Houston. All three can be explained in similar ways. Kansas City has had very little production from their players in team control while getting solid value from guys like Danny Duffy, Salvador Perez, Carlos Santana, and Michael A. Taylor. Houston and Chicago are the opposite with most of their value coming from younger guys like Bregman, Correa, Giolito, etc… Teams like Houston are also dragged down by Justin Verlander, or veterans who are not playing due to injury.
This was just a quick project I wanted to get out there because school ended and I’m a little bored. None of this is necessarily useful in any way since it's just reviewing results of how well teams have been spending as of recent, but I thought it was interesting and I hope you did too.
Hopefully, I can turn this into a bsbl.stats post on Instagram, an account which you should follow right now (linked below).
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