NO ONE WANTS TO BE PAID WHAT THEY ARE WORTH:

[U]nlike in the free-wheeling days of A-Rod, the Moneyball principles made famous by Billy Beane's Oakland Athletics have taken over the game. The theoretical value of huge talents like Harper and Machado -- who hit a combined 359 home runs over the past seven seasons -- are determined by stats fed through algorithms in the front office.

Those algos are often similar, leading most teams to come to a like-minded valuation of every player, wrenching all life from the free agent market.

"I wonder if the front offices have finally figured out that they have for years systematically overpaid older free agents, and that the money is better spent on piles of younger ones, who they don't have to pay much," Michael Lewis, whose book "Moneyball" traced the evolution of baseball analytics, said in an email.

While not giving money to older free agents makes perfect sense in the post-PED era, not giving it to these young guys makes less.  Machado's best comp is Adrian Beltre and, if you measure by WAR (wins above replacement player) with each WAR currently costing under $8 million, even a $300 million contract only needs to buy you 37.5 wins, which Beltre basically did in just his next 7 years at the same stage of his career.   Of course, Beltre was a world-class teammate and clubs are reportedly less interested in signing Manny after meeting with him....
Posted by Orrin Judd at February 2, 2019 9:50 AM

Tweet   @brothersjudd