I was wrong. There was one article on the intertubes that says the Marlins signed a good contract. (There was also one tweet from Tom.) Paul sent this in and says I can’t hide behind not understanding “advanvced” stats.
Here’s what Fangraphs has to say.
This kind of offensive performance at a premium position is exceedingly valuable, which is why Reyes has four seasons of at least +5.8 WAR in the past six years. The devil is always in the details, though, and in Reyes’ case, the details are those other two years. It’s impossible to talk about Reyes’ value without also talking about his 2009 and 2010 seasons, where he managed just 779 total plate appearances and +3.7 WAR between both years, struggling with injuries and reduced performance even when he was on the field.
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So, how many games does Reyes need to play per season to justify his contract? To answer that, we can run a calculation based on a few assumptions. While it’s too early in the off-season to say exactly what the market price for a win is, the signings we’ve seen indicate that it’s still in the $5 million range — it’s certainly no less than $4 million, and might be as high as $6 million — but we’ll stick with $5 million for now and you can simply shift the numbers slightly in either direction if you feel that it’s closer to four or six based on your own assumptions. Inflation is harder to peg, but an assumption of 5% annual inflation over the next six years seems likely to be in the ballpark at least, and again, you can always substitute a different number if you don’t like the 5% estimate.
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At that price, the Marlins are essentially paying for a total of +19 WAR over the next six years.
via Marlins Get a Potential Bargain in Jose Reyes | FanGraphs Baseball.
OK a +19 WAR. And the internet tells me, “WAR calculates the total number of wins that any player adds to his team over the course of a season by comparing the player’s performance with that of a fictitious replacement.”
So…$17 million gets you three extra wins. Got it. The Mets might finish 28 games back with a fictitious replacement (I love that term, because it dovetails into this) instead of 25.
Stupid Wilpons. Thanks Paul!
