BOUNCING

BACK

FROM

BAD

CONTRACTS

A Critical Overview of the Emergence, Consequences and Lessons Learned

Of MLB Free Agency

By Josh Weiner

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1) Introduction, pg. 3.

2) Chapter One: An Overview of Free Agency in Baseball, pg. 7.

3) Case Study # 1: Chan Ho Park, pg. 25

4) Case Study #2: Sammy Sosa, pg. 33

5) Case Study #3: The 2013 World Series, pg. 47

6) Author’s Note, pg. 66.

7) Bibliography, pg. 69.

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INTRODUCTION

As sports fans, and as human beings, we love to find out where things went wrong for other

people and then cackle at our findings.

“What are some examples of ‘the Sports Illustrated cover jinx?” innumerable fans have

wondered. There is such great appeal in spotting incidents of athletes hitting a dreadful slump,

suffering a devastating injury, or choking under pressure in the wake of their cover appearance

on the nation’s most influential sports publication. We gather all of our many findings and then

conclude that Albert Pujols, Lindsay Vonn, Stephen Strasburg and so many others must all have

been subject to a certain magazine­induced jinx. This is a fairly alarming concept, one in which

the SI cover takes on the role of the sun in an Icarus­like story of almighty athletes soaring too

high, becoming all too powerful, and then foregoing the inevitable crash back down to Earth.

Never mind that the list of athletes who went on to tremendous success shortly after

gracing the SI cover is just as compelling, if not more so. Never mind that LeBron James was the

subject of two cover stories before each of his championships with the Miami Heat; that Curt

Schilling and Mark Belhorn each were featured there just before they became members of the

2004 Boston Red Sox World Championship team; and that Tom Brady went on a remarkable

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stretch of Super Bowl victories in the early 2000’s and was featured on the pre­Bowl cover

nearly every year.

None of this will ever convince us that there actually exists a “Sports Illustrated cover

blessing,” the exact opposite of the SI jinx. In large part, it’s because we don’t want to live with

the notion of these superstar athletes being infallible, that everything in their lives—including the

cover of a magazine—can only contribute to their success. Instead, we hope to see them suffer

for a misdeed, perhaps the pride and arrogance which could be associated with posing for such a

prestigious publication. We don’t want to think that everything that can happen to pro athletes

can only be good. We want to see these ultra­famous multimillionaires hit bumps in the road and

suffer for it.

The same line of thought surfaces time after time in sports­related contexts. Now and

then, fans simply must be served with an atrocious draft pick like Ryan Leaf and Kwame Brown.

It comforts us to see that these sports teams may have more money and power that any one of us

could dream of owning individually—but they still don’t know everything. They get stuff wrong,

too. And fans take delight in seeing it occur, as long as their own teams do not make such picks

too often.

And then, the topic that never gets old, which will still remain fresh once human

civilization is nothing but dust: bad sports contracts.

It is tremendously more entertaining to analyze counter­effective signings, as opposed to

effective ones, because the former represents a story with a conflict. Things didn’t go as planned;

somehow, intervening factors came about, involving overconfidence, short­sightedness and

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misinformation which put what first looked like a perfectly mapped­out plan to ruin. In a way, it

is quite similar to how the RMS Titanic has been dramatized and romanticized in theater, film,

and literature time and time again, while countless other ships, impressive and luxurious though

they may have been, nonetheless had the dubious dishonor of having never struck any icebergs.

Blockbuster movies never made are about blockbuster liners that never sink.

We also love seeing characters vilified and punished for their greed. Rumpelstiltskin,

King Midas, Long John Silver and so many others all believed wealth could immediately cure

their woes and make them powerful and happy beyond measure. Perhaps it did, at first. Yet their

status as iconic figures was only assured once their desires went too far, once they decided that

gold meant everything, and subsequently ended up ripping themselves in two, unable to even eat

or drink, and floating off alone in a small rowboat with only a tiny amount of treasure,

respectively.

There is a certain appeal in casting George Steinbrenner, Arte Moreno and other baseball

celebrities in a similar light. Like the aforementioned fantasy characters, these owners ought to

have learned that it takes more than gold to achieve happiness­­ which, in baseball world,

ultimately means playoff success. Sadly, for baseball owners, a stretch of frantic overspending

can often produce the same effect as Midas’ golden touch: it seems like a surefire path to bliss at

first, but eventually culminates in tremendous sorrow (a.k.a. spending October at home,

watching teams they don’t own playing in the World Series on ESPN).

One could surely generate a thorough, thought­provoking investigation of the worst

signings in baseball history. We can scoff at the Los Angeles Angels paying Albert Pujols more

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than $50 million over two seasons that both turned out to be playoff­less for them. We can

laugh— or maybe even gape in horror—at the sight of the New York Yankees and the Texas

Rangers shelling out a combined $527 million for Alex Rodriguez, only to earn a single World

Series appearance (the 2009 Yankees) combined between them.

However, perhaps an even more meaningful topic can only be accessed upon overcoming

the prejudice of the flawless, godlike professional athlete. Once we realize that these men are

humans who make mistakes, just like the rest of us, we can compile a narrative of redemption, of

overcoming our misdeeds in order to ultimately succeed in Major League Baseball, one of the

most competitive arenas of athletics in the world.

Upon doing so, we can unveil a whole series of mysteries from recent baseball history.

How did the Boston Red Sox turn things around so quickly from 2012 to 2013? How were the

Baltimore Orioles finally able to snap a 15­year losing­season streak? What do stories like this

tell us about how baseball teams ought to operate in the sport’s fifth decade of free agency?

These are the stories which this essay will investigate. It will begin by establishing the

origins of free agency and how the system managed to endure and evolve into the current day.

How is it that owners, once unwilling to pay players that much at all, now scramble to offer the

most royal contract possible to whatever top player lands on the market? Furthermore, how is it

that such players now have the freedom to shift from team to team as they so choose, when that

process was entirely in the owners’ hands for about a century?

Once this template has been set, it will be time to analyze a series of case studies from

recent years. These will explore the reasons why a series of signings were doomed virtually from

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the start, and why a series of others may have seemed well­reasoned at first, but eventually

unraveled into disappointment.

Each case study will follow through on these stories by exploring what happened next.

What lessons did these professional teams draw from all of these unfulfilling free agency

signings? How did each team learn to think differently about how to best construct its roster? Did

its record in the standings reflect this change?

In the conclusion, all of these questions will be considered and the results will be tallied

up, hopefully with some striking insights into how owners and players alike can best respond to

the realities of free agency as it exists today within Major League Baseball.

CHAPER ONE: AN OVERVIEW OF FREE AGENCY IN BASEBALL

“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an

army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But

baseball has marked the time.” 1

This famous James Earl Jones monologue from 1989’s Field of Dreams has not gone unscathed

over the years. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone blasted it as “an inexcusably sappy speech” which

1 Robinson, Phil Alden, dir. Field of Dreams. Screenplay by Phil Alden Robinson. Universal, 1989. Film.

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left him thinking, "if he keeps talking, I'm walking,” as he sat squirming in his movie theatre

seat. 2

However, many others proved more sympathetic. In a four­star Field of Dreams review,

Roger Ebert called it “a speech about baseball so simple and true that it is heartbreaking,” and

said that Jones’ words reflect the mentality which millions of Americans hold dear. Baseball is a 3

game which has defined us since childhood; given us beloved heroes to cheer for each year; and

offers more nostalgia value than we could ever wish to pass up on. No question about it: “This

field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it

could be again.” 4

What the nostalgists might be less willing to acknowledge is that as long as there has

been organized baseball, there have been vigorous, intense, oftentimes spiteful quarrels about

player salaries, team payrolls, and who can come out of each season making and saving the most.

Like all industries, baseball has always been about money. Field of Dreams would not even exist

if that were not the case, inasmuch as it was the Chicago White Sox players’ salary disputes with

owner Charles Comiskey that prompted the fixing of the 1919 World Series, the event from

which that movie’s plot arose.

What has changed over the years, however, is how much of a say players have in this

whole process. The mere fact that they now have any say at all is enough of an indication that

this system is not what it once was. And well it is for the players that this is the case.

2 Travers, Peter. "Field of Dreams ­ Movie Reviews." Rolling Stone Reviews. Rolling Stone, 21 Apr. 1989. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/field­of­dreams­19890421 >. 3 Ebert, Roger. "Field of Dreams Movie Review & Film Summary (1989)." Roger Ebert. Ebert Digital, 21 Apr. 1989. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/field­of­dreams­1989>. 4 Robinson, Phil Alden, dir. Field of Dreams. Screenplay by Phil Alden Robinson. Universal, 1989. Film.

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In professional baseball’s early days, the owners seemed pretty intent on keeping the bulk

of that money to themselves. “It is ridiculous to pay ballplayers $2,000 a year,” National League

founder William Hulbert contended in 1876. “Especially when the $800 boys often do just as

well.” 5

Not only were ballplayers limited in what they could expect to make each year, but they

were completely ostracized from the system and policies that actually provided them the money.

This was the reality of labor relations in 19th century baseball clubs, and it would endure for

almost a hundred years afterwards.

“From 1879 to 1976, the owners maintained a reserve clause enabling them to renew

players’ contracts for a year at the prior season’s salary,” according to New York Times writer,

Dan Rosenheck. 1879 was the year that the National League decided to allow its eight teams to 6

“reserve” five players per season. Under this agreement, teams were not allowed to pursue

players owned by another club, and players’ personal preferences as to where they wanted to

play were a complete non­factor.

“This policy, sustained by a series of dubious court decisions, was often compared to

slavery” for its disregard of players’ free will. In 1887, the Hall of Famer John Montgomery 7

Ward wrote, “Like a fugitive­slave law, the reserve­rule denies him a harbor or a livelihood, and

carries him back, bound and shackled, to the club from which he attempted to escape.” 8

5 Rosenheck, Dan. "Keeping Score: Restoring Sanity to Baseball’s Economics." The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 22 Aug. 2009. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/sports/baseball/23score.html?_r=0>. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid.

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In a 1949 court case pivoting Mexican League player Danny Gardella against

commissioner Happy Chandler, Judge Jerome Frank expressed that the reserve clause amounted

to “involuntary servitude” of the type which the nation had fought the Civil War and established

the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in an attempt to banish.

But it made no difference. This policy remained the standard for professional baseball,

even as the National League merged with the upstart “American League,” as well as the National

Association of Professional Baseball League, to become known collectively as “Major League

Baseball” in the early 20th century. At the time of this merge, the league established a “National

Agreement” in which players’ independent contracts were automatically tied to the

reserve­clause system. This is the system which endured in professional baseball throughout the

bulk of the ensuing century.

On a positive note, the union’s restrictive views regarding players’ annual salaries

gradually evolved during that time. In 1930, Babe Ruth made $80,000 from the Yankees, $5,000

higher than Herbert Hoover’s salary that same year— which the Babe famously justified by

saying, “I had a better year than Hoover.” But while statistics like these may indicate that the

league has changed its mind about shelling out cash to its superstars, it still would be a bit of a

stretch to say that a well­balanced, fairly­operated spending system existed in professional

baseball in 1930.

To begin with, players without the Babe’s megawatt status were not actually much better

off than they were before. The next­best­paid player in 1930 made less than $18,000, or about

4.5 times less than Ruth, and most other salaries were still well below that benchmark. This

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would be like calling today’s MLB a fair system if Alex Rodriguez made $30 million in a year,

while every single other player made $7 million or less.

Furthermore, even Ruth’s peak salary pales in comparison to what today’s players would

make, even those without anywhere near his level of credentials. $80,000 in 1930 would be

worth approximately $1 million in 2013, and the average MLB salary in 2013 was over three

times that amount. Of course, MLB was still far from becoming a commercial and globalized

enterprise of its present­day magnitude. But it is still not hard to determine the plain reality:

baseball owners in this day and age were still very much intent on keeping the bulk of the

league’s revenue for themselves, rather than dishing it out to players, with non­All­Stars

suffering a disproportionate amount.

The owners’ selfish attitudes were probably best reflected by the fact that the reserve

system had not been abolished, or even noticeably modified. It was still a system in which

baseball players were “bought, sold, and traded like property,” and it would remain as such for

several decades to come. 9

Sports historians have cited various possible starting points for this transition away from

this standard. The one which has likely been pointed to more than any other is Curt Flood’s

December 24th, 1969 letter to Baseball Commissioner David Kuhn, in which he protested being

traded from the Cardinals to the Phillies against his own free will.

“After twelve years in the major leagues,” Flood wrote in that famous letter, “I do not

feel I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes. I believe that any

9 Snyder, Brad. A Well­paid Slave: Curt Flood's Fight for Free Agency in Professional Sports. New York: Plume, 2007. Print. pg. 2.

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system which produces that result violates my basic rights as a citizen and is inconsistent with

the laws of the United States and of the several States.” 10

When Flood addressed this letter in 1969, major league teams still had the right to reserve

forty players for a period of one year—25 on the major league roster along with 15 minor

leaguers—and forbade them from negotiating with any other ball clubs during that time.

Furthermore, the “reserve clause” of this “reserve system” guaranteed teams “the right to

automatically renew a player’s contract for another season for as little as 80 percent of the

previous season’s salary.” “The Uniform Player Contract,” as it was known, “was a one­year 11

agreement plus a one­year option on the players’ services.” 12

In other words, professional ballplayers were now paid more but not much else had

changed. These athletes were still locked in a system which gave them virtually no flexibility in

negotiating salaries, choosing where they wanted to play, and how long they wanted to stay

there. This is what Flood set out to change in his January 1970 Supreme Court lawsuit: a system

that designated its main profit generators, the major league players, as what he famously

described as “well­paid slave[s].”

Sincere though this remark may have been, Flood had lost a great deal of popular

support upon making it. “The public’s distaste for the perceived excesses of the civil rights and

antiwar movements seemed to come to a head over a rich black athlete portraying himself as a

10 Ibid, pg. 94. 11 Ibid, pg. 2. 12 Ibid.

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slave,” Snyder writes “Flood’s ‘well­paid slave’ remark turned America against him. The media

seized on it. The public vilified him for it.” 13

The biggest setback for Flood, however, came in 1972, when Flood v. Kuhn was

presented to the Supreme Court and a 5­3 vote overturned the now­retired center fielder’s lawsuit

in favor of Major League Baseball.

It was a stare decisis decision; the Court was upholding the antitrust exemption which it

had previously granted the MLB in its 1922 ruling, Federal Baseball Club v. National League,

which decided that “that baseball was not interstate commerce for the purposes of the Sherman

Act.” This decision had indeed already been reaffirmed in another baseball­oriented court case,

1953’s Toolson v. New York.

Floyd never played professional baseball again after 1971, when he was 33, and the

process of filing the lawsuit would take a considerable toll on his finances and personal life.

However, Flood is now remembered as something of a martyr figure, who “sacrificed his own

career to change the system and to benefit future generations of professional athletes...” who

today “have some control of where they play in part because in 1969 Flood refused to continue

being treated like hired help.” In the words of blogger R.T. Johnson, “Flood’s case may have 14

not benefited himself financially, but today’s athletes owe their millions to Curt Flood.” 15

This is because Flood’s initiative was not abandoned after the Supreme Court defeat. The

following year, Marvin Miller, Executive Director of the Major League Baseball Players

13 Ibid, pg.105. 14 Ibid, pg.2. 15 Johnson, R.T. "Curt Flood and Free Agency – The End of the Reserve Clause." The History Rat. WordPress, 21 Nov. 2011. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. <http://historyrat.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/ curt­flood­and­free­agency­the­end­of­the­reserve­clause/>.

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Association (MLBPA), campaigned on the players’ behalf for salary arbitration. Since assuming

his position in 1966, Miller had already achieved “the first collective bargaining agreement

between baseball’s owners and players, a critical initial step in improving players’ rights,” and

had worked to raise minimum salaries and players’ shares of playoff revenue. This next step, 16

however, was perhaps the defining gesture of Miller’s career.

An important component of the reserve system— which Miller, like Flood, was

determined to combat— was that it was entirely up to the teams to decide how much to pay their

players, who had no power to influence the verdict. Miller, as Flood had done before him, argued

that this was contrary to the basic rules of other American industries and challenged

Commissioner Bowie Kuhn to change this reality. His efforts resulted in a new MLB pension

agreement. From here on, ballplayers would finally be included in the dialogue concerning the

size and durations of the salaries which they would be offered.

Miller applauded this outcome. “The difference between a ballplayer’s being required to

accept whatever a club offered him, as had been the case almost from the beginning of

professional baseball, and the new system of salary arbitration was like the difference between

dictatorship and democracy,” the Players’ Union E.D. wrote in his 1991 autobiography, A Whole

Different Ball Game. “Salary arbitration has been a major factor in eliminating gross inequities

in the salary structures from club to club (and sometimes on the same club).” 17

Following the rights of players to negotiate how much they should be paid, the next step

was to grant players the right to decide which team would be paying them that amount. Put

16 Powers, Albert Theodore. The Business of Baseball. Jefferson: McFarland, 2003. Print. pg. 175. 17 Miller, Marvin. A Whole Different Ball Game: The inside Story of the Baseball Revolution. Chicago: I.R. Dee, 2004. Print. pg. 109.

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differently, it was time to follow through on Curt Flood’s efforts and see his visions realized. As

Miller noted, all that free agency really meant was that players would be granted “the basic right

to change employers,” something which was “hardly a revolutionary notion.” 18

Yet this movement was rigorously challenged. Most owners of the mid­1970s were

“predicting impending doom for Major League Baseball because of salary increases resulting

from free agency” Plenty of ugly incidents transpired, including a wave of ugly “negotiations” 19

between owners and players, and a strike for part of the 1981 season over a collective bargaining

agreement gone awry.

The Players’ Association, and the athletes who belonged to it, ultimately emerged

victorious. Several key players, including star pitchers Catfish Hunter and Andy Messersmith,

became known as the “first free agents” by rejecting contracts which did not give them what they

wanted (an annuity payment and a no­trade clause, respectively). In the meantime, Miller

continued to fight the reserve system and finally found the chink in its armor: the writing which

said that clubs had the right to renew players’ contracts “for the period of one year.”

Miller argued that owners should not keep fudging this definition by renewing players’

year­long contracts over and over: once the season was up, a player was no longer bound by the

organization, and ought to be free to sign wherever he wanted. “Anyone who could read English

could see the contradiction between “one­year” stated explicitly and “forever” implied by the

club interpretation,” wrote sportswriter Leonard Koppett. This included the legal system, which 20

18 Ibid, pg. 352. 19 Powers, Albert Theodore. The Business of Baseball. Jefferson: McFarland, 2003. Print. pg. 181. 20 Koppett, Leonard. Koppett's Concise History of Major League Baseball. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1998. Print. pg. 362.

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upheld the arguments of Miller and arbitrator Peter Seitz. “Two months after the 1975 Series, the

reserve clause finally died. 21

The introduction of free agency, coupled with salary arbitration, “produced the most

rapid growth of salaries ever experienced in any industry” (Miller’s italics). Already by the end 22

of the decade, “the average salary was around $120,000, six times what it had been when the

players hired Miller 12 years before.” In 1979, Nolan Ryan became the first player to be signed

for a million dollars; it goes without saying that many more were still to come. It is important to

note that both top and middle­ranked players were benefiting from the installation of free

agency. This is quite a contrast from the aforementioned standards in the age of Babe Ruth, or

any age in baseball history, for that matter.

Not everyone looked at these changes so favorably. One of the most prevalent

concerns— and there were more than a few— was that free agency would slant the results of the

season in disproportionate favor of the teams with the most purchasing power. However, this fear

had been widely discredited well before the arrival of Moneyball in 2003.

“The primary objection to free agency­­ that is, the owners’ primary objection, which was

picked up and echoed in the press­­ was that free agency would guarantee that teams with the

most money would buy up the best players and destroy competition,” Miller acknowledges in A

Whole Different Ball Game. “Of course, as anyone who has a modicum of knowledge of baseball

history could see, that was nonsense.” 23

21 Ward, Geoffrey C., Ken Burns, and Paul Robert Walker. Who Invented The Game?: Baseball, the American Epic. N.p.: Albert A. Knopf, 1994. Print. pg. 75. 22 Miller, Marvin. A Whole Different Ball Game: The inside Story of the Baseball Revolution. Chicago: I.R. Dee, 2004. Print. 23 Ibid.

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Miller remarked that during the 1980’s, the first full decade of MLB free agency, a huge

number of smaller­city, smaller­revenue teams such as Kansas City, St. Louis, Minnesota and

Milwaukee all won pennants and world titles. This outcome had been less common in the days

before free agency, when lineups were much more rigid from season to season and the teams and

cities with the most fans and highest revenues almost invariably came out on top. This is one

explanation as to why 14 of the 20 pennant winners in the 1950s were from New York­­ 15, if

you include the newly­relocated 1959 Los Angeles Dodgers, who were playing with the core of

their lineup from Brooklyn intact.

Miller cites this as just one of many ways in which the introduction of free agency made

organized baseball more even, competitive and profitable. “The game had never been more

balanced than after free agency was instituted in 1976,” he said. “Free agency had produced the

best competitive baseball in 40 years.” 24

He also challenged owners’ gripes with free agency as unfounded, claiming that the

system’s outcome was “exactly the opposite of what the owners said: Teams could no longer

stockpile talent, perennial cellar dwellers could improve themselves. Competition became

keener, pennant races became more exciting, attendance increased, TV revenues went up, [and]

players were finally rewarded as the professionals they were.” 25

Albert Theodore Powers, author of The Business of Baseball, argues along the same lines

by writing that, “the balance of power between players and owners had fundamentally changed”

in the post­Curt Flood era. The benefits of this were by no means limited to salary raisings:

24 Ibid. 25 Ibid.

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“A player was no longer required to remain with a team throughout his career. Veteran

players could veto trades. Players and their agents had greater freedom and bargaining power in

their relations with owners. Owners now bargained collectively with the Players Association.” 26

Over time, MLB owners would see that it was no use to try and combat the rise of free

agency, since the players, as well as the law, had established it as fair game. Instead, they

explored how to tap into the system to their own teams’ benefit. George Steinbrenner had been

the first, seizing the chance to acquire Catfish Hunter and Reggie Jackson from Oakland, and

thereby putting the pieces in place for the Yankees to win back­to­back World Championships in

1977 and 1978. In the years to come, owners across the league would follow suit, and the noisy

fuss that had once negatively defined them gradually died down.

Free agency, once vigorously resisted, eventually became embraced by owners and

players alike. Currently, Alex Rodriguez is under contract for 750 times the sum that William

Hulbert once declared “ridiculous” (or 15,000 times as much, unadjusted for inflation). 27

Such statistics indicate how much has changed in the baseball world, but also suggests

one of the potential consequences of free agency: many players now get signed for more, often

considerably more, than they are worth, and do not live up to the standards established by their

sky­high contracts.

26 Powers, Albert Theodore. The Business of Baseball. Jefferson: McFarland, 2003. Print. 27 "Historical Value of U.S. Dollar (Estimated)." MyKindred. The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding, n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://mykindred.com/cloud/TX/Documents/dollar/>

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Of course, unfair and ill­advised trades often had a similar impact on the league well

before Curt Flood and Marvin Miller came around. But as interleague competitiveness has been

amplified by the establishment of free agency, so have the counter­effects of this system grown

all the more problematic.

Many would cite A­Rod as the epitome of this trend. As previously discussed, one might

expect someone who has made $325 million in salary alone over his baseball career to have more

than a single World Series appearance. His $275 million, 10­year contract extension has been 28

described as “instantly regrettable” for the New York Yankees. However, while he has had his 29

ups and downs as a player, Rodriguez has still posted such spectacular numbers in his

career—654 HRs, 1969 RBIs, and 2939 hits, among others— that it seems fair to place a good

number of other players ahead of him as case study examples.

The media has constantly been on the lookout for players such as these. The Bleacher

Report went so far as to publish its “MLB’s All­Worst Contract Team, Position by Position” in

2013. The findings therein were deplorable: Dan Uggla has been making over $12 million a year

since signing with the Braves in 2011, while batting just .219 during that stretch. The White Sox

signed Adam Dunn to a four­year, $56 million contract in 2010, only to have him bat .196 and

strike out one out of every three at­bats during his time with the team. Worst of all, is seeing

what $20 million­plus contracts have done to Josh Hamilton, Albert Pujols, Matt Kemp and

28 Warner, Brian. "Alex Rodriguez Net Worth." Celebrity Net Worth. Celebrity Net Worth, 2013. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. <http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest­athletes/richest­baseball/alex­rodriguez­net­worth/> 29 Berkon, Ben. "MLB’s All­Worst Contract Team, Position by Position." The Bleacher Report. Turner Broadcasting System, 6 Aug. 2013. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. <http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1727893­mlbs­all­worst­contract­team­position­by­position/>.

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many others. Put simply, they have turned most of them from MVP candidates to league­wide

laughingstocks.

All of this amounts to an unfortunate trend, albeit one which has long been identified

throughout the baseball world. Powers writes that owners’ “excessive eagerness to sign free

agents... that one player who might put their teams over the top” had already taken its economic

toll. That was one reason why many owners initially claimed that free agency was actually 30

making them lose money, even though ticket sales and broadcasting rights were steadily boosting

the MLB’s overall revenue throughout the system’s early years.

In other words, what owners promoted as the strategic and financial downsides of free

agency were far more self­inflicted than most would care to admit. “During this period, legions

of average players became wealthy as competitive and egotistical owners frenetically signed

them to high­salaried long­termed contracts,” according to Powers. “Victories in free agency and

salary arbitration became more meaningful than victories on the baseball field.” 31

AL President Larry McPhail urged that “common­sense economic self­restraint” was the

way to go. “We must stop daydreaming that one free agent signing will bring a pennant,” he said.

Thirty years later, however, it appears that this advice still goes oft­ignored. Or at least, the 32

outcomes of free agency still fail, time and time again, to match expectations from nearly all

corners.

Be that as it may, it is very difficult to draw any universally­applicable lessons to the

variable­riddled process of dealing and acquiring free agents. To begin with, the statistical

30 Powers, Albert Theodore. The Business of Baseball. Jefferson: McFarland, 2003. Print. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid.

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analysis which precedes any such transaction is enough of a tenuous method to begin with.

According to a study made by sports economists David Berri, Martin Schmidt and Stacey Brook

in their book The Wages of Wins, “a hitter’s previous season’s performance explains only about a

third of his performance the following season.” It seems remarkable that, given how much 33

owners and general managers value and vigorously scrutinize their agents’ statistics, they can

ultimately only proceed with about a 33% rate of confidence.

As Ben Berkon wrote in the aforementioned Bleacher Report article:

“Even with all the advanced statistics, it’s still sometimes difficult to truly project how a player

will perform in the future. Teams often roll the dice with young and veteran players alike,

signing them to lengthy extensions and free­agent contracts in the hope that their past

performances will continue. But while some contracts do work out for the better, many do not.

Whether caused by freak injury or puzzling ineffectiveness, teams are often left with players

performing at a fraction of their big salaries.” 34

The unpredictability for which the sports world is so renowned is only one of several

factors which complicate free agency decisions. A player’s performance on the field cannot be

predetermined; a team’s payroll for the season can. So the question becomes, what lessons can

teams draw from the past about what to do with the money that they have? And what if that

33 Bradbury, J.C. The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed. New York: Penguin, 2008. Print. 34 Berkon, Ben. "MLB’s All­Worst Contract Team, Position by Position." The Bleacher Report. Turner Broadcasting System, 6 Aug. 2013. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. <http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1727893­mlbs­all­worst­contract­team­position­by­position/>.

21

money is just not available? How can the team’s budget be best employed to construct the most

effective lineup possible?

In recent years, stories about teams achieving great success in spite of a limited payroll

have come to be cherished. Moneyball, the acclaimed Michael Lewis book about the Oakland

Athletics winning 103 games on a skin­tight budget in 2002, certainly played a key role in

generating dialogue on this issue throughout the baseball world.

Many would build upon Lewis’ findings, including Sports Illustrated columnist Jay Jaffe.

In 2013, Jaffe published an online article entitled “Average payrolls of playoff teams shows

money not the factor it used to be.” The article’s content lived up to this premise:

“If it seems as though the presence of teams like the Pirates, A’s and Rays in the

postseason — not to mention the absence of the Yankees — heralds a change in the extent to

which payroll drives success, it’s hardly an illusion. For the past decade, the average payroll

ranking of postseason teams as well as the ratio of those payrolls to the major league average

have both fallen sharply. In fact, this year’s 10­team field reflects the most level one of the

wild­card era in terms of payroll.” 35

Jaffe argues convincingly that teams are frequently able to do quite well without ever

making the blockbuster free agent signings which only tremendous payrolls could afford them.

Along with Lewis and others, Jaffe is apparently seeking to contribute to the age­old,

35 Jaffe, Jay. "Average payrolls of playoff teams shows money not the factor it used to be." Sports Illustrated. Time Warner, 7 Oct. 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. <http://mlb.si.com/2013/10/07/mlb­playoff­teams­payroll­rays­athletics­indians­pirates/>.

22

widely­cherished expression: Money doesn’t buy happiness, and it doesn’t buy championships,

either.

But there’s a problem with saying that: oftentimes, it does.

The New York Yankees won the pennant six times between 1996 and 2003 (along with

winning the whole thing four times) and had either the highest or second highest payroll in every

one of those years. In the years since then, many teams’ gambles with expensive contracts have

paid off handsomely. This includes the Philadelphia Phillies, who took their chances in inking

lofty deals with Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Roy Halladay and many others, but brought their

city its first sports championship in a quarter­century in 2008. Even more recently, the 2013

Dodgers were the richest team in baseball, boasting a $216 million payroll and promptly finished

92­70, 11 games ahead of the next closest team in the NL West, the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Conversely, many teams do not have much money, and their win­loss record reflects

those limitations. The Houston Astros represent this trend amazingly well: in recent years, they

have consistently had one of the lowest payrolls in the majors, and one of the worst records as

well. In 2013, their budget was about $60 million, third­lowest in the majors, and they finished in

last place at 51­111, one of the poorest 162­game records in the history of the National League.

Overall, baseball is far too complicated a sport to make black­and­white distinctions like

that; to say that big­budget teams are doomed to stupidly blow their savings on overpriced white

elephants, while others will be incentivized to use their limited funds to cleverer means and

produce Moneyball stories year in, year out. The long and daunting process of free agency

cannot be generalized to such preposterous extents.

23

Finally, even when every available statistic has been analyzed as thoroughly as possible,

the question remains: who exactly are is supposed to put this advice to use? What baseball

figures are meant to benefit from such a study?

The general managers? Will our findings be enough to transform every baseball

incognizant into a naive, risk­taking, path­finding GM sensation like Billy Beane and Theo

Epstein? If only it were that simple.

“I’m not sure Billy Beane would act much differently than the Yankees general manager,

Brian Cashman, if he had to answer to George Steinbrenner,” J.C. Bradbury writes. “The job has

various responsibilities and political battles, so it doesn’t seem fair to pin the entire credit and

blame of a club on this one person.” 36

Bradbury’s claim is well­reasoned. Baseball’s balance­of­power has shifted back and

forth over the years. Yet there are still too many opinionated, authoritative decision­makers at the

helm of each clubhouse for any single interpretation of free agency proceedings to serve them

all.

All of this serves to warn the reader that this essay has something of a precarious mission.

No team ever signs players to a multi­million contract expecting the move to go wrong. Even

when this does occur, the explanations which may seem compelling in hindsight were likely far

from obvious at the start. Slumps and injuries are oftentimes sudden and unexpected. So much

can change from one season to the next. Expecting to predict this all with any level of certainty is

wishful thinking at best, utter folly at worst.

36 Bradbury, J.C. The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed. New York: Penguin, 2008. Print. pg. 92.

24

Moreover, baseball is a game where the players are usually only involved in a fraction of

their team’s plays and at­bats. As a result, even the most talented baseball players can only make

a smaller contribution to their clubhouse’s performance than can star athletes in other sports, in

which the team is dependent on their playing abilities for a much greater portion of the length of

the game. This is one reason why so many more of the all­time great MLB players retired

without having ever won a championship, as opposed to the all­time great NBA players, for

instance.

Overall, it is very difficult to decide what player to hire, for how much, and for how

many years, especially in a sport such as baseball, where so many pricey free agents are unable

to carry their teams to playoff success. There is only so much an outside investigation can do to

remedy that fact.

Nevertheless, there are still many merits to pursuing the topic on which this essay will be

centered. To begin with, millions of fans embrace baseball for its rich and multilayered history,

along with the healthy supply of statistics which that history provides. It is always a pleasure to

weave those statistics into all types of comeback tales and Cinderella stories, from the

Murderers’ Row to the Miracle Mets to the Big Red Machine and so many others. The story of

how teams managed to achieve effective free agency can very easily be classified in such a

group.

Secondly, it is great to think of baseball as a game of second chances, when so much

other evidence would point to the opposite. In basketball, you can miss a shot, but still get the

rebound and try to score again. In soccer, you can mess up a pass to your teammate, but still steal

25

the ball back and regain possession. In baseball, if you strike out or get tagged with the

ball—that’s it. No chance to redo it. Back to the dugout with you.

With this essay, however, we can explore the ways in which teams were in fact able to

correct their faults and put lessons of unsuccessful signings into practice with future free agents.

This is a redemption tale that demands to be told.

Lastly, in spite of the many challenged acknowledged above, there is potential for a lot of

practical information to be obtained from a study like this one. It can reveal why certain players

were not good matches for the teams that acquired them; why the contracts offered to these

players were disproportionate to their statistical output; and why teams should, at the very least,

have offered them contracts with different terms. There are a tremendous amount of factors to be

considered before signing a certain player; an in­depth analysis of those factors, in a select

number of case studies, could very well help teams to make those signings with a greater feeling

of confidence.

In conclusion, the story to be told in this essay all bear important messages for everyone

invested in baseball— which, as Field of Dreams remind us, has been “the one constant through

all the years”—and the player­team transactions which have long defined the business,

especially in the age of free agency. This chapter has established how that age came to be. It is 37

now time to investigate some of the negative outcomes of the resulting system, and what can

possibly be done to correct those mistakes.

37 Robinson, Phil Alden, dir. Field of Dreams. Screenplay by Phil Alden Robinson. Universal, 1989. Film.

26

CASE STUDY #1

27

“Today marks the 10th anniversary of one of the worst free agent signings in baseball history,”

read The Hardball Times on January 16th, 2012. It would be hard to find any well­informed 38

baseball fan who would disagree. For it was on January 16th, 2002 that the Texas Rangers

sought to fortify their starting rotation with the addition of South Korean ace Chan Ho Park.

Having played his whole career with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Park had registered a

solid 80­54 record with an ERA of 3.80. The last two seasons had seemed especially promising,

as Park had gone 33­21 with a 3.38 ERA, while striking out over 200 hitters each year.

Park did hold a few dubious honors, such as being the only pitcher to have allowed two

grand slams to the same player in the same inning (which Fernando Tatis of the Cardinals

achieved against Park in the third inning of an April 23, 1999 game). He was also the man who 39

had given up Barry Bonds’ record­establishing 71st and 72nd home runs at the end of the 2001

season— but the Dodgers had actually gone on to win the game and eliminate the Giants from

the playoffs in the process. To the Rangers, those came across as isolated incidents, and were

hardly cause for concern. 40

It seemed as though the MLB’s first­ever Korean player could only be a positive factor to

a team in desperate need of pitching power. In 2001, the Rangers had hired 11 starters, and

together they had combined for 51 wins, 58 losses, and an American League­high 6.00 ERA. 41

With the likes of Alex and Ivan Rodriguez, as well as Rafael Palmeiro, in the lineup, and a

38 Jaffe, Chris. “10th Anniversary: Rangers Sign Chan Ho Park.” The Hardball Times. N.p., 10 Jan. 2012. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/content/blog_article/10th­anniversary­rangers­sign­chan­ho­park/>. 39 "2 Grand Slams in 1 Game by Fernando Tatis." Box Score by Baseball Almanac. Baseball­Almanac, n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. <http://www.baseball­almanac.com/boxscore/04231999.shtml>. 40 Ibid. 41 Jaffe, Chris. “10th Anniversary: Rangers Sign Chan Ho Park.” The Hardball Times. N.p., 10 Jan. 2012. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=contracts/090206>.

28

payroll standing at $70 million, the Rangers were possibly of the richest and most talented

last­place teams in history— but were a last­place team nonetheless. They had finished 73­89 42

the previous season, 43 games out of first place. 43

By signing Park, who was forecasted to be a productive starting ace, “the Rangers

proclaimed themselves contenders again.” This righty’s sliders and sinkers, coupled with 44

A­Rod’s power, was a sure sign that the promised land of the playoffs was now finally around

the corner.

If only. As it turned out, Park was one of the 10 highest­paid players in the league from

'02 through '05, but never had an ERA below 5.50 in any of those years (for the record, his ERA

in each of those seasons was 5.75, 7.58, 5.74, and 5.66, respectively) . In his first season, Park 45

went 9­8 and led the league in HBPs (17) despite only pitching 145.2 innings— roughly one

HBP per 9 innings pitched.

It only got worse from there, as Park started just 23 games over the next two seasons and

saw his production continue to plummet. The best decision the Rangers ever made with Park 46

was getting rid of him, shipping him out to the Padres just before the 2005 trade

deadline—although they still had to pay him the entirety of his salary through the end of 2006. 47

42 “Major League Baseball Team Payrolls, 1998­2013.” Steve O’s Baseball Umpire Resources. N.p., 2013. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://www.stevetheump.com/Payrolls.htm>. 43 “2001 Final Standings.” Major League Baseball. MLB Advanced Media, L.P., n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/standings/mlb_standings_2001_season.jsp>. 44 Fraley, Gerry. “Archive: The Day Chan Ho Park Signed with the Rangers.” The Dallas Morning News. Dallas Morning News Inc., 18 Jan. 2012. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/texas­rangers/headlines/20120118­archive­the­day­chan­ho­park­signed­with­the­rangers.ece>. 45 “Best and Worst MLB Free Agent Signings: Chan Ho Park.” RealClearSports. RealClear Holdings, 17 May 2013. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://www.realclearsports.com/lists/best_and_worst_MLB_free_agents/chan_ho_park2.html>. 46 Ibid. 47 Thurm, Wendy. “When Contracts Go from Bad to Worse.” SB Nation. Vox Media, Inc., 10 Sept. 2011. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://www.baseballnation.com/2011/9/10/2411199/aaron­rowand­miguel­tejada­when­contracts­go­from­bad­to­worse>.

29

Overall, Park had gone 22­23 with a 5.79 ERA, a 1.610 WHIP, and a 1.47 K/BB ratio in 3.5

seasons with the Rangers. He had only even pitched 563 innings during that time, meaning each

inning he pitched— more of which he gave up a run in than not, on average— cost the Rangers a

whopping $115,453. During his time in Texas, Park had provided the Rangers with only one 48

win for every $2 million he was paid. 49

“When a lot of people think of huge contracts for the Rangers, they think of [Alex]

Rodriguez, but Park had a far, far worse contract,” sports journalist Chris Jaffe wrote.

“Rodriguez provided value on the field. Park just gave the club a depleted bank account.” 50

As Park toiled with another six teams as his career fizzled out over the next five seasons,

the questions piled up. How could $65 million have been put to such abysmal use as this? How

could traveling the 1,200 miles between Los Angeles and Arlington have devastated Park’s

pitching as much as it did?

A fair amount of the reasons were beyond Park’s control. He was notoriously

injury­prone during those years, spending several stints on the DL for muscular and nerve

weakness in his back, as well as a hurt hamstring and a blister on a finger on his pitching hand. 51

By contrast, Park had never spent a day on the DL in his previous six seasons with the Dodgers,

48 "The Worst Pitcher Contracts in History." High Heat Stats. USA Today Sports Media Group, June 2011. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://highheatstats.blogspot.com/2011/12/worst­pitcher­contracts­in­history.html>. 49 Wilson, Caleb. “Texas Rangers: 10 Worst Pitcher Acquisitions of All Time.” The Bleacher Report. Bleacher Report, Turner Broadcasting, 26 Feb. 2012. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1078713­texas­rangers­10­worst­pitcher­acquisitions­of­all­time>. 50 Jaffe, Chris. “10th Anniversary: Rangers Sign Chan Ho Park.” The Hardball Times. N.p., 10 Jan. 2012. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/content/blog_article/10th­anniversary­rangers­sign­chan­ho­park/>. 51 “Park won’t return from back injury.” The Associated Press. CNN/Sports Illustrated, 15 Aug. 2003. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/news/2003/08/15/park_back_ap/>.

30

and had gone 80­54 in that span. In Texas, unfortunately, injuries gradually built up and 52

curtailed his production.

Moreover, going from a pitcher­friendly to hitter­friendly park can always influence a

free agent, and Park was no exception. “Dodger Stadium is and always will be a pitcher's park,” 53

the stadium with the highest pitching mound in the MLB, and sizable outfield dimensions which

make extra­base hits less common than elsewhere in the league.

Rangers Ballpark in Arlington is quite the opposite, “one of the most notoriously

hitter­friendly parks in baseball, due to the high temperatures, relatively short fences, and the

design of the stadium which has allowed the area's high winds to swirl and lift balls that wouldn't

normally make it out. In truth, the park would give up even more home runs if not for the office

building in center and the field being 22 feet (6.7 m) below street level.” 54

“Park was a pitcher whose performance was heavily dependent on his home ballpark,”

wrote Chris Jaffe of The Hardball Times. “With LA, Park had gone 42­24 with a 2.98 ERA in

Dodger Stadium but 38­30 with a 4.74 ERA on the road. Dodger Stadium was a pitcher’s park

that perfectly suited Park. Texas’s facility was the opposite, a hitter haven.” 55

Given how much better Park actually became when he came back to the Dodgers in

2011— putting up a 3.40 ERA with 79 strikeouts in 95⅓ innings in 54 games— it is pretty clear

52 Ibid. 53 Kearney, Andrew J. “MLB Power Rankings: The 10 Most Pitcher­Friendly Parks in MLB.” The Bleacher Report. Bleacher Report, Turner Broadcasting System, 16 Jan. 2011. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://bleacherreport.com/articles/570937­mlb­power­rankings­the­10­most­pitcher­friendly­parks­in­mlb/page/8>. 54 Pahigian, Josh, and Kevin O'Connell. The Ultimate Baseball Road­trip: A Fan's Guide to Major League Stadiums. Guilford: Lyons, 2004. Print. 55 Jaffe, Chris. “10th Anniversary: Rangers Sign Chan Ho Park.” The Hardball Times. N.p., 10 Jan. 2012. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/content/blog_article/10th­anniversary­rangers­sign­chan­ho­park/>.

31

that this was a pitcher who was far better suited for the dimensions of the Los Angeles ballpark,

rather than its Arlington counterpart.

Jaffe also described the Texas Rangers’ defense as lackluster, which hurt Park’s overall

performance as a pitcher:

“Park’s success had been partially due to the defense behind him. In 2000, he led the league in

fewest hits allowed per inning. While that was partially due to his ability to strike out batters

(217 whiffs in 226 innings that year), it was also due to the guys catching balls behind him.

Please note 2000 wasn’t an aberration. Park had the third­best hits­per­nine innings rate in 2001

and second­best in 1998. Texas, however, did not have such a fine defense.” 56

The final factor is one of the few which the Rangers had the power to influence before

signing Park: overlooking his unsightly statistics in favor of his stronger ones. In his last two,

and best, seasons with the Dodgers, Park has walked 315 batters and hit another 46. His

strikeout­to­walk ratio each year was just 1.75 and 2.40, respectively. If the Rangers had taken a

closer look at these statistics, they might have reached a salary­saving conclusion: Park was not

the kind of all­around pitcher who would warrant eight­figure yearly earnings.

Compare Park’s statistics with those of Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling, two pitchers

who had faced off in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series and would make about $10 million in

2002—$3 million less than Park— on teams with $100 million­plus payrolls. In 2001, Schilling

56 Ibid.

32

had been 21­6, Clemens 20­3; Schilling had walked just 39 batters, Clemens just 72; and

Schilling had a scintillating 7.51 strikeout­to­walk ratio. Clemens’ ratio was 2.96, not his

personal best, but still better than what Park had ever managed in his career.

Overall, those were the kind of statistics that were much more deserving of $10 million a

year than the ones Park had put up, even at his peak. Sure enough, Schilling and Clemens (the

former especially) extended their dominance into the 2002 season, while Park was immediately

regarded as one of the biggest flops of the year.

Even without Park, the Rangers’ woes continued, as the team posted another four straight

losing records after getting rid of him halfway through 2005. Since then, however, the Rangers

have had five straight winning seasons­­ the last four of which were 90­victory seasons­­ and

have won the franchise’s first two AL pennants. There are a series of reasons for this 57

turnaround, a good number of which reflect a revision of the errors the team made fairly

frequently during the Park era

The most basic, and obvious, of these is a better distribution of funds and greater

self­imposed restrictions as to how much to pay the stars. Case in point: Adrian Beltre was the

one and only member of the Texas Rangers to be among the sixty best­paid MLB players in

2013. The $16 million he makes per year is extravagant, to be sure, but still $9 million less than 58

what A­Rod made in 2001, and not terribly more than what Park made in the same season. But

while the Rangers went 73­89 that year, the 2011 Rangers went 96­66, their best record ever, and

57 “Rangers Year­by­Year Results.” Major League Baseball. MLB Advanced Media, L.P., 2013. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://rangers.mlb.com/tex/history/year_by_year_results.jsp>. 58 “Baseball Salaries for 2013.” Long Island Newsday. Newsday, 2013. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://sports.newsday.com/long­island/data/baseball/mlb­salaries­2013/?currentRecord=51>.

33

made the World Series for the second straight year. That was Beltre’s first season with the 59

Rangers, and the numbers he would post— he’d been in the Top 10 of the AL in HRs, SLG %,

RBIs and OPS, while also batting a solid .296—along with his team’s postseason success

indicate that the Rangers have now learned to put their money to much better effect than had

been the case a decade prior. 60

The only other player on the 2013 Rangers to make the $13 million a year that Park’s

salary was worth was second baseman Ian Kinsler. A 17th­round draft pick, Kinsler has already

made the All­Star team three times and become known as a “five­tool second baseman” who

could hit for average and power, while also excelling in base­running, throwing, and fielding. 61

Recall how, even on the Dodgers, Park was valuable in some areas (winning percent, ERA), less

so in others (walks allowed, strikeout­to­walk ratio), and ultimately not the all­around player to

whom the Rangers should have looked to pay $13 million a year. Kinsler was quite the opposite,

and was all the better use of the same amount of money because of it.

The rest of the Rangers’ top 10 base salaries in its 2011 pennant season were

considerably lower than those which had been offered to Beltre and Kinsler. They ranged from

Josh Hamilton’s $7.25 million (not counting a $3 million signing bonus) to Darren Oliver’s $3

million. All of these players contributed to the team’s successes in various ways— including 62

the pitching and defensive departments which had been such deficiencies years ago.

59 “Rangers Year­by­Year Results.” Major League Baseball. MLB Advanced Media, L.P., 2013. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://rangers.mlb.com/tex/history/year_by_year_results.jsp>. 60 "Texas Rangers ­ Rangers Baseball Clubhouse." ESPN MLB. ESPN Internet Ventures, 2013. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://espn.go.com/mlb/team/_/name/tex/ texas­rangers> 61 Freedman, Jonah. “Are Kinsler’s Gaudy Stats Another Creation of Rangers Ballpark?” Sports Illustrated. Time Warner, 11 May 2009. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/jonah_freedman/05/11/ian.kinsler/?eref=sircrc>. 62 Grant, Evan. “Rangers 2011 Payroll Will Rise by at Least 70 Percent.” The Dallas Morning News ­ Texas Rangers Blog. The Dallas Morning News, 28 Feb. 2011. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://rangersblog.dallasnews.com/2011/02/rangers­2011­payroll­will­rise.html/>.

34

While the Rangers still remain an unbalanced team, in terms of pitching versus batting,

they are have now become much more sensible money­wise about how to best develop their

rotation. In 2011, the team spent only a combined $10 million to sign lefties CJ Wilson and

Darren Oliver. Wilson went 16­7 with a 2.94 ERA that year, while Oliver was 5­5 with a 2.29 63

ERA. Together, the two made $3 million less than Park had made in each season he had been 64

with the Rangers, while doing much more to carry the team, along with the help of other capable

pitchers such as Matt Harrison and Alexi Ogando.

Moreover, the Rangers have come a long way over the years in terms of fortifying its

defense. Since coming to Texas, Adrian Beltre has already twice won the Gold Glove Award and

the Fielding Bible Award once for his performance at third base. Along with the efforts of stars 65

like outfielders Alex Rios (another Fielding Bible Award winner) and Jurickson Profar (who has

been hailed in the media for his “dazzling plays”), the current Rangers now seem capable of 66

providing their pitchers with the defensive support that Park and his fellow Texas aces were

lacking at the start of the century.

In conclusion, signing Chan Ho Park was very much a regrettable error, as the Rangers

discovered almost immediately. His pitching abilities were uneven, and he was uncomfortable in

hitter­friendly parks (consider his performance on the road versus in Dodger Stadium while he

was with Los Angeles), which Rangers Field in Arlington qualifies as under any standard.

63 Ibid. 64 "Texas Rangers ­ Rangers Baseball Clubhouse." ESPN MLB. ESPN Internet Ventures, 2013. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://espn.go.com/mlb/team/_/name/tex/ texas­rangers> 65 Ibid. 66 Willis, Todd. “Profar, Rangers Put up Strong Defense.” ESPN Dallas. ESPN Internet Ventures, 28 June 2013. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://espn.go.com/blog/dallas/texas­rangers/post/_/id/4901359/profar­rangers­put­up­strong­defense>.

35

However, the Rangers’ fate for a losing season was not sealed simply by signing Park for $13

million a year. The real problem for them was that they had invested too much money into its

stacked offense, headed by A­Rod, Pudge and Palmeiro, rather than in areas which badly needed

tending, such as defense and starting pitching.

A decade later and Texas has come a fair ways in correcting this fault. Its 40­man roster

is now considerably more balanced, both in talent and salary, than it was in previous seasons,

and the team’s performance in the last four years has reflected this well. Hence, while Park never

knew a winning season with the Rangers, much less an AL championship, Arlington’s current

ballplayers may experience both of these several times over seasons to come.

CASE STUDY #2

36

“I had a great time in Chicago, but you have to move on. This is my new house, and I love it,”

Sammy Sosa declared at a February 2005 press conference, in which he publically donned a

Baltimore Orioles cap and uniform for the first time ever. “I am happy....The best of Sammy

Sosa is coming now!” 67

Happy for what, however? Happy to have pocketed about $1 million for every season

he’d been in the pros? Who wouldn’t be? That was roughly 150% what Sosa’s fellow 1989

rookie, Ken Griffey, Jr., was making that same year— and he would actually go on to bat .301

and hit 35 home runs during the coming season.

Happy to be out of Chicago? Definitely, though implicitly. In the late 1990’s, the

Dominican slugger was, in and outside Chicago, one of the most beloved players in the league.

His 1998 chase for the single­season home run record was widely regarded as one of the most

exciting episodes of recent baseball history, and his nice­guy image won him favor with fans that

other, more polarizing players like Barry Bonds, missed out on.

Sosa’s kind words at that conference towards the city he’d played in for 16 years, both

for the Cubs and the White Sox, seemed sincere enough: “I gave Chicago everything that I have.

It was a beautiful experience for my wife and family.” 68

Nonetheless, over the past few years, Sosa’s reputation in the Windy City had taken

several damaging hits. It began in June 2003, when Sosa was ejected from a game, then

suspended for a week, when umpires discovered a length of cork in his shattered bat. Sosa

apologized, saying he’d simply grabbed a bat he’d only intended to use in exhibition games.

67 "Sosa passes physical, heads to O's." ESPN MLB. ESPN Internet Ventures, 4 Feb. 2005. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1981771>. 68 Ibid.

37

Some moved on; others didn’t. Others branded him a cheater for good, and that reputation

became even more irreparable as allegations of Sosa’s use of PED’s grew and grew.

Sosa again insisted he was innocent, and even said he would volunteer to be drug­tested

before any of his peers. “I have never used performance­enhancing drugs,” Sosa testified under

oath in Congress. Still, hints over his possible connections to steroid usage persisted through 69

the years, until a 2009 New York Times report announced that Sosa had indeed tested positive in

2003. The truth has never been confirmed, but the skepticism was strong enough for Sosa to be

denied entry into the Hall of Fame in his first year on the ballot.

Aside from his integrity as a player, Cubs fans became disenfranchised with Sosa’s

declining statistics— he had hit one of the worst slumps of his career midway through the 2004

season, which would prove to be his last with the Cubs— as well as several questionable

behavior incidents and quarrels with Cubs manager, Dusty Baker. Given this context, Sosa ended

the season on an especially sour note. He arrived late to the Cubs' regular­season finale at

Wrigley Field and left the game early without explanation, resulting in his being fined $87,400,

or an entire day's salary.

“You have to move on,” indeed.

Surely Sosa must have felt great relief at the prospect of playing for a new group of fans,

in a different league with a different team. Not to mention doing so in a city where the pressure

greeting megawatt All­Star signees is a slight notch down of that which exists in Baltimore’s

A.L. East counterparts like Boston or New York.

69 Ibid.

38

But was Sosa truly happy, and confident, with his abilities as a player and capacity to

contribute to the Orioles’ cause in the years to come?

No athlete wants to appear pessimistic during a Welcome to Your New team event. But it

seems fair to say that Sosa must have been doing a bit of bluffing in the moment he declared that

his peak production was just around the corner now that he was in Baltimore. The best of any

player in any sport is almost never coming by their late 30’s. Ted Williams did win a couple

extra AL Batting crowns in those years, but that was Ted Williams. Not too many exceptions

beyond that come to mind.

Moreover, it is clear that Sosa’s statistics had been slipping considerably in several

regards during the past few years. In 2004, he had registered a meager .253 BA, .332 OBP, and

.517 SLG, figures which were all significantly lower than his standard output in previous

seasons. All told, he was coming off three straight seasons of statistical decline, in which his

batting average, home run and RBI totals had all dipped successively in each year.

Agents and general managers comb restlessly over statistics like these before actually

making players a formal offer. So what could have prompted the Baltimore Orioles to pursue

Sosa, and ultimately offer him a hearty chunk of their $75 million payroll, seemingly in

disregard of such unfavorable statistical evidence?

There are many possible explanations. One is that the Orioles were just overly desperate

to add a superstar to their lineup at that point in time. That same offseason, they had pursued hot

free agents such as Carl Pavano, Richie Sexson and Carlos Delgado quite intently, only to have

their offers denied each time. While Sosa was certainly past his prime, at least he fit the billing as

39

a universally recognized and immensely popular slugger who could potentially benefit the

Orioles on the field, and certainly at the box office.

Moreover, in pairing Sosa with first baseman/designated hitter Rafael Palmeiro, the

Orioles would become the first franchise ever to feature two members of the coveted 500

home­run club playing together after having both attained that plateau. Surely such a matchup

would be alluring enough to draw fans into Camden Yards?

There was also certain economical appeal to signing Sosa, inasmuch as the Orioles

managed to get the Cubs to pay Sosa $7 million of his $18 million 2005 salary, even while he

spent the year playing for a completely different team. In exchange, the Orioles sent the Cubs

second baseman Jerry Hairston Jr. and two minor leaguers, second baseman Mike Fontenot and

right­handed pitcher Dave Crouthers. The O’s must have deemed all of these players expendable

in contrast to slugger Slammin’ Sammy, especially when they had the opportunity to purchase

him at nearly half­price. Moreover, in order to guarantee his arrival to the Orioles, Sosa had

agreed to a buyout of his 2006 contract, meaning that he would automatically become a free

agent at season’s end. It seemed like a worthwhile experiment— even if it didn’t work out, it

could be scrapped fairly easily in just a year’s time.

Lastly, there is the possibility that, even with Sosa’s statistics faltering in nearly every

category, there was still one which remained reasonably impressive, one which defined Sosa and

the entire sport like none other: the long ball.

Sosa’s last home run of the 2004 season was the 479th one he had hit in the past 10

seasons, meaning that he would be debuting on the Orioles having just set the record for most

40

homers hit over the course of a decade. Moreover, he had never hit fewer than 35 home runs in a

season since 1995, and he’d done it again in 2004 after missing nearly a quarter of the season.

"A lot of people say my numbers are down," Sosa had said in his defense. "But I was out

for almost 40 games and I hit 35 home runs. C'mon." 70

This logic seemed to have won over Orioles vice president Mike Flanagan. "When

Sammy was on the field, he produced. He may even spend some time as the DH," Flanagan said

upon introducing Sosa to the Orioles’ lineup. "Our goal will be to keep him healthy; when that's

happened he's been a very productive player." One of the scouts who contributed to the 2005 71

Sports Illustrated MLB Preview Issue similarly expressed, “I wouldn't bet against Sammy Sosa

having a good year… he's going from one hitter's ballpark to another and is still capable of

smacking 30 to 40 home runs.” 72

At the very least, there was the comfort of knowing that the home run sells. And at that

moment, at least, Sosa seemed poised to deliver another bucket load of them in 2005.

Sadly, Sosa’s production that year failed to impress on any level. “Unquestionably,

Sammy's 2005 season with the Orioles was a disappointment to him, his team, and the fans, who

expected great things from the slugger when the season began,” said Sosa’s biographer John

Morrison. “He batted an anemic .221, with a mere 14 home runs and 45 RBI. The onetime speed

70 Ibid. 71 Armour, Nancy, Ronald Blum, and Ricardo Zuniga. "Sosa to take physical Wednesday; Orioles welcome his bat." Associated Press. N.p., 2 Feb. 2005. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. <http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/ wire?section=mlb&id=1982212>. 72 Habib, Daniel G. "Baltimore Orioles: Sammy Sosa makes a potent lineup stronger, but the rotation will be their downfall." Sports Illustrated. Time Warner, 4 Apr. 2005. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1110458/index.htm>.

41

demon on the bases stole only one base. He sat out the last several weeks of the season with a toe

injury.” 73

“He had no power, no batting eye, no verve, no nothing in his worst season in more than

a decade,” wrote a disgusted John Donovan of Sports Illustrated. “And he didn’t even play for

the last month and a half. He made almost $18 million in ‘05. He could make $17 million less in

‘06.” 74

Sosa struggled with injuries for much of the season, but even when he was healthy, his

output was far from promising. His post­2001 decline in batting average, homers, total bases, and

RBI grew all the more glaring while he was in Baltimore. And what’s worse, for him at least, is

that even Donovan proved to be overly generous in his salary prediction.

On December 7, 2005, the Orioles decided announced they would not be offering Sosa an

arbitration contract, which effectively ended his tenure in Baltimore and left him as an

unemployed free agent. Sosa never suited up in a baseball uniform in 2006, and although he

returned for 114 games of the 2007 season as the Texas Rangers, he remained hampered by a

measly batting average (.252) and on­base percentage (.311), although his 92 RBI’s and 21 HR’s

were a considerable improvement from what they had been in 2005.

Sosa eventually retired in 2009. His stint with the Orioles had been dismal. However,

given that it is hardly uncommon for players to fade away by the end of their careers, it is really

the clubhouse that was most put to shame by this outcome. Baltimore effectively shelled out one

of the least impactful eight­figure contracts in baseball history, and had actually become worse

73 Morrison, John. Sammy Sosa. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2006. Print. The Great Hispanic Heritage. pg. 100. 74 Donovan, John. "Fire up the Hot Stove Stock up, stock down: Giles climbing, Sosa plunging." Sports Illustrated. Time Warner, 28 Sept. 2005. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/writers/john_donovan/09/28/free.agents/index.html>.

42

as a team in the process, going 74­88 in 2005 as opposed to 78­84 in 2004. In the six seasons that

followed, the Orioles never came within 11 wins of a .500 record. One could only speculate how

different that long­term outcome might have been if the $18 million offered to Sosa had been put

to even moderately better use.

It may still be too soon to talk of the “resurgent Baltimore Orioles.” This team has been

unable to make it past the first round of the playoffs in recent years— a round that would not

even exist if not for the critically questioned addition of a season­end “Wild Card Tiebreaker.”

The coming offseason will reveal just how much the O’s strengthen their lineup in all

departments necessary for a successful playoff campaign.

Yet a quick assessment of the team’s year­by­year record shows a dramatic surge. In

2012, the Orioles finished 93­69, the precise reversal of its 2011 record. This marked only the

sixth time in baseball history that a team had improved by 20 wins from one season to the next

en route to a 90+ win total. In 2013, despite an end­of­year faltering, the Orioles still finished a 75

respectable 85­77 for their second straight .500 season, after having missed that plateau in each

of the previous 14 seasons. On a side note, they also set the post­1900 team record for the most

error­free game in a single season: 119 in total. With most of their healthy young lineup set to 76

return in 2014, it is fair to expect that the Orioles will continue to provide their fans with quality

baseball in seasons to come.

75 Lindbergh, Ben. "Overthinking It: Why There Probably Are No Next Orioles." Baseball Prospectus. Prospectus Entertainment Ventures, 18 Feb. 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. <http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=19645 >. 76 Adams, Joey. "Baltimore Orioles miss postseason, but optimism remains." iSports Web. isportsweb.com, 30 Sept. 2013. Web. 17 Nov. 2013. <http://isportsweb.com/2013/09/30/baltimore­orioles­2013­season­comes­end/>.

43

The clubhouse decisions which have taken the team to this level are quite distinguished

from those involving Sammy Sosa almost a decade ago. For one, the nature of the biggest names

in Orioles slugging department are quite different from what they were in the mid­2000’s.

As was the case with Sosa, Adam Jones and Chris Davis both started their careers outside

of Baltimore and were added to the team through a series of high­profile trades. Yet while Sosa

was 36 when he first arrived to Camden Yards, Jones and Davis were 23 and 25, respectively.

Their statistics as Orioles have also been a great deal more impressive than were Slammin’

Sammy’s.

Jones may not been able to get on base much more often than Sosa did, given that his

OBP has hovered only around .300 in each of his full seasons in the majors. Yet in 2013, Jones

managed to hit just as many home runs as Sosa did the year before he joined the Orioles— 33 vs.

35, respectively— and his batting average was a full 32 points better. While Sosa’s performance

as a Oriole paled to that which he’d displayed as a Cub, Jones has thrice been an All­Star and

Gold Glove winner since leaving Seattle for Baltimore.

Furthermore, Jones’ numbers have now been eclipsed by those of

secret­weapon­turned­MVP­candidate Chris Davis. This past season, the Texan first baseman

managed to crush 53 home runs and drive in 138 runs— both American League highs— while

also batting a solid .286, and registering a commendable 1.004 OPS. That was 155 points higher

than Sosa’s OPS had been in his final year as a Cub and 331 points higher than it turned out to be

in his lone season as an Oriole.

44

Clearly, Jones and Davis are of considerably more value to the Orioles than Sosa ever

proved to be. Even more importantly, each is much stronger as a financial asset. In 2013, the

Orioles paid $8 million to Jones and $3.3 million to Davis. That total combined is roughly as

much as what they offered Sosa in 2005. Simply put, it made infinitely more sense for the

Orioles to invest $11 million in two healthy young players, whose numbers had been steadily

increasing in years past and who could hit for power as well as for average, rather than in one

injury­prone 36­year­old who practically represented the antithesis of all those domains.

Although Sosa may stand out in the pack, he was far from the only big­budget free agent

of his era to do more harm than good to the Birds. Other pricey free agents Baltimore had signed

in the mid­2000’s, including Javy Lopez and Rafael Palmeiro, also underperformed as Orioles

almost from the start. Not too long before then, Albert Belle had bombed after signing on with

the team for 5 years and $65 million, and was finally forced to retire early due to degenerative

hip osteoarthritis (luckily for the team, an insurance clause in the contract saved them from

having to pay the deactivated Belle any more of that massive sum which today would top $90

million).

Miguel Tejada may have initially seemed like the exception to this trend, given that he

earned the AL RBI crown in his first season with Baltimore by driving in 150 runs. Yet Tejada

never even came within more than two­thirds of that figure in any of this three remaining seasons

with Baltimore, and eventually he demanded to be traded away from what he saw as a ball club

going nowhere. Even the 2002 AL MVP proved not to make for the best imaginable use of a

six­year, $72 million contract.

45

In contrast to all this negative news, today’s Orioles feature a considerable number of

younger and less­expensive players, such as third baseman Manny Machado, catcher Matt

Wieters, and outfielder Nick Markakis. They were all developed in the Orioles’ farm system,

have all spent their entire MLB careers in Baltimore, and all have had a considerable impact on

the team’s remarkable turnaround over the past two seasons. This represents the value of

developing one’s own farm systems, rather than recklessly chasing down available free agents at

the risk of them turning out to be white elephants. This essay shall return to that topic upon

analyzing the Red Sox and Cardinals’ roads to the 2013 World Series.

However, this is not to say that the Orioles, or any other team, is best off shunning the

free agency market entirely. Rather, it is important for organizations to best consider their current

interests and shortages before plunging head­first into that market. The Orioles biggest mistake

in the 2005 offseason might not have been the decision to sign Sosa; more generally, it was their

failure to concentrate their pursuits on pitching talent and choosing instead to add even more big

bats to their lineup.

Batting was hardly the reason why the Orioles had struggled to finish above .500 for a

decade running. In its 2005 preview issue, Sports Illustrated remarked that, for a team that had

finished third and sub­.500, the Orioles certainly had “an embarrassment of offensive riches.” In

2004, the team had been third in the American League in batting (.281) and fourth in on­base

percentage (.345). 77

77 Habib, Daniel G. "Baltimore Orioles: Sammy Sosa makes a potent lineup stronger, but the rotation will be their downfall." Sports Illustrated. Time Warner, 4 Apr. 2005. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1110458/index.htm>.

46

The real problem, and one that seem to have remained unaddressed throughout the

inter­season period, was the Orioles’ starting rotation. Over the offseason, SI remarked,

“Baltimore did nothing to redress the dreadful starting pitching that has kept it out of the

postseason since 1997.” 78

It seems that the Orioles had given up too easily on signing a strong starting pitcher,

having missed out on both Tim Hudson and Carl Pavano in the same winter. The team had also

been overly preoccupied with finding another slugger, with Sosa being the one they eventually

chose. As a consequence, the team had not revamped in the area which most needed fixing,

thereby condemning itself to yet another losing season.

Pitching arguably remains the Orioles’ weak spot today. But at least they are showing

signs of improvement. Promising young aces such as Chris Tillman and Miguel Gonzalez all are

a major upgrade from the likes of Sidney Ponson, whom the Orioles paid $22.5 million in 2004

only to have him have him post a 5.30 ERA one season, 6.21 the next, and finally get released

for repeated brushings with the law. If pitchers like Dylan Bundy— whom the Orioles selected

with the fourth overall pick in the 2011 Major League Baseball Draft but who had to sit out a

year while undergoing Tommy John surgery— can provide extra power to the mound, the team

may finally be able to redeem itself from one of its most regular deficiencies.

In summary, the decision to bring Sosa to Baltimore, and its ensuing consequences for

the organization, offers many simple lessons in hindsight. Beware of signing an aging veteran

78 Ibid.

47

just for his name, rather than his output. Don’t go for an extra batter when it’s really a good

pitcher that you need.

But one of the most obvious morals of this story is one which may seem so plain and

obvious. Yet it continues to be ignored by generations of baseball fans and agents alike and may

just be too difficult for anyone to embrace.

And it is this: Home runs just aren’t everything.

The four­bagger may be the signature element of baseball, the most glamorous statistic of

them all. But they don’t guarantee the highest level of individual or team success with which

they are so often associated.

Two players have hit 70 home runs in a single season— Mark McGwire of the St. Louis

Cardinals in 1998 and Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants in 2001. Both are widely viewed

as the among the most spectacular season­single achievements in baseball history, which makes

it so easy to overlook a simple fact— neither player actually made the playoffs in the year that

they did it.

Rafael Palmeiro had just joined the 500 home­run club when Baltimore invited him to

their lineup. Perhaps they should have paid closer attention to a rather disturbing statistic: he was

the only member of that club to have never actually played in a playoff game. As it turns out,

Palmeiro was never able to shake off that ignominious distinction as an Oriole.

Other examples of home runs not translating into overall clubhouse success are out there

by the hundreds for statisticians to feast on. So when Sosa had shrugged off his critics by saying,

"A lot of people say my numbers are down, but I was out for almost 40 games and I hit 35 home

48

runs. C'mon,” the Orioles’ reaction should have actually been: “No, we’re not coming on. 79

Nearly all of your statistics have become so underwhelming lately, and we don’t think the

number of home runs you hit can compensate for that alone. It’s common sense. C’mon.”

In 2002, Billy Beane was largely apathetic as to how many home runs his potential free

agent signees had hit the previous season. He concentrated on two different figures altogether:

on­base percentage (OBP) and on­base­plus­slugging (OPS). “Crude as it was, [OPS] was a

much better indicator than any other offensive statistic of the number of runs a team would

score,” Moneyball author Michael Lewis observed. 80

Beane put this reasoning to good use. For one, it helped him to conclude that Johnny

Damon, who left Oakland after the 2001 season, was ultimately “an easily replaceable offensive

player,” given that “his on­base percentage in 2001 had been .324, or roughly 10 points below

the league average.” By adding players such as Terrence Long, Randy Velarde and other 81

relatively low­priced players with strong showings in both OBP and OPS, the A’s managed to

defy all rock­bottom expectations and become the defining surprise team of the 2002 season, as

well as possibly the entire 21st century.

Similarly, the Orioles now feature a variety of not­terribly­expensive batters, including

Davis, Jones and Markakis, who are able to post impressive results in often­undervalued

categories such as OBP and OPS, as well as in more commonly glorified categories such as HRs

79 "Sosa passes physical, heads to O's." ESPN MLB. ESPN Internet Ventures, 4 Feb. 2005. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1981771>. 80 Lewis, Michael. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003. Print. pg. 128. 81 Ibid, pg. 129.

49

and RBIs. Such a combination solidifies hopes for the team’s long­term run production in ways

that Sosa, Palmeiro and others were never able to do.

To what extent the Moneyball theory factors into the team’s recent turnaround is

debatable. Interestingly enough, Orioles GM Dan Duquette has compared his approach to that of

Billy Beane. Given that Duquette guided the cash­deprived Montreal Expos to surprisingly good

records in the mid­90’s, that comparison may in fact have been reasonable.

Yet the Orioles have consistently been richer than the A’s, and entered the 2013 season

with a $91 million payroll to Oakland’s $63.4 million. “That lack of payroll flexibility has forced

Beane to trade away potential star players before they become too expensive, something the

Orioles haven't had to do,” said Dan Connolly of The Baltimore Sun. 82

Like most analogies, this one has its flaws.

Nevertheless, it is fair to say that the team has corrected the worst faults of its

player­hunting from the previous decade. Back then, the Orioles’ most distinguished free agent

signees, Sosa among them, by and large shared a handful of common traits: they had already

reached their 30’s; their best days were behind them; and almost none of them were pitchers, let

alone critically acclaimed ones.

Much of that has now been revised. Put simply, the Orioles are making much more

sensible transactions nowadays than the ones they were making roughly ten years ago. They are

pursuing younger, more athletic players with a greater likelihood of contributing to the

organization in the long run. At the same time, the Orioles have avoided the same kind of

82 Connolly, Dan. "Dan Duquette says his Montreal Expos were 'Moneyball 1.'" The Baltimore Sun. Tribune Newspaper, 25 Apr. 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. <http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013­04­25/sports/bs­sp­orioles­duquette­moneyball­0426­20130425 _1_moneyball­orioles­play­falstaff/2>.

50

counter­productive signings of the sort which the Sosa signing turned out to be (perhaps the most

glaring example of this was the decision to pass on signing Manny Ramirez as a reinstated free

agent in 2012).

So no, the best Sammy Sosa was not “coming now” in that moment in 2005. But the best

of the Baltimore Orioles might now finally be coming. And the lessons learned years ago from

signing Sosa, and a host of others who shared his flaws as a free agent prospect, may well be a

significant reason for why that is now the case.

51

CASE STUDY #3

The 2013 World Series was widely deemed one of the most evenly­matched Fall Classics in

recent history. Every single one of the Sports Illustrated writers who contributed to the

publication’s “Crystal Ball” preview believed that the series would last either six or seven

games. All but one of 28 of ESPN’s top sportswriters and analysts expressed the same view in a 83

similar poll. 84

Tom Verducci remarked that this was the not­so­common World Series to feature teams

that had been equally dominant in their divisions, and who had never actually faced one another

recently. As expressed on the SI website shortly before the Series, the resulting matchup sure to

be engaging.

83 "SI.com's experts pick World Series winner, MVP and more." Sports Illustrated.Time Warner, 23 Oct. 2013. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. <http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mlb/news/20131023/world­series­experts­picks/>. 84 "ESPN's World Series predictions." ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, 23 Oct. 2013. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. <http://espn.go.com/mlb/playoffs/2013/story/_/id/9864637/espn­expert­predictions>.

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“Not only are we lucky enough to have the first World Series since 1979 that matches

division winners who both led their respective leagues in wins and run differential, but we also

have the rare World Series that hasn't been spoiled by interleague play. Both the Red Sox and the

Cardinals have spent the past three days cramming like college kids during finals week. There is

a good sense of anxiety on both sides because of the two clubs' lack of familiarity with each

other.” 85

Verducci, a seasoned baseball critic, was evidently a great deal more optimistic about this

World Series’ potential intensity versus the last Red Sox­Cardinals matchup in the 2004 World

Series— having immediately decried that four­game sweep as the worst and most lopsided

World Series of all the ones he had covered as a sports journalist since 1985. His analysis 86

indicated that both 2013 League Champions had put enough emphasis on both pitching, fielding

and hitting; and, by a stroke of fortune, had not actually played each other since 2008.

Although the matchup was oftentimes described as a “familiar” one— mainly because it

was the fourth of the Red Sox’s twelve all­time World Series appearances to be against the

Cardinals— in reality, the two present­day teams were so unfamiliar with their rivals’ style of

play that there would likely be a certain “element of surprise” that would add more excitement

and suspense to the Series.

85 Verducci, Tom. "Lack of familiarity between the Red Sox and the Cardinals gives this World Series an old­school feel." Sports Illustrated. Time Warner, 23 Oct. 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. <http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mlb/news/ 20131023/red­sox­cardinals­world­series/#ixzz2iwr8dm5k > 86 Cleveland, Reggie. "OK, this really ticked me off." Tipping Pitchers. vBulletin Solutions, 28 Oct. 2004. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. <http://tippingpitchers.com/showthread.php?t=15478>.

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Both teams were comparable in multiple regards, not the least important of which was the

decisions both had made involving player salaries in the two seasons preceding this Series. The

American League champions, the Boston Red Sox, had taken a step in the right direction just

over a year prior by ridding themselves of several overpaid starters. The National League

champions, the St. Louis Cardinals, had decided against resigning their franchise player, Albert

Pujols, in 2011­­ a move which arguably paved the way for them to reclaim the NL Pennant only

two years later.

This was not a definitive Moneyball story, seeing as both the Red Sox and the St. Louis

Cardinals had salaries of over $115 million in 2013, and were respectively the 4th and 11th

highest­spending teams in the league. Nonetheless, a case can be made that the two teams were 87

able to revise their spending habits and make well­thought out salary and payroll decisions that

earned them a trip to the World Series. In other words, they got the message that money does not

automatically buy the pennant; instead, it has to be put to smart, effective use in order to earn the

pennant.

This argument is compelling enough for both 2013 League Champions to warrant case

studies in this analytical paper.

BOSTON RED SOX

87 Petchesky, Barry. "2013 Payrolls and Salaries for Every MLB Team." Deadspin. N.p., 29 Mar. 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. <http://deadspin.com/ 2013­payrolls­and­salaries­for­every­mlb­team­462765594>.

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“Billy Beane turned down the Red Sox offer of $12,500,000 and chose to stay in Oakland as the

A’s General Manager.

Two years later, the Red Sox won their first championship since 1918, embracing the philosophy

championed in Oakland.” 88

I remember reading this block of text, featured in the closing moments of the film

Moneyball, while sitting in the now­defunct Harvard Square Theatre with my dad. He was in

town for the Class of 1981’s 30th reunion down the block, as well as for some quality father­son

time which this excellent film, an eventual Best Picture nominee, was certainly providing.

Upon sighting these sentences, the small chunk of Red Sox Nation sitting around me

started applauding, while I started fidgeting in my seat. Not because the quotation was

inaccurate— certainly, smart sabermetrics had played a critical role in the Red Sox’s

unforgettable 2004 World Series victory— but now, seven years later, it was quite difficult to

associate such a positive economic model with the current­day Boston Red Sox.

At that point in time, it was Fall 2011, and the franchise was undergoing an astonishing

meltdown. The Sox would ultimately lose 18 of their last 24 games and finish one painful game

out of the Wild Card race to miss the 2011 postseason. This was “an epic collapse... that saw an

entitled, expensive collection of players plummet further and faster than any team in history.” 89

88 Miller, Bennett, dir. Moneyball. Screenplay by Steven Zallian and Aaron Sorkin. Sony Pictures, 2011. Film. 89 Klein, Christopher. "How an apocalyptic cult invented baseball beard power." The Boston Globe. Boston Globe Media Partners, 27 Oct. 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. <http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/10/26/how­apocalyptic­cult­invented­baseball­beard­power/o2t0q7mhYgtYgE0pow9nyI/ story.html>.

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It was so typical of the Red Sox of old, the team that repeatedly found the most

jaw­dropping, soul­sucking means of breaking its fans’ hearts and extending its championship

drought, year­end, year­out. But more importantly— in that context, at least— was that this was

a team that essentially represented the antithesis of the Moneyball theory that Billy Beane and

Michael Lewis had made famous since 2002.

That same year, Theo Epstein was comparable to Beane as the Red Sox’s young, new,

somewhat unconventional General Manager, who was keen on taking an experimental approach

to roster­building. “I think we're risk takers in the sense that we'll try anything within reason,

within moral boundaries, to get a competitive advantage,” Epstein said in an interview with

Baseball Prospectus. “If someone has an idea— no matter how crazy, no matter how

off­the­wall, no matter how illogical it seems— as long as we don't have to expend a tremendous

amount of resources to try it, we'll try it.” 90

“Crazy,” “illogical” and “off­the­wall” was certainly how Beane had often been

perceived in his early years in Oakland. But both Beane and Epstein managed to silence their

critics when their teams proved amazingly successful, a process which began with a series of

highly intelligent player acquisitions. Epstein was credited with making several key transactions,

including David Ortiz, Kevin Millar, and Curt Schilling. Most of these players were signed at

modest amounts— Ortiz made $3.1 million in his first year with the Red Sox, while Millar made

$5.3 million in his first two years. Schilling was pricier, making $13 million in the 2004 season

90 Fox, Nathan. "Prospectus Q&A." Theo Epstein, Part I. N. 9 Feb. 2004. < www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2546 >.

56

at age 37, but given that he is widely remembered as the hero of that historic postseason, that

signing can hardly be thought of as a miscue on Boston’s part.

While the 2002 A’s had defied all expectations, the Red Sox would ultimately do them

one better in 2004. This was assured on the night of October 27th. With the Red Sox up 3­0 both

in the game and in the World Series, Keith Foulke tossed a ground ball hit by Edgar Renteria, in

the bottom of the 9th with two outs, to first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz. Veteran announcer Joe

Buck delivered a call which still resonates today:

“Back to Foulke... Red Sox fans have longed to hear it: The Boston Red Sox are World

Champions!” 91

The Red Sox had won. The Curse of the Bambino was dead. Boston was a championship

team for the first time since the year World War I had ended. How far society had advanced

since then— and in one swoop, the Boston Red Sox had finally managed to catch up.

Epstein was immediately hailed as a hero in Boston, becoming “the kind of local

celebrity who would never have to wait for a table for the rest of his life.” Then, barely a year 92

later, he established yet another parallel between himself and Billy Beane by turning down a

lofty GM contract offer ($4.5 million over three years) from the Red Sox.

91 Finn, Chad. "Joe Buck walks a fine line with Cardinals fans." The Boston Globe. Boston Globe Media Partners, 29 Oct. 2013. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. <http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2013/10/28/broadcasterjoe­buck­walks­fine­line­withfans/m4HfXq7MikJogsTE19KZOM/tory.html>. 92 Verducci, Tom. "Yanked Out." Sports Illustrated. Time Warner, 14 Nov. 2005. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. <http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1113672/index.htm>.

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He told reporters that this was a job he did not have his whole heart in. The reason for

this, as Sports Illustrated hypothesized, was that, in finally winning the World Series, the Red

Sox’s entire approach to the game had immediately been rerouted. All of a sudden, this was an

organization “fraught with Machiavellian upper management, players who want out of the

smallest fishbowl in sports and a mentality that anything short of a world championship is a

joyless failure.” 93

In other words, they weren’t anything like the Oakland A’s anymore. Tom Verducci put

it nicely and succinctly: “the Red Sox have become the Yankees.” 94

Epstein had gotten a sense of this, and it had shown in his transactions with many of his

cohorts, most especially team president and CEO Larry Lucchino. As Verducci observed:

“Before he quit... Epstein conducted a cost analysis of the weak free­agent market and

decided the Red Sox would be better off tweaking the team with trades and prospects. That didn't

square with Lucchino, who knows if the Sox are to maximize revenues, they need big names and

headlines.” 95

In spite of Epstein’s success as GM, the rest of the Red Sox management did not seem so

confident in the long­term potential of the sabermetric model. As a team with the next­highest

payroll in baseball, topped only by the Yankees, the Red Sox was keen on flexing its muscles.

Epstein could not support that mentality, and so chose to leave.

93 Ibid. 94 Ibid. 95 Ibid.

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Thankfully for the Red Sox, his departure was short­lived, as the Red Sox maintained

contact with Epstein over the offseason and finally brought him back as of General Manager and

gave him the additional title of Executive Vice President. By 2007, they were World Champions

once again, thanks in large part a number of Epstein­orchestrated transactions from months prior.

Japanese pitching sensation Daisuke Matsuzaka had been considered the agent­to­sign of

the winter, and the Red Sox had managed to land him for a reasonably appropriate six­year

contract worth $52 million. While “Dice­K” did not fully match expectations, going 15­12 with a

4.40 ERA in the regular season, he still delivered in the World Series, starting and winning

Game 3 for the Red Sox. Compared with Chan Ho Park’s five­year contract for $75 million, the

former deal seems decidedly the more logical and rewarding. Combined sensible with other free

agency signings, including Joel Piniero, Hideki Okajima and J.D. Drew, the Red Sox managed to

bring enough fresh talent and faces to ensure another successful season.

Still, when you’re a team as rich as the Red Sox, it seems inevitable that you will want to

take your chances now and then. As Boston experienced an unexpected stretch of non­playoff

seasons after 2007, the pressure to do so mounted, and eventually they gave in.

Billy Beane would certainly have cried foul at what went on in Boston over the 2011

offseason. So would most of the baseball world, in retrospect anyways. Over the space of a few

weeks, the Red Sox signed Carl Crawford for 7 years and $142 million in 2011 and traded for

Adrian Gonzalez, to who they would eventually offer a 7­year, $154 million contract extension

that April.

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Both transactions were designed to improve the Red Sox’s offense and add a bit of “star

power” to the lineup. Both seemed reasonably safe— Crawford and Gonzalez were experienced,

but not terribly old, and had posted strong numbers in the most recent seasons— and generated

high expectations.

“I think he's going to be unbelievable in Fenway Park,” San Diego Padres General

Manager Jed Hoyer, a former Red Sox assistant, said of Gonzalez. The slugger agreed: “I'm 96

just very excited to start this new phase,” he told the press. “I look forward to a lot of

championships.” 97

Gonzalez managed to deliver, batting .338 and making the All­Star team, but Crawford

was a colossal disappointment. In 2011, he missed 32 games to injuries, and posted a pitiful .255

BA, .289 OBP, and.405 SLG. It was the lowest batting average of his 10­year major league

career, and the lowest on­base percentage since his 2002 rookie season. He also stole only 19

bases, after having led the league with 47 the previous season, and drove in only 56 runs.

Sportswriters in and out of Boston struggled to determine what had caused such a severe

underperformance. All Crawford had done was switch teams; in fact, he had not even left the AL

East, meaning that his season schedule was still largely the same. Unlike Sammy Sosa in 2005,

Crawford had still been producing mostly solid numbers when he joined his new team in 2011.

96 Kepner, Tyler. "The Padres’ Perspective on Trading Adrian Gonzalez." The New York Times Baseball Blog. The New York Times Company, 6 Dec. 2010. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. <http://bats.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/the­padres­perspective­on­trading­adrian­gonzalez/?_r=0>. 97 Nightengale, Bob. "Red Sox to pay price for Adrian Gonzalez: 7 years, $154 million." USA Today. Gannett, 6 Dec. 2010. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. <http://content.usatoday.com/communities/dailypitch/post/2010/12/red­sox­snare­adrian­gonzalez­reach­preliminary­agreement­on­7­year­extension/1#.UpkFaLOA2DY >.

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His batting average, slugging percentage and RBI total had actually all increased over the

preceding three years, while most of his other statistics also remained of high caliber.

Why, then, did the Crawford signing almost immediately become ranked as one of the

worst free agency decision in recent MLB history?

The best explanation, perhaps the only adequate one, was the fact that he had been

subject to a string of injuries, especially the sprained ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing

arm. However, Crawford has also had a history of injuries in Tampa Bay, but had still managed

to maintain relative consistency throughout his nine years with the organization. Furthermore, his

injuries had not settled in until late in the 2011 season, but he had underperformed from the very

beginning, batting .137 and stealing only 2 bases in the season’s first 12 games.

The reasons for this are unclear— misfortune is what it may amount to. Crawford seemed

unable to adapt to the team atmosphere and intense media attention in Boston, both of which are

at far different levels than they are at in Tampa Bay, which may have negatively influenced his

performance. “That media was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced in my life,” he later

confided. “They love it when you’re miserable. 98

However, the most consequential issue which the Red Sox had to face was not how

Crawford and Gonzalez were performing. It was the overriding reality that the tremendous

amount of money which the Sox had spent on those two free agents, among others, had not left it

better positioned as an organization. To the contrary, its season­end slump in 2011 cost the team

98 "Carl Crawford On Boston Media: ‘They Love It When You’re Miserable’." CBS Boston. CBS Local Media, 7 Mar. 2013. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. <http://boston.cbslocal.com/2013/03/07/carl­crawford­on­boston­media­they­love­it­when­youre­miserable/>.

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a shot at the playoffs, while the 2012 season was more marred by calamity than any other in

recent Red Sox history.

Having recognized this reality, the organization quit while it was ahead and shipped

Gonzalez and Crawford (along with Josh Beckett, Adrian Gonzalez, Nick Punto and $11 million

in cash) for James Loney, Iván DeJesús, Jr., Allen Webster and two players to be named later

(who turned out to be Jerry Sands and Rubby De La Rosa). “Bums Away,” the cover of the

Boston Herald memorably read on that day in August 2012. It was time for the Red Sox to take

on a different approach entirely.

As the 2002 offseason had been for the Oakland A’s, the 2013 offseason for the Red Sox

was defined by a scramble to acquire new players after unloading a hearty number of other ones

in the months prior. New faces on the Red Sox lineup included Mike Napoli, Shane Victorino,

Jonny Gomes, Stephen Drew, David Ross, Ryan Dempster and Koji Uehara. Some standout

blockbuster contracts figured amongst these— over $13 million each for Victorino and

Dempster— but for the most part, these new signees came at fairly modest prices. The five

others listed above were signed for between $3.1 million and $5.5 million. Even Victorino and

Dempster, the pricier two, were each signed for about 2/3 of what Crawford and Gonzalez had

each made in 2011.

Overall, the Red Sox had made a pair of drastic but sensible moves within the space of a

few months: they had unloaded $272 million worth of payroll which was not serving them well,

and they “added a passel of mid­level free agents... each [of whom] became a vital contributor

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while bringing an esprit de corps to a once­tense clubhouse.” By Opening Day in 2013, the 99

Red Sox had reduced their payroll from $175.2 million to $154.6 million— and brought up the

rest of the team’s statistics in almost every regard. 100

Sports Illustrated summed up the whole story: “the 2013 Red Sox were never under

.500, never lost more than three games in a row, never trailed in the division by more than three

games— and did not trail at all after July.” They did so while leading the majors in runs (853)

and on­base percentage (.349). The players “were playing without the weight of expectations,”

something which may have doomed the likes of Carl Crawford from the start, and finished with a

97­65 record, enough to win the division by 5.5 half games. 101

There are plenty of factors to explain the Red Sox’s spectacular turnaround. These

include better leadership (the fiasco of Bobby Valentine versus Manager of the Year candidate

John Farrell, in other words), improved discipline (no fried­chicken­in­the­dugout incidents this

time around) and greater contributions of its superstars (David Ortiz played in 47 more games in

‘13 than in ‘12). But most importantly was that, in contrast to previous seasons, the Red Sox

entered the 2013 seasons with much more of the pieces it would need to succeed in place.

To be fair, unlike the Orioles in 2005, the Red Sox had not pursued free agents merely for

their celebrity status in 2011. There was much evidence to suggest that Gonzalez and Crawford

could have both become valuable assets to the lineup, much the opposite of how Sammy Sosa

had turned out in Baltimore. An analogy to be made, though, is that both teams in each year had

99 Kaplan, Emily. "The 2013 Season in Pictures." Sports Illustrated 1 Nov. 2013: 12­25. Print. pg. 15. 100 Jaffe, Jay. "Looking back at blockbuster trade between LCS­bound Dodgers and Red Sox." Sports Illustrated. Time Warner, 9 Oct. 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. <http://mlb.si.com/2013/10/09/red­sox­dodgers­trade­carl­crawford­adrian­gonzalez­josh­beckett­james­loney/>. 101 Apstein, Stephanie. "Whole Lotta Happy." Sports Illustrated 1 Nov. 2013: 10­11. Print. pg. 10.

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arguably not taken their greatest deficiencies as a clubhouse into the best possible account over

the offseason.

As has been remarked, Baltimore entered 2005 with a remarkably strong offense for a

sub­.500 team; it was really the lack of strong pitching that was contributing to the team’s woes.

Hence, Baltimore’s decision to sign Sosa was mistaken from the start, not just because Sosa was

a slugger in a decline, but because he was a slugger, period. It was pitching, not batting, that the

Orioles needed to improve the most heading into the season; even if Sosa had been healthier and

more productive that year, there is nothing he could have done to improve that deficiency that

year.

For the Red Sox, the outcome of the 2011 offseason was comparable in several regards.

They began the season with two expensive new sluggers. One was productive with the team

(Gonzalez), the other less so (Crawford), but ultimately, neither one was what the Red Sox

needed most at the moment in time. Boston was a team with plenty of offense, coming from the

likes of David Ortiz, Jacob Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia, but which was comparatively lackluster

in the pitching department. The Red Sox bullpen was shaky at times, and the team was only

getting mixed results from starters like Jon Lester and John Lackey, who had gone 7­14 in 2011

before missing the entire following season to Tommy John surgery. That was what needed to be

solved the most, and neither Gonzalez nor Crawford had any more power to change that than

would Sammy Sosa.

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With enough extra salary space, the Red Sox took considerable efforts to fix that problem

in 2013. The most significant additions to the pitching department were starter Ryan Dempster

and reliever Koji Uehara.

Dempster in 2013 was quite comparable to Curt Schilling in 2004— a 38­year­old who

joined the Red Sox for $13 million, and wound up becoming a critical component of the team’s

pitching staff, while also enlivening the club’s atmosphere with his good humor and laid­back

personality. Along with a standout season from Clay Buchholz— 12­1 with a 1.74 ERA— the

Red Sox were able to solidify its pitching staff this past season..

Uehara’s arrival, in contrast to Dempster’s, was an unprecedented episode in Red Sox

history. A former Yomiuri Giants star, the 38­year­old Osaka native signed with the Red Sox for

one year and $4.25 million in December 2012, and became a regular closer the following June.

As was eloquently put by Tom Verducci, “Uehara has since put up numbers that would be hard

to replicate with an Xbox controller: an 0.50 ERA and an otherworldly 72­to­2 strikeout­to­walk

ratio over 49 appearances entering the World Series.” 102

When Uehara shot his arms up in triumph after recording the final out of the World

Series on October 30th, it seemed beyond argument: the 2013 Red Sox had uncovered the

necessary elements for success. It may have taken a stretch of bad luck, particularly in the team’s

free agency choices over the past two seasons. But compared with what the Red Sox have had to

deal with in their long, troubled history, such an ordeal hardly seems like the worst imaginable.

102 Reiter, Ben. "Three Days in June." Sports Illustrated 28 Oct. 2013: 32­39. Print. pg. 37.

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ST. LOUIS CARDINALS

The St. Louis Cardinals are the most successful National League team in history, having won the

pennant 19 times and the World Series 11 times. They have proved to be as dominant recently as

they were historically, registering an impressive string of winning seasons in the early years of

the 21st century and winning an additional four pennants and two titles between 2004 and 2011.

Throughout this period, their tremendous success was due in large part to the presence of

Albert Pujols, a two­time MVP winner and one of the most successful players of the 21st

century. He is currently the only player ever to bat at least .300 with 30+ HRs and 100+ RBIs in

each of his first 10 seasons

In 2013, however, the Cardinals’ proved they could still be successful even in Pujols’

absence. Following their astonishing World Series victory in 2011­­ when the team had twice

come within a strike of elimination but had battled back and ultimately pulled away with the

title— Pujols found himself as a free agent for the first time in his career. The Cardinals seeked

to resign him for 10 years and $210 million, but the Angels topped that offer with a 10­year,

$254 million deal which Pujols accepted.

At the time, the Angels seemed poised for league dominance. In late March 2012, Pujols’

brooding, muscular figure could be seen on every cover from Sports Illustrated to Rolling Stone,

and the inside contents of all of those publications was just as invariable. In the minds of

sportswriters everywhere, it seemed beyond question that Anaheim now had a lock on the

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postseason, if not the World Championship, thanks to the added presence of their future Hall of

Famer and landmark signee.

Meanwhile, Jenifer Langosch spoke for many in writing on MLB.com that, "there will

undoubtedly be a void without Pujols in the [Cardinals'] lineup.” However, St. Louis remained 103

a contender by doing the best it could to fill that void. Unlike the Angels, who sought big­budget

agents like Pujols and, one year later, Josh Hamilton, the Cardinals were much more balanced in

terms of seeking talent from within, as well as outside, the organization.

It appears the team was more intent on signing multiple players to medium­sized

contracts, in terms of length and salary, rather than one or two to especially long and expensive

ones. In The Baseball Economist, J.C. Bradbury explains why this may be a sensible approach to

free agency. It allows for more of a margin of error (one of the players of the signed group can

potentially underperform without the team suffering too much as a whole) but also incentivizes

the players to develop team chemistry and learn to work well as a unit. St. Louis’ entire history

in the half­decade leading up to its 2013 pennant would be enough to support this theory alone.

Signing Carlos Beltran the same month that Pujols left was among the more intelligent

free agency decisions in the team’s history. Beltran’s two­year, $26 million contract would give

him half as much a year as Pujols was making in L.A., and the 35­year­old outfielder posted

promising numbers in St. Louis, while collecting his 2,000th career hit in the process. It was a

similar kind of mid­range contract which the Cardinals had offered Matt Holliday (seven years,

103 Langosch, Jennifer. "Departures won't minimize Cards' title defense." MajorLeague Baseball. Major League Baseball, 13 Feb. 2012. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. <http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/news/print.jsp?ymd=20120209&content_id=26627582&vkey=news_stl&c_id=stl>.

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$110 million) and which had also paid off quite well: Holliday has been an All­Star and a key

component of the St. Louis lineup ever since joining the team in 2010.

In addition, the Cardinals did an outstanding job in developing young talent within its

farm system, which proved to be the ideal means of providing support for the team’s star free

agents. The Cardinals’ farm system was ranked #1 in the majors by Baseball America heading

into the 2013 season, and it had already served them well in prior seasons. This had 104

particularly been true in 2009, as several critics scrutinizing the team’s recent World Series run

were quick to remark.

That was the year St. Louis drafted a series of players— first baseman Matt Adams,

second baseman Matt Carpenter, starting pitchers Joe Kelly and Shelby Miller, and relief pitcher

Trevor Rosenthal— who quickly flourished in the big leagues and played an undeniable role in

the team’s pennant run. The Cardinals’ 2009 draft class “already ranks among the deepest, and

most profitable, of any in history” and demonstrates that “a great draft class tends to climb the

minor league ladder together.” As Jenifer Langosh of MLB.com spoke of the St. Louis Class 105

of 2009:

“They are the cleanup hitter and closer, the 15­win National League Rookie of the Year

Award candidate, the second­half rotation savior. One had a season worthy of NL MVP Award

consideration. They are part of a core of Cardinals that has the organization not only one win

104 Miller, Scott. "Two years post­Pujols, full­steam ahead for Series­bound Cardinals." CBS Sports. CBS Broadcasting, 19 Oct. 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. <http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/writer/scott­miller/24107819/ two­years­postpujols­fullsteam­ahead­for­world­seriesbound­cardinals>. 105 Reiter, Ben. "Three Days in June." Sports Illustrated 28 Oct. 2013: 32­39. Print. pg. 37.

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away from a third straight trip to the NL Championship Series, but also poised for sustained

success.” 106

More importantly, the team’s success in the 2009 draft was no fluke. St. Louis kept the

progress going strong, drafting multiple players in 2010 and 2011 that were quick to make the

big leagues. During the 2012 draft, they seized reliever Michael Wacha, who turned out to be

their version of Koji Uehara this past postseason.

Wacha was outstanding during the regular season, posting a 2.78 ERA while striking out

65 players in 64 2/3 innings. He and remained in top form over most of the postseason, going

unbeaten until he started Game 6 of the World Series. Wacha’s fortunes did not carry on into that

game— he was shell­shocked for six runs in 3 2/3 innings as the Red Sox slugged their way to

the Series victory­­ but his job with the Cardinals still appears safe for now. As is faith in the

Cardinals’ ability to produce top­shelf results from its farm system.

Jay Jaffe of Sports Illustrated applauded the Cardinals’ long­sightedness, saying that “St.

Louis has set itself up well in the post­Pujols era by melding scouting and analytics to produced

a bumper crop of inexpensive talent that could continue to flourish.” He similarly praised other 107

surprise playoff teams like Cleveland and Pittsburgh for employing a similar strategy, while also

106 Langosch, Jenifer. "Class of 2009 makes the grade for Cardinals." Major League Baseball. MLB Advanced Media, 8 Oct. 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. < http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/news/article/stl/class­of­2009­makes­the­grade­for­cardinals?ymd=20131008&content_id=62702494&vkey =news_stl>. 107 Jaffe, Jay. "Average payrolls of playoff teams shows money not the factor it used to be." Sports Illustrated. Time Warner, 7 Oct. 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. <http://mlb.si.com/2013/10/07/mlb­playoff­teams­payroll­rays­athletics­indians­pirates/>.

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using the same reasoning to explain why the Yankees might have missed the playoffs in 2013,

despite a payroll north of $200 million.

Certainly, the Bronx Bombers have been on the losing end of the revenue sharing and

luxury tax policies which the league has instated in the last 20 years. But Jaffe argues that the

Yankees outdated policies have caught up with them, as they have perhaps unloaded their

savings on one too many A.J. Burnetts, Carl Pavanos and Kei Igawas, at the expense of tending

to a faltering farm system.

“The Yankees are no longer locks to make the playoffs and appear to be collapsing under

the weight of so many expensive long­term deals,” Jaffe expressed, “not to mention a lesser farm

system due to the impact of consistently picking late in each round and often losing draft picks as

a penalty for signing Type A free agents.” 108

“How can an organization with unrivaled resources and reputation have a farm system

without a single homegrown player on target to make an impact in the coming season?”

sportswriter Steve Politi asked. “As [GM Brian Cashman] rebuilds this roster and tries to stay

below the $189 million luxury tax threshold, he’ll do it without the benefit of young (i.e., cheap)

talent — at the exact moment he needs it the most.” 109

By contrast, no one will be voicing such concerns about the Cardinals, who made the

World Series with 18 homegrown players on the roster, all while keeping their salaries fairly

restricted. The team “still maintained a reasonable payroll of $117 million, the league’s 11th

108 Ibid. 109 Politi, Steve. "Politi: Brian Cashman needs to clean up Yankees' failing farm system." New Jersey Local News, Breaking News, Sports & Weather. New Jersey On­Line, 1 Oct. 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. <http://www.nj.com/yankees/ index.ssf/2013/10/politi_brian_cashman_needs_to_clean_up_yankees_failing_farm_system.html>.

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highest, in part because of the outsized contributions of so many players who are still earning

around the minimum of $490,000.” It appears that the Cardinals’ model, rather than the 110

Yankees’, may become the more commonly embraced approach in baseball’s near future.

In the end, as much of a contribution had Pujols made in his eleven years in St. Louis, the

Cardinals let him go at the right time and for the right reasons. It would be more sensible, the

team decided, to be “spreading the money across their roster instead of over­committing to one

man.” The team put that money to very smart use, by signing a series of free agents who were 111

well­suited to the organization and developing its own homegrown talent to remarkably effective

extents. The result was one of the most consistently dominant teams of the 2013 season, and

once which could very well remain as such for many years to come.

CONCLUSION

When all was said and done, and Fenway Park was hosting its first home­team

championship celebration in almost a century, we had been provided an outstanding Fall Classic

which had lived up to the bulk of its expectations.

It did indeed last six games, as virtually every sportswriter had predicted it would at a

minimum. In contrast to the Red Sox’s previous two World Series, which had both been

four­game sweeps, “this was a much harder­fought series, with four of the six games decided by

110Reiter, Ben. "Three Days in June." Sports Illustrated 28 Oct. 2013: 32­39. Print. pg. 37. 111 Miller, Scott. "Two years post­Pujols, full­steam ahead for Series­bound Cardinals." CBS Sports. CBS Broadcasting, 19 Oct. 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2013. <http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/writer/scott­miller/24107819/ two­years­postpujols­fullsteam­ahead­for­world­seriesbound­cardinals>.

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one or two runs, and two of them ending in crazy, unprecedented fashion.” Games 3 and 4 were

the first ever in World Series history to end on an “obstruction call” and a pick­off, respectively.

That means that only the unlikeliest of factors wound up making much of a difference between

both teams in the Series which, for the most part, fit the billing as an involving and

evenly­matched competition.

While many differences existed between the Red Sox and Cardinals— they had quite

attitudes towards base­stealing, home­run hitting, and employing young versus old pitchers,

among other factors— in the end, both had made the difficult decisions of releasing some of their

most popular and talented stars at some point in the last two years. By doing so, each team had

unloaded over a quarter­billion dollars to be used for other purposes, such as improving its farm

system, seeking more affordable and suitable free agents, and fixing its most glaring strategic

deficiencies.

Given what a terrific contest this year’s World Series turned out to be, baseball fans

around the world can be thankful that such a strategy was put to the test.

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AUTHOR’S NOTE

As I write this, it is midway through Thanksgiving break. By all rights, I should be resting and

avoiding all forms of work on a day like today. However, not unlike many of the figures in this

essay, I have decided to rebel against tradition. It is now time for me to cap off my writing with a

few concluding thoughts which will hopefully help to bring this essay and its many

baseball­related ideas to an effective close.

Working on this assignment has been quite grueling at times, particularly over Veterans’

Day weekend at the start of the month. During those three days, I effectively had to lock myself

inside my house, emerging only to eat and play a little bit of basketball, and otherwise remain

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glued to my laptop. At the cost of most of a long weekend’s worth of recreation, I emerged

having typed 10,000 words, boosting my total to 18,000 overall. It appears my will power had

prevailed.

As much of an exertion as it was, the experience of writing this essay is one for which I

am very thankful. I enjoyed the trips down Memory Lane which I achieved by returning to

stories from my early days as a baseball fan. This is particularly true of Case Study #2; I had

several delightful flashbacks of writing and doing research for my 2005 baseball preview article,

which I wrote for my Middle School newspaper, The Crusader. I recalled how pumped I was at

age 13 to see Sammy Sosa join my favorite team at the time, the Baltimore Orioles. Hindsight

may have caused me to take a different approach to the topic at age 21, but I did so with all the

enthusiasm of a 7th grade baseball lover and student reporter nonetheless.

I can also say honestly that there is no World Series I have ever followed so intently as

the 2013 one. While writing this essay, I was constantly on the lookout for articles and material

which could provide me with professional insight into the topic I had chosen for Case Study #3.

Anything which I might be able to channel into my line of thought as a writer and baseball

theorist, I was quick to seize upon. This was the year I became a better­informed Fall

Classic­follower than any other in all my years as a baseball fan.

Lastly, I feel as though my knowledge and understanding of the long and complex history

of baseball free agency has been substantially enriched over the last few months. I do not want to

make any overbearing and overly general statements about a topic abstract and ambiguous as this

one, though. That is one reason why I have decided to end the essay with an “Author’s Note,” as

74

opposed to the more customary “Conclusion.” The latter would risk promoting “lessons learned,”

concerning how to proceed with free agency in the MLB, as universally applicable. Working on

this paper has definitely taught me that such immaculate “lessons” could never actually be

realized, and that no one from Brian Cashman to Dan Duquette should pretend otherwise.

However, if any team is considering signing a pricey slugger when it is quality pitching

that it lacks; a pitcher whose strikeout and win­loss totals impress, but his other statistics less so;

or a beloved but aging hometown hero when a fresh crop of farm system talent is lingering in the

background— if any of these scenarios arise, it is my hope that the contents of this essay will

make those teams’ owners, GMs, or other leading figures somewhat wiser for the ware.

Beyond that, I hope that even the casual sports fan will leave this paper with a heightened

sense of the role and importance of free agency for professional baseball. Even though this

system was shunned for about a hundred years, it has had a demonstrable impact in making the

MLB a more competitive, even and democratic organization, and the league has benefited from

its emergence in so many ways over the last forty­some years.

Nonetheless, like any system crafted by humans, it is one which carries its imperfections.

Many decisions which have made regarding free agency have done teams well more harm them

good. With a different approach and level of insight— something which could well result from

studies such as this one— perhaps past mistakes can be corrected and the redemption tales which

make following sports so fun and thrilling can be written at last.

So concludes “Bouncing Back from Bad Contracts: A Critical Overview of the

Emergence, Consequences and Lessons Learned of MLB Free Agency.” It has truly been a treat

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to work on this paper, and for anyone interested in baseball history or the strategy behind

building a team’s capability and longevity, I hope the experience of reading it has been just as

much so.

­ Josh Weiner

November 29, 2013

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