The Likelihood of Getting Nothing Back

Roll2 had another take on why paying top hitters is bad.

Overpaying studs a buck or 2 is ok, overpaying by 10 puts you in a hole because, absent trade, you've stuck yourself with a negative 10 value that you can't get rid of through the waiver process, and have only limited dollars to compensate with to purchase bargains.

In contrast, say I spend 12 (ie, the average amount spent on players) on a player who returns 2 in value. Even assuming the guy remains in the majors and isn't sent down, at some point I am going to tire of this underperforming asset, and waive him for someone on the free agent list. I won't go overboard and assume the guy will earn the 12 I originally spent on this particular roster spot, but let's say he's good enough to bring the value I obtain from the spot up to 4. So even though I overpaid for my original player by the same amount the Sizemore owner overpaid, I can mitigate my loss in a way the Sizemore owner can't.

Something roll2's comment made me more curious about is how likely or unlikely is it for expensive players versus cheap players to tank entirely

A.L. Busts by Cost Bracket: 2008

$	Busts	Total	% Busts
$40+	1	3	33%
$35-39	0	1	0%
$30-34	1	6	17%
$25-29	6	16	38%
$20-24	2	13	15%
$15-19	4	21	19%
$10-14	3	33	9%

Busts are defined here as hitters who lost $10 or more in 2008.

I don't know what surprised me most: that more than one of the three busts was in the $25-29 price range, or that only three of the $10-14 hitters showed up there.

Of course, to lose $10 when you're paid less than $15 isn't easy. For the record, those hitters were Ben Broussard, Eric Chavez, and Josh Fields.

And roll2 is correct. When Josh Fields wasn't on the Opening Day roster, his teams ran out and picked up whatever they could find in the free agent pool and either stuck with it or kept churning and churning in the hopes that they could find Mike Aviles. Or his corner infield equivalent.

However, something I do notice is that the $30+ busts - Carl Crawford and David Ortiz - both spent time on the DL in 2008. Their owners did go out and try to replace them. roll2 is correct, though. The odds of getting a $30+ player out of the free agent pool were virtually non-existent last year (unless you hoarded all your FAAB and waited for Mark Teixeira). The odds of finding someone to produce a pro-rated version of what you expected from Josh Fields or Eric Chavez were better.

N.L. Busts by Cost Bracket: 2008

$	Busts	Total	% Busts
$40+	0	3	0%
$35-39	2	8	25%
$30-34	0	6	0%
$25-29	6	17	35%
$20-24	3	6	50%
$15-19	1	18	6%
$9-14	4	35	11%

Thanks to J.R. Towles, I had to dip an extra dollar lower for the N.L. Otherwise, the two tables reflect the same data.

And the $25-29 price range is no fluke. In both the A.L. and the N.L., you're going to take a major loss on those second-tier players who aren't quite good enough to push to $30 or higher but good enough to spend over 10% of your auction coin on.

I think this is why certain owners do overpay for superstars. Intuitively, David Wright at $50 sounds like way too much, but I was burned by Eric Byrnes at $27 last year. I'd rather overpay Wright, avoid Byrnes (or his 2009 equivalent), and hope to luck out in dollar derby.

The problem is that it doesn't work that way. roll2 is correct. Every dollar you go past a sensible price for Wright makes it far more likely that he's going to appear your own league's version of this chart.

And the more expensive the elite players are in your league, the less likely it is that you're going to wind up with a bust in the $20s, since those players will go more cheaply.