Did They Spend Too Much or Too Little in Tout Wars?

That seems to be the question.


Among my readers, there has been a lot of back and forth on whether or not the prices in the A.L. Tout Wars auction were too high or too low. More specifically, readers have been wondering if owners paid too much in the middle and not enough at the beginning.


I've been analyzing this mostly on an anecdotal basis. Instead, let's look at the numbers.

2010 A.L. Tout Wars Prices vs. 2009 A.L. Earnings

(average per player)

	Tout Sal	'09 $
Tier #1	$31	$31
Tier #2	$26	$26
Tier #3	$23	$22
Tier #4	$21	$19
Tier #5	$17	$17
Tier #6	$15	$15
Tier #7	$13	$13
Tier #8	$12	$11
Tier #9	$10	$8
Tier #10	$7	$6
Tier #11	$4	$4
Tier #12	$2	$3
Tier #13	$1	$1
Tier #14	$1	-$0
Totals	$182	$175

The tiers are groups of 12 players per tier (Tout Wars is a 12-team league). The "Tout Sal" column is groupings of the 12 most expensive players, the second 12 most expensive and so on. The "'09 $" column is the 12 highest earners in 2009, the next 12 highest earners, and so on.

Despite the $7 difference (on average) between what Tout Wars pays for these players and what their 2009 equivalents actually earn, there isn't a specific tier where Tout Wars goes nuts and spends a lot more money on any specific type of player. However, they do slightly overspend in two specific places:

• Tiers 3-4. These players cost in the $19-24 range and - based on 2009's historical earnings - are $3 too expensive per player. Looking at this group, there are some good players, but there are also a lot of players who have never earned this and are being paid based on the hopes that they'll get better.
• Tiers 8-10. These players cost between $6-12 and - based on 2009's historical earnings - are $4 too expensive per player. Here is where you can really see owners insisting to spend money on hitting in favor of pitching. There are some fairly aggressive prices here for players who aren't even beginning the year in a starting line-up.

The biggest surprise in this chart is that the top hitters aren't overpaid...at least not based on what their counterparts earned in 2009. Thirty-one dollars per hitter doesn't seem like a lot, but the American League had so much hitting in the middle last year that the market is paying these 2010 hitters the same amount that the best A.L. earned in 2009. The Tout Wars market might seem stingy when it comes to the best hitters, but they are, in fact, doing an excellent job of realizing the realities of a strong hitting pool in the American League as well as acknowledging - in 5x5 at least - that the best hitters typically don't put up the $40+ seasons that they do in 4x4.