Monday, December 26, 2005

how to steal from a better website

okay, it's not really stealing, but i don't really know how to link from my blog to another that is constantly updating as much as the ultrafantastic baseballmusings.com. so i copy and paste and then put all of it into italics. that's how i roll.

anyways, here's an article they posted about johnny damon singing with the yankees and how they statistically showed that they overpaid. enjoy.

and check them out sometimes. it's an amazing blog.


What Did a Win Cost?

Via the USA Today Salary Database, I calculate the total salary paid in 2005 was $2.135 billion. With that number in hand, we can calculate how much a win cost in 2005. Since there are 15 *162 games, there are 15*162 wins. That makes the cost per win about $880,000 dollars.

We can calculate win shares for each player. Each win share is worth 1/3 of a win, or approximately $293,000 per win share.

I bring this up because I wonder just how much the Yankees are overpaying for Johnny Damon. Damon posted 25 win shares in 2005. That was worth 7.3 million (the Red Sox paid 8.2 million). Damon would need to post 44 win shares in 2006 for his contract to be worth the money in terms of win shares.

Of course, everything balances. Damon is getting over paid now for above average past performances. Jason Bay put up 30 win shares last year, worth 8.8 million but only received $660,000. At some point, he'll be over payed for this season, too.

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