Sports Illustrated has been off my reading list for years, due to my prudish reaction to the centrality of skimpy swimsuits in its marketing strategy. But I jumped over to the SI website this evening to check out Jonah Keri’s three part article on “MLB Trade Value: Ranking baseball’s most valuable contracts.”
Keri is looking for a combination of excellence, economical contracts, potential for growth, and length of team control here. In essence, a team that has more than its share of highly valuable contracts is clearly under smarter, better management than the average big league baseball team.
So how do we stack up against MLB teams?
Let me sum it up this way: SI’s coverage of this story did nothing to make me feel more charitably toward Sleaze Illustrated. Note the title: “MLB”? What kind of two-bit journalist would give all the credit to MLB? Check this out:
Honorable Mentions:
Kerri lists 20 honorable mentions. Among those 16 are on EFL rosters now, or were in 2015:
Jorge Soler (CC)
Gregory Polanco (OD)
Cole Hamels (PA)
Freddy Freeman (PA)
Michael Brantley (PA)
Jason Kipnis (CK)
Garrett Richards (PP)
Shelby Miller (PA)
Carlos Martinez (HD)
Danny Salazar (PP)
Luis Severino (CC)
Joc Pederson (FH)
J.D. Martinez (HD)
Kevin Kiermaier (OD)
Travis d’Arnaud (CC)
Maikel Franco (PR)
Even counting the Balk, we have only 1/3 as many EFL teams as MLB teams. We should have had 6 or 7 out of 20. We had 16. Each one of us should have had on average about 2/3 of a player from this list. Pittsburgh has had 4 all by itself – six times as many as the Alleghenys “should” have.
Now, let’s take the top 50 most valuable contracts in groups of 10. For each I’ll list the ones who are , or were last year, EFL players.
50 – 41:
- 50. Salvador Perez (CC)
- 48. Taijuan Walker (CK)
- 47. Carlos Carrasco (HD)
- 46. Byron Buxton (OD, FH)
- 45. Christian Yelich (OD)
That’s 5 out of 10 , instead of our allotment of 3.33. Numbers 44 – 41 are players who either were rookies last year (Carlos Rodon) and were grabbed by the computer, or have not yet debuted in MLB so are not within our grasp. #49 is Rougned Odor. Yes, we missed him. That’s on us.
40 – 31:
- 40. Jose Altuve (PA)
- 39. A.J. Pollock (PR)
- 37. Starling Marte (PR)
- 34. Marcus Stroman (KD)
- 33. Kyle Schwarber (HD, OD)
- 32. Addison Russell (CC)
“Only” 6 out of 10 in the EFL. But #36 is JP Crawford, at whom we’ve never had a crack. And #35 is Felix Hernandez, on this list despite his huge contract which is the only reason the Wolverines don’t still own him. So it’s really 6 out of 8.
30 – 21:
- 28. Giancarlo Stanton (OD)
- 25. Miguel Sano (HD)
- 24. Jose Abreu (CK)
- 23. Xander Bogaerts (FH)
Here it looks like maybe we were put in our proper place by MLB. Yes, but #30 Jose Fernandez and #26 Buster Posey were on EFL teams in 2014, Fernandez as a debutant and Posey in his last year as an EFL rookie before his price went into orbit. Yes we missed Matt Harvey (#29), Dallas Keuchel (#27), and Jacob deGrom (#22), but we owned Clayton Kershaw until he graduated out of EFL rookie status and into the realm of the absolutely unaffordable.
20 – 11:
- 20. Sonny Gray (CC)
- 18. Corey Kluber (OD)
- 17. Noah Syndergaard (PA)
- 14. Mookie Betts (PR)
- 13. Madison Bumgarner (OD)
- 12. Chris Sale (PP)
- 11. Chris Archer (HD)
Back to dominating again – 7 out of 10! Nos. 19 (Gerritt Cole) and 16 (Francisco Lindor), were snatched by the computer against our will while we gathered up other top contracts. Maybe we should have nabbed Cole a few years ago… I don’t remember how number 15 (Josh Donaldson) eluded us. Who wants to step forward and explain why you bobbled that ball?
10 – 1:
9. Manny Machado (OD)
8. Corey Seager (DC) !!
6. Anthony Rizzo (OD)
5. Kris Bryant (KD)
4. Paul Goldschmidt (HD)
3. Bryce Harper (CK)
2. Carlos Correa (PR)
- Mike Trout (PA)
Of the top 6, we “deserved” 2. We got 6.
Of the top 10, we “deserved” 3.33. We got 8.
Of the top 14, we “deserved” 4.67. We got 12.
Of the top 50, we “deserved” 16.67. We got 30.
Of the top 70, we “deserved” 21. We got 46.
The average MLB team would have 2.33 out of the top 70 contracts. The average EFL team has 4.6.
Here are our totals (counting players for their most recent MLB team):
Canberra: 4
Cottage: 6
D.C.: 1
Flint Hill: 3
Haviland: 6
Kaline: 2
Old Detroit: 9
Peshastin: 3
Pittsburgh: 7
Portland: 5
To be fair, we are counting as ours players whose contracts expired last fall. If we don’t re-sign Chris Sale, Cole Hamels, Giancarlo Stanton, etc, we won’t be able to claim them as “ours” any more. But even with that caveat, we are as a group FAR outperforming any similar group of MLB owners.
So – Shameless Illustrated goes back into my dustbin of history for kowtowing to the mainstream media refusal to recognize the EFL and its fantastic group of owners.
I usually like Jonah Keri’s stuff – I didn’t know (until now) that he was writing for SI. I miss the days when ESPN would link to his columns on Grantland.
But this time I think he’s off base. The whole concept is crazy. MLB (and EFL) teams assemble teams to win games, not to maximize trade value. The only time we worry about somebody’s trade value is when it is time to trade him. I can’t imagine a team grabbing a player simply because he might have good trade value.
Except for the Cheese, who are known to be crazy.