Shouldn't the average age of signing for the arbitration row (first row) of the last table be 28.6, not 33.1?
June 30, 2012 at 4:17 PM
Lex Logan said...
Great stuff, Clay! I've always signed younger players to long-term deals in Mogul, and am reluctant to commit to a player who will be in their late thirties when a contract expires. Jay Bruce is a real-life example of this strategy; Pujol's first contract is another.
July 1, 2012 at 1:21 PM
Anonymous said...
Awesome stuff, Clay. David Ortiz should try reading the blog, and realize that his salary is 10M above the average for someone with a one year arbitration contract, and 11M above the average for any 1 year contract. Maybe then he'd stop complaining about not having that 2 year deal.
Based on this analysis, does that mean that we will finally see that journeyman or aging veteran contract demands decreasing in both length and value? In addition, will there be the ability to offer guys just minor league contracts just like most journeyman or veterans get when they're on the free agent market very late in the offseason, spring training, or during the season?
March 15, 2013 at 7:51 PM
Anonymous said...
Awesome game that keeps getting better! I would like to see the use of the 40 man roster and rule 5 draft. Also, would like to see an energy bar for players so I know when to sit a player. Best game ever!
March 12, 2014 at 11:34 AM
We've been going through contract and salary data, in order to improve the artificial intelligence in Baseball Mogul 2013 and future versions.
[Image]
Contract Lengths for Major League Baseball Players (n = 516)
We examined the 516 players on Major League 40-Man Rosters (as of opening day) that had reached either arbitration or free agency. The first fact worth noting is that the vast majority (84%) of all player contracts are between 1 and 3 years. The longer deals get all the headlines, but the shorter deals dominate team rosters. In fact, more than half of the contracts (almost 53%) were for just one year. As might be expected, these one-year contracts were at the lowest salary levels. They were also awarded to older players (age 31.2) showing that one-year contracts are used primarily to sign journeymen that fill out the roster and provide depth in case of injury.
Contract LengthPlayers
Share
Average Salary
Average Age
1 Year
272
52.7%
$3.51 Million
31.2
2 Years
126
24.4%
$4.86 Million
31.4
3 Years
34
6.6%
$7.80 Million
29.7
4 Years
22
4.3%
$9.45 Million
28.9
5 Years
203.9%
$10.16 Million
28.5
6 Years
26
5.0%
$13.01 Million
28.7
7+ Years
16
3.2%
$19.18 Million
30.1
Of the 272 players with 1-year contracts, almost half (42%) had been awarded those contracts during arbitration. The average age of players with contracts awarded in arbitration was 28.6. If we remove those contracts from the pool of 1-year contracts, the average age rises above 33.
1-Year ContractsPlayersShare
Average Salary
Average Age
Arbitration
113
21.9%
$4.41 Million
28.6
Non-Arbitration
159
30.8%
$2.24 Million
33.1
Finally, if we look at the "Overall" rating assigned by Baseball Mogul, we see that the longer contracts at higher salary levels are awarded to the more talented players.
(Here is the data with the arbitration contracts split out from the pool of 1-year players)
Contract LengthPlayersOverall Rating
Average Age
Average Age at Signing
(Arbitration)
113
78.9
28.6
28.6
1 Year
159
79.9
33.1
33.1
2 Years
126
81.4
31.4
30.8
3 Years
34
84.7
29.7
28.6
4 Years
22
85.6
28.9
27.4
5 Years
2085.0
28.5
26.5
6 Years
26
88.2
28.7
26.1
7+ Years
16
90.7
30.1
26.6
It seems that the youngest group of players are those with 5-year contracts, with the average age rising again for 6-year and 7-year contracts. However, if we instead calculate the average age at which the contract was signed, we see a steady downward trend towards signing younger players to longer deals. This would seem to go against the conventional wisdom which holds that players don't sign deals of this magnitude (7+ years) until their late 20s (or early 30s), when they have had enough time to prove their worth on the free agent market.
posted by Clay Dreslough at 11:40 PM on Jun 23, 2012
"Baseball Contract Analysis"
6 Comments -
Shouldn't the average age of signing for the arbitration row (first row) of the last table be 28.6, not 33.1?
June 30, 2012 at 4:17 PM
Great stuff, Clay! I've always signed younger players to long-term deals in Mogul, and am reluctant to commit to a player who will be in their late thirties when a contract expires. Jay Bruce is a real-life example of this strategy; Pujol's first contract is another.
July 1, 2012 at 1:21 PM
Awesome stuff, Clay. David Ortiz should try reading the blog, and realize that his salary is 10M above the average for someone with a one year arbitration contract, and 11M above the average for any 1 year contract. Maybe then he'd stop complaining about not having that 2 year deal.
July 6, 2012 at 10:19 AM
Zug - a belated thanks for noticing that typo. Fixed.
February 16, 2013 at 6:00 PM
Based on this analysis, does that mean that we will finally see that journeyman or aging veteran contract demands decreasing in both length and value? In addition, will there be the ability to offer guys just minor league contracts just like most journeyman or veterans get when they're on the free agent market very late in the offseason, spring training, or during the season?
March 15, 2013 at 7:51 PM
Awesome game that keeps getting better! I would like to see the use of the 40 man roster and rule 5 draft. Also, would like to see an energy bar for players so I know when to sit a player. Best game ever!
March 12, 2014 at 11:34 AM