FanGraphs Salary Values

When trying to quantify a player's contributions to their team, sometimes Matt and I link to FanGraphs because in addition to Runs Above Replacement and Wins Above Replacement, they also translate that player's value into salary dollars. According to their calculations, here are the 15 most notable Yankees and their respective values:

• Derek Jeter -$33.3M
• CC Sabathia - $27.8M
• Mark Teixeria - $24.2M
• Robinson Cano - $19.2M
• A-Rod - $19M
• Jorge Posada - $18.1M
• Nick Swisher - $17.1M
• Andy Pettitte - $16.1M
• A.J. Burnett $14.1M
• Johnny Damon - $12.1M
• Hideki Matsui - $11M
• Phil Hughes - $10.3M
• Mariano Rivera - $8.8M
• Brett Gardner - $8.3M
• Joba Chamberlain - $7.1M
• Melky Cabrera - $6.6M
• Alfredo Aceves - $5.9M
• Phil Coke - $100K
  
  
• Total: $259.1M

Seems pretty high, doesn't it? That's not even all of them. There are part-time contributors like Chien Ming Wang (yes, he actually had positive value) and Hinske and Hairston and Bruney and Cervelli and Pena that add to that number incrementally as well.

The Yankees' Opening Day payroll was $201.5M, which is roughly what the top 10 most valuable guys on the team add up to (Damon and above on that list). Are the Yanks actually getting that much more than their money's worth?

Well, that depends on your view point.

As David Pinto of Baseball Musings points out, FanGraphs calculates player value based the value of marginal wins, and thereby attempts to valuate all players as if they were free agents. So, when you add up the value of all the batters and pitchers on FG, it comes out to $4.6B, whereas the total payroll of the MLB is roughly $2.7B.

With the obvious disclaimer that the folks behind FanGraphs are much smarter than I am, I would like to respectfully disagree with this methodology.

They use a system that corrects for the artificial forces depressing the salaries of players who are not available to the free market, which makes sense in it's own right. But we are all familiar with these artificial constraints and understand that is the reason why guys like Tim Lincecum are paid a fraction of what they are actually worth.

Instead of creating a system where the value of players is always going to far exceed the payroll, why not base it in reality? When I look at that dollar figure on FanGraphs, I want to know how much a player was actually worth in relation to what other players throughout the MLB are getting paid. I want to be able to tell who is getting their fair share or the pie. Part of that is the fact that guys like Phil Hughes are able to contribute at far beyond their pay grade but someone like CC Sabathia is unlikely to be worth the checks he's cashing, even during a very productive season.

I want to look at salary on a scale that is familiar to me, not one that is based on a contrived scenario in which everyone is a free agent and would make far more than they really do or even would make under those circumstances. It's not like the owners would suddenly shell out an extra $2.1B dollars if everyone hit the market over the next offseason.

Here is that list above, based on the MLB's actual payroll:

• Derek Jeter -$19.5M
• CC Sabathia - $16.3M
• Mark Teixeria - $14.2
• Robinson Cano - $11.3M
• A-Rod - $11.2M
• Jorge Posada - $10.6M
• Nick Swisher - $10M
• Andy Pettitte - $9.4
• A.J. Burnett - $ 8.3
• Johnny Damon - $7.1M
• Hideki Matsui - $6.5M
• Phil Hughes - $6M
• Mariano Rivera - $5.2M
• Brett Gardner - $4.9M
• Joba Chamberlain $4.2M
• Melky Cabrera $3.9M
• Alfredo Aceves $3.5M
• Phil Coke - $59K
  
  
• Total: $152.2M

Seems like a better approximation of their values. At least to me it does.