The flip-side of the "High Risk / High Reward" philosophy?
by scstrato on Feb 20, 2010 12:06 PM EST
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PrintJeff Zimmerman over at Beyond the Boxscore has a couple of really interesting posts up. The first takes a look at the top 100 players who cost their teams the most money for time on the DL during the 2002 to 2009 time-frame. Can you guess who is number 1? That's right, our good buddy Mike Hampton. What's interesting to me is not the fact that he is number 1, but the AMOUNT of money paid to him while on the DL. $51.8 Million!!!!
"Oh my God, what is this thing ...."
Before you panic, not all of this money came directly from the Braves. Hampton was paid by Colorado for his 2002 season and Houston paid his 2009 salary. On top of that Colorado paid a good portion of his salary while he played for our beloved Braves and I'm sure we recovered some via insurance. Still, that is a HUGE chunk of change.
Jeff's next analysis shows how much money was lost to DL stints per team over the same time-frame, ranked by percentage of payroll. The Braves are tied for 6th place with 19% of total payroll lost, with a whopping $146 million paid. I found myself asking the question how much of this can be attributed to the team philosophy of signing risky players? I'm not sure but I would guess a larger majority of the money lost is related to this philosophy more so than homegrown players spending time on the DL. The other question that came to mind is whether or not this research considered "who" paid Mike Hampton and "when" during his stint with the Braves. I would guess it would be extremely difficult to calculate the complexities of some of today's contracts so I have to believe this study defaulted all of his salary to the Braves from '03 thru '08. Even if this is true, and the Braves total salary lost is less than listed, we still paid a TON of money to players who gave us nothing in return.
Given that these two studies were made possible thanks in large part to Josh Hermsmeyer's newly released injury database from RotoBlog.com I have to believe that someone, somewhere is already working on answering these types of questions!
Just for giggles, and for those who didn't click the links, here are the five teams in front of the Braves with total $ lost and percentage of total payroll:
- Dodgers / $214 mil / 27%
- Nationals (small sample size warning) / $87 mil / 22%
- Rangers / $130 mil / 22%
- Mets (2009 anyone?) / $198 mil / 22%
- Diamondbacks / $112 mil / 20%
This FanPost does not express the views or opinions of Talking Chop.
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27% for the Dodgers
That’s unholy. I mean I know insurance covers a bit of it, but still, someone is losing money over injuries, and it’s certainly not the players. Teams pay the premiums on insurance policies, and insurance companies cough up the money when necessary, and not 100% can players be held accountable for their injuries, but from the business standpoint, I’m surprised there’s not nearly as much public fuss over player injuries costing money.
No wonder nobody likes you, Tuttle... everything's a (Pujols) damn debate.
Dodgers can't bitch about it.
It is almost totally their stupidity that led to their ridiculous amount. The culprits would be the absolutely brain-dead contracts they gave out to Darren Driefort and Jason Schmidt.
True
But it doesn’t seem until more recently are teams actually taking in account of a player’s propensity for the DL, protecting themselves with incentive-laden deals, statistical tiers, and milestone trackers. We can’t imagine the Dodgers signed the Schmidts, Drieforts and Andruws with the mindset that they’re going to suddenly get injured.
Conclusively, when numbers like this come out, it still seems like the one held least accountable for the inequity is still the player. Not every major injury is cut and dry fault of circumstance; not every player is going to pull an Aaron Boone, but you have to wonder the causes sometimes. I joked about it a lot, but it’s a pretty good example – when you wonder why Mark Kotsay always had back problems, and then you saw what his wife looked like, and then it kind of makes sense – he played roughly 150 games each of his first three full-time seasons, and he got married after the 2000 season, and coincidentally, over the last decade, he’s missed 30+ games six times, almost all with back problems. Now it’s none of baseball’s business what he’s doing with his personal life, but in the likely hypothetical scenario, it can’t be helping his back.
No wonder nobody likes you, Tuttle... everything's a (Pujols) damn debate.
Wow. That’s…surprisingly cogent…
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Guaranteed contracts are a bitch. See the Gilbert Arenas situation here in DC.
Here are Pujols's stats: 1.000/1.000/4.000/5.000. That's right. He is batting a thousand, with a thousand OBP (naturally), and every hit has been a home run, and thus his OPS is a perfect 5.000.
he’s not injured now tho…he’s just an idiot and so are the wizards for giving him that ludicrious contract…he isnt that good where he should be paid that highly….the entire NBA system is screwed up…and it will be fixed soon enough by a lockout
Heyward,Hanson,and Shaffer r ready now!! Why do you think they havent signed the "right handed bat"?
by fatazfoot on Jan 7, 2009 8:59 PM EST
i remember playing video game after video game and being the braves and having mike hampton be the number 3 or 4 starter in the game every time….. haha…. just thought id share my memories of the man that got 52M being injured….
Pujols is NOT God.... sure he'll hit .350, hit 50 bombs, and drive in a 125....but then again...so will Heyward..
by lemke2blauser2bream on Feb 20, 2010 4:25 PM EST reply actions
This is why im surprised in this game where the most games are played that the contracts arent incentive based
i think its more fun with the risk involved…..granted, its not my money…
Pujols is NOT God.... sure he'll hit .350, hit 50 bombs, and drive in a 125....but then again...so will Heyward..
by lemke2blauser2bream on Feb 21, 2010 3:47 PM EST up reply actions
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