Valuing Leadership
One of the comments that is most often hurled at people like us is that we don’t understand just how valuable things like clubhouse chemistry, leadership, and the like are. Even as the Mariners dissolved into a pool of awfulness last year, the cries from the media and the team itself were that a lack of chemistry and leadership, not a lack of talent, was the true culprit. After all, we’re told, major league managers and GMs understand how valuable this chemistry/leadership dynamic is. Because they value it, so should we.
Except, they don’t. They say they do, but they don’t. As Tango points out, the Cliff Floyd signing from last week is a perfect example of their actions belying their words.
Cliff Floyd, widely accepted as a veteran clubhouse leader and good influence on young players, signed for $750,000 for 2009. The league minimum is $400,000. The Padres paid $350,000 more than the minimum for a bench player because he was a good leader, a good clubhouse influence, and will theoretically improve their team chemistry. That’s what the Padres valued Floyd’s off-the-field stuff at – $350,000.
It’s not just Floyd, either. Trot Nixon, who was absolutely beloved in the Red Sox clubhouse during his prime, signed a minor league contract with the Brewers. No guaranteed money for this veteran clubhouse leader. The Mariners, of course, signed Mike Sweeney to a minor league deal – Sweeney is renowned as such a good person that the Royals named an award after him. No guaranteed money for this veteran clubhouse leader.
You could do this all day – Tony Clark is often well spoke of for his mentoring of young players. $800,000 on a one year deal. David Eckstein, notable grit master and guy who gets the most out of his mediocre physical abilities – $850,000 on a one year deal. Brad Ausmus, great handler of pitchers and gamecaller – $1 million for one year.
The going rate for veteran leadership and clubhouse presence is somewhere between $0 and $500,000. That’s the premium that teams are willing to pay for a guy with highly respected intangibles.
MLB teams can talk up chemistry and leadership all they want. When the time comes to put their money where their mouth is, they buy talent, not intangibles.
The only people who really believe in the extreme positive value of these off the field things are baseball writers. You know, the ones who have a vested interest in cultivating positive relationships with these people off the field. The off the field stuff matters to them and no one else.
So, playing recreational sports = doesn’t care about winning?
Did Philadelphia pay for Raul Ibanez’s supposed leadership qualities? The contract is pretty fat compared to what, say, Abreu is going to get. It was an even worse signing if that figured into their thinking (in terms of extra years, more dollars). On the one hand, the Seattle media likes to lambast the 2008 Mariner clubhouse while on the other lamenting the loss of “great clubhouse guys” like Ibanez, J.J. Putz and Bloomquist who clearly had no positive influence on the team’s record via their leadership. At least in this market, I think the whole conversation about “leadership” is code for “Ichiro isn’t a leader” or some such rot.
Hey, look, it only took 50 comments for someone to bust out the “you guys are softball playing nerds!” insult.
Lots of us have played the game at competitive levels. Take your ridiculous insults and shove it.
And, while I’m here, I’m basically out of tolerance with the rash of new commenters who have no desire to do anything but start pointless arguments. Vlad’s already been tossed in the mod queue – if you’re new here, you’d be wise to read for a while before you start posting, because I’m honestly tired of dealing with people who have nothing to contribute.
You don’t have a right to post here. We’re going to get a lot less lenient about the kind of stupidity we allow to get through. Be smarter or go away.
The rest of baseball valued Varitek at $0 this offseason, unless some other team made him an offer that I missed. Boston valued him at $5 million.
Type A Free Agent.
If you really think Varitek’s on-field value is $0, then I don’t know what to tell you.
Ibanez was worth $10 million last season by FanGraphs calculations. He got $10 million a year from the Phillies. Admittedly, that doesn’t account for potential decline or the shift in the economic landscape, but Raul also managed to sign before the magnitude of that shift was clear.
Anyway, no clear evidence of a leadership premium there. And considering how underpaid Ibanez has been relative to performance since coming back from Kansas City, he’s not the best argument that teams pay extra for intangibles.
“Anyway, no clear evidence of a leadership premium there”.
I think Raul’s deal represents a clear and substantial premium for the leadership shown by…
his agent!
Is it possible that team chemistry correlates with the performance of the team?
You don’t hear about many teams that win 95 games complain about not getting along.
ummmm… I that’s been discussed before
Ok, if you’ll agree to do the following: not comment on weather predictions until you have a degree in meteorology; not comment on politicians until you have held public office; and not comment on the driving of others until you have graduated from Bondurant’s Racing School. Deal?
Here’s the problem I think some people are having. Dave isn’t saying these things aren’t real, just that they don’t matter all that much (as evidenced by the low “premium” teams are willing to pay for them) — and to the extent that they do matter, we can observe and quantify them.
What Carmen Fusco called the “mental aspect” is indeed important — because it’s part of talent, and it shows up in the player’s stats (or will, if properly harnessed, just like strength or speed).
To the extent “the will to win” is important, it shows up in the stats too. But it’s not more important than talent. David Eckstein reputedly has more “will to win” than almost anybody in baseball, and it certainly has contributed to him reaching the highest level in spite of his modest physical talents — but it’s not enough to give him Pujols’ stats. Pujol simply is more talented, and we can see that result in the numbers. Eckstein may indeed be able to will himself onto the team, but he can’t will 30+ balls over the wall every year.
Let’s try an analogy. Suppose I try to sell you a fantastic health supplement based on all the latest research. It’s just a pill you take every day, and it doesn’t cure any particular ailment, but it “enhances your health immeasurably.” Alas, it will cost you a lot of money.
Now, since it costs a lot of money, you might have some questions. Does it increase your life expectancy? No, there’s no difference in how long you’ll live if you take the pill. Ok, what about a proper study: give the pill to several thousand people, and compare them to a matched group of another several thousand people. Do the people taking the pill have lower incidences of heart disease, or cancer, or any other illness? No, nothing like that shows up in the numbers. Ok, you say, but do I at least feel better when I take it? Well, you might, but that’s purely placebo. You don’t actually feel any better taking the pill. The pill’s effects are real, I insist, but intangible.
Now, you might be willing to take this pill just in case it has some effect that can’t be measured, but how much are you really going to spend? As much as you’d spend on an MRI or a colonoscopy or another test that has proven results? As much as you’d spend on real drugs that are known to treat real symptoms? How much is this unquantifiable “intangible” really worth to you?
As my grandfather used to say, “A difference that makes no difference is no difference.”
Is your grandfather Spock?
*sigh*, yes. Equating vocalness with leadership is another sign of sloppy thinking. (In a lot of ways, I think Edgar was functionally the same as Ichiro when it comes to “leadership”, but I doubt many people would say Edgar wasn’t a leader….)
Or, if an intangible is immeasureable, does it really exist?
This gets more into philosophy, so I don’t know if this is useful.
More useful is considering that we may not be able to measure now, but there might be ways of measuring it in the future and consider it in that light. Essentially, that retains the proper mindset of being open to refinement, but still firmly basing your analysis on what stats you have at present.
It really does feel like most of baseball is exiting the days of thinking stuff like this matters, along with grit, experience over ability, etc.
So, here’s a question for you. As more teams get smart, will we start to see the average career length shorten, and players getting their start at a younger average age?
The 2008 Tampa Bay Rays ran out a roster of talent and tools that lead to on field success. They let their only “veteran leader” walk out the door for less than a million dollars. Do they think Pat Burrell is going to replace Cliff Floyd’s fatherly presence in the locker room, or do they think he will play better on the field? Leadership means nothing. Skill means everything.
“This gets more into philosophy, so I don’t know if this is useful.”
I’m not here to be useful, I’m just trying to amuse.
Hehe, well I guess Adam Kennedy would provide some nice leadership, as well as some fantastic D at 2B!
I’m of the school that things like leadership and experience and stuff like that does not matter enough to really worry about it. Everyone always talks about how the teams that are young don’t have any playoff/WS experience so they won’t go far, but there are tons of examples that refute that logic (Rays anyone?)
The way I see it, chemistry and leadership and stuff like that is just so impossibly hard to get a grip on, and especially hard to predict, that there is no reason to go out and spend extra money for it. Keep the analysis to the things you can analyze, pay for talent, and if in the end someone emerges as a leader, or a previously thought of veteran leadership guy makes the team better, then that is just icing on the cake.
Is your grandfather Spock?
He might have been. He spent a good part of his life in and around Vulcan. (I’m not kidding.)
Exactly. And yet I saw commentators in the press ascribing their loss in the WS to their inexperience. Somehow that inexperience didn’t stop them from beating a much more experienced (and arguably as talented) Red Sox team in the ALCS, but it suddenly handicapped them in the WS, against a Phillies team that no WS experience on its roster to speak of either. The 2008 Rays should’ve put a stake through the heart of that misguided meme, and somehow they ended up reinforcing it.
Which just gets back to Dave’s comment about baseball writers.
It’s interesting that the Rays get mentioned as a point against the importance of “clubhouse chemistry” since Crawford, at least, made numerous comments on the positive effects of trading Elijah Dukes and Delmon Young. Dukes was (and is) oozing with talent, but his “intangibles” were enough to get him traded for a low A ball pitcher.
Another occurance was the Twin’s pitching staff last year, with Livan Hernandez. He was cited as a positive influence by Kevin Slowey, Scott Baker, and Glen Perkins. The Twin’s FO continued to let him pitch far longer than he was effective presumably because of his “veteran leadership”, as there were better starting pitching options availabe.
I think some teams have a MUCH better idea of what they think leadership is than other teams.
Some teams ascribe an almost mystical quality that “somehow” causes teams to play better.
Other teams see a quality where an older player who can get the confidence of younger players, be able to teach them about the tactics of the game of baseball (in a complementary fashion with the manager) and can show them how to approach the more mundane aspects of living on a major league baseball team (how to live it up on the road without hurting yourself, best places to eat, etc.).
While the latter may or may not contribute to the bottom line directly, I think it’s measurable (in a binary sense) and it makes for fewer distractions for the team and is hence desirable.
What about Bill Bavasi? I’m pretty sure he sincerely valued leadership. And as a result led our team into ruin. Still, I’m pretty sure he valued it.
I am glad to see more than one person mentioned Varitek as a recipient of moolah for ‘intangibles’. As an M’s fan that now lives in Boston that deal is an unspoken ‘why the heck…’ in Beantown. Yeah, he calls a good game. However, some players have ‘organizational value’. I don’t know, while I suppose they ‘do’ make managers and pitching coaches wear uniforms for a reason, if you count on a player to be such, hire him as such. Geezus, I say make the guy a bench coach and let him call the pitches like they do in College. Just get his bat out of the line-up.
Or maybe leadership is important – it’s just easy to come by, so there’s no reason to pay a premium for it.
The writers all want a fire-and-brimstone guy, because that makes for drama and exciting story lines. But I bet quiet leadership by example is more important. There may well be a dozen good leaders on every team.
Mike Snow, you are correct. I’m starting to see things through the prism of the current economic wasteland–at the time Raul basically got the deal he was looking for and could have expected (though thankfully not from Seattle).
I do want to amplify Dave’s comment about writers. It seems that a major problem with covering something as limited as sports is that sports plays by rules that are essentially unchanging, creating an experience of a news event that only varies in the way certain details play out. Instead of forcing those who cover it to describe something they have never seen before, the repetition of the games and seasons leads to the creation of narratives with which the reader (and writer, and radio broadcaster) is comfortable, not only within the sport but across sports. So if you are looking for meat and drink in the realm of sports writing and commentary, you really have to work. There are a limited number of human interest angles one can dredge up when the subjects are people in their youth who haven’t done a whole lot in their lives except play sports, and analyzing the games with the empirical attitude of a researcher leads to remarkable insight but not always to compelling narratives.
This problem with sports as a subject makes Updike’s “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu” all the more impressive. It is mostly meditative mythology, but it does capture an essential flaw in the reasoning of the accepted narratives. Williams, because he shows the difference “between a thing done well and a thing done ill,” provides a reason beyond the accepted narratives to watch a meaningless game, and Updike even uses this to puncture the notion of “clutch” hitting as a fraud upon the game–shouldn’t everyone hit their best every time up? To assume that clutch hitting exists means that not everyone is trying their best at all times, a ridiculous notion. Updike was no sabremetrician nor even a sportswriter, but his ability write about what he saw with fresh eyes is something I sense blogs like this one are trying to do every day using different tools. In the absence of a daily dose of Pulitzer-level prose about the game, I’ll take it with gratitude.
I’m I wrong, here?
I think most people will agree that good leadership takes you places, and bad to no leadership gets you around in circles, if that. However, intangible means that you cannot quantify – so, there is no way to get a stat for “clutch.”
And Clutch doesn’t mean people aren’t trying part of the time, it means the inner battle is either, calmer or noiser for certain individuals.
But how many leaders do you need? More is not necessarily better. And I’d be willing to guess that if you pulled 25 players at random from the pool of pro ballplayers and threw them together, at least one leader would emerge. And if he didn’t… the coach is getting paid to do what, exactly?
Sorry, didn’t edit in time – I would agree that the Manager is supposed to be “the leader.” Several however, look to ballplayers, to take that on their shoulders, rightly or wrongly.
Clutch (at least, to me) – is the absolute ability to still the inner noise goinging on inside the personal battle of the moment. The little things that get inside someone’s head and alter the “regular” process.
pshmidget:
Better to use no commas than commas in the wrong place.
I hear what you’re saying. But the argument against that is that chokers – who go to pieces when the game is on the line – never make it to the bigs in the first place.
I agree with this. Not every person who is capable of leading will become a leader. You don’t need 12 leaders on a 25-man team. The other players will eventually gravitate to one or two or three guys, and they’ll become the de facto leaders for the team.
But if your leader get traded away, there are others on the team who are perfectly capable of filling his shoes.
Funny thing is, there is a “stat” for clutch, measuring how a player bats in high leverage situations relative to context neutral, and I think they have these stats on Fangraphs, and if I remember, sorting through a list of players that were good and some that were bad, the real value of “clutch” isn’t much, with no one falling all that far from 0. This, at least from a statistical standpoint, negates any “clutch”. I think the same can be said for other things of the sort; in the end it probably ends up being about even. Major League Baseball players are so used to having pressure, I don’t think that a World Series game is really THAT much different than any other game. It’s still pitch, hit, catch and throw at it’s basis, so, as Colm said, every MLB player should have already shown that when the game is on the line they don’t go to pieces.
In the same vein, I’m sure there are people that go to pieces, but the data suggests otherwise. I couldn’t find data that had any one player historically “clutch” or “unclutch,” although such data might exist.
Isn’t clubhouse leadership really valued at about 10 mill a year though? Because Silva’s other skills sure don’t make him worth that money he’s being paid.
Fixed
Not wanting to tangent from this excellent topic, but yes, there are some players who perform better in ‘clutch’ situations and ones that don’t. BPro’s Baseball Between the Numbers covered this pretty well. Check it out.
Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
I think a false dichotomy is being drawn between Leadership/Chemistry/etc having no value and the value that some sportswriters and GM’s place(d) upon it. Obviously Bavasi placed a value on it, and he’s not a total outlier in the GM world.
There are some meta-questions not really being looked at by the stat-community, such as, why do players up and down swear by things like “the clutch”, “leadership” and the like? Humans have attested (and revered) these qualities in others for millenia, in sports, war, politics, etc. If this effect doesn’t actually exist, why do we perceive it so strongly?
Maybe that is straying too far into sports psychology, but I think there is something to it. We’ve all choked (or seen someone choke) to understand that under pressure, some people thrive and some don’t. I don’t know… sometimes I get frustrated that the concept is so readily dismissed as “non-existant” when the reality is that there are so many research questions yet to ask. Just because one set of tools doesn’t show a result doesn’t mean that there is no result to be had.
Chemistry debate: we’s having it already
Type A Free Agent.
If you really think Varitek’s on-field value is $0, then I don’t know what to tell you.
Just so I’m clear, are you arguing that teams are valuing first-round picks at $5M apiece?
Because otherwise I don’t get your point. Every single team but one did not make him an offer, as far as I am aware. One team offered him $5M.
29 teams thought Varitek was worth less than the value of the lost draft pick between No. 17 and the middle of the second round, or later if it was for a team like the Yankees who had already signed multiple Type As. One team thought he was worth much more.
So basically, Boston is paying well over what the market decided Varitek was worth that season. Based on both Boston’s actions and their words, do you think they are NOT paying him that kind of money because of that off-the-field stuff?
I think Jason Varitek is worth about $5 million as a baseball player. I think that it’s amazingly obvious that teams are not willing to give up first round picks to sign what they consider to be marginal players (Orlando Cabrera and Juan Cruz say hello) this year. I think Boston re-signed Varitek for about what he’s worth as a baseball player.
OK, I think we’re just not hearing each other at this point, but I will try one more time.
If I understood your original post, the issue wasn’t how much players were paid in relation to what they are worth (If we’re evaluating signings based on the FanGraphs metric, the off-field stuff must be a negative — Floyd is getting paid less than he earned a year ago, after all).
What you cited was how much those guys were paid in relation to what the market would dictate for similar players in the 2008-09 offseason. Floyd is making slightly more than the minimum to fill his role at the end of the bench and a “clubhouse leader,” ergo the value placed on those skills is no more than $350,000.
Jason Varitek was either going to play in Boston or not at all — I think we can all agree on that. Nobody else was interested in signing him, and if you want to make the argument that the sole reason is the draft pick then that’s fine (although clearly some teams are willing to give up picks to sign guys). But on the open market, Jason Varitek’s value to every baseball team except the Boston Red Sox was such that he didn’t get any interest from the other MLB teams.
For your argument to work here, you would have to assume that teams valued draft picks at somewhere around $5 million. Otherwise, you would think that someone would at least offer Varitek a contract with a discounted number — one year at $2 million, perhaps, with the lower dollar figure subtracting the value of the lost pick.
Or, you know, they could just value the draft pick that highly.
You’re making an assumption that draft picks aren’t very valuable. It’s screwing with your conclusions.
You don’t hear about many teams that win 95 games complain about not getting along.
Off the top of my head I can think of the 70s Yankees and A’s. The 30s Cardinals hated each other. If I thought some more, I could come up with many examples.
This is sort of a chicken and egg argument, bad clubs lack cohesive clubhouses and leaders while good teams have these elements. Isn’t that more a function of the record? To claim the loss of Guillen had more of impact than losing Jones and Sherill and getting a bag of damaged balls in return really does not understand the importance of talent vs. leadership.
Nothing beats talent, when was the last time there was a prospect who was rated five stars based on their leadership skills?
You’re making an assumption that draft picks aren’t very valuable. It’s screwing with your conclusions.
Well, that was my question, right? You think that all 30 MLB teams value the draft picks at $5M, and that explains why Varitek went begging? If so, wouldn’t you think that all contracts signed by Type A FAs would be lower, since teams would factor in the opportunity cost of the lost draft pick?
Maybe, and it’s definitely an issue that I hope somebody studies further. But I think this particular offseason is a bad time to make conclusions like that to explain why FAs are still looking for work, since guys like Abreu and Dunn are also unsigned despite having no compensation picks attached to them.
Why do you assume you know Veritek didn’t entertain and reject other offers? These things aren’t always public knowledge.
I have no idea how much a first round pick is worth, or how much GMs value it. But even if we did have the perfect knowledge that Veritek wasn’t offered anything by any other team, you’re assumption doesn’t follow. Just becuase Varitek is worth 5 million (which really surprised me until I looked him up) doesn’t mean each of those 30 teams values draft picks at an equal or higher rate. Most of those teams simply don’t need a FA catcher.