Andrew Friedman and Co. are neck deep in their sixth hot stove season. We know the Rays are great at making trades. And we have a sense that they are pretty good at drafting. But how good are they at free agency?
The Rays are well-known for picking up hidden gems like Carlos Pena and Joaquin Benoit. But they have also missed terribly with guys like Pat Burrell and Troy Percival.
So let’s see if we can quantify how World B. Friedman has fared with his free agent picks.
We already saw last week, that in 2010, the Rays only received $7.1 million in production from their free agents, despite paying those players $23.8 million in salary. This was the second-straight year the Rays overpaid their free agents.
After the jump, let’s look at the totals for 2006-2010 by breaking it by every free agent signed by Friedman that spent time on the Rays active roster (plus Shinji Mori). The “Value” for each player is measured as the difference between how well they played and how much the Rays paid that player.
Notes on how the table was constructed can be found below…
Notes on the table…
- Production and salary values include every player with a major league contract that was signed as a free agent (or claimed off waivers) since October, 2005.
- Despite poor showings the past two seasons, the Rays have still shown a positive net value from their free agent signings. Since Friedman and Co. took over, the Rays have paid approximately $93.7M in salaries to free agents. Those players have been worth $109.0M in WAR value on the field. In some cases, we had to estimate prorated salaries.
- Salaries for Akinori Iwamura and Shinji Mori include the posting fees ($4.6M and $1.0M respectively) the Rays paid to each player’s Japanese club for the exclusive rights to negotiate with each player.
- The two most valuable signings have been Carlos Pena and Aki Iwamura. The two least valuable signings have been Pat Burrell and Troy Percival.
- 20 of the 45 free agents (44%) gave the Rays a positive contribution (WAR) on the field. 18 of the 45 free agents (40%) have given the Rays a net positive value.
- While we certainly cannot discount the value of Carlos Pena, it is worth noting that if you remove Pena’s $35.5M value, the remaining free agent signings have a net negative value by approximately $20.2 million.
- Ty Wigginton was traded for Dan Wheeler in 2007. Since the trade, the Rays have paid Wheeler $10.2M in salary. His production for the Rays has been worth $2.9M, giving Wheeler a Value of -$7.3M. If this is included in Wigginton’s value, his signing was actually worth -$1.5M for the Rays and brings the total net value of all free agents down to $8.0M.
On the surface it looks like the Rays reputation in the free agency market is built largely on the signings of Pena and Benoit. But is that enough? One could argue that the Rays need only occasionally hit the bullseye in order to be successful. But as we can see, the cost of finding those one or two players each season is much more than the occasional minor league free agent contract.
1 Wins Above Replacement is way to compare all players regardless of position, by measuring how many Wins that player was worth above a Replacement-level player. Data from Fangraphs.com
2 Production is a look at how much each player was worth to the Rays and gives a dollar value to each Win (WAR). In recent years, each Win has been worth ~$4M
3 Value is the difference between production and salary
4 Player was traded from the organization
5 Player has or may net the Rays a compensation draft pick