Last week I had some fun putting the career statistics of and side by side on screen, without identifying who the players were. Since this is still the pre-season and meaty topics are running short, I figure I’ll replicate this formula, at least once more. Below you’ll see the statistics of two players who play the same position, and have similar all around games. The ages listed are how old one each was after being an everyday big leaguer for three full years.
The last time I did this my aim was to show how a narrative was forming around two players based on the trajectories they had taken to achieving roughly the same career value. The Yankees and their fans are already assuming that Nick Swisher will walk at the end of this year while Curtis Granderson will get a big contract when the time comes. The data show that both players have generated about the same value over their careers. The reason Granderson is currently valued more highly in contract considerations is because he is younger, but also because he had such a large 2011. Taken in total he hasn’t been all that much better than Swisher, so it is risky to assume the Yankees can replace Swisher easily.
This time my aim is to demonstrate the risks inherent in allowing the kinds of player narratives that are emerging with Swisher and Granderson to reach their conclusions without intervention. In the table above Player A and Player B both play the same position, very well. They both do a lot of their damage with their legs, stealing bases to extend hits. Offensively their total production is similar, but one player has a lot more power while the other has substantially better on base skills. In total, however, over their first three full seasons in the majors they’ve given their respective teams comparable production.
There are two critical differences between them, however. The first is obvious. Player A is several years older than Player B. The second is a bit dishonest, on my part. Player B has more major league service than Player A. Player B is actually 30 years old right now. To make a fair comparison between their production I had to calculate Player B’s career totals only through the age when he had as much professional experience as Player A has now. That skews the data toward Player A. He’s currently in his prime, while Player B was entering his prime at the time that he’d compiled the above statistics.
There is one final, key difference, but it’s not something that is relevant to their statistics or how they were compiled. At the time Player B was the age Player A is now he was being viewed as a shoo-in for a nine figure pay-day, one that he would eventually receive. Player A, on the other hand, despite being on what is more or less a similar albeit older career trajectory has to fight for every opportunity he gets and isn’t being viewed as some one with a big payout in his future.
Player A is , right now. Player B is , after he’d played about as many seasons as Gardner has to this point, excluding incomplete seasons when either player was bouncing between AAA and the majors. Shockingly similar in production, aren’t they?
Do not think this means I believe Brett Gardner deserves a $100 million contract. By now it should be clear to regular visitors to this site that I believe only a small handful of players deserve that kind of money. Instead, my aim is to show how ridiculous Carl Crawford’s contract was. I acknowledge that the time period for Crawford that I’ve selected omits his best seasons, when he averaged a wRC+ of about 120. However, armed even with that information, what would have been fair value? $60 million? $80 million? $100 million? My gut tells me $80 million over six years would have been a better estimate, and even then generous for a player who is only going to slow down in the years ahead. If Brett Gardner can continue to perform well over the next three years, does anyone think he’d get offered a dime more than $20 million, and only that if he’s lucky?
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Your point is a fair one but Gardner is going to slow down too (he’ll be 29 this summer) and by the time he’s eligible for FA he’ll be 31 or 32 (assuming he’s not offered a multi-year extension in the interim). Yes, he’ll still be fast and a great OF but running speed declines just as bat speed does and unless Gardner can do better than providing barely above league average offense I can’t see the Yankees or anyone else investing a lot of money in him or giving him more than a 3 year deal at that age.
I think Gardner is underpaid now because he has no leverage and his skill set is somewhat undervalued. Unfortunately, owing to his late start he’s not going to reach FA at an optimum point in his career. So if he’s offered $15-20 million for say 3 yrs. that will not be a gross injustice – it’ll be just about right.
My point wasn’t so much to show Gardner’s worth as it was to show how highly over valued Carl Crawford was. I understand why Gardner has been paid so little thus far. That said, he’ll make $2.8 million, which is probably more than I will ever make.
Again, you are forgetting that as CF Granderson is at least one win better than Swisher on D. That is easily worth 5 mil/per year and one more year.
As for Crawford, he was just entering his prime years, he had power, he had average, he run a lot. And Gardner has played his prime years. Yes, Crawford’s contract was silly, and Gardner will be undervalued right until he falls of a cliff, but there is a real difference in their performance and expectations.
I….don’t believe you said anything that the author didn’t in this piece or the last one.
Just sayin’.
I believe that in the last one he just glanced over their positional difference. Yes, they might have similar UZRs at their respective positions, but that is one win difference. So, if you believe Swisher is worth 3/36, Granderson is worth at least 4/68 or 5/75. that one win of positional adjustment is huge.
I disagree with the value you’re suggesting the positional difference is worth, but I do feel that even at the same offensive production Granderson is worth more than Swisher. That wasn’t the point of the post.
The point of that post was to show that Swisher is being undervalued, not Granderson. Folks are acting as if replacing Swisher’s production would be simple. My aim was to demonstrate that he is more productive that people realize.
The fact that people want to replace Swisher with Justin Maxwell proves that Swisher is never going to be looked at reasonably by Yankee fans because he’s not “clutch”. Which is ridiculous but is the way it is.
Recently Yankees have had O’Neil, Sheffield, Abreu and now Swisher. We are spoiled when it comes to RF. It seems like it’s easy to find very good RF.
One win is worth around 5m. If you expect standard aging pattern for two players of same age, better one should keep his advantage. So, that’s 5m per year, plus inflation. Also, better player should have more years in him before reaching replacement level. So, he should get one, perhaps two years more.
Except nothing is that simple. Players skill sets age at different levels, therefore it makes no sense to ignore that fact and just assume the better player now will be better forever or longer. In fact age in and of itself isn’t a very good way to judge decline, skillset, body type, injury history, and genes all play a huge factor. The fact of the matter is I’d take Swisher’s combined body type and skillset in the long run over Granderson 10 times out of 10. Swisher won’t lose his batters eye and I expect his power to hold up more consistently than Granderson’s. I see Swisher having a slow and steady decline, while mainting a similar level of effectiveness through age 35 or 36. Granderson on the other hand I think will have a quick and steep decline in both offensive production and defensive ability. I’d be really nervous to commit to anything past 34 to a player with Granderson’s body type and skillset. He just relies too much on bat speed and actual speed in the field.
Interestingly, I’d almost take the other way around. Swisher has old player skills – low BA, good eye and good power, and he isn’t very quick. Granderson has more speed and power, solid eye and slightly better BA. He has more skills. He is larger risk to be hurt by catastrophic leg injury, but ignoring that, I’d take him as a better bet to decline slower. All in all, decline+injury risks should be about the same. That’s why I said that their difference in value should remain roughly the same.
I could care less about batting average, Granderson has never really been one to hit for average anyway, but even if he were Swisher has proven to be the better OBP player for his career. Which is really all that matters since BA is the most overrated stat since RBI.
The thing about Granderson’s power is it’s completely tied to the fact that he has plus plus bat speed, he doesn’t generate his home runs on raw power such as a Jim Thome did. Obviously bat speed is important for everyone but for a small body power hitter like Grandy it’s more important than for a guy like Swish. Because of this once his bat speed slips I think his power nose dives into the low 20′s.
As far as his defense I think that is 100% tied into his speed. He takes horrible routes to balls and doesn’t read balls off the bat very well, which is why he freezes a lot when the ball is first hit getting a read. Just look at the AJ Burnett playoff game to get a perfect example of this problem, or the game in Tampa where his inability to read the ball off the bat cost us the game. I think he is destined for the same defensive career path as Damon. He started out as a good defensive CF based on speed but not much more, he’ll transition to LF where his loss of speed and lack of arm will make him average, and every year after that he will get worse until he is costing the team more runs in the field than his bat can make up.
In the end they are both low BA players but Swisher has a better OBP, they both hit for power but I see Swisher’s holding up better with age, and on defense I think both end up a DH by 36. Swisher will also cost less because of his perceived value as a role player, while Granderson will want elite player pay for his declining years. He’ll also be negotiating as a power hitting CF when the majority of his next contract will take place in LF.
I honestly don’t want either to be extended, but gun to my head I’ll take Swisher on a 4 year deal over Granderson on a 4-6 year deal 10 times out of 10.
I agree that BA is bad stat, but it can be used as a proxy for hit tool. .250 BA player can be productive, but if BA falls into .220 range, it’s hard to keep that production. Player who can both hit for average and take a walk has one more weapon to reach the base.
Nick Swisher represents classic “Old Player Skills” player, as defined by Bill James. Since entering the league he had low BA, isolated patience around .100 and ISO around .200+. Those are old player’s skills, and young players with those skills tend to lose it in early thirties (as players age, they tend to develop patience and power to compensate for declining speed; player who has mastered patience/power from start can’t compensate).
Granderson depends more on his speed, so catastrophic leg injury would hurt him more, but other than injury, it’s hard to expect his speed to decline more than normal.
But you are right, neither is a guy you’d want to extend for 4-6 years.