How Much For a WAR? 2023 Highest Paid Players Edition

[sveumrules]

Now that the regular season is a wrap and all the stats are in the books and on the servers, thought I'd do a quick rundown on how much bang teams got for their proverbial bucks at the top of the free agent market.

Player salaries via SpotRac and WAR totals via FanGraphs, using runs allowed based WAR for the pitchers...

Scherzer ($43.33M) 3.1 WAR 
Verlander ($43.33M) 4.1 WAR
Judge ($40M) 5.2 WAR

($40M+ tier: 3 at $126.66M for 12.4 WAR)

Rendon ($38.57M) 0.2 WAR
Trout ($37.12M) 3.0 WAR
Cole ($36M) 7.0 WAR
Seager ($35.5M) 6.1 WAR
Arenado ($35.03M) 2.6 WAR
Strasburg ($35M) 0.0 WAR

($35M+ tier: 6 at $217.22M for 18.9 WAR)

Lindor ($34.1M) 5.9 WAR
Correa ($33.33M) 1.1 WAR
Stanton ($32M) -0.8 WAR
Cabrera ($32M) -0.8 WAR
Bregman ($30.5M) 4.3 WAR
deGrom ($30M) 0.9 WAR

($30M+ tier: 6 at $191.93 for 10.6 WAR)

Altuve ($29M) 4.0 WAR
Bryant ($28M) -1.1 WAR
Harper ($27.54M) 3.3 WAR
Sale ($27.5M) 1.8 WAR
Turner ($27.27M) 3.8 WAR
Freeman ($27M) 7.9 WAR
Yelich ($26M) 4.1 WAR
Goldy ($26M) 3.6 WAR
Semien ($26M) 6.2 WAR
Xander ($25.45M) 4.4 WAR
Stroman ($25M) 2.0 WAR
Darvish ($25M) 1.5 WAR
Votto ($25M) 0.0 WAR
Mookie ($25M) 8.2 WAR

($25M+ tier: 14 at $369.76M for 49.7 WAR)

Wheeler ($24.5M) 4.7 WAR
Corbin ($24.42M) 0.8 WAR
Springer ($24.17M) 2.2 WAR
Realmuto ($23.88M) 1.4 WAR
Rodon ($22.83M) -0.1 WAR
Baez ($22M) 0.8 WAR
Ray ($21M) -0.2 WAR
Gausman ($21M) 4.5 WAR
Olson ($21M) 6.6 WAR
Marte ($20.75) -0.3 WAR
Mikolas ($20.42) 2.1 WAR
Morton ($20M) 3.7 WAR
Kershaw ($20M) 4.8 WAR
Musgrove ($20M) 2.8 WAR
Ryu ($20M) 0.8 WAR
Schwarber ($20M) 1.4 WAR
Castellanos ($20M) 1.0 WAR
Perez ($20M) -0.3 WAR
Story ($20M) 0.1 WAR

($20M+ tier: 19 at $405.97M for 36.8 WAR)

So, in total 48 players individually made $20M or more during 2023 (I didn't include Soto at $23M or Ohtani at $30M since they were one year Arby contracts) with total combined compensation of almost $1.312B in exchange for something like 128.4 WAR, or a little over $10M per win at the very top of the market.

 

[kestrel79]

Wow, that's a lot of bad contracts. Great info! And this why the Brewers can't and won't sign big name free agents. Too much risk.

[Jake McKibbin]

It's interesting with pitchers especially, and non contact oriented bats.

Bats that make consistent contact seem far more reliable overall when it comes to this

Biggest shock for me this year is how poor Realmuto has been behind the plate for the Phillies, especially given how good he was last year. One of the worst defenders in the league at catcher this season

[Underachiever]

There are some hideous numbers in that. Thanks for compiling.

I think the key to big contracts is to only sign players who won't suck in the future. 

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[jay87shot]

Great info, what is the general going value of a WAR, I know a few years ago it was 7-8 mill per WAR? I think usually a team needs about 40-50 to make the playoffs and the top contenders are are 70-80 WAR.

[duewizard]

3 hours ago, jay87shot said:

Great info, what is the general going value of a WAR, I know a few years ago it was 7-8 mill per WAR? I think usually a team needs about 40-50 to make the playoffs and the top contenders are are 70-80 WAR.

The Braves have 56.2 fWAR

Orioles have 41.5fWAR

[owbc]

When it works...it works. A lot of teams would love to have that 12 WAR acquired through free agency at the top of the Rangers' lineup. They paid $500M for it...similar to what Ohtani is likely to get. 

(plus they threw money at deGrom as well LOL...and all of that for a wild card spot)

[Underachiever]

36 minutes ago, owbc said:

When it works...it works. A lot of teams would love to have that 12 WAR acquired through free agency at the top of the Rangers' lineup. They paid $500M for it...similar to what Ohtani is likely to get. 

(plus they threw money at deGrom as well LOL...and all of that for a wild card spot)

Can I derail to say how pissed I am that Texas folded and let the Astros have the division? Houston was two games from missing the playoffs, instead they are the 2 seed and get a week off. I hate them.

[owbc]

7 minutes ago, Underachiever said:

Can I derail to say how pissed I am that Texas folded and let the Astros have the division? Houston was two games from missing the playoffs, instead they are the 2 seed and get a week off. I hate them.

I live in Seattle and cheer equally for the Brewers and Mariners so you can imagine how I feel about how it turned out. 

[stalton]

OK, did a deepish dive here. I used fWAR and payroll via Spotrac.

WAR ranged from Braves at the highest at 56.4 to Rox at 14.7.

Total WAR across the league was 1060. Payrolls ranged from 343.6 mil for the Mets down to 61.9 mil for the A's.  Total Payrolls across the league total 4.95 Billion. 

Interestingly enough wins/WAR doesn't appear to relevant. League wise $$ per WAR is interesting, though. The league average is 4.67 mil. Rays unsurprisingly took first with a meager 1.78 million per WAR. Both the Rockies and Angels take the cake at 11.5 WAR

Brewers come in at 3rd overall behind the aforementioned Rays and Orioles at 2.8 million per WAR. All these numbers get pulled down from all the rookies making (near) minimum. I suppose FA $$/WAR is another beast.

I'm pretty sure in analysis in individual WAR it was discovered that there's a steep incline in price per WAR the further you go up. It's alot easier to get players at 1-3 WAR than 4+

The top 50 players in WAR had at least 4.2WAR and not a single Brewer cracked that list. Which for a small market I think that's the way to go. Instead of paying through the nose for potentially elite WAR. Raise the floor on the entire team.

Texas Rangers who spent double the Brewers had a very similar team WAR. The top 2 WAR getters were Garcia and Heim, both whom make 750k this year, meanwhile the top 5 expensive Rangers didn't add up to much other than 110 million on their own.

I personally don't think WAR is the perfect metric but I wanted to see how everything lined up.

[owbc]

1 minute ago, stalton said:

OK, did a deepish dive here. I used fWAR and payroll via Spotrac.

WAR ranged from Braves at the highest at 56.4 to Rox at 14.7.

Total WAR across the league was 1060. Payrolls ranged from 343.6 mil for the Mets down to 61.9 mil for the A's.  Total Payrolls across the league total 4.95 Billion. 

Interestingly enough wins/WAR doesn't appear to relevant. League wise $$ per WAR is interesting, though. The league average is 4.67 mil. Rays unsurprisingly took first with a meager 1.78 million per WAR. Both the Rockies and Angels take the cake at 11.5 WAR

Brewers come in at 3rd overall behind the aforementioned Rays and Orioles at 2.8 million per WAR. All these numbers get pulled down from all the rookies making (near) minimum. I suppose FA $$/WAR is another beast.

I'm pretty sure in analysis in individual WAR it was discovered that there's a steep incline in price per WAR the further you go up. It's alot easier to get players at 1-3 WAR than 4+

The top 50 players in WAR had at least 4.2WAR and not a single Brewer cracked that list. Which for a small market I think that's the way to go. Instead of paying through the nose for potentially elite WAR. Raise the floor on the entire team.

Texas Rangers who spent double the Brewers had a very similar team WAR. The top 2 WAR getters were Garcia and Heim, both whom make 750k this year, meanwhile the top 5 expensive Rangers didn't add up to much other than 110 million on their own.

I personally don't think WAR is the perfect metric but I wanted to see how everything lined up.

And the thing about FA $/WAR is that you really can't calculate it on a 1-year basis because you are knowingly buying out low production years at the end of the contract. So those 2023 FA $/WAR numbers for the Rangers are probably the best that they will ever be over the life of those 7+ year contracts.