Hey there, Giants fans! I recently wrote a fan post over at TGP that ranked the 2010 Phillies by 'bargain level', or the extent to which their respective salaries differed from their WAR value. In the spirit of democracy, it can be used to criticize players and management alike since Ryan Howard didn't appear to live up to his contract and Ruben Amaro sure seemed to give Raul Ibanez too much money.
So why should you all care? You all have better things to do like get the parade confetti out of your hair and plan for the next party. Well, in an attempt to evaluate how the Phillies spend for value at the league level, I started crunching the data for other teams - like yours. I thought I'd share them since hording data is so 2005.
The Giants always struck me as a high value payroll, and the numbers show that. The WAR values are from Fangraphs, and the salaries are mostly from Baseball-Reference. There's some debate about how meaningful WAR is for relief pitchers, but I'll leave that argument to the statistical experts. I had to look at alternative sources for some mid-season acquisitions, so feel free to bitch about correct any salaries you see that are out of line. Batters with >100 PAs and pitchers with >30 IPs are ordered by 'bargain level', or the difference between Fangraphs WAR value and actual salary. As BornRaisedAGiant notes below, I did not account for the negative offensive WAR of Giants pitchers as I'm still getting my brain wrapped around the math.
| Name | Batting | Fielding | WAR | Dollars | Salary | Diff |
| Andres Torres | 18.8 | 21.2 | 6 | $23.90 | $0.43 | $23.47 |
| Aubrey Huff | 35.8 | 6.7 | 5.7 | $22.80 | $3.00 | $19.80 |
| Buster Posey | 16.6 | 3 | 3.9 | $15.80 | $0.45 | $15.35 |
| Pat Burrell | 13.5 | 4.9 | 2.7 | $10.90 | $0.40 | $10.50 |
| Juan Uribe | 0.2 | 6.8 | 3.2 | $12.90 | $3.25 | $9.65 |
| Pablo Sandoval | -3.5 | 0.3 | 1.9 | $7.70 | $0.47 | $7.23 |
| Freddy Sanchez | 2.2 | 5.9 | 2.7 | $10.60 | $6.00 | $4.60 |
| Eli Whiteside | -2.1 | 1 | 0.7 | $2.70 | $0.40 | $2.30 |
| Nate Schierholtz | -6.8 | 6.4 | 0.5 | $2.10 | $0.42 | $1.68 |
| Travis Ishikawa | -1.5 | 1.2 | 0.3 | $1.20 | $0.42 | $0.78 |
| Jose Guillen | -1.4 | 0.5 | 0.2 | $1.00 | $3.39 | ($2.39) |
| Bengie Molina | -6.8 | -1 | 0.3 | $1.40 | $4.00 | ($2.60) |
| Edgar Renteria | -1.6 | 2.5 | 1.3 | $5.20 | $10.00 | ($4.80) |
| Mark DeRosa | -6.7 | 0.7 | -0.3 | ($1.40) | $6.00 | ($7.40) |
| Aaron Rowand | -9.8 | 1.9 | 0.5 | $2.10 | $13.60 | ($11.50) |
| Tim Lincecum | 5.1 | $20.50 | $9.00 | $11.50 | ||
| Matt Cain | 4 | $16.00 | $4.58 | $11.42 | ||
| Jonathan Sanchez | 2.6 | $10.60 | $2.10 | $8.50 | ||
| Madison Bumgarner | 2 | $7.90 | $0.40 | $7.50 | ||
| Sergio Romo | 1.2 | $4.90 | $0.43 | $4.47 | ||
| Brian Wilson | 2.7 | $10.70 | $6.50 | $4.20 | ||
| Santiago Casilla | 0.9 | $3.50 | $0.45 | $3.05 | ||
| Dan Runzler | 0.4 | $1.80 | $0.40 | $1.40 | ||
| Guillermo Mota | 0.3 | $1.10 | $0.75 | $0.35 | ||
| Denny Bautista | -0.1 | ($0.40) | $0.40 | ($0.80) | ||
| Jeremy Affeldt | 0.2 | $0.90 | $4.00 | ($3.10) | ||
| Todd Wellemeyer | -0.6 | ($2.60) | $1.00 | ($3.60) | ||
| Barry Zito | 2.1 | $8.60 | $18.50 | ($9.90) | ||
| 50.40 | $202.40 | $100.74 | $101.66 |
So what does it all mean? You all know better than I who the questionable salaries were given to. What initially struck me was the great value that Sabean seemed to get for his money - almost twice the payroll in WAR value. You can compare that with the Phillies who bought $170M worth of WAR for $140M, or the Yankees who bought $190M of WAR for $205M. Or not, if you don't want to. As sarf_london_niner points out below, however, the Giants rank 15th in WAR/payroll and much of the upside results from WAR from first round picks.
Have a great off-season, and enjoy that shiny trophy!
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