Friday, July 09, 2010
Visual Baseball: Introducing PayScale
Posted by Kevin DameHappy Friday everyone. After a long week and a hard-earned paycheck, let's take a look at who's earning their paychecks in MLB. PayScale plots prorated salary (Y axis) against WAR (X axis) and uses a rough baseline of $4.5M per win as "fair compensation." Players which a higher $/win are classified as overpaid, while players with a lower $/win are classified as bargains.
Here's a look at two big market teams - the Yankees and Red Sox. Some things that catch my attention: For the Yankees, it's the rock-solid value (still!) of their old guard of Posada, Jeter, Rivera, and Pettite. For the Red Sox, it's the tremendous value they're getting out of Youkilis, Lester, Buchholz, and Pedroia (Boston's younger version of the Yankees' old guard).
Here's a look at the Rays, who fare much better than their AL East competitors (not surprising since they have similar production with a much lower payroll).
"The commonality between science and art is in trying to see profoundly - to develop strategies of seeing and showing." - Edward Tufte.
Feel free to send comments, questions, and suggestions to Kevin via email.
It would be nice if the scales on each axis were brighter.