It's been well chronicled that the Astros are team that has much of it's $103 million payroll tied up in four players: Lance Berkman, Roy Oswalt, Carlos Lee and Miguel Tejada. This certainly isn't the most prudent way to operate a big league ball club, but the team has been in contention for the latter portions of 2008 as well as a majority of 2009. Much of the reason has been because the four men just mentioned have perfomed very well- more than justifying their salaries in most cases.
I wanted to take a look at the actual vs. "earned" value of many of the key contributors to the 2009 Astros. By "earned" value, I mean what the player has earned in terms of dollars converted from their WAR score for the first half of 2009. The WAR data can be found at Fangraphs.com, and the actual contract values are from Cot's Baseball Contracts.
Total Astros Payroll, 2009: $102,996,414
| Player | Contract Value | WAR Value (through 88 games) | Difference |
| A. Arias | $401,500 | $1,400,000 | $998,500 |
| T. Byrdak | $1,000,000 | ($1,500,000) | ($2,500,000) |
| J. Fulchino | $400,000 | $900,000 | $500,000 |
| M. Hampton | $2M (before bonuses) | $4,400,000 | $2,400,000 |
| L. Hawkins | $3.5M (before bonuses) | $1,100,000 | ($2,400,000) |
| B. Moehler | $2,300,000 | $700,000 | ($1,600,000) |
| R. Ortiz | $750,000 | ($2,200,000) | $1,450,000 |
| R. Oswalt | $14,000,000 | $8,300,000 | ($5,700,000) |
| W. Rodriguez | $2,600,000 | $9,200,000 | $6,600,000 |
| C. Sampson | $449,000 | $4,100,000 | $3,651,000 |
| J. Valverde | $8,000,000 | $600,000 | ($7,400,000) |
| H. Quintero | $610,000 | $0 | ($610,000) |
| I. Rodriguez | $1,500,000 (plus bonuses) | $2,500,000 | $1,000,000 |
| L. Berkman | $14,500,000 (plus bonuses) | $10,400,000 | ($4,100,000) |
| G. Blum | $1,100,000 (plus bonuses) | $2,600,000 | $1,500,000 |
| J. Keppinger | $427,500 | $3,700,000 | $3,272,500 |
| K. Matsui | $5,000,000 | $1,500,000 | ($3,500,000) |
| M. Tejada | $13,000,000 | $8,400,000 | ($4,600,000) |
| M. Bourn | $434,500 | $9,700,000 | $9,265,500 |
| D. Erstad | $1,750,000 | ($4,200,000) | ($5,950,000) |
| C. Lee | $18,500,000 | $5,500,000 | ($13,000,000) |
| J. Michaels | $750,000 | ($3,300,000) | ($4,050,000) |
| H. Pence | $439,000 | $9,700,000 | $9,261,000 |
Phew. What can we take away from this? Here's what I garnered:
0 recs | 18 comments
I was really pleasantly surprised to see how much value Kepp has brought to the team. Prior to his arrival with the Astros, his ratio of RHP to LHP faced was around 2.22 : 1
This year, it’s down to 1.98. And given his very distinct split (2009 RHP OPS – .673. LHP OPS – .942), that relatively small shift in his situational usage could be a very powerful driver of his value. Oh, and small sample size, but he’s got a decent UZR/150 at 2B — 5.6. I hope he can keep it up.
As much as Astros fans complain about Tejada’s salary being too high, last year, he still managed to outperform his $14M contract by $800,000. And it looks like he’s on target to exceed that again.
(P.S. — Russ Ortiz’s WAR Value shouldn’t be in parentheses, and you might explain that the parentheses indicate a negative value)
AstroAndy - July 14, 2009
Excellent analysis but SO CRUEL
to say Quintero is worthless. I prefer to look at it this way:
“No man is entirely worthless. He can always serve as a terrible example!” :)
And it looks like Carlos is going to get more and more negative as his back-end loaded contract gets more costly.
bwhite2323 - July 14, 2009
Carlos Lee’s contract is already at its max payout….it’s $18.5 mil a year from here to 2012. He’s never produced at the $18.5 mil level before, and from here on out, I can only see his production declining.
And I wonder if there’s anybody monitoring or enforcing his weight clause.
AstroAndy - July 14, 2009
There is no way that anyone is doing that
And I think that, more than anything about this team, kills me. I obviously don’t know exactly what that weight clauses says, but there’s is no conceivable way that Carlos Lee has actually toed the line on that. If he is making $18.5 million and being allowed to do whatever the he wants to, which he pretty much does, why in the world aren’t the Astros pushing him to either a) lose weight and get more mobile by threatening to do whatever the clause does to his wallet or b) …there is no b.
Stephen Higdon - July 14, 2009
like you say, we don’t know what the weight clause says. maybe it was just fluff, so that the Astros could tell their fans at the time he signed that he had a weight clause. I have this feeling that it probably is an ineffective provision….maybe it costs Lee a few thousand dollars if he exceeds it, or maybe the weight criteria is defined in a way that it is difficult to exceed.
clack - July 14, 2009
Yeah
That’s been my fear with it since day one. At the very least, if I’m Coop or Ed Wade and I watch Carlos loaf around night after night, I’m calling him out for making $18.5 million and not coming close to earning it.
Stephen Higdon - July 14, 2009
that's the "shoulda"
but you’d think the “coulda” would be enticing. Its a few short years of his life. Lose 50 pounds and play hard. You’ll hit more, field more and in general enjoy life more. Now do you really want another helping of whatever? Get one of those endless pools and change personal chefs.
ol Pete - July 14, 2009
I think it's pretty clear at this point
(given the Astros’ enforcement) that Purpura and Drayton were afraid Carlos could be critically underweight, and so wrote a clause into his contract requiring him to gain an extra few pounds each year.
Only_A_Lad - July 14, 2009
I figured the clause read:
“Just stay lighter than Prince Fielder and you’ll be fine”
AstroAndy - July 14, 2009
I dunno
Prince is looking pretty svelte lately. Maybe it reads “late-career Cecil Fielder” instead.
Only_A_Lad - July 14, 2009
haha
i said “in a sense”! He has worth! I’m sure he’s a great guy/husband/dad/etc., but as a baseball player he just doesn’t do much
Evan Hochschild - July 14, 2009
I think Towles is a better option than Quintero
Timothy De Block - July 14, 2009
Towles just came off the DL
but in the 41 games he’s appeared in at RR, he’s been outstanding. I hadn’t realized. He’s sporting a .903 OPS. Since his phenomonal short stint in 2007, he’s just been absolutely lousy at the MLB level in the few opportunities he’s gotten. Wade and Co. must really like Q’s defense or they would have dumped him when they signed Coste. That must be the deciding factor.
We’ll see if Towles can stay healthy and continue to produce at RR. Maybe he gets another shot this year.
littlevisigoth - July 14, 2009
does anyone know how long Towles had hamstring problems before the DL stint?
I know he went on the DL on July 4th, and that was probably back dated. But Towles has been given few at bats at Round Rock over the last month (24 at bats in the last 28 days). My initial reaction was that the Astros may have soured on Towles, but now I am thinking perhaps the sparse at bats may just caused by hamstring problems over the last month or so.
clack - July 14, 2009
BPro once described him
as a tad injury prone.
Only_A_Lad - July 14, 2009
I like the idea...
or a possible Castro/Towles platoon next year.
I know it’s a small sample size, but Towles is raking against lefties this year. Even with the terrible numbers he put up in the first part of last year, he hit much better against lefties.
Irish Pete - July 14, 2009
I'd be shocked
if they started the season with two unproven major leaguers. Unless Towles is called up immediately and puts up numbers approaching his AAA ones for the rest of the season, they’ll want to keep Pudge or Q on the roster.
littlevisigoth - July 14, 2009
Oh yeah,
I didn’t mean to start the year, but I could see it happening before too entirely long into the season.
Irish Pete - July 14, 2009
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