Anyway, I think you have to call Bonds as a hitter as +2 wins above average, per 162 games. You want to call his fielding/position as -2 wins relative to average, fine. (That’s the lowest I give any player.) You want to make him -0.5 wins as a runner? Fine, too. Per 162 games, that makes him +1.5 wins above replacement (WAR).

I make it:

+2.0 hitting
- 2.0 fielding
- 0.5 baserunning
--------------
-0.5 total

What am I missing?

I haven't RTFA, but he seems to be switching between above average and above replacement.

What am I missing?

The DH and the units.

RE: the article.

(1) I don't think Tango addressed the one situation is that the 1 win is worth $0.00 to most of the teams. If that win is not "highly leveraged toward making the playoffs" (to adapt a term) then most GMs do not see it as:

(a) promoting goodwill;
(b) promoting revenue;

Its just an extra cost without any rule ROI. The win is like another run in a blowout.

(2) I don't think Tango fully addressed the Boston Braves analogy. IMHO, the primary argument is not piss poor decline, but its the collateral effect of playing an egocentric player that does decline.

(3) Bonds is not fungible with "old OFer". In many of the examples where a team chose to "go old" they went old with a player that has some history with the organization, coaches, fans and teammates.

The win is like another run in a blowout.

Heh, sell that to the Rockies.

There's a lot of un-modelable brand risk that would come with signing Barry Bonds. His case is unique. It's much easier for me to see each of the 30 team owners worrying about his franchise's image than a bunch of front office types making decisions based on research somebody dug up about the 1935 Boston Braves. It's kinda sad to see Bill James make the argument he makes while there's a book with his name on it that says Bonds would be the best hitter in baseball.

It's hard enough to justify thirty teams taking thirty separate and independent routes to the identical personnel decision as regards the league's reigning OPS+ leader, while keeping a straight face. But when you approach the phenomenon by invoking Babe Ruth's Boston Braves career, you've already lost.

Tango's talking hitting, fielding, and running vs. the average player, and then concluding that he is above replacement level, which is different (and lower) than average.

So replacement is always 2 wins below average?

It can vary somewhat, but that's probably a good rule of thumb.

An average team wins 81 games. A replacement team about 25. Assuming offense is half the battle, the difference between offensive replacement and average is 28 wins. Divide by 9, and you get about 3, multiply by 100/162, and you get around 2.

It was probably a bit rule of thumb, but quick check seems to support it.

I was taking replacement level for nonpitchers as 2.0 wins per 162 G in the NL (and 2.5 wins per 162 G in the AL.)

So, the numbers quoted (1.5 WAR per 162) is based on that.

Giving Bonds 100 games, his WAR is 1.0. That's my pessimistic forecast, entering 2008.

BL: I deliberately avoided the peripherals so as to break up everything into components. Summary decisions should be made after presentation of individual component presentation. I leave it to the reader to decide how much the M's (who already got Silva at 4/48 and Bedard for up-and-comer Jones) could value Bonds's expected performance and his peripherals. And some other team can value that same WAR and that same peripherals differently.

Thanks for filling in the details, everyone.

So, how do we know a replacement level team wins ~25 games?

So, how do we know a replacement level team wins ~25 games?

That looks a bit low. When Keith Woolner originally devised VORP, he scaled it base on the assumption that a replacement-level team would have a ~.270 winning percentage. But that translates to 44 wins in a 162 game season.

http://www.stathead.com/bbeng/woolner/vorpdescnew.htm

I use .300, and in my analysis, you can reasonably justify anything between .250 - .350.

Keith was not consistent, and you can see the discussion on my wiki confirming that Keith in fact also uses .300.

It's hard enough to justify thirty teams taking thirty separate and independent routes to the identical personnel decision as regards the league's reigning OPS+ leader, while keeping a straight face

Before the season started, I was keen on the Rangers signing Barry Bonds (a possibility that never went past the wild rumor stage). But so far Milton Bradley has been DH'ing for Texas most of the time, hitting like Barry Bonds himself. This has enabled the Rangers to go with three young and reasonably mobile outfielders (Hamilton, Murphy, and Boggs) most of the time. I'm now happy that this one team didn't sign Bonds. How many other Bonds-non-signings have turned out to be justifiable?

But, he’s really saying that the teams that would be interested in him are non-contenders, and therefore, don’t need to bother to sign him for one year. I agree with the conclusion, but I disagree with the premise (the potential teams are non-existant).

The contending teams that could use Bonds right now are:

Tampa Bay (unless you really would rather have Eric Hinske or Cliff Floyd hitting with the game on the line)
Toronto (ditto for Matt Stairs)
Cleveland
Detroit (both teams could use him in left, though for the moment DH is open thanks to injuries to Hafner and Sheffield)
LA Angels (On a team that is scoring near zero runs per game, nobody has the right to block a good hitting DH)

I'm not sure if James is able to be objective on this, which might explain the cherry picking and selective use of arguments to support a predetermined position. He is after all, an employee of a MLB club. True, one that has no need whatsoever of a one dimensional LF or DH, but MLB may not want him to put other teams in a bad position here, plus the Red Sox might not want him to convince their rivals to sign him.

"Hey Tampa Bay, are you serious about contending this year? Why not sign an alltime great to take Cliff Floyd's job?" I can see why the Red Sox would not want to state that publicly, though some people on the Rays should be smart enough to figure it out on their own.

True, Bonds might suddenly lose it at the age of 44 and hit like 1935 Babe Ruth, but that is not what our best guesses (projections) say he will hit. If you look at the worst case scenario, then you would never sign anybody. Any player can get hurt or suddenly lose the ability to play. A team would be wise to factor in a risk discount because of Bonds' age, but him getting no offers at all makes no sense given the ability he has shown, even in his advanced years, and the needs of certain teams.

Are these teams serious about winning? If the above mentioned have not considered making an offer to Bonds, I can only conclude they have higher priorities than winning, like making some lame moral stand.

That being said, it's damn near June, and assuming Bonds would need a period to get himself ready to play, the chance of him helping a team now is dwindling by the moment. A few of these teams will be kicking themselves in the offseason though, as they fall 1-3 games short of a playoff spot and wonder what if?

Bonds's prospective pro-rated salary is getting smaller each day. The number of teams that will see themselves as borderline postseason contenders is also getting smaller, but as the weeks go by their sense of anxiety about getting into October will only increase.

Meanwhile, Bonds can put 2 + 2 together, and he knows that he's not going to be getting anywhere near the "rational" market value if he chooses to sign.

Put these together, and it's clear to me that come the All-Star game, at least a few teams, sniffing a bargain, are going to be approaching him, even to the point of being mildly competitive in terms of salary.

The only question is the pride factor. How little is Bonds really willing to take just for the sake of getting one last shot at the postseason? This is the great unknown, and it's important.

What was of overriding importance in April, but will be much less of a factor in July, is the PR problem. It'll be a lot easier for teams to justify making a short-termed, relatively cheap "hired gun" deal to get themselves into the postseason than it would have been to sign Bonds to a full year's contract before the beginning of the season.

It realize that that isn't totally "rational," but then again, when it comes to the Bonds Question, very little is.

James makes an interesting argument. During the off-season, I thought there might be something to the "collusion" argument. However, at this point, I think that the market for Bonds is too small. Most teams would view him primarily as a DH. A team has to have a huge gaping hole in LF to think about putting him there. So his market primarily consists of contending AL teams which do not have good hitters at the DH position. A team like the Devil Rays probably is at its budget limit right now, and good luck to that GM if he has to convince the owner that he should bust the budget, knowing that he will get more hatred than fan-love for the move. Also, a GM probably won't sign Bonds unless he can say that he is guaranteed a playoff spot as a result of the move. Given the deluge of media lambasting which will befall the GM after the signing (probably comparing him to the devil incarnate), he may feel that he will look like a fool if the team doesn't make the playoffs.

I am hardly a disinterested party in this discussion (Bill's second column quoted me at length), but I think that AROM in 16 has a terrific analysis of the situation. If that is indeed the case, I kind of wish Bill had just said that as an employee of an MLB team he didn't want to discuss it, or just refuse to answer the question in the first place, instead of putting up that kind of argument. I also think there is an element of stubborness; Bill backed himself into a corner, but didn't want to admit that he was wrong.

Using OPS overates Bonds because of all the intentional walks. Take out the 43 intentional walks (which while they have some value are not indicative of any skill) and Bonds OBP drops to .428 last year. Obviously still a very good hitter but not the best hitter in the league.

As I said earlier, I think the tipping factor in the PR/emotional calculus of signing Bonds is the indictment. Supposedly he won't be on trial, if there is a trial, until November, but whatever one thinks of the merits of the Feds' action, legally or otherwise, it is hard for me to picture myself as an owner of a team wanting to sign a 43-year-old DH who is facing indictment for perjury etc.

If Bonds were 37, or if the Feds had dropped the charges, I think he would be on a roster. Bonds will always be Bonds, but a lot of guys have used PEDs, and if it were not for the Federal charges, the story would be sort of dead, really, and simply being an ahole to the media should not keep anyone off a team.

I think the best fits are TB and LAA, at this point, if someone triggers on it. Andy may be right about the PR angle, but I'm not sure--Bonds is Bonds in July or in March.

I'm not at all sure that this is a MLB conspiracy. Would MLB offices have enough contact/influence on a relatively low level Red Sox employee? That seems a stretch to me.

What does seem fishy to me is that one of the few teams that has both an obvious need and is in contention is the team sitting one game in front of the Red Sox. I'm not at all sure that the Red Sox would want their analyst pointing out to their (currently) main competitor that there is an obvious way for them to improve themselves. Same goes, but to a lesser extent, for the Jays.


Or, you know, maybe he's changed his mind.

I'm not at all sure that this is a MLB conspiracy. Would MLB offices have enough contact/influence on a relatively low level Red Sox employee? That seems a stretch to me.

James is pretty high up, actually, as I understand it, but maybe your interpretation is more accurate.

I don't see any conspiracy here, either.

I'm not at all sure that the Red Sox would want their analyst pointing out to their (currently) main competitor that there is an obvious way for them to improve themselves. Same goes, but to a lesser extent, for the Jays.

True, but this is Bonds, so everyone knows, including (obviously) Friedman and Ricciardi. I agree in principle.

it is hard for me to picture myself as an owner of a team wanting to sign a 43-year-old DH who is facing indictment for perjury

Alternatively, though, you might want to get one last good year out of him before he's in stir :)

The more I think about it, the more I think there's actually quite a bit of incentive for Bonds not to get a job. As long as he's sitting at home, the entire baseball world is discussing him at length in a mostly positive light, and getting into the habit of dressing up his accomplishments while downplaying his... we'll say "mistakes" (setting aside the periodic 'Bonds is the devil, nobody should sign him' pieces coming out of the MSM).

On the other hand, if he did take a contract from some team, there's a very good chance that he spends a month or two hitting like a human being rather than some ubermensch, and suddenly the tide of public opinion has very little on the positive side to focus on, because now he's just a baseball player again, one who's potentially not living up to expectations. If I were Bonds, I'd be pretty satisfied with playing golf and watching the rest of the world keep my name in the press in ways that are not connected directly with litigation.

OK...call me crazy, but wouldn't Bonds look REALLY good in a Ranger uniform right now?

Don't tell me he wouldn't be a HUGE upgrade over Brandon Boggs, at least at the plate. The Rangers are performing better than anyone could have reasonably expected at this point, and I don't think one can predict Ramon Vazquez will continue with a 150+ OPS. Lotsa smoke and mirrors in the offense, which one thunderous bat could fix almost instantaneously.

Besides, I'd pay money to be a fly on the clubhouse wall with Bonds, Bradley, and Hamilton together. Washington would definitely earn his pay as a manager or show his deficiencies almost immediately.

If I were Bonds, I'd be pretty satisfied with playing golf and watching the rest of the world keep my name in the press in ways that are not connected directly with litigation.

Speculation into how Barry feels has been a cottage industry for a long time. It would be just as easy to imagine Bonds V.1 as fed up with the abuse and happy to be living his daily life in private, as it is to imagine Bonds V.2 as a seething caludron of resentment who burns to take revenge with his bat.

What's clear is that MLB has bungled the situation. The season's a third over, and people are still writing and talking and arguing about The Man Who Wasn't There. Bonds (.000/.000/.000) is probably getting as much press in 2008 as, say, Lance Berkman. Bonds could've been buried in the Seattle DH slot, attracting minimal national attention, and jacking that team up to-- what? 13 games under .500 on May 31?

And in the years to come, the crude and obvious way Bonds was hipchecked out of the game will be a substantial PLUS for his historic legacy, adding a "762, plus however many more HRs he might have hit if..." unknowable. Now, it'll forever be the first counterbalance to the computer models of what PED-free Barry "would have" done. Plus, on a localized level, you could end up with this year's seasonal "what if?" factor for the 5th- or 6th-place teams in the league that was cited above by AROM.

All for the gain of not having Bonds as a distraction™. Mishmosh accomplished. He's an ongoing topic BECAUSE he's missing. All for the visceral pleasure of punishing the poster boy for steroids™. Classic short-term gain thinking, only without the short-term gain. MLB, which wants very badly to prove that Barry Bonds isn't bigger than the game™, has done just about everything it could to promote the very opposite.

I leave it to the reader to determine how much the M's ...

If I understand correctly, the take home exercise has three parts. First, after determining the WAR, the Ms would then have to determine how it translates into actual Win (or Win Potential) based upon the player's negative influence on the teams wins through negative PR and negative interaction with other players. Second, after determing that Win Potential, the reader must then translate the Win Potential into Revenue Potential or Pennant Potential (depending on what one believes is the true duty of the GM), and then once one has that measure, they would have to use it to equate it with the decision theory of the potential high negative risk that is incumbent with Barry Bonds.

At least I think those are the points James is trying to assert vis a vis the Ruth example, but its tough to understand when he falls into that "Misunderestimating the Fog" style of discourse.

IMHO, that is a pretty difficult take home assignment considering that those operations involve a bit more than mere combinatorics are not typically linear functions.

the Rays can't sign Bonds, because if they were to do so and then not make the postseason, we would all have to read thoughtful journalistic explorations of the possible causal relationship between those two events.....

Why not sign an alltime great to take Cliff Floyd's job?

Because Floyd's doing a good job? So is Hinske, for that matter.

The Rays don't need a LF/DH type. They don't have enough room for all the ones they have.

Giving Bonds 100 games, his WAR is 1.0. That's my pessimistic forecast, entering 2008.

That seems really pessimistic. The "best guess" projections for Bonds make for him to be a terrific player.

Based on Bill James baserunning data, Bonds is a +2 runs. His fielding isn't a -20 runs, but a -10 runs. And why are we pretending he can only play in the AL? If he plays in the AL, then his fielding approaches zero. Bonds (at this point in the season) would probably add 3 wins to the Mets team.

Also, Gaelan, Bonds' IBBs are different than everyone else's IBBs. He gets them because of his skills. His aren't situation dependent - well, the situation just has to be "a worse player up next". He gets IBBed when no one else would - that's a BOnds skill.

that is a pretty difficult take home assignment

And I don't pretend to know the answer.

His fielding isn't a -20 runs, but a -10 runs.

I was giving a forecast of him being -15 runs for his fielding (including arm), and his positional adjustment (corner OF) being 5 runs below the "neutral" position. That's -20. -20 is also the minimum I give to any player for his fielding+position.

Agreed that his IBB have value... in fact, exactly equal to what his non-IBB PAs are worth (presuming that teams are as smart as they are stupid in walking him). If he's worth +.05 wins per PA above average, then his IBB are worth +.05 wins each.

***

Regardless, I was trying to give as pessimistic forecast as I could, and he still has value under that viewpoint. Peripherals notwithstanding. I thought the marketer believed that any publicity is good publicity.

Regardless, I was trying to give as pessimistic forecast as I could, and he still has value under that viewpoint. Peripherals notwithstanding. I thought the marketer believed that any publicity is good publicity.

Okay. I was noting the extreme pessimism. The Mets could really use Bonds, and I think he'd have been +5 wins from teh beginning of the season, and some others like ot mock that. An argument made by you that has such a dire prediction will be brought up later. Sorry for the nag.

Chris, out of curiousity, how many wins above replacement do you give Bonds the last two years? He looks like about 4.5 wins per year from what I have seen, so 5 this year does seem a tad optimistic. Still, I completely agree that the Mets, among many other teams, should have signed him.

Here is a question I tried to ask James, but I don't think he gave a satisfying answer: has there ever been a player who was 1) as good as Barry Bonds is now; 2) wishing (and eligible; no Joe Jackson) to keep playing; and 3) unable to find a job? I can't think of anyone, but maybe someone else can.

Andre Dawson in the 1986-87 offseason? :)

hehe, good point! Although I think I would still take Bonds. Tim Raines in the same offseason is probably a better example; he was much better than Bonds is now.

The Marcel hitting forecast for Bonds is published at my site and at Fangraphs. Treating the IBB as a regular walk, and he's +3.5 wins as a hitter, per 162 G. So, Marcel would reasonably call him a +3 win hitter if you devalue the IBB a bit.

His UZR from 2003-2007 averaged -9 runs per 162G. 2008 would 3 years from that midpoint, so -1.5 wins for 2008 per 162G seems reasonable too.

LF is -0.5 wins for positional adjustment.

I don't know what his baserunning is, but a bit below average sounds about right.

The average NL player is 2 wins above replacement.

Marcel was giving him 70% playing time.

WAR = .70 * (3.0 -1.5 -0.5 -0.2 +2.0) = 2.0

So, that's what he is to me: a 2 WAR player meaning worth 9MM. A pessimistic forecast would call him a 1 WAR player.

Only $9M? After enjoying him in San Francisco for 15 years, I'd round it up to $10M to account for his easy-going, winning personality.

Thanks Tango.
What's the positional adjustment for DH?

People have been making references above to Bonds' performance projections for this year. Bonds turns 44 this season. I doubt there are very many players to base a comparison on. I would like to know how the projection systems handle older players in general. I'm assuming they are based on how players in the past who had a decent amount of playing time did at a given age. But with older players in general, a certain number lose it and are out of baseball in any given year. Are these players ignored? Then you have a survivorship bias in the projection method.

My Marcel page has all the necessary links to show you how the forecast is done.

For DH, I treat it similar to a bad fielding 1B: that guy would be -1.0 wins relative to the average fielding 1B, and 1B get a -1.0 win adjustment relative to the "neutral" position. As you can see, that's -2.0, which is what Bonds is (in my estimation). I don't let anyone go below the -2.0 for fielding+position, since any player worse than that (say putting Frank Thomas at SS) would simply be slotted for DH.

For guys who have performance stats *as* a DH (Trafner, Ortiz, etc), they enjoy a 0.5 win bonus, since there's a DH penalty, as noted in The Book. The PH penalty is 1.0 wins, and the DH is halfway between a regular starter and PH.

Nice Tango. Although as you point out elsewhere, Marcel is more pessimistic about Bonds than other projection systems.

------"...presuming that teams are as smart as they are stupid in walking him"

Why should that be a presumption?

44: lowers my typing time, and increases my playtime.

Bonds sat out lots of last year because the Giants weren't in competition, and even more in September when he was told he wasn't going to be re-upped. On a contending team, Bonds would play much more.

Bill James website has Bonds as a + in baserunning the last 5 seasons, including each of the last two.

Chris, feel free to present your component forecast, so we can make the comparison.