He looks back now at the seasons he had when he was younger—hitting .280 to .300, averaging more than 40 doubles, 35 homers, and 120 RBI, like clockwork—and what sticks out the most is how simple, how easy it felt.
“I looked at the first six or seven years of my career, I was in my 20s, it was easy. I wasn’t searching for the right formula. To think that I’m going to get remarkably better, as I get older and breaking down a little bit more, it’s not going to happen,” Teixeira said.
That makes sense. It’s the way it’s supposed to work: The years affect us all, and that is starkest for those who age in front of our eyes. But in baseball, where every player arrives at spring training having found the panacea that will make this the best year of their career, to hear a star player acknowledge the obvious sounds downright alien.
“Maybe I’m slowing down a tick. Look, I’m not going to play forever. Eventually you start, I don’t want to say declining, but it gets harder and harder to put up 30 [homers] and 100 [RBI],” Teixeira said.
This winter, Teixeira is accepting his new normal. After three seasons that for him would be considered down years, Teixeira is done tinkering with new ideas, done chasing a perpetual peak. If he is a .250 hitter, so be it. He is embracing his strengths—30-homer power, 90-walk patience, Gold Glove defense—and forgetting his weaknesses, on what he openly calls the backside of his career.
“This is my 11th year,” Teixeira said. “I’m not going to play 10 more years. I want 5 or 6 good ones. So that would say I’m on the backside of my career. And instead of trying to do things differently on the backside of my career, why not focus on the things I do well, and try to be very good at that?”
...“I have no problem with anybody in New York, any fan, saying you’re overpaid. Because I am,” Teixeira said. “We all are.”
“Agents are probably going to hate me for saying it,” he continued. “You’re not very valuable when you’re making $20 million. When you’re Mike Trout, making the minimum, you are crazy valuable. My first six years, before I was a free agent, I was very valuable. But there’s nothing you can do that can justify a $20 million contract.”
Repoz
Posted: February 02, 2013 at 12:36 PM |
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1. ColonelTom Posted: February 02, 2013 at 01:23 PM (#4360697)"... but once I landed in New York, the right formula 'found' me."
It may be politically foolish, and it may be contrary to the sacred market principle of willing buyer, willing seller, but what he's saying also happens to be true by any other normal standard. And the fact that a few movie stars or rock singers or a slew of corporate CEOs might be even more overpaid doesn't negate this.
He shouldn't be saying "backside" anywhere in the vicinity of A-Rod right about now.
Also, I bet Cashman is on the phone 2 seconds after this was published.
Kobe Bryant has been underpaid for sure at $20M or so - the Lakers have made a fortune, and he has a HUGE amount to do with it. Michael Jordan was underpaid at that level as well.
Tougher to justify in baseball, admittedly.
If Jordan was underpaid just imagine how badly the league underpaid the officials who protected him on the court.
Seems like a lot of the above comments believe it was Option 1, but I read it as Option 4 with maybe hints of #2. He's not "valuable" at 20 million b/c he's only generating maybe 18-22 million in revenue. But a cost controlled player could generate 10-15 million at the minimum. Using Tex and Trout as specific examples is bad b/c of Trout's excellence, but I'm talking generally.
Gilbert Arenas gets more than him? Elton Brand?
"If Jordan was underpaid just imagine how badly the league underpaid the officials who protected him on the court."
might be time to let that go.
#closure
:)
He seemed to be referring to the same type of concept that sabermetric minds might term "surplus value". He's just saying that the even the best players are only going to be worth around that $20M, while the real value in the game comes from the production during the cost controlled years at the beginning of a players career. it's not really a controversial statement, but it's interesting to see a player come out and say it this plainly.
Didn't Lebron accept below market rate to play with his buddies in South Beach?
No, see, they mean you in particular, even judged against those overpaid guys.
You won't believe what the answer is!
Revenues or profits? If it's revenues, he might not be worth anything. If it's profits, then he's probably wortha lot.
I enquired after Messi in my Football Manager career as manager of the Montreal Impact. They replied that he was worth more than my transfer budget would allow, so my answer is "something more than £110,000".
I see fangraphs has Dickey worth 4.6 WAR in 2012. How is it possible he's worth no more than a pretty good hitter?
Look at what Fangraphs is calling "RA9-Wins" to get a better WAR value for pitchers - by this stat, Dickey was good for 6.5 wins in 2012.
Isn't that number for free agents only? If you include pre-FA players in the calculation, as Teixeira seems to be doing, then a win is worth significantly less than 5.5M in salary.
Well, you'd expect him to do well in that category.
Nice.
I think it's the number you'd expect to pay on the FA market, yes, but I'm not sure how else you'd calculate his 'worth', given if he wasn't on the team, the Yankees would presumably be replacing him from the FA pool.
Correct. It bounced between 4.0 and 4.7M. So, I guess he wasn't particularly close to being worth his salary, even at FA replacement prices.
Teix has had a real bell curve of a career. The Yankees were gulled by his career year at age 28, and paid through the nose for it. I like his attitude, though. He seems to know where he is, and what he needs to work on. That's worth something.
That's pretty funny. Too bad the second number after the decimal messes it up. He needs to make $19,999,999.90 per year for it to work perfectly.
Dickey and his defense were worth 6.5 wins
Oh man, I thought it was gonna be 55,378.008
Is it, though, when even the true journeymen can hang around for ten million plus? I think the goal at the lower end is to simply stay in the majors, even if it means bouncing up and down. Even a couple of 1.5m deals as a first or second backup gets you into 5m lifetime country.
Median US household income is about $50,000. The top quintile, most of which are 2-earner households, is $90-95,000. Many of those high-earning households would be near their peak earnings (i.e. in their 50s say). A recent study put the lifetime earnings of a high school grad at $1.2 M, $2.1 for a BA, $2.5 for a masters, $3.4 for a doctorate, $4.4 for a professional degree.
Ian Stewart, a briefly OK lately terrible MLer has already made $5.4 M (including 2013) and has one more arb year to go. James Russell, an iffy lefty reliever, is in his first arb year and has lifetime earnings of $2.4 M. I don't know what they may have received in draft signing bonuses. We haven't taken NPV into account yet (if they can invest at a rate higher than inflation) and these guys can probably latch on as coaches, high school coaches, car dealers, whatever to provide some future earnings too. Plus the strong MLBPA pension and health care.
For 99.9% of these guys who make it to just an arb contract, there is no direction not taken that offers them anything like that level of earnings. Gambling on making MLB is surely a bad bet or, at best, high risk, high reward. But if you make it to arb, you've already done better than you could have with your other options.
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