𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐥

Abhay Pancharathi

In all sporting leagues with salaries, there are good and bad contracts. Good front offices can identify undervalued players, while poor front offices cripple themselves with pricy contracts for middling players. Once a team is saddled with a bad contract, it is hard for them to win, as out of the players with the 10 worst contracts in baseball, only one of their teams has a winning record, and even that team, the Atlanta Braves, is not currently in one of the National League's Wild Card spots.

For this experiment, I focused solely on batters since batting is one of the only actions, across all sports, where there are minimal external factors except for the batter's hitting prowess. I decided to use the statistic wOBA(weighted On-Base Average) to measure hitting-ability, as it combines the value of consistency given by pure Batting Average, with the understanding that a home run is worth more than a triple, which is worth more than a double, which is worth more than a single. The problem with Batting Average is that it values a single the same as a home run, an obvious flaw since the home run instantly gets the batter's team a run. wOBA gets around this by calculating just how much more valuable these types of hits are, and weighting them accordingly. The usual "triple slash" statistics of Batting Average(BA), On-Base Percentage(OBP), and Slugging Percentage(SLG) are useful, but each of them lacks some crucial information. BA and OBP weigh all base hits as the same, when in reality a triple or home run gets a player into far better scoring positions than a single. Not all hits are equal. However, SLG goes to the other extreme, valuing triples and home runs too much, and neglecting to factor in walks. While BA and OBP don't value power hitters enough, SLG values them too much. wOBA is the perfect combination of these three stats in an all-in-one metric that encompasses a player's batting prowess.

This chart has the top 10 batters by wOBA, their BA, and their Salary. As you can see, while Bobby Witt Jr. has the highest BA, he isn't the power hitter that the people above him are, resulting in his small slide in wOBA. This list, correctly, has Aaron Judge as the best hitter in baseball and has multiple players who are consensus top 10 hitters.

To find the true "value" of each contract, I made a percentile chart of both wOBA and Salary, to see how they are performing/being compensated in comparison to their peers. Some players, such as Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani are being compensated correctly, as both are 99th percentile hitters and salary earners. However, players like Javier Báez and Tim Anderson are getting paid way more than their value. Both are 1st percentile hitters, yet are being paid at the 87th and 34th percentile, respectively. Unsurprisingly, they both play for under. .500, non-playoff teams. After dividing the percentiles for wOBA and Salary, I made another percentile chart that ranked each contract in Baseball as how good of a "deal" their team is getting. Here is that chart with the names of the players.

This chart can be divided into 4 subsections, being the Quadrants. The Top Left Quadrant shows a player who is an above-average hitter, but a below-average salary earner. This is the Quadrant teams should focus on having players in, Stars in this Quadrant, such as Jurickson Profar and Bobby Witt Jr., have orchestrated one-year turnarounds, with Profar taking a Padres team from barely above .500 to well above .500 and back in the playoffs. Meanwhile, Bobby Witt Jr. has taken a dreadful 56-win Royals team to a playoff berth. The most valuable contracts in baseball reside in this Quadrant. The Top Right Quadrant contains players who are above average in both wOBA and Salary. These players are generally well-compensated for their hitting prowess. This Quadrant contains some of baseball's biggest stars such as Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, and Juan Soto. These players are consensus among baseball's best, yet aren't undervalued since they are paid their worth. The Bottom Left Quadrant is similar to the Top Right, in that the players are generally compensated equal to their worth. However, these players are worse batters than the Top Right Quadrant. These players usually make up the end of the batting order and, while essential to have, don't generally determine how games or series go. Finally, the worst Quadrant, the Bottom Right Quadrant. This Quadrant represents below-average hitters being paid at an above-average rate. A bad enough contract can completely tank a team's ability to field a competent roster, as having that much money tied into a middling player means less money to go to the rest of the roster. A big portion of this Quadrant belongs to past their prime players, still cashing checks for what they did years ago. Players like Javier Báez and Tim Anderson are 1st percentile hitters being paid at the 87th and 34th percentiles, respectively. Unsurprisingly, both Báez's and Anderson's teams are below .500. For this reason, one of the most underrated skills of an MLB front office is to be able to recognize when a player will hit the metaphorical "wall", and cease to be a contributing MLB player. For example, when the Tigers signed Javier Báez in 2022, the consensus at the time was that the Tigers offered a huge contract for a severely flawed player who had shown obvious decline at his calling card, defense. For a player who was already known as a player without plate discipline, Báez's sense has only gotten worse this season. This was a very easy trend to see late in his Cubs tenure and his Mets tenure, but the Tigers made him an 87th-percentile paid player anyway. His game was built off his quick twitch instincts, instincts that were bound to decline as he aged. Similar to Báez, Tim Anderson also showed an extremely obvious decline before this year, being undeserving of his 5 million dollar contract.

In general, teams with multiple bottom-quartile contracts cannot compete for a World Series. It is up to the front office to be able to recognize when a player's batting production is falling off and ensure they do not pay that player a lot of money as they are going into decline since it is well-documented that teams with bad contracts cannot compete. A measuring stick for batting production is "wOBA" or "weighted On-Base Average", a statistic that weighs different types of hits based on how valuable they are according to a regression analysis. Using that information, we can take the percentile of Salary and the percentile of wOBA and divide them by one another to find how good of a "deal" each team is getting for a certain player. Finally, I compiled all the data into a chart shown above.

In conclusion, the analysis of MLB contracts through the lens of wOBA percentiles versus salary percentiles reveals insights for team management and competitiveness. This approach demonstrates the impact of contract efficiency on a team's ability to field a competitive roster and contend for championships.

The four quadrants we've identified offer a practical framework for evaluating player contracts:

1. The ideal top-left quadrant of high-performing, underpaid players

2. The top-right quadrant of fairly compensated star players

3. The bottom-left quadrant of adequately paid role players

4. The problematic bottom-right quadrant of overpaid, underperforming players

Our analysis underscores the importance of front-office decision-making. The ability to identify undervalued talent, avoid overpaying declining players, and maintain a balanced roster is important to sustained success in the MLB. Teams that excel in this area, populating their rosters with players from the favorable quadrants, position themselves for both short-term success and long-term competitiveness. Moreover, this study highlights the evolving nature of player evaluation in baseball. By utilizing advanced metrics like wOBA and comparing them against salary data, front offices can make more informed decisions about player acquisition and retention. This approach not only benefits team performance but also contributes to a more efficient and competitive league overall. As the baseball landscape continues to evolve, the importance of this type of analysis will only grow. Teams that can consistently identify value and avoid albatross contracts will have a significant advantage in the quest for World Series titles.