Through the first seven years of his career, Manny Machado has accumulated has been a four time All-Star, and he has won two Gold Gloves. He has three top 10 MVP finishes includes two top five finishes. He has accumulated 33.8 bWAR in his career with 23.2 of that coming over the past four seasons. Since his debut in 2012, he ranks 15th overall in the majors in fWAR, and he ranks ninth since 2015.
This is all Machado has accomplished before his age 26 season, or put another way, this is what Machado has accomplished prior to hitting the prime years of his Major League career.
It should be noted Machado has accumulated a higher WAR than Giancarlo Stanton over the past four years. Stanton signed his deal when he was entering his age 25 season. At that point in his career, Stanton had 21.3 WAR, which is less than the 28.0 WAR Machado had accumulated up until that point of his career.
The Marlins rewarded him with a 13 year $325 million contract extension. As we now know teams were hesitant to give Machado a deal of similar length despite Machado being the better player playing a premium defensive position. But this isn’t just about Stanton and the deal the small market Marlins soon regretted and moved for pennies on the dollar.
For a moment, we should put aside comparisons to any one particular player’s contract. After all, there are plenty of examples available from Chris Davis to Albert Pujols to show how teams do not make good decisions on players. On the converse, there are plenty of contracts were players have signed at massive discounts to the level of production they provide. Instead, let’s look at Fangraphs‘ analysis of what the cost/WAR is for a player:
fWAR | Cost/WAR | Value | |
2012 | 1.2 | $6.2 | $7.44 |
2013 | 5.0 | $7.2 | $36.00 |
2014 | 2.3 | $7.7 | $17.71 |
2015 | 6.6 | $9.6 | $63.36 |
2016 | 6.3 | $7.2 | $45.36 |
2017 | 2.6 | $10.5 | $27.30 |
2018 | 6.2 | $11.1* | $68.82 |
Career | 30.2 | $265.99 |
* Estimated
Looking at it that way, through the first seven years of his Major League career, Machado has been worth $265.99 million to his team. This means, on average, he has been worth $38.0 million per season. If you were to assume Machado put up a similar level of production over the next 10 years, his contract should be worth 10 years $380 million.
Now, if you were to strip away his age 19 season where he played just 51 games and accumulated a 1.6 WAR, Machado has played six full seasons with a 29.0 WAR over that span. Looking at his six full seasons, on average, Machado has been worth $43.1 million per season. Using that valuation, Machado’s 10 year deal should have been worth a total of $431 million.
Keep in mind, that number may be light as well.
There are two factors to consider here. First, we are basing this off the production Machado has had prior to hitting his prime. Considering how teams are purportedly looking to pay players for what they will do and not for what they have done, you could argue Machado deserves more than $431 million based upon what he will do in his prime seasons.
Another factor is since 2012, the price per fWAR has risen. Recently, Major League Baseball has seen record revenues in each of the past 16 seasons. Year-in and year-out, baseball is making more money than the previous season, which in turn means, the owners have more money to allocate to payroll.
Looking at things from that perspective, Machado does not even need to maintain a certain level of production to be worth a perspective $40+ million a year salary. Looking at Fangraphs chart, the value of fWAR went from $5.4 million in 2007 to $10.5 in 2017. That’s almost double the amount.
Let’s say over the next 10 years, the cost per WAR only increases by 25 percent. That would mean the value per WAR would be $13.9 million. If that was the case, Machado would only need a 3.1 WAR player at his age 35 season to earn a $43.1 million salary. Of course, that is just for the value of that year and not the entire contract.
Really, breaking it down, Machado has signed a massively discounted deal with the San Diego Padres for the value he provides on the field. That’s based on factual and objective data. Remember that the next time Steve Phillips of MLB Network Radio says the system isn’t broken or Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated and MLB Network says free agency is merely “recalibrated.”