Case 2: Assessing the Value of Alex RodriguezAlex RodriguezTexas RangersHitter is the Center of AttentionWhat is the most important offensive statistic for a baseball player?Important stats according to MoneyballOn-Base PercentageOn-base Plus SluggingRuns CreatedAVM SystemsHow do these statistics relate to Rodriguez?ReferencesCase 2: Assessing the Value of Alex RodriguezTeresa SonkaGail BernsteinAlex Rodriguez Year Team Batting Avg. Home Runs RBI Stolen Bases1996 Seattle 0.358 36 123 151997 Seattle 0.3 23 84 291998 Seattle 0.31 42 124 461999 Seattle 0.285 42 111 212000 Seattle 0.316 41 132 15•First overall pick in the 1993 Major League Draft at age 17•Played with the Mariners for 5 years•Set the American League record for home runs by a shortstop•Became a free agent in 2000Texas RangersOwned by the Southwest Sports GroupThe strategy of the founder, Tom Hicks, was to spend considerable resources on talentThe Texas Rangers were one of the main teams interested in RodriguezNeeded to determine the incremental benefits of RodriguezWanted to determine an offer price that would attract Rodriguez without overvaluing himHitter is the Center of AttentionAll eyes are on the hitter and no one notices the other basemen and outfielders until the ball comes their wayWe don’t notice the third baseman until a hitter smashes a ball down the third base line and the third baseman makes a diving stop to throw the hitter outo Runs win games and hitters create runso There are more significant offensive than defensive statisticsWhat is the most important offensive statistic for a baseball player?A. RBIB. Batting AverageC. Home RunsD. On-base percentageE. Slugging averageImportant stats according to Moneyb allSlugging Average: Total Bases/At BatsEach base is weighted differentlySLG = (1B + (2 x 2B) + (3 x 3B) + (4 x HR))/ AB For example, if in 1 inning a team sent 4 people to the plate and 1 got a home run but the other 3 struck out, the slugging average would be a 1.0Rodriguez 2000 Mariners’ season slugging average: .606On-Base PercentageMeasures how often a batter reaches a baseOBP= (H+BB+HBP)/(AB+BB+HBP+SF)H= home run, BB= walks, HBP= times hit by pitch, AB= at bats, SF= sacrifice flyAn on-base percentage of 1.0 for a team would mean that every hitter got on base; theoretically a team could then score an infinite number of runs because they would never get an outOn-base percentage is given a higher weight than slugging average for this reasonRodriguez 2000 Mariners’ season on-base percentage: .420On-base Plus SluggingWeighted addition of on-base and slugging percentagesConvential baseball wisdom assigns on base percentage a weight of 1.5 and slugging a weight of 1Paul DePodesta, Oakland A’s statistician, assigns on-base percentage a weight of 3Rodriguez 2000 Mariners’ season statistic according to the Oakland A’s weight: 1.866Runs Created According to Bill James: Runs Created=(Hits +Walks) x Total Bases/(At Bats + Walks)Used to determine how many runs a team will scoreBatting average and stolen bases, two traditionally important statistics, not included as factorsAVM SystemsFounded in 1994 by two former derivatives tradersWanted to find the “derivatives” of runs; to value the worth of each tiny event in a baseball game and extract luckAimed to assign values to the minute components of a baseball player’s performance by analyzing the value of these events on average in the pastTurned every major league diamond into a mathematical matrix of location pointsThey did not reference any traditional baseball statisticsFor example, hits were defined by their velocity and trajectoryHow do these statistics relate to Rodriguez?Rodriguez had both great traditional and unconvential stats for his 5 years with the MarinersThe key to the Oakland A’s (a team with one of the lowest player salary budgets in MLB) success is recruiting based on performance statisticsPerformance statistics are especially important when paying huge salariesWas the Rangers decision to sign Rodriguez based more on his outstanding statistics or the glamour factor?ReferencesLewis, Michael. Moneyball. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004. Cohen, Randolph B. and Jason Wallace. A-Rod: Signing the Best Player in Baseball. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2002.
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