The Most Valuable Baseball Seasons Since 2002

Since its institution in 1931, the Most Valuable Player award in baseball has been a subject of debate.

Why? Value is an intangible asset that can be defined in many different ways.

But thanks to data analytics, the value of a player can be effectively measured by metrics such as WAR (Wins Above Replacement)

According to Wikipedia, WAR is “a non-standardized sabermetric baseball statistic developed to sum up “a player’s total contributions…”. And while it’s undoubtedly the most common measuring stick, there are still other ways to gauge a player’s worth.

One of those is Value (in dollars), and its derivative, Surplus Value.

It’s this metric that is behind the article, “Bryce Harper Should Have Made $73 Million More”¹. And it’s that data story which I will attempt to improve upon by:

According to the article’s author, “…it’s safe to say that Harper’s 2015 output was also worth the most money of any player’s in baseball history”.

Well, here are 10 of the best seasons of all time in terms of WAR:

Now is there anyone that really believes that Bryce Harper in 2015 was somehow more valuable than Babe Ruth in 1923??

But since we’re focusing on Value and not WAR, let’s hold off on that discussion for now, and look at…

Value is calculated by multiplying a player’s WAR by the market value of a win for that season. Surplus Value is simply Value — Salary.

The problem with these formulas is that they combine normalized values (WAR) with non-normalized values (Value of a win & salary). In other words, 13.0 WAR in 1927 is equal to 13.0 WAR in 2015, but $100,000 in 1927 is not the same as $100K in 2015.

As a result, comparing dollar values across eras is extremely difficult. The best we can do here is to:

The above list should be taken with a grain of salt, and not just because of the estimated $ per win value. The inflation rate of baseball salaries far exceeds that of the U.S. dollar.

Since dollars per win (or $/WAR) values wasn’t a thing until 2002, what if we compared 2015 Bryce Harper to the top seasons since then? Could it be, as the author states, that ‘Harper… had the “most valuable” season of any MLB player since 2002’?

Nope.

Here is a snapshot of Neil Paine’s data table showing the top 2 player seasons in terms of Surplus Value Dollars:

While the figures are ostensibly derived from FanGraphs, the author goes on to state that, “Although I didn’t use FanGraphs’ individual dollar numbers for my rankings, I did need its league-wide figures to help estimate the going rate per WAR in MLB.”

So “the most valuable… since 2002” was a curious statement, given how the author’s dataset went only as far back as 2009. As it turns out, Bryce Harper’s outstanding season wasn’t even the most valuable since 2013.

Where then, does Harper’s year rank among the top 2002–2015 performances?

In addition to the answer, the following visual shows how much a player’s Value increases in accordance with $/WAR, which rose 105% during that span.

a) Bryce Harper’s 2015 performance was worth the most money in baseball history, and

b) It was the “most valuable” season since 2002.

1. Using empirical data, Harper’s 2015 season based on WAR alone would not place it among the top 10 of all time.

2. After examining how ‘Value’ & ‘Surplus Value’ is calculated, we used estimated data to determine that Harper’s season is also not among the most valuable ever.

3. Finally, in order to eliminate era biases and the use of estimated data, we only compared player performances from 2002–2015. After making corrections to the original data source, we found that:

a) Harper’s 2015 season was the second most valuable on the author’s list.

b) From 2002–2015, his 2015 Surplus Value was tied for 4th-best.

Unavailable data includes $/WAR (prior to 2002), average salaries, and historical individual salaries. Because of this, we used estimated values for many of the player seasons.

In an effort to normalize salary data, we adjusted values using U.S. dollar inflation rates, simply because “baseball dollar” data is incomplete. The obvious problem here is that the inflation rate in baseball (since 1967) is 37 times that of the U.S. dollar.

There is a clear era bias when it comes to WAR totals and salary.

When it comes to WAR, the fact that only 2 of the top totals occur after 1957 is no coincidence. It’s a common belief that the overall talent level in baseball nowadays is far greater than 80, 60, or even 40 years ago. Since WAR is a relative, this means that the higher numbers of the past is due to the larger gap between the top & average players.

In regards to salary, we previously mentioned how the dollar value in baseball is far different than that of the U.S. dollar. As you can see, the gap between the two grew exponentially after 1975, which was the advent of free agency.

Salary affects a player’s Surplus Value, as you can see the difference between the pre- & post-free agency eras:

On the other hand, if you go further back, low salaries were simply a sign of the times. For example, Bryce Harper’s 2015 salary of $2.5m converts to $180k in 1923, based on the rate of inflation. But the top salary in 1923 was just $52k, and the first $180k contract didn’t occur until 1973 ($200k)².

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