Batting Leadoff: Paying for an Opponent

This post originally appeared on Batting Leadoff. Batting Leadoff is a website dedicated to providing readers with premium baseball content. Posts from the site will appear regularly on the Sports Business Society Blog (view the information in the sidebar for updated information).

Yesterday, the Cubs and the Yankees squared off for what seemed to be (and what actually was) a normal, regular season doubleheader. It was an exciting couple of pitching duels, but something more interesting went on. The Cubs were facing their former left fielder Alfonso Soriano, the star player that they traded at the All-Star break last year for Corey Black and massive cash considerations. Soriano was owed $24.5 million, and the Cubs agreed to pay $17.7 million of that tab. The Yankees paid $1.8 million in 2013 and will pay $5 million in 2014 for a not-too-bad veteran. Why I find this whole deal and deals like this so interesting is that the Cubs were willing to have Soriano represent nearly 15% of their 2014 payroll to play for another team.

Is this ever a smart thing to do?



In the Cubs’ case, it’s not that clear. The Cubs in this trade will be $17.7 million poorer and will have a prospect in Corey Black, a prospect that has had some success in the low minors, but has only thrown 32 innings in the past year and a half. He’s a hard thrower, but many only project his ceiling as a competent reliever. So for the organization, the present value of ~3.3 projected wins for Soriano is outweighed by the salary “dump” and the possible future value of Black. Black could provide >3.3 wins, but I wouldn’t put my money on that.

The other consideration is that the wins Soriano will be worth would have been nearly a full, marginal gain for the Cubs, as their current left fielder Junior Lake is projected to be slightly better than replacement level. It’s a curious case, but it does signal a culture change. When you signal to your fan base that as an organization you are not going to cling to the past and move in a younger direction, that does speak volumes. And considering where the Cubs stand on the win curve, the loss of a win or win and a half won’t mean much this season. There have been other cases, though, that have been more successful.

There is of course the case of the Red Sox/Dodgers trade, which will probably go down in history as one of the most successful salary dumps in the history of the sport. Granted, the Dodgers have been pretty successful and are able to eat the salaries of Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford in the latter years, but the Red Sox look much better: with the contracts mostly off the books, one can secure financial independence and the freedom to use the slightly increased payroll room to compensate for the lost value.

What makes this a successful move is that the Red Sox have replacements like Mike Napoli, Grady Sizemore, and Jackie Bradley Jr. that are cost-controlled, and may even be worse than what they gave away, but the short-term sacrifice in current wins will give you future wins. There also has to be a reasonable confidence that what you get in return will net you those future returns, and Allen Webster (and possibly Rubby De La Rosa) projects to do that. Webster’s success would just be the icing on the cake.

Paying for another team to own your players is a curious phenomenon in baseball roster construction and payroll planning. It seems completely counter intuitive for a team to pay millions of dollars for someone to play against you, and sometimes it can be. TV commentators and pundits may say that it seems silly for Soriano to be getting paid $17 million from the Cubs this year and will play against them; but, as I said, it signals a culture change. The Cubs have had a troublesome past, and the age of paying for expensive veterans is over, even if they need to bleed a little bit to end that era.

Matthew Provenzano is a sophomore at Cornell University. Matthew is a featured blogger at Batting Leadoff, a contributor for PinstripeAlley.com, and covers Cornell Baseball for Cornell At Bat. Contact Matt at mjp294@cornell.edu or follow him on twitter at @mpro6294. 


This post originally appeared on Batting Leadoff. Batting Leadoff is a website dedicated to providing readers with premium baseball content. Posts from the site will appear regularly on the Sports Business Society Blog (view the information in the sidebar for updated information).