The Value of a Player

Baseball today are judged on a program that could possibly make or break their career. This determines their worth and how much money that they possible make in the short and long term. In this post, I will discuss the process of sabermetrics and how it works and how it is important today by using evidence from the website sabr.org.

SOURCE - www.edx.org

Back in the 1964, the average one year salary of a Major League Baseball Player was $15,000. By 2012, this average salary had skyrocketed to just over $3 million per year. “Many players, particularly stars with a lot of name recognition, earn millions more off the field through product endorsements contracts with other companies.” So how do different players have a price tag put on them?

The biggest way that the Major League Baseball Association decides how much players are worth is by using Sabermetrics. Sabermetrics works by evaluating the statistics of players, especially to compare the performance of other players. This is effective because it  shows different strengths and weaknesses of each player. All of the data used in determining this value is completely based on the search for “objective knowledge about baseball [players]”, and based on numbers solely. Because baseball is not only about a player's statistics, sabermetrics can sometimes be problematic because a player can be ranked very high on sabermetrics but have a bad personality or give off a bad vibe.  This could cause teams to not want that player or be wary to engage in contract talks with him.

Future Research: In my next blog post, I will explore the question: how have the PED's that players take effected the prosperity of the MLB over the last couple decades?