Post by jhb on Jul 18, 2019 18:37:11 GMT
$951,707
That was the average cost of a win in TMBSL Free Agency this year.
I got this number by taking each contract that was signed in the FA period and projecting an expected wins created total by taking their previous year's WS/48 value (if it was non-zero, if it was 0 they were excluded from the study) and then extrapolating that out over an 82 game schedule based on the role I anticipated they would play with their new team. Expected wins were then divided by the dollar amount of the AAV in their new contract to create a $/Win metric. I classified players in five categories - stars, starters, key backups, backups, and reserves with the assigned MPG values below:
Star - 38 mpg
Starter - 30 mpg
Key Backup - 22 mpg
Backup - 14 mpg
Reserve - 6 mpg
Considering all of that, the result being close to a million makes sense if you think about it. The best players in the league produce 10-20 Win Shares per season and our max contracts are structured to start in the 8 figure range between 12.5 and 17.5 mil (or slightly higher depending on tenure). Role players produce less wins, topping out around 8 and usually in the 2-5 area. That's the area people usually shop for depth with their exceptions.
Even more interesting was taking that data and then pivoting to look at Total xWins and Average $/Win values by FA day, team, position, and contract term.
The premium for wins is paid on Day 1. That makes sense, that's where star players are taken and the wins cost more there because the more efficiently you can get wins by getting them from one player, the more valuable they are (or a GM like Fecta makes a really dumbass offer to an aggressively mediocre player like Wesley Johnson). From there, the price per win pretty much decreased day by day until the end of FA. The best deals in terms of wins per dollar were struck on Day 5...just don't expect to extract many total wins from that Day. An unusual thing happened this year though in that the FA day with the most xWins was Day 4 rather than Day 1. That is thanks to deals struck for expected star PG of the Bulls, Andre Miller, and Livio Jean-Charles, an old but still uber-productive scorer who may end up being a starter for the Mavericks (I gave him the benefit of the doubt over Bison Dele and Adonal Foyle).
Obviously, the Hornets fucked up and overpaid Wes Johnson as we can see. The Globetrotters, Bullets, and Hawks all made very shrewd and reasonable additions/retentions to fill out their rosters while not breaking the budget. The Bulls and Blazers were the most prolific in terms of adding total xWins in FA and did it while still being in the better half in terms of $/Win.
These numbers would make it seem that Odin overpaid in FA but that's largely circumstantial because he added two very talented bigs whose total impact will be depressed by the fact they play behind two of the best bigs in TMBSL history. This is where overspending makes sense because he paid for talent even if it doesn't turn into production on the court...he's still secured two really good assets.
The battleground position in FA this year was small forwards (also this number is skewed by Fecta's dumbass Wes Johnson deal). That is where the biggest premium was paid per win and it makes sense given that the wings are generally the most talent barren position in TMBSL right now. Center and Point Guard were where the most talent was but every position other than SF was generally paid the same on a per value basis.
I wasn't sure exactly what I expected to see here. I had conflicting theories where I thought there may be a premium paid to get shorter terms locked in for wins to keep flexibility but that impact may be muddled by all the min and MLE level contracts that get handed out but may be seen in 2 and 3 year deals. There's a big outlier that impacts the number with Wes Johnson's contract making the 3 year deals look so expensive. But it appears the consensus is that teams will pay a premium above the league average to lock more wins in over time, which makes sense.
The large majority of xWins added this year were added on one year deals (although this is likely not totally accurate because of MLE/LLE deals that will become multi-year agreements).
Best Deals on a $/xWin Basis
Caron Butler, SF Bullets - $177,384
Damon Jones, SG Hawks - $192,857
Andre Miller, PG Bulls - $276,195
Dino Radja, PF Bullets - $296,167
Livio Jean-Charles, PF Mavericks - $328,521
Pero Antic, C Globetrotters - $350,808
Marcus Camby, C Globetrotters - $398,072
Jon Leuer, C Trail Blazers - $538,328
Worst Deals on a $/xWin Basis
Wesley Johnson, SF Hornets - $3,485,137
Andris Biedrins, C Mavericks - $1,615,989
Quentin Richardson, SG Magic - $1,416,828
Drew Gooden, PF Trail Blazers - $1,353,821
Scottie Pippen, SF Mavericks - $1,346,532
Rodney Rogers, PF Heat - $1,326,524
Klay Thompson, SG Magic - $1,257,811
Olden Polynice, C Bulls - $1,224,278
Raw Data:
That was the average cost of a win in TMBSL Free Agency this year.
I got this number by taking each contract that was signed in the FA period and projecting an expected wins created total by taking their previous year's WS/48 value (if it was non-zero, if it was 0 they were excluded from the study) and then extrapolating that out over an 82 game schedule based on the role I anticipated they would play with their new team. Expected wins were then divided by the dollar amount of the AAV in their new contract to create a $/Win metric. I classified players in five categories - stars, starters, key backups, backups, and reserves with the assigned MPG values below:
Star - 38 mpg
Starter - 30 mpg
Key Backup - 22 mpg
Backup - 14 mpg
Reserve - 6 mpg
Considering all of that, the result being close to a million makes sense if you think about it. The best players in the league produce 10-20 Win Shares per season and our max contracts are structured to start in the 8 figure range between 12.5 and 17.5 mil (or slightly higher depending on tenure). Role players produce less wins, topping out around 8 and usually in the 2-5 area. That's the area people usually shop for depth with their exceptions.
Even more interesting was taking that data and then pivoting to look at Total xWins and Average $/Win values by FA day, team, position, and contract term.
FA Day xWins $/xWin
1 58 $1,516,994
2 39 $1,097,063
3 22 $787,332
4 71 $926,596
5 28 $574,675The premium for wins is paid on Day 1. That makes sense, that's where star players are taken and the wins cost more there because the more efficiently you can get wins by getting them from one player, the more valuable they are (or a GM like Fecta makes a really dumbass offer to an aggressively mediocre player like Wesley Johnson). From there, the price per win pretty much decreased day by day until the end of FA. The best deals in terms of wins per dollar were struck on Day 5...just don't expect to extract many total wins from that Day. An unusual thing happened this year though in that the FA day with the most xWins was Day 4 rather than Day 1. That is thanks to deals struck for expected star PG of the Bulls, Andre Miller, and Livio Jean-Charles, an old but still uber-productive scorer who may end up being a starter for the Mavericks (I gave him the benefit of the doubt over Bison Dele and Adonal Foyle).
Team xWins $/xWin
Hornets 4 $3,485,137
Heat 11 $1,116,224
Magic 25 $1,091,808
Mavs 35 $1,018,184
Blazers 49 $886,306
Bulls 45 $871,314
Globes 20 $620,973
Bullets 22 $536,220
Hawks 6 $192,857Obviously, the Hornets fucked up and overpaid Wes Johnson as we can see. The Globetrotters, Bullets, and Hawks all made very shrewd and reasonable additions/retentions to fill out their rosters while not breaking the budget. The Bulls and Blazers were the most prolific in terms of adding total xWins in FA and did it while still being in the better half in terms of $/Win.
These numbers would make it seem that Odin overpaid in FA but that's largely circumstantial because he added two very talented bigs whose total impact will be depressed by the fact they play behind two of the best bigs in TMBSL history. This is where overspending makes sense because he paid for talent even if it doesn't turn into production on the court...he's still secured two really good assets.
Pos xWins $/xWin
SF 45 $1,326,602
PG 56 $876,924
C 59 $861,766
PF 39 $855,582
SG 21 $850,828The battleground position in FA this year was small forwards (also this number is skewed by Fecta's dumbass Wes Johnson deal). That is where the biggest premium was paid per win and it makes sense given that the wings are generally the most talent barren position in TMBSL right now. Center and Point Guard were where the most talent was but every position other than SF was generally paid the same on a per value basis.
Years xWins $/xWin
1 140 $784,921
2 8 $879,268
3 10 $1,825,808
5 19 $1,230,001
6 29 $1,096,843
7 14 $1,224,278I wasn't sure exactly what I expected to see here. I had conflicting theories where I thought there may be a premium paid to get shorter terms locked in for wins to keep flexibility but that impact may be muddled by all the min and MLE level contracts that get handed out but may be seen in 2 and 3 year deals. There's a big outlier that impacts the number with Wes Johnson's contract making the 3 year deals look so expensive. But it appears the consensus is that teams will pay a premium above the league average to lock more wins in over time, which makes sense.
The large majority of xWins added this year were added on one year deals (although this is likely not totally accurate because of MLE/LLE deals that will become multi-year agreements).
Best Deals on a $/xWin Basis
Caron Butler, SF Bullets - $177,384
Damon Jones, SG Hawks - $192,857
Andre Miller, PG Bulls - $276,195
Dino Radja, PF Bullets - $296,167
Livio Jean-Charles, PF Mavericks - $328,521
Pero Antic, C Globetrotters - $350,808
Marcus Camby, C Globetrotters - $398,072
Jon Leuer, C Trail Blazers - $538,328
Worst Deals on a $/xWin Basis
Wesley Johnson, SF Hornets - $3,485,137
Andris Biedrins, C Mavericks - $1,615,989
Quentin Richardson, SG Magic - $1,416,828
Drew Gooden, PF Trail Blazers - $1,353,821
Scottie Pippen, SF Mavericks - $1,346,532
Rodney Rogers, PF Heat - $1,326,524
Klay Thompson, SG Magic - $1,257,811
Olden Polynice, C Bulls - $1,224,278
Raw Data:
FA Day Team Pos Total $ Terms AAV Total Wins WS/48 Role xWins $/Win Name
1 Hornets SF $45,000,000 3 $15,000,000 1.6 0.084 Starter 4.3 $3,485,137 Wesley Johnson
4 Mavs C $1,200,000 1 $1,200,000 1.8 0.072 Reserve 0.7 $1,615,989 Andris Biedrins
2 Magic SG $5,000,000 1 $5,000,000 4.7 0.094 Key B 3.5 $1,416,828 Quentin Richardson
4 Blazers PF $5,000,000 1 $5,000,000 4.3 0.154 Backup 3.7 $1,353,821 Drew Gooden
1 Mavs SF $25,000,000 5 $5,000,000 3.5 0.099 Key B 3.7 $1,346,532 Scottie Pippen
4 Heat PF $7,000,000 1 $7,000,000 8.0 0.221 Backup 5.3 $1,326,524 Rodney Rogers
4 Magic SG $5,000,000 1 $5,000,000 2.2 0.106 Key B 4.0 $1,257,811 Klay Thompson
1 Bulls C $120,312,500 7 $17,187,500 13.3 0.216 Star 14.0 $1,224,278 Olden Polynice
2 Magic PG $93,750,000 6 $15,625,000 13.8 0.207 Star 13.4 $1,162,042 Kenny Smith
1 Bullets PG $15,000,000 1 $15,000,000 13.0 0.204 Star 13.2 $1,135,109 Penny Hardaway
5 Globes C $4,500,000 1 $4,500,000 6.6 0.168 Backup 4.0 $1,118,170 Nerlens Noel
2 Bulls SF $83,411,378 5 $16,682,276 14.7 0.231 Star 15.0 $1,113,470 Dave Lattin
1 Blazers C $93,750,000 6 $15,625,000 12.8 0.233 Star 15.1 $1,031,643 David Robinson
5 Mavs PG $6,000,000 3 $2,000,000 0.2 0.192 Reserve 2.0 $1,016,260 Sam Cassell
5 Magic PG $10,500,000 3 $3,500,000 7.3 0.150 Backup 3.6 $976,027 Bobby Hurley
3 Blazers SF $8,000,000 1 $8,000,000 9.8 0.163 Starter 8.4 $957,823 Qyntel Woods
4 Mavs PF $6,000,000 1 $6,000,000 8.8 0.173 Key B 6.5 $922,533 Bison Dele
4 Heat PF $5,500,000 1 $5,500,000 3.3 0.254 Backup 6.1 $905,923 Horace Grant
1 Mavs SF $14,000,000 2 $7,000,000 7.5 0.155 Starter 8.0 $879,268 Stacey Augmon
4 Blazers SG $5,000,000 1 $5,000,000 1.9 0.180 Key B 6.8 $740,314 Richard Hamilton
2 Blazers PG $5,000,000 1 $5,000,000 6.7 0.140 Starter 7.2 $695,911 Marcus Taylor
5 Magic SG $590,850 1 $590,850 0.5 0.089 Reserve 0.9 $646,332 Reggie Miller
3 Globes C $8,500,000 1 $8,500,000 14.2 0.269 Starter 13.8 $616,841 Vlade Divac
4 Blazers C $4,500,000 1 $4,500,000 0.3 0.350 Backup 8.4 $538,328 Jon Leuer
5 Globes C $540,850 1 $540,850 1.7 0.133 Reserve 1.4 $398,072 Marcus Camby
5 Globes C $465,850 1 $465,850 4.4 0.130 Reserve 1.3 $350,808 Pero Antic
4 Mavs PF $4,500,000 1 $4,500,000 14.2 0.267 Starter 13.7 $328,521 Livio Jean-Charles
5 Bullets PF $1,000,000 1 $1,000,000 0.9 0.141 Backup 3.4 $296,167 Dino Radja
4 Bulls PG $4,500,000 1 $4,500,000 2.4 0.251 Star 16.3 $276,195 Andre Miller
5 Hawks SG $1,200,000 1 $1,200,000 0.4 0.260 Backup 6.2 $192,857 Damon Jones
5 Bullets SF $1,000,000 1 $1,000,000 1.1 0.110 Starter 5.6 $177,384 Caron Butler
