The 2019 baseball season is off and running. The Red Sox are hot garbage, the Orioles are a wagon … our pets’ heads are falling off! Maybe that’s a bit of an overreaction, but I’m not the only one overreacting.
Player salaries are already fluctuating wildly, and although some players likely deserve the price tag bump, most aren’t going to live up to their new and lofty expectations.
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Batters With $500 Salary Increases
Let’s use the FantasyLabs Trends tool to look at some historical data. All I basically want to do is look at how players have performed in the first couple of weeks with a big increase in salary.
Right away, we see that players with large salary increases early in the season have consistently underperformed. If you take away the salary change, the Plus/Minus would probably be right around even, which suggests that their salaries should’ve stayed close to where they began.
Batters With Salary Increases Hitting Outside the Top Third of the Order
Of course, there are plenty more filters we can look at. One that I usually like to check is lineup order. It’s sort of common sense, but the guys at the top of the order generally perform differently than all the other batters.
Our sample is essentially cut in half, but the Plus/Minus also drops significantly. We’re starting to get to the point where you really don’t want to roster any of these guys.
But we’re not done yet.
Batters With $1000 Salary Increases
For my final act, I will look at players with a minimum salary increase of $1,000!
There we go! With the Plus/Minus nearly a full point in the red, I think I’ve done enough.
Apr. 2 Batters With $1,000 Salary Increases
Tonight (Tue., Apr. 2), there are actually several players who fit the bill. I don’t expect all of them to be in their respective lineups, but here’s the list:
- (HOU) Aledmys Diaz, $4100: $1,300 increase
- (HOU) Jake Marisnick, $3900: $1,200 increase
- (LAD) Austin Barnes, $3.700: $1,000 increase
- (TB) Avisail Garcia, $4,000: $1,000 increase
- (HOU) Josh Reddick, $4,200: $1,000 increase
- (HOU) Max Stassi, $3,700: $1,000 increase
- (ARI) Nick Ahmed, $3,900: $1,000 increase
- (HOU) Robinson Chirinos, $4,000: $1,000 increase
- (SEA) Tom Murphy, $3,900: $1,000 increase
- (HOU) Tony Kemp, $4,100: $1,000 increase
- (HOU) Tyler White, $4,300: $1,000 increase
Evidently, the folks over at DraftKings expect big things from the Astros and their bench players. Although they are playing in Globe Life Park in Arlington, which is one of the best offensive ballparks behind Coors Field, we’re not yet in the dog days of summer. The wind will be blowing in, the temperature will be below 70 and the Weather Rating is currently just 35 out of 100 in the FantasyLabs MLB Models.
There are only a handful of non-Astros, including Austin Barnes. He’s the type of guy I was hoping to find in this study. Barnes, who posted a wRC+ of 77 last year (league average is 100), is currently mashing. He has two homers, a batting average close to .500 and a wRC+ of 269. Will this keep up? No. No, it won’t.
Buy Low
This just goes to show you that you don’t want to overreact in a lucky sport like baseball after such a small sample of games. In fact, you’d be smart to create a trend that’s exactly the opposite of the one above and to target players who match for it.
I’ll leave you with this:
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Pictured above: Austin Barnes
Photo credit: Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports
