Why do we keep saying the market determines the cost of a player contract

[JD_KaPow]

Some people overpaying doesn't necessarily determine the market.

I agree (and I wasn't saying that it does). The 'Skins massively overpaying for Collins is unlikely to set the safety market.

But any particular signing ought to be a bit of an overpay on average, since the team getting the player was the highest bidder. I'm not saying it pushes the overall market up for the next guy.

 

[tm1119]

Of course. However, someone paying way above perceived market value does not necessarily reset the market.

But it literally does. Just like how this entire board tried to tell how crazy I was for saying the Hitchens contract wasn’t that bad, and was going to be the new norm for LB’s. Fast forward to now and look at the contracts LB’s are getting. Fast forward again to 2020 and Hitch’s deal will look extremely reasonable.

That’s the main point people don’t see to get.... This crazy thing called inflation. People seem to want to compare contracts now to ones that were signed 2+ years ago, doesn’t work that way. And same goes for contracts signed, of course an agent is factoring in inflation when trying to secure their client multi year deals. The league cap goes up $10M every year, why on earth would you think that player contracts would stay the same?

 

[Nightman]

But it literally does. Just like how this entire board tried to tell how crazy I was for saying the Hitchens contract wasn’t that bad, and was going to be the new norm for LB’s. Fast forward to now and look at the contracts LB’s are getting. Fast forward again to 2020 and Hitch’s deal will look extremely reasonable.

That’s the main point people don’t see to get.... This crazy thing called inflation. People seem to want to compare contracts now to ones that were signed 2+ years ago, doesn’t work that way. And same goes for contracts signed, of course an agent is factoring in inflation when trying to secure their client multi year deals. The league cap goes up $10M every year, why on earth would you think that player contracts would stay the same?

But it isn't a real market in the sense of capitalism

there are too many price controls and player controls in place

the price for players that reach the "open market" are guaranteed to be inflated because there are more teams that are required to spend money vs star players

The price a player will accept as an extension will be a bargain in comparison but the player gets security and familiarity in exchange for top dollar

If DLaw said he was going for max money DAL would trade him ..... but instead he pretends he cares about being part of the team and wastes everyone's time..... if he wanted to stay in DAL he would have taken a 5/75m deal last year

Draft = Monopoly..... price controlled
Extensions = close to true free market
FA = overpriced inelastic market
Trades = Barter system...... equal exchange of goods

 

[lostar2009]

A lot of times it's the scrub teams with the cap money. They have to over pay to get the guys. They been pocketing their cap for so long eventually a certain percentage has to be used, NFL rule. So let's say the Bills and Cowboys offer 40 mill to ET. He will choose the Cowboys. Packers vs Cowboys would be up in the air. What the lower team will have to do is over pay some. If we wanted ET and knowing the Bills are over paying we will have to dish out a little bit more. This is a reason why this team has stop pursing big names in FA. Recall when we drop all that money on Brandon Carr? Did you think 50 mill was a good price for Brandon Carr? We probably spent 5 to 10 more than what we plan. Base on other offers he was getting and the market. And I know we almost finalized a deal but another cb was just sign for a little bit more.

 

[Verdict]

It is a bidder's market, so the value is determined by the amount teams are willing to pay. In an ideal world, teams would not overpay for average players, but if I want said average player and you're willing to pay a little more for him, then I'm going to pay a little more than that.

If you pay the average player more than he's worth, then the above-average player is going to want even more than that so it inflates salaries across the board. The choices are to pay the going rates or sit back and let other teams "overpay." The problem with sitting back is that when multiple teams are willing to overpay, then that amount becomes the market.

You can set a value you think they are worth, but if everyone is willing to pay more then your values are below market. Welcome to capitalism!

While that is all true, if you let teams over pay long enough you will have enough to outbid them on a player that the team really wants to keep. But it can't be "usual way of doing business" to over pay routinely.

 

[gimmesix]

While that is all true, if you let teams over pay long enough you will have enough to outbid them on a player that the team really wants to keep. But it can't be "usual way of doing business" to over pay routinely.

I think you have to limit your activity by only targeting a couple of high-value FAs. You can't fix everything in FA, but if you fix nothing then you can only improve through the draft and developing your players.

If you say you are not going to "overpay" any FAs, then you are not going to get a difference-maker unless you just happen to get lucky with FAs that were somehow overlooked or the only thing you do is retain your own and hope that you can fix what ails you in the draft. I think you can look at our track record since we started staying out of the first wave and see that we haven't gotten lucky. Of course, we also haven't overpaid on the mistakes we've made. There's a balance there and the Joneses don't seem to know how to strike a balance. They tend to take a drastic approach based on a few bad outcomes. Older players were getting hurt, let's not sign any older players. High-priced FAs didn't work out, let's not sign any high-priced FAs. I'm waiting for them to realize that the low-priced FAs haven't worked out at all as being anything more than what we paid for them.

 

[Verdict]

I think you have to limit your activity by only targeting a couple of high-value FAs. You can't fix everything in FA, but if you fix nothing then you can only improve through the draft and developing your players.

If you say you are not going to "overpay" any FAs, then you are not going to get a difference-maker unless you just happen to get lucky with FAs that were somehow overlooked or the only thing you do is retain your own and hope that you can fix what ails you in the draft. I think you can look at our track record since we started staying out of the first wave and see that we haven't gotten lucky. Of course, we also haven't overpaid on the mistakes we've made. There's a balance there and the Joneses don't seem to know how to strike a balance. They tend to take a drastic approach based on a few bad outcomes. Older players were getting hurt, let's not sign any older players. High-priced FAs didn't work out, let's not sign any high-priced FAs. I'm waiting for them to realize that the low-priced FAs haven't worked out at all as being anything more than what we paid for them.

I tend to believe that we have overpaid on some of the mid tier level free agents we have signed. Carroll is one of those.

We definitely need to do a better job of evaluating free agents, although last year we did much better. Woods was a great pickup.

 

[gimmesix]

I tend to believe that we have overpaid on some of the mid tier level free agents we have signed. Carroll is one of those.

We definitely need to do a better job of evaluating free agents, although last year we did much better. Woods was a great pickup.

I don't think we expected him to be, though. He was kind of a throw-in addition for depth. We were relying on players like Hurns before we didn't want to spend on the top-tier WRs. That's where you have to be careful, though, because the top-tier WRs weren't worth big money. Even with the first-rounder we lost, getting Cooper ended up being a better option.

 

[Verdict]

I don't think we expected him to be, though. He was kind of a throw-in addition for depth. We were relying on players like Hurns before we didn't want to spend on the top-tier WRs. That's where you have to be careful, though, because the top-tier WRs weren't worth big money. Even with the first-rounder we lost, getting Cooper ended up being a better option.

Yes. Value is relative. It depends on what you are getting vs cap hit.

 

[Verdict]

I think you have to limit your activity by only targeting a couple of high-value FAs. You can't fix everything in FA, but if you fix nothing then you can only improve through the draft and developing your players.

If you say you are not going to "overpay" any FAs, then you are not going to get a difference-maker unless you just happen to get lucky with FAs that were somehow overlooked or the only thing you do is retain your own and hope that you can fix what ails you in the draft. I think you can look at our track record since we started staying out of the first wave and see that we haven't gotten lucky. Of course, we also haven't overpaid on the mistakes we've made. There's a balance there and the Joneses don't seem to know how to strike a balance. They tend to take a drastic approach based on a few bad outcomes. Older players were getting hurt, let's not sign any older players. High-priced FAs didn't work out, let's not sign any high-priced FAs. I'm waiting for them to realize that the low-priced FAs haven't worked out at all as being anything more than what we paid for them.

Going back to this post it may be better to slightly overpay for a single good free agent than miss on 3 or 4 and waste the same amount of cap room.

The key of course is in the evaluation of the players and no team is going to hit on every pick or player acquired.

 

[xwalker]

when it's teams overpaying for certain players to begin with that the market is then based on? What is happening is a lot of average players are getting huge raises for their second or third contracts just because some few top tier players are paid considerably more.

So I ask, why do teams feel the need to overpay for average players instead of paying what they're worth? And why is it such a bad thing to let that average player go or possibly get draft picks in a trade and you can then find a much cheaper option in the draft? Sure the draft isn't guaranteed, but when we're talking about average players I'll take that chance every time. It's not like the average players about to be overpaid are the best players on the team.

Good post but misleading thread title.

People will answer based on the title not your post.

Your point is valid. It's why the Patriots don't go crazy in free agency.

In baseball a common sabermetric is WAR (Wins Above Replacement).

WAR offers an estimate to answer the question, “If this player got injured and their team had to replace them with a freely available minor leaguer or a AAAA player from their bench, how much value would the team be losing?

The concept of Wins Above Replacement would be interesting in football; although sabermetrics work better in baseball because of a much larger sample size (162 games vs 16).

I think smart teams have found that it costs a lot in free agency just to get a small improvement in terms of contributions to winning or the probability of more wins.

The small improvement is based on already having a near average player at the position.

Obviously if a team does not have near average options at a position then they either have to overpay or force picks in the draft.

For example, La'el Collins was OK at RT last season Not great, not terrible). His average pay is 7.7M per.

The top paid OT in free agency at this point in 2019 got 16.5M per.

Would it be worth the extra 8.8M per to sign that OT to replace La'el ?

 

[Verdict]

Good post but misleading thread title.

People will answer based on the title not your post.

Your point is valid. It's why the Patriots don't go crazy in free agency.

In baseball a common sabermetric is WAR (Wins Above Replacement).

WAR offers an estimate to answer the question, “If this player got injured and their team had to replace them with a freely available minor leaguer or a AAAA player from their bench, how much value would the team be losing?

The concept of Wins Above Replacement would be interesting in football; although sabermetrics work better in baseball because of a much larger sample size (162 games vs 16).

I think smart teams have found that it costs a lot in free agency just to get a small improvement in terms of contributions to winning or the probability of more wins.

The small improvement is based on already having a near average player at the position.

Obviously if a team does not have near average options at a position then they either have to overpay or force picks in the draft.

For example, La'el Collins was OK at RT last season Not great, not terrible). His average pay is 7.7M per.

The top paid OT in free agency at this point in 2019 got 16.5M per.

Would it be worth the extra 8.8M per to sign that OT to replace La'el ?

That's a good point. I think backup RB would be great value. A good backup could mean +2 wins or more, especially if Zeke gets injured. Excellent bang for the buck.

Witten and Sean Lee are very poor uses of cap space and we could have had the same production for a fraction of the cost.

 

[kskboys]

But it literally does. Just like how this entire board tried to tell how crazy I was for saying the Hitchens contract wasn’t that bad, and was going to be the new norm for LB’s. Fast forward to now and look at the contracts LB’s are getting. Fast forward again to 2020 and Hitch’s deal will look extremely reasonable.

That’s the main point people don’t see to get.... This crazy thing called inflation. People seem to want to compare contracts now to ones that were signed 2+ years ago, doesn’t work that way. And same goes for contracts signed, of course an agent is factoring in inflation when trying to secure their client multi year deals. The league cap goes up $10M every year, why on earth would you think that player contracts would stay the same?

It's not that simple.

Foles just signed for a ton less than starting QB's have been getting. Bell didn't get a huge amount.

Also, the first few days or so of FA is generally littered w/ teams overspending, so that doesn't necessarily reset the market.

 

[kskboys]

Good post but misleading thread title.

People will answer based on the title not your post.

Your point is valid. It's why the Patriots don't go crazy in free agency.

In baseball a common sabermetric is WAR (Wins Above Replacement).

WAR offers an estimate to answer the question, “If this player got injured and their team had to replace them with a freely available minor leaguer or a AAAA player from their bench, how much value would the team be losing?

The concept of Wins Above Replacement would be interesting in football; although sabermetrics work better in baseball because of a much larger sample size (162 games vs 16).

I think smart teams have found that it costs a lot in free agency just to get a small improvement in terms of contributions to winning or the probability of more wins.

The small improvement is based on already having a near average player at the position.

Obviously if a team does not have near average options at a position then they either have to overpay or force picks in the draft.

For example, La'el Collins was OK at RT last season Not great, not terrible). His average pay is 7.7M per.

The top paid OT in free agency at this point in 2019 got 16.5M per.

Would it be worth the extra 8.8M per to sign that OT to replace La'el ?

Nice analysation.

 

[buybuydandavis]

when it's teams overpaying for certain players to begin with that the market is then based on? What is happening is a lot of average players are getting huge raises for their second or third contracts just because some few top tier players are paid considerably more.

So I ask, why do teams feel the need to overpay for average players instead of paying what they're worth? And why is it such a bad thing to let that average player go or possibly get draft picks in a trade and you can then find a much cheaper option in the draft? Sure the draft isn't guaranteed, but when we're talking about average players I'll take that chance every time. It's not like the average players about to be overpaid are the best players on the team.

A bad contract is a bad contract. Most big ticket free agent contracts are bad value for *winning*.

Teams overpay to get a big name on their team to look respectable.
Teams overpay because some teams have lots of cap they have to spend.
Teams overpay because teams have win now attitudes, which encourage GMs and coaches to mortgage the future.
Teams overpay because in a market, the most optimistic bidder wins. If you're willing to pay more than the collective judgment of the league, you're probably paying too much.

If the market is overpaying somewhere, they're underpaying somewhere else. I'd rather we put our money to the latter.

We've been pretty good about letting guys go. And churning comp picks. Now we're going to test Jerry and Stephen. Lots of contracts coming. Are we going to overpay too? Hope not. We've been much better about that lately.

 

[buybuydandavis]

Who decides what they are worth? You? Their value is determined by who is willing to pay what amount.

Their *cost* is determined by who is willing to pay what.
Their *value* is determined by what they do on the field.

The goal is winning. Their contribution to winning is their value. Their pay is their cost. Different things.

 

[ItzKelz]

Have to disagree. It's not the market, it's teams w/ extreme needs and tons of salary cap room who are overpaying. That's not market value.

If you have a truck that is worth 30 grand, but someone sells an identical truck for 53 grand, that does not mean your truck is suddenly worth 53 grand.

Trucks dont have agents. When Cousins got a 28 mil a year contract immediately Rodgers requested to get paid more because the market changed and Rodgers agent made sure that happened. Take your emotions out of it. It does not matter if Cousins did or did not deserve that type of money.....it only mattered that a team was willing to pay him that much. Once MN paid Cousins it changed the market for QBs.

 

[Whyjerry]

Their *cost* is determined by who is willing to pay what.
Their *value* is determined by what they do on the field.

The goal is winning. Their contribution to winning is their value. Their pay is their cost. Different things.

Semantics

 

[buybuydandavis]

Semantics

semantics = meaning