Salary/WAR = wins per dollar, which decreases quickly with age. Sunday, April 15, 2018
In a very real sense players become less valuable as they are paid more. The increase in performance does not come close to matching their salary. Aaron Judge was by far the most cost efficient among these 2017 top ten but his value will decrease relative to salary no matter how well he plays...
... Trout and Stanton are in about the same boat. Stanton's salary is scheduled to peak at $32,000,000 in 2023, 2024, 2025 for age seasons 33, 34, 35 and his contract runs through 2028 age 38 as it gradually goes back down to $25,000,000. At least Trout is at $34,083,000 only for 2018, 2019, 2020 his age 26, 27, 28 seasons when his contract ends.
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Harper:
| Year | Age | Tm | SrvTm | Sources | Notes/Other Sources | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 18 | Washington Nationals | $500,000 | 0.000 | ||
| 2012 | 19 | Washington Nationals | $500,000 | ? | contracts | |
| 2013 | 20 | Washington Nationals | $2,000,000 | 0.159 | contracts | |
| 2014 | 21 | Washington Nationals | $2,150,000 | 1.159 | contracts | |
| 2015 | 22 | Washington Nationals | $2,500,000 | 2.159 | contracts | |
| 2016 | 23 | Washington Nationals | $5,000,000 | 3.159 | ||
| 2017 | 24 | Washington Nationals | $13,625,000 | 4.159 | contracts | |
| 2018 | 25 | Washington Nationals | $21,625,000 | 5.159 | ||
| 2018 Status | Signed thru 2018, Earliest Free Agent: 2019 | |||||
| Career to date (may be incomplete) | $47,900,000 | |||||
Excluding Harper's 2012 rookie season at age 19, he has reached the very minimal qualifying standard of 502 Plate Appearances (PA) only twice:
2015 (NL MVP) OPS+ 198, WAR 10.0 $2.5 million
2016 OPS+ 114, WAR 1.5 $5 million
Harper was a big bargain in 2015, only $250,000 per WAR. He's off to great start in 2018: OPS+ 228
But even if Harper finishes with his career high of 10 in WAR, his value has already decreased to $21,625,000 / 10 = $2,162,500 per WAR. That's about 8.7 times higher than in 2015.
Who will sign Harper and for how much? Probably not rich teams like the Yankees, Dodgers, Cubs or Red Sox. The team salary cap has them limited in the next free agent market. Would a team sign Harper for $35 million per year? Without getting bogged down in the number of years, would Harper be worth it for even the very first year?
Harper's value at maximum productivity of 10 WAR would be about $3.5 million per WAR, about the same as Trout at Trout's average productivity of 9.4 WAR.
You can see the problem confronting teams now that they are trying to analyse. What's missing is the value of star power, which may not be in these numbers, either player stats or dollars. Teams will try to put a value on that.
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