2037-2038 Opt Out Decisions Part 4 - What Did They Get?

[Ted]

The day is finally here! Everyone who opted out has signed! Or if they haven't, I don't care! I'm tired of keeping track of this. (For one year at least). So let's run through all the players and look at the money they signed for. Hopefully this piece is more straightforward, less wordy than the previous three. Again, som stuff from previous articles is copied an pasted. That stuff is in italics.

Older vets:
Elroy Hinson turned down 16 mil for one year and possibly 30 for two and will enter FA at age 38. He just posted 2.2 WAR. Game calls him a 60. 23% though he should opt out. 77% thought he shouldn't. 13 total votes.

- FA demand unknown as he signed a 3 year extension with Madison for 15, 13, 11.5 (TO-2.4). Looks like opting out was the right choice for him.

We were reasonably split on him. He did well.


Mark Dempsey turned down 22 mil over two years after a 3.7 win season in 99 games, and will be 35 in 2038. The game calls him a 65. 58% thought he should not opt out.

- Got far less than he asked for, 12.67 mil for one year. We were split. Probably a reasonable gamble, but didn't work out for him.


Mike Bailey opted out of a 1.6 million buyout at least, and at most 8 million for one year after being a 0.9 WAR pitcher. He will be 36 and the game calls him a 45. 93% thought he shouldn't opt out.

- Asked for 2.8 million x 1, got 3 x 1. We though he shouldn't opt out and we were right. Bad decision.


Alfredo Salazar turned down one year for 12 million after a 2.0 WAR season. He will be 37 and the game calls him a 60. 80% thought he should not opt out.

- Asked for 47 mil over 5 years. Got 21.5 mil guaranteed (although only 16 if he opts out. 16 + 2.75 TO buyout x 2). If plays the whole length he gets 38 million. We thought he should opt out. We were wrong as could be. He made a great decision.


So for the old guys, we had two decision to opt out work out well (Salazar and Hinson), and two not (Dempsey and Bailey). We were clearly right once (Bailey), somewhere in the middle once (Dempsey), and wrong twice (Salazar and Hinson)





The second group was standard vet age players considering short term (<3 year) options.

Standard age free agents (and one young guy) with decisions on short term deals:

Jorge Rodriguez turned down 25 million over two years after a 2.7 WAR year, the game calls him a 55 and he'll be 33. 91% of voters thought he shouldn't opt out.

- Asking for 6 years, 45 mil. He got 37.5 mil guaranteed (if he picks up his option and then is bought out). The least he'll make if he opts out is 24 million over 3 years. He can make up to 49.5 million. I don't think he could have done much better than that by staying in and going to FA later. I think we were wrong on this one. Good decision.


Alfredo Martinez turned down 34 million over two years after a 3.7 WAR season. He will be 32 and the game calls him a 70. Only 34% of voters thought he shouldn't opt out.

- Asking for 23, 23, 23, 23, 23, 23 (PO). Got at least 22 million x 1. 228.8 million if he doesn't opt out after year one. Possibly more (but probably not). Most thought he should opt out. They were right. This beats the heck out of his previous deal. Good decision.


Jesus Ramos opted out of a single year for 9.81 million after a 2.7 win campaign. He will be 33 and the game calls him a 60. ZERO percent though he should not opt out.

- Didn't go to FA, but HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA! WHAT?! Took 2 x 6 million from Edmonton. Opted out for one extra year and 2.19 million dollars more. That's right. Had he opted in, he'd have had to do worse than 1 x 2.19 million a year from now in FA for this to make sense. LOL. Fail.

- So yeah, I don't know what to call this one. Ends up that opting out was the wrong decision. But it shouldn't have been. For consistency's sake, I should call this a bad decision, and we were wrong. But I just can't. He SHOULD have opted out, and did. And then did something really dumb. We'll just throw this one out.


Gerardo Guzman opted out of 15 for one year after a 2.1 WAR season. The game calls him a 50, he will be 32. I didn't poll this one.

- Asking for six years, 42 mil. Got 36.2 million over 4 year guaranteed. I think it's still pretty hard to call opting out a good decision, given he coudl have made almost half that in one year. Bad decision.


So for this group, we end up with one bad decision (Guzman) and two good decisions (Martinez and Rodriguez). We were right once (Martinez) and wrong once (Rodriguez). I didn't poll Guzman, but I doubt anyone would have thought he should have opted out. And I'm throwing out Ramos because it's ridiculous and he didn't make it to FA.





Last group is longer term contracts

Guys with 3+ years to consider.

Jayden Harsnett opted out of 36 million over two years that could potentially by 78.7 million over four. He just posted a 2.3 WAR year and will be 31. The game calls him a 65. No one thought he should opt out. 13 votes.

- Asked for 69 million, got 21.8 million over 2 years guaranteed, up to 36 mil. We thought he was dumb to opt out and he was. Clearly made a poor decision.


Jimmy Greenwood opted out of 39.39 million over three years after a career best 6.7 WAR season. He will be 32 and the game calls him a 60. 21 percent thought he shouldn't opt out. 14 votes

- Asked for 6 years and 96 mil. Took a deal for 6 years and 80 mil in FA. Either way, a better deal than what he had. Good decision. We thought so ahead of time.

For this group, we have one good decision (Greenwood) and one bad decision (Harsnett). We were right both times.


Before FA was finished, we thought the following base on player demands (this is from part 3):

In total:
Good Decision 2
Okay, I See It 5
Fire Your Agent 1

It turns out as:
Good Decision 5
Bad Decision 4

As for our original predictions on the guys that did decide to opt out,
We were right 5
We were wrong 3
Push (We were split close enough to 50-50 on Dempsey)

So, this is a fairly small sample. While we started out with 17 players, between extensions, retirements, decisions to opt in, only 9 made it to a new contract after opting out that gives us something to talk about. What we see is that while the players only got it right about 55% percent of the time, we weren't a ton better at 62.5%.

The other thing to add is that this is only the players who opted out. We thought most of the ones who opted in made the right choice. So the game does seem to handle that part okay.

And that's it. Whew.

[Spiccoli]

Well Done Ted...

So did this "little" research project validate or disprove your previous suspicions that the game mishandles player options? I'd be curious to see if your stance has changed after this.

A 55% success for the AI doesn't seem too bad, especially when you have 32 random humans involved in making contract decisions where none of us have any actual business experience..... except for staying at a Hotel 8 last night, being baseball nerds and following sports news. I mean... I'm a Civil Engineer, Ron's a Writer, Randy's in the Navy... not sure what the rest of y'all do, but I don't see MLB's scouring the OOTP boards looking for their next General Manager. But how fucking cool would it be if a team like Oakland ran an OOTP contest tournament to find their next GM. It's seem Aaron would be the current runaway winner for a BBA representative currently.

This sure was cool to see how it played out.

[Ted]

Scott,

I don't know how this changes my opinion. I'd have to do some research on how well actual players do. My gut feeling is that OOTP isn't great. Not horrible, but maybe a tad worse than it "should be". As Ron mentioned in one of the podcasts, some "mistakes" should happen. But some of these things shouldn't. Jesus Ramos for example. He shouldn't have signed an extension for less than what he opted out for. The guys going to free agency and asking for less than what they opted out of. You could compare this to all the MLB guys the last couple years that turned down qualifying offers and did worse, but I think that's an apples and oranges comparison given those are largely one year deals, and MLB is in a unusual spot with FA valuation these days. Still, I think this is probably very tricky AI to write.

[Lane]

Great work Ted. Thanks for this series.