The Rise of Pitcher Value: A Deep Dive into MLB Salaries and Player Development
Pitchers are one of the highest paid athletes in all of professional sports. Historically, this has not always been the case. MLB athletes’ positional salaries have changed in recent years due to the focus on player development. The novel “Moneyball” was released in 2003, and lead to every undervalued player becoming discovered within months. This was because the general manager of the Oakland Athletics shifted the league’s focus to on-base percentage (OBP), depleting the talent pool to maximize teams. The influence of Moneyball prompted teams to shift their focus from undervalued players to a profound emphasis on player development, leading to an elevated valuation of pitchers.
Before Moneyball, teams prioritized powerful hitters and did not place a high value on pitchers. Three players that had over forty home runs and high-paying salaries in the early twenty-first century were Barry Bonds with a salary of 22 million dollars, Sammy Sosa at 17 million dollars, and Mark McGwire at 11 million dollars. Contrarily, the top pitchers with over two hundred and fifty strikeouts were Randy Johnson with a salary of 16 million dollars, Curt Schilling at 10 million dollars, and Scott Williamson at 3.2 million dollars. The drastic difference in salaries demonstrates that in the early 2000s teams placed a higher value on exceptional batters in comparison to pitchers. My research demonstrates the variation in salary during this time frame could be attributed to the lack of player development in almost every MLB organization.
After Moneyball, there was a rapid improvement on player development, focusing primarily on pitchers. The novel “MVP Machine,” talks about players like Trevor Bauer investing themselves in pitcher development, studying to uncover the key aspects in evolving as a pitcher. Trevor Bauer analyzed and leveraged body movement, ball release, and the perfect warm-up prior to any of the current technology for statistical analysis had been invented. However, once technology improved and pitching coaches were able to use advanced cameras to analyze everything down to how many rotations a ball moved before reaching home plate, baseball changed as we knew it. Pitchers were able to maximize the perfect body movement, where to grip a ball, and when to release a ball by repeatedly watching their throws because of the revolutionary technology being used. In contrast, batting development progressed at a slower rate, with minimal coaching advancements and less susceptibility to change.
The introduction of player development has strengthened the value of exceptional pitchers, resulting in a notable increase in their salaries compared to batters. The top pitchers in 2016 with over two-hundred and fifty strikeouts were Felix Hernandez with a salary of approximately 26 million dollars, Clayton Kershaw at 33 million dollars, and Justin Verlander at 28 million dollars. Analysis of the pitchers revealed that there was a 2.98-fold increase in salary from approximately 2002 to 2016. Pitchers’ average salary rose from over nine million dollars per year in 2002 to over twenty-eight million dollars per year fourteen years later.
In contrast, the top batter salaries in 2016 with over forty home runs were Chris Davis with a salary of 21.3 million dollars, Nelson Cruz at 14.3 million dollars, and Miguel Cabrera at 28 million dollars. Among the batters’ salaries analyzed, there was only a 1.27-fold increase from approximately 2002 to 2016, averaging from over sixteen million dollars per year to later surpassing 21 million dollars per year. The increase in batter salary may be attributed to the growing popularity of the MLB and the increase in inflation. Contrarily, the increase in pitcher salary is unquestionably associated with the attraction to outstanding pitchers.
Following the introduction of pitcher development, pitchers have become more valuable to teams, but have played less games. The three pitchers researched in the early 2000s started a combined one-hundred and eighty-two games with five-hundred and fifty-five strikeouts, which averages out to be 3.05 strikeouts per game. However, the three pitchers researched in 2016 pitched a total of eighty games with three-hundred and seventy-six strikeouts, which averages out to 5.37 strikeouts per game. Although current pitchers are starting in less than half the amount of games than they were ten years ago, they are pitching a substantial amount of more strikeouts. The top batters, on the other hand, have been hitting nearly identical in the last ten years. From the players I analyzed, I observed the three batters in the early 2000s collectively hit one-hundred and seventeen home runs, while the batters in 2016 hit one-hundred and nineteen home runs. These numbers illustrate that there is a drastic difference in pitcher and batter development.
If batters aim to have more equitable pay compared to pitchers, there must be a concentrated effort to improve batting development. The reason there is a drastic difference in salaries with pitchers and batters is because elite pitchers are less common. Top pitchers typically play in only twenty to thirty-two games during the regular season due to their increased susceptibility to injury from maximizing their performance. As a result, there is a high demand for signing numerous exceptional pitchers, creating a scarcity in players. This contrasts to exceptional batters who can play in one-hundred and sixty-two games without encountering as significant injuries. This difference in scarcity amplifies the value of pitchers in the MLB, resulting in a higher pitcher salary when compared to batters.
Player development stands as the most influential aspect in shaping baseball’s trajectory. The substantial differences in pitcher salary compared to batters, attributed to player development, illustrates its significance. The future of the MLB rests in the hands of player development, making it imperative for teams to prioritize batting development.
References: MVP Machine Preview, Moneyball Preview
