2013 Braves Payroll by Age
January 29, 2013 at 4:00 pm by Mark Smith under Atlanta Braves
Bill Baer, over at Crashburn Alley, took a look at the salary commitments to the 2013 Phillies payroll by age. As one might expect, it isn’t a positive look for that organization as over 80% of the budget is allotted to players 32 and older. For those uninitiated to aging curves, that’s a lot of money tied to players entering the steep decline phase of their careers, and with Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Michael Young, Carlos Ruiz, and Jonathan Papelbon all fitting into that category, the Phillies main players are basically all in that group, with the notable exception of Cole Hamels. This, of course, doesn’t mean that the Phillies are no longer a threat, but it made me wonder about what the Braves situation looked like.
Looking at the chart above, the ages taking up more than 10% of the payroll are 25, 28, 29, 33, and 37. That points to the Braves having a large part of their payroll in the theoretical prime of a player’s career, which is a very good thing for the team. The large chunks at 33 and 37 are Dan Uggla/Gerald Laird and Tim Hudson, and the only other largeish figure after 29 is 30, which belongs to Paul Maholm/Paul Janish.
Breaking it down into age brackets, we see much of the same thing. Over 50% of the budget is spent on players between the ages of 26-30. Again, these are the prime years, but they’re also traditionally the ages during which players enter arbitration and reach free-agency. Considering a lot of free-agents enter free-agency into their 30s, the Braves have done a nice job avoiding spending money on players on the wrong side of 30. The exceptions are Hudson (worth the money) and Uggla (worth the money right now but a possible whoopsie-daisy – most teams have one of those). Looking at all players under 30, they take up 71% of the payroll.
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Next year if Maholm and Huddy leave, the payroll will be even younger I imagine. (even if Mac is extended)
and people dare rant about Wren….
Should be a good rivalry with the Nats for a number of years but the Phillies would still be dangerous in the next few.
Speaking of the Nats, if this Gio PED thing blows up and he is suspended for 50 games it will take a big weapon from their arsenal.
I predict the Phillies to win between 78-84 games this year.
They lost: Pence,Victorino,Pierre,Polanco and 25 games of Ruiz for 2013 and added Delmon Young,Michael Young,Ben Revere ,Eric Kratz and Mike Adams.
Of all those names only 2 are pretty much sure to post positive WAR figures for 2013, Revere and Adams, the others combined have a ceiling of what? 4WAR together? maybe 6WAR if we are being generous?
Haha, check out the same piece over at Crash burn Alley. Sucks to be a Phillies fan!
the craziest thing about that is that this is a bit skewed in favor of older players, because younger players are systematically underpaid, due to the contract scheme over a player’s first 6 years of service.
After spending a solid 45 minutes on Crashburn Alley/links from Crashburn Alley, I can honestly say Ruben Amaro Jr. might be the worst GM across all sports. If you take away Cole Hamels, over 90% of their payroll is 32+. Yikes. Pretty sad how you can turn WS champs to garbage in just 5 years. But hey, I’ll take it!
Frank Wren has done a terrific job as the Braves GM. He took over an absolute dumpster fire of a team at the MLB level and that was completely void of quality minor-league talent. He deserves every accolade he’s been given.
Message for CAC
Job well done(your most recent podcast)! Add an ask the saber curious but woefully misinformed fan segment and you will be set. Enjoy my two cents!
that is a feature we’re planning on doing in future podcasts. Obviously this one was very long as was, but definitely expect some of that in future podcasts.
Sign me up!
Agreed. I’m a little over halfway through (listen on my way to and from work), and I’m really impressed by the depth of analysis, particularly on minor league guys.
Just curious, are you guys students? Otherwise, I have no idea how you find the time to be this well-versed on so many players.
Ethan and Andrew are students, me, Mark and Ben have full time jobs.
Anyone read Bowman’s post-trade assessment of Randall Delgado?
“a potential fifth starter without a consistent breaking ball”
Did I miss something?
Bowman isn’t the only one I have seen mention Delgado as only a back end of the rotation starter because of a lack of a consistent breaking pitch. Keith Law talked a lot about that in his assessment of Delgado.
I didn’t realize how precipitously he’d fallen in scouts’ eyes. Was there a setback? He always projected as an MOR starter, at worst.
When he’s a prospect, there’s always the chance that he will develop a breaking pitch. Now it sounds like that never happened during his development, thus lowering his top end value.
Delgado has a higher “ceiling” but prospects don’t always reach that. He’s always had an inconsistent breaking ball, and without such a thing, hitters can sit on his fastball and change-up. Delgado is still young and developing (even guys in the majors develop), and while he was a fifth starter this past season, he still has a higher potential.
I think Delgado still has a #3 starter ceiling. But he’s gonna have to keep the ball down in his new park.
He will be helped by pitching 6-8 games a year in 3 pitchers parks though… probably not enough to overcome 20+ starts n Arizona and Colorado tho
my post just pisses me off now looking at it…. I kinda screwed it all up
You forgot Durbin.
Wren has truly done a fantastic job as GM. The team is setup to compete now and in the future. With the poor TV deal hanging over the team, what more can you ask for?
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