Money In The Bank Pt. 3

Thanks to fangraphs new WAR, Value in Dollars and Salary features, we can easily see how much a player made vs. how much he was worth. For the Rays, getting more value for less buck is essential if the team is going to continue it's recent success. We all know Andrew Friedman has made some excellent moves via trades and signings, but now we can actually see how good those moves have been in terms of dollars.

Today, I take a look at the signings/trades of 2008. A few ground rules here.

• The player must have been acquired by Friedman prior or during the 2008 season. To qualify using "worth" a player must have had at least 150 PA's with the team during the year.  
• Nathan Haynes did not meet the 150 PA requirement  set for using a player's worth, but he did receive a Major League Salary and is included in that portion. Call him "sunk costs."

Here is the list:

Salary & Worth in terms of Millions

Carlos Pena continues to provide value even with the increase in salary. In a down season compared to his amazing 2007, Pena was still worth $10.8 million dollars more than he made. Aki Iwamura also continues to be a bargain with a value of $11.4 million compared to a $2.4 million dollar salary.

Breakouts by Dioner Navarro and Ben Zobrist combined for $18.8 million dollars worth of production for less than a combined $1 million dollars (800k). Also 2008 acquisitions: Gabe Gross, Eric Hinske, Jason Bartlett, Willy Aybar and Cliff Floyd provided $34.50 million dollars worth of production for the collective price tag of $4.8 million with $2.8 of that belonging to Cliff Floyd.

Following an amazing almost 5:1 production to salary ratio in 2007, Friedman actually improved that ratio to almost 6:1 in 2008. For $14.4* million dollars of actual salary, the Rays received $81.5 million dollars of production from the list of players above. Not a bad year.

*includes 400k in sunk costs(Haynes)