I don’t think that I was correct in how I evaluated Andrew McCutchen through his first run with the Pittsburgh Pirates. The modern-day approach in baseball for small market teams is to focus on “value”. That word is meaningless, as there are so many ways you can measure value. McCutchen was paid $5 million by the Pirates in 2023, and those are real dollars. His “value” on the field was $10 million, meaning the Pirates got his production for half the price it would be on the open market. His presence as the face of the team probably led to a boost in ticket sales that made it so that he didn’t even need positive value on the field.
P2Daily: What is Value?
