How the Best Players in the AL Were Acquired - Part Two

In part one of How the Best Players in the AL Were Acquired it appeared that spending money on free agent players was not the best way to attain valuable players.  However the data collated to determine this conclusion was only taken from the American League 2011 season, and that breaks the cardinal rule that you should never make a judgement based on a small sample size.  Therefore, today I will look at results for all American League player seasons over the past ten years to which will either support or discredit our findings from in Part 1.

Again, I've determined the criteria for "Best Players" to be any season in which a player has posted a WAR (Wins Above Replacement) of 3.0 or better.  This resulted in a total of 655 player seasons in the American League from 2002 through 2011.  So let's get to the results:

The Hitters....

The list of hitters in the American League that posted a 3.0 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) or better over the past 10 years resulted in total of 391 players, and detailed in the chart below is how teams acquired these players:

Acquired	Total Players	% of Overall Hitters
Trade	116	29.7%
Amateur Draft	140	35.8%
Amateur Free Agent	29	7.4%
Free Agent*	92	23.5%
Via Rule 5 Draft	0	0.0%
Waivers	3	0.8%
Purchased	11	2.8%
Total	391	100.0%

* Players that were re-signed by their existing team as free agents are not included in these totals.

The biggest change we see from Part 1 of How the Best Players in the American League Were Acquired is that the percentage of players that were acquired via free agency jumped from 5.4% up to 23.5%.  However the amateur draft and trade routes were still the best way to acquire a top player.

The Pitchers...

The list of pitchers in the American League that posted a 3.0 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) or better over the past 10 years resulted in total of 264 players, and detailed in the chart below is how teams acquired these players:

Acquired	Total Players	% of Overall Pitchers
Amateur Draft	95	36.0%
Trade	74	28.0%
Amateur Free Agent	27	10.2%
Free Agent*	58	22.0%
Via Rule 5 Draft	3	1.1%
Waivers	4	1.5%
Purchased	3	1.1%
Total	264	100.0%

* Players that were re-signed by their existing team as free agents are not included in these totals.

Again, the biggest change we see from Part 1 of How the Best Players in the American League Were Acquired is that the percentage of players that were acquired via free agency jumped from 10.7% up to 22.0%.

Overall Players...

The list of overall players in the American League that posted a 3.0 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) or better over the past 10 years resulted in total of 655 players, and detailed in the chart below is how teams acquired these players:

Acquired	Total Players	% of Overall Players
Amateur Draft	211	32.2%
Trade	214	32.7%
Amateur Free Agent	56	8.5%
Free Agent	150	22.9%
Via Rule 5 Draft	3	0.5%
Waivers	7	1.1%
Purchased	14	2.1%
Total	655	100.0%

Based on the results from the American League over the past 10 season, the best way to acquire a "Top Player" is through the Amateur Draft or via trade, with the two avenues almost equally viable.  Signing a free agent is also a much more viable option than our initial analysis suggested, as on average 15 "Top Player" seasons a year are a result of players that had signed with their team as a free agent.

What we can also determine is that acquiring players through waivers or the Rule 5 Draft is highly over-rated, as it is very unlikely source of acquiring talent, and while purchasing a player from the Japanese league may seem to have some merit, most of those seasons are a result of two players, Ichiro Susuki and Alfonso Soriano.

Trend...

To get a better understanding if there is a changing trend for how the best players in the AL were acquired I have included a graph below that breaks down the data by season:



What we find above indicates that there is a downward trend of elite players acquired as free agents.  My initial inclination is that teams are now acquiring these players by trade before they have a chance to become free agents, as we saw with the Roy Halladay and Adrian Gonzalez deals, however at the same time we don't see a spike in "Top Players" being acquired through trades which would refute this hypothesis.

Also in the above graph we see a steady upward trend of the "Top Players" acquired through the amateur draft.  This may be a result of more teams locking up their young talent to long term contracts through their productive seasons, such as has been the case with many players on the Tampa Bay Rays.  Another explanation could be more players re-signing with their existing teams rather than leaving to sign with another team as a free agent.  Both of these theories would also provide an explanation as to why there has been a decline in productive seasons coming from free agent signings.

Of course only time will tell if these trends will continue or if they are only a mere result of random market fluctuations.  However if I'm a general manager, I'm first looking to either acquire players through trades or the amateur draft, and additionally I'm looking to identify my young "elite players" and hoping to lock up these players to a contract that takes them through their productive years.