They Understand Sunk Costs in Arizona
It looks like the Diamondbacks understand sunk costs. Kudos to the ownership for allowing Josh Byrnes to relieve the team of a very bad decision.
“We’re like most clubs: every dollar counts. You want to spend them as effectively as possible,” Byrnes said at a Chase Field news conference. “That affected the decision, but we also were true to ourselves, and we want to put our best 25 on the field and try to win games. That led us to our decision.
“We have to spend all our dollars wisely, and obviously we owe Russ a lot of money going forward,” Byrnes said. “The flip side is we probably have more young talent than anyone in baseball, and that’s a good thing as managing the payroll.”
Thanks to Ballbug for the pointer. I absolutely love Ballbug.
J.C. Bradbury is an economist and associate professor at Kennesaw State University in metropolitan Atlanta. He is the author of The Baseball Economist and has operated Sabernomics.com since March 2004.
June 14th, 2006 at 9:07 am
Wow, I think Arizona is the only team in baseball who understands sunk costs. I have never ever understood the theory that we should keep a terrible player on our roster because we owe them a lot of money. How about put the best 25 people on your roster. Ever heard of that. I guess Arizona has. Maybe they can pass the knowledge to Atlanta.
June 14th, 2006 at 11:33 am
Josh certainly did not learn this principle from his former employer. The Red Sox have two guys out in the pen who are eating up payroll (not 22 million but a large sum nevertheless) and this retarding the development of some of their arms in Pawtucket. Not to mention losing them games. Take last night for instance, Tavarez comes into a 2-1 game in the 12th when every one in the world knows it should have been Manny DelCarmen. Taverez’ paycheck influenced the decison and the Sox lost the game.