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Contract Value: Neil Raymond's Stat for Judging MLB Contracts Heading Into the Offseason

Numbers from Neil Raymond's MLB & Fantasy Baseball Analyzed: his "New Statistic for GM's" post (first published May 14, 2018, updated Sept. 20, 2026) and his 2025 Contract Values (Nov. 1, 2025), as shown on Oct. 14, 2026.

WAR tells you how good a player was. It doesn't tell you whether he was worth what his team paid. Neil Raymond, who runs MLB & Fantasy Baseball Analyzed, built a stat to answer that second question, and with the offseason starting, it's a useful lens for every contract a front office is about to hand out. Neil was happy to let us feature it.

What Contract Value measures

Neil calls it Contract Value, or CV. His starting point: every team wants to win and make money, so every contract is an investment. CV tries to measure the return on that investment by combining a player's production (Baseball-Reference WAR) with his salary.

Salaries come from Baseball-Reference, and he uses bWAR on purpose. In his words, it's better at showing how much a player's stats actually helped the team, so luck doesn't factor into it.

How it's calculated

Neil's baselines:

• 1 WAR is worth $4 million.
• An average starter produces 2 WAR a season, so an average contract is $8 million for one year.
• An average closer is 1 WAR for $4 million.
• Each 0.1 WAR is worth $400,000.

The simplest way to calculate it, as Neil puts it, is to put a dollar value on the player's WAR and compare it to his actual salary. CV is then two numbers:

1. WAR vs. average: how far above or below the 2-WAR baseline the player finished (1 WAR for a closer).
2. Dollars of value: how much more or less value the team got than it paid for.

His example: a $20 million player who puts up 5 WAR cost exactly the going rate per WAR, but gave his team 3 WAR more than an average player, a +3 WAR bonus. If a player posts negative WAR, his whole salary counts against him.

Neil's point is that this shows why pre-arbitration players are so valuable, and why big contracts need big seasons to break even. He says himself it isn't perfect, but it's an attempt to measure value based on both production and cost.

CV applied: three teams to watch this offseason

Neil's most recent full set of numbers is his 2025 Contract Values, which covers starters and closers. Here's what they say about a few clubs already making news in his 2026-2027 Offseason tracker.

Philadelphia Phillies. Neil's tracker opens with the Phillies extending manager Don Mattingly for two years, which he calls a solid move. Their 2025 CV numbers are mixed:

Turner and Schwarber gave value back. Wheeler was excellent and still came in short on dollars, which shows how high the bar is for a top salary. Nola's 2025 was the biggest hole.

Houston Astros. Neil notes Houston won't bring back manager Joe Espada, though he adds that the season wasn't Espada's fault. In 2025 CV, Jose Altuve was at -1.5 WAR and -$30.5 million and Josh Hader at +1.3 WAR and -$7.5 million.

New York Yankees. Aaron Judge is the clearest case of a star contract paying off: +7.7 WAR and +$8.5 million in 2025. Next to him, Gerrit Cole was at -2.0 WAR and -$36 million and Giancarlo Stanton at -0.1 WAR and -$22.5 million.

The takeaway lines up with Neil's argument. A big salary isn't automatically bad, but it takes Judge-level production to come out ahead.

Neil plans to post his 2026 Contract Values once the season ends, and we'll update this piece when he does.

Credit

Contract Value and every CV number here come from Neil Raymond's MLB & Fantasy Baseball Analyzed. Read the original New Statistic for GM's post, his 2025 Contract Values, and follow his 2026-2027 Offseason tracker as moves come in.

Thanks to Neil for letting us feature his stat.

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