How much restrictive future payroll capacity a trade created or consumed when financial flexibility mattered.
FFA evaluates the financial side of trading. It measures whether a deal removed or added payroll the club could not easily avoid, and scales that change by how much the team needed room to maneuver.
The displayed GM value is a bounded robust average across qualifying trades, weighted by the square root of gross restrictive-payroll exposure.
One raw capacity unit is future guaranteed payroll equal to the trade-year market price of one WAR. FFA then scales that capacity by how much payroll pressure the team faced. Positive values mean the GM created room to maneuver; negative values mean the GM consumed it. This is a financial comparison across eras, not WAR gained or lost on the field.
1. San Francisco acquired $188.1M in future guaranteed salary and surrendered $22.0M, for a net increase of $166.1M.
2. At the 2025 market rate of approximately $8M per WAR, that consumed \(166.1/8=\mathbf{20.76}\) raw payroll-capacity units.
3. The Giants' payroll-pressure factor was 0.619: \(-20.76\times0.619=\mathbf{-12.85}\).
The trade therefore receives -12.85 FFA. In plain English: Posey accepted a large long-term obligation while running a relatively expensive roster, substantially reducing San Francisco's future room to maneuver. It does not mean the Giants lost 12.85 WAR on the field.
This is currently Posey's only qualifying FFA trade, so his displayed career value is the Devers trade rather than a stable multi-trade estimate.
FFA predicts escaping modern forced-spend episodes, but restrictive-payroll trades are uncommon. Career repeatability is promising rather than conclusive, and the formal reliability test requires at least 12 qualifying trade sides. Leaderboard and short-range percentile values below that threshold should be treated as descriptive.
Built from restrictive-payroll trade sides since 1985. Unknown cash amounts are unscored. Short-sample profile values are descriptive; reliability tests require at least 12 qualifying trade sides.