Tuesday's Frosty Mug
by Kyle Lobner on Jan 13, 2009 8:56 AM CST
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PrintOne small step was taken towards payroll certainty yesterday, as the Brewers reached an agreement with J.J. Hardy on a one year deal worth $4.65 million. It's been noted in the comments, but it's still worth noting how far the arbitration process is from assessing a player's actual value: This is Hardy's second arbitration year, and yet he will still make less than two-thirds of what Prince Fielder will make in his first arbitration year.
Of course, both could lend some money to Gabe Kapler, who signed a 1 year/$1 million deal with the Rays. DRaysBay estimates Kapler will be worth about .75 wins in 2009...and also thinks Gabe Gross is being shown a clear path towards the door. In other news, Guillermo Mota is a Dodger again.
Trevor Hoffman isn't as young as he used to be, but has his stuff held up over time? Dixieflatline takes a look over at The Hardball Times. Perhaps there's room for some optimism.
Behold life on both ends of the spectrum: One Ryan Braun is one of baseball's elite outfielders, drafted ninth in FakeTeams' mock fantasy draft. The other Ryan Braun was recently released by the Royals, and will be a non-roster invitee for the White Sox.
Three minor notes today:
- The Brewers are considering abandoning their "less is more" theory and re-opening a Dominican training academy. They're currently the only team without one.
- In the closest vote yet, Brad Nelson leads Tim Dillard by two votes and Zach Braddock by seven votes in the balloting to determine Community Prospect #14. Voting closes at noon.
- Another candidate for #14, Alexandre Periard, is interviewed over at Right Field Bleachers.
'Tis the season to talk about projections...but my guess is we won't be spending a lot of time on this one: Walkoff Walk has unveiled The BONILLAs, grouping players by age. Follow the link for their...well, I guess it's a preview, of Jason Kendall.
On the hot stove:
Angels: May have interest in acquiring Jermaine Dye from the White Sox.
Astros: Re-signed Jose Valverde to a one-year deal worth $8 million.
Braves: Are believed to have offered Derek Lowe a four-year deal worth $60 million.
Marlins: Signed Jay Gibbons to a minor league deal.
Mets: Are believed to have offered Oliver Perez a three-year deal worth around $30 million.
Pirates: Reportedly will not bring Doug Mientkiewicz back for 2009.
So let's say you're Major League Baseball, and for whatever reason you've decided you'd like to get into the restaurant business. You've got 30 MLB cities and several other options open...so why would you choose Tokyo? It's an odd move.
Speaking of odd moves, someone designed the Mets' Citi Field uniform patch for 2009 while looking at a pizza box.
Oh, and thanks for stopping by to share my inevitable decline in productivity.
Drink up.
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Rambling Al
cannot seem to wrap his head around the concept that 1 win above replacement costs $4.5 million on the free agent market. He continually complains that Fangraphs is “embarrassing themselves”. I find this amusing. Who do I go with on this:
Logic/common sense+ Dave Cameron+ R.J. Anderson+ Eric Seidman+ Tango+ a bunch of others
or
Rambling Al
Also, nice article by Josh confirming how I feel about the situation. The slider stuff is interesting.
Scored three times and detonated an indisputable in four visits to the batting box.
I want no part of being associated with Al
but a formula starting with common sense and logic and adding those guys could create a lot of discussion and debate. For instance, comparing Bobby Howry’s innings to Trevor Hoffman’s is strange to say the least. Even at face value, it is questionable except for the magic WAR number. Tango’s claim that the known science of a variety of disciplines is wrong and that performance can not be positively variable to pressure is pretty extreme.
As to WAR, I rarely see it referred to as a cost associated with the free agent market.
What I'm saying is that he fundamentally doesn't understand the $4.5/win rule
I don’t care if you disagree with Tango about clutch performance and leverage— read The Book— but he thinks a win is worth less than 4.5 million, or he doesn’t understand how to value wins above replacement. The rule only applies to those on the free agent market, and though he acknowledges this, he apparently doesn’t get it.
When Fangraphs guys like Dave Cameron and RJ Anderson analyze transactions, they’re trying to put a dollar value on production, and compare it to the cost paid for that production. Rambling Al thinks their number is too high, even though it’s based on what teams did actually pay per win each year. He comes off as not really understanding how it works, despite professing to be somewhat of a sabermetrician.
Other random note: I often read a Brewerfan thread with some good back and forth discussion, and then see a Ramblings post like this: “On a message board, I read thing x. I think thing y. Those that think thing x are the definition of casuals. Oof.” And it’s always a Brewerfan thread. I mean, give credit to the site, at least.
Scored three times and detonated an indisputable in four visits to the batting box.
Maybe it's a case of selective perception?
Obviously FA spending isn’t terribly efficient; lots of players aren’t worth their money (even with as high a value as $4.5m/win) while others are underpaid compared to their contributions. Maybe Al just sees that there are those “good” players whose $/win value is less than $4.5m, thinks that their contracts are fairly-valued (after all, those guys were available to be signed at those salaries) and that the overpays on the other guys are even more egregious than commonly acknowledged.
Of course that ignores that no team is going to manage signing an entire FA team at below-market salaries, just individual players here and there, but if you’re looking at it strictly on a per-player basis rather than per-team, I could see coming to the conclusion that wins aren’t (or at least shouldn’t be) worth $4.5m.
I admit
I go there several times a day - not only because he stays pretty current on Brewers news, but also because I like trying to understand a point of view very different from my own. A lot of times it’s fruitless, because he spends a lot of time ridiculing things I believe in, and he really seems to have an immense dislike for people. I’m envisioning Grampa Abraham Simpson, yelling at kids to get off his lawn - but I think he’s only in his 30s or 40s.
A lot of his posts, be it about baseball or not, involves cutting back on spending as much as possible, be it how much Jack Wilson makes, shopping at Wal-Mart, eating at KFC, or how much you’d save living in a cardboard box. (He may not have posted it, but I’d bet you a nickel he’s contemplated it.) I think if we all played GM-for-a-day, Rambling Al would field a decent team, one certainly made up of excellent values - but I don’t think he’d make the playoffs.
"I will agree that the attitude [at BCB] is ridiculous and they have done so much to instigate animosity and then block us from responding. Real mature!"
yep
he’d create the Marlins.
$20MM payroll, 75-80 wins. Dead-on.
Also, cheese.
by Jeff Sackmann on Jan 13, 2009 1:18 PM CST up reply actions
Doug Mientkiewicz is AWESOME
I’m sure it won’t happen, but I would LOVE to see him in a Brewers uniform.
wow
Is Sheets next in signing?
The designated hitter rule is like letting someone else take Wilt Chamberlain's free throws.
My working threory
For the past several seasons Sheets has been using the GM meetings as an opportunity to hit on GM’s wives, daughters and/or mothers. Nothing else explains what is happening to him.
by Getting Yosted on Jan 13, 2009 12:49 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
1982 Brewers Hall of Fame Votes
I took a look at the list of players with no votes and was dismayed to find Cecil Cooper, Pete Vuckovich, Mike Caldwell, Ben Oglivie, Gorman Thomas, and Larry Hisle on the list. Pretty interesting that the team had four hall of famers (Sutton, Fingers, Yount and Molitor) and six guys who got zero votes. I was surprised Gantner wasn’t on the zero vote list. Ted Simmons would be the only non-Hall of Famer on the team that I could imagine getting votes. I wonder how common it is to have such clear cut people.
Well, this year 23 players appeared on the ballot
And three of them (Vaughn, Plesac and Ron Gant) didn’t get a vote, while Jesse Orosco, Mo Vaughn, Jay Bell, Matt Williams, Mark Grace and David Cone all got at least one but less than 25 votes. Last year 2 of 25 got no votes, with eight players getting either one or two votes. Two years ago four of 32 players got no votes.
So, with a three year sample, the odds of getting no votes are about 9-in-90, or 10%.
I don't specifically articulate my motives, because that wouldn't travel as well as a boo does.
By contrast
If you are Larry Hisle, the odds of getting no votes are about 1-in1, or 100%.
Also, cheese.
by Jeff Sackmann on Jan 14, 2009 10:41 AM CST up reply actions
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