Players who have no business being in the majors

[BigbadB]

I'll leave it to others to draw the conclusions.

 

It was definitely an outstanding post. For whatever reason someone doesn't post a lot, the least you could do is post sooner. :D

 

I used albatross in reference to Barrett once, also. I didn't refer to him as an albatross, but I think Lou pretty much wrote him off as one.

[Soriano12]

http://www.birdsasart.com/wandering%20albatross.jpg

 

This is what I found when I google imaged albatross, interesting.

[Guest]

I dont delight in him playing badly b/c he played with the Cubs, but his presence was being an albatross to this team. (required definition for Raisin- http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=albatross).

 

 

Sunny, I'm pretty sure that use of the term "albatross" is usually restricted to situations where a player is a problem for a team because:

 

1) the team gets almost no production out of the player (sometimes this is evaluated against salary rather than absolute production vs. league average)

2) the player is highly paid

3) the player's contract is long-term

4) the player is essentially untradable

 

Normal usage of the term, at least in the analytical baseball community, seems to require all four of those conditions, so that an albatross player is one who sucks, will suck for a long time, and must be expected to continue dragging the team down for several seasons to come. Obviously, the term is not precisely defined. Reasonable people might disagree about what constitutes "almost no production" or "highly paid," although it's clear that "highly paid" must mean "highly paid relative to other major league baseball players of comparable skill" or "highly paid relative to the baseball talent market" or even "highly paid relative to an idealized model of the baseball talent market," and emphatically not "highly paid relative to your average blue collar worker." A standard exception to these requirements is somebody who has met the criteria for several consecutive years immediately prior to this one, but is now in the last year of his contract.

 

Obviously, to use the term albatross correctly, it is neccessary to show that the player's low production resulted from conditions that can be expected to persist into the future; one-time injuries, bad luck, and other external factors need to be removed from the equation. Often it is neccesary to look at available levels of replacement talent as well.

 

I didn't begin this post to take issue with your classification of Barrett as an albatross, but it is interesting to compare the Barrett situation with the definition of albatross that I have proposed. It would be possible to argue against your assessment of Barrett on the basis that Barrett has been unlucky or, alternately, on the basis that two months of poor production, even if genuinely bad, are not enough to make it reasonable to expect him to suck for the indefinite future. More obviously, and more relevantly for the definition of the term albatross, Barrett has not sucked in the past, and as an upcoming free agent would never have been in a position to become a long-term problem for the team.

 

I'll leave it to others to draw the conclusions.

 

Nice post. :)

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

I dont delight in him playing badly b/c he played with the Cubs, but his presence was being an albatross to this team. (required definition for Raisin- http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=albatross).

 

 

Sunny, I'm pretty sure that use of the term "albatross" is usually restricted to situations where a player is a problem for a team because:

 

1) the team gets almost no production out of the player (sometimes this is evaluated against salary rather than absolute production vs. league average)

2) the player is highly paid

3) the player's contract is long-term

4) the player is essentially untradable

 

Normal usage of the term, at least in the analytical baseball community, seems to require all four of those conditions, so that an albatross player is one who sucks, will suck for a long time, and must be expected to continue dragging the team down for several seasons to come. Obviously, the term is not precisely defined. Reasonable people might disagree about what constitutes "almost no production" or "highly paid," although it's clear that "highly paid" must mean "highly paid relative to other major league baseball players of comparable skill" or "highly paid relative to the baseball talent market" or even "highly paid relative to an idealized model of the baseball talent market," and emphatically not "highly paid relative to your average blue collar worker." A standard exception to these requirements is somebody who has met the criteria for several consecutive years immediately prior to this one, but is now in the last year of his contract.

 

Obviously, to use the term albatross correctly, it is neccessary to show that the player's low production resulted from conditions that can be expected to persist into the future; one-time injuries, bad luck, and other external factors need to be removed from the equation. Often it is neccesary to look at available levels of replacement talent as well.

 

I didn't begin this post to take issue with your classification of Barrett as an albatross, but it is interesting to compare the Barrett situation with the definition of albatross that I have proposed. It would be possible to argue against your assessment of Barrett on the basis that Barrett has been unlucky or, alternately, on the basis that two months of poor production, even if genuinely bad, are not enough to make it reasonable to expect him to suck for the indefinite future. More obviously, and more relevantly for the definition of the term albatross, Barrett has not sucked in the past, and as an upcoming free agent would never have been in a position to become a long-term problem for the team.

 

I'll leave it to others to draw the conclusions.

 

Nice post. :)

 

It's a top ten post of all time. In fact, in my mental recollection of top ten posts, Saors has three of them.

[BigSlick]

Jason Kendall

 

Winnah, winnah, chicken dinnah

 

I'm appalled with how many at bats they've given him this year.

[Marco4]

This is what I found when I google imaged albatross, interesting.

 

I'm surprised to see an albatross on NSBB.

[sunnydoo]

Sunny, I'm pretty sure that use of the term "albatross" is usually restricted to situations where a player is a problem for a team because:

 

1) the team gets almost no production out of the player

2) the player is highly paid

3) the player's contract is long-term

4) the player is essentially untradable

 

First of all, a very eloquent posting, something that is seen not often enough on this board. Nice job.

 

Second, while i am sure that we all have various definitions and usage of the word, i do not agree with your assesment on the definition for the use in baseball. Even within your own standards there is certain ambiguity.

 

I would argue that the team was not getting the production it wanted from Barrett. Hendry himself said that one of the reasons the trade occurred was because of defensive purposes, which Barrett clearly did not have.

 

Barrett also is highly paid, not only in terms of his profession but also in the fact he makes more money than the average catcher. During the offseason following, he should be able to pull down 7 or 8 million.

 

Third point, that the contract is long term. While i do agree with this thinking and its in keeping in terms of the poem, i will also disagree. How long is long? Isnt an entire season a long time? To a Cub fan suffering for almost 100 years now and seeing another opportunity slip through our hands because of poor play, you bet it is. This summer has been brutal so far, and having to put up with Barrett's poor play behind the plate, on the basepaths and watching TV run the dugout incident every single blessed game is a big enough hindrance in my opinion to be considered within the poem.

 

Fourth point, while you make the point that he couldnt be considered an albatross b/c he was traded and no one would want him b/c of the burdens he carried, i also disagree. I think Hendry sold low. Do you think if Barrett wouldnt have been involved in that incident that we still would have gotten just a Bowen and sandwich pick for him? Probably not. That incident made his value essentially untradeable, but not the entire husk of a man.

 

Just as there is some value left b/c of his talent, there is also some noble value in suffering (as lo the Cub fans know) as suggested in the poem. I would submit that these are essentially the same and therefore i will have to disagree with you.

 

 

 

Link Below to Poem and the quote we are quibbling about that started this mess: (I guess Cub baseball has now led to poetry excerpts)

 

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/poems/Rime_Ancient_Mariner.html

 

Ah ! well a-day ! what evil looks

Had I from old and young !

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung

[Jake]

Zach Duke.

[Keener98]

Zach Duke.

 

Wow how they mighty have fallen. Has he really been that bad this year I havent noticed?

[Marco4]

Zach Duke.

 

Wow how they mighty have fallen. Has he really been that bad this year I havent noticed?

 

ERA+ of 76, compared to 101 ('06) and 235 ('05) for the two previous years.

[SaorsaDaonnan]

I would argue that the team was not getting the production it wanted from Barrett. Hendry himself said that one of the reasons the trade occurred was because of defensive purposes, which Barrett clearly did not have.

 

Agreed. Barrett has sucked this year.

 

Barrett also is highly paid, not only in terms of his profession but also in the fact he makes more money than the average catcher.

 

According to ESPN.com, Barrett's 2007 salary is $4,533,333. Although this is not a inconsiderable sum, I think it would be somewhat excessive to label it a high salary. Had Barrett begun the season with the Pads, his contract would have been only the sixth largest on the team, behind Maddux (10), Giles (9.67), Hoffman (7), Cameron (7), and Peavy (4.75), although the difference between Barrett and Peavy's paychecks is trivial. Had Barrett spent all of 2007 on the Cubs, his salary would be have been only 9th on the team, behind Lee (13.25), Zambrano (12.4), Soriano (10), Ramirez (9), Lilly (6), Jones (5.63), Dempster (5.33), and Marquis (4.75). Furthermore, his contract would have been only marginally more expensive than Howry (4.5), Izturis (4.25), and Eyre (4).

 

he makes more money than the average catcher

 

According to the same website, 9 catchers, or about 1/3 of all starting catchers, will make more money in 2007 than Barrett: Jason Kendall (13.43), Jorge Posada (12), Jason Varitek (11), Ivan Rodriguez (10.57), Paul Lo Duca (6.6), Ramon Hernandez (6.5), Kenji Johjima (5.93), A.J. Pierzynski (5.5), Jason LaRue (5.45). It is also interesting to note that Barrett makes less than 10% more than Brad Ausmus and Bengie Molina, each of whom will make 4 million in 2007.

 

During the offseason following, he should be able to pull down 7 or 8 million.

 

I'm not sure I see why this is relevant to the discussion.

 

Third point, that the contract is long term. While i do agree with this thinking and its in keeping in terms of the poem, i will also disagree.

 

I am kind of confused by this. Are you saying that you agree with the general principle that the contract must be long term, but that you think we should define long term to mean something other than multiseason?

 

How long is long? Isnt an entire season a long time?

 

I'd reply that the word 'long' has somewhat different meanings in different contexts. A season might be psychologically long, as for instance last year or 2002, without being a long time in the objective sense. When we say that a contract must be long term, I think we should mean long term in the objective sense[/]. (I'll argue for this point later in the post.)

 

To a Cub fan suffering for almost 100 years now and seeing another opportunity slip through our hands because of poor play, you bet it is.

 

True, but perhaps this is just to repeat that a bad season can seem endless and endlessly frustrating. Both of those suggestions, which I would certainly agree to, have to do with psychological features of fandom rather than the financial and statistical facts that should define albatross contracts.

 

This summer has been brutal so far, and having to put up with Barrett's poor play behind the plate, on the basepaths and watching TV run the dugout incident every single blessed game is a big enough hindrance in my opinion to be considered within the poem.

 

I don't think I quite understand the role the poem is playing in this discussion. Perhaps that is because, as I think BBB was telling me earlier, I am wading into the middle of a conversation that started several days ago.

 

Fourth point, while you make the point that he couldnt be considered an albatross b/c he was traded and no one would want him b/c of the burdens he carried, i also disagree.

 

Well, I don't believe I ever claimed that the fact that Barrett was traded itself showed that Barrett's contract is not or was not an albatross contract. In fact, the only argument I advanced to support the claim that Barrett's contract is/was not an albatross contract was the argument about the length of the contract, although I did mention objections about the role of luck and about the wisdom of judging a player's future on 2.5 months of production as being other potential arguments that I chose not to employ.

 

When I said that a player would need to be "essentially untradable," I used the word "essentially' rather than the word "absolutely" because I wanted to leave room for situations like Todd Hundley's from a couple years ago. Hundley, whose contract was paradigmatically an albatross contract, was himself traded for Karros and Grudzielanek before the 2003 season, if my memory serves. The contracts the Dodgers sent us were, if I recall, somewhat bloated and perhaps even burdensome, but well short of albatross status. Since I think I remember that no other players were involved, it would be fair to say that one albatross player was traded for two expensive but nonalbatross players. This kind of deal is not something that I was trying to rule out when I stated that a contract needs to be "essentially untradable." What I meant by that could be restated along the following lines: the player's contract must be such that it cannot be traded without the team taking on either another albatross contract, or a significantly greater overall financial commitment, or sending along a painfully large amount of talent/cheap players in compensation. If we want to be strict about it, I'm laying those conditions out as a description of an albatross contract in an ideal market---it is always possible that a Jim Bowden will do something very illogical, and of course that may not tell us anything at all about whether or not the contracts he is taking on are albatross contracts.

 

I think Hendry sold low.

 

I agree.

 

Do you think if Barrett wouldnt have been involved in that incident that we still would have gotten just a Bowen and sandwich pick for him?

 

It's hard to say. Fan reactions to that situation varied widely; some fans thought the fight was a huge problem, others didn't. Perhaps the opinions of GMs across baseball were similarly varied.

 

Probably not. That incident made his value essentially untradeable, but not the entire husk of a man.

 

I'm not at all sure that Barrett was essentially untradable. As I noted above, my opinion is that Hendry significantly undervalued Barrett in this trade. Unfortunately, the low return we got on him doesn't show that every other GM saw Barrett as a basically worthless player. For all we know, Hendry lept at the first offer he had. Or, perhaps Jim had several offers on the table that the analytic baseball community would feel were better than the one he chose to accept. It's hard to say...

 

Just as there is some value left b/c of his talent, there is also some noble value in suffering (as lo the Cub fans know) as suggested in the poem.

 

I don't think there is any simple sense in which suffering is noble. It is noble to bear suffering well, and I will certainly agree that it is profoundly beautiful when people are willing to suffer in order to achieve something difficult but valuable, but there is a tremendous difference between sacrificing for an important goal or value, on the one hand, and suffering for the sake of suffering, or for the sake of nothing at all, on the other. I'm not sure, though, that I understand what any of this has to say about Barrett's value as a baseball player.

 

 

There is still a lot more to say about this, but I'll stop here to give you a chance to respond.

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

The above post is awesome.

[illiniguy]

The above post is awesome.

Michael Barrett is a big meanie. That is all I have to add to this.

[JoshiQ]

Saorsa scares me. I sincerely pray that I never get into a disagreement with him.