Buster Onley: Santana will be traded during Spring Training

[Mephistopheles]

Pardon. I need an "Idiot's Guide To This Argument." Something about it seems counterintuitive. Petco seems to help all pitchers, regardless of whether it's immediately obvious in the statistics or not, especially with the relievers.

 

If Santana is worse than Peavy, than if he moved to SD/Petco, he should put up worse numbers than Peavy, and if Peavy moved to Minneapolis, he should put up better numbers than Santana. But does anyone think that would really happen?

 

1. Park factors do not mean everybody is effected. That's why I cannot stand the way most people here interpret them. They should be used only in situations when determining value. When determining value you do player x's production - a league average player * pf. You don't do anything to x's production. Statistically speaking, Jake Peavy has done little to suggest that Petco has a large impact on his numbers. While Petco is a huge park factor for most pitchers, Jake Peavy not so much. Regardless I did have some adjustment for park that hurt Peavy.

 

2. Let's take a dead pull flyball righthanded hitter. Let's compare what he does in RFK to what he does in Enron. Obviously RFK hurts his strength and Enron helps his strength (Lets call him Hunter). So if there is a player (say left handed OBP/BB driven player) who has similar production in a neutral setting. We would expect him to be more valuable than Hunter in RFK, but not as nearly valuable in Enron.

 

The same thing is possible for pitchers. A groundball pitcher is better suited for a small park and a flyball pitcher is better suited for a large one. These are not breakthrough ideas here. They are relatively simple.

 

I'm not a fan of using post season numbers, but look for on the aggregate what is good for post season success. There is no reason to believe Peavy *chokes* it away for some reason. The three starts he had below the playoff game this year were excellent and the Padres were fighting for their lives at the time. There's little difference. One year he had a broken rib for crying out loud. Anyways its not as if Santana has been great in the playoffs either.

 

Fenway really hasn't hurt Beckett. Sorry. (dont look at one year ---- or ERA)

[frostwyrm]

I don't see how a team that has an ownership change pending and enormous salary commitments already on the books could possibly hand out a 7/150 contract.

 

they can afford it?

 

If you know the name of the new owner please share it with the rest of us.

 

i'm saying that the Cubs as a business creates enough $$$ to afford it.

 

We know nothing about the new owner's desired time horizon to recoup his investment. If an owner blows $800 million on a sports team he might not want to wait 20 years just to make his $800 million back. All these huge salary commitments have the effect of directly increasing the time it will take to break even on the investment. Of course an alternative would be to dump payroll or even blow up the team and rebuild with a good GM who can create a competitive team without a giant payroll. If I bought the Cubs I'd probably do that, since I think the Cubs roster is really pretty lousy on a bang-for-the-basis, and it's only going to get worse in the next few years.

 

If the owner is truly looking it as a business and more about recouping his investment then winning baseball games, there's now way he would ever blow up the current team and rebuild. Are they the most efficient team? Absolutely not, not even close. They are marketing gold though. The PR loss in Chicago by trading the current star players in Chicago would be absolutely immense. Even if the team started winning 95-100 games a year in 5 years, it wouldn't make up for the economic losses they'd suffer in between. The Cubs are selling out, have good merchandise sales, and a good television deal. No owner who just looks at it as a business would ever attempt a total rebuild and potentially mess with that.

 

I do agree with you though that the Cubs going up to 140 million in payroll right now would not be the best for the new owner. New owners don't want to see it go up that high because then they are expected to have to keep it that high.

 

The Cubs could rebuild and still make money while doing it. The 2006 Cubs were absolutely horrible and expensive, but they didn't lose money. I'm sure most fans would sooner pay to watch a developing team win 66 games than watch that putrid overpaid 2006 team win 66 games.

 

Attendance fell throughout the year in 2006 (and the reselling of tickets was a joke by August, you just have to look at the many threads on this board of people who couldn't give their tickets away), and TV ratings fell even faster. The only reason as many people even came as they did is that tickets were sold when many people thought the team still had a shot. It was really the end of the false hope from the 03 teams. If they hadn't made the moves they did in the winter of 06, they would have lost a lot of potential money during that season.

 

And I'm not saying the Cubs wouldn't make money. It seems fairly obvious that no matter what they do they'll make a profit. They make more money by having lots of marketable players and at least the appearances of the chance at the playoffs ever year rather then have 2-3 years where there is no chance at the playoffs and some great teams. It's been shown lately that a .500 Cubs team will sell out every game. A team that before the season was projected to win 70 games? It probably wouldn't. A team full of youngsters? Maybe more television ratings, but not nearly the same merchandise sales.

 

An owner has a right to expect a reasonable profit. We could sign Santana and other expensive players and reduce the Cubs' annual profit to 100 bucks. Technically the Cubs could "afford" to do this, even though the team's entire annual profit would only buy several nights worth of pizza and beer for the owner's family. If you just went $800 million in the hole to purchase the team you might want it to make more than pizza money.

[CubColtPacer]

I don't see how a team that has an ownership change pending and enormous salary commitments already on the books could possibly hand out a 7/150 contract.

 

they can afford it?

 

If you know the name of the new owner please share it with the rest of us.

 

i'm saying that the Cubs as a business creates enough $$$ to afford it.

 

We know nothing about the new owner's desired time horizon to recoup his investment. If an owner blows $800 million on a sports team he might not want to wait 20 years just to make his $800 million back. All these huge salary commitments have the effect of directly increasing the time it will take to break even on the investment. Of course an alternative would be to dump payroll or even blow up the team and rebuild with a good GM who can create a competitive team without a giant payroll. If I bought the Cubs I'd probably do that, since I think the Cubs roster is really pretty lousy on a bang-for-the-basis, and it's only going to get worse in the next few years.

 

If the owner is truly looking it as a business and more about recouping his investment then winning baseball games, there's now way he would ever blow up the current team and rebuild. Are they the most efficient team? Absolutely not, not even close. They are marketing gold though. The PR loss in Chicago by trading the current star players in Chicago would be absolutely immense. Even if the team started winning 95-100 games a year in 5 years, it wouldn't make up for the economic losses they'd suffer in between. The Cubs are selling out, have good merchandise sales, and a good television deal. No owner who just looks at it as a business would ever attempt a total rebuild and potentially mess with that.

 

I do agree with you though that the Cubs going up to 140 million in payroll right now would not be the best for the new owner. New owners don't want to see it go up that high because then they are expected to have to keep it that high.

 

The Cubs could rebuild and still make money while doing it. The 2006 Cubs were absolutely horrible and expensive, but they didn't lose money. I'm sure most fans would sooner pay to watch a developing team win 66 games than watch that putrid overpaid 2006 team win 66 games.

 

Attendance fell throughout the year in 2006 (and the reselling of tickets was a joke by August, you just have to look at the many threads on this board of people who couldn't give their tickets away), and TV ratings fell even faster. The only reason as many people even came as they did is that tickets were sold when many people thought the team still had a shot. It was really the end of the false hope from the 03 teams. If they hadn't made the moves they did in the winter of 06, they would have lost a lot of potential money during that season.

 

And I'm not saying the Cubs wouldn't make money. It seems fairly obvious that no matter what they do they'll make a profit. They make more money by having lots of marketable players and at least the appearances of the chance at the playoffs ever year rather then have 2-3 years where there is no chance at the playoffs and some great teams. It's been shown lately that a .500 Cubs team will sell out every game. A team that before the season was projected to win 70 games? It probably wouldn't. A team full of youngsters? Maybe more television ratings, but not nearly the same merchandise sales.

 

An owner has a right to expect a reasonable profit. We could sign Santana and other expensive players and reduce the Cubs' annual profit to 100 bucks. Technically the Cubs could "afford" to do this, even though the team's entire annual profit would only buy several nights worth of pizza and beer for the owner's family. If you just went $800 million in the hole to purchase the team you might want it to make more than pizza money.

 

I completely agree with you on that, which is why a new owner wouldn't want to rebuild. That's not the best way to make the highest profit, even if it may be in the best long-term interests of the team.

[frostwyrm]

I don't see how a team that has an ownership change pending and enormous salary commitments already on the books could possibly hand out a 7/150 contract.

 

they can afford it?

 

If you know the name of the new owner please share it with the rest of us.

 

i'm saying that the Cubs as a business creates enough $$$ to afford it.

 

We know nothing about the new owner's desired time horizon to recoup his investment. If an owner blows $800 million on a sports team he might not want to wait 20 years just to make his $800 million back. All these huge salary commitments have the effect of directly increasing the time it will take to break even on the investment. Of course an alternative would be to dump payroll or even blow up the team and rebuild with a good GM who can create a competitive team without a giant payroll. If I bought the Cubs I'd probably do that, since I think the Cubs roster is really pretty lousy on a bang-for-the-basis, and it's only going to get worse in the next few years.

 

If the owner is truly looking it as a business and more about recouping his investment then winning baseball games, there's now way he would ever blow up the current team and rebuild. Are they the most efficient team? Absolutely not, not even close. They are marketing gold though. The PR loss in Chicago by trading the current star players in Chicago would be absolutely immense. Even if the team started winning 95-100 games a year in 5 years, it wouldn't make up for the economic losses they'd suffer in between. The Cubs are selling out, have good merchandise sales, and a good television deal. No owner who just looks at it as a business would ever attempt a total rebuild and potentially mess with that.

 

I do agree with you though that the Cubs going up to 140 million in payroll right now would not be the best for the new owner. New owners don't want to see it go up that high because then they are expected to have to keep it that high.

 

The Cubs could rebuild and still make money while doing it. The 2006 Cubs were absolutely horrible and expensive, but they didn't lose money. I'm sure most fans would sooner pay to watch a developing team win 66 games than watch that putrid overpaid 2006 team win 66 games.

 

Attendance fell throughout the year in 2006 (and the reselling of tickets was a joke by August, you just have to look at the many threads on this board of people who couldn't give their tickets away), and TV ratings fell even faster. The only reason as many people even came as they did is that tickets were sold when many people thought the team still had a shot. It was really the end of the false hope from the 03 teams. If they hadn't made the moves they did in the winter of 06, they would have lost a lot of potential money during that season.

 

And I'm not saying the Cubs wouldn't make money. It seems fairly obvious that no matter what they do they'll make a profit. They make more money by having lots of marketable players and at least the appearances of the chance at the playoffs ever year rather then have 2-3 years where there is no chance at the playoffs and some great teams. It's been shown lately that a .500 Cubs team will sell out every game. A team that before the season was projected to win 70 games? It probably wouldn't. A team full of youngsters? Maybe more television ratings, but not nearly the same merchandise sales.

 

An owner has a right to expect a reasonable profit. We could sign Santana and other expensive players and reduce the Cubs' annual profit to 100 bucks. Technically the Cubs could "afford" to do this, even though the team's entire annual profit would only buy several nights worth of pizza and beer for the owner's family. If you just went $800 million in the hole to purchase the team you might want it to make more than pizza money.

 

I completely agree with you on that, which is why a new owner wouldn't want to rebuild. That's not the best way to make the highest profit, even if it may be in the best long-term interests of the team.

 

Maybe, but the Trib is going to have a hell of a time selling the Cubs if the new owner has to live another 200 years to break even on his investment.

[RammyFanny]

Executives involved in the Johan Santana trade talks expect the Minnesota Twins to make their decision soon, perhaps as early as Tuesday, on what they intend to do with the left-handed superstar, after the team asked on Monday for last and best offers from teams involved in the trade talks.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3220115

[badnews]

I will not look at ERA or a 1 year split if you never use the phrase "outlier year" to dismiss anything you don't like ever again.