Re: Projecting the 2013 Cubs

[Tracer Bullet]

If Andrus actually gets $120m for 8 years, how does that factor into the equation?

[ConstableRabbit]

http://i.imgur.com/DSIRwlv.png

 

Even in the outcome that's more optimistic to Harper's career path than Castro's, his increased value is little more than a rounding error each year.

How is a 25%-60% difference each year a rounding error?

[SouthSideRyan]

http://i.imgur.com/DSIRwlv.png

 

Even in the outcome that's more optimistic to Harper's career path than Castro's, his increased value is little more than a rounding error each year.

How is a 25%-60% difference each year a rounding error?

 

Because there's a substantial difference in salary?

[Guest]

Suddenly SSR cares about payroll efficiency trophies.

[davell]

Which is why this graph may not be accurate. If Harper signs a longterm deal, it weighs much further in his favor. Edited April 1, 2013 by davell

[SouthSideRyan]

Suddenly SSR cares about payroll efficiency trophies.

 

Yep, that's me, saying spend 50M/year on everyone. [expletive] nailed it David

[Guest]

Suddenly SSR cares about payroll efficiency trophies.

 

Yep, that's me, saying spend 50M/year on everyone. [expletive] nailed it David

 

Clearly that's what I was saying.

 

 

I'll take the much better player as long as he isn't getting an outrageous amount.

[SouthSideRyan]

Call me crazy for expecting the guy who's had 1 year of competent baseball instruction more likely to improve than the guy who's had 8 years. After all Harper is 2.5 years younger than Castro.

[davell]

Call me crazy for expecting the guy who's had 1 year of competent baseball instruction more likely to improve than the guy who's had 8 years. After all Harper is 2.5 years younger than Castro.

Thats putting a lot of stock in Harpers' coach when he was 11. I'm guessing you can back this up though......

[SouthSideRyan]

Call me crazy for expecting the guy who's had 1 year of competent baseball instruction more likely to improve than the guy who's had 8 years. After all Harper is 2.5 years younger than Castro.

Thats putting a lot of stock in Harpers' coach when he was 11. I'm guessing you can back this up though......

 

I'd trust Harper's teeball coach over most of the people Hendry employed.

[SouthSideRyan]

Back this up, what a horseshit [expletive] comment. Sorry, I don't have Bryce's WAR from his AAU ball. When a player is drafted as a ready-made product, I don't expect them to be on the same curve as your standard prospect.

[davell]

Drafted as a ready-made product, huh? At 18. That alone speaks volumes of Harpers' talent, doesn't it. Anyone else you can say that about, that proceeded to throw up the highest WAR ever for a 19 year old? I've got no idea what kind of response you expected when you're the one throwing out Harpers' coaches from 8 years ago, not me. If you don't want a shitty response, don't throw out a comment that guarantees you'll get one. But you using any sort of monetary comment SHOULD raise eyebrows, since you've been a leader of the "do more immediately" group, with the idea that we'll figure out the rest by drafting well and filling in with cheap controllable guys. In this case however, you're not willing to trade Castro(straight up, mind you) for a much better player thats even younger. And you're argument evidently is Castros' development sucked, due to coaching. Yet Harper, who's development you know nothing of, was obviously tons better. You're grasping.

[Tracer Bullet]

Come on. Harper's been playing travel squad baseball most of his life, including teams coached by Steve Garvey. Oh, and his college coach has known Harper "almost all his life." Pretty solid resume: http://www.unlvrebels.com/sports/m-basebl/mtt/chambers_tim00.html

 

But I'm sure Castro had a similar experience.

[Guest]

That doesn't mean Starlin is suddenly going to make up all this supposed ground and lost time with better instruction now... and it's questionable, at best, that that experience (in terms of how it varies from the norm) is a major factor in why Harper is so good (or why he is so good so young). He's just a ridiculous talent.

[Guest]

Which is why this graph may not be accurate. If Harper signs a longterm deal, it eeigjs much further in his favor.

 

I ask because I have no idea about the answer, but do Boras clients ever sign long term deals before reaching free agency (i.e. buying out the arbitration years and a couple years of free agency)?

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I'll never get how "not getting premium, baseball-specific instruction during key athletic developmental years" is an argument in favor of guys like Castro, Szczur, or Samardzija.

[XZero771679666304]

I'll never get how "not getting premium, baseball-specific instruction during key athletic developmental years" is an argument in favor of guys like Castro, Szczur, or Samardzija.

 

 

It's not a difficult concept to grasp.

 

I mean it's not like being malnourished during adolescence where you can never make the lost opportunity for growth up. Trainable skills can always be acquired or enhanced, provided the subject has the capacity. If don't subscribe to that line of thinking, I don't suppose you'd ever be in favor of drafting/acquiring "raw" players.

 

It ceases to be an excuse if a player stagnates for a prolonged period even when receiving good training, but it is a legitimate reason to be optimistic that there could be room for growth beyond the normal curve, especially with guys who are young and obviously gifted. I think we've been seeing it to some extent with Samardzija. That said, it's by no means a guarantee that additional development will ever happen (Szczur).

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I mean it's not like being malnourished during adolescence where you can never make the lost opportunity for growth up. Trainable skills can always be acquired or enhanced, provided the subject has the capacity. If don't subscribe to that line of thinking, I don't suppose you'd ever be in favor of drafting/acquiring "raw" players.

 

How do we know it's not like that? I can think of lots of trainable skills where you if miss certain windows, you'll always be inferior. Foreign languages and chess, off the top of my head.

 

I'm willing to draft/sign raw players on the chance that they develop skills, but I'm not going to give them extra projection credit over a player the same age who has been trained properly.

[davell]

Which is why this graph may not be accurate. If Harper signs a longterm deal, it eeigjs much further in his favor.

 

I ask because I have no idea about the answer, but do Boras clients ever sign long term deals before reaching free agency (i.e. buying out the arbitration years and a couple years of free agency)?

Elvis Andrus is a Boras client. Carlos Gomez is as well, both signed longterm deals this offseason. CarGo, Holliday, Jurrjens, and Jered Weaver signed multi-year deals with their current teams as well. Cano, Ellsbury, and Scherzer all talked extensions this offseason as well.

[davell]

Come on. Harper's been playing travel squad baseball most of his life, including teams coached by Steve Garvey. Oh, and his college coach has known Harper "almost all his life." Pretty solid resume: http://www.unlvrebels.com/sports/m-basebl/mtt/chambers_tim00.html

 

But I'm sure Castro had a similar experience.

A main instructor currently in the DR right now is Luis Polonia. Because Garvey had a better career than he did in the majors, does that make him a better coach? Do the Cubs not have instructors throughout their system that were once former players? This is all getting blamed on Hendry, but hell, he was a college baseball coach himself, kind of rendering the JC coach Harper knew his whole life kind of pointless in this argument.

[XZero771679666304]

I mean it's not like being malnourished during adolescence where you can never make the lost opportunity for growth up. Trainable skills can always be acquired or enhanced, provided the subject has the capacity. If don't subscribe to that line of thinking, I don't suppose you'd ever be in favor of drafting/acquiring "raw" players.

 

How do we know it's not like that? I can think of lots of trainable skills where you if miss certain windows, you'll always be inferior. Foreign languages and chess, off the top of my head.

 

I'm willing to draft/sign raw players on the chance that they develop skills, but I'm not going to give them extra projection credit over a player the same age who has been trained properly.

 

The ability to learn certain things (such as your examples) can be reduced outside of their "optimum learning" windows, but aren't lost altogether. If you don't plate discipline when you're young, you might never be Barry Bonds, but if you cultivate what you can during your normal professional growth period, that can add to development.

 

If someone who has an extreme gift for linguistics isn't taught foreign languages when they're young, with advanced training they'd probably stand a better chance of being a prolific polyglot than one of average cognitive means who was trained at the "right" time. I think the same can apply to gifted athletes.

 

I wouldn't bet on it, but I think it can be a consideration.

[Guest]

TT, I appreciate the graph. But it SHOULD be swayed towards Harper. He had the highest WAR ever for a 19 year old position player. Getting 46 WAR seems like a major accomplishment over the next 7 years, but I do think its hitting him light(I'm guessing you took Griffey's career? Haven't looked it up). Harper's also getting penalized by you playing him out year for year, dollar-wise, when its at least likely that the Nats lock him up on a longterm deal fairly soon, considering how its happening with almost everyone. I could see a 10 year, 225 mill deal or something like that happening a year or two from now.(likely backloaded) That would change things a good bit here, as would the idea that the guy with the highest ever 19 year old season WAR, could put up a few 10 WAR seasons over that 7 year stretch. I love Castro and think its fair how he was projected out. But I do think Harper outproduces what you've got him doing.

 

I think we're going to have to fundamentally disagree about Harper then if you think that projection is underselling him. And while Harper might sign an extension that changes that value proposition, he hasn't yet, and based on everything we know of Harper I think the odds of him not squeezing every last dollar he can are very slim.

[davell]

Yeah, the WAR part is pure opinion. Contractually, I figure him and Trout both sign 10 year deals or so, then give themselves one FA shot. Is Harper the kind of guy that'd bet on himself though? Yeah, I can certainly see that. But I think he'll still do whats becoming the industry norm and take the giant security soon. I'll say next offseason is when we get serious talk, maybe even deals done, with both him and Trout.

[Tracer Bullet]

Come on. Harper's been playing travel squad baseball most of his life, including teams coached by Steve Garvey. Oh, and his college coach has known Harper "almost all his life." Pretty solid resume: http://www.unlvrebels.com/sports/m-basebl/mtt/chambers_tim00.html

 

But I'm sure Castro had a similar experience.

A main instructor currently in the DR right now is Luis Polonia. Because Garvey had a better career than he did in the majors, does that make him a better coach? Do the Cubs not have instructors throughout their system that were once former players? This is all getting blamed on Hendry, but hell, he was a college baseball coach himself, kind of rendering the JC coach Harper knew his whole life kind of pointless in this argument.

 

Castro first got noticed in the DR by the Cubs at a tryout at 16. What, 3 years before making his ML debut?

 

You can think whatever you want about whether potential that hasn't been coached properly for very long will or won't close the gap with a polished player that's received consistent, quality coaching for probably a decade before he played in the majors. But continuing to pretend that there was no difference in the coaching or the period of time it was received is just being dense.

[Tracer Bullet]

That doesn't mean Starlin is suddenly going to make up all this supposed ground and lost time with better instruction now... and it's questionable, at best, that that experience (in terms of how it varies from the norm) is a major factor in why Harper is so good (or why he is so good so young). He's just a ridiculous talent.

 

No one is saying that receiving quality coaching is the reason Harper is freakishly good. He's ridiculously talented. It's so obvious, it shouldn't need to be stated. But give the same years of coaching and polish to any number of other players and would they be at lot closer at 19? It's not just coaching, it's weight training and nutrition. All of those things that go into making a 19-year-old look like a guy that's been doing nothing but throwing, hitting, and lifting weights for half his life.

 

Wasn't there a report just yesterday about how older Castro looks? I saw him up close in ST and agree. I was 2 feet from him last year and he still looked like a high school kid. He doesn't now. Is that b/c he's finally eating and weight training properly or is that b/c he's just maturing? Combination?