Geech

Despite the acrimony in the news reports and on the forum, the reports are that negotiations are proceeding along just fine. One report said that both sides have come to conclusion that Epstein joining the Cubs is inevitable.

He's failing to realize that the Bobby Valentine-type threat would be coming from the Cubs in this case, not the Red Sox. The Red Sox are clearly the White Sox if we're to make a parallel with that scenario. Well, his response to that will be more stuff about GMs being 10 times as valuable as a field manager, and therefore should bring much higher compensation. That might be a good argument if it was actually 10 times as difficult to find a GM, but of course it isn't.

This is what I have believed for a couple of days now, but it still makes me feel better to read it. When the GM search started I never thought Epstein was a real possibility, so this whole process has been pretty amazing.

My favorite so far.

What makes it such a likely choice? And what evidence do we have that Theo believes he could turn Sandberg into an extension of the front office?

It's not exactly the same, but Soriano moved from second to LF during his prime. I seem to recall that he complained about it, but it worked out well for him.

He didn't understand why high school prospects are more of an unknown when you draft them. He suggested that statistical analysis means "I want this guy because he has 120 RBIs" He suggested that the statement "High school pitchers have more injury risk" is the equivalent of saying "College pitchers never get hurt." He dismissed, out of hand without the slightest interest in any evidence, the usefulness of AAA stats in predicting major league performance. While throughout the chat, complaining that stats guys were dismissive of scouts. Exactly KKG's point. He was right on with virtually everything!

The new market inefficiency.

In fairness to Meph, projections for Fukudome were universally good. PECOTA predicted .400/.500 for him, and even the lower end projections expected more than he ever showed over a full season. He's been a pretty big disappointment, and it's not like Meph was the only one banging that drum.

I have a couple of tickets for the 6/25 game, but I won't actually be using them.

Pfff. You would have a lot more time to worry about eating crow if you weren't so busy eating the crow.

Cut him. With a knife, I mean.

But he did intend to throw the ball at Molina's head. I think "accident" is a fairly dubious term to describe the situation.

It was really funny. It was a little risque for a family-oriented board I guess, but really wasn't that bad. I don't see how it could be construed as homophobic.

Of course salaries matter, that's not the issue. The issue is that Greinke's salary doesn't turn him from a 4 win player to a 2 win player, which is essentially what Dave is trying to claim.

Opportunity cost is not some esoteric concept. It's not controversial, nor is it in of itself at the center of this debate. The problem here is your inability to coherently apply the concept to baseball or to comprehend the meaning of my argument. There is no question that spending 13 million dollars on Greinke means the Brewers have less money available than they would otherwise. They could have spent that money on another player, as you suggest, used it for player development, or used it to renovate their offices. However, none of those things impact the value of Greinke's contribution to the team. The talent level of a given team exists independent of the team's payroll. A given 25 players have the exact same talent regardless of whether they are paid 100 million or 60 million dollars. It is true that more payroll flexibility gives the team the ability to hire better players, but that isn't what we are talking about. We are estimating the change in talent level of the Brewers, represented by expected wins next season, from the Greinke trade. The only things that matter in this equation are the abilities of the players in question -- i.e., Greinke, the pitcher he is displacing, the shortstops they swapped, and the other traded players. Of course payroll is important to the Brewers, and of course there are limits to what they can spend. However, that does not make it logical to discount Greinke's on-field value to the team by his payroll, a factor which does not impact his performance for the team. If you're trying to make the argument that Greinke's payroll is a significant downside to the trade, then you are doing it the wrong way. If you are trying to understand how opportunity cost works within the framework of baseball, then you are not quite there.

Your argument still makes absolutely no sense. At no point is the goal of estimating changes in the team talent level anything close to keeping payroll the same. Yes, it is possible that replacing Dewitt with Uggla will require the team to downgrade elsewhere, however there is absolutely no reason that this must happen. Because there is no logical reason that a downgrade must occur, you do not subtract wins until a move actually happens. It's that simple. Opportunity cost has nothing to do with this equation, unless it results in an actual move, because opportunity cost in and of itself has no tangible effect on the team talent level. You even acknowledge that I am correct with possibility "a", except for some reason you tried to further obfuscate the issue by bringing in GM competence, which also has no relevant place in this equation. You have no leg to stand on here; you are wrong.

I'm a little late to the party, but I wanted to comment on this. Subtracting wins according to the value of the contract is nonsensical. The whole point of estimating changes in wins is to get a sense of how much, in real terms, the baseball team improved. The dollar cost of the contract itself has nothing to do with that. Consider the following scenario: A team replaces a 1.5 win player by signing a 4 win player for 15 million dollars per year. For the simplicity of the analysis, we'll assume they don't make any other moves. This means the talent level of the team has improved by 2.5 wins. However, if we follow your method and subtract three wins due to the cost of the contract, the results suggest that the team is actually half a win worse than the year before. This is clearly not correct. In real baseball terms, this would be like replacing Blake Dewitt with Dan Uggla and somehow having a worse team. It makes no sense. In the case of Greinke, the improvement to the Brewers is equal to the difference between Greinke and the displaced starter minus the loss from replacing the shortstop. That's it, and it's probably closer to three or four wins than two.

Yeah, you still need to divide it by the total number of plate appearances in baseball over those two seasons.

Out of curiosity, though, why do you believe the advanced defensive metrics are all worthless for first basemen?

Fine, but Bill James' handbook still predicts him to be the better offensive player between the two next season.

According to fangraphs, Barton was worth 12.1 runs above average in the field last year, and he had a WAR of 4.9, higher than any Cub.

I think they'll be fine on offense, especially if carter plays well. theyll be middle of the pack in the AL in runs, with an above average staff. should be enough to get them 85 Ws minimum. The Angels and Mariners arent going anywhere. The A's actually won 81 games last year and had a pythagorean win total of 85 and they have only improved. The Rangers will probably slip a bit. It's going to be a good race. Is Carter actually playing anywhere? If Matsui is the DH, I don't see Carter pushing Barton from first. There isn't much room in the outfield after acquiring Willingham and DeJesus.

Yeah, no thanks.