Mephistopheles

The problem is, on a production basis, Carlos Zambrano might be better than all three of them. Rich Harden, while great at pitching, swings the bat like a little leaguer.

And all other things constant, this move would take the Cardinals from an 84 win team to an 87 win team, roughly, if the defense change was nothing. I'd say Greene would cost the Cardinals five or so runs on defense. So we're at, give or take 84.4-->86.6. Given a the standard distribution of wins for a season. If the Cubbies are a true talent 90 win team and the Cardinals are a true talent 86.8 win team. This increase gives the a 62.8% chance the Cubs finish ahead of the Cardinals 33.0% chance the Cardinals win outright. Take away this increase, the Cardinals only have a 24.0% chance. So basically it took the Cardinals from about a 1 in 4 chance of winning the NL Central to a 1 in 3 chance of winning the NL Central. If Greene can duplicate the defense, which is probably pretty likely in the eyes of the Cardinals front office, the Cubs chances drop below 60%. Is that increase worth seven million and a couple prospects for the Cardinals? You know, probably. There's also a pretty high chance that they also gained significant strides in the likelihood of winning the WC. The last few years the WC winner in the NL has been right around 89 wins. If we assume that 89 wins gets them the WC, and that either them or the Cubs win the NL central, then this move takes them from a 49% chance to a 56% chance of making the playoffs. If we further assume that if they get in the playoffs, they face a relatively standard schedule. Say an 90 win team in the first round, 92 win team in the second round and a 92 win team in the third, true talent of course. Then if they're in the playoffs, this move gives them an increase from a 6.9% chance of winning the whole enchilada to a 8.4%. So now let's estimate the entire increase on their probability of winning the World Series. 3.3% Before 4.7% After It may not seem like much, but it's a VERY significant increase. Nearly forty percent increase based on the move. Didn't the Tigers alone make like $30something mil in extra revenue because of their WS run?

Really, I had no idea. I am ignoring defense for a shortstop in my analysis, I'm pretty sure never mentioned anything of the like? I'm pretty sure I have no idea why you're even mentioning marginal wins as X-average. I've used the word marginal once in this thread only because you brought it up. My point was that the value of the wins that Greene generates us over Theriot are worth a lot higher than your typical win. If you want to think of that difference as Greene's marginal wins over RP - Theriot's marginal wins over an RP or average or w/e level you want. Fine. It's a waste of time to calculate that stuff when you can calculate the difference between the two just as easily. If someone really wants to know what I think Greene gives the Cubs over Theriot. I'd project Greene giving the Cubs a .280 or so EqA. I'd peg Ryan Theriot somewhere in the .255 range, give or take. Again, there's no need to be much more precise than ballparks on these sorts of things. That difference, over the course of 660 PAs, is going to be in the high teens for runs, precisely at .280 and .255 it'll be 19.3 or so. There's a few more hidden runs in there in Khalil's advantage that we can ignore for now. You know where they come from on the offensive side of the game. As for their difference in defense. Defensive stat's suck and are for the most part, nearly useless. I'll let you dictate their difference in defense. Let's, for the sake of simplicity, assume the Cubs are a 820/720 team with Theriot, which you can bitch about if you choose to. Any slight difference is irrelevant. First column is defensive difference (+ means Greene is better) +10 - +2.68 W +05 - +2.18 W +00 - +1.68 W -05 - +1.18 W -10 - +0.68 W -17 - +0.00 W I'd probably say the difference between the two is around two wins, for the Cubbies. I'd also say that the two wins at 88 or 90 wins or any total close to that is worth a lot more than $6.5m + decent RP prospects.

Cro Magnon, you know what i meant by that comment

Around 4%, give or take if we're assuming his true talent is at his career road line. I am not saying it was all attributed to luck last season, I'm merely saying that despite our updated value his true talent level has decreased, it hasn't decreased a ton. How much depends on the person. To think it's a complete collapse is a little hasty, for a guy with his track record of production. The most likely scenario is that he was trying to play through a wrist injury, or something of that nature, and it hampered his production significantly. Really, injuries are pretty much the most likely explanations. PECOTA is going to get Khalil Greene wrong. PECOTA isn't equipped to tackle cases like his. Again, I wasn't meaning 3 wins is marginal. I was merely using three as a whole number to explain my point about a team with wins around 90, each individual win has very high value, though a three win increase from Izturis/Slop to Greene has a pretty good chance of happening. No I didn't. I had us at like 90 wins or something. As for the rest of the difference. Sorry I didn't foresee Ryan Dempster becoming a bit of a pitching God and Mark DeRosa having the best year of his career by a significant margin. I can't be Nostradamus or anything. I didn't have us in the low 80s last season. I probably said we had a 30 percent chance going into 2007 though.

and overrates a ton of players on good teams

Washington State's basketball team leads the Pac-10 in scoring defense, giving up 43.8 points per game. Washington State's football team is ranked last in the Pac-10 in scoring defense, giving up ... 43.8 points per game.

Guys go check ebay for some of the prices on SEC Championship tickets. Even crappy seats are fetching a pretty penny.

Well couple that with the fact he only had like 250 or so balls in play, four or five more hits over the course of those ABs isn't a whole lot. The rest of the drop was random.

Except for the part where his OPS away from PETCO has been above .800 3 of 5 seasons (60%) and that his OPS away from PETCO has been above .850 2 of 5 seasons (40%) and that his OPS away from PETCO has been below 775 once. I mean, 200 PAs on the road or 1200? For clarification. When I say expected I mean outside of PETCO in a neutral setting.

It's not that hard to explain. LD% - 20.6 BABIP - .255 That doesn't explain the power outage. The LD% is actually the second highest of his career. He's never been a high BABIP guy, though a large chunk of that may be due to PETCO and his flyball tendencies. Though even in a normal park he won't be anything but an average at best BABIP hitter. Yeah, his HR/FB tanked, but that BABIP is low, even for him. It's probably a combination of factors... bad luck, nagging injuries, and pressing a bit much because his stat line already looked so poor. The BABIP is low because his HR/FB tanked. Basically take out the few homers he didn't get and you have the entire drop in his BABIP. This would be because flyballs that are homers that all of a sudden don't reach the stands are usually called outs. So basically take the change in HR/FB and count all the HRs he didnt get as outs, and we've got his entire decrease in BABIP. As for the cause in lower HRs. Who knows. Injuries, luck, I don't know. Still none of this explains how a guy who had an OPS over .840 on the road in 3 of the 4 previous seasons (his entire career) and 770something the other year has his OPS drop below 600 on the road.

And we're all doing this in our head. I don't think it's shifted the tail of it at all. I think it has just taken some of the lower percentiles down. It's flattened the lower end, if anything. His expected level of production going into last season was probably an .830 or so OPS, with a fairly good chance of hitting .850 or higher. His expected level of production going into this season is probably a little lower, around .800 with a fairly good chance of hitting .850 or higher. Not as likely as it was before 2008, but it's still significant.

It's not that hard to explain. LD% - 20.6 BABIP - .255 That doesn't explain the power outage. The LD% is actually the second highest of his career. He's never been a high BABIP guy, though a large chunk of that may be due to PETCO and his flyball tendencies. Though even in a normal park he won't be anything but an average at best BABIP hitter.

Greene's season last year was inexplicable. It just doesn't make sense. There's really no explanation unless he tried to play the entire time with a hidden wrist injury or something like that. There's struggling, and there's struggling.

Gee didn't Meph used to post there?

Three wins was just a number used to illustrate my point. Even 1 win at 88 wins is worth well over $7 million dollars. My point still stands. Again, what Greene did last year isn't all that important. You can't use it to say he's worse than 14 SSs in the league.

The fact that your opinion on Greene hasn't been revised at all in light of what he did in 2008 (especially on the road, where he was supposed to be so amazing) is very telling. And what it tells us is, the person who earlier said it's pointless to debate anything with you is exactly right. I didn't say that my opinion on Greene hasn't changed. I merely said that the analysis there of what he's capable of is still valid. He's risky, but the potential for an .850 OPS is still there. The probability that he hits that mark, has decreased. I've made no mention that it hasn't. All 2008 did was make him a riskier asset. The potential payout is still quite high. There really wasn't all that much risk before. Now there is. His overall value because of it, has decreased...but at the same time his trade market value has bottomed out because most GMs aren't forward thinkers. While his actual value has decreased, it hasn't decreased nearly as much relative to his perceived value. That's why he's a good move. That's why the Cardinals have routinely been able to match our performance, or better it, over the last decade or so - normally with a lower payroll.

Keep trying to console yourself. It's not going to change the fact that he's probably going to be the best shortstop in the division immediately, if not the entire league. Hanley and Jose wave hello. About a dozen other guys do too. Albert Pujols could field shortstop better than Hanely Ramirez. He's the modern day Derek Jeter not named Derek Jeter. Jose Reyes, eh it's quite possible that Greene outdoes him. Likely, no. Realistically possible? yes. A dozen other guys in the league? That's insanely wrong.

By my numbers, right now the Cubs are probably a true 88 or so win team. The Cubs probability of getting in the post season with 88 wins is probably 50%, maybe a little higher given the sad state of our division. If the Greene was just a slight upgrade (say 3 wins) over Theriot those 3 wins, probably increase the chances of us getting into the playoffs by 30-40%. The playoff revenue generated by the higher probability is likely to offset the 6 million extra spent....not to mention the 30-40% higher chance of getting into the playoffs...and possibly DOUBLING or TRIPLING our chances of getting a world series win. All for a six million.

Keep trying to console yourself. It's not going to change the fact that he's probably going to be the best shortstop in the division immediately, if not the entire league.

IMB!'s just jerking our chain. He'd rather have Greene than Theriot by a large margin if Greene didn't cost 6.5m more.

Be honest. Taking park factors, defense and careers into account, who would you rather have? ryan theriot for like 500k or khalil greene for $6.5mil? Uhhh, neither? i would be really upset if we were going into 2009 with khalil greene pegged as our starting short stop. im not enthused about having theriot there with no back up plan, but at least if it crashes and burns it doesn't cost us almost 7 million dollars. the way things are going with the market right now it seems as if we either spend those 7 mil or we dont. in other words sure it costs 7 mil, but it's just some fat cats money. if we didnt get greene, im not so sure we're spending those 7 mil elsewhere. that being said im probably taking the cubs budget as softer than it really is. I'd rather gamble on greene with 7 mil than dempster with 13 or w/e he makes next year (and the next four years) - easy. its not that we dont gamble, we do, we just like to gamble with high risk, low payouts.

I dunno, I called like every pick in the draft in 2007. I also shadowed a few of the drafts. Right now we'd have Travis Snider, Jason Heyward, Michael Burgess, and Isaac Galloway if it were up to me.

The Cards had a bum that only put up a .690(ish) Ops. Now they got a guy that put up a .599 for almost 3X the cost. Good move. You're completely lost here. What they got doesn't matter. What Greene did doesn't matter. This is why it has always been pointless to argue with you. The magic Mepho dust says that a .599 OPS at $6.5MM is a good bargain for unknown players. Now you can see why most people don't take you seriously, or even bother to reply to your posts. I am pretty sure that whenever I talk baseball, everyone here takes me seriously. They may not agree with what I am saying, but they certainly take whatever my point is seriously. The "magic Mepho dust" does not say that a .599 OPS at $6.5M is a good bargain. What I said is that what they got out of shortstop in 2008 and what Greene did does not matter. I understand you're new around here. Read this for my thoughts on Khalil Greene. It's a year old, but hey it doesn't really change much despite the struggles of Greene last season.

The Cards had a bum that only put up a .690(ish) Ops. Now they got a guy that put up a .599 for almost 3X the cost. Good move. You're completely lost here. What they got doesn't matter. What Greene did doesn't matter.