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davearm2

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  1. I'm not supporting anything. I'm laughing at all of the colossal leaps to judgement going on here. Heck one person intimated that this book seeks to disprove sabermetrics because one time, a bird got hit with a baseball. Seriously? That's what you expect this book is about?
  2. The point that the people who can think critically were making is that the premise and central thesis of the book is completely stupid, and completely deserves to be mocked and ridiculed. Unless you've read it, or at a minimum seen more than just one review of it, then you don't know what the premise and central thesis of the book is. Fair point, but what could you really expect to learn from such a book? Would you want the Cub's FO to adhere to it's tenets? Who knows what you might learn from such a book. Probably nothing if you go into it expecting it to suck. And who said anything about front offices adhering to this book's tenets? That seems to miss this book's point badly.
  3. The point that the people who can think critically were making is that the premise and central thesis of the book is completely stupid, and completely deserves to be mocked and ridiculed. Unless you've read it, or at a minimum seen more than just one review of it, then you don't know what the premise and central thesis of the book is.
  4. By this you mean the lone dissenting voice has been sufficiently mocked and shouted down. It's been a while since we've had a groupthink meme post. I, for one, welcome it back. Just so it can be shouted down. And mocked. Oh groupthink is alive and well here at NSBB, and on full display in this thread.
  5. It's hilarious how many folks posting in this thread have such a decisive and unambiguously critical review of a book they've never read. And for the record, that's really the only point the one guy was making. Why not read the darn thing, and then form an informed opinion rather than a laughably reflexive one? It's conceivable that in the process you might actually learn something, or gain a new perspective.
  6. By this you mean the lone dissenting voice has been sufficiently mocked and shouted down.
  7. Calling out the bullies and jerks AND questioning sabermetrics all in one thread. This will not end well.
  8. Then you're making the contract more expensive ...which makes it more appealing to Pujols. I would do something like this: 10 years, 280M 30 30 30 30 30 27 24 21 18 15 Plus deferred payments of $5m/yr for 5 additional years to bring it up to the $280M. The frontloading and the deferments somewhat cancel each other. The NPV of the deal is $238.1M @ 3%, versus $238.9 for 10 equal annual payments of $28M each. If he'd agree to make the last year or two mutual options, all the better. Do we still operate under the assumption that payrolls will continue to rise? Do we also still operate under the assumption that a dollar today has more value than a dollar in 10 years? If so, you don't have to frontload to frontload. Fair points. A certain amount of quasi-frontloading is implicit. Here I'm just exploring mechanisms to expand the impacts, since there are advantages to both the team and the player.
  9. To figure the NPV of the contract, you need to estimate the risk-free rate, not the rate of salary growth. If Pujols thinks baseball contracts are going to increase 10% a year indefinitely, then he should sign for one year, not ten. I was just using that to show that the baseball teams earn more than 3% on their money. Even in this economy I assume 5% for 10 years and we don't get the returns that baseball does. 10-year treasury bill rates are not at 5% anymore. The returns that baseball gets are not relevant. They are not risk-free. Some would argue that a truer indicator of the risk-free rate would come from a 3-month t-bill. Those are well under 1%, and have been for a few years now.
  10. To figure the NPV of the contract, you need to estimate the risk-free rate, not the rate of salary growth. If Pujols thinks baseball contracts are going to increase 10% a year indefinitely, then he should sign for one year, not ten.
  11. Or try this on for size: 9 years/$270M, w/ 6 years of deferred payments: 30 30 30 27.5 27.5 27.5 25 25 25 5 5 5 2.5 2.5 2.5 Pujols hits the magic $30M AAV, the NPV is contained somewhat by the deferments ($231.1M @ 3%), and most importantly, the annual salaries are set up to mirror (loosely) the expected age-related decline in production.
  12. Then you're making the contract more expensive ...which makes it more appealing to Pujols. I would do something like this: 10 years, 280M 30 30 30 30 30 27 24 21 18 15 Plus deferred payments of $5m/yr for 5 additional years to bring it up to the $280M. The frontloading and the deferments somewhat cancel each other. The NPV of the deal is $238.1M @ 3%, versus $238.9 for 10 equal annual payments of $28M each. If he'd agree to make the last year or two mutual options, all the better.
  13. any reason? i know he isn't going to a friendly ballpark, but he was still a beast in arlington and that's about as bad as it gets Heck he's already been very good in Philly.
  14. the probability of this should also increase with the switch to the N.L. That holds true for pitchers much more than for hitters, no? The true talent level in pitching isn't skewed to the AL is it?
  15. I'd love for each of the 6 divisions to have 5 teams, but then that leads into having interleague play year round (GOD FORBID) and I know there's a lot of opposition against that for whatever reason. I figure if they can swing it in the NFL, NBA, NHL, etc then baseball could figure it out, too. I just don't see baseball doing it. It's too big of a change, and baseball doesn't seem to like change much. This is the issue right here. You can't have 15 NL teams and 15 AL teams without having year-round interleague play. I could see that happening eventually, but not as long as Selig is the commish. You'd need to have a guy in charge that's a) much more progressive, and b) very persuasive, to change the minds of enough of the "old-school" baseball power brokers.
  16. How much do you think albert brings in on jersey sales? I would think that market is pretty much tapped out since he has been there so long and everybody who wants a Pujols jersey already has one. MLB merchandising revenue is shared equally between all clubs (except a small cutout -- the teams keep what they sell at their own ballpark, IIRC). StL would actually stand to make more $$$ on Pujols jerseys if he changes teams.
  17. I've seen this true with Rangers games as well. One thing to remember about teams like the Rangers and Royals is that they don't have a capped off ticket base like the Cubs and Red Sox and other teams like that. So, even though they have put single game seats on sale, they are still trying to add season ticket holders. To do so, they have to have seats to sell to those. So, they have held seats backs to offer as season ticket seats and mini-plan seats. They will even hold those into the season as they can say you can sit in this seat for the remainder of the season as a season ticket holder. As those games get closer and they still haven't sold those packages, they release seats. Any idea why the Cubs and Red Sox would cap their season ticket sales? Why not sell the entire stadium on a season ticket basis if you could, like, say, the GB Packers do.
  18. I really can't blame scalpers for wanting to make easy money, but I philosophically agree with your statement. I know a lot of people who buy tickets only to re-sell them, but I personally would feel a little shady making a large profit at someone else's expense. I wouldn't sweat it. The "someone else" you refer to is the Red Sox. They could have had that money for themselves if they charged more. As it is, with demand > supply, a lucrative secondary market is inevitable, regardless of whether or not you participate.
  19. From the standpoint of economic efficiency, the tickets should go to whomever is willing to pay the most for them. This is just a step in that direction, and there shouldn't be a big issue with it. As much as folks killed them for it, the Cubs' little ticket scalping operation was another step in the same direction. So was the auctioning of the CBOE front row tickets.
  20. They are. Nobody's arguing that the outing didn't wind up adversely impacting Harang. The issues are, a) was this reasonably foreseeable, and b) were there better options available. The answer to a) is, basically no. The answer to b) is, using the next day's starter is the only real viable one IMO, and even then it's a highly debatable point. oh i see, it was not reasonably foreseeable to think that having a guy throw 62 pitches on two days' rest after throwing 100+ pitches in his last outing might be rendered injured or less effective in subsequent starts. The added risk of injury was trivial relative to any other start. It was clear that Harang's workload would need to be curtailed in his next start, and it was. Lingering issues months later were not reasonably foreseeable.
  21. They are. Nobody's arguing that the outing didn't wind up adversely impacting Harang. The issues are, a) was this reasonably foreseeable, and b) were there better options available. The answer to a) is, basically no. The answer to b) is, using the next day's starter is the only real viable one IMO, and even then it's a highly debatable point.
  22. This is 100% 20/20 hindsight, and thus completely worthless to the discussion. Any manager should be fired on the spot for assuming a game in May is meaningless with his team 6 games back, and conceding winnable games based on that fatalistic perspective. Frankly I'm astonished that someone with the baseball knowledge you have would even consider arguing this line of reasoning. It's complete nonsense. Harang's history with the Reds prior to this game suggested the guy was pretty much impervious to abuse. Running him out there was one of, if not THE best option, given the extreme circumstances. Using the next day's starter instead of Harang is a very valid alternative, for sure.
  23. A) You saying the game was "nearly meaningless" doesn't make it true. B) Some position player who hasn't pitched in a game, maybe ever, is at a far greater risk of injury than is a starter filling in on short rest. Anyone stop to think that just maybe Harang's issues stem less from an emergency relief outing in 2008 than from three straight years in the top 5 in pitcher abuse points 2005-2007?
  24. It's more likely that the game matters than the pitcher gets injured. The dangers inherent in pitching are what they are. Assuming Harang got a proper warmup that night, there's no viable reason to expect that outing was likely to ruin his career, any more than his next scheduled start could've ruined his career. If there is any difference in the level of risk in the two scenarios, it'd be infinitesimally small. If you want to forfeit a game versus assume an injury risk that is hardly at all any different than throwing a guy out there in normal circumstances, then that's your prerogative. Seems pretty ridiculous to me, but to each his own. And we haven't even gotten into the message it sends to the team when your manager quits trying to win a tie game, assumes that the team is dead in the water in May, etc.
  25. I'll keep my eyes peeled in the game threads this year for all the folks screaming for the Cubs to give up in an extra-inning tie game so that nobody risks getting hurt. Or better yet, just point me to an old game thread where that happened.
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