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I think bader is in stl regardless.
I think the interesting guy here is valera. It just looks to me like they want to give the Swiss army knife a shot to stick so they can carry more pitchers (like they are probably going to do anyway).
I do agree with carioca in saying we should be going the other direction too…
There should be some sort of upgrade out there for us — somewhere. You can’t accumulate numbers like this without it biting you in the ass eventually.
Even now we’ve got too many outfielders. I know that you dont want to trade all your depth but when you’re shoving age appropriate prospects down to aa because the two rosters above them are full you’ve simply got too many guys.
Hard to argue with another bullpen arm and a guy with a 100 mph arm for an outfielder that is eminently replaceable and sooner rather than later.
We probably have six guys not named fowler, pham and osuna that can give us what grich gave us last year or damn close (more in most cases) — bader, O’Neill, ja garcia, valera, Mercado, and arozarena. Maybe the last three are a slight stretch but the first three are not.
When you have a situation like that and you get what we got, you made the right move. I’d probably look into moving MORE people for the right deals.
He broke two century long curses and his “mistakes” didn’t cost the red sox even half a decade.
Rather hard to be overrated.
That doesnt lessen him… People make mistakes.
Sometimes not trying is the mistake. Especially when you have stagnated a bit (or a lot).
No.
They need some more dombrowski (not much, some).
They’ve got talent. They’ve got trade pieces. They don’t have the stones to go get great players.
Dont agree in the slightest brian.
“We are going to try” generally is a non sensical statement meant to put off or pacify. And they use it liberally.
A rather famous muppet once said “do or do not… There is no try.” Now while I don’t always agree with the philosophy he espoused (to put it mildly), the point here is that if all you are doing is trying, you’ve got issues.
Getting things done in the real world takes a different mindset… For a multitude of reasons.
Other teams figure out your line in the sand and outbid you. Or just wont work with you. Or other things.
At the end of the day, they keep ending up with mediocre players because they dont have the stones to pull the trigger on big ones. That takes TRYING… Which is the definition of the word that I use.
His definition of trying is most definitely different from mine. His hits a wall and he quits.
Mine goes and gets what we need to be a better team.
If you are going to try and win, you need to actually go after good players occasionally… Or you arent trying.
Mudville it would probably be worse than that. He would have a 300 million payroll and when that tanked we would be the Phillies for a decade.
Three years tops because we would be broke by then.
This front office has negatives. But it does need to be said that they’ve win world series and done some things right.
You can argue drafting pujols was luck incarnate… But you can say that about virtually every great player. Trout or grichuk? One player apart in the draft.
Getting good has a lot of luck involved.
I vent about what I feel are blind spots. I dont feel like they are trying to do more than the bare minimum to look like they are trying.
Why do I feel that way? Because when you’re trying, generally mvp candidates are involved. At least one.
Stanton counts… But it didn’t get done. Yet again. Which is par for the course.
Like it or not, you’re generally not judged in life for what you almost got done.
Or if you are it is not a good thing.
I dont begrudge yadi his contract. Imo he earned it.
I do think kelly should be our starter as early as this year.
If you were gm we would never have any young talent.
ever.
You’d have already traded it all.
Emulating you is not wise on any level.
But when you’re right you’re right. I’d like to think that for as many times as I’ve ripped you, I don’t close my mind to your thoughts.
Honestly … when I find myself agreeing with nate, you know the front office has spewed a lot of bs… because nate is honestly NOT someone to emulate as a gm.
We needed three true high WAR players or outright upgrades (a true high end closer isnt high WAR but would count in my opinion).
We got one.
Playing for the wild card and essentially giving the cubs the division isn’t acceptable. Yeah it is baseball and stuff happens but when you have the young pitching to deal and don’t… Then effectively block them… Nothing makes sense.
“These trades cost too much.” Well that’s the point. You have to pay to play.
Having the chips and not having the willpower to go for things is in many ways worse than just outright sucking.
Everyone knows we wont sign a big free agent. So that’s out.
We won’t pay in trades for big name players unless we are giving our lesser prospects. So that’s out.
What is there to look forward to?
Being stuck in mediocrity with a ton of trade capital and waiting for lightning in a bottle is not acceptable. You’re going to wait a long time.
Case in point : marlins fire sale once a decade. So we have to wait ten more years for another one. So we are stuck at 85-90 wins in the meantime and watch our rivals win and maybe win a wild card game occasionally until then?
And thats if we actually … Maybe … Make a kinda big trade?
Maybe?
Im sorry but at some point either you (fill in the blank) or get off the pot.
Right now we are just collecting checks and enjoying them. Until we actually want to win again this isnt going to change.
If you want my professional opinion… Mo and the ownership are caught in a loop where they think they are smart, are trying to outsmart everyone, and smarting themselves into a corner where the other teams just let them stay mediocre because they won’t catch lightning in a bottle very often.
Basically… By trying so hard not to make mistakes they are making the mistake.
That’s how fowler gets that contract. Thats how you pay for a mediocre closer instead of a good one.
Difference makers cost. You cant always get lucky with pujols and a slew of other players.
Pavin Smith and jasrado Chisholm is where I would probably go with that.
1b who will hit and should develop some power. Good eye.
Toolsy ss with big upside, younger and did passably in the midwest league.
Not sure I would take all of that contrAct for those two.. But that’s who I would look toward.
I think that the fact that the cards dont cater to big name players has been made obvious has hurt too…
“This contract is too much…” etc has probably been driven home to the point that people dont feel like we are trying to win.
You refuse to make deals for big names.
You come in second on free agents repeatedly.
…and your team has stagnated.
…people notice and call you on it sooner or later.
I see no reason several of the pitchers couldnt be put in a 2011 lance lynn role and brought up provided we have a closer to shut the door.
It is one reason I have been somewhat in favor of signing wade davis.
Lock down the back end and we have a stupid amount of young fireballers to throw in the middle innings.
Not sure it was you I heard it elsewhere too.
Either way… We have the means to improve due to the sheer number of players involved and should do so.
Use it or lose it and all that.
I can understand wanting to hold off a year for players to mature… But the players we would want/need to get for real improvement are available now and might not be in free agency due to the money numbers involved.
At some point the owners have to put on big boy pants and make moves. One move to improve (and another to create space) was never going to be enough.
…plus the guys that could earn september callups.
Gomber, knizner, ja garcia, arozarena, etc.
Our upper minors have a ridiculous number of probable contributors in the “almost ready” category.
In your average year most teams have 3-4 guys graduate in some way to the bigs.
We should have about 15-20 in the next 18 months if you throw in reyes, flaherty, kelly, etc. (makes sense since they havent really done a full year yet).
There is a reason people were daying we might be able to field two .500 teams last year.
..because if there are bigger fish to fry than adjusting your payroll to get better players by removing BY FAR the worst negative value on your team then your priorities are wrong.
Edit : by negative value I mean we are paying him way more for longer than he is giving us. 2nd worst is yadi but at least yadi has mitigating reasons to keep him to an extent (training kelly and he is better than stats are really able to capture in some areas).
All you have to do to prove that WAR numbers arent all created equal is to try and put together a lineup with 27 1-WAR players.
Then put together one with nine 3-WAR players.
If you cant figure out the reasons I say WAR value is exponential and not linear, you got issues.
..and that memphis team plus those three players would be better than the team we have now. There’s a reason people were saying we could field two .500 teams last year.
1 war is worth exponentially more the better the player.
For fowler? Nope. Definitely not.
Fowler is worth 10 million per year if you are feeling extremely generous. And that’s if he gets above 3 WAR CONSISTENTLY.
1-3 war players are by definition replaceable and worth less.
Another one — something like 70-80% of WAR value is accumulated by those above 4. Which means 70-80% of major league salary value is accumulated by … 50 or so players.
Which means you divide 70-80% of total baseball salaries into those 50 players to see how the math works. Higher WAR is obviously worth significantly more.
It is EXPONENTIAL. I understand people arent good at math or dont understand stuff like that but NO WAY is someone like fowler EVER worth even remotely pondering keeping much less trying to defend.
The value is in superstars or young low paid players (preferably both).
Let me put it as starkly amd bluntly as I can on the WAR math.
(Provided they are healthy) we would be better off signing trout, stanton, and kershaw for 60 million per year apiece and surrounding them with the memphis redbirds right now than we would screwing around with people like fowler.
The contract is a bad joke.
I have never said garbage. Ever.
I HAVE said the money is better allocated elsewhere by WIDE margins.
He is mediocre.
We are not paying him to be mediocre.
And yeah… Ok. 3 WAR on fangraphs. Yay. If you are impressed you arent paying attention.
We are paying him more. 3 WAR in center is 2 on the corners.
3 WAR is worth ten million per year or so. You dont accumulate value until mich higher.
… And yes, I realize we never would sign anyone but superstars the way I do the math. That’s the point. Paying for mediocrity makes you mediocre.
Brian..
1.8 WAR last year and he is moving to a position where it takes more to get better comparisons. Also, defense won’t get any better, just have something different to compare to… Either way true value is HARDER to accumulate at a corner than in center.
Balanced is one thing. Balance requires that you look at alternatives and compare. The number of alternatives at corners is significantly higher and thus his contract is significantly stupider regardless of any patience you want to show.
Trying to be patient and justify only puts off the inevitable.
2.2 WAR career average in center. That’s a decade of stats for backup.
Guess how bad that contract will look in right or left considering how awful it looked in center?
