Why signing the best players matters
by tflach2 on Dec 15, 2010 3:15 PM EST
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PrintAlternate Title: How can the 2011 Orioles become the 2008 Rays?
There has been a lot of discussion on the Open Threads lately about whether or not we should spend the money for a short term stop-gap to play first base next year. A lot of the discussion has been centered around the fact that we are predetermined to fail next year. And fail miserably. This is not true. I will defend to the death our need to sign the best player available at every position in the hopes of winning next year. For one, because I want to see the best possible Orioles team each year, and I'm tired of losing and being the butt of the jokes of my Red Sox, Yankees, and even Rays fan friends (and yes I have them all!). Secondly, recent history has shown that a team very similar to the 2010 Baltimore Orioles can win the AL East in the following season. I am talking about the 2007 Tampa Bay Devil Rays. While it's true that we can't exercise any demons by expelling any satanic references from our moniker, we can make the small changes necessary to turn a putrid record into an American League Championship Team!!
Here is a list of the 9 position players on the 2007 Tampa Bay Devil Rays that had the most plate appearances and their seasonal WAR for 2007... some of the names should sound familiar:
Dioner Navarro 0.3
Carlos Pena 5.3
Ty Wigginton 0.5
Brendan Harris -0.4
Akinori Iwamura 2.2
BJ Upton 4.7
Carl Crawford 2.9
Delmon Young -1.1
Jonny Gomes 0.2
That is a total WAR of 14.6 for the mainstay lineup on a 2007 TBDR team that went 66-96 (hmmm... also sounds familiar). So let's take a look... who sucks? 5 players on this team were at or near replacement level. The Rays replaced 4 of those players before their pennant winning season in 2008. They replaced Wigglypuff at 2nd with Iwamura (so in effect they replaced him with Longoria). They replaced new Oriole Brendan Harris at short with not new Oriole Jason Bartlett. They replaced Delmon Young and Jonny Gomes with a combination of Eric Hinske and Willy Aybar. Here are the new WARs
Dioner Navarro 2.2
Carlos Pena 2.9
Akinori Iwamura 1.5
Jason Bartlett 0.3
Evan Longoria 3.8
BJ Upton 4.0
Eric Hinske 0.8
Carl Crawford 2.3
Willy Aybar 1.1
That is a new WAR of 18.9. A modest 4.3 increase in WAR from 2007, but clearly a much better line-up.
So let me get this straight? The Rays upgraded at 3rd base and SS, and took their two other worst positions and added 1-win stop-gaps... and then they went on the win the American League?!? How did they do it?
YOUNG PITCHING!!! And guess who has a bunch of that?
Rays 2007 Rotation/Age/War
Shields/25/5.3
Kazmir/23/5.8
Jackson/23/0.3
Sonnanstine/24/0.8
Hammel/24/0.3
No mentor on that staff, by the way. Just a bunch of young arms with talent. 2 of them already valuable, 3 of them a little above replacement level. The only change between this staff and the 2008 staff is Matt Garza, another young arm coming off a 0.9 WAR season in Minnesota. So, between the 6 young arms that they had going into the 2008 season, they ended up getting the following seasons from their top 5 starters.
Shields/3.6
Sonnanstine/1.3
Garza/3.2
Jackson/2.1
Kazmir/3.5
So they added another 1.2 wins on their staff, which I don't think tells the whole story. They went from 2 great starters and 3 below average ones to 5 above average starters in the course of 1 season. They went from a median of 0.8 to 3.2, while shrinking the range from best to worst from 5.5 to 2.3, both of which are AMAZING! All of this due to young pitchers realizing their potential. Of course, some of this was luck. There was no guarantee that Sonnanstine and Jackson, two middling pitchers since then would both be so good in 2008, and there is no guarantee that the young arms on the 2011 Orioles will improve at the same rate that the 2008 Rays staff improved. But their is actual proof that it can happen, and the pitching staff of the Orioles, as currently constituted CAN improve enough in the next season to make this team competitive.
We are making all of the similar moves that the 2008 Rays made. We are replacing our worst WAR players: Wigginton 1.2; Atkins -1.0; Izturis -0.4; Tejada -0.4; Bell -1.4 with AT LEAST stop-gap level players. I think Reynolds can come close to Longoria's 3.8 WAR, and Hardy can easily beat Bartlett's 0.3 season. And our young pitching is getting 1 year older. Will they blow up and be all they can be next year? I don't know, but it's possible. Our bullpen isn't great, but it isn't a terrible liability at the moment. So why can't the 2011 Orioles compete? I say they can, and the 2008 Rays agree with me.
So we have a choice, we can play some young guys at 1st base, throw them all against the wall and see who sticks. Or we can sign a 2 win player like LaRoche or Lee, and hope that we can catch lightning in a bottle. I say that it has to be the latter. What if those 2008 Rays said what some people are suggesting? 'We suck, and we are going to suck next year, so let's not go after stop-gaps like Hinske and Aybar. Let's not trade for Bartlett. We'll stick our young players out there, and wait for our young pitching to mature... because they will be the core of our next winning team."
It is so hard to be competitive in this division, playing against the Red Sox and the Yankees. What if the Rays had just raised the white flag on 2008... and then the young pitching had the season that they had, but they are still putting a line-up out there with Delmon Young and Brendan Harris and Johnny Gomes? They would have wasted 1 of their 2 divisions crowns and their only AL pennant, that's for sure. And that's probably all they are going to get for a long time. Do you want the Orioles to throw away a potential for a pennant because we are not trying to field the best possible team? I know I don't.
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The most amazing thing about the 2008 and 2010 Rays
For me, it’s the # of starts not made by their top 5 starters:
In 2008, 9 (including 5 by Jason Hammel and 1 by David Price)
In 2010, 8 (4 each by Sonnanstine and Hellickson)
The Rays have done a lot of things right, but they also have had a fair amount of good fortune. Now maybe you make your own luck, but nonetheless, not having to swing starters and the such doesn’t hurt. Their success goes beyond that, but I think the lack of injuries to their starters is overlooked.
If you look at those UZR ratings or whatever
They can't count on using a #5 fewer than 10 times a year every year
You’re right, they’re not going to get that lucky for an extended period many times.
"It has nothing to do with corruption. It's sheer, complete, total incompetence." - Joe Rogan
I agree they were very lucky both times, especially in 2008...
but it does show a script for how this team can compete this year. Trim all the fat, and get really lucky with young pitching. If we stick a string of replacement level minor league prospects at first base, then we haven’t trimmed all the fat from our 2010 roster.
I am not saying that following the same script will mean that we WILL have same results are the 2008 Rays. I am just saying that their season shows that it is possible, and it is the GM’s job to make sure that if it is possible to win the division, that he is doing everything in his power to make it so.
LaRoche > Snyder/et.al. Maybe it’s only two wins, but if everything else happens to us that happened to the Rays young pitching staff in 2008, then those 2 wins could be the difference between winning the division and wasting a great season.
"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.."
i dont think those 2 wins that LaRoche is expected to add make the difference between winning the division and wasting a great season.
But, I think the main point of your article still stands. It’s the two wins from LaRoche, two wins from Reynolds, and two wins from Hardy that make the difference.
That is, of course, assuming, we have a breakout year from several players. Players, it should be noted, who are expected to breakout any day now..
I have zero faith the Orioles can compete in 2011,
But that doesn’t mean the team can’t significantly improve (where 78 wins is a significant improvement). I’m just not measuring the team that way. Building a competitive team is a process (trust the process! LOL), and I have a hard time figuring that even 2/3rds of the things that need to go right for them to be competitive could happen. Matusz, Arrieta, Tillman and Bergesen are 4 talented pitchers, who aren’t nearly in the same arena as the 2007 versions of Shields, Sonnanstine, Kazmir and Jackson.
The turnaround when Showalter arrived was the dramatic, and likely unsustainable, improvement by the starting rotation. If the goal is to compete in 2011, I like Guts and Matusz, though Arrieta, 3E1N and Tillman don’t exactly inspire confidence. (Again, that’s if the goal is to compete next year, not beyond, which is why I like 2 of those 3 in the rotation.)
Regarding the offense, while the new Oriole bats are improved, 13 WAR by their top 4 (Upton, Longoria, Pena, Crawford) I would think would set too high a bar for Roberts, Markakis, Reynolds and Scott (or whichever 4 lead the Orioles in 2011).
If you look at those UZR ratings or whatever
Heh
No Oriole had a WAR of 3.8 all of last year. Meaning Longoria in 2008 was better than anyone on our roster, including Reynolds. And he did that despite missing the first two weeks of the season before he was called up and missing half of August and early September with a wrist fracture. We don’t even have anyone who can match B.J. Upton’s WAR total from either 2007 or 2008.
I don’t understand why you would look at a 2 WAR player and a 4 WAR player and not realize that the 4 WAR player is actually twice as good as the 2 WAR player. It is a huge, huge difference. Reynolds has never been worth more than 2.2 WAR, and has been worth less than 1 WAR two of his four seasons. Longoria’s 3.8 in 2008 is by far his lowest total in three seasons. There is just no comparison.
To be understood is to be a prostitute. ~ Fernando Pessoa
Yeah, but if Wieters and AJones reach their potential
Then all the sudden we have perhaps Longoria and Upton level star players. And to not have them being dragged down by worthless players at first base makes sense!
Of course a 4 win player is better than a 2 win player. The point is when you have a young talented team capable of blowing up at any moment, take advantage of it!
Plus I have the feeling that winning begets winning.
Just because you know how to read, doesn't mean you'll like the book.
by arlingtonOsFan on Dec 16, 2010 7:54 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
That's a big "if"
Further, look at how the Rays built that team. Did they go out and get expensive players on soon to expire contracts or free agents? No, they added a young starter (Garza), a young shortstop with years of team control (Bartlett, who had four years remaining), and a cheap utility player to man right in Hinske who wasn’t close to being the best available stopgap.
Further, the worst to first saga of the Rays kinda disproves the whole “winning begets winning” thing.
To be understood is to be a prostitute. ~ Fernando Pessoa
by James F on Dec 16, 2010 8:13 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
This also overlooks the fact that they already had two four win players in 2007
If we had two four win players, I might be inclined to agree.
To be understood is to be a prostitute. ~ Fernando Pessoa
I'm not saying the thing is a mirror image.
The idea is that a lot of stuff can break right all at once, in fact statistics suggest that eventually even the O’s will have a lot of stuff break right all at once. We can see right now the potential for some stuff to break right for us, why waste what might be a good season with replacement level players dragging down the team?
And by winning begets winning I meant that once that team started winning, they kept winning, not relating to the previous season.
Just because you know how to read, doesn't mean you'll like the book.
by arlingtonOsFan on Dec 16, 2010 8:21 PM EST up reply actions
We can see right now the potential for some stuff to break right for us, why waste what might be a good season with replacement level players dragging down the team?
Because we’re seeing what we want to see, not what is there. Saying that there is a chance someone will win the lottery doesn’t make buying lottery tickets a sound investment. I know that if I invest wisely and don’t take risky bets, I will become rich eventually. What you are suggesting is that if we take risky bets, we might just get rich quick. And I can’t say you are wrong, exactly; someone does win the lottery. But the chances are astronomically slim, while I can say with a high degree of certainty that my approach will succeed over time.
To be understood is to be a prostitute. ~ Fernando Pessoa
by James F on Dec 16, 2010 8:28 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
That's a dumb mis characterization of what I said.
Who exactly is advocating high risk moves? In what way is bringing in a guy who is proven to be a plus player for a year or two more risky than running out random no-names and waiting for some possible future all-star to magically sync up with all of our other simultaneously peaking all stars?
What’s your point, exactly?
I’m sorry, I’m a little riled up right now from watching Mitch McConnell and friends just baldly lie for the last hour on C-Span 2.
Just because you know how to read, doesn't mean you'll like the book.
by arlingtonOsFan on Dec 16, 2010 8:38 PM EST up reply actions
Spending at least $5M over one year...
…and since LaRoche is looking for a three year deal, according to the rumormill, probably a lot more than that, with a very low chance that it will make any positive long term impact on the fortune of the Orioles is not a high risk move? It certainly seems to me that there is a high risk your $5M+ will be wasted.
To be understood is to be a prostitute. ~ Fernando Pessoa
A team that is willing to waste 12M on Kevin Gregg
has the capital to spend on Adam LaRoche…. and spend a crap load of money on the draft, and developing players. The fact that they choose not to do the latter is not a solid reason not to do the former with the cards that we have to play in 2011. There are no solutions on the corners in our minor league system. C’est la vie. I would like for them to fix that, but it is a process… a process that they are very very slowly addressing. As a man of flesh and blood, I cannot wait forever. The 2011 Orioles have a solid if unspectacular core, a core that won’t be around long enough to see a 2011 draft pick come up through the system to man 1B. In the interim, we have to decide each year what is in the best interest of the team. Putting Adam LaRoche (or Derrek Lee) on 1B, I feel, is in the best interest of the 2011 Baltimore Orioles.
"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.."
I would counter
If we had an internal option, even a untested one with a statistical case for the ability to learn on the job, you would be correct. But our MiLB 1B options are practically non-existent.
I hate to say a MiLB player has no chance before we even stick him in the lineup, but to fool ourselves into thinking Brandon Waring or Joe Mahoney will come up and have even a lottery ticket of a chance of playing 0.5 WAR baseball is to disregard all statistical evidence.
Aside from a platoon of Luke and Nolan at DH/1B, we have no one. I won’t say literally no one, because I’m sure there’s a beer vendor or two who would happily don a glove and do his/her best, but we have no one in our system with a reasonable prayer of being adequate any year soon.
So, if we’re spending money anyway, and money that will not be diverted from other resources even if left unspent, then signing the best available FA for the shortest deal makes sense.
"It has nothing to do with corruption. It's sheer, complete, total incompetence." - Joe Rogan
I am not sure what your approach is... that
"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.."
is I understand what you don't want
But I don’t know what how you want the Orioles to win. The idea of growing the organization from within makes sense. And I think it is what the Rays have done. But eventually, in order to make that step, you have to have a core that is going to take you to the next level. You have to have a bunch of young guys that are coming into their own at the same time, and their development needs to be what takes us where we need to go. But you won’t have 9 guys that develop at the same time, and clearly not 14. There will be holes, and there will always be holes, no matter how good your farm system is. I think we have a good core of young players, and for this team to have an aggregate WAR of 18.9 for full time position players next year is not a stretch if he put a 2 win player at first base.
Things need to break our way, of course they do. They will always have to break our way if you are building from within… so why are you assuming in December that this year is not the year that it happens? What are we waiting for?
"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.."
A lineup of
Wieters
Laroche
Roberts
Hardy
Reynolds
Pie
Jones
Markakis
Scott
had an aggregate of 13.2 last year… and that’s with roberts and hardy injured for much of the season; reynolds with a down year; and jones, pie and wieters not playing to their presumed potential. This line-up could be as good as the ‘08 Rays. It probably won’t be, but it could be… and it’s much more likely with LaRoche at first than some minor leaguer.
"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.."
OK
Yankees
Posada
Teixeira
Cano
Jeter
A-Rod
Gardner
Granderson
Swisher
Whoever they pay to DH
Red Sox
Varitek/Saltalamacchia
Adrian Gonzalez
Pedroia
Scutaro/Lowrie
Youklis
Crawford
Ellsbury
Drew
Ortiz
Rays
Jaso
Whoever they get to play first
Zobrist
Brignac
Longoria
Jennings
Upton
Joyce
Whoever they get to DH
We don’t play in a vacuum. Our ideal lineup doesn’t bring us close to the Yankees or Red Sox, and it takes a lot breaking right for us to be even with the Rays. Our ideal lineup also features no fewer than four guys with poor track records of staying healthy; if/when one or more of Roberts, Hardy, Pie and Jones goes down, we’ll look a lot less pretty, especially in the infield where our depth remains shitty. I’ll admit your lineup is a lot prettier to look at than the ones the Orioles have fielded for many years. But the truth is that Roberts is on the downside of his career, Jones will probably never learn to take a pitch and Markakis will never hit 25 home runs. So even if Wieters becomes what he can be, we’re still another big bat away. Is LaRoche this year worth no Fielder next year?
Put another way, do you know how much the prospects that the Red Sox dealt for Adrian Gonzalez cost? Less than ten million, all spent in the past three years. The prospects the Yankees dealt for Swisher were less than three million, and I’d much rather have Swisher playing first in that lineup than LaRoche. Put another way: the two pitchers we sent to Arizona for Reynolds cost less than a million dollars combined to sign. So you don’t have to develop nine guys at the same time. You develop prospects to get the best major league talent, whether by having them become stars in your organization or by trading them for other team’s stars.
To be understood is to be a prostitute. ~ Fernando Pessoa
I am not in awe of the Yankees or Rays lineup...
the Red Sox (if healthy) are tough, and I expect them to win the East… but the Yankees are a year older… and it is an important year for the left side of their infield. I don’t expect them to stay healthy, either. SS and 3B don’t play into their late 30’s, why should these guys be any different?
The Rays line-up will have at least 2 replacement players, 1 rookie, and a 2011 version of BJ Upton… which if it’s anything like the ’10 version will lead the league in swinging and missing at outside sliders.
If I were making predictions on 2011 (based on today’s rosters + LaRoche), I would say that the Red Sox win 97 games, and the Rays, Yankees, Orioles and Blue Jays all finish in the 80’s. (Ok, if you were to hold me to it, I would predict that the Yankees win 89, Rays 87, Blue Jays 84, and Orioles 80). And maybe 9 games out of 2nd isn’t great, but that’s close enough to try (and better than we’ve done in a long time).
"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.."
I think Adam Jones has led the league in that category since like 2003
Just because you know how to read, doesn't mean you'll like the book.
by arlingtonOsFan on Dec 17, 2010 12:29 AM EST up reply actions
I dunno... I live in Tampa so I have to watch Upton
It’s a train wreck. The dude cannot hit that pitch… and yet cannot stop swinging at it. I have never seen so many at-bats that went: Strike one swinging; strike two swinging; strike three swinging.
"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.."
well... if you lived in Baltimore and got to watch more games here..
you would see Jones has that exact same problem, if note worse.
I dont know where to find the best stats on this, but on fangraphs, it says Adam Jones swings at 40% of pitches outside the strike zone, while Upton only swings at 25%.
I wish I did live in Baltimore, or at least ponied up the dough for a baseball package...
too many of my summer nights consist of following a refreshing box score on yahoo, while we flip between the Rays game and whatever reality TV show du jour my wife is watching.
Back on point, while I would agree that Jones chases a lot of pitches, he at least made contact more than Upton in 2010 (not a whole lot, but a statistically significant amount). A slider or fastball outside… or even a strike on the outside corner, and the guy swings and misses EVERY TIME, and he looks at a lot of strike 3’s over the middle half of the plate and then skulks back to the dugout, which is why his strikeout percentage is so much higher than AJ:
Strikeout percentages – Upton 30.6%; Jones 20.5%
Contact percentage – Upton 73.5%; Jones 75.2%; (Ichiro 89.1%)
"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.."
Don't do it...
Get the MLB.tv package before the season anyway. It was depressing watching this team last year, and a waste of money. Make them prove it before you spring.
Just because you know how to read, doesn't mean you'll like the book.
by arlingtonOsFan on Dec 17, 2010 1:20 PM EST up reply actions
I know, but I've been a life-long box score fan
When I was young, and lived in Richmond before we had cable we would get an Orioles game every other week or so. Then, we got cable and HTS, which showed 35-40 games. Very soon thereafter, we moved to Ohio and I ‘watched’ Cal’s MVP season strictly through newspaper box scores. Then it was off to New Jersey where I would get to watch their games only when they played the Yankees.
Then came the internet and college, and for a short while I could listen to games for free and all was right with the world… until that went the way of the Napster. I went straight from college to the Sun Coast, and back to watching 18 games a year on the TV or in person and the rest on the inter-web’s spectacular, stupendous, not really close to life-like self-refreshing box-score.
One year I want to have what most fans of local teams take for granted… the ability to watch the team that I root for on an every day basis. I’m turning 30 in May, so I might just buy the package as a birthday present to myself.
"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.."
And I would argue...
I know that if I invest wisely and don’t take risky bets, I will become rich eventually.
That investment by those not already in the financial power structure is as much a sucker bet as the lottery. Do you honestly think Wall Street wants the little guy to win? Hasn’t your 401K from the last decade taught you anything?
"It has nothing to do with corruption. It's sheer, complete, total incompetence." - Joe Rogan
It is a metaphor
Don’t go dragging Wall Street into it. Who says I’m talking about investing in Wall Street?
To be understood is to be a prostitute. ~ Fernando Pessoa
I would argue that sound, intelligent, conservative investment over a long period won't make you filthy stinkin' rich...
Oh sure, it will make you plenty wealthy. But you are already living in a neighborhood with the two richest son of a guns in this whole damn country. At some point, in order to one-up those arrogant bastards, you are going to have to take risks, and hit the jackpot. We are in this for the long run, the stakes are never going to change: Diversify! Spend a lot of money on the draft and player development/international scouting. Do the right thing. But in the meantime, take risks. Not foolish risks (like those damn relievers), but risks that have a chance of succeeding when you add a sprinkle of luck.
I would also argue that we have a better chance of out-lucking our opponents than we do in out-maneuvering them. The Yankees and Red Sox have quasi-unlimited resources, and both those guys and the Rays have a better track record at doing the very things that you want us to do well. So if we suddenly tomorrow decide that we are going to create the best organization in the history of baseball with a focus on the minors, the best that we can POSSIBLY hope for is that some day 5-7 years from now, we might be slightly better at those things than the rest of teams in our division… two of whom can out-spend us for every missing piece available on the free-market. So we will still be doing the things that we need to do in 2011… looking at our core, finding the holes and putting in the best stop-gaps that confederate money can buy. Our core will hopefully be better than it is now, but how much better? These are some pretty good prospects that we have graduated… sure the minors are now empty, but in the future a good core and a full minor league system will only be as good as the graduated core (except for depth and maybe trading purposes). But you can only trade the prospects you don’t need. Since Boston can buy players like Carl Crawford, they will always have more expendable pieces in the minor leagues, no matter if we are equal to them in development (which we are obviously not).
"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.."
Again, people are inventing things into my metaphor that aren't there
I didn’t say “sound, intelligent, conservative investment”. I said “invest wisely”. Shorting housing and mortgage lenders wasn’t conservative three years ago, but it was wise, and the people who did it made billions off of the biggest Wall Street cats out there.
This also doesn’t translate into not taking risks. Indeed, I’m talking about taking lots of risks here all the time, whether it be by spending millions of dollars on draftees and Dominican teens or whether it is when I continually advocate giving out $100+ million deals to the handful of players who deserve it. When I argue for overpaying for Matt Holliday and against paying a fair price for Adam LaRoche, I’m not advocating a risk-free strategy. I’m advocating risks that have a much better chance of paying off. The idea is to have a sensible ratio of risk/reward. Lottery tickets are stupid because the chances of any reward are so slim as to be meaningless. The same is true of LaRoche versus his lesser equivalents – LaRoche and the one additional win he promises over Cantu, for example, has a simply astronomical chance of being meaningful to us.
To be understood is to be a prostitute. ~ Fernando Pessoa
OK, I am understanding your strategy more.. and I am not arguing against it
I just don’t see the endgame. The concept is to win… eventually. And when it is time to win, that 1 win difference between Cantu and LaRoche could very well be the difference between making the playoffs and not making the playoffs.
Since none of us are psychic, and the strategy relies so heavily on young home-grown players reaching their potential, and we have a bunch of high-ceiling but unpredictable guys on our roster, how will you know when it is the right time to pursue every win, and when it’s the right time to sit back and wait? The crux of my argument has been that we don’t know what these young guys will do, the Rays got a crap-ton of luck handed to them in 2008. That was a team that was built to contend in 2010, but somehow arrived 2 years earlier. We are a team conceivably built for our best chance to contend to be around 2013, and if we arrive 2 years early, but aren’t manning the undeveloped positions with the best possible alternatives, then we could lose out on our chance to have something special.
You said before that the Rays didn’t pay for the best stopgap available when they brought in Hinske, and he is more comparable to Cantu in this 1B market. I agree, but we are more financially able than the ’08 Rays, and they were unable to afford the best stop-gap. They were fortunate that they were able to win the division even with the cut rate stop gapper… we might not be so lucky.
"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.."
Well, one win won't make the difference...
…this is the same argument as when people tell you to vote, because your vote might just be the deciding one. But it won’t be.
The thing is that player development isn’t a year in, year out crapshoot. You develop homegrown stars, because you need some of those (cheap, cost-controlled young stars) to win. But you will know they are stars. You will know when you have developed a Longoria, a Pedroia, or a Cano. Tim Lincecum didn’t suddenly become a great young pitcher; he was one for years before the Giants went to the playoffs. The 2008 Rays began the season with three full blown stars in Crawford, Upton and Pena and added another one weeks into the season with Longoria. The 2011 Orioles at current count have zero stars. On top of that, the 2007 Rays had three stars on offense, the #1 prospect in all of baseball in Delmon Young, and a lefty starter with all the upside in the world in Kazmir, and were a last place team. In other words, even if we do see improvement from key players, odds are we will still suck this year.
The thing is, your argument is predicated on the idea that maybe several of our players will BECOME stars this year, in which case we ought to surround them with a supporting cast to take advantage of their stardom. The problem is that this only happens if all of them become stars this year. And they won’t, and worse yet, we have no idea which ones will become stars. If Matusz is a star but Arrieta and Tillman aren’t, it won’t be a pretty season. If Wieters is a star but Jones isn’t, likewise.
Which is why the next wave is so important. Whether by free agency or player development, we need to find stars to compliment whichever of our top young players do break out this year, which odds are at least one will. You can add a star to them by signing a Prince Fielder or by developing a Zach Britton or Manny Machado to their ceiling. That is what builds great teams – develop a Youklis, and a couple years later a Lester, and a couple years later Pedroia; develop a Crawford, and a few years later a Kazmir, and a few later a Longoria, and a couple years later a Price. Then your two win shortstop matters.
People here keep acting like the last two months of the season combined with our hopes and dreams actually make Jones, Matusz, Wieters and Arrieta stars. But they aren’t yet, and may never be. In the near future, Britton and Bell represent the sum of the high-upside cavalry, and people sure don’t think much of Bell anymore. We may be at the point where we are depending on Machado or whoever we draft or obtain in the future turning out to be stars, and not hoping of contending until that happens, because we haven’t replenished our top prospects well the past two seasons. The odds are easily as much that we are in trouble as they are that we are going to have a miracle season.
To be understood is to be a prostitute. ~ Fernando Pessoa
WAR, good god yall!
Mark Reynolds WAR, according to Fangraphs:
2007: 1.7
2008: 1.4
2009: 3.6
2010: 2.4
So… yeah. Big disagreement between BR and FG on Mark Reynolds’ value. I dont think it’s a stretch to think that Reynolds could match his peak WAR from his 3rd season in his 5th season.
/looks up Rays players on Fangraphs
-——-
Hmmm….well, according to Fangraphs, Longoria had a WAR of 5.4. So i guess WAR is pretty fungible stat. That probably does mean that it will be very unlikely that Reynolds can come close to 08 Longoria.
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