In honor of Groundhog Day, MLB.com has compiled some interesting tales of woe from top MLB executives. There’s a nice mix of mistakenly parting with prospects (Doug Melvin laments parting with Nelson Cruz when he didn’t need to); failing to pull the trigger for a key veteran (John Hart says he should have been willing to give Brian Giles to land Randy Johnson); failing to pick a side (Mark Shapiro and Chris Antonetti took a failed middle course in trading away Roberto Alomar); giving up on the wrong guy (Terry Ryan owns up to the decision to release David Ortiz); and reaching on a free agent (the Jeff Keppinger signing is a regret for Rick Hahn). It’s well worth a perusal of the bullets available at the link above, which has individual links to those and many more stories.
Here are a few more notes from around the game:
- The qualifying offer seems increasingly likely to be a major point of discussion in the coming CBA talks, with Howie Kendrick’s surprisingly light free agent contract providing the latest cause for concern. In his interview with MLB Network Radio on Sirius XM yesterday (the second half of the chat at this audio link), agent Scott Boras provided an interesting case against the system. As he poses it, teams shouldn’t be forced to decide between improving at the major league level and taking opportunities for future improvement off of the table. And Jon Morosi of FOX Sports ticks through a few possible tweaks that might help balance the system out.
- “Tanking” is another subject that’s been in the papers lately, and ESPN.com’s Buster Olney reports that it was also a topic of discussion at the most recent owner’s meeting. There are tie-ins to the revenue sharing system, Olney suggests, with some contributing organizations feeling that recipient clubs should be required to utilize those funds in service of their major league roster.
- Of course, small market clubs will always need to be more creative than their larger-budget brethren, and August Fagerstrom of Fangraphs explores one key method that most employ: taking advantage of platoons. Fagerstrom looks at projected platoons around the league to identify the combinations with the most promise. Three teams have reasonable expectations of 3+ WAR platoons, should they decide to use them: the Mets (Neil Walker and Wilmer Flores), Red Sox (Jackie Bradley Jr. and Chris Young), and Cardinals (Kolten Wong and Jedd Gyorko). Of course, none of those teams are light spenders, but there are numerous other examples throughout the post, including the possible combination that the Rays just set up with Corey Dickerson and Steve Pearce.
Gotta give Terry Ryan a break on David Ortiz. At the time of Ortiz’s release the Twins organization philosophy emphasized small ball. They insisted he work on opposite field contact hitting. When Ortiz went to the Red Sox, the organization philosophy was to tell a guy of Ortiz’s body type to “swing away.”
Plus he just wasn’t that good, coming from a Red Sox fan, David Ortiz played in Minnesota, 2004 gave birth to Big Papi IMO…..if he didn’t hit above and below Manny Ramirez, this conversation wouldn’t even be a conversation
Brian Cashman on the Do Over Deals:
Deal do-over: Trading Mike Lowell to the Marlins for Ed Yarnall, Todd Noel and Mark Johnson
That was in fact a poor deal in the end, but the Yankees won the next 2 WS and appeared in a 3rd, and some help in that was from the guy who played 3rd in Scott Brosius. They had no room for Lowell.
FWIW, Brosius had a 8.3 WAR with the Yankees in 4 seasons.(98-01). Lowell had a 8.0 WAR from 99-02 (he only played 8 games in 98 so I’ll exlcude that of course). In 2002, after Brosius retired, the Yankees 3B was Robin Ventura who put up a 3.7 WAR, and in 2003, it was Ventura/Boone, and we remember what Boone did.
jim morosi suggests that $17,000,000 GUARANTEED is not enough? That players should be able to get $50,000,000 instead? Sorry, if 5 or 6 players feel like they are worth more and the market says less, who is correct?
I’ll let them know a secret, the market never lies…
But they’re only worth less because of the draft pick attached to them. It’s definitely not FREE agency.
Wong recently said he wants to bat leadoff, but he’ll have to improve his OBP before that happens.
Lead off spot doesn’t necessarily need to be decided by OBP. I’ve read that to optimize a batting lineup, you should take your three best hitters. The one with the highest SLG should go 4th (because most of his AB’s come with 0 on, 0 out or 1 on, 2 out). With the last two, take the highest OBP and put him at 1st (because yes you are right OBP should factor who hits first). And who ever is left hits 2nd. (3rd isn’t on there because more than half of 3rds AB’s come with 0 on, 2 out. Not a high chance of making something there.)
Yes you’re right. OBP isnt the only factor, but Wong really hasn’t had anything stand out, including his HR and BA.
lead off spot stats can be thrown out the window usually as the only guaranteed lead off at bat comes in the first inning.
MLB should have asked Jeff Luhnow about designating JD Martinez.
the 3+ WAR platoons doesn’t make sense – if you have a platoon you should average the 2 right? – eg wong has a 2.2 and gyorko a .5 which should give you a WAR of 1.35 which isn’t that great – because the 2 won’t be playing at once.
My guess is they lose some value batting against same side pitching, so you’re only getting the good. Just a guess though.
You lose WAR against same side pitching in some cases. So you don’t average the two as you only expose them to opposite side pitching
but WAR is season accumulative – so don’t you need to then divide it in half? it isn’t averaged –
You add the two. WAR is cumulative. It’s not like OBP, it’s a counting stat like HR. If Player A has 3 WAR in 120 games at second base and Player B has 1 WAR in 42 games at second base, then second base has been worth 4 WAR to their team, not 2.
Just like if A had hit 20 HR and B had hit 10 HR. Second base has produced 30 HR, not 15.
Forget Dickerson-Pearce; Dickerson-Guyer looks like a 3 WAR platoon if I’ve ever seen one. Of course, both guys will still play some on the short side of their platoon, but Guyer put up over 2 WAR last year primarily playing on the short side of the platoon.
Question for somebody to answer. If Team A has a protected 1st round pick and they sign a Free Agent with a QO attached, then they lose their second overall pick. What happens if Team B signs a free agent from Team A with a QO attached, does Team A lose the pick it would have received as compensation and get its second round pick back?
You would never get the pick back. When you lose the pick for signing someone the team who lost the player gets a sandwich pick between the first and second round, not the original pick. So you could theoretically lose your second round pick in that scenario and get a better pick sandwiched between the first and second rounds.
I am pretty sure that’s wrong. If you sign a QO FA away from another team, you lose your highest unprotected pick in the next draft. If you have outstanding QO FAs of your own and if you have a protected first round pick, you don’t know yet whether you will lose your second round pick or a QO compensation pick. If the QO FA is signed by another team, then you would lose your QO compensation pick, not the second round pick. If you re-sign your own QO FA (like LA and Kendrick) or if your own QO FA only signs mid-season to avoid the QO (like NYY and Drew), then you lose your second rounder.
You do not affect your draft position based on the order of the transactions.
I think they should junk the QO system, but two tweaks that I think are fair would be for a) one QO per career, and b) get rid of it entirely for players over a certain age. A player who is, say, 33-35 years old isn’t getting an ultra-long contract. Teams need to recover the cost of the pick–if they can amortize it over a longer period of time, it’s less costly. But if an older player is basically looking for his last multi-year deal before going year to year (or retiring) the pick can be a killer.
Plus owners can use QO against players who have been good but had down year like Desmond, owner believes no one will match QO plus the draft pick included so he can possibly resign player to lower deal than might have been negotiated earlier.
I believe another one for the White Sox was the rumored Gordon Beckham for Adrian Gonzalez trade that never happened.
Olney then failed to add, “And now that small market teams have found a viable strategy to become successful we have to crush it because people watch ESPN to see the Red Sox and Yankees, not the Pirates and Astros.”
1
In order to recieve a QO, A player should have to be on the team for 3 consecutive years before he reaches FA
comments dont match the story
when it comes to Nelson Cruz, it took a long time after being traded from MIL to Texas for him to develop. The Brewers got Francisco Cordero who became their closer immediately and did a good job. I suspect John Daniels regrets not coming up with a better deal for Cruz and signing him instead of Choo. Yes, Choo played a big part in the Rangers having a strong second half in winning the ALWest but right now, Texas would love to have that right handed power in the middle of their lineup today.
Mariner Do-Over Deals past 10 years:
•trading Adam Jones and Chris Tillman for Eric Bedard
•trading Shin-Soo Choo for Ben Broussard
•signing Chone Figgins to a 4 year 36 mil contract
•signing Robinson Cano to a 10 year 240 mil contract
Pretty much anything handled by Bavasi was a goldmine for the other team.
Going way back
Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe for Heathcliff Slocum.
Thank you
A grateful Redsox Nation
I find it cute that MLB.com didn’t interview Billy Beane about the bad trades that he’s made. He has tons of great trades, but also tons of terrible ones too.
Dodger fans love that Ethier for Headcase heist that went down a few years back.
I’m guessing AJ didn’t return his form.
Then you trade the player. He was obviously worth something after hitting almost 40 home runs the previous two years. Inexcusable..
wong just needs to step his game up