Article: Pitching Central

[ThePuck]

Does Hunter realize that the success of the teams he was on were all built through "playing for the future"? That's rhetorical question.

 

Maybe he views success in a different way. Yes, they won 4 division titles in his 9 seasons with them, but they got bounced in the first round in 3 of those 4. They especially should have gone further in 2006 and when they fell short, the team did nothing to get the team over the hump and then traded Castillo in the middle of a playoff chase (which is when he said that quote about always playing for the future). Santana said the same thing. Maybe he felt with the core they had at the time, the FO should have done more to add to the talent they had. I don't disagree.

[ThePuck]

This isn't a valid argument for 3 reasons:

 

1. The Twins will receive $25M more in broadcast revenue starting in 2014. That is more then enough to compensate Marcum for the last 2 years of his contract.

 

2. Morneau is a FA after 2013 and the Twins are most likely not going to re-sign him and he will be most likely be replaced by a rookie making league minimum so that is another $13.5M available for Marcum.

 

3. The Twins are currently $20M below last years payroll and there aren't many players due raises next year so they'll still have plenty of money to afford Marcum's multiyear deal.

 

Exactly...except I think we're only 14M under last years payroll and 32M under 2011 payroll

[PseudoSABR]

I don't like Marcum because I don't like giving multi-year deals to guys with sore elbows. But, its awfully convenient to use FIP or FIP-derived WAR in your position. Parker has already wrote at length on this. Marcum is something of a special case in that a significant portion his value is in Fielding Dependent Pitching (6.5 FDP wins for his career).

 

Twins Daily - Shawn Marcum could be a fit for the Twins

I didn't bring WAR to the discussion. There's lots of convenient evidence going on in this thread to make our pet points, wouldn't you say?

[old nurse]

Maybe I missed something, but if you add two 3 WAR players to replace players with a -WAR, that is more than 6.

 

Rather than lose games 9-2 you lose 3-2. Maybe your team gets inspired and you win even more games. All WAR in theory means is you give up 10 less runs per 1 WAR. Should you win 6 more games? Depends on how close the games were. Depends on how the rest of the team plays. So yes, I think you missed a few things.

[Willihammer]

I didn't bring WAR to the discussion. There's lots of convenient evidence going on in this thread to make our pet points, wouldn't you say?

 

You compared Marcum to Correia based on WAR, in your defense of this notion that a team's success can't be greater than the sum of its parts. Obviously that's false, since teams overperform and underperform every year - the 2012 orioles outperformed their pythagorean record by 11 games, the Red Sox underperformed by 5 games -, and its especially ridiculous when you use WAR to valuate someone whose ERA has consistently outperformed his xFIP.

 

And still, any projection you make for this team doesn't account for things that inevitably will go wrong elsewhere in the division and the league. Christ, Andrew Cashner cut himself cleaning a dear carcass and will start the year on the DL. Jaba Chaimberlain went on the DL last spring bouncing on a trampoline with his daughter. Scott Baker went in for a routine elbow cleanup and came out a Tommy John. A lot can, and will, happen before the end of the season.