Emptying the Notebook: Happ, Dipoto, Boras and Blueprints

How about signing a legit number 3 to more than a 1 year deal....that would be a huge step up.....not everyone here is saying they have to sing an "ace".....

"Sing" an ace? 

Do you mean like this guy Mike? 

Boras wasn't really picking on the Twins. He did a short bit where he told similar jokes about other teams.

It's not a big deal. He was just warming up the crowd by telling baseball jokes that EVERYONE in the room could understand... Yes, anyone could have told that joke.

Now I won't have to fret any longer over how to pronounce "Kennys". Is the 's' silent? Do I say the 's'? So stressful.

Many years I'd agree with you, but I don't think 2019 is such a season.

 

2 WAR is pretty close to the definition of "average major leaguer". If that's all you're aiming for, and you don't have some superior players already on the roster, you're not really contending, you're just average.

 

Business analytics people at airlines and oil firms and forestry companies understand that when you have a constrained system, it may be difficult to anticipate exactly which constraints will be binding and which will be slack. Learning which, will tell you how to proceed with your strategic planning. On a baseball team, among the most crucial constraints are the 25-man roster (you can't win a pennant by using 100 cheap 1-WAR players), the 40-man roster (ditto), and your budget. Right now, we have very little likelihood of exceeding the budget until we sign some new players. Given a lot of potentially average players on board right now, at low cost, it makes sense to sign a few high-WAR potential players, even if the price-performance isn't good.

 

If you're in the habit of assuming that budget will always be the binding constraint at the very outset, you'll miss opportunities.

 

There's a difference between efficiency and effectiveness. With all our cost-efficient youngsters, I want to focus on effectiveness, for the few guys we do sign.

 

I don't know right now that $35M for 3+ WAR isn't actually a pretty good deal for this present situation, unless you have a better way to acquire 3+ WAR.

Let’s say we followed the wishes of many and signed Greinke 3 years ago. Add Mr. Popular (Marwin Gonzalez) and the RPs suggested by Lev. Here is what we can say for sure.

Add roughly $65M annually which would max out payroll. In other words, we are not adding anyone for the next 3 years and we would have to replace Gibson at the cost of his final year of arbitration.

WAR for these players over the past 3 years
----- Greinke 2.2 / 5.1 / 3.5 for an average of 3.6
----- Gonzalez .4 / 4 / 1.6 for an average of .8
----- Allen 1 / 1.5 / 0 for an average of .833
----- Herrera 2.0 / .1 / .4
----- Total = 6.07 wins

WAR for these players last year was
----- Greinke = 3.5 for an average of 3.6
----- Gonzalez = 1.6 for an average of .8
----- Allen = 0
----- Herrera .4
----- Total = 4.5 wins

Let’s use the last 3 years instead of last year because that’s more optimistic. Let’s assume Greinke does not regress even though that is not consistent with history. Let’s forget Gonzalez is basically replacing Escobar who had two war before the deadline and let’s pretend Greinke replaces a replacement level player even though I am pretty sure Mejia is worth at least 1 WAR. We have a 500 team under this generous scenario with no available payroll for the next 3 years.

There is no scenario where paying 10M/WAR is effective. We would need to spend an incremental $200M to field a team reasonably close to the top AL teams. That is the definition of an ineffective plan. Actually, I can make-up a far fetched scenario where we have several prospects play at a very high level on costs controlled contracts and we add once such player. We are a VERY long way from that scenario right now.

Another, perhaps simpler way to evaluate this specific year is that we are in need of several players. If we an incremental $70M on two high profile players we pick up 7 war and have some holes to fill. If we spend $35M on 7 players that generaten 2 WAR we pick up 14 (double) WAR and have $40M to spend next year. I think it's pretty clear which approach has more value to any team, especially a mid-market or small market team. 

Is WAR really that great of a stat?

 

wRC+ 2016-18

Harper 132

Segura 117

Dozier 116

 

wOBA 2016-18

Harper .375

Dozier .346

Segura .345

 

OPS 2016-18

Harper .897

Dozier .817

Segura .803

 

I have a really hard time believing that whatever contributions Dozier and Segura make defensively and on the base paths makes up for that big of a gap in overall offensive production.

No. It's quite suspect and I think that's the general feeling here but it still gets used often because of the summary nature of this measure. It also does not need to be precise in this context. Look down the list any year and the ranking by WAR looks pretty reasonable. In other words, it's hard to justify the gigantic cost and risk associated with this type of contract (see Heyward) for a player that has not ranked as elite in 4 years. 

It appears to me that one great year gives players a higher profile than 1 great year of performance deserves. Compare Harper's first six years to Albert Pujlos. It's not even close

Is WAR really that great of a stat?

 

wRC+ 2016-18

Harper 132

Segura 117

Dozier 116

 

wOBA 2016-18

Harper .375

Dozier .346

Segura .345

 

OPS 2016-18

Harper .897

Dozier .817

Segura .803

 

I have a really hard time believing that whatever contributions Dozier and Segura make defensively and on the base paths makes up for that big of a gap in overall offensive production.

He is 21st in wRC+ for players with 1200+ ABs over the past 3 years. That's very good but $35M/year good? Daniel Murphy was 5 pts higher.

that's assuming Buxton and Sano aren't any better than last year......in which case no plan works. 

 

Has any team ever picked up 7 players in FA that did 2 WAR in that year? Did they then have to do it again the following year, because they signed a bunch of 1 year deals? Where, exactly, would you fit 7 new players on this roster? Who goes under this plan?

You are making a different argument, Mike. The conversation was conceptual. I said its more important to find guys for $5M/yr that give you 2 WAR than it is to sign a 3.5 WAR guy for $35M. Any plan that produces 1WAR/$10M of payroll is self-defeating for any team other than the highest revenue teams. The Dodgers ? Yankees etc could easily add three such players in addition to the Twins available budget so it's a different equation for high revenue teams.

The 7 players were simply a way to get to the same spend. If you prefer a more practical vs conceptual example. How about if we say we sign 3 FAs. One generates .5 WAR the other 2 produce 4 WAR. We have + 1WAR over the Grienke and $20M to spend next year or use for an extension or add two BP arms for $10M each.

BTW ... We need a middle infielder, a corner IF and 3 BP pieces would fit. Plus Wouldn't it be great if we could ad this years version of Miles Mikolas. That's 6 players. The point being 

Boras wasn't really picking on the Twins. He did a short bit where he told similar jokes about other teams.

 

It's not a big deal. He was just warming up the crowd by telling baseball jokes that EVERYONE in the room could understand... Yes, anyone could have told that joke.

Let me have a stab at some of those jokes:

When you go to a game in Anaheim, only St. Peter shows up.

When you go to a game in Seattle, only Jacque Cousteau shows up.

When you go to a game in Milwaukee, only Adolphus shows up.

When you go to a game in Colorado, only Pike's Peak shows up.

You're right, there is a lot of low hanging fruit there.

I also have no interest in winning the WAR/$ spent championship. I want to watch the Twins win the World Series championship.

You obviously don’t understand the correlation. The Red Sox had a phenomenal 108 win season. What if we were equally as effective per dollar spent? They spent 1.91M/win. Well …. That would equate to 68 wins in a year when the Twins had record spending.

What if we were as effective as Colorado or Atlanta. Both examples would equate to 102 wins. How about if our payroll dollar/win was as good as the Brewers. That would have been 137 wins. That sounds great until we put it in the context you used. That being “winning the payroll/win championship”. In that case we win all 162 games. Why does this not interest you, Chief or the people who liked the comment?

The necessity for teams with less revenue to produce more wins per payroll dollar is a very simple concept and it is absolute. Why anyone would argue against such a clear cut concept leaves me wondering exactly why. It makes zero sense.

because it is often used as an excuse not to get better, in the name of efficiency over effectiveness. If a team is 1 player away, and that player costs more $/WAR than is "right", they should or should not sign him? Because I don't care if they win 84 games efficiently, nor do most fans.

 

And, let's be honest, you have a bias for capital over labor. That's cool, but not everyone shares that bias. The value of teams is rising faster than payrolls are, and I'm not cool with that. Old, formerly interesting, people on the east coast might be, but I don't think everyone shares James' opinion. 

You keep changing the scenario completely. Are the Minnesota Twins even remotely near a one player away scenario. It’s not possible to have a constructive discussion if you insist on using scenarios that don’t remotely resemble our current state. We are not even arguing the same point. We can’t possibly get to a point where we are one player away without being efficient with payroll. We produced a win for ever $1.7M in payroll and we were badly off the pace AND we max payroll. To suggest the solution is adding players that cost $10M/win is horribly ill-conceived and that is a very polite choice of words.

So...hope that the cheap stars develop, and then add expensive talent.

 

How is that different from adding expensive talent, and hoping the cheap stars develop?

The answer is extremely obvious for anyone who has ever had P&L responsibility of a 9 figure entity. Is it a better business practice to invest 50/60 or 70M on the low probability that the prospects that have struggled becomes stars or do you suppose the people who are investing that money would elect to invest once the prospects are proving to pan out? You know this how any team outside the top 10 in revenue operate so why would you ask such a silly question? 

I'd suggest last year they didn't spend wisely.....that was the issue (and Sano and Buxton being bad, not stars.....nothing matters if those to are bad, no amount of spending or better decision making). They went cheap, 1 year deals, and didn't sign legit players to multi year deals. Now, they need to fill those same holes again, because they literally didn't try to fill them for this year. Hopefully two things change:

 

Buxton and Sano are stars again

They FO chooses actual good players for their deals

What was I thinking ... Had they only signed Darvish and Hosmer instead of Lynn and Morrison.