ashbury

That's the puzzling part. The rest just highlights that whatever it was, didn't work. And as already stated, the 25-man roster spot was the more valuable resource, than just the 18 innings. They saved some face with a stint on the DL, presumably stalling to let him gain some more benefit from coaching, and threw in the towel when out of choices. Take Haley first, I'm cool with that, because I'll trust that the FO felt he was the best pick to click. Monkey around during the draft like they did, and my tolerance for the misfire during the season is just that much less. Unless someone clarifies to me that it wasn't monkeying around at all. Even if it didn't work out like they hoped (because, say, some other team drafted in the interim in some unplanned way).

Assuming the demand doesn't still exceed the supply, in which case even the scraps cost more than they might have a few days/weeks earlier. It's a game of musical chairs, one chair and one contestant removed at each step - except that some years there are more chairs than contestants, and other years there are more contestants than chairs. Which contestant, or which chair, will end up left out at the end?

In advance of the Rule-5 draft, we have 14 position players on the 40-man roster. Fourteen! A team can't realistically go into a season with that number, can they? Something has got to be in the works to add to that quantity. Even with the number of pitchers exposed to possible drafting, we have 22 hurlers on the 40-man. That becomes a seemingly unsustainable 23 if a pitcher is added via free-agency. For comparison, a team like the Astros currently are at 18/20. Dodgers, 18/22. A ratio like 20/20 or 19/21 seems like the norm when the dust settles and the season starts. 14/22?!? I have to believe big changes are coming to pull these numbers for the Twins closer in balance, in a way not currently being discussed whatsoever.

I have clicked refresh approximately 100 times since reading this post, and still no Darvish. Come on!

It seems intuitive, since 25-man rosters are the limiting factor. You can't get to 100 wins with (say) 60 1-WAR players. If you sign two 2-WAR players, that ties up two roster spots, whereas signing one 4-WAR player doesn't limit you to a 0-WAR player for the other roster spot. Teams with championship aspirations would bid that 4-WAR guy right up. But the above-mentioned Matt Swartz wrote an article demonstrating that linearity is not a bad assumption, after all. I think the solution to the seeming paradox is to remember (again) that we are talking about the cost of signing players who have bargaining power, only. And we are discussing actual WAR delivered (in hindsight), not the (unknowable) forecasts that the contract offers are based on. Since any team with championship aspirations has a pipeline of cheap talent coming up too, with a precious few of those prospects forecasted to be above 3 or 4 WAR themselves, augmenting the roster with a 2-WAR player might be more valuable than it looks. Also, it's really important to avoid a 0- (or negative-) WAR player, and a couple of proven veterans at the 2-WAR level might be more appealing than taking a chance on a rookie. As Swartz (inelegantly ) summarized, "there are, in practice, many different options a teams has". Linearity aside, the table Swartz offers also show a trend over time toward teams paying more and more, for less and less return.

If someone can explain the masterstroke in last winter's Rule-5 draft, where we chose Miguel Diaz and then hilarity ensued all the way through July 24, I will be more inclined to decide on crushing versus non-crushing. What did we net, in exchange for the investment of a 25-man roster spot for more than half a season during which we wound up in post-season contention?

Yeah, I was about to recommend his series of articles. They are at: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/author/matts/ Probably should scroll down to the first of his July 2017 articles and work your way back up chronologically. Anyone with serious concerns about trying to understand the cost of acquiring MLB-ready talent on the open market should read these critically, along with the comments that have been posted there by readers. He says on his LinkedIn page he consults to a MLB team (the Nationals), as well as doing risk management for an insurance company (Cigna), so his POV should not be dismissed out of hand.

That's undisputed. I don't know why you keep coming back to this point. Even the largest market teams do not pay market prices for their entire 25-man rosters. Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez, Aaron Hicks, Luis Severino, along with the various low-salary role-players, all make the Yankees' front office jobs much easier. Teams don't pay $8M (or whatever) per WAR. Full stop. They pay $8M (or whatever) per WAR to players who, by virtue of 6+ years of service, can more nearly control their own destiny. This includes free agency, but also players who agree to deals with their teams so as to buy out their free agency. Smaller market teams pay this same price, otherwise they get outbid for an individual player. They simply do it a lot less frequently, perforce, than the big boys.

I always applaud an analytic approach to decision making. You seem to be aiming toward a forecast of WAR, at the time the contract is signed. I think the studies computing $6M or $8M (or whatever) per WAR are doing it in terms of value delivered, looking back after the contract is signed (so the jury is still out on recent guys). That is, they are asking the question, what do teams typically get for their FA money? I think it stands to reason that front offices' forecasts are getting better and better, so as time goes along the actual value delivered (at least insofar as WAR represents "actual" value) becomes a better and better proxy for the forecasts. But even in trying to come at the question from the forecast WAR for these players, a simple average of previous years seems awfully far from what teams probably use. I don't think you would use that kind of average for a product life-cycle study, for instance, unless at a very particular stage (probably mid-life) - you would draw dangerous conclusions if in the early years, or if at the end in maintenance mode when you're trying to wean customers off. Ballplayers, as a "product", surely aren't static enough in their "life cycles" to try that with. With the horizon you specified, I would weight the most recent year more heavily than the prior year, and much moreso than two years back - almost ancient history in some cases. But I would also factor in growth or (more usually, for these free agents) decline relative to age. Injury risk also comes into play. It may be that teams are (in the privacy of their own processes) putting a very large downward factor on their forecasts over the life of the contract they intend to offer. That would move things in the opposite direction from your conclusion, since it makes the denominator smaller. Another thing that makes the methodology difficult is that players' "accurate" forecast of value, by whatever procedure you think best, is probably in the middle range of what teams will compute for themselves; and it's highly likely that whoever computes the highest value will make the largest offer, and in turn the player is highly likely to accept an offer very near the top of the range. This of course would move things in the direction you suggest, as it makes the denominator larger. All things considered, it's hard to approximate teams' forecasts with a simple average. Beyond hard, I think - misleading, or even not useful. We'd be dividing $$/WAR using something basically unknowable. Cespedes, the first guy on your list, seems like a good example. He was a highly sought Cuban free agent in 2012, and when he became available again in the 2016-17 offseason his resume was a bit spotty. He was coming off a 2.9-WAR season (I'm using b-r.com) after a 6.2, decidedly his best, and he had missed a few games in August after putting in two full seasons the prior years, after starting off with two injury-impacted seasons. I could imagine some widely differing forecasts by competent professionals in the field. When the Mets prepared their eventual winning offer, it's not preposterous to think that another 6-WAR season could be expected. But, he was already turning 31, and for the four-year contract the team was contemplating, a decline could be expected. An injury during any of those four seasons could further harm the value delivered in that season just due to his absence, while also perhaps accelerating his declining ability for future seasons. All in all, just spitballing here, a four-year WAR of (6,5,4,3), times an 80% chance each season for not having a really serious injury, comes out to only about 14 WAR over the life of the contract, or about 3.6 a season, rather than the 4.4 you came up with. That comes out to around $7.5M per. If I did the math right. Again, I'm only spitballing. Now, given that the Mets won this sweepstakes, it's fair to assume that most other teams* came up with a lower WAR estimate and made commensurately lower offers to the player. Unless you believe the Mets are super geniuses and have a unique ability to forecast future value, it's very likely that the actual value he returns will be more in line with the crowd and thus lower than they thought they were paying for. Ergo, the cost per WAR will likely be higher than their forecast (and perhaps this guesstimate). That's the so-called Winner's Curse in any free market, right? (Not that MLB markets are all that free. ) I'm not going to invest the time with my rinky-dink eyeballing methodology, on the other players you listed, but you probably see my point, that trying to infer MLB forecasts of WAR is harder than just averaging some recent seasons. * Even if you rule out the small market teams, there are enough other deep pocketed teams to make this line of thought work.

A project leader from one of my early jobs passed along this sage rule of thumb: "It takes about 10 Attaboys to make up for 1 OhSh[oo]t". Said another way, a chess player who grinds down the opponents through a sequence of small tactical positional advantages leading to small gains in material can still lose the game in the blink of an eye due to a careless blunder. I'm encouraged by a lot of these moves, but Terry Ryan was also adept at small-ball GMing, and we have yet to see a really big move by our new guys to start to tell what will happen under their regime. They aren't likely going to win a WS doing only what we've seen from them so far.

I don't think anyone's claiming that $8M (or whatever value) is the cost for all talent. Obviously young players under team control provide value at a far, far lower cost. The $8M figure amounts to the marginal rate on the spot-market. I like to think of FA contracts as the "Stupidity Tax" when you have to admit you didn't develop a suitable player of your own at a position of need. No one wants to build a team entirely this way. People have done amusing articles on what it would cost to build an entire car from parts purchased at a parts shop. No one sane would do that. Yet we all go to NAPA or Pep Boys when the need arises. One further analogy. I presume you are in the 39.6% tax bracket (soon to change). But you don't fork over 39,6% of your total income, because of deductions and a graduated tax rate. That 39.6 number is very meaningful, but also not very illuminating if you use only that one number for your thinking. As a side note, I also kind of doubt that true 1-WAR players get X, and 2-WAR players get 2X, etc. The value of a player to a team contending for the World Series isn't linear. So any number like $8M is just for back of the envelope calculations of players at a certain fairly high level of ability and demand for their services.

Ok, but this is somewhat conflating pool limits with green dollars. In the case previously mentioned where the Cardinals voided a $3M contract due to vision issues, the kid wound up signing for $500K with Arizona. Obviously this doesn't define anything for Marte, but indicates what can happen to teams' forecasts of future value in light of a bad vision report. Pool dollars may get passed around, but when actual dollars are spent there are many things that can spoil the deal.

Assuming words match feelings. If he's getting good advice, he may understand that the $3M is gone, but high six-figures may be attainable if he doesn't burn bridges. That realization wouldn't erase a feeling of having been squeezed. I don't know either way. I just don't read much into that statement.

I'm with you on the optics of this. I am in the camp generally hoping they don't sign him; I don't want questions about "my" team putting the squeeze on players financially. The news about "no hard feelings on either side" suggests it could happen though. When the news of the contract voiding broke, the Baseball America article mentioned a similar case from about a decade ago; a different team signed him for half a million instead, and afterward his career quietly fizzled. I don't hope for bad luck like that for this player, but it's a way this could end up playing out.

Mod note: Mike, and everyone, please don't use strawman arguments like this one.

The MLB/AAA/AA logjam exists only as long as everyone stays healthy. One injury makes things less tight, and two completely eliminate the issue. What do you think the odds are that everyone reaches Opening Day ready to pitch?

I think Sam is underselling Babe as a pitcher by quite a bit. Through his age-22 season Babe was on a pace to comfortably assure eventual Hall of Fame selection with whatever he would have done by age 30, and then whatever he tacked on after that would have been gravy. Of course that's only a pace - for instance undiagnosable "sore arms" felled many a bright light in those days. But being dominant at age 21 (the only reason he wasn't the best in the Majors was a couple of more-senior guys named Johnson and Alexander) is a nice early indicator for greatness, and marked him as better than "pretty good". However, the two-way era for him in 1918-19 was a mixed success at best. Monkeying with a great pitcher in hopes of turning him into a great hitter was a gamble. So the basic point regarding a comparison to a current player trying it still stands just fine. I just gotta defend the Babe's soupbone.

Doing what, taunting fans that he won't be signing with us?

I hold no hope for him whatever. The contract extension turned a smart signing into a fiscal drag on the team.

Pitching and hitting are not mirror images of each other. Pitching is about achieving location. Hitting is about either punishing the mistakes or going with what is given to them. Batters of both kinds can succeed, and many batters adopt a blend. It's rare for a pitcher without command to get anywhere in the majors, with just his stuff. So it's no paradox for pitchers to try to strike batters out without giving them anything good to hit, while power hitters may swing for the fences when they see something they like.

They almost assuredly will get 24 of them, one by one by one - barring rain or a forfeit or other unusual and premature end to the game. The difference maker is how many balls are put in play while accomplishing that arduous task, because some of those fall in safely or leave the park as home runs. Strikeouts cut down on the chances of the first of those happening, giving no chance for good things to happen for the offense. That, plus walks+HBP, will define their success. With enough success, or with home field advantage, they may even be allowed to try for 27 outs. And that's the goal.

Let me know what different results you get from studying this question.

I ducked this part in my other reply because it's really far from my point about strikeouts in relation to other outs, but... I'm not even sure I'm willing to say one "is" better than another. Kintzler had a better *2017*, because mainly he didn't give up so many walks and (especially) HR as those other two. I spent some time explaining elsewhere my reservations about FIP for backward looking purposes, but as a predictive tool for 2018 FIP suggests it's about even-money whether Duffey or Kintzler will have the better year. Pressly... he needs to work on a few things.

The analogy of SO to dunks probably breaks down when considering that dunks are much less common. Nobody dunks often enough to make that be what defines their team's season. Likewise, I don't think I was demonstrating why strikeouts must line up precisely with ERA (they won't). And certainly not that the pitcher with the most Ks is the "best". Merely to explain a reason why a strikeout is more valuable among other outs, and not simply a paradox; you have to look further up the stream than after the out has been recorded, to notice why. As for correlation, I note if you rank major league teams by strikeouts recorded by their pitchers, you need to go down all the way to #9 (Mets) to find a team that missed the playoffs. The two teams that did make the post-season, but weren't in the top 8 in SO, both were bounced in single-game appearances. Strikeouts by batters aren't quite so dire - you can find a team at #6 (Arizona) who made the post-season. But yes, there is much in baseball that counts besides just strikeouts. Thank goodness!

It finally dawned on me that the reason I'm not a wizard with b-r.com's database in particular is that I've been too big a cheapskate to pay for their Play Index which does allow more of what I want. Perhaps Santa will hear my wish in a few weeks...