Money To Burn? Why Burn It?

Buster Olney at ESPN Asks Why The Cubs Aren't Spending money and if we shouldn't reconsider their future because of their spending.  In particular, he notes:

However, we still haven’t seen evidence that the Ricketts family will spend big dollars when the Cubs’ group of prospects is ready to ripen. Look at the team’s payroll trend:

2010 $144.3 million
2011 $134 million
2012 $109 million
2013 $107 million
2014 About $90 million, according to Baseball Prospectus.

(Which does not include the $13 million of Alfonso Soriano’s deal that the Cubs will assume). Generally speaking, the payroll has gone down by about 30 percent over the last four seasons.

The Ricketts, like a lot of incoming owners, took on debt to buy the Cubs, and the scrap with the rooftop owners outside of Wrigley Field has probably turned out to be much more complicated than anticipated. They have ambitions for a Fenway-like remodeling.

The bottom line: So far, the Ricketts’ spending on their major-league product has been much more like that of the Brewers or Reds than a big-market superpower that we usually assume they should be. Maybe that will change as the prospects ascend and develop, and maybe the Cubs will settle their ballpark and rooftop issues and spend more freely. 

 Here is the main problem with the question Olney raises.  Why in the world *should* the Cubs be spending massive amounts of money now?  Seriously - to what end?

If you are building for 2016 when your young guys are going to be coming to the majors... what should you buy now?  Do you buy position players that might end up blocking these young guys?  Do you sign more Edwin Jackson inning eater starter deals - and if so, why?  What's the benefit of a mediocre veteran to a team that is just biding time?  What is there for you to get that is... worth it?

Here's what you do:

1.  See who pans out and then use free agency to fill in the blanks.
2.  You try to get long term, high quality, pitching options - like the run the Cubs made at Tanaka.  (Hey, wasn't the fact that the Cubs were just barely outbid by the Yankees evidence that they are willing to spend?)
3.  You pay down debts while you can.
4.  You improve infrastructure.

See, this takes the funds that you have now, and instead of throwing $14 million at someone who isn't going to help your team in the long run, you can do things that WILL help the club in the long run.

The Ricketts aren't profiteering off of the Cubs.  They are simply doing long term, solid business thinking, something that most people today simply don't know how to do.

The Greediest Shortstop Ever

Derek Jeter is going to retire, and the question becomes where does he rank on the list of greatest "shortstops" ever.  And one thing that comes up is just how long Jeter played short - that he played short his entire career.

Derek Jeter is the greediest shortstop ever.

Consider.  In 2004, Alex Rodriguez comes to New York.  He is a two time gold glove award winner.  In the previous two seasons he was 1.0 and 1.6 wins above replacement on Defense at short.  And as for Jeter...he was -0.6 and -0.9. 

Now, if this is the situation, what do you?  You'd think Jeter would move to 2nd.  Nope.  He was the captain, he wasn't going to move.

So A-Rod goes and becomes a third baseman.  And plays a good third base.  But he's selfish and evil.  Not like Cap'n Jetes... who wouldn't move for the good of the team in his late 20s.

Nor would move in his 30s to Centerfield like Robin Yount.

Jeter is a great player - he's a great hitter.  He played with zeal.  But he had very, very little range.  But he insisted on staying at short stop.  Fangraphs says he cost his team 25.7 runs.  Baseball Reference - 9.2 wins.  Either way, not great in the field.

He would have been a great 2nd baseman, or a great Center fielder or Left fielder.  He would have been a great team player at those positions... shifting to where his team was weak.

Nope.  He's a shortstop.  The greediest shortstop ever.

Runs Participated In

Lee Panas has a blog post on wins participated in.  This is a wonderful idea - trying to figure out how often a player plays a roll in run creation in a simplified way.  It's neat.  Read it.

What's a Win Good For? Nothing?

Brian Kenny has a "Kill the Win" campaign, in which he basically argues that as a statistic, a pitcher's win-loss record doesn't really tell you how the pitcher performed.  And this is true.  You can give up 5 runs in 6 innings and get a win, you can go 9 innings and give up one run and lose.  This came up again yesterday in light of Masahiro Tanaka signing with the Yankees -- and Tanaka's 24-0 record last year.

When it comes to analyzing a pitcher, or trying to predict what he will do next year, win-loss record isn't the most useful tool.  In that regard, Kenny is right.  However, I wonder if it doesn't have value as a narrative tool. Consider 1987.  There you have Nolan Ryan.  He leads the National League with a 2.76 ERA.  Leads the league in strikeouts.

He has an 8-16 record for the Astros.

There's a story there.  There's a tale to tell.  A 40 year old walks out and leads the league in ERA... and loses almost half of his starts.  Yet you have Jim Deshaies go 11-6 with a 4.62 ERA.  What was going on there - what happened.  The team was 76-86, only 10 games under .500, and yet Ryan goes "eight" games under when having what actually is one of his best seasons.

What was that like?  What was that story?  What reactions do you get from Ryan when the team plays so poorly in his starts?  A pitcher's win loss doesn't really talk about the pitcher so much as it speaks to how the rest of the team plays when he is going... and that's always a place for stories.

Penny Wise, Millions Foolish

So, I was reading Buster Olney's Blog today, and he was noting about the financial divide and how that limits teams.  He had one sentence that stood out to me.

"The Braves had to let Tim Hudson go, they're facing arbitration fights with both Freddie Freeman and Jason Heyward, and they seem to be gambling in their arbitration case with Craig Kimbrel -- perhaps in an effort to keep the best closer on the planet."

Now, ponder just the very beginning.  They had to let Tim Hudson go.

Tim Hudson is going to be 38.  He was... average last year.  Baseball Reference had him with a WAR of 1.  Fangraphs was nicer at 1.7.  And he's going to be 38.  And he made $9 Million last year.  The Giants are paying $11 Million the next two years.

For... what?  Yeah, he's a veteran pitcher... but at best he's going to be a bit above average.

Is it really a bad thing that teams don't have money to throw his way?

Again, I'm not against players getting paid and paid well - but this is what the players union has baraganed for - where players don't get paid until they are older... and the problem is there comes a point where you aren't going to be getting more and more as you keep paying more and more.

Frankly - normally, I think it's dumb to pay a ton to veterans, especially in the day and age of three divisions and a wild card.

Now, if this were 1992 and there were two play-off spots in each league, where you had to be better, totally better, than 6 or 7 other teams or else... then that little edge the vet might give would be worth a ton.  But now there aren't 4 play-off teams... there are ten.  There are six division winners.  There are only 4 teams that you NEED to beat out, and even if you don't, if you are close there are two more shots per league to get into the playoff.

That little hope of maybe a bit more isn't worth it, especially when there's a greater and greater chance that the old guys will be ready for the pasture.

I think the Giants are going to regret signing Hudson more than the Braves will lament not signing him.  And if not - more power to the Giants and Hudson, but just because the clubs have monopoly money doesn't mean that they need to throw it away.

Ichiro's Arm, Junior, and Memory vs the Moment

So they were talking about the best Right Field arms the other night on MLB, and Ichiro wasn't on there.
Nani?


Here's the more interesting point - if you asked this 7 years ago, when Ichiro was younger, everyone would have put his arm way up there - maybe even the best since Clemente. Now, on the list last night, there were active guys and guys who were long retired (including Mark Whitten). But Ichiro, at the twilight of his career... no, not there.

Well, how do we talk about Ichiro right now? Because right now - he's a... nice bench player to have. Maybe. Or are we talking about the guy who set the record for hits in a season because he could beat out anything? Are we talking about the guy in the video up above? How, when we have the guy in front of us do we talk about them historically?

The other greatest example that I can think of concerning this sort of thing is Ken Griffey, Jr. After Griffey went to the Reds, injuries just decimated him - and I remember talking to folks in around 2008 who were younger than me and couldn't believe that I would argue that he was one of the greatest Outfielders of all time... in his youth, when he was healthy. In the moment, that just wasn't the reality, and if you were too young to remember, the moment was all you could see.

It's odd, because baseball is the sport of story, of narrative. And Ichiro had great stories in the 00's, and Griffey in the '90s, but when their decline came... meh.

I think the only person I've seen that is immune to this is Cap'n #$%^# Jeter. Of course, in the past decade Big Papi has been more clutch in the post-season and has more rings.

Maybe they always love you in New York... unless they never liked you.

An Old Baseball Card

My dad gave me his old baseball cards when I was a kid.  One of these was a Tony Conigliaro rookie card (actually two, one of which I traded away for several other good, but lesser cards from the late 80s).  When thinking about Bryce Harper, one of his major comparables is Tony C.  Which makes sense.  Consider - both reached the big leagues at 19, and what did we see by the end of their age 20 season?

Conigliaro:  249 games - .278/.348/.520, 56 Homers and an OPS+ of approx 135*

Harper:  257 games - .277/.353/.481, 42 Homers and an OPS+ of 125


With Harper there's less power -- which is odd considering most of the talk has been about his prolific power (but right field in Washington is a bit further out than left at Fenway too).  And the other thing is by all accounts Conigliaro wasn't that great of a fielder - where as Harper fields and throws with reckless abandon.

Maybe a bit too much.  Injuries are rough.

Tony C's career was cut short due to a terrible injury.  I hope Harper's drive and determination don't make them parallel long term.

(* I don't have the ability to recompute Conigliaro's OPS+, but as it was 133 and 137, 135 is a good approximation)