I stole that joke from Jay Mohr.
Pags has a new little ditty over at The BaseLine Report.
In this one, he lists every transaction Theo Epstein has made since he became the Sox' GM, and rates them on a scale of 1 to 10. I think he's just baiting us, frankly, but consider me baited.
1/14/03 Claimed 1B/OF Kevin Millar off unconditional release waivers from the Florida Marlins.
The Sox pleaded with [Kevin Millar] for months not to go to Japan as if he were the second coming of Babe Ruth. Millar was brought in for his bat but after a solid first half of the 2003 season, struggled tremendously for the next two and a half seasons as a member of the Red Sox. Because of his personality and cozy relationship with both the media and the fans some of his shortcomings are overlooked. Millar was a well below average major league first baseman. He peeked in 2003 with 25 home runs but declined rapidly over his three years culminating in a 2005 season when he hit only nine home runs. Grade: 3.5
In 2004 Kevin Millar hit .297/.383/.474. An .857 OPS (117 OPS+). That's pretty effing good for $2.65m. In 2003 he made $2m and hit 25 HR. And in order to get him they pissed off some Japanese dudes but actually gave up: nothing.
My Grade for the Millar Deal: 7.0
My Grade for Pags' Evaluation: 38.8 (on the 115-point FJM Writing Scale)
7/29/03 Acquired RHP Scott Williamson from the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for minor league LHP Phil Dumatrait, a minor league player to be named and cash considerations.
This was theoretically the solution to the bullpen problem that had killed Boston all year long. This was easy to predict even before the season started when Epstein decided to Bill James’ “bullpen ace” model for the 2003 season...Maybe [Epstein] was too busy using up the sixth highest payroll in baseball to sign sabermetric studs like Jeremy Giambi and Kevin Millar to address the bull pen properly...Williamson takes the fall because this move symbolizes the lack of a shut down closer in the pen and the feeling that the Sox did not need to acquire one during the season.
Grade: 1
It's hard to judge whether this is a good evaluation of the Williamson deal, because the smoke coming out of Pags' ears due to his fury at non-traditional thinking is clouding my keyboard. More on this insane misreading of Bill James' "Bullpen Ace" model in a minute. For now, allow me only to say that Phil Dumatrait is 26 and made his MLB debut this year, giving up a tidy 39 hits in his first 18 innings. So, I think we can say that this deal is not a "1," because Epstein didn't give anything up except cash. I will also add that in 2004, SWilly gave up 11 hits in 28.2 IP, posting a 388 ERA+. A very small sample size, to be sure, and the guy was always hurt and kind of unreliable. But he gave the '03 and '04 teams some crazy hi-leverage innings, and the image of people flailing at his ceiling-to-floor curve is one of my most lasting memories. (Save your emails, people. Not every single sentence I write has to be fact-based.)
If you're into stats instead of anecdotal musings: in the 2003 postseason, Williamson pitched in eight games, and went 2-0 with 3 saves. He threw 8 innings, giving up 3 hits, 1 run, 3 walks, and 14 (!) Ks. You're telling me that and the 28 innings he threw in 2004 wasn't worth Phil Dumatrait? Oh -- no, you're not. You're actually telling me that on the 10-point PagsScale that trade gets
the worst possible score.
My Grade for Williamson: 7
My Grade for Pags' Write-Up of Williamson: -40 Trumpets (on the -500 to 600 Trumpet evaluation system; remember -- 355 is highest)
7/31/03 Acquired RHP Jeff Suppan, RHP Brandon Lyon and RHP Anastacio Martinez from the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for INF Freddy Sanchez, LHP Mike Gonzalez and cash considerations.
This was a deadline day deal in which Epstein looked to bolster the starting rotation. The hope was to gain something in the short term while giving something up in the long term. Turned out they were half right: they gave up something in the long term. Suppan started ten games for the Sox and posted a 3-4 record with a 5.57 ERA. Sanchez on the other hand is a two time all star and also the 2006 NL batting champ with a .344 average. He was one of the most valuable prospects in the entire organization and was given up for a pitcher who ultimately hurt the Red Sox. While Suppan would later find some success in the national league, he was a huge bust in Boston and Theo totally misused one of his most valuable trading pieces.
Grade: 2
A lot = bad about this. Yes, Suppan sucked after the trade. But he was the best available starter, and the Sox badly needed one. Second, Sanchez was a decent prospect, but he was blocked in the Red Sox system by Hanley Ramirez, so he was expendable. Third, this was actually a great deal, because originally the Sox were
getting Mike Gonzalez, a lefty reliever who could have greatly helped them. I quote from
Baseball America:
The Red Sox and Pirates accomplished two things with the trade on Thursday that sent Jeff Suppan, Brandon Lyon and Double-A righthander Anastacio Martinez to Boston and two Triple-A players, infielder Freddy Sanchez and lefthander Mike Gonzalez, plus $500,000 to Pittsburgh. The Red Sox got a much-needed starter in Suppan, while the Pirates got rid of his salary. Secondly, the teams straightened out their July 22 trade.
In that deal, Boston got Scott Sauerbeck and Gonzalez for Lyon and Martinez. The Pirates said Lyon had fraying in his elbow and placed him on the disabled list on July 25. The Red Sox maintained he was healthy and had pitched for them two days before the trade. The net effect of the two transactions is that Boston gets Sauerbeck and Suppan for Sanchez.
When the Bucs started hissing that Lyon had arm problems, the Sox essentially gave them Gonzalez
back to soothe their huffy nerves. But the way Pags writes it up here, it seems like the Sox traded Gonzalez and Sanchez for Suppan, which = no. Also, getting to two All-Star Games when you play for the Pirates doesn't mean very much at all, methinks.
My Grade for the Suppan Trade: 4
My Grade for "3:10 to Yuma," Which I Saw Last Night, on the 1-18 Pagliarulos Scale: 14 Pagliarulos
11/14/03 RHP Mike Timlin to a one-year contract. Epstein game Timlin a two and a half million dollar deal to help improve the bull pen. Timlin was a veteran pitcher who helped with a lot of the younger arms in the pen. On the field he was a reliable, but not shut down, middle relief pitcher. His playoff experience would prove to be valuable down the stretch.
Grade: 5
In 2003 Mike Timlin threw 83 innings with a 133 ERA+ and a 65/9 K/BB ratio and a 1.02 WHIP. How is that not a "shut down" middle reliever? That's a better WHIP than Frankie Rodriguez has had in 3 of the last 4 years. And 83 innings is a lot of innings. In 2004 he threw 76 innings with a 1.23 WHIP. Not overwhelming, but pretty good. And by the way, that deal in 2003 was for $850,000 plus incentives. $2.5m was for 2004. So for $850,000, Theo got a guy with a WHIP of 1.02 over 83 innings. That's a really really really good deal. And every year since, he's been on a 1-year deal, so there's no long-term commitment. Also, as if I need to keep going, the guy's got a 1.12 WHIP in 57 innings this year at age 41. What don't you like about the Timlin deal, dummy?
My Grade for the Timlin Deal: 8
My Grade on my Junior Year AP History Report on the Role of "Neo-Yellow Journalism" in U.S. Involvement in Central American Military Conflicts: A-minus
12/13/03 Signed free-agent RHP Keith Foulke to a three-year deal that includes a vested option for a fourth year.
Real quick: the answer is 9. Maybe 8, but almost definitely 9. Keith Foulke should have been the ALCS MVP. He might have been the Sox' team MVP for 2004. His 2005 and '06 were disappointing and injury-riddled, but the guy was lights-out in the regular season, and sold out his body and soul in some of the most hi-lev innings in team history in the playoffs and came through every single time. So, 8-9, and I'd even kick it up to 10 if I were feeling saucy.
Foulke was brought to Boston to be the permanent shut down closer that the Sox decided they didn’t need in 2003. This was blatantly admitting that Bill James’s “bullpen ace” model just didn’t work.
No. No, sorry. That's not true. Foulke was a "bullpen ace," and the actual theory is that the bullpen ace shouldn't always just pitch the ninth inning no matter what the situation is, but rather should be used in the most hi-lev situations, be they in the 6th, 7th, 8th, what have you. So, no, acquiring a bullpen ace was not "blatantly admitting" that the "bullpen ace" model didn't work; it was an attempt to get a better bullpen ace in order to more effectively use the "bullpen ace" model. And maybe if you had thought about what you were writing for ten nanoseconds, or had bothered to read about the theory, you wouldn't have embarrassed yourself by writing that.
Foulke was being paid like a premium closer making over eighteen million dollars in his three years. Unfortunately he only pitched like a premium closer for one year. Foulke was everything he was supposed to be in 2004 and exceeded all expectations when he dominated the post season opposition. He had a miserable season in 2005 and by the first week of the 2006 season he had lost his job to Jonathan Papelbon. While Foulke has to be given credit for the 2004 championship, he was being paid for three years and only performed in one of them. The Sox did not get good value for Foulke at all.
Grade: 4
How can you say they did not get value for Foulke? They gave up nothing but cash, and in 2004 they got a .94 WHIP in 83 innings. Then, in a postseason that featured back-to-back extra inning games with the Yankees, when the margin for error was exactly zero, he threw 14 innings, giving up 7 hits, and getting 19 Ks. He gave up one run in those 14 innings.
Keith Foulke won the World Series for the Red Sox. I'm not kidding. Go here and read about what he did in the ALCS, if you don't believe me. They never get out of that series -- not even close -- if not for Keith Foulke. The rest of his tenure fell flat, but that one year was easily worth $18m. Easily.
My Grade for the Foulke Deal: 9
My Grade for the Folk Implosion Album "Dare to be Surprised": 6.8
12/16/03 Acquired IF Mark Bellhorn from Rockies for a player to be named.
Bellhorn was almost the same player as Todd Walker. He was below average defensively and had no range at all. Offensively he was a downgrade. While he did come up with some big hits in the 2004 playoffs, he often went through painful droughts where he wouldn’t be able to hit the ball for weeks at a time. The one positive of the Bellhorn deal was that he came cheap and the Sox were able to get away with him at second for one year.
Grade: 4.5
Theo Epstein paid Mark Bellhorn $490,000 in 2004 and he gave them 6.4 WARP3. Plus, the dude was so the Anti-ARod, banging a key 3-run homer in Game Six of the ALCS against the Yankees in New York. And then another go-ahead late-inning dong in WS Game One. ARod would never do that because he is a choker! He chokes and Bellhorn did not. Bellhorn is better than ARod. Jeter Rules!
($490,000 for six and a half wins = well done, Mr. GM.)
My Grade for the Bellhorn Deal: 6.4
Price for the Bell-horn Composite Wrist Brace: $19.99
12/17/04 Signed SS Edgar Renteria to a four-year contract with a club option for 2009.
This was a classic case of Theo looking only at the talent of a player and not taking into account the player’s make-up and how he would fit into the team. Edgar Renteria is an above average major league shortstop, but he could not play in Boston.
And what, exactly, about Edgar Renteria's past would have indicated this to be the case?
The entire season was a mess all around. At the plate he hit .276 and racked up 100 strikeouts while putting up weak power numbers. He wasn’t any better in the field committing a career worst thirty errors. However, it was letting go of Cabrera that was more of a problem than signing Renteria. Cabrera’s career has taken off since his time in Boston and every Sox fan still dreams of him playing shortstop for the Sox.
I do not dream of that thing.
OCab 2005 EqA: .255
Renteria 2005 EqA: .263
I loved OCab in the stretch run of 2004, because he was fun and energetic and played good defense and did funny handshakes with every member of the team, and also because they traded Nomar to get him, and if I didn't distract myself constantly by saying "Cabrera is good!" I would've ended up crying a lot. Cabrera put up some great AB in the postseason. But if he had been signed to a big 4-year deal, and had put up OPS+ of 82, 95, and 101 in the next three years (like he's done in LA), the love affair would've ended right quick.
Renteria got paid like one of the best shortstops in the game but his play was far from that assessment. Like his former manager Tony La Russa predicted, Renteria struggled mightily under the pressure of Boston.
Grade: 1
Yes. We should all listen to Tony La Russa more. That's the problem.
My Grade for the Renteria Deal: 2
My Grade for Tony La Russa -- Just, Like, An Overall Grade for His Whole "Deal": 0
12/23/04 Signed RHP Wade Miller to a one-year contract.
This was a puzzling move. Epstein decided to take a risk on the often injured Miller. Miller lived up to his reputation making only sixteen starts on the year due to injury. He had a 4-4 record with a 4.95 ERA, average numbers at best.
Grade: 2.5
It was a 1 year, $1.5m contract laden with incentives. For a guy who at one point was dominant. And for whom they had zero expectations. It didn't work out. They non-tendered him. These are exactly the kind of deals that teams with money to throw around should be making.
My Grade for the Wade Miller Deal: Eh
My Wade for the Grade Diller Meal: N/A (nonsense)
There's more of this crap, but I'm going to dinner now. (I do like how he labels the Lugo and Drew deals as "1"s, after one year of 4- and 5-year deals, respectively.)
Labels: mike pagliarulo, red sox
If you've been living under a rock or something and are like totally not hip to important things that are happening in the world, allow me to inform you that former mediocre New York Yankee Mike Pagliarulo
has some kind of scouting website.
It appears to be co-run by someone named Adam, but for the purposes of this blog entry, I am going to assume it is designed, written, and executed by Pags and Pags only. Because that is funnier.
Call us crazy, but where else in the world can you find an industry where a small market GM leads the large market companies?
1. You're crazy.
2. I would imagine there are a lot of them. Lots of large companies are influenced by, and steal ideas from, small companies. Apple's design team blows Microsoft's out of the water. JetBlue and Southwest were, for a while, running rings around much larger airlines. Most people refer to the product that allows you to record TV shows as "TiVo" and not "TimeWarner HD Cable DVR" or something. Sometimes Miramax and FineLine and Paramount Vantage and stuff win Oscars while Universal and Warner Bros. make clunkers. Should I keep going? Or do you want to talk about baseball?
Where else does a business with half the budget dictate protocol for the “super powers” except in the business of baseball?We're in troubs, here, Pags. This sentence is all over the linguistic map. I think what you mean to say is: in what other industry does a "company" (team) with half the budget of other companies (teams) with which is it competing, control the way business is conducted within that industry. Instead, you just wrote the word "business," and then wrote a bunch of phrases with no antecedents or referents ("half the budget," "super powers") and then wrote "business" again. Not make word-goods you wasn't.
(BTW: For the
answer to the question, see the answer to the previous question, because this is just a rephrasing of the previous question.)
In the case of the Oakland A’s and GM Billy Beane, quite a phenomenon exists throughout a majority of the monopoly consisting of major league baseball teams. This is painful. Pags, sweetheart -- have you ever read...anything? If you haven't, you should. If will help you communicate better with your audience. This sentence appears to have been first "written" in sign language by a Russian chimp, and then translated into English by a Chinese businessman who learned English from old soap operas.
It seems that what Pags
wants to say -- but tragically cannot, because he writes like a fifth grader trying to fake his way through an oral report on salamanders -- is: "What makes Billy Beane so great, anyway?!" Which is an excellent question. That has been answered many, many, many, many times.
Billy Beane is a great GM because he found a way to keep the A's competitive in MLB, despite a payroll far behind those of several other teams. He did this by using cutting-edge statistical analysis to find players with undervalued skills who had been overlooked by other teams. He drafted these players (or traded for them), paid them rock-bottom prices, and watched as his army of nerd robots won many division- and wild card titles. If this sounds familiar, it's because
everyone in the world has been talking about it for like six years (or more), and because it was chronicled in the book
Moneyball by Michael Lewis, which is very good, and really has nothing to do with anything that anybody now thinks it has to do with.
I sincerely doubt that anyone reading this blog has not read
Moneyball, but if you haven't, you should, because it's quite good. I am also going to go ahead and bet that Pags has never read
Moneyball. I might even...yes, yes I believe I am going to go ahead and guess that Pags has not completed an entire book since he polished off
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, when he was seventeen.
There are a few teams (Toronto, Boston, NY, and Texas) who rely on statistical formulas and hire knowledgeable front office personnel at a cost of $50K to $500K, who create and analyze – something!
They analyze baseball players. Did you really not know this?
We aren’t sure what that “something” is and they certainly aren’t talking about it, especially to the media.
That's because it's a crock! They're full of it! They aren't really doing anything, these nerds. They have like mob-style no-show jobs. Hang on...come to think of it...I never heard any generals give interviews explaining how we were going to attack Baghdad. They're crocks too! They should be explaining that to us in the media! Also, where is the explanation of the formula for Coke? That should be available to me, from the media, via some people who work for Coke. If it isn't, I will assume that the people who make Coke are frauds who are just taking money and not making any actual product. And to answer your next question, no, I will not be dissuaded by the purchasing and consuming of Coke.
Sincerely,
Pags
Quite possibly, the statistical masterminds are creating retirement accounts and special offshore businesses for these highly paid decision makers.
I have said this before, but it's worth reiterating. Jokes definitely work best when they are formed as long, drawn-out sentences with lots and lots of extra words.
Example:
Bad Joke: Take my wife -- please!
Good Joke: For one example, why don't you take my wife -- although, my wife is so annoying and vexing and irritating that when I say "take my wife" what I actually should be saying is, "Sir -- if you are going somewhere far away, take my wife...please!"
Let’s take a closer look at the genius whose numerical formula positions his team 14 games behind in the American League West and without the ability to muster a .500 record.
Yes, let us. And to do so, I will quote from one of the comments found below this post on Pags's site. (And I will add, in bold, the payroll of the team.)
2000: 91-70 (division title) (32,121,833)
2001: 102-60 (wild card) (33,810,750)
2002: 103-59 (division title) (40,004,167)
2003: 96-66 (division title) (50,260,834)
2004: 91-71 (59,425,667)
2005: 88-74 (55,425,762)
2006: 93-69 (division title) (62,242,079)
2007: 69-72 (79,366,940)
You know what the Yankees' payroll was in 2006? $194,663,079. You know how many more games they won than the A's? Four. You know what the Yankees' payroll was in 2001? $112,287,143. You know how many more games they won than the A's that year? Negative seven more. That's how many more.
Now, a sentient human with a central nervous system and the ability to process information and engage with his fellow man might look at this data and say, "Billy Beane appears to be a talented GM." Here is what Pags gets from it:
The A’s are bad!
Just to clarify, he's talking about this year. Which: yes, they are, pretty bad. They have also sustained injuries to 41 of the 40 men on their roster. It's kind of a wash, really, 2007. But Pags seems to want to forget all of the years referenced above in order to "prove" his "point," which he evidences with the following fun PowerPoint-style bullets:
- They cannot “contend” in a four- team division, resulting in a sorry state of affairs.
- They fired a manager from 2006 who carried them to the playoffs because their genius (Beane) felt a new manager would help enhance team communication. This piece of information was reported in spring training.
- They use assistant GM David Forst to critique and interrogate manager Bob Geren to second guess the lineups both before and after games.
- Forst uses OPS, OBP, LLBean, FYI, and SOB as a system of analysis. Astoundingly, no one else uses this championship formula.
- Other general manager disciples such as Epstein, Cashman, Daniels, and Richardi have larger money blankets than Billy Beane, but they don’t use their blankets to warm Billy when he flounders and produces a product void of luster.
I know I say this a lot, but I think this is the shittiest writing I have come across in my 54 years of deconstructing sports journalism. I just described it to Mrs. Tremendous as "a treasure trove," and she rolled her eyes and kept on doing exactly what she was doing. But I could tell she was more into it than usual.
Let's go PagsPoint™ by PagsPoint™.
They cannot “contend” in a four- team division, resulting in a sorry state of affairs.
They are not contending this year. Correct. Is this the only year you have heard of? Do you not know that there have been other years? In four of the last seven, they won the division. What a sorry state of affairs. And who are you to use the phrase "sorry state of affairs" anyway? Fucking T.E. Lawrence?
They fired a manager from 2006 who carried them to the playoffs because their genius (Beane) felt a new manager would help enhance team communication. This piece of information was reported in spring training.
I'll say right now that dealing with managers has never really seemed like Billy's strong point. That weird "Macha out, Macha talking to Pittsburgh, Macha back in" thing from 2005 was painful to watch, and I don't know how anybody thought that was going to work out. So, I guess: Beane: not great with managers. Point Pags.
They use assistant GM David Forst to critique and interrogate manager Bob Geren to second guess the lineups both before and after games.
Man. I just...this isn't English sentence construction, man. Get an editor. Or, just, maybe hire a high school kid to rewrite your stuff or something. You've got back-to-back infinitives, for god's sake.
Look. This is the way Billy Beane runs his team. He wants certain guys playing in certain situations. If you take the A's managing job, you play by his rules. You know what allows him to wield that kind of power? Four division titles in seven years.
Forst uses OPS, OBP, LLBean, FYI, and SOB as a system of analysis. Astoundingly, no one else uses this championship formula.
In the pantheon of smugly ignorant acronym use, this takes the cake. LLBean is a terrible "nerdy acronym" joke for many reasons: like, that it's not an acronym. And that it appears in an article attacking Billy Beane, which gives one the impression the author is too dumb to think of two different things at the same time. FYI is boring. SOB is a term not heard much by people under fifty. And the whole thing -- the collection of five acronyms; two real, three unfunny and fake -- is referred to as a "system of analysis." Pags, seriously bro, if you had any idea how sophisticated their actual systems of analysis were...dude. Bro. Your effing head would explode.
Other general manager disciples such as Epstein, Cashman, Daniels, and Richardi have larger money blankets than Billy Beane, but they don’t use their blankets to warm Billy when he flounders and produces a product void of luster.
This may be the most wonderful sentence I have ever read. This sentence holds the English language by the throat, pushes it against a wall, and slashes it across the face with a broken beer bottle.
"Other general manager disciples"
Disciples of what? Or whom? Epstein came from San Diego. Cash has always been a Yankee. Jon Daniels worked in Colorado and then for Jon Hart in Texas. Ricciardi -- that's how you spell his name, BTW -- is the only one you could actually call a Beane "disciple." But you didn't call them Billy Beane disciples, I guess -- you just called them "disciples." Sort of covering all your bases there. Nice work.
"have larger money blankets than Billy Beane"
It's time to play: "Has Anyone Ever Heard This Phrase?" I have not. Please write in if you have, and let me know where. This is what I imagine. But I'm willing to listen to other explanations.
"but they don’t use their blankets to warm Billy"
Excellent. Just excellent. You make up a term, and then one second later you use the term in a different metaphorical context -- an extremely tortured metaphorical context, mind you, because: how could these "money blankets" be used to 'warm" Billy Beane by other GMs? Are you saying that they don't like loan him money? Or something? Or are you saying that they don't metaphorically "warm" him with praise? This is fucking gibberish.
"when he flounders and produces a product void of luster."
My favorite part. What a finish. When he flounders and produces a product void of luster. Void of luster. Billy Beane has produced a product void of luster! Is this product...a watch fob? A set of plus-fours or spats? Perhaps an improperly polished saddle for tomorrow's hunt? No -- it's a baseball team! Surprise!
The fact is that the A’s will never win a World Series relying upon their current statistical formulas. The Oakland franchise is not structured to win a World Series.
Pags! Guns blazing! Prove it.
Sadly, Billy Beane doesn’t know this nor do his disciples.
That is sad. Those guys are just toiling away on their sophisticated mathematical modeling projects, working as hard or harder than anyone else in baseball, trying to level the playing field by outsmarting the other teams (many of whom have adopted and co-opted their methods) to compensate for (in some cases) their severely limited resources. And all that time, they don't know that they're doomed to go championshipless...forever. And they're being told this by Pags, who wrote this article from the stern of his 22-foot fishing boat ("The Yank Pags"), off the Gulf Coast, while pounding his eleventh Miller Lite.
Fundamental baseball wins championships and fundamentals aren’t found in the statistical formulas used when signing players for the Oakland franchise. They don’t get it, yet the “disciples” will revel in the notion that Billy B. says, “Joba Chamberlain is going to be a star”…………Now there’s a big time prediction!
I had to read this four or five times to understand it. I believe what PagsBone is saying: Oakland's mathematical modeling doesn't take "fundamentals" into account. Then there is a missing chunk where he would say that Beane is stupid for using these formulas, currently represented by the near non-sequitur "They don't get it." Then he adds that Beane's disciples think he's so great and point to predictions that Beane makes -- like that Joba is going to be good -- as evidence of his genius, when in fact, argues Pags, anyone in the world could have seen that!
Everything about this paragraph is wrong. The ideas behind it: wrong. The execution: virtuosically bad. A new bar has been set.
So, we ask, who will get fired this year? Will it be Bob Geren, Bob Schaefer, or David Forst? We know it won’t be Beane.
Toronto has a formula for drafting college pitchers who are unable to throw above 90 mph. Boston has Bill James-500K, the best fantasy baseball statistician in the game. He consulted in the JD Drew deal, totaling $70 million, but won’t admit it.
This makes it sound like Toronto has a specific desire to draft pitchers who cannot throw hard. I don't think that's true. I think they probably use a different set of criteria for guys who throw below 90 -- a formula involving K/BB rates, and BABIP, and the kinds of things you would want to know about a soft-tosser.
"Bill James-500K" sounds like a robot. Learn the difference between dashes and hyphens, dummy. Also, he is the opposite of a "fantasy" statistician. A "fantasy" statistician cares about things like RBI, runs, wins (for a pitcher) and stuff. Bill James does not. And yes, I am sure he did consult on the JD Drew deal, and I'm sure if you asked him he would admit it. On what basis are you saying he will not admit it? Did you ask him? Has anyone asked him? Is he publicly throwing other people under the bus for that deal? No, Pags, my man, he is not, I don't think. I could be wrong, but I don't think he is. I think that everyone in the Red Sox organization would say the same thing about that deal: disappointing so far, but it's a five-year deal, and you can't judge the success or failure of anything based on 15% of its eventual total.
The Yankees have two confidential statistical guys who are well dressed and very quiet. They both share an office near the PA announcer and are capable of telling the GM how many changeups Edwar Ramirez has thrown at AAA.
What does any of this have to do with anything, positively or negatively?
Daniels isn’t sure which part of the hierarchy is on his side.
What hierarchy? And why is this relevant? And what does it mean? And what point are you making?
Put quite simply, this is MONEY HAUL, the worst-spent dollars in major league baseball. This economic virus tows the leaders of the industry, the envious fans and executives in love with our national pastime.
This is the end of the blog entry. Fantastic. Economic virus? Envious fans? (Of what, one might ask.) And how is anyone's love of our national pasttime affected by this? And why is this money ill-spent? The Yankees, Red Sox, and A's have phenomenal records of success in the past decade. If the Pirates, Royals, and Orioles were using these methods, attack away, friend.
Sometimes -- and I know this is crazy -- I feel like Mike Pagliarulo isn't the smartest guy in the world.
Labels: a's, billy beane, mike pagliarulo
