No. 1, I think we can all agree that nobody wants to overpay for players that are just rentals. OK? Really. Nobody is for that. Even the Dead Horse Beaten Corpse of Ned Colletti. NOBODY IS FOR THAT. Not Ned, not Steve Lyons, not the dreaded "Casual Fans." CAN WE AGREE? It's not everyone wants to overpay except the Stat Boys because they're smarter than everyone else.
Ned's never had a sensible baseball boss to question his moves. Now he does. Stan K. does not want to overpay for players that are just pennant race rentals. I hope we've got that cleared up. Nobody.
No. 2, EVERYONE has a different idea of what is overpaying, the value of the playoffs and what exactly helps the Dodgers build for the future. This is a fantastically gray area. It's also complicated. Stat Boys don't ever have to worry about things like ticket sales, people's jobs, salary, risk/reward, any of that.
Some people think trading Gould for Carlos Lee was an example of the rental overpayment problem. Me, not so much. The Dodgers were way out in front way back then and Lee represented an upgrade at 1B. But I could easily live without him, too.
I don't think Gould will ever be part of a Major League rotation. I could be wrong. Lee has been an upgrade so far for Miami but he's not going to be their difference maker. Nobody is right at this stage.
Tragic Illness believes Dee Gordon is an unproven player as well as being injury prone and therefore the Dodgers should pay for Jimmy Rollins. Helps short term and long term. I think this is a clown statement for several reasons but that's how far apart people can be on these things.
No. 3, The trade market is ever changing. What applied six weeks ago may not apply now. And when it comes to trading, supply, demand, leverage and skill at horse trading are the key factors not how the advance metrics add up.
For example I told recent teenager, The Real Paul, that the Red Sox would ask the Dodgers for a lot to get Youk. And that was true. Team always ask for a lot. Anyone who does transactions or negotiates in real life knows about how those things work. Anyone that is that has done more than trade baseball cards and bootleg DVDs.
But Paul, that was near or at the time Youk got hurt. When the majority of people were still thinking he could play. Then Youk gets hurt. Then Youk can't get to the Mendoza line. Then the scouts say Youk sucks. Then he becomes a clubhouse problem. Then his replacement blows up. By his final days in Boston he's only worth the Ely/Sellers comp.
As soon as he gets hurt his value started going down. Then it was follow the bouncing ball to the ground floor. By that time they could have probably got him for Gould. But the entire trade value situation was totally different than before.
If the Dodgers had traded for Youk at that point the Stat Kids would have pouted and thrown tantrums until the sun went down and afterwards. They'd call it Ned being Ned. Even though Ned doesn't make the final decision anymore. Now in hindsight maybe the Dodgers should have traded that comp but nobody was saying it then.
Trade value is a constantly moving target. What you might be able to get one day could be entirely different next week due to supply, demand and leverage. If you're going to go all Bozo The Clown at least try to show that you know something about the big picture.
No comments:
Post a Comment