Jack Zduriencik is so far ahead of the world that I think he's the cat from Early Edition.
Jeff from Lookout Landing. It is staggering how much this reminds me of the way so many talked about Shapiro.
about 2 years ago
afh4
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Must really hurt Royals fans to see this. They made a similar type of hire for GM, except that he’s absolutely terrible.
by Jay on Dec 15, 2009 9:49 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
To me it’s really that “Good looking teams” ≠ “Playoffs.”
There’s a lot of “no matter what, you can’t say the M’s didn’t win this deal” and I used to say things like that all the time about Shapiro.
You know when you can say anything about winning a deal? Or having a good team? When you go to the playoffs consistently. Because, no matter how awesome the Cliff Lee deal was, it’s crap if they don’t make the playoffs and Lee walks. This idea that you can evaluate moves in a vacuum from wins is one that once had a lot of traction or a lot of Cleveland fans and has shown itself to be deeply flawed very quickly.
It just doesn’t matter how cool the deal looked if you don’t win a lot of games.
Can’t wait til they flip Cliff at the deadline. To Philadelphia. For Kyle Drabek.
by fleerdon on Dec 15, 2009 11:38 PM EST up reply actions
So I just read, for the first time, the complete list of transactions in that deal.
by fleerdon on Dec 15, 2009 11:58 PM EST up reply actions
In all seriousness: My original SBN 2.0 avatar was Jan-Michael Vincent as Air Wolf, because the team was supposed to be so badass. Then it was a joke, so I chose Tom Servo. Then it became handsomely excruciating, an endurance test of your appreciation for clear-headed management versus your tolerance for not-quite-comically poor baseball. I literally likened it in a conversation to Cool Hand Luke eating fifty hard-boiled eggs. And then I thought, well, why not?
Anyway, I think the better question is, now? Half a year later, it dawns on you that you’re bummed about my avatar?
Side note, anybody think the motion picture Avatar looks like a boring video game?
by fleerdon on Dec 16, 2009 6:23 PM EST up reply actions
I’m not really bummed about it, I just thought about how cool those sunglasses were. Though, for a while, I thought it was Bill Murray eating marshmallows.
I am flabbergasted that Ebert liked Avatar.
Wow, just read it. He loves it. I honestly thought it was a movie based on some video game. Why were you disappointed in his review?
by dgcambridge on Dec 16, 2009 10:25 PM EST up reply actions
I suppose I shouldn’t say I was disappointed in the review, I just am not into fantasy movies/sci-fi and am not at all excited about this one. I will still end up seeing it.
Side note, anybody think the motion picture Avatar looks like a boring video game?
Yep.
The once and future
by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Dec 16, 2009 7:59 PM EST up reply actions
Grady looks like Newman. Both have the same hairline, slightly curly hair, good jaw, smile-induced crow’s feet.
This idea that you can evaluate moves in a vacuum from wins is one that once had a lot of traction or a lot of Cleveland fans and has shown itself to be deeply flawed very quickly.
I like this, but it’s bothering me at the same time. The idea is not flawed in that the only thing that we can evaluate, and the only thing that organization can control, is the moves that they make. Every little move in the right direction should be applauded. Every move in the wrong direction should be disparaged.
Outside of the top 5 or so payroll teams, you can’t come close to guaranteeing yourself a playoff berth, let alone a consistent appearance there, right? So how does it make sense to retroactively slap the moves with a good or bad tag based on the playoffs.
Maybe I’m reading too much into your comment Andrew, and doing so based on one of my all-time pet peeves – the need to slap down the moves and the movers based on our outrage. What we really want is for Shapiro to say it was all crap. We want him to apologize for being an idiot. We don’t really want to hear him talk about why certain gambles were made, we want him to say that he thought that the fans were OK with a losing team and that he was wrong. As if the real problem is that the Shapiro, or Wedge, or Mangini/Lerner, or Dan Hawkins (whoops, off-topic) simply doesn’t understand that losing is bad, very bad, unacceptable. That is BS in my opinion, 99% of the time. Let’s assume they’re trying to win, and analyze each move based on whether it helps or hurts. Why would we move from that?
Sorry, I’m extra ranty lately.
I see that side of it, there’s no doubt.
Perhaps it would be more accurate if I said:
This idea that you can evaluate moves in a vacuum from wins and enjoy the team and its management in that vacuum is one that once had a lot of traction for a lot of Cleveland fans and has shown itself to be deeply flawed very quickly.
To put another way, we used to love to cheerlead Shapiro, the same way that they’re cheerleading Jack Z. After this particular run of failure though, it’s become obvious that that type of cheerleading is not only unbecoming, it’s also pointless.
I’ll probably do a post on this.
andrew, i agree with you wholeheartedly. the one thing i would add, though, is that M’s fans suffered for so long under the stupidity of the bavasi regime, part of the joy they have right now is probably derived from being out from underneath his decisionmaking. jack z probably does seem like a wizard to them right now, not just because he’s made some nice (looking) moves, but also because there’s not much chance he could ever be as bumbling as their former guy.
If you don't respect Aaron Laffey, I will fight you.
by Cap'n Snegiryov on Dec 16, 2009 5:09 PM EST up reply actions
A long time ago, I did some crude averaging about the runs scored versus runs allowed of playoff teams. The whole extent of what I learned, I can’t recall, but something I took away was that there’s a sort of bare minimum level of offensive production to get an AL playoff berth — something in the neighborhood of 800 runs. Making the cut without that kind of run support mean really, really ridiculous run suppression. If the M’s are going to make a deep run, they’re either going to be unexpectedly potent with the bats, or they’re going to be the sort of weapon that causes international tensions to boil over into out-and-out conflict, and only the heroics of one prescient man will be able to stop the outbreak of nuclear war.
No, wait, I’m confusing run suppression with the caterpillar drive from The Hunt for Red October.
by fleerdon on Dec 15, 2009 10:10 PM EST reply actions
Yeah, I saw that on LL. Was gonna post then I remembered they banned me for making a subject line joke.
The misinterpretation of non-irony as irony is an epidemic.
The once and future
by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Dec 16, 2009 8:00 PM EST up reply actions
I prefer to think of it as using the term “irony” ironically.
by Logodaedalus on Dec 17, 2009 2:28 PM EST up reply actions
I don’t really understand their enthusiasm. So they have two great pitchers, Ichiro, an awesome center fielder, and Russell Branyan. That won’t win them anything, right? And then Cliff will walk at the end of the year and they’ll have nothing. So what’s the point?
David Cameron has a post up on fangraphs about how, for the second time in 6 months, Cliff Lee has been undervalued:
So, our options here are believe that two General Managers are lazy/incompetent and failed to extract the best return possible for their team when trading him, or that the market for Cliff Lee is just not very good. Let’s just agree to reject option A out of hand, as neither Shapiro or Amaro are lazy or stupid. That leaves the second option – that this really was the best both teams could do.
What, then, is wrong with Cliff Lee in the eyes of major league GMs?
As with the trade in the summer, I think Cameron is missing the bigger picture here. I think his second option is correct, that’s all the GMs could get for Lee, but not for the reason he states. Everyone knows Cliff Lee is good. But the trade market has a lot of asymmetry with respect to the related issues of payroll and player development/evaluation. Not every team values a free agent win above replacement at $4M and not every team prioritizes the development and value of in-house prospects in the same way. Young guys are incredibly valuable to every team with a reasonable front office that isn’t named New York (and occasionally a few others).
I agree with this. It’s not a simple formula that applies the same to each and every club across baseball. Teams are at different states of development as well as different levels of capacity. When you are limiting the number of teams that it would make sense to even acquire Lee, that will significantly shift the amount you can get in return.
I think, ultimately, Cameron and the other Lee-to-Phillies trade detractors are suffering from a dressed-up version of B.A. syndrome — taking the rankings to mean something other than what they mean. That’s no knock against B.A., which has its own style and purpose. But what B.A. thinks about a prospects tools, and what that guy is likely to contribute over the duration of his contract, are only tangentially related.
In the abstract, that’s not a difficult concept; otherwise, Shapiro’s phone should be ringing constantly with offers for Adam Miller. (Hey, the 2010 Top Ten hasn’t come out yet, and Miller’s top ten!) But make it something more nuanced — going with younger, higher-upside pitchers, or with skill position players over left fielders, irrespective of their ranking — and B.A. syndrome sets in. Fundamentally, it’s no different than Dennis Nosco’s complaint that the 2009 draft basically ignored the B.A. mock draft board. One is an academic exercise; the other is reality.
What I don’t yet understand is why so many people have so much invested in taking down this particular trade. It’s like Carrasco turned down their kids’ autograph requests or something. I can only guess it’s sabermetrically de rigueur to hate on Shapiro.
by fleerdon on Dec 16, 2009 7:10 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
what B.A. thinks about a prospects tools, and what that guy is likely to contribute over the duration of his contract
I think Cameron is doing a little more than using BA rankings, but you’re right about the meaning of the rankings. They are almost entirely focused on ceiling and are decidedly not econometric, i.e., based on an estimate of real, present-day value. It was in reaction to that specific aspect of the rankings (and scouting hype somewhat as well) that I created the EPS system, as a counter-balance. This was before Keith Law and Kevin Goldstein and a dozen others were doing their own rankings, which are all decidedly more econometric than the BA rankings.
The other thing that tends to get mowed over in these discussions is the very simple fact that one team’s #8 prospect may not be anywhere near as good as another team’s #8 prospect. Thus, a statement “The Mariners gave up three of their Top 10 prospects” ultimately has almost no real meaning whatsoever, yet we see those comments all the time and often nothing else.
I’m certain Cameron can wrap his head around present value as a concept. But I am accusing him of doing what it seems like everyone else did — taking the endpoint you’d reach if you analyzed the trade using the B.A. rankings out of context — “Shapiro got his clock cleaned,” in so many words — and then drawing a line to that point without trying to connect any dots in between.
I mean, Cameron’s asking, why does the return for Cliff Lee seem so low? There are two possible answers: One, as you and the guys I quoted below rightly point out, GMs have a lot more on their mind than Dave’s spreadsheets. The second answer is that the return really wasn’t all that low. As I read his analysis, Cameron’s flatly ignoring that as a possibility, and to me, that makes him no more insightful on this topic than the sweaty guys waving tattered copies of B.A. at their monitors.
by fleerdon on Dec 16, 2009 9:56 PM EST up reply actions
Don’t tell it to it’s face, you’ll get 2 months in the hole.
Welcome back, Sandy! ATALECG...
by USSChoo on Dec 17, 2009 1:33 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
I basically called Cameron obtuse to his face once, over on the SBN Mariners blog. He was talking crap implying that he knew personally from Antonetti that despite what happened after teh St. Louis offer, the Mariners might still be able to get him. And I was like, dude, whatever, you are such an insider OMG.
Props to these two guys in the comments:
So it’s wrong to presume that two particular GMs are incompetent, but it’s appropriate to conclude that all MLB GMs are fundamentally mistaken in how they value one of the game’s best players?
Maybe, just maybe, GM’s don’t look at just WAR and go $4 mill per WAR when making personnel decisions then call it a night.
by fleerdon on Dec 16, 2009 6:52 PM EST up reply actions
Sabermetricians can be pretty arrogant.
I think most GMs do not think Lee is as good as Sabathia or Halladay, specifically that he’s not as likely to remain roughly just as good as he has been. I also think most GMs have more concern about his injury history than the average fanalyst.
Is “fanalyst” your word? If not, you should take credit for it.
The once and future
by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Dec 16, 2009 11:04 PM EST up reply actions
I think most GMs do not think Lee is as good as Sabathia or Halladay
They’d be right. Lee is not as good as Sabathia or Halladay – he’s better.
For the life of me I do not understand why Philadelphia would essentially trade Lee for Halladay. In the end I think that Phillie’s gonna get the short end of this deal.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
We’ve had the Sabathia argument before and will never see eye to eye there. However, no matter how you slice it, Roy Halladay is better than Cliff Lee. I cannot find one idiot stat or advanced metric that would argue Lee is better.
did you sort by “aloof southern badassness”
by Brick. on Dec 17, 2009 10:18 AM EST up reply actions 4 recs
See, this is exactly the problem with the stats argument. You make it sound like an absolute: Halladay’s stats over the his career are better than Lee’s. No argument. But if you’re the GM making the deal what you need to discern is this: who will be the better pitcher over the next 5 years? This is much, much harder to determine. You win the irrelevent argument as to who’s been better in the past. But to a GM making the trade it’s of little relevence. The real question is this: who’s gonna be better in the future? My money’s on Lee.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
Um… isn’t the guy who will sign to play for your club for three more years better than the guy who might not?
by JulioBernazard on Dec 17, 2009 1:06 PM EST up reply actions 3 recs
And the first question ya hafta axe is, who’s gonna be healthier in the future?
by Jay on Dec 17, 2009 6:20 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Sometimes it’s not even a question of health. Once – a long time ago – the Indians traded this guy:
Age ERA+
20 75
21 133
22 161
23 120
24 86
25 165
26 127
27 134
28 112
For this guy:
Age ERA+
24 79
25 130
26 86
27 124
28 128
29 122
30 142
31 125
32 124
From a stats and age perspective, pretty dumb. Only the first guy – Sam McDowell – was outta – that’s outta – baseball three years after the trade, while the udder – that’s udder with two "d"s – guy went on to win two CY awards and be a dominate pitcher for another 8 years..
It’s easy to pick out the guy who’s been a good pitcher. Much, much harder to pick the guys who has many more years of great pitching left. I think that Lee’s the kinda pitcher who can still win games for you 5-6 years down the road.
And, oh yeah, I’ll bet that Halladay’s OPS next year will be 100 points lower than Lee’s was this year too. Positional value, dontcha know.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
I believe you have accidentally amplified my point. In the case of this trade, it didn’t matter what the ERA+ scores were nearly as much as the health of the two pitchers.
Sudden Sam’s IP, starting two years before trade: 305, 215, 164, 136, 48, 35, out of baseball.
Gaylord, meanwhile, goes on to become one of the all-time statistical outliers in terms of pitcher longevity. How many guys have started 400+ big-league games for 3000+ innings after their 33rd birthday? My guess is, fewer than ten, maybe fewer than five.
I’m not in a position to say whether the Indians were lucky or good on that trade. I can say that McDowell may well have been effective for years had his arm not fallen apart, but what’s the point of even considering that possibility? The reality is, he was never going to pitch for another ten years, and Perry was.
I can say that McDowell may well have been effective for years had his arm not fallen apart,
That’s not the way I remember it or the way he tells it. Sam McDowell was a drunk who squandered away his talent. Much like Darryly Strawberry or Steve Howe or any number of couldda been superstars. It wasn’t ligaments or tendons that did Sudden Sam in. It was his character.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
That’s because there isn’t any statistical reason – the only evaluative coin recognized on this site. It’s all about the player’s insensible qualities that separate a great player from the merely good. Things like character, resilience, work ethic – the kinda qualities that a fan cannot measure directly. Most often a fan has little evidence of character. Most often what little evidence we have is anecdotal and the majority of that evidence is negative – as in the case of Milton Bradley or Steve Howe or Darryl Strawberry. But occasionally – rarely in fact – we see how some players display character by how they deal with adversity. It’s the rare player who not only confronts and overcomes his problems but uses them to improve his performance. Players with grit as it were.
I knew that Cliff Lee was a guy with outstanding character when I learned how he dealt with his son’s illness. I found this admirable but I wasn’t sure if this would translate onto the baseball field. But the way he handled his demotion and subsequent comeback was even more remarkable. What every Indian fan saw from 2006 to 2008 was a nothing short of a baseball miracle that bespeaks of a will and determination unmatched by any athlete I’ve ever seen in a Cleveland uniform. And Lee did it without a 100 mph fastball or a Blylevenesque curve or a trick pitch.
I like Lee’s somatotype and his uncanny control but the quality that I believe separates Lee from the others is his grit.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
I looked at all of the numbers, trying to make an argument for Lee over Halladay, but Harry is just flat-out better.
Also! Lee is now back in the AL, and Halladay now gets to dominate the NL.
Wait 'til next millennium!
The possibility of playing in Texas more may hurt him just a tinsy bit. But other than that a stellar D behind him (Wilson, Gut, Ichiro) and that spacious park should help.
by The Grimace on Dec 18, 2009 11:36 PM EST up reply actions
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