Jim Bowden predicts FA Price Tags

And he absolutely nails them. Pretty incredible.

Comments

I’m glad the author of this piece had the same reaction I did to the fact that Bowden would actually pay these guys this. Like woah there, Jimmy… try to get something on sale once in a while.

by westbrook on Jan 27, 2012 9:19 PM EST reply actions

Eh, I think that’s a bit overstated. Bowden doesn’t have a team so, to me, the reasonable question he asks himself is:

“If I really thought I had to have this player, what would I pay?”

The idea that he ought to be saying what he would pay players in some vacuum of valuation is a difficult one to wrap my head around. Guys aren’t just ‘worth’ something, they’re worth something to certain clubs in a certain context. The most intelligent context for Bowden in this type of piece would be: “I need to win this guy.” Otherwise, it’s sort of a pointless exercise and some of the players would almost certainly have $0 (or a similarly unrealistically low stand-in) as their price.

by afh4 on Jan 28, 2012 8:33 AM EST up reply actions

But the “I need to win this guy” mentality is what leads to the winner’s curse. And what is fascinating about this is that Bowden can come up with that price without having been bid out for it.

by cleveland teamer on Jan 28, 2012 10:57 AM EST up reply actions

What other approach can you take as an analyst GM without a team, though? Is he supposed to value the player in terms of an imagined roster at his disposal?

by afh4 on Jan 28, 2012 3:40 PM EST up reply actions

Yeah, I get what you’re saying. I just picture the agents playing teams off each other and getting the desperate GM to go higher than he originally planned (and I don’t know anything about how these deals go down, so maybe I overestimate the degree to which that happens). Based on the results that’s not a great stretch to make for somebody doing this exercise, but I find it surprising that that’s the case.

by cleveland teamer on Jan 28, 2012 8:35 PM EST up reply actions

Yeah, both of you are making a lot of sense here. I think we all know what Bowden’s intentions were here. It’s whether he properly explained and valued his work that kind of bothers me.

by westbrook on Jan 29, 2012 5:55 PM EST up reply actions