2012 Baseball Season/Off-Season Discussion

[sandman]

I think baseball (and sports in general) is somewhat different than a typical business because there's a 'product' loyalty that doesn't quite apply in other businesses.  For example, if my favorite local pizzeria starts topping its pizzas with shit, I will cease patronizing them.  Whereas, Jason Bay and his $66M contract can continue to take a dump on the field night after night and I will still stand by the Mets.  Of course, team loyalty is completely irrational and makes no sense whatsoever (we all root for laundry --- and even that changes), but it is what it is and we're all guilty of it.  Teams obviously exploit that, so fans get pissed.

Ha, good point.  I remember a sociology professor of mine once talked about how silly it is to root for sports teams, which of course we all disagreed with at the time.  He said we are essentially just blindly rooting for big corporations like Sony or Apple no matter what type of business decisions they make or products they produce.  There is some truth to that.  For example if for the last 10 years,  Sony only made terrible products that were always worse than their competitors,  would I continuously buy Sony products?  Of course not.  However, I still pour money into the Oakland Raiders.

agreed! that is really funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WSD6Y2YWj4

[LongGoneDay]

I think baseball (and sports in general) is somewhat different than a typical business because there's a 'product' loyalty that doesn't quite apply in other businesses.  For example, if my favorite local pizzeria starts topping its pizzas with shit, I will cease patronizing them.  Whereas, Jason Bay and his $66M contract can continue to take a dump on the field night after night and I will still stand by the Mets.  Of course, team loyalty is completely irrational and makes no sense whatsoever (we all root for laundry --- and even that changes), but it is what it is and we're all guilty of it.  Teams obviously exploit that, so fans get pissed.

Regarding Jason Bay, yes, the organization is ultimately to blame for that decision, but the decision was made based on expectations of performance.  I don't doubt his motivation or effort, but it's a results-based business and he has not lived up to those expectations. I doubt that there were any material business considerations that went into signing him outside of his field performance.  It's not like Jason Bay is a guy that was going to create a marketing buzz for the team where he'd be a regular in the NY gossip columns, sunbathe shirtless in Central Park or date Madonna.

It's a shame what happened to Bay. He seems like one of the good guys.
Call me crazy but I still wish the Sox had signed him. His swing was built for Fenway, the Monster helped hide his defensive shortcomings, and he wasn't afraid of the bright lights.
He was a quiet leader, and that's something the Sox had plenty of with Varitek, Martinez etc, and now sorely lack.

I think the Mets was probably the last place he should have gone. Nothing against the team, but he never had a chance of living up to his contract in that ballpark.

[AxlsMainMan]

Awesome article in the NY Times:

How Granderson Trade Has Cost the Yankees

It would be patently disingenuous to say that Curtis Granderson has been a bad acquisition for the Yankees, at least from the side of the bargain that?s been his to hold up. Granderson was brought to New York for a left-handed stroke that would perfectly fit the jet stream that turns ordinary fly balls at Yankee Stadium into home runs. And how do you argue with the 108 home runs he has hit in ballparks everywhere over the past three seasons, along with the 292 runs he has batted in?

You don?t, not even after a disappearing act this postseason that ? fortunately for Granderson ? has landed him behind Robinson Cano, Alex Rodriguez and Nick Swisher on the priority list of the Yankees? missing sluggers? bureau.

At least Granderson remained in the lineup ? hitting in his new normal and out-of-harm?s-way eighth position on Tuesday night in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series against the Tigers. Meanwhile, the stunning emasculation of Rodriguez continued as he and Swisher took seats against Justin Verlander, benched in favor of Eric Chavez and Brett Gardner.

?It?s never easy,? Manager Joe Girardi said, though his matter-of-fact manner suggested the decision wasn?t terribly difficult either. ?It?s not, because these guys have a done a lot during the course of the season. But we did it.?

Besides admit he was desperate, what else could he do, given the overwhelmingly anemic results of the previous seven games? It seemed Girardi had given up on Rodriguez and Swisher, but remained hopeful that if Granderson could just make contact, put the ball in the air, he might launch one out of Comerica Park.

That was a fairly sizable if, given Granderson?s 14 strikeouts in 26 at-bats this postseason going into Game 3. If not the primary reason, the 2010 deal for him suddenly loomed as a symbol of why the Yankees? lineup had looked so decrepit while flunking offense in October.

If not a bad acquisition, Granderson in retrospect wasn?t the right acquisition when he was dealt by the Tigers for the young center fielder Austin Jackson in a three-team trade that also sent pitcher Ian Kennedy from the Yankees to Arizona and another pitcher, Max Scherzer, from the Diamondbacks to Detroit.

With Jackson, 25, already one of the game?s emerging leadoff hitters, and Scherzer a 16-game winner scheduled to start Game 4, we know exactly what the Tigers think of the deal.

The Yankees? Factoring in the players sacrificed for Granderson, the stages of their respective careers and their comparative costs, let?s hazard one possibility: the deal ? which by last season was being hailed as one of those that was good for everyone ? is now one they wished they?d never made.

Here is one way, albeit simplistic, of viewing the Granderson deal from the Yankees? side: his long-ball production ? and Kennedy?s 45 wins in three seasons for Arizona ? notwithstanding, you could say that the Yankees would at worst have been only marginally diminished and possibly have been even better off the last three years had they retained Jackson and Kennedy.

Even if we reason that Kennedy, like many young pitchers out of the Yankees? organization, would not have pitched as well in the suffocating South Bronx air as he did out west, or argue that Granderson?s bat was vital on a team that has made the postseason in all three seasons, that would be the short-term evaluation. Unless Granderson and Company could rally to win it all this season, how could the trade be a contextual winner if they failed to honor their self-imposed mandate for the third straight season since it was made?

Granderson hit 43 more homers this season, and drove in 106 runs, but struck out a career-high 195 times. At 31, and with the Yankees holding a club option and free agency looming after the 2013 season, his future with them could be limited.

Jackson had his best season, hitting .300, with 16 home runs and 66 R.B.I. He reduced his strikeouts to 134 from 181. Once viewed as Bernie Williams?s successor, Jackson can logically be assumed to be just growing into his offensive skills, while already one of baseball?s premier defensive center fielders.

?He was a really good young player a couple of years ago when he broke in,? Tigers Manager Jim Leyland said. ?He had almost 200 hits. Then reality set in and people started making adjustments, and you make them back because he?s a good player. He?s key for us. Everybody knows that. So he?s on schedule. He is not a total finished product, but he?s a good player.?

For the Tigers, he was a steal. For an aging team with overpaid players on a self-declared mission to reduce payroll to avoid onerous revenue-sharing penalties ? that would be the Yankees ? Jackson would now be the perfect counterbalance to a salary albatross like Rodriguez. Currently earning $500,000, Jackson will not be eligible for free agency until 2016.

For 2013, the Yankees will take a deep breath and probably renew Granderson, or have to play the same potentially deleterious game of sacrificing young talent for his replacement. The cycle repeats, and that is how $40 million worth of talent ($30 million for Rodriguez, $10 million for Swisher) winds up on the bench while another $10 million player bats eighth.

Such is the heavy price the Yankees pay ? on various fronts ? for their bloated version of money ball. For building a home run derby instead of a lineup that made sound baseball dollars and sense.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/17/sports/baseball/how-granderson-trade-cost-the-yankees-in-the-long-run.html

[Bodhi]

well so much for the Yankee season...this sucks, but if you can't hit you can't win...basic rule of baseball.

[tim_m]

well so much for the Yankee season...this sucks, but if you can't hit you can't win...basic rule of baseball.

That about sums it up. We made it interesting in the 9th but that's about it.

[pilferk]

If Yankee fans solely blame A-Rod for his contract and not the organization, then that gets back to sandman's point about the "limitless" payroll. Yankee fans don't care what they spend because they figure they can just cover it up. I used to feel the same way until the Red Sox got hamstrung by too many bad contracts. Maybe if it gets to that point, Yankee fans will feel differently. I sure do. Avoid signing big ticket free agents to long term deals in their 30's. More often than not it doesn't work out well.

Again...ORGANIZATIONAL issue, not PLAYER issue.

And...the organizations, when making those decisions, are more informed than pretty much any fan is.  They're more educated and experienced in making those decisions than any fan is.  So...as others have pointed out....playing armchair GM/CEO is certainly your right.  But the organization, itself, doesn't much care what your opinion is.

I still disagree about a fan having no right to take salary into account when evaluating a player. This is big business and MAJOR money we're talking about. If we all made 25 million a year maybe we'd feel differently. But when someone makes that insane amount of money and doesn't "earn" it, it doesn't go over well. Nor should it.

It shouldn't "go well" if the organization feels it's not getting value from the money they're paying.  That's a business decision, based on a bunch of factors, not a metric of how the guy is performing on the field or how much to blame he is for the overall failings of the offense.

So..because we're all jealous that the guy is making big money..it gives us the right, as fans, to criticize him?

You just made precisely the point I figured we'd eventually get to.

It's not the actual salary he's being paid that puts him under the microscope, it's the fans jealousy OVER that salary.  And that is not fair.

A guy can have a bad day, a bad month even. Guys go through slumps, it happens. But when it becomes the norm, that's when it becomes a major issue. Such is the case presently for A-Rod.

See, but you just jumped from a salary argument to a performance argument.

I agree...criticize him for his atrocious at bats.  He deserves it.

But don't criticize him MORE than you criticize Cano, Swish, and Granderson...who are likewise having terrible AB's...simply because Arod has a larger number on his pay check.

[pilferk]

what are you insinuating?

Couple things:

That it's easy to see potential bias in others...but not, necessarily, your own.

That it's easy to pile on a guy you hate..but when the same principal is applied to "your" team..suddenly the logic becomes a lot more apparent.  It's removing the "negative" bias.

as for the discussion....so you let the "back of a card" determine your expectations for a player. and if the player doesn't live up to those expectations, then it is ok for fans to criticize him? if so, i definitely agree with that.

Correct.  Not based on how much his paycheck is for.

And you're not "more to blame" because of that paycheck, when other players are also not living up to their baseball cards, either.

[pilferk]

I think baseball (and sports in general) is somewhat different than a typical business because there's a 'product' loyalty that doesn't quite apply in other businesses.  For example, if my favorite local pizzeria starts topping its pizzas with shit, I will cease patronizing them.  Whereas, Jason Bay and his $66M contract can continue to take a dump on the field night after night and I will still stand by the Mets.  Of course, team loyalty is completely irrational and makes no sense whatsoever (we all root for laundry --- and even that changes), but it is what it is and we're all guilty of it.  Teams obviously exploit that, so fans get pissed.

But that's the point.  You just laid it out.

Your emotional investment is preventing people from seeing/realizing that professional sports ARE a typical buisness.  They make decisions, really, just like a typical business does.  They use the same logic, same principals, and are held to the same legal standards (with the exception of their anti-trust exemptions).

Look, I hate to be the one that pulls back the curtain on the Wizard....but that's the truth.  And, trust me...the phenomenon you're talking about isn't reserved for sports.  Go check out forums relating to popular movies, video games/consoles, the Disney parks, Apple products....it happens all over.  Any time the customer can have emotional investment in a specific product or corporation.

Sometimes, you have to take off the Cheesehead, remove the pinstriped jersey, or take off the Lebron kicks...and realize that the way your team does business might not be the way you want them to, or the way you think they should...and they might actually be RIGHT, considering their primary goal is to turn a profit.  And sometimes they're NOT right, for reasons other than "on the field" (ie: sacrificing the ability to at least break, long term, even for fielding a winning team..and thereby costing themselves their ownership), even though the fans think they are.

Regarding Jason Bay, yes, the organization is ultimately to blame for that decision, but the decision was made based on expectations of performance.  I don't doubt his motivation or effort, but it's a results-based business and he has not lived up to those expectations. I doubt that there were any material business considerations that went into signing him outside of his field performance.  It's not like Jason Bay is a guy that was going to create a marketing buzz for the team where he'd be a regular in the NY gossip columns, sunbathe shirtless in Central Park or date Madonna.

But...again...you have to consider his value on the open market at the time of his FA.  Some players get paid a ton of money...because people are willing to pay them a ton of money.  Either because they see value in him (on and/or off the field) or because they need his services and are stuck competing in an open market that's driving his salary, or some combination of all that.  Every player is different.  That decision is made at the time the contract is offered.  It has no real bearing on how the player will play while under that contract.

HOW much he eventually commanded on the open market really has zero to do with how he will perform.

Jason Bay was likely going perform exactly as he has over the past couple of years...whether the Mets paid him big money or league minimum. Right?  He has not lived up to expectations because...he hasn't lived up to the back of his baseball card, accrued up to the point of his signing.  If fans expected him to be more than that (a .280 hitter with decent power), simply because he was being given a larger chunk of money, they were being unrealistic in their expectations (something pretty common for fans).

"Performance", really, is a pure metric of how a player performs on the field.  I've asked, and haven't seen, anyone provide a reasonable, quantifiable, correlation between "cost" and FUTURE (or present) performance.  I suspect that's because there isn't one.

[pilferk]

Awesome article in the NY Times:

How Granderson Trade Has Cost the Yankees


For the Tigers, he was a steal. For an aging team with overpaid players on a self-declared mission to reduce payroll to avoid onerous revenue-sharing penalties ? that would be the Yankees ? Jackson would now be the perfect counterbalance to a salary albatross like Rodriguez. Currently earning $500,000, Jackson will not be eligible for free agency until 2016.

For 2013, the Yankees will take a deep breath and probably renew Granderson, or have to play the same potentially deleterious game of sacrificing young talent for his replacement. The cycle repeats, and that is how $40 million worth of talent ($30 million for Rodriguez, $10 million for Swisher) winds up on the bench while another $10 million player bats eighth.

I disagree.

See, the Yanks have a player JUST like Jackson currently on their 25 man roster.  His name is Brett Gardner.  And, IMHO, he's was a better player than Jackson was, at the time they traded Jackson away.  He's a better CF than Jackson is (and than Granderson is, truth be told).

And I would be more surprised, with each passing day, if the Yanks resign Granderson, knowing they have a CF on their roster who is cheap, better defensively, and brings something to the Yanks lineup that pretty much nobody else in their regular lineup does (speed on the basepaths).  I think Grandy has a 2013 team option...but I'm not sure exactly of the cost.  If it's prohibitive...they might just let him walk.  Again, they HAVE to sign Cano.  They don't HAVE to sign Granderson or Swish.

Those 43 HR's will be missed...but likely you can sign a couple of .250/20 HR guys to play your corners (maybe Swish, depending on how much he's looking for) for the money you'd have to spend on Granderson (likely 8 to 10 mill per) and net about a 23 HR loss..and probably see your team strikeouts drop by about 50 and your OF's average increase by about 20 to 30 points.  They can actually build a team better suited for PS play WITHOUT Granderson, IMHO.

Last year, Jackson was a .250 hitter with 10 HR.

THIS year, he was a .300 hitter with 16 HR.

I'm not sure you'll see it again next year.

LAST year, Granderson was a .260 hitter with 41 HR.

THIS year he was a .230 hitter with 43 HR.

Granderson was relatively cheap, all things considered, at 6 mill per.

I don't think it's quite as cut and dry as the author makes it out to be.  THIS year...it would have been a bad deal.

Considering all 3 years...I think the Yanks did OK.  They gave Gardner time to mature, which is what they needed to do.

Considering the information they had at the time, I think they made the right choice, too.

[pilferk]

well so much for the Yankee season...this sucks, but if you can't hit you can't win...basic rule of baseball.

Sing it my brother!

The thing I was most worried about going into the playoffs was their starting pitching.

It's been pretty damn good, really (as was the bullpen, yesterday, after Hughes got hurt).

The offense decided to go on vacation early.

The one positive is (not that it helps)  the AB's looked slightly better yesterday (esp from Cano).  They got Verlander into hittable counts all game long.  They just couldn't hit the damn ball.

I would like it if they managed to win one....but I'm not exactly hopeful.  CC could go out and throw 9 innings of shutout baseball...and I still think the Yanks would end up losing the game in extras.  They're that bad right now.

[sandman]

what are you insinuating?

Couple things:

That it's easy to see potential bias in others...but not, necessarily, your own.

That it's easy to pile on a guy you hate..but when the same principal is applied to "your" team..suddenly the logic becomes a lot more apparent.  It's removing the "negative" bias.

as for the discussion....so you let the "back of a card" determine your expectations for a player. and if the player doesn't live up to those expectations, then it is ok for fans to criticize him? if so, i definitely agree with that.

Correct.  Not based on how much his paycheck is for.

And you're not "more to blame" because of that paycheck, when other players are also not living up to their baseball cards, either.

no bias here. the primary thing Ryan Howard is paid to do is produce runs. based on his performance this season, he needs to step it up and start earning his paycheck. i give him a little bit of a pass for this year since he was coming off a tough injury. but he accounts for about 1/6 to 1/8 of our payroll. if he is NOT earning that money, he is hurting the team.

if he doesn't perform, it has nothing to do with his salary. i agree. but it also has nothing to do with the stats on the back of his card. in BOTH examples, those are mearly factors that help set our expectations for a player. and the stats on the back of a card are totally meaningless and have no impact on anything. whereas his salary actually impacts the team's offseason and our chances for success next year.

as for fans being jealous. yes, some are. i certainly am not. i think players in all sports are underpaid. i think they should all make more money than they do. anyone that has a talent that people will pay $75-$200 or more to go watch for a couple of hours deserve to make all the money they can. the owners make billions...the players deserve more.

we're clearly not going to agree. my short and simple thinking on this issue is this: earn your paycheck, whatever it is, because if you are not, you are hurting the team's chances for success.

[sandman]

well so much for the Yankee season...this sucks, but if you can't hit you can't win...basic rule of baseball.

The one positive is (not that it helps)  the AB's looked slightly better yesterday (esp from Cano).  They got Verlander into hittable counts all game long.  They just couldn't hit the damn ball.

Nunez' AB was freakin incredible!! i have no rooting interest in the game and was appreciating Verlander's pitching. he's even better than i realized. just amazing. but then that AB had me on the edge of my seat. a role player battling with the best pitcher. verlander was cruising and he was still hitting 99 MPH in the 9th, and nunez battled off tough pitches, layed off non-strikes, and kept fighting. and then verlander made a mistake (probably got impatient) and nunez made him pay. just a classic playoff scene. i was hoping ibanez would follow it up with something bigger, but it just wasn't their night. 

[pilferk]

no bias here. the primary thing Ryan Howard is paid to do is produce runs. based on his performance this season, he needs to step it up and start earning his paycheck. i give him a little bit of a pass for this year since he was coming off a tough injury. but he accounts for about 1/6 to 1/8 of our payroll. if he is NOT earning that money, he is hurting the team.

To be clear: By bias, I didn't mean you'd give the phillies a pass.

I mean you'd consider his actual performance to be more important than his salary.

And how is HE hurting the team, in a specific game or series, by virtue of the number on his check.  Quantifiably?

if he doesn't perform, it has nothing to do with his salary. i agree. but it also has nothing to do with the stats on the back of his card. in BOTH examples, those are mearly factors that help set our expectations for a player. and the stats on the back of a card are totally meaningless and have no impact on anything. whereas his salary actually impacts the team's offseason and our chances for success next year.

I disagree.

You expect a player to perform close to his historical averages.  That's a realistic "expectation", especially as a player garners more service.  It's a historical regression, like any other data analysis.  There are trends, tendencies, etc.

Now, there are reasons for digression or anomalies that pop up.  That's the nature of actual performance vs projections.  And I think it's reasonable to analyze why those occur, because they have a basis in the reality of what has happened.

So previous statistics aren't meaningless. They're historical context..and there is correlation there between them and the likelihood of future performance. 

Salary isn't.  It's just a number on a check.

as for fans being jealous. yes, some are. i certainly am not. i think players in all sports are underpaid. i think they should all make more money than they do. anyone that has a talent that people will pay $75-$200 or more to go watch for a couple of hours deserve to make all the money they can. the owners make billions...the players deserve more.

we're clearly not going to agree. my short and simple thinking on this issue is this: earn your paycheck, whatever it is[, because if you are not, you are hurting the team's chances for success.

And mine is: The amount on your paycheck doesn't have anything to do with what you can. should, or are able to do on a baseball field, TODAY....and what you can,should, and are able to do TODAY has a lot MORE to do with your teams chances for success, TODAY (or this week in Detroit/St Louis) than the number that gets printed on your pay stub.

[sandman]

You expect a player to perform close to his historical averages.  That's a realistic "expectation", especially as a player garners more service.  It's a historical regression, like any other data analysis.  There are trends, tendencies, etc.

i agree. but just as you said that if KG has a bad night it has nothing to do with his salary. well it also has absolutely nothing to do with his stats from 3 years ago. how he performed 3 years ago has no impact on how he performs this season. 

when the Texans signed Oswalt, they were not expecting he would perform like his stats on his card says. that would be totally unrealistic. they were hoping he would perform like a pitcher being paid $5M a year. (he couldn't even do that.)

[GeorgeSteele]

I think baseball (and sports in general) is somewhat different than a typical business because there's a 'product' loyalty that doesn't quite apply in other businesses.  For example, if my favorite local pizzeria starts topping its pizzas with shit, I will cease patronizing them.  Whereas, Jason Bay and his $66M contract can continue to take a dump on the field night after night and I will still stand by the Mets.  Of course, team loyalty is completely irrational and makes no sense whatsoever (we all root for laundry --- and even that changes), but it is what it is and we're all guilty of it.  Teams obviously exploit that, so fans get pissed.

But that's the point.  You just laid it out.

Your emotional investment is preventing people from seeing/realizing that professional sports ARE a typical buisness.  They make decisions, really, just like a typical business does.  They use the same logic, same principals, and are held to the same legal standards (with the exception of their anti-trust exemptions).

Look, I hate to be the one that pulls back the curtain on the Wizard....but that's the truth.  And, trust me...the phenomenon you're talking about isn't reserved for sports.  Go check out forums relating to popular movies, video games/consoles, the Disney parks, Apple products....it happens all over.  Any time the customer can have emotional investment in a specific product or corporation.

Sometimes, you have to take off the Cheesehead, remove the pinstriped jersey, or take off the Lebron kicks...and realize that the way your team does business might not be the way you want them to, or the way you think they should...and they might actually be RIGHT, considering their primary goal is to turn a profit.  And sometimes they're NOT right, for reasons other than "on the field" (ie: sacrificing the ability to at least break, long term, even for fielding a winning team..and thereby costing themselves their ownership), even though the fans think they are.

Regarding Jason Bay, yes, the organization is ultimately to blame for that decision, but the decision was made based on expectations of performance.  I don't doubt his motivation or effort, but it's a results-based business and he has not lived up to those expectations. I doubt that there were any material business considerations that went into signing him outside of his field performance.  It's not like Jason Bay is a guy that was going to create a marketing buzz for the team where he'd be a regular in the NY gossip columns, sunbathe shirtless in Central Park or date Madonna.

But...again...you have to consider his value on the open market at the time of his FA.  Some players get paid a ton of money...because people are willing to pay them a ton of money.  Either because they see value in him (on and/or off the field) or because they need his services and are stuck competing in an open market that's driving his salary, or some combination of all that.  Every player is different.  That decision is made at the time the contract is offered.  It has no real bearing on how the player will play while under that contract.

HOW much he eventually commanded on the open market really has zero to do with how he will perform.

Jason Bay was likely going perform exactly as he has over the past couple of years...whether the Mets paid him big money or league minimum. Right?  He has not lived up to expectations because...he hasn't lived up to the back of his baseball card, accrued up to the point of his signing.  If fans expected him to be more than that (a .280 hitter with decent power), simply because he was being given a larger chunk of money, they were being unrealistic in their expectations (something pretty common for fans).

"Performance", really, is a pure metric of how a player performs on the field.  I've asked, and haven't seen, anyone provide a reasonable, quantifiable, correlation between "cost" and FUTURE (or present) performance.  I suspect that's because there isn't one.

Having established that sports fandom itself is irrational, the analysis of whether expecting a player to perform to the value of his contract does not need to be rational per se --- the question is whether it's rational within what is obviously an irrational paradigm.

As for Bay, that the issue is anyone expected more from him than what he was at the time he signed is laughable.  He was about a .900 OPS hitter pre-Mets and with them he has been in the .600s.  If he was at least an average player now, this would be bearable, but be no longer justifies an MLB roster spot, never mind his salary.  Thing is, they're stuck with him because he's too expensive to cut.  And my team is that much worse because of that.  So fuck him. (Irrational fan mode off: I actually like Bay, one of the true good guys in baseball and I'm convinced that his collapse as a player is due to his series of concussions the past few years).

[pilferk]

i agree. but just as you said that if KG has a bad night it has nothing to do with his salary. well it also has absolutely nothing to do with his stats from 3 years ago. how he performed 3 years ago has no impact on how he performs this season. 

You're sort of mixing different threads of the conversation and getting yourself turned around...but it will all work out at the end of this explanation.

His previous performances DO have something to do with his historical (not a single season, 3 years ago, in a vacume..an aggregate look at his historical numbers, including trends) context and what you expect him to be able to do. Combine that with other factors like age, injuries, recent trends, etc.  It's an accurate reflection of what he has done...yesterday, last week, last month, last season, for his career...and you can reasonably expect correlation, if not in a single instance, at least over a series of them.  Everyone has a bad game....anomolies...but having 8 of them in a row starts to set off alarms.

It doesn't CAUSE a poor performance, but it's a reasonable benchmark you use to GAUGE a poor performance.

His salary isn't.  Because there's no real correlation (or relationship) between one and the other. It's a number someone decides to print on a piece of paper.

Historical performance is actually a reflection of what's occurred (obviously).  There IS correlation (and relation).

Expectations are the measuring stick, here, not an effect.  Really, this part of the discussion is about what measuring stick is fair, and what measuring stick isn't.

One measuring stick is based on history and data analysis.  Reality, if you will, as it has happened.

The other is being based on what the guys bank account says at the end of the week.

Considering we're not measuring his net worth....I don't see how the second has any relation.

So..if salary isn't a fair measuring stick...it must have a direct effect to be relevant (thus, the "KG paradigm").

Because if salary is not a fair measuring stick on which to set expectations, and it has no direct effect on performance (unless someone can prove otherwise)...then it's irrelevant.

And finally, we get to the end of it.

when the Texans signed Oswalt, they were not expecting he would perform like his stats on his card says. that would be totally unrealistic. they were hoping he would perform like a pitcher being paid $5M a year. (he couldn't even do that.)

Again, it had nothing to do with the amount of money.  Any pitcher could be paid 5 mill per....doesn't matter what his stats are.  In fact, if you look at all the pitchers making a set amount of money...you'll see stats running the gamut.

What they wanted was a guy who could get batters out, not give up too many runs, and put them in a position to win.  They tempered the back of the baseball card with factors such as age and recent injuries.   Again, all actual factors that effect performance (see earlier post about explaining digression or anomalies).

And Oswalt flamed out.  Not because of his salary...but because of all the things listed above.  Once the contract was signed...now it's a business discussion about effective resource usage...not on the field performance.

Until someone can show me how adding a zero to someones check makes them instantly better, I can't see it as being relevant.  Not a fair way to measure, not having any effect.

What's left (besides jealousy and perception)?

[pilferk]

Having established that sports fandom itself is irrational, the analysis of whether expecting a player to perform to the value of his contract does not need to be rational per se --- the question is whether it's rational within what is obviously an irrational paradigm.

And there's the crux.  If your position is that fans can be irrational, and act irrationally, and say whatever they want...fair enough. That's where we'll part company.  But..it doesn't make their criticism fair or grounded in reality.   It's just BS to wade through.

As for Bay, that the issue is anyone expected more from him than what he was at the time he signed is laughable.  He was about a .900 OPS hitter pre-Mets and with them he has been in the .600s.  If he was at least an average player now, this would be bearable, but be no longer justifies an MLB roster spot, never mind his salary.  Thing is, they're stuck with him because he's too expensive to cut.  And my team is that much worse because of that.  So fuck him. (Irrational fan mode off: I actually like Bay, one of the true good guys in baseball and I'm convinced that his collapse as a player is due to his series of concussions the past few years).

He has not been the same player that left Boston....for whatever reason.  The Mets thought the guy would put up similar numbers...and they haven't been close (especially lately).  In essence, he sucks.

I think they part company sooner than you think they do. We'll see.

[AxlsMainMan]

ST. LOUIS?Albert who?

St. Louis is a city of good sports, but it?s hard for fans these days not to take a jab at Albert Pujols, the longtime centrepiece of their beloved Cardinals, especially now that they are in the playoffs without him.

The narrative still stings for many St. Louisans: No. 5 ?betrayed? an adoring fan base and bolted for Los Angeles and more money.

So with success minus Pujols ? the Cardinals are in the National League championship series and El Hombre is . . . well, where is he? ? the temptation to rub it in is pretty strong. Especially in the somewhat anonymous world of social media.

?Hey, remember that guy Albert Pujols? Yeah, me either,? said one Cardinals fan on Twitter, where Pujols jabs have become their own sport.

Added another: ?Sometimes when I?m alone, I sit on my couch, watch the Cardinals game and pretend I?m Albert Pujols.?

Ouch.

It?s hard not to gloat after your pride is bruised. After all, Pujols and the Angels didn?t make it out of the regular season. And the Cardinals ? with scrappy, young players named Craig, Descalso and Kozma ? played in Game 3 of the NLCS on Wednesday.

?I knew they could do it,? said fan Charles Collins, 43, who was at Busch Stadium trying to land tickets. ?It?s not like they lost the whole team.?

He remains a Pujols fan and said he doesn?t hold a grudge. But even Collins, a pleasant man from south St. Louis, couldn?t resist a little poke at Pujols. Referring to Wednesday?s Game 3, he said: ?Pujols will be at home watching it. Like everyone else.?

That?s the assumption, anyway. A request for comment from Pujols through his handlers was not answered. (To be fair, it should be noted that the Angels actually ended up with one more win than the Cardinals ? but not enough to secure a playoff spot in the American League.)

At West Port Plaza, a statue of Pujols was unveiled in November, before he signed with L.A. But three months after Pujols made the announcement, the nearby restaurant removed his name.

The restaurant had been known as Pujols 5 West Port Grill for five years. Adding the Pujols name on Aug. 30, 2006, was an instant success, said owner Patrick Hanon. Pujols did not have an ownership position in the restaurant, but agreed to lend his name and appear a few times a year in exchange for a percentage of sales.

?Sales went through the roof,? Hanon said. ?We didn?t have to put one ad in the paper. We were busy, busy, busy.?

But by December, a month after the statue was unveiled, news broke that Pujols would no longer be a Cardinal. The three-time National League MVP was heading to the City of Angels. Business at Hanon?s restaurant began dropping ?like a lead balloon,? he said.

In his restaurant this week, he pulled out a calculator, punched in some numbers, then showed the results: $23,000. ?That?s how much I lost a week. I was $1.2 million off in business a year,? Hanon said.

He said he lost his house and nearly his business, but bankers have been patient as he rebuilds a customer base.

At first, Hanon renamed Pujols 5 the Hall of Fame Sports Bar and Grill, hoping an impressive collection of sports memorabilia would keep customers coming in. It didn?t. Hanon changed it back to Patrick?s Restaurant and Sports Bar, the name of the eatery for 23 years before joining with Pujols.

No. 5 treasures that were once displayed at the restaurant, such as MVP, Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards, have been removed by Pujols? foundation.

Hanon saw Pujols as a national figure, like Mickey Mantle, and thought fans here would continue to come to the restaurant no matter where the slugger ended up.

?Man, I misread that,? Hanon said.

Despite his restaurant?s struggles, though, Hanon remains a Pujols supporter. ?If St. Louis would forgive him, I?d take him back in a minute.?

The statue, owned by the Pujols Family Foundation, is expected to stay at West Port for now, Hanon said. It?s tucked behind the restaurant, not visible from the entrance.

At Game 3 at Busch, there were fans who had no lingering hard feelings. Some still wear No. 5 jerseys, like fans have done all season.

Of course, if they stop by the stadium?s team store, they will find no Pujols jerseys. The jerseys of former greats such as Ozzie Smith and Willie McGee will be there, as well as those for current players such as David Freese, Matt Holliday and Adam Wainwright. But no No. 5s.

Brian Cotton, a ticket broker outside Busch Stadium, said demand for Cardinals tickets did not slow this year. And with the Cardinals in the post-season, it doesn?t matter who is on the roster.

Manager Mike Matheny ?has done a great job with the farm system,? Cotton said. ?And we are here again ? without Albert Pujols.?

http://www.thestar.com/sports/baseball/mlb/article/1273008--baseball-playoffs-st-louis-cardinals-march-on-after-albert-pujols

[faldor]

If Yankee fans solely blame A-Rod for his contract and not the organization, then that gets back to sandman's point about the "limitless" payroll. Yankee fans don't care what they spend because they figure they can just cover it up. I used to feel the same way until the Red Sox got hamstrung by too many bad contracts. Maybe if it gets to that point, Yankee fans will feel differently. I sure do. Avoid signing big ticket free agents to long term deals in their 30's. More often than not it doesn't work out well.

Again...ORGANIZATIONAL issue, not PLAYER issue.

And...the organizations, when making those decisions, are more informed than pretty much any fan is.  They're more educated and experienced in making those decisions than any fan is.  So...as others have pointed out....playing armchair GM/CEO is certainly your right.  But the organization, itself, doesn't much care what your opinion is.

I still disagree about a fan having no right to take salary into account when evaluating a player. This is big business and MAJOR money we're talking about. If we all made 25 million a year maybe we'd feel differently. But when someone makes that insane amount of money and doesn't "earn" it, it doesn't go over well. Nor should it.

It shouldn't "go well" if the organization feels it's not getting value from the money they're paying.  That's a business decision, based on a bunch of factors, not a metric of how the guy is performing on the field or how much to blame he is for the overall failings of the offense.

So..because we're all jealous that the guy is making big money..it gives us the right, as fans, to criticize him?

You just made precisely the point I figured we'd eventually get to.

It's not the actual salary he's being paid that puts him under the microscope, it's the fans jealousy OVER that salary.  And that is not fair.

A guy can have a bad day, a bad month even. Guys go through slumps, it happens. But when it becomes the norm, that's when it becomes a major issue. Such is the case presently for A-Rod.

See, but you just jumped from a salary argument to a performance argument.

I agree...criticize him for his atrocious at bats.  He deserves it.

But don't criticize him MORE than you criticize Cano, Swish, and Granderson...who are likewise having terrible AB's...simply because Arod has a larger number on his pay check.

So if I'm wrong.  Is Girardi wrong too, for benching A-Rod?  Because it would seem to me, A-Rod is being "criticized" by his own manager more than the other struggling Yankees you mentioned. 

And it may not be "fair" to criticize A-Rod more because of his ridiculously overpaid salary, but that's life.  Life isn't fair.  You should be used to that by now.  It's not going to change.

The organization may care more about how "fans" feel than you'd like to admit.  Reference the Red Sox cleaning house in August.  The fans were lambasting Beckett on a daily basis, saying Crawford was a horrid contract that they were stuck with.  In one fell swoop, the front office rid themselves of those "problems".  Now apparently the Yankees are seeking ways of ridding themselves of A-Rod.  If the team could care less what fans think, why would they try to make these bold moves?  To make the team better?  Sure.  The Red Sox certainly didn't get any better by the trade they made, but they saved a lot of money.  If the Yankees deal A-Rod, I'd imagine they'd have to eat a good portion of his contract, so they won't be saving much money there.  And it's debatable if they'll be better without him.  Depends on a lot of factors obviously.  One thing is for sure though, the majority of fans would LOVE it.  So again, maybe they do care what fans think to a certain point.  It wouldn't be very smart to give your loyal fanbase the middle finger with a smug "We don't care what you think" attitude.  That doesn't seem like good business to me.

[faldor]

Expectations are the measuring stick, here, not an effect.  Really, this part of the discussion is about what measuring stick is fair, and what measuring stick isn't.

One measuring stick is based on history and data analysis.  Reality, if you will, as it has happened.

The other is being based on what the guys bank account says at the end of the week.

Considering we're not measuring his net worth....I don't see how the second has any relation.

So..if salary isn't a fair measuring stick...it must have a direct effect to be relevant (thus, the "KG paradigm").

Because if salary is not a fair measuring stick on which to set expectations, and it has no direct effect on performance (unless someone can prove otherwise)...then it's irrelevant.


Until someone can show me how adding a zero to someones check makes them instantly better, I can't see it as being relevant.  Not a fair way to measure, not having any effect.

What's left (besides jealousy and perception)?

Contracts are usually given to players based on their past accomplishments.  In most cases, you have to earn your way to the big money.  Young players, at least in MLB, don't get paid the big bucks.  So when they do finally enter free agency, they may be entering the end of their prime or exiting it altogether.  So yes, often those contracts are looked at as "bad", and they are.  And the organization is to blame for giving out those contracts, not the player for taking the money that they were offered.  But A-Rod was once the best player in the game, who signed the richest contract in baseball history.  He remained as one of the elite.  So when he signs for 25 million to continue on with the Yankees, what should a fans expectation be?  Should they expect him to start to break down, not be able to hit in the post-season to the point where he gets pinched hit for and ultimately benched?  If that's a reasonable expectation for fans to have had, then I stand corrected.  But I don't think Alex is living up to his contract.  Certain players can skate by a little easier than others.  Alex is not one of them.  He's public enemy #1.  The poster boy for selfish, arrogant, unlikeable athletes. 

Out of curiosity, do you agree with how Girardi has handled the whole A-Rod saga?  I said it before, as crazy as it sounds, and as much as I hate A-Rod, I think he's been treated a bit unfairly in this whole thing.  Not so much by the fans.  I get their displeasure.  But Girardi, in my mind, has thrown Alex under the bus.  Like you've said, and everybody else can see, Alex is far from the only one struggling.  Yet all the focus is on him, and Girardi is only intensifying that with the way he has handled the situation.  That's the way I feel at least.