Comments on Vegas Watch: Bill Bavasi And Pythagoras Are Not Friends

As a Baltimore resident, I've heard more crap abou...

2008-02-12T01:27:00.000-05:00

As a Baltimore resident, I've heard more crap about this trade on the radio than anyone should be exposed to.

Sherrill will close, or at least be given the opportunity to in a "Closer by Committee" situation.

New COO Andy MacPhail has said he wants to trade who he can and re-build, and Tejada and Bedard leaving makes me think Ramon Hernandez, Aubrey Huff, Melvin Mora and - if someone is stupid enough - Kevin Millar are on the block.

MacPhail has a trade in the works for Brian Roberts to go to the Cubs, bringing back Felix Pie and some pitching. With Pie, Jones and Markakis all under 25, under contract for awhile and roaming the outfield in Camden, MacPhail can focus on bringing in a big-time free agent pitcher or slugger at one of the corners (Mark Teixera, who grew up around Maryland and has already expressed his desire to play here?) and this team could compete ...

That's interesting. Probably not a terrible idea,...

2008-02-11T14:56:43.995-05:00

That's interesting. Probably not a terrible idea, either. In his career lefties have a .518 OPS against him, rights .736. That's certainly a big split, but it's not like righties absolutely destroy him (actually, the righties' line is .261/.384/.352, which is interesting). So if he's pitching 65 innings rather than 40, even if his ERA increases a little with facing more righties, he's probably more valuable.

Back to my original point- the Orioles are going to suck for (at least) a couple years. The other four guys are young, and will help them when they, theoretically, are contending in 3-4 years. Sherrill will be somewhat helpful right now- say, allow them to win 68 games rather than 67, but that's really not accomplishing anything. And chances are when they finally do contend, he'll be long gone.

VW:Dave Trembley has already stated his intention ...

2008-02-11T14:26:00.000-05:00

VW:

Dave Trembley has already stated his intention to use Sherrill as a closer. Whether or not that's a good idea, the O's don't have a lot of other options with Chris Ray and Danys Baez out with Tommy John surgery.

This has got to be one of the worst trades of the ...

2008-02-11T03:49:00.000-05:00

This has got to be one of the worst trades of the 08 pre-season, and one of the worst of all time, dollar-wise. For the M's of course. And nothing to do with whether they are an 80 or 88 win team (most likely the former).

Here is a back-of-the-envelope calculation of the $ value of the two players, Bedard and Jones.

Jones is a gargantuan commodity. He is worth around 3 to 4 WAR per year for the next 6 years. Call that an average of 15 mil per year for a total FA value of 90 mil. He gets paid the min for the next 2-3 years until he is arb eligbile. Then he'll make maybe an average of 6 mil a year for his 3 years of arb, for a total salary of around 20 mil.

So the O's get around 70 in equity from Jones (as compared to his FA worth) for the next 6 years. Wow! And the M's lose that of course.

What about Bedard. He is indeed one of the best SP in baseball. Worth around 4 WAR now, but a pitcher loses around .5 wins a year, mostly from chance of injury. He only has 2 more years before FA, so he has a total WAR of around 7.5. Let's even call it 8. That is worth around 32 mil. He'll be paid 7 mil this year and around 9 mil next. So his FA equity is 16 mil.

So, let's see, the M's give up a commodity worth 70 mil and get one worth 16 mil, for a net loss of 54 mil over the next 6 years.

They do not by this horrific deal do anything to dispel the notion that they are indeed one of the worst run franchises in baseball, at least from a player evaluation (and valuation) and sabermetric perspective.

I've been a long time fan of the M's, and when I f...

2008-02-10T02:10:00.000-05:00

I've been a long time fan of the M's, and when I first started hearing speculation about this trade, I was floored. To see the 'experts' call, it, though, you'd think that the M's were going to win 100 games, when, in truth, they're going to be lucky to sniff .500.

The Mariners gave up more for Bedard than the Mets did for Santana...proving once again that the M's have the most incompetent leadership in all of MLB.