Until the Reds win something, Jocketty has been no more successful than anyone before him. Kind of putting the cart before the horse.
Until the Reds win something, Jocketty has been no more successful than anyone before him. Kind of putting the cart before the horse.
"My mission is to be the ray of hope, the guy who stands out there on that beautiful field and owns up to his mistakes and lets people know it's never completely hopeless, no matter how bad it seems at the time. I have a platform and a message, and now I go to bed at night, sober and happy, praying I can be a good messenger." -Josh Hamilton
what Walt has spent since taking over pales in comparison to what the other guy spent. Some, humorously, referred to it as Walt being asleep on the job. Instead, it has enabled money to be allocated to the proper areas.
Regarding Porcello, Cincy that year drafted a reach of a catcher over him. If that were 2008/2009, I wonder if Porcello would have been the selection.
The money spent by Walt since he took the helm has been pennies compared to what we saw spent by his predecessor. Some, humorously, blamed it on Walt being asleep on the job.
You can't tell me that there isn't a correlation to the Chapman signing.
I could have sworn that I typed, "In the end everybody wants a pitcher with a good ERA." In case that was too subtle, I'm saying ERA IS the context. In fact, I think the example I typed, and that you quoted, lays that out about as nakedly as it can be laid out. I certainly don't see you making a case for the guy with the 4.49 ERA and 4.00 FIP (largely because there is no case to be made).
All you're doing is repeating that there's more to the story. I agree. Hell, I knew that when I was a kid. I think everybody knows that. Frankly, I don't know exactly who or what it is that you're arguing with if your only point is that we can go a lot deeper into pitcher performance than ERA. I've never seen nor heard anybody argue to the contrary.
FIP, predictably, keeps getting tweaked. We've got xFIP and now SIERA. We'll have half a dozen other improvements/forks/divergences in the next decade. All the while people will be debating over how to use these exotic new numbers and insisting they're the bees knees.
And despite all that, when somebody asks how John Doe pitched during a given slice of time we'll still use ERA or ERA+ as the primary figure to sum it all up. Actually there is a stat out there which more thoughtfully assigns run responsibility, incorporates win performance and works in component ERA. Unfortunately to do it, you have to abandon the dopey .xxx form factor which many supposedly open minded stats-minded fans cling to with religious fervor, so they ignore that much of what they're trying to achieve with each new flavor of pitcher stat chewing gum (a thumbnail representation of contribution) has already been chewed and digested.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
Completely disagree with the premise. They both were signed, two years before the team lost control of them. If they just waited one year to sign the extensions, both would have signed, and for much less money.
Give me a good reason why they wouldn't, when they gladly did a year earlier. And the Reds clearly would have had the money.
Sign them both to deals worth $2M a year each, which would have been overpaying them enough to stay, and that's $4M a year the Reds could have saved over three years.
No need to wait until they reach free agency. Just do what most teams do, sign good pitchers to extensions the year before they reach free agency, not two.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge." -- Albert Einstein
You noticed that too.
Well he has added some aging veterans on the downside of their careers, I am sure Kremchek appreciates the business.
They did add a lot of puffery about young minor league prospects, I am sure that Bats fans are thrilled.
I guess none of that actually goes in the books as wins though does it for the Reds.
I don't require a recap of the 2006 draft. I was the guy arguing the Reds should have been in on Porcello while the team was drafting Mesoraco.
As for 2008, the Reds did spend money on Alonso, once again showing that paying for certain veterans is not an impediment to spending money in the draft. In 2009, the Reds passed by some supposed Porcellos (Zacob Turner, Tyler Matzek, Matt Purke) - I say "supposed" because I view Porcello as a fairly unique talent, one who isn't going to duplicated all that often - in favor of what many viewed as a budget-conscious pick in Mike Leake (and I liked the Leake pick regardless of that criticism).
On Chapman, the Reds traded FOR Scott Rolen's salary during the 2009 season and didn't dump any of the team's biggest contracts during the winter, and STILL signed Chapman. So, once again, your argument just doesn't hold water. The one doesn't preclude the other. If anything, Walt deserves the most credit for not buying into that false dichotomy.
Last edited by M2; 03-21-2010 at 08:49 PM.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
Who are these "most teams?" The Phillies plunked down early on Cole Hamels. The Indians plunked down early on C.C. Sabathia. The Giants locked up Matt Cain and would love to do the same with Tim Lincecum. The Royals have signed Zack Greinke early.
I could keep listing examples all day if I wanted to, but I think you get the point. When teams get good pitchers, they try to keep them around. Harang and Arroyo have been two of the better Reds pitchers of the past 40 years. It's not terribly surprising the franchise didn't want to flirt with free agency or an exploding market in those two cases.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
It's really sad that a roughly average pitcher is counted as one of the better pitchers to wear a Reds uniform over 40 decades....
"This isn’t stats vs scouts - this is stats and scouts working together, building an organization that blends the best of both worlds. This is the blueprint for how a baseball organization should be run. And, whether the baseball men of the 20th century like it or not, this is where baseball is going."---Dave Cameron, U.S.S. Mariner
Eh, I'll just bow out of this discussion. We've had this same discussion hundreds of time before and people are going to believe what they want to believe. I don't like obessing over every contract. If a player is making a lot of money and not producing, then I can understand the uproar. I'll probably be right there complaining too. But I really don't care about how much money a player is making as long as he's producing.
Last edited by OnBaseMachine; 03-21-2010 at 09:50 PM.
We have no insight on how the money part of the Reds' business works except that they don't have a ton of it. But I believe that the Chapman deal is set up where the money is paid more down the line than right now. Correct me if I am wrong. My guess is that the money coming off the books over the next 2 years gave Cincy the flexibility to go out and get him. If Walt continued the foolish chase that was going on before he got here, we'd probably have been looking to dump Bradley's salary this offseason and have been pissing and moaning that a guy like Chapman was out of our reach yet again.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge." -- Albert Einstein
You are really missing the point.
In 2006, Wayne made a great trade and got Arroyo at cut rate prices for basically nothing. BA goes on to have a very good year. He now has him under control for 2 more years at $7MMish total. Still a great contract.
The team looks to be lacking at the major league level in the short term but has a few top flight prospects on their way up through the ranks.
Wayne has basically three choices: stand pat, trade Arroyo high with the future in mind or extend him. He picked the worst direction.
Your post above, however, is kind of contradictory. You state that you believe that certain fans care about money more than winning, then go on to say that you don't care how much a player makes as long as he is producing. You don't mention winning.
The bottom line is that we can rip off stats on how certain people have performed and whether or not he has earned his contract. But bottom line is that the team has failed to win after we saw a lot of money go out the door on various players. It is unlikely that this team will be a contender this season, which is when Arroyo's and Harang's extensions end.
They can "earn" their contracts all they want, but if the overall investment that was made in 2007-2008 doesn't end up in a significantly improved ballclub, it is a failure no matter how you slice it. It doesn't matter how one of the larger pieces of the investment fares in one season, or in one half of one season, or whatever. It matters how the team does.
No, I'm saying teams routinely lock up the best they've got. It's all relative. To lead their staff, the Reds found two slightly older guys who were still shy of free agency and they reacted in common fashion. It's the same free agency clock no matter how you slice it.
If Cueto's really good the next two years, expect the Reds to lock him up early and buy a year or two beyond his free agent expiration date.
I'm not a system player. I am a system.
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