It's never going to be perfect

[jojo]

Originally Posted by blumj

Yes. But if you can't afford to overpay for average players, then you really can't afford to overpay for below average ones. And you have even more reason to make damn sure you know the difference.

Rather than looking for magic bullets, IMHO, the above is exactly one of the primary goals of sabermetrics.

[Mario-Rijo]

Originally Posted by IslandRed

That's in the ballpark, if you'll forgive the pun, although the peak Freel's OBP was pretty solid.

Another thing about replacement level -- it refers to the level of performance you would expect to get from the best of the freely/cheaply available talent, not any freely/cheaply available talent. It's possible to be worse than replacement level. Sometimes considerably worse. That comes into play when people assume that anyone and everyone yanked out of the minor leagues is "replacement level." Not so.

Gotcha, thanks.