Reds Trade And Free Agent Rumours 2023-24 Offseason

[MoneyInTheBank]

Let me see if I can build a bridge here because I don't think we are that different.

I think we can all agree that goal #1, every year, is to make the playoffs. You can't win the World Series without making the playoffs. That's just science. And repeatedly making the playoffs is a good start to eventually breaking through. Now, that doesn't mean build the worst possible team you can and still make the playoffs but I think there are merits to not overextending your assets (whether that is prospect capital or budget) to make a short term push to "think we can win a World Series" if it will jeopardize the following 3-4 playoff appearances.

I feel like I do need the disclaimer here that I do think this year's version has plenty of budget and enough position player prospect capital that they can push into that repeatedly making the playoffs tier

[Bourgeois Zee]

Showing that a team with a supposed 4% chance of winning the World Series, won the World Series, is not the win you think it is.

That team spent big to win the World Series, my man. They also grabbed several difference-makers-- payroll and prospects be damned-- for the stretch run.

I'm totally fine if the Reds spend $250M in team payroll. That shows their committment.

On the flip side, if they choose not to at least match their 2020 salary (pre-Covid), it shows they're unserious about competing for a pennant. Instead, they're happy just maybe getting to second place (as Connie Mack said).

Feel free to cheer the savings in team payroll for billionaire owners. The rest of us will root to win the hardware.

[757690]

That team spent big to win the World Series, my man. They also grabbed several difference-makers-- payroll and prospects be damned-- for the stretch run.

I'm totally fine if the Reds spend $250M in team payroll. That shows their committment.

On the flip side, if they choose not to at least match their 2020 salary (pre-Covid), it shows they're unserious about competing for a pennant. Instead, they're happy just maybe getting to second place (as Connie Mack said).

Feel free to cheer the savings in team payroll for billionaire owners. The rest of us will root to win the hardware.

I agree on all of this. I’ve made clear numerous times that that Reds should have a 150M+ payroll every year, I’ve never cheered on the team saving money.

But that is not the debate at hand, at least not the one I have been addressing.

[Larry Schuler]

I’d rather the Reds spend frugally and I have fun the whole year than spend enough to contend for a World Series and I am terrified for every second of that hell journey.

[SteelSD]

Showing that a team with a supposed 4% chance of winning the World Series, won the World Series, is not the win you think it is.

When you have so many teams playing so few games to decide the championship, the true odds, the ones I posted, play a much larger role in determining who wins, than those odds from Fangraphs (or any other site). Those odds from Fangraphs might be reliable if teams needed 100 wins to win a championship. But some team’s fate is decided by as few as 2 games. When that is the case, the fewer games being played, then luck (or the odds I posted) is a much bigger decider than talent.

In other words, those odds from Fangraphs, aren’t that reliable in short playoff situation. Building a more talented team give you a more meaningful chance of winning over a full season. It doesn’t give you nearly as much of a meaningful chance to win over a short playoff series.

And we have seen this play out time and time again in the playoffs. We saw it this year, we saw it last year with the 7 wins Phillies getting to the World Series, in 2021 with the 88 win Braves winning it all, and in 2019 with the Nationals winning it all. We likely will keep seeing this, because overall talent means less and less in this current playoff situation.

With such short series, “anything can happen” become truer and truer.

No. The MLB playoffs are not a scenario where all the names are tossed into a hat, with each having an equal chance of proceeding to the World Series and/or winning the title. That's nonsense. Heck, there are teams entering the playoffs with a 0% chance of being ousted before the LDS round while other teams are already making plans for the winter. You've never displayed "true" odds, only those you want to apply rather than the odds that actually do. You can view the probability of a team winning each series at the link I gave you. Again, they are not equal and there is no argument that everything somehow becomes equal just because "Anything can happen!"

The associated issue is that if a team is built to just eek into the playoffs at the back end, chances are that too often their not even going to find themselves worrying about playoff odds because they'll need to watch them from home.

[Bourgeois Zee]

I agree on all of this. I’ve made clear numerous times that that Reds should have a 150M+ payroll every year, I’ve never cheered on the team saving money.

But that is not the debate at hand, at least not the one I have been addressing.

It is the debate at hand because the Reds have an opportunity to spend real money for difference-makers this year. That runs counter to your supposed preference-- and that of the Guardians, Rays, Brewers, et al. You can't cheer the Reds' frugality and also make clear that you'd prefer a much larger payroll.

That dog just doesn't hunt.

You can support their Rays/ Guardians/ Brewers attempt at being semi-decent Wild Card contenders. You can rail against their penury. You can't do both.

[Larry Schuler]

It is the debate at hand because the Reds have an opportunity to spend real money for difference-makers this year. That runs counter to your supposed preference-- and that of the Guardians, Rays, Brewers, et al. You can't cheer the Reds' frugality and also make clear that you'd prefer a much larger payroll.

That dog just doesn't hunt.

You can support their Rays/ Guardians/ Brewers attempt at being semi-decent Wild Card contenders. You can rail against their penury. You can't do both.

I agree but also you’re wrong.

[757690]

It is the debate at hand because the Reds have an opportunity to spend real money for difference-makers this year. That runs counter to your supposed preference-- and that of the Guardians, Rays, Brewers, et al. You can't cheer the Reds' frugality and also make clear that you'd prefer a much larger payroll.

That dog just doesn't hunt.

You can support their Rays/ Guardians/ Brewers attempt at being semi-decent Wild Card contenders. You can rail against their penury. You can't do both.

Again, the argument I am making has nothing to do with how much money the Reds should spend or what kind of philosophy they should have concerning building the team. I am only referring to what fans should expect.

In this current playoff situation,I would not demand that my team wins the World Series. Even teams that are built for winning a World Series, are having difficulty winning a championship under these expanded playoffs. The odds are too low, even for teams that are dominant, for fans to expect their team win the World Series. Again, they can expect that, but they will likely be rather miserable most of the time.

I want the Reds to spend $150M+ on payroll and be aggressive at the trade deadline. I want them to build the best team possible. However, I am not going to demand that they win the World Series, because I know the odds of them doing that are extremely low, even if they build the best team possible. All that I am going to demand is that they try.

[Falls City Beer]

Again, the argument I am making has nothing to do with how much money the Reds should spend or what kind of philosophy they should have concerning building the team. I am only referring to what fans should expect.

In this current playoff situation,I would not demand that my team wins the World Series. Even teams that are built for winning a World Series, are having difficulty winning a championship under these expanded playoffs. The odds are too low, even for teams that are dominant, for fans to expect their team win the World Series. Again, they can expect that, but they will likely be rather miserable most of the time.

I want the Reds to spend $150M+ on payroll and be aggressive at the trade deadline. I want them to build the best team possible. However, I am not going to demand that they win the World Series, because I know the odds of them doing that are extremely low, even if they build the best team possible. All that I am going to demand is that they try.

Your argument is still wrong. You claim that "dominant teams" now have odds too low to expect to win it all. Except their odds are no different than they were in 1995.

[757690]

Your argument is still wrong. You claim that "dominant teams" now have odds too low to expect to win it all. Except their odds are no different than they were in 1995.

That's clearly not true.

The same team that has to win 4 series, will have lower odds of winning a championship than the same team that has to win 2 series. I already showed that to you.

[Falls City Beer]

That's clearly not true.

The same team that has to win 4 series, will have lower odds of winning a championship than the same team that has to win 2 series. I already showed that to you.

If you're dominant, you automatically advance to the LDS. Just like in 95.

[Bourgeois Zee]

Again, the argument I am making has nothing to do with how much money the Reds should spend or what kind of philosophy they should have concerning building the team. I am only referring to what fans should expect.

We have post after post wherein you're cheerleading ownership's penury. We know where you sit in regards to this team, and no amount of attempted double speak will change that.

[757690]

No. The MLB playoffs are not a scenario where all the names are tossed into a hat, with each having an equal chance of proceeding to the World Series and/or winning the title. That's nonsense. Heck, there are teams entering the playoffs with a 0% chance of being ousted before the LDS round while other teams are already making plans for the winter. You've never displayed "true" odds, only those you want to apply rather than the odds that actually do. You can view the probability of a team winning each series at the link I gave you. Again, they are not equal and there is no argument that everything somehow becomes equal just because "Anything can happen!"

The associated issue is that if a team is built to just eek into the playoffs at the back end, chances are that too often their not even going to find themselves worrying about playoff odds because they'll need to watch them from home.

Two points on the Fangraph odds:

1. They are not true odds. They are subjective odds. They way they are calculated is by developing a simulation to run all the teams through 100K times and then see the results of all 100K simulations. The key is that they need to develop the simulation, and how they develop the simulation will have an effect on the odds that are spit out.

We see this, with the various different sites providing different odds for this, based on how they develop and run their simulations. ESPN odds have been different from the Fangraph odds and the Baseball-Reference odds are different from both of those. These are not 100% accurate, objective odds. They vary and have an element of subjectivity. They are different from the raw odds (the ones that I posted), which are based solely on math and the laws of probability.

2. They are based on the results of 100K different simulations. So, if the teams were to play 100K games, then these odds would be very close to being accurate. But the teams don't play 100K games. They play between 2 and 22 games. So those odds are going to be much less accurate over those few number of games. This is basic statistics. The fewer the games being played, the less true the odds are, the more luck is a factor.

Just to make the point clear, let's use an example of a coin flip with a weighted coin. Side A is 20% heavier than side B If we flip the coin 100K times, Side B will come up 20% more often than side A. But if we flip the coin only 5 times, we could easily get side A all 5 times. In fact, within that 100K times, there will be many instances where side A comes up 5 times in a row. When we limit the flipping to such a small number, like 5 or 10 or 20, the weight of the coin plays a much smaller, almost insignificant role in the results. It's only when we flip the coin hundreds or thousands of times, does the weight play a major role.

That is why so many people call these new expanded playoffs crapshoots. Randomness plays a bigger role in deciding who wins than talent.

[757690]

We have post after post wherein you're cheerleading ownership's penury. We know where you sit in regards to this team, and no amount of attempted double speak will change that.

haha, more accusations of "double speak." Please post the times that I have cheerleaded for the owners being cheap.

[757690]

If you're dominant, you automatically advance to the LDS. Just like in 95.

I am talking about pre-1995, when there were no division series, just league championship series.

Even if you are one of the top 2 teams, you have to play 3 series, instead of just 2.