BTS

Nice. If it stays in the 5-10 range in the league this team could be good for a long time.

I don't understand how this relates to Rogers.

o2 > GD > King > North IMHO

If this team hires a guy named Thad to be GM I'm giving up forever.

I think Detroit paid more. Smyly is really good.

How many 16-17 year olds do you know? He's legitimately bright and insightful, and not just for someone his age.

Because of that s***** movie, every analytics guy looks like Jonah Hill in my mind.

ITT: Frenchsoup is HEATED

We have a prospect called Brian Lizardo? That's pretty cool.

I hope fans don't get their hopes up for a FA pitching contract longer than a year or two.

Better. But I doubt this would be the case if he was subjected to the draft and payroll limitations that handcuffed the team in the years before his arrival. Rogers really stepped up.

I think we can assume he got a pay raise. And he probably received indication that he wouldn't be dealing with a bottom-5 payroll anymore.

AA got stripped of his mailroom duties. What a loser.

It's fine to not be sold on Shapiro but at least be honest about it. He was promoted to President and assembled a front office that could operate effectively and with relative autonomy. Of course he deserves credit for the 2016 team. His prints are all over it.

Sounds like pretty serious business.

Back and excited for ST.

http://www.foxsports.com/ohio/story/a-conversation-with-the-indians-mark-shapiro-102512 Not sure if this was posted yet, but some highlights: Q: That was a decade and a half ago, really. Fifteen years. Do you think people, the general populace still judges in those terms? A: I think it frames that very guttural reaction, like, "Hey, if you win it's already been shown people will come." That's what you hear all the time. Q: Do you believe that? A: I think more people will come. But the challenge is 2.2 million instead of 1.6 million doesn't change the way we operate. Even that extra 500,000, 600,000 people, even if that's $10-to-15 more million in revenue a year . . . one win in free agency is $9 million. So you're not going to change the context. Again, I don't think people want to intellectualize baseball, and I don't believe you should have to intellectualize baseball . . . and we've made a conscious decision in most of our interviews not to get into these topics and just stay positive and talk about what our aspirations are. But that revenue swing between 1.5 million in attendance and 2.2 million in attendance . . . meaningful dollars but not dollars that will have us plan dramatically different. Q: It wouldn't change the amount of money spent? A: It would change the amount of spent to 15 million dollars a year. What does that buy you in free agency? Very little. One and a half wins. Q: How is that figure determined? A: Our analysts can put a value on what it costs in free agency to sign a player and what that means in Wins Above Replacement and what those players end up costing in free agency and that changes every year. They measure all the players signed in free agency and what their history has been and what they offer going forward and they place a value. The challenge in free agency is you're often paying for that in the first year of a contract, and in the out years of a contract the players WAR usually goes down because he's usually past his prime. So it becomes a less efficient contract over time. That's why free agency is never the best way to build. It's a good way to supplement but not build. Q: So $8 million for one win? A: It's $9 (million) now. It was $8 (million) two yeas ago. I think at the end of this year they figured out it was nine. And when those wins come in the win curve are important. What does that win mean if it's the difference between 80 and 81? Very little. But if that win's the difference between 89 and 90, that could be a meaningful win. Q: Aren't there certain players though that could be worth more than that? The right guy and the right fit could mean more than that? A: I think there are certain players at certain positions that might be able to leverage impact on other players. Like a catcher for sure. Maybe a leadership component. More than stats alone. We factor those things in. There are certain subjective roles to what certain guys bring to the table beyond just the objective analysis of ‘this is what their added value is.' But you have to find some way to place a value on what guys bring to the table. We don't use those conventional stats. We use our own methodology. It does factor subjective and scouting information and makeup and personality and character and all those things in. In the end you're adding up and trying to determine how many wins that player impacts when you bring him on board. That's what you're trying to figure out. Q: So at some point you all sit back and say this is what this player could mean in terms of wins. A: Yeah. Either runs created or runs prevented. Ultimately you're trying to impact those two areas of the team. The position player can impact both those areas, and sometimes the runs created gets looked at disproportionally to the runs prevented. And sometimes the sum of the guy's value in offensive performance is undermined by some of his defensive value.

I think the playoff drought has given the casual fans an unrealistic view of how impressive making the playoffs actually was. One ALCS appearance in six years on a top-10 payroll is not a huge accomplishment. Don't get me wrong the 2015 team was excellent, but the model wasn't sustainable.

They offered him a 5-year deal.

1. Nobody got fired. 2. What the hell is a value whore? Sounds like a good thing to me.

Voting takes place before the playoffs.

I think there's a distinction between selling high and just trading a good player because you know he'll be hitting free agency soon.

I don't support the updating of titles. Now everyone thinks I'm one of those poll-starting types.

Maple boners up!

I bet they get a lot of applicants willing to leave full time jobs to work in baseball.