Nox

"Another reason for the inferiority of expert judgement is that humans are incorrigibly inconsistent in making summary judgments of complex information. When asked to evaluate the same information twice, they frequently give different answers. The extent of the inconsistency is often a matter of real concern. Experienced radiologists who evaluate chest X-rays as 'normal' or 'abnormal' contradict themselves 20% of the time when they see the same picture on separate occasions. A study of 101 independent auditors who were asked to evaluate the reliability of internal corporate audits revealed a similar degree of inconsistency. A review of 41 separate studies of the reliability of judgments made by auditors, pathologists, psychologists, organizational managers and other professionals suggests that this level of inconsistency is typical, even when a case is reevaluated within a few minutes. Unreliable judgments cannot be valid predictors of anything." -Daniel Kahneman, pg. 225 of Thinking Fast and Slow in the chapter "Intuitions vs. Formulas"

Dave Cameron is kind of the worst. A ridiculous Ms homer who provides shallow analysis to questions nobody is asking. Just this week I was reading through a couple of old threads on The Book Blog where Tango, MGL, Colin Wyers, Phil Barnbaum and Fast were ripping apart JC Bradbury for his criticisms on the common method for determining replacement level. (If you don't know who JC Bradbury is, that's ok. He's the biggest shitbag out there in terms of baseball analysts and is fairly representative of everything wrong with Phds in Econ). Anyways, Cameron pokes his head into the thread from time to time taking the role of a cheerleader with every response being of the "Yah! What Tango said!!! I can't believe JC OMG LOL" variety. I thought it nicely summed up Dave Cameron as a baseball authority.

How about not having Brooks f***ing Laich in your top 6 period, Adam.

Lol I'm not advocating it. I'd def take the OT side of that trade.

I'm not sure you can ever have too much starting pitching depth. Plus they could easily move one of them young studs for something else shiny, new and useful.

Traded for Price...

Lol @ "Funnest"

So much ugh.

One suggestion: When doing a projected surplus calc, it's pretty easy to add a simple inflation rate. 1 WAR may cost $9M now but it won't 6 years from now. A static, 7-10% increase is the standard back of the envelope method. Lots of these big contracts are essentially bets on inflation.

Even though I participated in the thread hijack only to s*** on the CFL, I support this.

Sure. Talking to someone from Saskatchewan about the CFL is one of the most surreal things out there.

I can't believe you've done this.

Selig's legacy is basically a giant s*** stain at this point. f*** that guy and the magic carpet of a toupee he flew in on.

Well holy s***. I think they must have changed things sometime in the last little while. I know for a fact Pujols used to have a +22 defensive season on the default dashboard. But now I see his highest is +13. They used to put in raw UZR numbers under the main Def column but I see that's changed. For the better in my opinion. And my apologies, you are correct.

Lol @ Deck consuming a 40 man spot.

So in other words, one should judge a trade with a heavy dose of hindsight. Right.

The defensive numbers are kind of confusing on FanGraphs in the way that they are displayed. A SS who is +11 and a 2B who is +11 do not actually provide the same defensive value. The 5 run difference in positional value isn't baked into these. So a +5 defender at 2B is really more similar to a neutral defender at SS. If positional values were baked into the defensive numbers, you'd essentially never see a plus defender at 1B.

A Brendan Ryan comp does not make sense. He's firmly established as top 3 defensive shortstop in all of baseball. There is a large value gap between an elite defender at SS and a good defender at 2B (if we are to believe this is Goins true talent level).

This is handy. As I said before, I'm pretty surprised how optimistic Steamer is on the Jays but I'm inclined to trust it over my own intuition. It will be interesting to see how ZIPs sees things. I think Szymborski said the other day that 2014 ZIPs projections will be released around Dec. 1.

Exactly. If we're talking only numbers, sure, give the nod to Fernandez. But the stuff and results in the MLB probably swing it in Strasburg's favor.

And how do we know that Fernandez isn't the one on the Kerry Wood trajectory?

I don't really understand how you can say both of these things. If Fernandez is going to get hurt, how does that make him less risky?

I think NJH got bored this afternoon. Hurl, ban him too.

Sigh. It was merely a troll.

Oh please. It's absolutely debatable. It would be one thing if he was relying on a trick pitch, awful HS competition or something like that but he was doing it with the best pure stuff in all of baseball that season. He had 3 pitches graded at 7 or above with an ideal pitcher's body and all the results you could possible want. Our retrospective best guess at his true talent level in 2010 is absolutely in the same conversation as Fernandez's. To say that Fernandez is automatically better bc he finished 3rd in Cy Young voting is lazy. Who was a better pitching prospect? You're both overestimating how easy it was to predict an injury for Strasburg while underestimating the chances of Fernandez suffering a major injury in the next 3 years. I have literally never heard it used the way you did previously. It was not within the realm of common usage.