LunchBox

Realistically I have to agree with that sentiment. That ended up far more convoluted than I intended, but the point was very simple. He's actually doing a number of things very well and it's a small change that he needs to be embraced to optimize results. The organization has without question taken a step forward since 2009, there's considerably more impact talent at both the major and minor league level and far less fiscal irresponsibility. People get hung up on particular instances that were handled poorly, but fail to look at the big picture which is one of overall success, not failure. Someone should really study the dynamics of sports forums as they pertain to perceptual biases, this place is a gold mine.

That's legitimate. Let's assume talent is identified using a combination traditional scouting and counting stats. Valued not in terms of wins but relative to a list of comparable players generated considering performance and upside, performance being assessed using only the most rudimentary of statistics. From this list you can approximate contract values and some kind of reference point for trade values. Occasionally this system is exposed and you end up trading Mike Napoli for Frank Fransisco because you're list contains for few Napoli-esque points of data and even fewer instances of them being traded, thus you're vulnerable to poor evaluation of their value. However, on the whole this system works quite well in terms of identifying high end talent and you're margin for error is such that you're not crippled by the occasional bad decision.

Strictly hypothetical: A general manager excels at identifying, acquiring and then retaining talent below market value, but has no interest in or understanding of modern statistical analysis. His team operates with a payroll in the top 10 but not higher than 5th. In your opinion, is it possible for this individual, in this day and age, to run his club in a manner that keeps them between 85-100 wins per season, for a 10 year period?

That's valid. I've heard people in the industry say that they'd take Michael Girsch (sp?) over 15-20 current GMs. The entire organization is a breading ground young executives.

You just became my personal favourite. That probably took you what, five minutes? I spent hours today writing one post to convey practically the same thing and it was more or less overlooked. Yours was probably more effective.

It's the pre-contention honeymoon phase, same reason that everyone was sucking AA's dick 2010-2011. Once there are meaningful results to be evaluated everyone will become consumed by how certain moves didn't meet their unrealistic expectations and he will be described as "below average". I kid obviously, but only sort of.

Frank Wren

No of course not! Just in the context of Dominican male-prostitutes and pooping lol

LOL your way was correct. He's attempting a play on words, "hard" is used as slang for "erect". Between that and his signature, I believe he has a preoccupation with penises.

I'm giving up, it can't be done, CIN is just too s***. They've got this tub o' lard named Broxton making an outrageous amount of money for sucking dick. It's pretty bad when you have to trade your totally respectable and only legitimate 2B option to free up money because of a fat, horrible reliever who will make at least $17 million over the next two years and can't be traded.

The more I try and work out the details of this three team trade, it's becoming increasingly obvious that CIN is just f***ed. They have no viable alternative to Phillips at 2B and they have no money unless they trade...Brandon Phillips. They also have no depth anywhere, especially in the bullpen, which isn't so much bad as it is shallow.

That's what I was thinking, but trading Brandon Phillips just opens up another hole for them and they really can't part with any SP. They really don't have depth anywhere on the ML roster so it seems.

Jeff Sulivan posted an article this week proposing Ethier as an excellent alternative to Choo, which obviously makes the Reds an ideal fit. The problem being they really have nothing to offer LAD as they don't posses depth in the BP or at 3B. The Reds and Dodgers were the 20 and 21 best BPs in 2013, which I wouldn't have guessed. Ethier could probably be had for next to nothing without financial relief, but the Reds apparently have no money.

My fault, "Janssen for Barney is a legitimate option for both parties." was very misleading. I meant to express simply that it was a fair trade, not that addresses the needs of both teams. I can't imagine a scenario in which Hoyer and Epstein see the need to acquire Janssen, 2014 should be meaningless to them as there are at least 3 (possibly 4) better teams in their division. Conversely, SEA may absolutely be deluded enough to believe they need Janssen. They're better trading partners on almost every level, except that there's no real possibility to expand the trade to include starting pitching.

Barney was the first thing that came to mind last week when the reports surfaced that Goins was viewed as a viable starting option. Janssen for Barney is a legitimate option for both parties. This is strictly conjecture, but I believe the Cubs are unwilling to consummate this trade because they understand Janssen is expendable to the Jays. When Alex balked at the asking price for Shark, I imagine they tried to throw in Barney and get the haul of minor league pitching they sought. The Cubs' timeline makes some combination of Stroman, Sanchez and Norris considerably more valuable to them than Janssen. Gose+ is probably more likely to get Barney at this point, but the Jays don't really have the outfield depth to consider it. Additionally, Gose+ for Ackley/Franklin is a better fit.

The Lind extension, even in the worst case scenario is not that damaging because of the opt-out. There was also considerable upside to it, thus the green coding. The Romero extension had very little, if any, upside and the potential to be quite damaging, it was a legitimate blunder hence the yellow code. All things considered he's done very well with extensions, the value of Bautista, Encarnacion, Escober, Dickey dwarfs the risks of Lind and Romero.

The inclusion of Escobar in the MIA trade is possibly the most egregious error on the list. At the very least one of Yunel/Hech should have been retained for depth purposes. The same can be said for trading both TDA/Mathis. The 2013 season would have been considerably more "watchable" with depth at C and the middle IF.

It's considerably better than a draft pick. I'm not prepared to rule out contributions from Gose and Drabek. Even if you only consider helping turn one year of cost-effective Halladay into four years of cost-effective Dickey, that's still not a poor trade IMO.

Good god, what a waste of my day This is why threads need to be merged

I'd like to apologize in advance for what I'm about to do lol. I've made an effort to stay of the AA dispute. The reason being that the discussion is largely bickering, using cherry picked instances to support a particular viewpoint. I finally caved and took the time to compose a comprehensive account of baseball operations since October 2009. I believe once you look at the entirety of AA's body of work, it's plainly obvious that he is neither piss-poor or brilliant as people like to suggest. He is, in all likelihood, above average. At times his ability to build a roster appears suspect; however, he has legitimate skill in identifying and acquiring players with exceptional talent and signing players to contracts of immense value. The judgement involved in the MIA/NYM trades was questionable and in hindsight the actions premature, yet such aggression takes a lot of balls. As a young man, that aggression appears to have backfired, but I believe it is a quality that will serve him well with increasing experience and improved judgement. Again, I apologize for the length of what you're about to see, I hate long posts as much as anyone; however, I ask that you take the time to read it in it's entirety before responding. A few disclaimers: -The timeline begins about two months before AA takes over as GM. I don't give him full credit for these transactions. Presumably, both he and JP were aware of the transition at this point and decisions were a collaborative process. -The colour coding is as follows: Red-very poor Yellow- poor Black- neutral/TBD Green- good Blue- very good -I was tempted to leave drafts and international signings black as it's very unclear what kind of results they will yield. Ultimately I decided to assign value to them as the acquisition of elite amateur talent is of the utmost importance for a club that doesn't venture into the FA market and some of these prospects have already been used to net established players. July 31, 2009: Scott Rolen and cash traded to CIN for Encarnacion, Roenicke, Stewart. August 10, 2009: Alex Rios claimed by CWS. October 3, 2009- Appointed GM December 16, 2009: Roy Halladay traded to PHI for Travis D'arnaud, Kyle Drabek and Michael Taylor. Taylor traded to OAK for Brett Wallace. December 23, 2009: Brandon League, Johermyn Chavez traded to SEA for Brandon Morrow. March 4, 2010: Casey Fien claimed from BOS. March 18, 2010; Casey Fien released. April 3, 2010: Adam Lind signs 4 year/$18 million extension ($2 million buyout included) + 3 options valued at $7, 7.5, 8 million respectively. April 13, 2010: Signed Adeiny Hechavarria 4 year/ $10 million. DRAFT, June 2010: McGuire, Sanchez, Synergaard, Wojciechowski, Murphy, Sweeney, Nicolino, Knecht, Thon, Nolin, Pompey. July 13, 2010: Signed Adonys Cardona. July 14, 2010: Alex Gonzalez, Tim Collins, Tyler Pastornicky traded to ATL for Yunel Escobar, Jo-Jo Reyes. July 29, 2010: Traded Brett Wallace to HOU for Anthony Gose. August 14, 2010: Ricky Romero signs 5 year/ 30.1 million extension + 13.1 million option. October 25, 2010: Hired John Farrell as manager. November 4, 2010: Acquired Olivio for COL, declined option for 2011, gained Type B pick. November 17, 2010: Acquired Rajai Davis from OAK for Lord Farquhar and Magnuson. December 3, 2010: Acquired Carlos Villannueva from MIL. December 6, 2010: Shaun Marcum traded to MIL for Brett Lawrie. January, 2011: Cordero, Dotel, Rauch signed as FAs. January 21, 2011: Vernon Wells traded to LAA for Mike Napoli and Juan Rivera. Januray 25, 2011: Mike Napoli to TEX for Frank Fransisico. February 17, 2011: Jose Bautista agrees to 5 year/ $64 million extension. April 18, 2011: Lord Farquhar makes glorious return from OAK for David Purcey. DRAFT, June 2011: Beede, Aderson, Musgrove, Smith Jr, Cormer, Norris, Gabryszwski, Stilson, Robson, DeSclafani, Lopes, Pillar. July 12, 2011: Traded Juan Rivera to LAD for PTBNL. July 27, 2011: Zach Stewart, Jason Frasor to CWS for Edwin Jackson, Mark Teahen. Jackson, Dotel, Patterson, Rzepczynski traded to STL for Rasmus, Tallet (and his 'stache), Walters, Miller. August 10, 2011: Signed Dawel Lugo. August 23, 2011: Hill, Macdonald traded to ARI for Johnson. August 30, 2011: Signed Osuna, Tirado. December 6, 2011: Nestor Molina traded to CWS for Sergio Santos. January 1, 2012: Jason Frasor acquired from CWS. January 9, 2012: Signed FA Darren Oliver. January 24, 2012: Signed FA Omar Vizquel. February 1, 2012: Signed FA Fransisco Cordero. February 13, 2012: Casey Janssen signs 2 year/$5.9 million extension + $4 million option. DRAFT, June 2012: Davis, Stroman, Smoral, Nay, DeJong, Alford. July 3, 2012: Signed Richard Urena. July 12, 2012: Encarnacion signs a 3 year/$27 million extension + $10 million option. July 20, 2012: Traded Cordero, Fransisco, Perez, Musgrove, Rollins, Cormer, Wojciechowski to HOU for Happ, Carpenter, Lyon. July 31, 2012: Thames traded to SEA for Delabar. July 31, 2012: Snider traded to PIT for Brad Lincoln. October 21, 2012: Traded John Farrell and Carpenter to BOS for Mike Aviles. November 3, 2012: Mike Aviles, Yan Gomes traded to CLE for Esmil Rogers. November 8, 2012: Signed FA Macier Izturis. November 8, 2022: Acquired Jeremy Jeffress from KC. November 19, 2012: Alvarez, Escobar, Mathis, Marisnick, Nicolino, DeSclafani, Hechavarria traded to MIA for Reyes, Johnson, Buehrle, Buck, Bonifacio. November 19, 2012: Signed FA Melky Cabrera 2 year/$16 million. November 20, 2012: Hirred John Gibbons. December 17, 2012: D'arnuad, Syndergaard, Buck, Beccera traded to NYM for Dickey, Thole, Nickeas. Signed Dickey 3 years/$29 million + $12 million option. December 2, 2013: Navarro signs 2 year/$8 million. December 3, 2013: Lincoln traded to PHI for Erik Kratz and Rob Rasmussen.

+1 Although I like what TB does with the back of their BP. I'd take it a step farther and say teams should be in a constant process of establishing value in relievers, trading them in their ARB eligible years and replacing them with internal options.

Why is there a 1.5 WAR difference between the two projection systems? The slash lines are nearly identical. if you assume he's worth 4.7 wins this year (which is a half-win decline from last year) and start the decline from there the contract looks much better. Edit: I noticed it is the projection for his defence, now I don't know what to believe.

Happ and Cecil are far from interchangeable parts and they really have no use for Lind and really no immediate need for Happ unless Paxton/Walker is traded. Paxton would be nice, but he won't come cheap and it's far from a sure thing that he would be a contributor in the rotation this year. Which is no big deal, I just don't think the front office is targeting that kind of starter. All things considered, I think some of the pieces of this trade are a real possibility, Jansen, Cecil, Ackley but it's just too big with Paxton and Lind included.

Ron Washington would be doing opposing teams a HUGE favour with that lineup lol.

Good question, I think what they should do and what they will do are very, very different lol. Andrus and Rios aren't really THAT good.