Comments on: Roberts to White Sox for Floyd?

By: Andrew in Rochester

Andrew in Rochester — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:01:46 +0000

So, Baseball Think Factory (one of my many, many, many other baseball sites I goto every five minutes for more information) put up the Oriole ZiPS projections (a computer projection of hitters and pitchers which is relatively accurate…not as alarmingly good as PECOTA, but still pretty good, if any of you are into computer projections like I am) and let’s look at Matt Wieters top age-comparison player:

Johnny freakin’ Bench.

Now, to be fair, before you go ape-shit, we’re talking about a rookie ballplayer. It’ll be one of the fun subplots of the season to see Wieters and Price go head to head for rookie of the year honors in the toughest division in baseball, but temper your expectations because nobody comes out of the gate and puts up MVP caliber numbers in year 1. In year 2, absolutely. But in year 1, probably not.

Ok, now get excited for Matt freakin’ Wieters, the new bar everyone will get measured against.

By: Andrew in Rochester

Andrew in Rochester — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 04:27:47 +0000

On a non-Baltimore note, the Twins owner died today. That’s sad and I mean this with all due respect of course, but he was a terrible owner who pinched pennies as much as anybody in sports. It will be interesting to see what happens in Minnesota in the next few years…with their incredible development system, they could very easily turn into the new Red Sox with the right owner. Stay tuned.

By: neal s

neal s — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 04:11:41 +0000

It’s just a question of how deep you want to go. It’s easy to look at payroll and free agent acquisitions as bellwethers. It takes no thought, analysis, or research. Simply look at the balance sheet, see that we didn’t land Teixeira or Burnett or Lowe and say “see, toldja so!”

Not to say that you don’t engage in thought, analysis, and research, Drew, but you definitely don’t take it far enough.

By: Andrew in Rochester

Andrew in Rochester — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 03:59:23 +0000

You know, I am starting to get tired of this back and forth. You’re absolutely right Neal. My point was going to be basically deriding the ridiculous correlation Drew made between the payroll going down in 2008 from 2007 and the team’s win total also going down by saying two things:

1) In 2007, the Orioles won 69 games. ONE more than in 2008. That’s not going down, that’s going sideways. And even that gross oversimplification fails to grasp the improvement in the farm system and the future outlook with the additions of Tillman, Jones, Sarfate, and possibly Albers and/or Patton.

2) The payroll reduction was attributed to trading Tejada and Bedard, and it is absolutely positively maddening to me that Drew harps on these trades like they were horrible ideas that didn’t backfire tremendously for our trading partners. Bedard blew out his shoulder and Tejada aged 2 years! Gosh, I wish we had kept them so that we could say “we’re trying: look at the payroll!”

By: neal s

neal s — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:37:07 +0000

@Andrew in Rochester – I don’t think there’s much farther you can go with it. Drew believes that in order to prove that they want to win, the Orioles have to spend money on top free agents. You can correct me if I’m wrong, Drew, but you’d be hard pressed to argue that you don’t believe that.

This despite a mountain of evidence that there’s no correlation between payroll and wins.

There is a correlation, but it’s between scouting/player development/coaching and wins. Andy MacPhail’s record so far in that area is better than average. It might end up being great if we hit on at least three out of Wieters/Arrieta/Matusz/Tillman/Jones. That’s before we start talking about the rest of the potential contributors currently toiling in the minors.

But, hey, don’t let facts get in the way of some good, old-fashioned muckraking.