AM on Int'l spending

[Flosman]

Except, doesn't that actually show that the top 31 are worth it? Around $55 million for 43.1 WAR is a steal. Even if you add in developmental cost.

Now, I am not certain whether that WAR includes years outside of the initial control of the team (which affects the analysis). But I don't see this as a compelling argument in and of itself against big spending. The numbers are also skewed when you include the $ for players signed in the last couple years that have no realistic avenue whatsoever to have earned any WAR. I've bolded some of the names that are performing well or are highly thought of in the minors.

The WAR was career total. I tried to find a list from 4 years ago but did not find one. I thought a list from atleast 4 years ago would give a better view of how the newer players were doing. How ever it does not change the issue really in my view. I don't see another MCab on the list and that is where almost all of the value is coming from. MCab throws the numbers off also by the fact he has an additional 74 million tied to his WAR. Heck even Willy Mo had an additional 6.7 million for his 2.2 WAR not to mention all of the guys got paid something while there were playing. If you take MCAB out as an outliner you have 6.1 WAR for 53 million plus minimums. Is that great value?? The hit rate seems very low and I guess if you identify the right guys (really Guy) you win. But I am sure that all 31 GMs that sold ownership on these signings said they had the right guy. Scouts are that way with the guys they like but they do not seem to be picking the right guys often. It appears to me the value segment of this market is the way to go. Maybe you get 10 players to one and increase the odds for a hit.

[xKHx]

Not to mention Mcab accounts for 37 of that war.

[Flosman]

First of all, major rep to you for doing this.

Second, what's striking to me is that most of these guys are still pretty young, so it's really premature to say that only 5 guys are progressing. Probably we need to revisit this list in about 3-4 years.

I agree completely, the guys are young because the bonuses are going up. I was surprised however that more guys were not doing better. But we won't have the final results for a long time.

[Stotle]

This is exactly what I want to do. My questions earlier were serious, and so far nobody has actually answered them, though you have come the closest by essentially saying "See my previous comments." I have accepted the premise that what the Orioles are doing is inadequate. What I want to know is what is the best way to correct this for the future.

While past performance is no guarantee of future results, as Buck likes to point out there is such a thing as a track record. I want to examine the track records of all the players. In this case the players are the organizations and their effectiveness at scouting, signing, and developing international talent. To a large extent this means Latin America, and particularly the Dominican Republic, but I am not trying to limit the scope of the discussion.

I think some people want to have more international players in the organization just so they can say the Orioles have a strong international presence. I don't care a whit where the players come from, I just want talented ballplayers that make the Orioles a winning franchise. If they can do that by signing 100 guys from the state of Utah I really don't care. It just makes sense to try to broaden your pool beyond a narrow geographic area, hence the value of having strong operations that successfully identify talent outside the US borders and get it into a good player development system.

To your point of being difficult to project toolsy prospects at 16 years of age, that would support the general approach of not signing unproven guys to large bonuses. That is what MacPhail has said he is unwilling to do, not that he has no plans to sign Latin prospects. I am disappointed that he has not apparently placed greater emphasis on building international operations because the reality is that a large percentage of current MLB rosters comes from outside the US, and by not being a player in this arena the Orioles are missing out on a potentially viable way of obtaining prospects that can be developed less expensively than simply buying free agents to stock the ML roster.

What I want to know from an evaluation of the past is where and how is the best way to go about allocating resources? If you want to be best in class, one way to start is to identify the current market leaders, find out what differentiates them from the others, and also look at what has been done before that does NOT work. Then you can at least emulate the ones that are successful. That approach is not as good as being truly innovative, but there is very little chance of getting that out of someone as risk averse as MacPhail. Absent being innovative, what I want to know is what is working for other teams right now, and what is not working. Seriously, if the answer is, "It's a total crapshoot, you just have to spend the money, sign the players, and do your best to develop them", then that's the way it is. But that doesn't really make a compelling argument. You should be able to show that by by spending the money on that crapshoot you are ahead of the game compared to those who don't do that.

I mean, I don't know of a reasonable manner in which this can be examined by message board posters. Without talking about proprietary stuff, I know one organization heavy in the international market absolutely breaks draft prospects down to categories as small as body type + bloodlines + structural matters internal to the player (when available) as part of the formula used for figuring out what kind of draft prospect that player is. I would be SHOCKED if they showed that level of detail in the draft but essentially were just throwing money against the wall on the international front.

I think you are right to look for that smoking gun, but it is not going to be spotted by people outside the industry (I don't think -- maybe there is something both basic and telling, however). I guess this will ultimately be an issue that just isn't able to be resolved on the message board front. It just doesn't seem likely that absolute facts regarding the situation are going to be made available, which means we are left to conjecture and the like.

[Stotle]

The WAR was career total. I tried to find a list from 4 years ago but did not find one. I thought a list from atleast 4 years ago would give a better view of how the newer players were doing. How ever it does not change the issue really in my view. I don't see another MCab on the list and that is where almost all of the value is coming from. MCab throws the numbers off also by the fact he has an additional 74 million tied to his WAR. Heck even Willy Mo had an additional 6.7 million for his 2.2 WAR not to mention all of the guys got paid something while there were playing. If you take MCAB out as an outliner you have 6.1 WAR for 53 million plus minimums. Is that great value?? The hit rate seems very low and I guess if you identify the right guys (really Guy) you win. But I am sure that all 31 GMs that sold ownership on these signings said they had the right guy. Scouts are that way with the guys they like but they do not seem to be picking the right guys often. It appears to me the value segment of this market is the way to go. Maybe you get 10 players to one and increase the odds for a hit.

I don't know. It seems fairly rudimentary as far as reports go (not that I don't very much applaud the effort and appreciate the time you put in). I am a bit swamped right now, but I imagine I could put together a similar report using US draft prospects that would indicate that certain cross-sections are not worth investing in -- say, high schoolers from the Northeast receiving over $800K, or something like that. I just don't trust the sample size and I don't trust that these players are similar enough outside of money demands to be comparable in a study that determines how much money is prudent to spend on a particular player.

[Frobby]

I mean, I don't know of a reasonable manner in which this can be examined by message board posters. Without talking about proprietary stuff, I know one organization heavy in the international market absolutely breaks draft prospects down to categories as small as body type + bloodlines + structural matters internal to the player (when available) as part of the formula used for figuring out what kind of draft prospect that player is. I would be SHOCKED if they showed that level of detail in the draft but essentially were just throwing money against the wall on the international front.

I think you are right to look for that smoking gun, but it is not going to be spotted by people outside the industry (I don't think -- maybe there is something both basic and telling, however). I guess this will ultimately be an issue that just isn't able to be resolved on the message board front. It just doesn't seem likely that absolute facts regarding the situation are going to be made available, which means we are left to conjecture and the like.

Well, we are used to giving our opinions based on incomplete information. That is almost always the case around here. But, more information is always better. We have pretty good information available about what bonuses were paid to American players, and what the return on investment has been. It would be nice to have similar information on the foreign players, even if that tells you only 10-20% of the story.

[Fan4Life]

I generally don't mind him ignoring the International market for the most part as I agree with his analysis. However, in order for me to feel good about that he needs to be:

working the local system to gain an advantage either through garnering extra picks al la Tampa

spending near the most in the top 5 rounds

open to signing International FA's like Sano and Chapman

He's done none of these. So, his comments are as everyone here understands, excuses.

[Flosman]

Stotle IYO does the fact that the O's have the third best record in the DSL mean anything to you at all? Is it possible with the promising guys that are in the very low levels and what looks to be a very good team down there we are actually getting talent now? I looked at the roster and it did not seem particularly old or anything.

[Moose Milligan]

Pretty disappointing. Nothing new here, but MacPhail is a complete disaster when it comes to this.

[Stotle]

A steal compared to what? Eyeballing that list, it looks like the range of salaries is roughly equivalent to what the 1st 30 picks in the MLB draft would have gotten as of a few years ago, no?

I can't really draw any conclusions about this until all of the DR players are at an age where you can make a fair assessment.

A steal compared to what you'd pay on the free agentmarket, though obviously I agree with this limited data it's impossible to know whether MCab is a 1-35 proposition, a 1-70 proposition, or whether three more MCabs will emerge from the young players on the list (which is kind of my point about trying to draw conclusions from data like this). I think we all agree Baltimore should saturate the draft with spending to the extent it makes sense. The question is how much "other money" should be spent in this arena, right?

[Stotle]

Stotle IYO does the fact that the O's have the third best record in the DSL mean anything to you at all? Is it possible with the promising guys that are in the very low levels and what looks to be a very good team down there we are actually getting talent now? I looked at the roster and it did not seem particularly old or anything.

Nothing whatsoever. The stats that are listed above next to some of the international players in rookie ball mean zero and A ball almost nothing to me, as well. The vast majority of the DSL is players who will not amount to anything, and the big talents generally jump to the US for either instruction or rookie ball, depending on the age/organization.

[Stotle]

Well, we are used to giving our opinions based on incomplete information. That is almost always the case around here. But, more information is always better. We have pretty good information available about what bonuses were paid to American players, and what the return on investment has been. It would be nice to have similar information on the foreign players, even if that tells you only 10-20% of the story.

As I've noted, I don't but nearly as much stock into that analysis as others around here. I mean, if people want to discuss I certainly wouldn't try to stop them. But I think the general analysis is flawed.

So when we decide to break that out to a group that is a fraction of the size with a fraction of the info at an age where projection in general is incredibly difficult, I'd just as soon cast chicken bones and see what they have to say (an exageration, but not by much).

[Skeletor]

We are just going to have to accept the fact that the Orioles aren't going to spend money in the international market under MacPhail. This isn't news to anyone and I don't really understand why people get upset still when they're reminded about it. He's not going to do it. He should do it, but he's not going to do it. His excuses are weak and the buscones issue is easily worked around, but he's not going to do it.

[Flosman]

As I've noted, I don't but nearly as much stock into that analysis as others around here. I mean, if people want to discuss I certainly wouldn't try to stop them. But I think the general analysis is flawed.

So when we decide to break that out to a group that is a fraction of the size with a fraction of the info at an age where projection in general is incredibly difficult, I'd just as soon cast chicken bones and see what they have to say (an exageration, but not by much).

OK, first I respect that you understand more about the industry than I do and like your input. However you seem to be making a circular argument. 1. We don't understand because we don't have the information available to us. 2. to be competitive teams need the top guys and need to pay the money and can identify those guys. 3. Why do these highly paid guys have a huge miss rate. Refer to step one.

Let me tell you if I tell college coaches that kids are the best ever and you just have to get them and they continually do not pan out they stop listening. I agree with AM currently the players that get huge bonuses just don't hit at a high enough rate to justify the money. If I where AM I would me trying to built a better mousetrap down there. Hoping to actually do it better. But until I could convince myself that I could pick better than the pack I would do just what he is value bets that hit on the river.

[Wilshade]

What really needs to be done is for MLB to establish and operate a "World League" (or some such name) wherein young and developing international players who aspire to Major League Baseball could compete. This would be somewhat similar to what the NBA and NFL have in place to scout, evaluate, and develop international talent.

And before you ask, and you will, if I knew exactly how to make this happen, I would have a nice consulting contract with MLB.