Nationals taking advantage of their MASN money

[hoosiers]

The Nationals became a very good team through the draft and through trades, not through free agency. I think most of the money they've spent on free agency has been largely wasted, IMO. Giving Jayson Werth an eight-figure deal did not do anything meaningful for them. Jackson is a good guy to have in the rotation but they'd have a great one with or without him. That team is where it is because of Strasburg, Zimmermann, Harper, Zimmerman, Gonzalez, etc.

The Nats success goes a lot deeper than five keys guys just as JWerth contract has more meaning than one that is simply a bad, overpaid contract.

The Nats took chances that paid off - sometimes the payoff was many times greater than the investment, sometimes the payoff was poor.

The Nats have an aggressive ownership. Ownership sets the long term plan and hired the appropriate FO talent and made it explicit that the expectations were to be aggressive with spending. This ownership has tried asserting its TV rights to generate more $ for the MLB team, it has been aggressive with spending in the draft and aggressive with free agents. IMO, Angelos will raise the payroll to support a winning/playoff team as requested by his GM, but Angelos has not been explicit in expectations that the FO should spend, spend, spend everywhere (draft, FA, international, etc) as necessary to build a long term winner. IMO, the Werth contract speaks about a desire to win, a demonstration that the organization will pay for premium talent. It's an awful baseball contract on the surface, but it is covered by many of Harper's pre-FA years. At least Werth is semi-productive even if he doesn't justify the contract - as opposed to the contract for BRob - a complete dud.

Our FO has, for over 10 years, been very, very kind to players who performed well on the field - in retaining their services as Orioles. It is absolutely unbelievable that the Os could deal very popular and productive players like Bedard, Tejada and even George Sherrill for tremendous returns and yet our FOs have failed to do this more often. And these were easy guys to trade given Bedard's injury history, difficulty to sign to a LT deal, etc; Tejada's supplement issue and GS's peak trade value. We failed to deal Mora when he had a bargain contract and real value, failed to deal BRob, failed to deal relievers having great years, etc, etc. The loyalty to producing players has been counter-productive to the long term benefit of the organization.

[luismatos4prez]

Being a bad owner isn't the same thing as "doesn't care and only wants the money." The main reason Angelos has been a bad owner is because he's been meddlesome, often a bad chooser of front office talent, and slow to make decisions that require ownership approval or adapt to changes in the industry. I've never believed that he doesn't care and only wants the money (though he certainly does want to make money off his franchise).

You mean there's a grey area between hating everything about him and loving everything about him?

[DrinkinWithFermi]

you mean there's a grey area between hating everything about him and loving everything about him?

impossibruuuuu!!!

[LA2]

You understand Davis played in like 60% more games than Werth and was still only marginally more valuable, right?

Don't know why I'm going another round with you, but your question was "Would you take .270/.350/.485 and 25 HR at 1b? I would." To which I replied that I'd prefer Davis' .270/.326/.501 with 33 HR, i.e. I tried to give you a direct term-by-term comparison. Now if you want to shift the grounds of comparison to Werth's 81-game/344-PA performance last year, we could double his counting stats--even though that gives him 23 games and 162 more PA's than Davis actually had--and he'd still have 23 less home runs and 23 less RBIs than Davis. You call that only "marginally more valuable?"

[Stotle]

Don't know why I'm going another round with you, but your question was "Would you take .270/.350/.485 and 25 HR at 1b? I would." To which I replied that I'd prefer Davis' .270/.326/.501 with 33 HR, i.e. I tried to give you a direct term-by-term comparison. Now if you want to shift the grounds of comparison to Werth's 81-game/344-PA performance last year, we could double his counting stats--even though that gives him 23 games and 162 more PA's than Davis actually had--and he'd still have 23 less home runs and 23 less RBIs than Davis. You call that only "marginally more valuable?"

fWAR calculations come out to Davis being about half a win better over a full season -- one in which Davis outperformed anything he did in the past and Werth was playing after missing a significant amount of time. Yeah, marginally more valuable...

[LA2]

fWAR calculations come out to Davis being about half a win better over a full season -- one in which Davis outperformed anything he did in the past and Werth was playing after missing a significant amount of time. Yeah, marginally more valuable...

Half a win less for 12.5 million more dollars.

[Stotle]

Half a win less for 12.5 million more dollars.

If that is how you view to "analyze" the Werth singing (and I'm not even arguing it was a *good* signing), I certainly won't try and convince you otherwise. Maybe consider that the folks who do this for a living are taking a little more nuanced approach than that...

[sangar]

I just got home and I'm too lazy to look through the whole thread. Did MSK start pounding his shoe on the podium? I mean, a thread about Pete's money that grows to eight pages in a few hours has to have some pretty exciting stuff, right?

[Can_of_corn]

I just got home and I'm too lazy to look through the whole thread. Did MSK start pounding his shoe on the podium? I mean, a thread about Pete's money that grows to eight pages in a few hours has to have some pretty exciting stuff, right?

If you want a Khruschev moment might I direct you to the Buck wants J.J. Hardy out of the 2 hole thread?

[Frobby]

Don't know why I'm going another round with you, but your question was "Would you take .270/.350/.485 and 25 HR at 1b? I would." To which I replied that I'd prefer Davis' .270/.326/.501 with 33 HR, i.e. I tried to give you a direct term-by-term comparison. Now if you want to shift the grounds of comparison to Werth's 81-game/344-PA performance last year, we could double his counting stats--even though that gives him 23 games and 162 more PA's than Davis actually had--and he'd still have 23 less home runs and 23 less RBIs than Davis. You call that only "marginally more valuable?"

I'm not sure I want to jump too deeply into this fight, but it should be noted that (1) Werth created 6.8 runs/27 outs, while Davis created 5.7, and (2) Werth batted leadoff in almost half the games he played, which knocks down his RBI total. That said, Davis had a great year with runners on base (.958 OPS) and in RISP situations (.966), so he really maximized his opportunities, while Werth (.704 and .777) did not.

[weams]

I just got home and I'm too lazy to look through the whole thread. Did MSK start pounding his shoe on the podium? I mean, a thread about Pete's money that grows to eight pages in a few hours has to have some pretty exciting stuff, right?

If you want a Khruschev moment might I direct you to the Buck wants J.J. Hardy out of the 2 hole thread?

Buck Does want Hardy out of the second spot!

[crawjo]

The Nats success goes a lot deeper than five keys guys just as JWerth contract has more meaning than one that is simply a bad, overpaid contract.

The Nats took chances that paid off - sometimes the payoff was many times greater than the investment, sometimes the payoff was poor.

The Nats have an aggressive ownership. Ownership sets the long term plan and hired the appropriate FO talent and made it explicit that the expectations were to be aggressive with spending. This ownership has tried asserting its TV rights to generate more $ for the MLB team, it has been aggressive with spending in the draft and aggressive with free agents. IMO, Angelos will raise the payroll to support a winning/playoff team as requested by his GM, but Angelos has not been explicit in expectations that the FO should spend, spend, spend everywhere (draft, FA, international, etc) as necessary to build a long term winner. IMO, the Werth contract speaks about a desire to win, a demonstration that the organization will pay for premium talent. It's an awful baseball contract on the surface, but it is covered by many of Harper's pre-FA years. At least Werth is semi-productive even if he doesn't justify the contract - as opposed to the contract for BRob - a complete dud.

Our FO has, for over 10 years, been very, very kind to players who performed well on the field - in retaining their services as Orioles. It is absolutely unbelievable that the Os could deal very popular and productive players like Bedard, Tejada and even George Sherrill for tremendous returns and yet our FOs have failed to do this more often. And these were easy guys to trade given Bedard's injury history, difficulty to sign to a LT deal, etc; Tejada's supplement issue and GS's peak trade value. We failed to deal Mora when he had a bargain contract and real value, failed to deal BRob, failed to deal relievers having great years, etc, etc. The loyalty to producing players has been counter-productive to the long term benefit of the organization.

I don't buy into that "aggressive ownership" garbage. I mean sure, the Nats have shown a willingness to make moves, but I'm not at all convinced that the moves they've made have made them appreciably better than they would have been with a more patient, cost-controlled approach. The bottom line is that the Nats aren't contenders without the elite players that they've drafted and developed. That's why they are successful now.

I guess my point with this is that I don't want the Orioles to become the team that draws lots of attention during the offseason with expensive signings. I don't think that's a path to prosperity. I want the Orioles to model themselves more after the Tampa Bay Rays, but yes, with a higher payroll so that they can keep more of the players they develop.

And for those who might say, wins are wins, it doesn't matter how it happens, I disagree. Building a team that contends year after year due to player development is infinitely more satisfying than signing a bunch of mercenaries to huge deals and getting a ring. I'd much rather be a fan of almost any other team in baseball besides the Marlins, who have won two championships but failed to ever build and maintain an identity.

[Frobby]

I don't buy into that "aggressive ownership" garbage. I mean sure, the Nats have shown a willingness to make moves, but I'm not at all convinced that the moves they've made have made them appreciably better than they would have been with a more patient, cost-controlled approach. The bottom line is that the Nats aren't contenders without the elite players that they've drafted and developed. That's why they are successful now.

I guess my point with this is that I don't want the Orioles to become the team that draws lots of attention during the offseason with expensive signings. I don't think that's a path to prosperity. I want the Orioles to model themselves more after the Tampa Bay Rays, but yes, with a higher payroll so that they can keep more of the players they develop.

And for those who might say, wins are wins, it doesn't matter how it happens, I disagree. Building a team that contends year after year due to player development is infinitely more satisfying than signing a bunch of mercenaries to huge deals and getting a ring. I'd much rather be a fan of almost any other team in baseball besides the Marlins, who have won two championships but failed to ever build and maintain an identity.

I think the Nats have a nice balance. The fans identify with Ryan Zimmerman, Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper, Jordan Zimmermann and Ian Desmond. By WAR, that's 3 of your 4 top position players in 2012 (LaRoche was the other) and 2 of your top 3 pitchers (Gio was the other). That's a very nice top 5 of home grown players, who produced 19.1 rWAR between them last season. And, you've got Espinosa, Detwiler, and Storen as core home grown pieces, too.

The O's top 5 home grown players for 2012 were Wieters, Machado, Markakis, Jim Johnson and Tillman, who produced 10.0 rWAR (I'm going to count Tillman as home grown because he was with us for AA and AAA). So, we are well behind the Nats in terms of talent that has emerged from our farm system. But, I don't have any problem getting behind players who started out elsewhere like Jones, Hardy, Davis, and Chen.

[crawjo]

I'm not saying that it all has to be through the draft. Trades are important too, obviously, and you need to supplement whatever you are missing through free agency. For me the key to having a successful franchise is to constantly find ways to identify and acquire young talent, and then when it matures at the major league level, hold onto it. That is how you win and build an identity as a franchise.

[LA2]

I think the Nats have a nice balance. The fans identify with Ryan Zimmerman, Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper, Jordan Zimmermann and Ian Desmond. By WAR, that's 3 of your 4 top position players in 2012 (LaRoche was the other) and 2 of your top 3 pitchers (Gio was the other). That's a very nice top 5 of home grown players, who produced 19.1 rWAR between them last season. And, you've got Espinosa, Detwiler, and Storen as core home grown pieces, too.

The O's top 5 home grown players for 2012 were Wieters, Machado, Markakis, Jim Johnson and Tillman, who produced 10.0 rWAR (I'm going to count Tillman as home grown because he was with us for AA and AAA). So, we are well behind the Nats in terms of talent that has emerged from our farm system. But, I don't have any problem getting behind players who started out elsewhere like Jones, Hardy, Davis, and Chen.

Yes--and only one of whom was a free agent signing, one that was not even remotely overpriced. In fact, all of them were "steals."