The Biggest Fallacy: We Need a 1B or DH

[BedardisAce]

It wasn't a "story" he told me this the day after he saw the game, a game which I had been listening to on the radio at home and heard Chuck Thompson go ballistic over what a great play it was. There is a huge difference between this and a yarn. This actually happened.

Are we just talking about one play here? One play and he warrents comparisons to Markakis? I agree, this does give a good laugh.

[Lucky Jim]

The following pitchers were all developed by the O's system and have gone on to have at least one exceptional season and excellent overall career numbers in the big leagues.

Erik Bedard

John Maine

Chris Ray

Jim Johnson (small sample size)

BJ Ryan

Mike Mussina

I left out Rodrigo Lopez, Sidney Ponson and Ben McDonald because although each of them had at least one excellent season, they are all considered busts over their entire career. Given that, these three pitchers had more quality seasons with the O's between them than all of the free agent pitchers the O's signed in the past 15 years combined.

I could only find two free agents who had excellent seasons pitching for the O's during that time frame even though neither pitched in the past 7 years:

Scott Erickson

Jamie Moyer

So I would humbly submit that as bad as our player development has been, our ability to sign free agent pitchers who actually help this team win has been far far worse.

Jimmy Key and Kevin Brown had good years. Injuries derailed both.

[geschinger]

On a year by year basis, I would argue that since we are currently able to carry more than 20 million a year in poor contracts with mediocre, injured or completely redundant players, that we should just as easily be able to justify carrying a talent like Tex for the same price.

Great idea in theory although extrodinarily difficult in practice. How many teams area able to avoid ending up with any poort contracts?

[Sports Guy]

Great idea in theory although extrodinarily difficult in practice. How many teams area able to avoid ending up with any poort contracts?

Well you can start by not pissing money away on the middling guys, like so many teams do over and over, year after year.

It is pretty easy to determine who is going to be a bad signing, yet the teams do it anyway.

[Old#5fan]

Are we just talking about one play here? One play and he warrents comparisons to Markakis? I agree, this does give a good laugh.

No, Drungo posted that Blefary was a bad outfielder and my recollection of him was that he wasn't. In fact, I remember a play he made that listened to on the radio and my Grandfather raved about the next day (as he was physically at the game) that Blefary made that saved a home run and the game for the Orioles. My Grandfather saw Babe Ruth play and he rarely raved about a play. Chuck Thompson also went ballistic over the play as to how incredible it was.

I acknowledge though that Markakis is much, better defensively. I was just pointing out my actual rememberance of watching Blefary is he wasn't that bad an outfielder although his arm wasn't much and he wasn't very fast.

[Old#5fan]

Jimmy Key and Kevin Brown had good years. Injuries derailed both.

David Wells wasn't that bad either IMO.

[bluedog]

Well you can start by not pissing money away on the middling guys, like so many teams do over and over, year after year.

It is pretty easy to determine who is going to be a bad signing, yet the teams do it anyway.

Agreed. Plenty of organizations seem to have no trouble accomplishing this.

The old O's would resign Millar, Payton & Cintron to million dollar+ contracts to provide veteran presence and leadership off the bench.

The new O's will hopefully avoid this, choosing to give Salazar & Montanez a shot while trying to find a young, talented backup infielder in the Rule V draft (Daniel Mayora?) or off of waivers who can stick with the club.

You have almost no risk and far more upside with the second scenario, while saving several million dollars in the process. Apply this same principle roster wide, year after year and it can have a huge positive financial effect.

[bluedog]

Jimmy Key and Kevin Brown had good years. Injuries derailed both.

Yeah, but I'm not willing to call a Free Agent that gets injured and fails to provide even a full year of service to their club a successful signing. Maybe it qualifies for the O's given how horrible their track record has been, but not for any normal club.

[Old#5fan]

What, like the Yankees signing / trading for Kevin Brown, Vazquez, Randy Johnson & Pavano? That strategy hasn't really worked out very well for them.

The best pitchers on the Yankees last year, after all their big trades and free agent signings were Rivera, Pettite, Wang and Chamberlain - all developed internally.

For every organization that you can rattle off that's built a fine staff through Free Agency (Boston) there are far more that you can point to who've tried that same strategy and failed miserably. Free Agent pitchers are a crap shoot. They are the last piece in the puzzle of building a winning franchise - organizational development, not free agency is the first and most important piece.

I agree with you but the alternative as in the Orioles horrible track record of development of major league starting pitching isn't much to hang your hat on either. I would play the odds with the FA pitchers and hope rolling the dice pans out for at least 50% of the signings. That would be way better than the Orioles chances of actually producing an ace. The Yankees had an inordinate amount of bad luck with their signings but at least they tried.

[BedardisAce]

No, Drungo posted that Blefary was a bad outfielder and my recollection of him was that he wasn't. In fact, I remember a play he made that listened to on the radio and my Grandfather raved about the next day (as he was physically at the game) that Blefary made that saved a home run and the game for the Orioles. My Grandfather saw Babe Ruth play and he rarely raved about a play. Chuck Thompson also went ballistic over the play as to how incredible it was.

I acknowledge though that Markakis is much, better defensively. I was just pointing out my actual rememberance of watching Blefary is he wasn't that bad an outfielder although his arm wasn't much and he wasn't very fast.

Ok, fair enough.

[Anonymous]

Well its a different discussion if we're talking about the total contract for Tex as opposed to the annual cost and to me they should be addressed separately.

On a year by year basis, I would argue that since we are currently able to carry more than 20 million a year in poor contracts with mediocre, injured or completely redundant players, that we should just as easily be able to justify carrying a talent like Tex for the same price.

Whether we sign Tex or not, the O's have more than 20 million committed last season to players like Gibbons, Hernendez, Payton, Millar, Baez, Walker and Trachsel - all of whom can be replaced in 2009 from within the organization with league minimum salaried players who will likely provide equal or better performance at each position. To me that means you can afford Tex simply by not making these kinds of poor free agency decisions in the future. If you are going to spend on Free Agents, get cornerstone players, not an unending parade of marginal ones.

Over the long term, I think the 200 million number is misleading. Setting the possibility of career ending injury or a horrible decline in production (both very scary, but seemingly low probability occurances) aside for a moment, I believe that 20 million a season for a player of Tex's caliber will be the norm in 5 years. Just like with the Tejada contract - which people thought was outrageously expensive at signing, but a bargain just 3 years later - I feel that a 10 year / 200 million dollar contract will "age well".

Additionally, I think that the O's will be able to move Tex and his contract down the road if they need to do so (again this assumes no injury or performance decline). As insane as the ARod / Texas contract was at signing, there was no shortage of suitors to take him off the Ranger's hands when they decided to trade him. Same for Manny and his huge contract, despite being a butcher in LF and a perceived clubhouse cancer.

Finally, the O's don't seem to have an "in house" solution at first base anywhere in their system, unless Brandon Snyder or Rowell surprises us all by developing 30 - 40 HR power and a slick glove at 1b (even then, having both Tex and a 30 HR, Brandon Snyder is a problem we WANT to have!). It seems likely we'll either have to schlep by with the Millar's of the world or eventually sign another free agent first baseman like Prince Fielder or Adrian Gonzalez.

Tex or not, top young free agent sluggers are going to command 15 - 16 million a year and 6+ year contracts and the price is only going to go up as time goes by. Even Aubrey Huff, assuming he has another great year like last year, will be able to command 13 - 14 million a year.

So the risk to me isn't 200 million bucks for Tex - its the difference between whatever we pay Tex and whatever we'd have to pay someone else to play 1b for us and give even a significant fraction of his production.

The O's need a 40 HR slugger to anchor their lineup for years to come. I don't see that guy anywhere in the O's organization right now (maybe Wieters, but maybe not). I don't see other teams lining up to trade us that guy from their farm system for anything short of our top pitching talent, which I'm unwilling to do. I don't see a better option coming available in free agency anywhere in the near future.

I'd have no problem carrying a lighter hitting 1b if we could make up that production elsewhere. But we're barren at SS, barren at 2b and barren at 3b as well. The outfield we do have looks solid, but there's no cleanup hitter there either.

Some would argue that we can get the same production out of Dunn and that may be true offensively. But I'm willing to pay the premium for Tex to get his defense at 1b, his clubhouse presence and his hometown appeal.

And clearly a 200 million dollar contract WILL affect our spending decisions in the future - I'm certainly not saying anything to the contrary. My position is that it won't prevent us from being able to sign key free agents down the road who are essential for us to compete. The idea that Tex represents a definitive THIS or THAT scenario is what I argue against. I don't think we're faced with a TEX or Ace Pitcher or a TEX or Shortstop situation which is what Old #5 Fan seems to be suggesting.

I believe we have the net salary available to sign Tex and 1 - 2 top free agent pitchers and a solid shortstop and still extend all our key young players and sign top draft picks as required. But only if we avoid throwing 20 - 30 million a season out the window on mediocre free agents as we've done for the past 10 years and more.

Even when I disagree with you, bluedog, I can’t help but be impressed by your generally logical approach (albeit with what I consider a few flaws here) and the eloquence of your writing. You’re a worthy debate partner.

The major flaw in your argument, IMO, is this:

“Setting the possibility of career ending injury or a horrible decline in production (both very scary, but seemingly low probability occurances) aside for a moment ….”

You didn’t set this aside for a moment. Instead, you raised the very essence of the counter-argument, and then never returned to it. You seem to be implying that the probability of a significantly bad event (and it doesn’t have to be a HORRIBLE decline for it to qualify as a significantly bad event) is so close to zero that it can safely be ignored. One doesn’t have to be an alarmist to disagree strongly with that premise. And I do disagree strongly with that premise. One can debate how high a probability should be assigned to this contingency, or what threshold to set in defining what a significantly bad event might be … but to ignore this factor means that you’re excluding the central risk factor and therefore artificially tilting the scale in favor of this signing. If I had a guarantee that Tex would perform for the next ten years at exactly the expected level of performance that many of the pro-Tex posters are projecting, then the price I’d be willing to pay for him is massively higher than the price I’d be willing to pay when I start factoring in the risk that he may be either above or below that level. Does this mean that I’m so squeamish about things that could go wrong that I never take a chance on a large contract for any player? Of course not. But risk doesn’t disappear just because we declare that we want to set it aside for a moment.

A second flaw is the idea that we can move Tex and his contract down the road if we find a need to do so. We would presumably have no interest in moving him and his contract if he meets or exceeds expectations, in terms of his health, performance on the field, clubhouse influence, and good citizenship (for lack of a better way to say it). So you’re asserting that if he falls significantly short in one or more of these areas, such that we no longer find him worth his contract, other clubs will definitely be willing to take the full contract. I don’t buy that for one second. If he’s a dud for us, he won’t be stardust for others. And no, ARod’s contract was NOT moveable. Texas had to eat a bunch to move him.

The third and final concern in your argument (I won’t go so far as to call it a flaw, as I agree with the explicit statement, but not with what it seems to imply) is the idea that we can afford this Tex contract if only we would avoid throwing out money on mediocre free agents. I agree 100% on the CONCEPT that we shouldn’t waste money on mediocre free agents. And often we KNOW at the time of a signing that a guy is a mediocre free agent whom we just signed to an excessive contract, with Baez a classic example. But sometimes we don’t know in advance. Mistakes are made. And what turns out to be mediocre when seen through the rear-view mirror didn’t necessarily look that way at the time of the signing. As a Redskins fan, I remember Vinny Cerrato claiming that the signings of Bruce Smith and Deion Sanders, et. al., weren’t going to bite the team on salary cap, as long as they made no mistakes in their other FA signings. Show me a team that makes no mistakes, and I’ll show you a team that hasn’t entered the market.

[Lucky Jim]

Yeah, but I'm not willing to call a Free Agent that gets injured and fails to provide even a full year of service to their club a successful signing. Maybe it qualifies for the O's given how horrible their track record has been, but not for any normal club.

Well, Jimmy Key is exactly the kind of FA signing I endorse: a marginal playoff team with really poor pitching signed a veteran pitcher, overpaying for one productive ALCS year while swallowing the cost on the back end.

Ideally, he's good for both. But in the end, getting those great starts in that wire-to-wire year was worth the full cost (or close to it). Even more so if they'd made the WS.

[Anonymous]

I don't know that it as much of a red herring as it is a history lesson. Over the past 10 years this team has often spent money on several middle-of-the-road FA instead of using that same money to sign one high impact FA.

Once again ... NOBODY is advocating that we spend $200 million on guys like Baez, Walker, Bradford, Millar, and Gibbons (to use the names that bluedog offered). So the idea that we'd be better off spending $200 mil on Tex rather than $200 mill on B-W-B-M-G and their ilk is neither here nor there. There are legitimate arguments for signing Tex. This isn't one of them.

[geschinger]

Agreed. Plenty of organizations seem to have no trouble accomplishing this.

They do? Which teams (teams that actually spend money) make up the plenty that have been able to avoid bad contracts?

I'm more conservative than most on here with throwing money around towards FA but I am realistic enough not to think that we'll be able to spend money in FA and not end up with some bad contracts.

[Anonymous]

Great idea in theory although extrodinarily difficult in practice. How many teams area able to avoid ending up with any poort contracts?

There's this notion in the ether that if we turn out to be the first sports franchise in history to make zero personnel mistakes, then the Tex signing will work out just fine. Unstated, of course, is the equally plausible idea (I would argue much more plausible, in fact) that if we turn out to be the first sports franchise in history to make zero personnel mistakes, then things will turn out just fine if instead of signing Tex for $200 mil, we use those dollars for whatever Andy or the wise posters would consider the next best use of those funds.