agk47 wrote:Ya ya they really do. Many times I have read that on the open market he would earn 81 million dollars.
Maybe you misinterpreted what they said in the same way that you misinterpreted what I said.
agk47 wrote:and ya youre right, I spoke to quickly. You didnt say hes better.....
you wrote: "Pretty much every aspect of baseball, he was more valuable on a per-game basis"
....you talking about pearce, right?
Now maybe I'm as weak at statistical analysis as I am english comp, but Im pretty sure you used stats to justify saying pearce had a better season than double E last year. :-p
Yup, you are pretty bad at statistical analysis. Pearce was indeed better at every aspect of baseball on a per game basis, but since Pearce was injured for a lot of the year and missed so much time, he wasn't as valuable overall as Edwin was. And even if he was more valuable than Edwin last year, that doesn't mean he is a better player, or "pretty much equal" which is the way you characterized my argument. It woudl ahve meant he was more valuable
last year. Tanner Roark had a better ERA than Max Scherzer last year. Do you think that means they are pretty much equal? No, of course not. Nobody in their right mind would predict Roark to put up a lower ERA than Scherzer next year. It could happen, sure. But it's very unlikely.
agk47 wrote:Nah seriously, I assure you, I'm pretty adept at analyzing numbers. And I apologies for coming on to strong, borderline trollish of me, I was just having a laugh for the most part.
You can't just say you're good at something, you need to demonstrate it! I understand trolling, but you aren't even making good troll arguments and aren't demonstrating any kind of awareness of statistical analysis.
agk47 wrote:Now were stuck spinning our wheels, looking to spend big on role players like fowler. Just curious, did anyone think the alex gordon contract KC signed last year was a good deal? Similar stats, similar profile. Deal was panned from day one. Epstein knows what hes doing, and he recognized Fowler for the stopgap that he was. Not a core player.
Kind of a non-sequitur, not really sure where you're going with this. 28 GMs, including Shapiro/Atkins and Theo/Hoyer, chose not to sign either of Fowler or Gordon.
agk47 wrote:Back to WAR. Its a statistical theory that's used to provide a train of thought and logic. its not a replacement for reality. 81 million for trout is a benchmark used to illustrate his relative value, not define his value. In short, WAR's only purpose is to provide a "language" for the logic behind the thought process and decision making in the game we love.
short and sweet, if trout was on the open market he gets about 10 - 12 years and the elusive $350 - $400 milly contract often bandied about the media in recent years. $81 million a year never comes up, its never in the picture, as a number, its completely out of touch with reality.
The only thing out of touch with reality is your comprehension. The idea that a season is worth $81M does not mean that is how much he would be paid if he was a free agent. That's not how that works. I explained, in what I thought was pretty good detail with a lottery ticket analogy, exactly where that line of thought goes off course. Again:
you don't spend $100 for a lottery ticket with a maximum payout of $100. Especially when, in this analogy, you'd need to buy 10 increasingly worse lottery tickets in a package deal. If teams knew Trout would be healthy and at peak performance, and they had no similar insights about other players so taht the market remained similar to what it is today, and Trout was for whatever reason only allowed to sign a one year contract rather than a multi-year contract, then yeah, they might pay $81M. But obviously that is not a realistic situation. That doesn't mean we are unable to calculate how much value Trout brings in one season. This is basic stuff. The biggest downside to WAR and sabermetrics in general, is the inability of many people to understand what is being said.
agk47 wrote:I think often time the line between backing ones opinions with facts and hiding ones opinion in facts gets blurred.
Give ya an example, Baseball prospectus has vlady jr as the jays number 4 prospect. Thats a load of crap. From the first pitch he faced in short season, he was our number 1 prospect.
Ditto for moncada in a loaded boston system.
Prospect prognosticators are all full of crap lol. They hide behind stats to not only justify their opinion, but their very existence.
Me and my boys for years have joked that baseball Americas top 100 prospects should be renamed the top 21 - 23 year old prospects and everyone else.
The point is, if the jays wanted to get involved in the Sale sweepstakes, they could have. not saying they should, just that they could. The conversation would have to start with Vlady, and not anyone else.
Another non-sequitur. So, you think "prospect prognosticators" are lying? For what reason? Certainly guys like Vladdy Jr have a very high ceiling but they are in the low levels of the minors so we also know there's a huge risk of them flaming out in the next few years, which needs to be taken into account.
agk47 wrote:Warheads are no different.
the $81 mllion only exists to justify the logic behind it.
You should really make more effort to understand concepts before you get so passionate about hating them. If you understand WAR and don't like the way it's used or the way it's formulated (and there are lots of those people), that's great. But it's just lazy to barely scratch the surface of what it all means and then rail so hard against it. You'd think that the fact every single MLB front office has fully embraced sabermetrics would make people like you look a little deeper into it, but... nope. Just digging in the heels even more.