premium blogad:
blogads:
advertisement:
sitemeter:
|
|
|
December 15, 2008
When a Deal Becomes a Noun.
You know what I mean. When a baseball transaction is so bad that it exemplifies all of the wrong thinking that made such a transaction possible and even leads to severe market overcorrections, that transaction becomes the embodiment of the entire phenomenon. I’ve got some; I’m sure you’ve got others: Tom Seaver: A display of overweening arrogance on the part of the ownership; a deal made in the service of stroking the ego of the owner, without regard to (or even actively in spite of) the interest of the team. Mo Vaughn: The embodiment of not looking beyond the stat line…at all. (And because Steve Phillips had to be represented.) Scott Kazmir: The very height of short-sightedness; the pinnacle of “win-now” folly. Barry Zito: The logical extreme of paying for past production and ignoring not only indicators of future performance, but context-independent measures of individual performance. Also the essence of ignoring the market. Carlos Silva: The extreme case of ignoring the concept of replacement-level economics. The very embodiment of paying dearly for the privilege of reliability in sucking. Eric Bedard: The case-study of the consequences of ignoring measures of a team’s true talent and performance level other than its W-L record. (Bavasi pulls off 2 in 1 offseason!) Miguel Tejada: “Will you respect me in the morning?” Barry Bonds: Unfree market. Luis Castillo: The phenomenon of a franchise’s operators getting exactly what they payed for while trying to figure out just what exactly it was they thought they were paying for. Mark Ellis: The classic case of exploiting an undervalued commodity (defense) in a market. Bobby Abreu: F**k New York hype. Johan Santana: A toast to New York hype. C.C. Sabbathia: F**k Yankee money. A-Rod: F**k A-Rod. Carl Pavano/Jorge Posada: Suck it, Yankees! I’m sure you can think of others. And by the way, am I the only one getting pissed off by Omar trying to have it both ways? If he wants to go with the big-money/win-now/perpetual buyer approach, that’s defensible with the team we have, but he’s now also trying to skimp with guys like Oliver Perez and Randy Wolf?? If you go big money, you have to go big money. You can’t skimp; otherwise you just have–at best–an expensive fiasco on your hands, and–at worst–a three-peat of 2007. This is why most teams have to run their teams intelligently and with sound long term plans. The big-money approach is expensive and risky, even for the Yankees. For the rest of the world, it’s impossible without a huge commitment, which is why even the biggest non-Yankee markets balk as Omar is doing. Thus despite the fact that Omar does not get hosed as often as his critics would like us to believe, and that he does often get the long end of a deal, he’s still a poor GM until he proves that he can adapt his approach to suit the circumstances, and that he’s not a one-trick perpetually buying pony that loses his nerve when it’s for real. Until he proves this, any team run by Omar Minaya is just one losing streak away (or one poorly timed pyramid scam away) from… Bartolo Colon. 9 Responses to “When a Deal Becomes a Noun.”Leave a ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
|
No you’re not the only one, especially when we have another 33 million coming off the books in a year, they should be spending now to fill the holes while the pieces are available, we don’t know what the markets going to look like next year. Which is why if one, preferably two, of Sheets/Lowe Manny/Tex or even Dunn is not a met in 09 I will be pissed. It’s like they want to spend just enough to make it seem like they’re trying or something, not to mention Tex or Dunn will fill a long-term hole that’s going to be created once Delgado leaves.
funny stuff! I don’t read much online that makes me laugh, but I almost blew coffee out of my nose with this one.
Thanks! And feel free to add your own. I’m not particularly knowledgeable about baseball transactions before I took interest in the game; I’m sure there’s a lot out there.
I was patting myself on the back for the Castillo description, I’ll admit…
Bartolo Colon: Fear of contraction, or Minaya foolishness? An awful baseball trade that is almost defensible considering the doubt about the Expos long-term future.
A.J. Pierzynski: Brian Sabean’s ongoing attempt to be the worst person ever at their job reaches a new pinnacle.
Lastings Milledge: Addition by subtraction or subtraction by addition? The NY tabloids’ libel and the Mets’ impatience with rushed prospects leads to a trade that will never make sense to me.
Lastings Milledge: To be determined.
There is no excuse not signing Dunn it you could get a two year contract out of it. I am begining to think the he is a child molestor or something, but the MLB clubs haven’t leaked the info yet. That is the only way I can rationaize his market contracting so much.
The Kazmir trade was baffling back when they made it because the team wasn’t going anywhere anyway. What was the point?? Trade a young left handed pitcher who wasn’t making any money for Carlos Zamrano?? I still don’t get it.
The Castillo deal was bizarre. Same thing with the Mo. Vaughn deal.
I’d like to see the Mets get Abreu for left field. Great as a #2 hitter behind Reyes. All he does is get his 100 Runs scored, 100 BB, and his 100 Rbi every year. You don’t have to worry about his D because of Beltran and Church.
Omar would be foolish not to be tight with the money. Ownership is dealing with a cash flow hiccvup (at the very least) and if the economy doesn’t pick up ticket sales and advertising revenues will dry up a bit too. And this doesn’t even take into account that every team not named the Yankees is scaling back as well, there is no need to overpay for free agents.
We overpaid for Pedro Martinez a few years ago, because we needed him and that was what the market was. There is no market now, no reason for the Mets to bid against themselves…remember how the Rangeers were continually duped into raising their bid to AROD.
Scott Kazmir: little-guy prejudice