Look at Ray Ray Run

Forbes list the Cubs worth as nearly 3 billion yet they sold for 700 million 9 years ago. Makes sense.

A made up Forbes number does you know good. The sox operating income doesnt go to zero by spending 30 million more - that's not how that works. Why cant he make disparaging remarks about the Cubs owners financial standing?

I'd rather be JR because I'd have bought something for 30 million that is now worth 1.5 billion. Rickets on the other hand spent pretty much all he's worth on the team.

Yes but the mlb teams pay higher aav to pitchers is going to end in a month so that argument doesn't really work.

It is raw usage. A player gets 600 at bats but he also plays 1400 innings. His usage is much higher than the 200 inning guy. Also, the position players sacrifice some aav for the years. 6 years additional at 25 million a year is more valuable than the 6 extra million a year over the first 6 years.

Its not a flaw. If you want to argue that a pitcher faces over 600 at bats in a full season I can understand that but it's a fallacy to say that is equal to a batter taking 600 at bats. The reason is this. A player can impact the outcome for all 162 games in a season - it's not just his 600 at bats. It's his time on the bases and in the field. The ability to impact the game daily is why an owner is more likely to invest heavily in a bat.

No, shorter term investments are to accommodate for the higher volatility. When assessing the risk of a large and long term investment that is very likely to not warrant its end year values, it's the total investment that matters - not the aav investment. Teams weren't paying Stanton or Cabrera for their age 37 seasons. These are the biggest investments given and I want to reiterate that it's the total investment that matters for investments that are likely to have no value in them at the end of it... 1. Giancarlo Stanton, $325,000,000 (2015-27) 2. Alex Rodriguez, $275,000,000 (2008-17) 3. Alex Rodriguez, $252,000,000 (2001-10) 4. Miguel Cabrera, $248,000,000 (2016-23) 5. Albert Pujols, $240,000,000 (2012-21) … Robinson Cano, $240,000,000 (2014-23) 7. Joey Votto, $225,000,000 (2014-23) 8. David Price, $217,000,000 (2016-22) 9. Clayton Kershaw, $215,000,000 (2014-20) 10. Prince Fielder, $214,000,000 (2012-20)

Greinke's contract is for 7 years. No one is giving a pitcher a 10 year deal.

Position players are more valuable than pitchers because of raw usage. It's really that simple. Reliability and frequency matter a lot in long term contracts. It's why the longest and biggest contracts will always go to hitters before pitchers. Signing a bunch of pitchers under the premise of expected injury is not a good way to allocate funds to maximize return. You don't sign a guy for any decent wage to be a security blanket for a guy you signed for a bigger wage. Injuries should be reactionary, despite assumed likelihood. Otherwise it's a misallocation of funds.

That's why they are more volatile... That's why I used the word dangerous? Volatility in performance is tied greatly to injury. It's why when deciding between investing heavily in an arm or a bat, you should always chose a bat; which was the exact opposite argument of your initial post.

There are times in baseball in which scoring ONE run is more valuable to the win rate of your team than scoring multiple. In that scenario ONLY should you sacrifice an out. The frequency in which that happens is incredibly rare which is why 99% of sacrifices are bad baseball

Eh, the problem is your giving the pitchers in general the duty of preventing runs while ignoring the fact that pitchers are much more volatile and dangerous commodity... In today's game, adding the position player is probably the answer if both players are equal in value because of the increased pitched volatility.

No they're not.

Ahhh this is where I made my mistake. Its wRC not wRC+. You are correct the adjustment for parks and etc harm it. Similarly to how ops+ is less efficient wRC+ is more efficient than OPS+.

That ISO information is rather surprising.

I think wOBA has a higher correlation coefficient; I will look that up when I get home. I have that somewhere. I thought wRC+ over the 10 year sample was slighter higher than OPS and wOBA was the highest. Also, OBP + ISO has a better has a higher correlation coefficient than OPS I believe but I could be remembering that wrong. OPS is beautiful because it's incredibly easy to calculate - only two inputs - and it's incredibly efficient but I still don't think it should be compared to it's two subsets for obvious reasons. Thanks for the link!

My bad, I typed that wrong.

wRC+ has a better correlation to runs than OPS. Using OPS, OBP, and Slugging in the same study is bad statistical analysis given that OPS is derived from OBP and Slugging.

Well, OPS is just saying how many bases you can expect to get per at-bat. That means... that it is a very strong correlation since 4 bases = a run, so someone who averages more bases every at bat, contributes more runs.

The irony is that players like Mike Trout are the exact reason why there is an immense amount of risk in trading Bryce Bush; why? Because the reason a guy like Trout fell despite being BY FAR the best high school talent by a mile is because of his limited AB's due to being from the north. Limited scouting, and limited reps, frequently cause incredible northern high school talent to fall. It's harder to get a read on a guy with limited reps and only summer/fall ball. The other kids play year round... it's why Sox fans are infatuated with Bush because he fell despite talent because of limited eyes and reps so a sign of instant success against professionals with about twice as many reps at the same age is very exciting.

It's also a worse market next year. This isnt even a conversation. What is happening right now is Lozano is trying to get near or to the number him and machado set as their goal pre offseason. He is in no rush to sign a lesser deal but eventually will have to accept something close enough.

Amazing. I have no idea how anyone could argue it's not close. By the way, acquiring arguably a top 3 defensive 3rd baseman ever is probably a part of the sox thinking beyond a middle of the order bat. Just saying...

He likely refused because the Padres arent serious contenders.

Because of ST? A guy is going to decide the fate of his baseball legacy and future bases on the location of the teams spring facility? My god, someone just make it end. The takes are getting so bad it hurts.

There is more to the game than offense. Harper is better offensively but he doesnt have much - but for one year - in which he can claim to be better than Machado imo.