Thursday Morning Readin'

Some random links to check out today:

• Lion In Oil interviewed ESPN's Keith Law.  Some great insight in there regarding the responsibilities of general managers that the general public typically doesn't consider.  As much as I love the business side of baseball, I'd make a terrible GM.  Definitely more of a 9-5er, that Tim Dierkes.  Actually 9-4:52 so I can catch the train I want.
• J.C. Bradbury - economist, professor, author, blogger - assigns probabilities of various Braves getting traded if the team falls out of contention.  Atlanta is only 3.5 games out but there's a month to go before the deadline.  How about the idea of trading Chipper Jones?
• New WHIFF Profile of Boof Bonser.  If you're not privy to the WHIFF Profiles, you're missing out.
• RotoAuthority considers the fantasy futures of starters posting strong numbers in Double A this year.
• Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus weighs in on the Cubs' trade of Michael Barrett and the Cubs' disturbing trend of trading players when they reach rock bottom.  And contributing to the demise of said players.
• Jacob Jackson identifies the best unemployed GM in baseball - Paul DePodesta.

Comments

[Thundersticks]

I read the Braves article and respectfully disagree. I think this team is built to win it this year (although they do have some holes to fill).

In terms of the suggested trades the Braves could make, here are my thoughts (for what they are worth):

Andruw: 0% He leaves via free agency at the end of the year, but has a solid (though not spectacular) second half.

Chipper: 20% I'd love to move him (Dodgers maybe - they need a 3B and he grew up a Dodgers fan), but just don't see it happening. He can't stay healthy long enough to get value for value.

Smoltz: 0% At least for this year.

Hudson: 0% Again, at least for this season and probably next. He shold still be productive for the remainder of his contract, which is reasonably priced even when the extra money kicks in.

Renteria: 30% Escobar is ready now with Lillibridge and Andrus coming down the pike. My guess is that Edgar goes this winter unless we trade Escobar and Lillibridge during this season.

Wickman: 0% If Gonzalez was not lost for the season, I could definitely see this one as Soriano is ready to take over. However, we are in the hunt and you can never have too much pitching.

Soriano: 0% See above. He's our closer next year.

Salty: 20% I can only see Salty going for someone like Willis or some other very large package (Buehrle AND Vazquez). I personally would rather keep him.

Thorman: 70% With Salty seeing this much time at 1B, I believe Thorman could be used to get some pitching. I like Scotty, but I just like Salty more.

Escobar and/or Lillibridge: 100% One of them is going to bring in a solid SP. I'd love to keep Escobar, put him at 2B (or 3B if Chipper does get traded) and move Johnson.

This is strictly my take on the Braves' situation, but I definitely don't see the Braves as sellers this year. They are definitely buyers looking for a solid SP (Buehrle, Vazquez, Willis, or maybe Morris), another arm for the bullpen (preferably a lefty), and possibly a bigger bat for LF (Griffey, but not Dunn or Teixeira for 1B). LF is not so much a problem any more with the emergence of Willie Harris.

[CubsAddictMG]

Silver makes a few good points, but most of his claims are just silly. The best point he could have made but didn't was their current treatment of Matt Murton. If they're not going to play him, then they should trade him before people forget about him.

But most of his claims are dumb. First, he says that trading Barrett doesn't improve the Cubs. Um, 6-2 since the trade, homeboy. I liked Barrett and was sad to see him go, but offensively he was contributing as much as Bowen is now, and that's not even factoring his bad baserunning. Add in the fact that they weren't going to re-sign him after the season even if he had been a prince among men, what's the loss in trading him now and getting equal value in return?

His claim that they acquired pennies on the dollar for players like Choi, Bellhorn, Sosa, and Patterson is insipid because those players weren't dollars. They were bums before they left and they continue to be bums. Choi got us D-Lee, Bellhorn got us Jose Hernandez who somehow got us Aramis Ramirez, and I'd much rather have Fontenot right now than Sammy, even if Sammy is doing an OK job after two years of being AWOL. Silver kind of has a point on Walker being dealt last year, but do 96-loss teams really need to retain an impending free agent (who, by the way, is now unemployed).

Jones will get traded for very little -- but if he's contributing very little, then that's getting pennies on pennies, not pennies on the dollar. Yes, he's overpaid pennies, but you don't not move somebody because it might make you look bad -- then you become Bill Stoneman, who won't make a move because his primary concern is what people might think about him.

And yes Nate, Choi and Bellhorn did get traded because they struck out too much -- witness the fact that neither one of them is now in the big leagues.

These people that ignore the facts in favor of VORP and PECOTA really steam by beans.

[Chipper]

CHIPPER WILL NOT BE TRADED, NEITHER WILL ANDRUW JONES.

[RotoAuthority]

The Cubs could go 100-0 post-Barrett and that wouldn't prove that it was a good trade or because of the Barrett trade. Reminds me of the writers saying the absence of Giambi has somehow improved the Yankees.

Among the players you mention, they weren't ALWAYS bums. The Cubs contributed greatly to their downturns and also waited until they were at rock bottom to make the deals.

Trading Sammy a year earlier would've been the smart move. Not feeding the media videotape of his early departure would've been a smart move. Even if Fontenot becomes an All-Star, the fact remains that a good GM could've gotten much, much more for him.

Jones was a bad signing from Day 1. Jose Hernandez was just a throw-in on the Aramis trade.

[Teetz]

The Baseball Economist by JC Bradbury - Good Book.

[Teetz]

The point to be made is Hendry, as far as making simple business decisions, has not been good. It's obvious that he sells low on everything.

However, I haven't really seen any statistical measure I'm comfortable with that can accurately gage a catcher's influence on a pitching staff. It might be too difficult. I'll wait for a much larger sample size, but it's obvious Cubs pitchers had serious issues with Michael Barrett.

[Teetz]

Maybe Corey Patterson, Choi, Bobby Hill, Bellhorn, Sosa....etc. flamed out shortly after leaving the Cubs, but at one time they had much higher value. It's a GM's job to predict which ones may be overvalued. It's what separates the good gm's from the bad gm's. Hendry has been horrible at evaluating his own talent.

[CubsAddictMG]

Roto -- You say the Cubs should have traded Sammy a year earlier? In 2003, Sammy hit 40 homers and drove in 100 runs. All was peachy keen in Chicago heading into 2004 -- what possibly would have provoked Hendry into trading him? At the time, Sammy was still a beloved icon in Chicago (even with cork-gate), and the Cubs were coming off a playoff season.

The Cubs spun Bellhorn for Hernandez, and then dealt Hernandez and Hill for A-Ram. So to say they sold low with Bellhorn and A-Ram is just plain wrong. Same goes with Choi-for-Lee -- they did not sell low for any of these guys. Instead they dealt them for the two guys who 3 years later are still the cornerstones of their offense.

Even Patterson is a hard case, because he had solid 2003 before he got hurt. How were they to know he was going to have a miserable 2004? You could say that they should have traded him after '04, but the return would not have been much greater than what they got after '05.

You know I am not at all a Hendry fan, but the argument that misjudged his prospects and ended up selling low only holds water for Patterson, and I think the responsibility for him fizzling out lands more on him and his bad attitude than it does on Hendry. And that's the kind of thing that VORP and PECOTA can't quantify.

[lih]

The article about Depo left out one of the big reasons he was fired...the impending signing of Terry Collins as manager. I'm not saying it invalidates his point, but my biggest problem with Depo was that he didn't work well with Tracy at all. Being that Collins is now in Japan, I think most other teams agreed with McCourt and Tommy that it was a bad idea. I'm not a fan of Coletti by any means...I was hoping Orel would be GM or at least somewhere in the organization, but at least Coletti is on the same page as his manager. There just aren't a lot of stats you can put into a database and output the best available manager for your situation. I am a believer in the idea that certain players can elevate the play of their teammates by the way they approach the game. Guys like Loduca and Martin get the rest of the team going with their leadership and work ethic. Obviously, it's great having Penny on the team. And Kent was good for one (losing) year. But, the Dodgers had no depth under Depo because he relied on too many injury prone players that ended up falling apart. If Depo were still with the Dodgers, Martin would have most likely been traded by now and Navarro would still be the catcher. Yeah, we wouldn't have Pierre, but maybe he would have relied on Repko and we'd be stuck with Kemp in center and guys like Wilkin Ruan as our backup outfielders. Depo offered something like 40 Million to Brian Giles. Broxton would be the closer even though he's obviously not ready for that at this point. And yeah, he passed on Beltre, after his 55 million over five years offer was declined. He didn't foresee the decline, he just had a lower limit to what he would pay for Beltre. Good luck to whoever gets him at GM though...I'd be willing to bet it won't be a $100M plus payroll team signing him as that is not where he belongs. He needs to be GM for a low budget team where he can bargain hunt without drawing the wrath of Simers and the like.