Walt Jocketty Dismissed

I can't believe this is a good thing...he is in the top 3 or so GMs in baseball, at least in my opinion. I don't think its that easy to replace that.

It may make the front office descisions easier in terms of less people disagreeing...but if they all agree on bad decisions, its not going to be good for the franchise.

Ryan resigned so that he could do more scouting.

Jocketty was fired.

Not the same.

Wow ... I'm shocked as well. This can't be good for the Cards.

I agree with integr96 that this will most likely mean that the coaching staff will move out as well and join up with Jocketty elsewhere.

How does Omar Minaya fit into that bunch? He is a coach not a GM. Hopefully the Marlins could get him..... which is like a 0.1% chance of him going there

I'm a genius.

Bill DeWitt buzzwords from Presser:

"We needed a united front going forward"

"Our market size dictates this"

Market size = can't afford our payroll.

Bill DeWitt hired Jeff Lunhow a few years ago with the idea that an accountant could evaluate players and their 'dollar value'.

It became apparent that DeWitt was looking at a way of taking his highly profitable franchise and lowering it's payroll with younger, interchangable players.

Starting in 2005, DeWitt wouldn't allow the Cardinals to really comitt to any players beyond 2010 (other than Carpenter) because it now appears that is when he believe Lunhow's draftees will begin to trickle into the franchise.

The $115 M payroll for 2008 was more than likely nothing but lip service. The team will probably try to sell of anything not named Pujols, Molina and Wainwright. Heck, with Anderson coming through the ranks, Molina's job may not even be safe now that he is arbitration eligible.

How is Minaya a coach???

haha, thank you carpediem for clearing that up.

whats not funny is that Dewitt is the owner of the cardinals with one thing in mind. money. he is using them as a means to make money, not win games. This is a sad day in cardinals history. We will not see another championship for a long time.
All walt has done is bring in all star talent for nothing in return, and this is how dewitt returns the favor. I hope revenue for this organization dramatically drops and dewitt doesn't make his money and will sell it to someone who wants to see us win. consistently.

I wouldn't go that far. The NL Central probably will be stronger next year, especially with the emergence of the Brewers as a contender.

If Mozeliak(sp) has been with the org. as long as Jocketty, there is a chance that he could pull off some of the same trades that Walt would've attempted this winter.

The thing I think will be different is that GMs won't have the same respect that they had for walt, so that could factor in as well.

the way I see it, Bill DeWitt is lining his pockets at the expense of my team.

Wow I'm so smart.....
Omar Minaya
Willie Randolph
Im sure everyone confuses them.......

"whats not funny is that Dewitt is the owner of the cardinals with one thing in mind. money. he is using them as a means to make money, not win games."

Hysterical. He's greedy and likes money and that equals losing.

This is probably a good thing. As great as Walt was, his skills are not player development, and the days of fleecing teams for Edmonds, McGwire and Rolen are over. People aren't giving away borderline HOFers anymore. Teams have gotten too smart and the market and the game has changed. Not to mention that getting Pujols in the 13th round and Carpenter becoming Carpenter aren't exactly repeatable.

Jocketty's drafts were a mess, and his wheeling and dealing left the system in shambles. This was going to happen ever since his guys were replaced by Luhnow et al. It was inevitable, and the time to make changes is now not later.

When I first heard this news, my knee jerk feeling was this was a horrible move. But then letting it simmer for a bit, I like it more and more. Walt is a very good GM but not for the Cards situation. This just shows that the payroll is not going up to where Walt wanted. And I haven't been overly enthused with some of the choices he has made in the money that he does have available to use. I would like to see a better emphasis put on player development. The last couple drafts have improved the farm system quite a bit. Now hopefully the next GM will have Dewitt's full confidence and will be able to convince him to go after some high ceiling guys in the drafts. And will hopefully spend the free agent money more wisely. I am also torn if I want TLR to leave. I think I would like to see him stay at least more year. By 2009 when the rebuild goes into full effect, it will be time for him to go though.

Not that Hanley isn't still a good player, especially when you adjust for position, but numbers like $150M are retarded. Not to mention that they will have to pay him some real dollars during his arbitration years.

Their replacement level and defensive statistics are bad.

Specifically, the replacement level is much too low, and the Davenport translations are not PBP based. Worthwhile measures like UZR and stuff at THT tell us that Ramirez should be in the outfield.

I just looked at his DT card, and he's supposed to be +22 FRAR? So this mythical player is 22 runs WORSE than Hanley with the glove?

Not to mention that he'd also have to be worse with the bat than Ryan Theriot this year. Like ten runs worse than a 72 OPS+.

I know MORP has some stupid formula, but basically he's saying that Hanley is worth about 100 runs over replacement. Something like $3M a marginal win, which sounds about right or a little low (not that this even applies to pre-FA players). That is, if you did the math right on the $31M.

So who is this 65 OPS+ SS that can't play defense? And the Marlins aren't "netting" anything but wins and all that entails, either way. It's just a dollar value on production, which is kind of a weird concept to apply across-board anyway.

"but Beckett pitches a shutout and all of a sudden the Red Sox won the trade."

Cause thats what I said genius. 20 game winner, probable runner up in the cy young award, ace of the staff, and a throw in team MVP in Mike Lowell.

Come on children once again for good measure what wins championships?

If Anibal Sanchez, Delgado, and Garcia ever put their potential into actual on field return then this deal starts to look different. But after people lampooned Theo and this trade for a year cause of Beckett's 5.00 era, they should feel like a tool now. Basically how you probably feel when plh903 makes your contract value argument look foolish.

I'll reply with more tomorrow if I have time, but for now

1) thanks for the detailed and intelligent reply. nrmax - if you're out there, this is what I mean when I say to back up what you say.

2) his inflation assumptions are largely irrelevant. Even with no inflation, based on a 2007 translation from WARP or RAR to MORP, from 2006 until he hits free agency he'll still be worth nearly $150M more than what he makes (I'm thinking roughly something like him being worth $180M-200M and being paid $30M-50M.)

3) The arguments about him vs. the replacement level hitter and fielder are interesting. I may agree with you that it's not fair to rank him vs. both a replacement level hitter and pitcher at the same time, because these players don't exist.

4) I'm getting about $4M for his defensive value, based on 11 FRAR for 2007. I will readily admit that I don't know too much about BP's defensive metrics, but taking that at face value, what's wrong with that?

"My point is that most AAA SS are going to be better defenders than Hanley Ramirez, and saying that his defense is worth $4M or $7M a year is just silly."

Ok, if you're specifically saying that you disagree that he is 11 FRAR, then I am certainly open to that possibility.

However, even if most AAA SS are better defenders, I'm not positive that should constitute what a replacement-level player is, because those guys won't hit remotely enough to play in the majors.

Their replacement-level calculations do seem a bit off, being based on EqA. Though I do believe that EqA as a good deal of respect among the community. Anyway, I might argue that among SS, there is a minimum amount of offense that's required, and a minimum amount of defense. If you're saying that these AAA SS are better fielders, I could say that Ryan Howard is a better hitter, and thus we should compare Ramirez's offense with his. Obviously it doesn't work that way.

I think one needs to look at the bottom of the viable major league options. Say we use OPS to keep it simple (and just to express an idea). Replacement-level OPS is probably in the low .600s for an NL shortstop. So the defense of someone who can't hit that well shouldn't be considered at all (unless the player is an extraordinary defender - Everett, Ordonez, etc. - in which case we wouldn't be talking about him in terms of replacement level defense anyway).

So there's a minimum amount of offense, AND a minimum amount of defense. And that should set the (independent) fielding and batting replacement levels.

I'll have to read more about BP's methods, but the theory is that Ramirez's defense is surely below average, but 11 runs better than the worst defenders who can hit _just enough_ to stay in the big leagues. And I think I believe that.

Basically it's like this: even if your defense is poor for SS (or C, or CF) relative to others at that position, if you can handle it and provide a big offensive boost, then your playing that position is valuable.

Example: Carlos Guillen - much less valuable as a 1B than as a SS.

Agree on marginal wins, but the data has to be normalized somehow, right? What wins are worth is a real chicken and egg story. Basically the wins that get you towards the playoffs are worth a lot more than the wins before and after. For a rough idea, wins 1-70 are worth X, wins 71-85 are worth Y, and wins 86-94 are worth Z. Z > Y > X. So a lot depends on a player's team, because other players are of course needed to get to those levels.

It's kind of like this: if Barry Bonds was on a team where every other hitter made an out every time up, he'd be worth nothing, because his walks would be worthless. So value like that is intrinsically hard (or even impossible) to calculate. I'm taking BP's methodology at face value, but I'm not opposed to simple conversion from WARP to MORP. Assuming a baseline (maybe 81-81, maybe a replacement-level team, or something else) seems reasonable.

Alright, already way too long....sorry guys...

"So there's a minimum amount of offense, AND a minimum amount of defense. And that should set the (independent) fielding and batting replacement levels."

OK, I'll try and be more clear and not a condescending asshat like I usually am.

Their replacement level EqA is .230. Their replacement level period is a .300 winning percentage. Their replacement for defense is supposedly really bad, as are the the defensive calcs themselves.

So, what I'm saying is that if we are going to have something like MORP, which purportedly tells us how much a player is worth, that we need a real-world baseline.

Also, that the baseline is different for every team. They all have different "real world" replacements. Most AAA SS aren't 11 or 22 runs worse with the glove than Hanley, AND 75 runs worse with the bat.

I'll give you a couple of examples as a Cardinals fan. Aaron Miles has a .248 EqA this year, and the Davenport Translations think he's 7 runs above replacement at SS with the glove. And then 5-8 runs above replacement with the bat.

Is Aaron Miles worth $5M as a major league SS? No. He should never be a SS, he shouldn't be on a ML roster, and he's basically equivalent or worse to any freely available MiL filler. And that's if Aaron Miles was your best SS prospect.

I understand the idea of replacement level, and for statistics and creating a baseline, it doesn't matter as long as you aren't trying to model reality. Which MORP does, and fails miserably at.

Marginal wins are also more expensive in certain years, and they are worth more to the Yankees than the Marlins. That shouldn't be a tough concept.

It doesn't have to be normalized if that gives you a worthless answer.

"Basically it's like this: even if your defense is poor for SS (or C, or CF) relative to others at that position, if you can handle it and provide a big offensive boost, then your playing that position is valuable."

Add offense + defense + baserunning, and then a positional adjustment. There are plenty of ways to do those things, but that's the gist of it.

We might find that Hanley is the best LF in the league, or that Guillen is the best 1B in the league (defensively) because as former SS they are going to be much better athletes than their lumbering counterparts. Are they worth as much? Probably not, but it depends on how badly they are killing the pitching staff at SS I guess.

The difference between an NL 1B (.829 OPS) and an NL SS (.733 OPS) is something like 19 runs (back of the envelope simple Runs Created). We can apply these positional adjustments as we go down the defensive spectrum and see an inverse relationship.

The AAA SS that has no discernable skills. Can't hit at all, and can't field at all, doesn't exist probably.

I think MORP is a novelty stat that suffers from BP's branding and allegiance to their own poor in-house stats.

1.6 WARP3 and .6 WARP1, that should say.