gregmag

I'm not sure how precise you meant to be here, but subjecting noncitizens to deportation merely for being charged with crimes would work a huge change in the law. The Immigration and Nationality Act makes noncitizens deportable upon conviction for certain classes of crimes. Charging and conviction, of course, are two very different things. If you did mean to advocate this change, I would strongly disagree, for all the standard process reasons (and I'm a hawk on domestic violence).

It's sometimes hard to believe daily newspaper sportswriters are still a thing. That article cites Ben Revere, Michael Saunders, and Dalton Pompey as potential trade chips in a Segura or Lucroy deal. Revere is 27 and Saunders is 29. Pompey has the profile of someone who makes sense, though I don't know anything beyond his stats. The Brewers are rebuilding. It isn't rocket science. They aren't going to trade valuable assets for veteran gap-fillers. (Whether Segura is a valuable asset isn't an argument I mean to jump into here.) The article mentions that the Jays need relief help. They swung and missed at the big FA relievers. We keep talking about multiple-player packages, and I wonder if we may not see a vet reliever or two shipped out as part of a big trade.

Yeah, I really don't get the Davis hate. It's a classic case of overemphasizing a player's weaknesses and underemphasizing his strengths. As others have pointed out, Davis hits home runs at an elite level and draws a decent and growing number of walks. He has decent range in LF. He's cheap and controllable. But he has a terrible arm, and he hits .250 because he strikes out a lot, which for some people is enough to erase what he does well. You can keep saying he's replacement level until your face turns blue, but that won't make it accurate. As for Bundy, I'm with the skeptics. I agree that we should be acquiring high-upside players. But a pitcher with major, recent injury damage is the worst kind of high-upside player to bet on. I'd much prefer, for example, a standout, healthy A-ball pitcher who at least has a chance to make it through the worst of the high-risk-for-injury part of his development.

It also can't help a guy's development to play him out of position, can it? Domingo has a chance to be a plus offensive player. Why would you set him up to fail offensively, thus making it harder for him to focus on reaching his offensive potential? Also, maybe I've just spent too long watching Doug M lie to the press (I mean that in the best possible way), but I don't think Stearns would broadcast his interest in acquiring a cf if he saw it as a big-resource move, or something that would tip his hand. The whole world knows we don't have a true cf, and obviously (I assume) we aren't going to trade a valuable asset for some 32 year-old, two-win cf. I think they've either decided already to move Braun to 1b, or they're waiting to see what close-to-ready talent a BPA trading approach nets them over the next month. If one of the best assets they can get is a MLB-ready 1b, or if somebody makes trading Davis worth their while, then great. If, as seems likelier, not, then announce Braun to 1b once the dust has settled.

I think this suggests Braun to 1b may be likely.

The Strong thing seems kind of odd. If they liked him enough after the AFL to add him, then why DFA him? Does it suggest they didn't really like him all that much, or could something have happened to change their minds, or might they for some reason have promised to put him through waivers rather than just exposing him to Rule 5? Not sorry to see Fields go. As Outlander suggests, we've got a bunch of guys who make him redundant. You have to think we'll have a bunch of new players this time next week. Fun!

Those are very good points. I'm still not convinced, mainly because I don't see examples of GMs shelling out meaningful prospect hauls for the privilege of paying for that kind of production at that price and because I wouldn't bet on the best-case scenario for Garza's comeback (or for much of anything else). The case for putting Garza back in the rotation is entirely rational, especially if you aren't as unhappy as I am about his character issues. I just don't think that case is anywhere near as airtight as most people seem to think it is. I think there could be good reasons for not putting him in the rotation, and I fear his salary may cause the org to overlook those reasons. If he doesn't come back at least somewhat strong, then putting him in the rotation long enough to take his measure will have wasted a useful resource.

Sorry I'm in persnickety mode this morning, but how can it hurt both teams? If he's good, it helps the Cubs and hurts the Cards. If he's bad, it hurts the Cubs and helps the Cards. I agree with the point above. It's low-risk for the Cubs. Probably it stabilizes their rotation. If not, who cares -- they have money to burn. It's hard to overstate how badly the Cubs' win in the NLDS demoralized Cards fans. It was like their Vietnam -- they thought they couldn't lose to these upstarts. For now, at least, this signing will further sweeten the delicious nectar of their tears.

Wait -- If those numbers are right, doesn't that mean the owners are getting three quarters of the revenue increase while the players get only one quarter? Let's say that, at T1, revenue is 10, and the owners and players split it, 5 each. At T2, revenue increases by 120% to 22. If the players' take increases by 60%, it increases by 3, from 5 to 8. Meanwhile, the owners get the remaining 9 of the new 12, for a total take of 14 out of 22. Obviously this is a crude model, but I think it tracks the point you were talking about. Am I missing something?

Obviously I don't care about the stat line. I care about young pitchers' ability to put the stat line, and the rockets that inflate it, into proper developmental perspective, and I care about the coaching staff's ability to continue pitchers along a positive developmental path under atmospheric conditions that can seriously mess with pitches. You're right that I'm just floating an argument. I think it's plausible enough to factor into our considerations. You throw out Jungmann in response. Maybe you're right; maybe every pitcher will come through CO Springs like Jungmann did (assuming Jungmann's for real). I'm not inclined to bet the farm on that possibility, but that's just me. If anybody has any data on how extreme hitters' parks affect pitchers' performance, I'd love to see it.

Excluding his rookie season and last season, how are ERA+ of 104, 105, 105, 118, 100, 110, 119. and 117 as a starting pitcher in predominantly hitter-friendly ballparks (MIL, TEX, CHC) "mediocrity"? I specified in my post that I was assessing his performance after his age 27 season in 2011. You can contest that choice if you want to, but don't muddle the issue by asking me to justify statistics that I explicitly set aside. If you had asked why I set those statistics aside, I would have told you that Garza had put together several seasons' worth of pitching after age 27 that look very different from the several seasons' worth of pitching he put together before age 27. I would have noted that such a difference isn't surprising, given that 27 is the most common age at which players peak. The "117, 119, 110, 100, 118" sequence you cite (readjusted to reflect actual chronology) is Garza from ages 23 through 27. The "105, 105, 104" is 28-30. I don't know enough about how Garza's home parks affected his performance to know whether or how much the parks should count in his favor. That's certainly a fair point to raise. The raw numbers show us three straight years of just-above average ERAs. I also pointed out that Garza hadn't sustained that performance over a great many innings: He topped out at 163.1 in 2014. An ERA+ of 105 for 160 innings looks like a reasonable expectation of the performance level to which Garza, in the best-case scenario, could bounce back. That looks to me like just about the definition of mediocrity for a starting pitcher. Another way to approximate Garza's performance, of course, is WAR. Garza, from ages 23 to 27, put up 1.1 (in a partial season), 3.1, 3.0, 1.9, and 4.1 fWAR. From 28-30, he put up 1.0, 2.0, and 2.7 (before last year's 0.6). Those comparisons look a bit flatter, but he still put up three seasons through age 27 that he wasn't able to match in the three after 27. Since his age 27 peak, leaving aside last year's disaster, Matt Garza has been a mediocre starting pitcher.

World Series teams with opening day payroll rank 2015 KCR (16) NYM (21) 2014 SFG (07) KCR (19) 2013 BOS (04) STL (10) 2012 SFG (08) DET (05) 2011 STL (11) TEX (13) 2010 SFG (10) TEX (27) 2009 NYY (01) PHI (07) 2008 PHI (12) TBR (29) 2007 BOS (02) COL (25) 2006 STL (11) DET (14) 2005 CWS (13) HOU (12) 2004 BOS (02) STL (11) 2003 FLA (25) NYY (01) 2002 ANA (14) SFG (10) 2001 ARI (08) NYY (01) 2000 NYY (01) NYM (06) Looks like a pretty even mix of teams. Zero of the last twelve WS teams have had a top 3 opening day payroll. Only two of the last twelve had a top 5 opening day payroll. If anything it appears that the trend is moving more towards the middle than earlier in the millenium when there were a lot more Yankees & Boston teams dominating the mix. Sure, the margin for error is much greater with a higher payroll, but the opportunity for error is that much greater as well. This is good information, but it doesn't quite move me. Of the last 32 WS teams, if I'm counting right, 25 had top-15 payrolls, and 16 had top-10 payrolls. That's not what I would call parity, though you're right that it could be, and has been, worse. There's definitely been a trend away from top-10s, but it really only runs to top-15s, unless you think the last two years -- KC and an unusually parsimonious New York team -- is a trend line rather than a blip. If it turns out to be a trend line, I'll be much less grumpy. The WS numbers also paint an incomplete picture (though a responsive one, as I specifically mentioned not watching the WS). Here's a good, recent piece from 538 on payroll-wins correlation: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dont-be-fooled-by-baseballs-small-budget-success-stories/ Your last sentence, really your last phrase, seems beside the point. "Opportunity for error is much greater"? In absolute terms, that's true: You can't waste $50 million if you don't have $50 million. But that fact doesn't address the essential point about margin for error, which is that, if you waste $50 million and it doesn't deplete your resources, you can still win.

Matt Garza's velocity has not declined so you might want to re check that. The only difference, other than about a .5mph decline on his fastball in the past 7 or so years, was his slider velocity last year. His slider was sitting incredibly high in the first half of the year and went back to career norms towards the end of the year. Probably one of the main reasons a lot of people have hope for a rebound. Not that velocity is every thing, but it gives hope it was just an injury or he was just off. If he comes back and has a sub 4 ERA at the deadline he is an easy trade away. I was just thinking about the inevitable loss of velocity with age. But you're right; the fact that he hasn't lost velocity yet is a point in favor of his ability to bounce back to mediocrity. Made easier by the Brewers' decision to sit him down at the end of the year so that his option won't automatically vest. Garza shouldn't have vented publicly, but he knew getting benched probably cost him a guaranteed season and a lot of money, so I can understand his frustration even though I don't condone his actions. Excellent point. While the Brewers have some promising young arms, starting Garza in the MLB rotation is not going to hurt the guys who will start out at AAA and AA. It may even turn out to be a blessing if we have a couple of injuries, and don't have to rush someone who is not ready just to fill out the rotation. Maybe, maybe not. I absolutely agree that, if you find yourself needing a starter, then you plug in Garza. But, by the same token, if you find yourself needing to rescue a prospect from Colorado Springs, or if you think the percentages favor moving a reliever to the rotation, or if you have a shot to sign a better and/or cheaper reclamation project than Garza, then he shouldn't stand in the way of any of those things. The team should treat him as the lowest grade of rotation filler. The main thing I'm concerned about is that he'll get extra chances because he's making real money. To me, that's throwing good resources after bad. If the team can pretend he's making three million and just make a baseball judgment, then I'll be satisfied.

Garza made bad choices and indefensible public comments. I'm pretty sure I'm capable of critical thinking, and I've read the accounts, and critiques of the accounts, quite carefully. I'm fully persuaded that Garza stepped far outside the boundaries of acceptable behavior for a responsible employee / teammate / person. His defenders also tend to ignore his past instances of bad behavior, which BP Milwaukee documented quite well in a piece a couple of months back to which I linked in another thread. I take the point, made by numerous smart people, that Garza has a chance to bounce back and that, if he does, he may regain some trade value. I'm somewhat dubious. Since his age 27 season in 2011, he's been about an average MLB starter except for two stretches: his excellent 71-inning stint with the Cubs in 2013, and his appalling 149 innings last year. During those years he hasn't thrown more than 163.1 innings in any season. To bet on a bounce-back is to bet against age, declining velocity, and injury history / risk. But even if you win the bet, what does a bounced-back Matt Garza really give you? 160 innings of league-average starting pitching at $15 million, with the odds growing every month that he won't be able to sustain it? There's no reason, no actual evidence, to think he will ever top out at anything better than that. I don't see a whole lot of trade value in that scenario, even if we ignore the fact that (in my considered judgment and humble opinion) he's an immature jerk, which puts a drag on his value. We've had some interesting discussions recently about the best use of rotation slots on a rebuilding team. For a rebuilding team, rotation slots are valuable for two purposes: developing young pitchers and showcasing trade bait. At this point, we have four young pitchers who belong in the MLB rotation: Peralta, Nelson, Jungmann, and Davies. Then we have the AAA guys, led by Lopez and Hader, whom we may want to rescue sooner than later from Colorado Springs hell. We've also kicked around proposals to try to develop current relievers as trade bait: Smith most prominently, maybe Blazek or Thornburg. Plus we could conceivably pick up a reclamation candidate. With all those potential uses of rotation slots, and given Garza's mediocre prospects, I think it's tough to argue that putting him in the 2016 rotation is a sensible use of resources. Personally I want the FO to dump him, because I think using him as a message that new management won't tolerate schmucks is about the likeliest way to get any value out of him. But the bullpen idea has some appeal. It gets you part of the anti-schmuck impact, and it gives Garza an easier job to try to do well.

I think you have to keep in mind money on only one way to build a championship caliber team. I am not so sure it is the best way. The Royals go back to back World Series and the Cardinals don't go the Boston, LA, NYY route. It seems to me teams who can spend take bigger risks as opposed to finding the best values. Price fits that pretty well to me. The thing about these contracts is the opt out clause shifts a major portion of the risk on the team. Basically he gets the benefit of a short and long term contract with that type of deal. All that risk for the hope, if everything goes right, he earns what he's paid over the next three years. These big contracts with opt out clauses seem like a bad deal for the team to me. This is a sensible response, but I think there's a very simple reality here: Having lots of money is way, way better than not having lots of money. Of course you can screw up wealth, but you can screw up poverty too, and poverty gives you a hell of a lot lower margin for error. To put the point another way, wealthy teams can play the build from within game as well as poor teams can -- and then the wealthy teams can separate themselves by spending money the poor teams don't have. I'm with the disillusioned crowd. At this point, I'm really a Brewers fan, not a fan of major league baseball. Before anyone makes the obvious joke about that statement, what I mean is that I have fun watching and following my hometown team, but I don't really bother with the sport as a whole. I haven't watched a World Series game in years. Part of that is time and priorities, but part of it is disillusionment. Baseball is supposed to be fun, and fun means (among other things) better than the real world. In the real world, the rich and powerful beat the poor and powerless. Major league baseball has become just another outpost of the real world.

I love this trade. I'm glad K-Rod the pitcher we don't need is gone. I'm glad K-Rod the person is gone. I'm glad K-Rod's contract is gone. We got a young guy who has a nontrivial chance to be useful when we're good again. We get a PTBNL. We got a roster spot for the Rule 5 draft. We got salary relief. Everyone has been talking since before the deadline about how K-Rod's age, salary, and domestic violence record combine to diminish his trade value. This deal is as good as I could have hoped for. Garza next. For anything or nothing. Please.

1992casey, that's helpful. Thanks.

Lots of very thoughtful and interesting comments here. I would characterize almost all of them as "political" in some important sense. While I love this site, deeply respect the people who run it, and fully understand the desire to maintain civility, I've always thought the ban on "political" statements was completely incoherent. No one has ever come close to explaining it in a way that makes it workable. When the U.S. Military pays sports teams on the sly to mount particular patriotic displays for purposes of military recruitment, that's a political issue on a bunch of levels. Based on my understanding of this site's rules, the most I can permissibly say about the issue is "oh."

Here's a pretty good article from BP Milwaukee that argues against Smith's chances as a starter. I don't post this to suggest it trumps or answers all of And That's points, but I think it's a useful addition to the discussion: http://milwaukee.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2015/08/05/odds-ends-will-smith-walk-rates-2016-free-agency/ I'm conflicted (surprise). I very much like the idea of maximizing value, and there's no question that a successful conversion to starting would make Smith's value skyrocket. I also don't see any conclusive reason to believe he can't do it. Also, I love his work in the pen, but I don't care at all about giving that up for a bigger role. On the other hand, (1) I don't see any positive evidence that he can succeed as a starter. (2) I do think there's an opportunity cost to trying him in the rotation. Peralta, Nelson, Jungmann, and (this pains me to type) Garza are locks, right? Davies proved he belongs. Then you're going to have pretty much a whole AAA rotation looking to break through next year, and I like the idea of rescuing those guys from Colorado Springs as soon as they show they're ready. So even if you leave out all the guys Clancy mentioned, which I'm not sure you should, the rotation picture is crowded. There's nothing wrong with having too many starting pitchers, of course. But the whole point of the argument for converting Smith is that we want to maximize the value of our talent. You only have so many opportunities to develop / showcase a pitcher as a MLB starter. Are we really getting the best bang for our buck by converting Smith rather than giving Davies a full shot, or showcasing Garza for a trade (I'd dump him for nothing now, but most rational people seem to want to showcase him), or giving Thornburg a shot, or aggressively promoting whichever of Lopez, Hader, Houser, and Wagner starts banging on the door in May or June? We may not be. The one thing about And That's argument that I don't agree with is prioritizing Smith because he's a super-two. Again, I see how that fact plays into the desire to maximize talent value, but there seem to be a lot of other variables that matter more for planning our rotation than a million bucks between friends.

You make a lot of good points here, but I think you have to combine them more systematically. Here's my crack at it: We have to start by looking at the team's goals over the next several years. Let's say the goals include developing a young rotation over the next two years and contending beginning in 2018. Then we have to ask how keeping Lucroy advances those goals. If we're trying to develop young pitchers at the MLB level, and we think Lucroy's catching skills can be very helpful in doing that, then he has some immediate value. If we think he's still a superior starting catcher in two years, then he also has future value for our expected contending team. In assessing Lucroy's value, we have to make our best estimate of what his decline curve is going to look like, and we also have to think about the opportunity cost of his escalating salary. Then we have to think about what we could get for him in a trade. Saying "prospects sometimes don't pan out" isn't really an answer to anything, but it's a factor to consider. What quality of prospects, discounted for likelihood of flaming out, could we realistically get for Lucroy now, or a year from now? I think that's the right thought process. For me, it doesn't lead to a conclusive answer, because there's too much I don't know. At a gut level, I'm very conflicted about what to do with Lucroy. But I'm pretty sure smart people who have the data and know what to do with it can make a worthwhile judgment.

Two things. First, you contradict yourself. You aren't an experienced major league pitcher. Therefore, by your own logic, you have no credible basis for speculating about whom an experienced major league pitcher would or wouldn't listen to. Second, and more important, your "doctorate" metaphor IMHO misses the mark in an important way. Doing a thing well and teaching it well, or effectively managing or counseling people who do it, are very different propositions. Teaching is a skill. Managing and counseling are skills. Most people don't have those skills. You have to understand the thing you're teaching, and certainly having done the thing at a high level is one way to gain that understanding. But it's not the only way, and it has nothing to do with imparting the other, independent skills you need to do your job well.

We could sign stopgap-flip guys at any number of positions. If we trade Lind, as I believe we should, we don't have a single infielder who clearly deserves to start. If we trade Davis and or trade or move Braun, the outfield picture opens up short term. I probably wouldn't play this game with the rotation, because we have young guys who should start now. Bullpen, sure -- please trade Rodriguez! -- but you're less likely to find prime flippability there.

I have the same sense as reillymcshane about the Schafer-Reed thing. I'd rather see Reed, but he's probably ticketed for AAA to start next year, and they may want to use Schafer in cf so that the young pitchers get some balls caught behind them. I'd be more aggressive with Reed, but it's a marginal call.

I just meant that he has had a disproportionate number of his PAs against lefties -- nearly half, which is a lot more than he'd see as an everyday guy unless we're talking about a platoon. But I hadn't seen how much of a reverse platoon split he had. Like you said, small sample, but good catch nonetheless.

I've advocated moving Braun to 1b for the last year and a half, and for better or worse I'm not succumbing to groupthink. Dismissing an argument you don't like as groupthink both insults other posters and suggests (inaccurately, I'm sure) that you lack the insight to analyze the argument on its merits. I think moving Braun to 1b makes more sense than ever now: 1. Santana should play every day, and his likeliest position of success is rf. 2. We should trade Lind now because, as others have stated, his value is likely at its peak now, and one way or another he isn't our future. 3. We have a ton of outfielders in the pipeline. Reed's up now; Phillips will be at AAA next year; Coulter won't be far behind them. Fitting Braun's bat in where we don't have anyone else would maximize our offensive potential and our flexibility in trying the young guys. 4. As for the thread topic, Rogers doesn't realistically project as a MLB regular. I love him, and I think he has shown a lot this year. He belongs in the big leagues. But he has put up his great numbers in a limited sample, with a heavy platoon advantage. He's also 27 already, which means he's unlikely to improve. I want him as a bench bat. I'm not saying using him as a stopgap 1b would be stupid; I'm just saying it isn't our best option. He's not worth building around. I'd much rather try Reed as a regular in cf or lf than Rogers at 1b. 5. Braun isn't a good outfielder. He'd probably be better back in LF, but it's not like giving up his of defense is a loss. 6. The best counter I can think of is that we could trade Davis and put Braun back in lf. I'm comfortable trading Davis, and that would open up a hole in the outfield. But it likely would only be a one-year hole, because of the prospect pipeline, and we could fill the hole for a year easily enough. If we traded Davis, I would still eventually want Braun at 1b, but I could see the argument for waiting a year. The problem, though, is that in that scenario we would optimally move him twice in two years (to lf, then to 1b). That's fine with me, but he might reasonably object.