MJLiverock

Brings back fond memories of the thread back on '09 where WAR was used to say Morgan was better than Braun.

Let me add as a professional investor that I echo And That's final paragraph. Most shows like Mad Money or Bulls and Bears are hype machines about what just happened or what may happen tomorrow and neither have been very good at predictions. They may be entertaining but remember that if they are talking about it on TV it is probably already priced in by the market professionals. Endarounds comments are pretty true. But don't forget that in owning a mutual fund you are paying someone to run your money for you, you just don't necessarily see the bill or realize the fees you are paying. The biggest mistake I see investors make is not understanding the fees they are paying for managment. Mutual funds typically charge 1.0% plus maybe 0.25% in 12b-1 fees in some cases. 12b-1 fees are for marketing the fund and paying off the broker or financial advisor who sold you the fund. The 1% goes to the fund to pay for the portfolio manager, analysts, overhead, etc. of running the fund. Often times you will see some finanancial advisors charge you 1% or I have seen up to 2.5% as a management fee and all they are doing is selling a mutual fund which is managed by someone else getting 1% or more. Accounting firms are really starting to get into this business (and in my opinion really providing no added benefit but are really good at burying the fees and convincing people they know something about investments which really are a whole different animal than accounting). You may be paying 3.5% in fees each year which is a tough hurdle to overcome in investment performance, especially when bond yields are so low and most don't cut fees for fixed income portfolios, yet fixed income portfolios always charge less for managment fees in the institutional investor world. The other fee to watch is loads on mutual funds. I can't telll you how many people I have seen that had no idea they paid a 5% load to their advisor. ETFs or Index funds typically charge much lower managment fees because all they have to do is buy whatever is in the underlying index so they don't have to pay for analyst or portfolio manager expertise like an active managed fund does. Foreign or specialty index or ETF usually chage a few basis points more than broad index funds. Edit: Forgot to name a book -- try It's When you Sell That Counts by Don Cassidy. The book is very common sense based, doesn't use crazy theories or try to say it has a foolproof method that the author made up. It is a very basic approach to investing and thinking about how to go about it. It is about $20 at Amazon.

Your flawed in your offensive numbers because you aren't correctly calculating stolen bases. Escobar doesn't have 6 net steals he has 2. 4 CS cancells out 8 steals. Then you give the stolen bases .66 value of batted ball bases. Thats inaccurate too. How many runs does a steal drive in? The difference between these 2 players is not all defense as you suggest. Hardy has been 10 runs better than Escobar, not 12 bases better. Thats a significant difference. well fangraphs and Yahoo both have 10 steals and 4 CS. The stolen bases do contibute to his total bases even at a discounted rate. Quite reasonable to give credit for a SB especially if the assumption is going to be made that a double automatically drives in a run or a weight of a run. I stand by my point that the difference is negligible when baserimmomg is factored in and tilts in Escobars favor when games played is added in .

WAR is flawed because of it's defense weighting and general creation of defense ratings. I broke down the offense to a difference of about a dozen bases not including the scoring from 1st. I even gave Hardy the benefit of the doubt about keeping his slg up over all his missed games. If WAR can rate a difference of a dozen bases as a major difference or give a guy with nearly identical offensive stats but misses a third of games a more valuable rating on offense it makes zero sense. 1.8 vs. .8 is all on the contrived D. I never implied Gomez was good, the fact is that Hardy hasn't been good either especially given the salary savings the Brewers got. The fact that even after 4 or 5 years in the league Hardy can't hit enough better than Escobar to even notice.

So the defense was just fine for the first half of the season for Gallardo and just now over his last 7 starts have started to play bad? I thought the bad defense was always the excuse for Parra? Gallardo got shelled in a few of his starts raising his ERA over a point. I don't think the defense caused him to start giving up HR's and walking guys. He gave up some rockets in last nights game as well. From August 8th on he hasn't looked the same. Some may be mean reversion but he is getting hit harder and walking more guys.

Multiple sources told ESPN.com that the two divisions in the Big Ten will look like: • Michigan, Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan State, Northwestern and Minnesota. • Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Purdue, Indiana and Illinois. The Big Ten issued a press release saying it would announce its divisional alignment at 7 p.m. ET Wednesday. According to sources, the divisions were decided upon Monday. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=5519832 I can't say that split looks to good for WI or even makes a whole lot of sense. Wisconsin borders 4 states and 3 of those states are in the other division and the one, Illinois is less of a rivalry than the NW game. MI and Nebraska are being given way too much credit for the past in my eyes. Nebrasks hasn't been any better than WI or Iowa for the last 15 years.

Escobar has 428 PA vs. Hardy's 270 PA's this season. Someone would have to make up the Hardy missed games and it would have been Escobar getting called up. Thier OBP's are pretty much identical. The only difference is in slugging. Hardy has 104 total bases in 270 PA's and Escobar has 147 TB in 428 PAs. So if you rate Escobar down to Hardy's lower PA's he would have 12 few bases than Hardy in 270 PAs or if Hardy had the same PA's as Escobar and kept his slugging up that would be 17 more bases than Escobar. Of course Hardy is as slow as can be and wasn't the greatest base runner so I would also remember an earlier post someone referenced Escobar scoring from 1st or 2nd when you know Hardy wouldn't have. Escobar also has 10 steals with 4 caught for a net of 6. Hardy is at 0 with one CS and 1 steal. Even giving Escobar something like .66 of a base for his net steals subtracts about 4 bases from that 17 base deficit. All in all given the negligible difference in OBP, basically a 13 base difference in slugging, and better scoring from 1 or 2nd, and just the sheer number of games missed by Hardy I would say their offense is pretty much a wash or even slighly favors Escobar because of the durability and the fact he would have been playing anyway. If anything the trade of Gomez for Hardy was pretty much an even swap or even in the Brewers favor. Two guys with poor OBP, limited offensive games who can play defense. The difference being the Twins have to pay Hardy $5.1MM for that production while the Brewers only have to pay $1.1MM to Gomez.

Just read the whole thread and you'll see the reference. I'm done here anyway this is just getting repetitive and rehashing the same arguments. I'll just agree to to disagree and leave it at that.

There is no gurantee of an operating proft for the owners but it isn't a crime to have one. I have shown how miniscule the profits are and easily washed away by variances of less than 100,000 in attendance. Budgeting is not an exact science and hitting it so they make no money or lose no money would be next to impossible given the high fixed costs of the team. They can jettison some costs as the year goes on but that isn't easy either nor is suddenly spending more if the team's attendence is a little higher. Yes most of the money is made from selling the team but there is no reason to expect zero income from the business each year. The sums we are talking about are terrible profit margins if they are even profits. I've already been through the points that EBITDA does not in any way shape or form equal profits and tax payouts to the owners of an LP are common and really just a shifting of the tax bill to the proper place, otherwise the owers would just make it a C corp and have the tax bill hit the team directly and at a higher rate. In the end I really don't care that the teams make a profit or not. I dont' see why it is such a big deal for the owners to make a profit equal to a decent middle infielder considering a couple hundred million dollar investment. Nor should they be expected to wait until the team is sold to see anything in terms of cash flow. I would rather have a stable ownership group than see the team flipped every 5 years. The owerns may be baseball fans but they are still running a business and taking care of an investment. Getting attendence up is one way to make more money and improve values but it can't happen overnight on a limited budget. I'd say let them run the team according to their plan to try and maximize it's value since putting a better product on the field will be correlated to that. Worrying about a few million dollars here or there isn't a big deal in a realm of hundreds of millions of dollars year in and year out.

How about $0? Why should team owners be entitled to any operating profits? They will make plenty of money when they sell the team, if that is their goal. Should players then be told to take less money since they can just make it up in endorsement deals or autograph shows after they retire? With zero owner profits and lower player salaries tickets would be cheaper.

I agree dadofandrew, I think your post sums it up pretty well. I really have no opinion on Lucroy's defense but that may be a good thing, he doesn't stand out as awful or excellect to my limited and untrained observation. He is probably the C in Milwaukee for his controlled years and I have no problem with not having to go out and sign an aged vet for multi millions to not necessarily be a whole lot better. If he could improve to the numbers in paragraph one I would be pretty darned happy.

It would be nice to have one RH pinch hitting option on the bench once a while. I guess the team invisions Gomez in that role?

I just want to add I didn't start this thread because I want to get rid of Lucroy or anything, I fully agree he is young and probably arrived a year earlier than expected. I had been looking at his stats after reading a few posts here and there about how good he has been and how poor Kottaras has been and when looking I wouldn't say there has been a big difference between them. Lucroy will probably always carry a higher average than Kottaras but his lack of power is what I remember from watching him play, which reminded me of Kendall. His low walk rate reminded me of Estrada who also "put the ball in play" a lot. Estrada actually k'd even less. Lucroy's not a big guy and his ISO numbers from the minors didn't look all that strong either. He isn't going to be a HR hitter and that is fine on this team as it is now but a little pop in the bat would be nice. I know it is way too early to worry about his production, especially given the Brewer's catching history but I am willing to wait on declaring him to be anything more than average for upside for a catcher.

Lucroy has not been good offensively this year. He is still a rookie and I have hope for him but statistically he has not been impressive. He and Kottaras each have just over 200 PA's and the difference between them isn't all that great other than batting average and a complete lack of power from Lucroy. Kottaras .208/.319/.427 for an OPS of .746 Lucroy .274/.313/.371/ for an OPS of .683 Kendall .258/.320/.299/ for an OPS of .619 for comparison this year Estrada .278/.296/.403 for an OPS of .699 as a Brewer. Kottaras has a BABIP of .212 the lowest of any NL catcher with 200 PA's by quite a ways. Lucroy is at .309 which is middle to slightly above. Lucroy is 14/20 in wOBA, Kottaras is 10th, both are below average. Kottaras is a butcher defensively; Lucroy I am unsure on, other than I think his better than Kottaras. What is the feeling on Lucroy's upside? Can he get on base enough to offset the low power like a young Kendall or will he continue to be Johnny Estrada v2.0? His walk rate is even lower than whipping boy Carlos Gomez. Until Lucroy's improved August his stat line was remarkably like Gomez.

John Kruk is still on TV? I haven't watched a minute of Baseball Tonight since MLB Network launched and don't miss it a bit.

Tagging on Weeks for something as meaningless as PPA seems like nit picking. Weeks is consistently one of the best Obp guys on the team as well as in the league for 2nd basemen coupled with ++ power. People used to talk about how important PPA was for guy like Jason Kendall. Probably because he couldn't hit anymore.

Ah the old if you go to bet early and get up early you aren't getting in trouble and are more productive line. I say bunk. One of the biggest alchoholic guys I know gets up every day at 5 AM for work, is done by 3 and drunk by 5PM so he can get home and in bed by 8 to get up and do it again. I hate that early to bed early to rise stuff. I stay out late and get up late because I can, doesn't mean I am causing trouble or getting into trouble any more that I could at 7 PM on a Tuesday. Being out late doesn't mean you are stumbling around drunk any more than being home in bed at 7 PM doesn't mean you weren't out drunk and stumbling around. If a person is a partier and a trouble maker it doesn't matter the time of day.

Actually, no, EBITDA is not pretty much profit and as close as you can come. Especially if the company has a large debt load or tax burden. EBITDA is just a measure of cash flow available to pay the the interest and taxes. Both of which are real cash costs that do impact the profits of a firm. The Forbes article probably used the EBITDA number because it removes a lot of variances unrelated to baseball operation from the figure to provide a better apples to apples comparison for the teams. This is because the tax rates vary from state to state, the amount of debt each team carries varies as does their terms, the depreciation (a non cash charge) varies greatly. EBITDA is also used by bankers a lot to just figure out how much cash flow tthere is to cover the debt financing that the entity could support. I know Attanasio has referenced paying down the Brewer's debt levels in the past but I can't find a current amount of debt load the team is carrying. In 2004 the team had around $130 Million. So even at a good rate of say 5% on that debt the interest expense alone would be $6.5MM out of that $12MM of EBITDA or operating income on the 2009 Forbes valuation. Taxes would also bite into that number as well, probably getting them down to pretty much break even as Attanasio as said. Even if they profited $1MM or $2MM that is a terrible profit margin on a $173MM of revenues as claimed in the Forbes report. That profit is easily wiped out or doubled by a swing of less than 70,000 in attendance for the year. Think of how much more money you would have to spend or claim as disposable income if you didn't count income tax or mortgage interest.

Yes it does, it explains why they paid the taxes. They are not required by Federal Law to take money from the Pirates to pay the taxes. Just like I am not requried to use money earned from my paycheck to pay my taxes. I can use income from my investment porfolio, I can borrow the money, my mom can pay it for me. The point is the the Pirates Organization created the tax liability for the ownership because of the type of legal entity it is operated as. They chose this because it made the most sense for them to limit the tax liablity as a whole. What would your argument be if the made the team a C-Corp instead of an LP? The profits would be taxed and paid out of the Pirates bank account. It is the same essential thing for what they actually did. They used and LP because that $15MM profit would have been taxed at 38% federally as a C-Corp. so the Pirates would have paid $5.7MM to the Feds. That $5.7MM would be a direct legal obligation of the Pirates and would not have been available for other purposes. As a LP the $15MM flows to the personal tas returns of the individual owners. The max tax bracket for individuals is 35%, with some tax planning say the owners got it down personally to an average of 33%, - - meaning the tax owed was $5MM- - saving the Pirates organization $700,000 by doing it this way. If they aren't going to be reimbursed for the taxes they wouldn't organize as a LP they would use the C-Corp and let the Pirates be stuck with bill. Do they do it every year? I would hope so but they aren't required to. If there is a loss they wouldn't and again financial reports doesn't say tax return which can have very different numbers - - meaning they could show some sort of cash positive profits but an actual tax loss for IRS purposes. Or getting more complicated some of the partners could elect to be reimbursed for the taxes, and others who may have other losses in other business to offset the bill could elect to leave their share in the organization and treat it as a loan back to the Pirates for pay out later. So no the Pirates aren't required to pay the owners taxes but the organization wouldn't be set up as it is if they weren't going to. It may actually save the team money doing it this way. People can use any asset they own to pay taxes and using the direct creator of the tax liability to pay the taxes just makes sense. If they weren't going to do this they would have set up the company different and in the end the Pirates would have less money. Do they pay them every year? Don't know since the reports are not for every year and provide an imcomplete picture of the Pirates financial dealings over time. They may pay some or none or all each year and can receive loans back from partners which may be paid out later further complicting the so called Owners taking money out, especially if it is just money they put in or left in the first place. True the owners paid out money to cover the taxes but probably saved the organization money by doing so. To the other point someone made about salaries. Not every owner is collecting a salary from the team would be my guess. I dont' even know if Attanasio collects a salary from the Brewers but I can bet that every minority partner isn't pulling in some multi million dollar or even $100M+ salary. Most only get paid from the profits of the asset they own.

You are missing the whole point of LP tax rules. Any profits generated by the LP are not taxed at the LP level they are considered the income of the actual partners individual incomes and are taxed on their personal tax returns. In other words if the Pirates genrate a profit, even if it all stays in the Pirates bank account the ownership partners pay income tax from their personal bank account on their share of the profits. Pay out or not the owners pay the income tax. That is why LP distribute the money it is the same thing as if the LP actually paid the tax on the profits. Just as a corporation pays income tax on its profits before the net profit is calculated. A LP's net profit does not include the taxes as an expense, thereby overstating the true net profit of the entitity. If the Pirates operate at a net loss the owners get to take a deduction against their personal income taxes as well. http://thismatter.com/money/funds/dpp/limited-partnership-taxation.htm

I don't have a problem if this is to try and see if Parra has any hope now as a reliever since the starting option seems done for. I have doubts about Parra as a reliever since his problems of pitching with guys on base and command of his pitches don't bode well for a reliever. Cappy is a nice story but if the Brewers go into 2011 counting on him to be part of the rotation that tells me the rotation won't be any better than this year's version. Guys don't come back from 2 TJ surgery's and have success for long. If Cappy is one of their 5 best options next year the roation won't be very good. He may have a few decent outings but counting on him for 150+ innings isn't wise. I remeber when Smoltz put up a few decent outings with the Cardinals last year after Boston cut him loose and people were excited and asking why the Brewers didn't grab him. Smoltz faded away as the year finished up and is nowhere to be found this year.

Again I read the report the payment you reference was a tax payment. It doesn't go into the owner pockets to buy a new Rolls it is a treatement of passing the taxes from the club to the owernership. Very common in LP accounting and tax treatements. This is why journalists aren't very good business reporters but are good at twisting things around to make a story. Just like a small business that is an LLC may show a profit of $100,000 dollars but guess what that number flows throw to the owernships personal taxes and they pay income tax on that at their personal rate. Yet some reporter can claim, "Wow, XYX, LLC made a $100,000 profit or why doesn't XYZ, LLC pay taxes -- should the owners be investigated?" And bam they get their story, it happens and has already this year in a political race. The ownership also hinted at paying off loans they made to the business also a common tactic in a closely held private enterprise, often to help in tax planning. More on a philisophical bent than the financial rules, in the end I don't even care if they paid out a straight dividend or salary of $15MM each year. Plenty of players get paid that much why shouldn't the owner of a team? Oh, because it is their responsibility to make the team good even if not possible in a short frame and players never have to pay back salary for sucking or getting hurt. But hey make sure to not have any money availabe in the future so that when need or opportunity arises they can't do anything. Way too many enterprises, governments, and people run their budgets that way and it is never good to spend every dime every year even if the money is just wasted. There is revenue sharing the NFL does anyone care that the Lions suck or that the Packers rarely venture into free agency and have been under the cap?

I'd say probaby Prior out of that list. Wood had some fairly injury free years and was always in the mid to upper 3 ERA range. Not awful but not dominate over the course of a season. Prior's 2003 was better than any of Wood's seasons and he had better control. Prior's sample is a lot smaller than the other guys (outside Neuge) so maybe he gets the benefit of that. Wood could be nasty but he was also hittable and tended to sway between the two a lot - - sort of like Zambrano. I didn't see Kazmir as much so it is hard to say with him. Harden never seemed as dominate and was never able to go deep into games.

No kidding ready that quote, I can only imagine the thread if Braun had said that. Oh wait he basically did and got roasted for it and his not playing as well as he can didn't come close to sucking like Bush tends to do.

My point was that the owners didn't pay themselves the money according to the article they did not pay a dividend. That means they likely left the money in the club as retained earnings which can be used as mentioned. The variances in revenue can easily move that profit number around and the team even claims the 2009 profits were down to $5MM. I read the article but not the actual statements. Finiancial report is a vague term that doesn't tell me was it an income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement, executive summary of revs/expenses, memo to the board, or a combination of the group, all of which are "Financial Reports". I can manipulate a "financial report" to show many different kinds of profit or loss depending on how I account for items and whose accounting rules are applied. I don't doubt that the Pirates made some sort of profit I just don't find the report of such to be a an agregious offense. The article points out the team spent $23MM and $21MM in player development, inline with other teams. Considering their overall revenue is among the lowest that points to them spending a higher than average percentage on player development which is consisttent with the idea of building from within or bottom up while leaving some profits in the club as retained earnings to pay for higher major league payroll that will come as the talent improves.