RobertR

It's strange how things coincide sometimes. Last week, I rewatched THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT (1955), which despite a rough first act with some real howlers of lines, really stands up in the later stages. You can see some of the earliest influences on films like THE THING and THE FLY with body horror, transformation, and an almost Lovecraftian creature at the end. There's a remarkable zoo sequence in particular. And it's obvious that John Carpenter has seen it, especially since a good chunk of the characters in PRINCE OF DARKNESS share the same character names. This week, DISTRICT 9 which I found really impressive. I don't believe the $30 million budget, but it certainly didn't cost that much and it's a top notch sci-fi film with action, horror, and some racial/class themes. And a similar central conceit. And central image. Robert

Let's see, since I last posted, I did a marathon of Hammer Films. Revenge of Frankenstein, Evil of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Created Woman, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell, Horror of Dracula, Brides of Dracula, Dracula, Prince of Darkness, Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, Taste the Blood of Dracula, Scars of Dracula, Dracula A.D. 1972, The Satanic Rites of Dracula, and Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. The ones that I'd call truly good are Revenge of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, Horror of Dracula, and Brides of Dracula. Probably not a coincidence that all of them feature Peter Cushing. The Satanic Rites of Dracula is a real piece of garbage. Most of the rest are at least watchable programmers, although the Frankenstein films tend to have interesting philosophical themes. Also, X, the Unknown from Hammer which is a Quatermass knockoff. Not as good since it's obvious what's going on from the beginning while the Quatermass movies have interesting mysteries and themes, but a good piece of sci-fi horror nonetheless with an atmospheric scottish setting and one standout grisly special effect. I also tossed in Son of Frankenstein. Very clearly the movie that Young Frankenstein is most based off of. Not as good as Whale's classics and quite a bit more setbound and claustrophobic, it's still fun. Lugosi steals the whole movie. More contemporary, I watched Star Trek and Inglorious Basterds with my wife who hadn't seen them. I like the Star Trek reboot, although I think it skates by on the charm of the cast, fast pace, and good special effects as I think the villain is a bore and it has enormous plot coincidences. I liked Inglorious Basterds just as much the second time since I really could concentrate on the performances instead of trying to keep up with the plot and the whole cast is terrific. Also watched Land of the Lost. Didn't like it much. Will Ferrell is much better when he's portraying an actual character instead of running around and yelling like an imbecile. Robert

Which is fair, but I think it's notable that it's not like he's going to a park that's wildly different like Petco. I'd be concerned about his age as well. I do think the fact that he had over 900 PAs in the previous 2 years at a similar level of production is relevant. About 1500 plate appearances is a pretty solid sample size to establish a level of production. The fact that he isn't Milton Bradley and likely won't suffer an emotional meltdown if there's some tough sledding is probably relevant as well. Again, I don't think Byrd is a great signing. But, $5 million per year doesn't buy you a whole lot either. If he puts up an OPS in the upper .700s he should be worth the deal and I think there's a fair likelihood he does just that. Robert

The Arlington park factor is 104. Wrigley's is 108. Yeah, Byrd has a big split in home and away. OTOH, his road games tend to be in places like Oakland and Seattle a fair percentage of the time with the weighted schedule which is going to skew the split somewhat. Now, maybe there is a special configuration that helps Marlon Byrd in Arlington that won't help him in Wrigley. Or perhaps he justs like sleeping in his own bed. And perhaps 2009 was a career year. But, I note, that when the park factors were taken into account, with OPS+, Byrd did come out as above average with an OPS+ of 106. Heck, courtesy of Baseball Reference his 2009 Road OPS+ was 102. With 2007 and 2008 being better on a rate basis. That's very crude, it doesn't take into account BABIP or handedness for instance, but I didn't have to throw out half his ABs in the process or ignore figuring in park factors. I'd be more worried about his defense than his offense if I was the Cubs. Robert

Made it on Saturday and was glad I made the trip. It was a really solid exhibit and photos really don't do justice to the sheer size of some of the works. Lots of stuff worked. I think my favorite pieces were the faux-Pollocks that once you got close didn't look much like Pollock's at all. Robert

I hate to just pick road stats to evaluate a guy, because the home stats count too. And, at the very least, I'd like to figure out how Arlington compares to Wrigley. Because, the games played in Wrigley count and comprise the plurality of his plate appearances. No question that he has some issues, and probably should be sat in places like Miami, San Francisco, and San Diego, but I think he probably has the tools to take advantage of some of Wrigley's features. Robert

$5 million a year really isn't that much. Not a big fan, but the Cubs are probably getting a league average bat (his OPS+ for the last 3 seasons: 112, 121, 106), which is slightly above average for the position, at a reasonable rate and with none of the headaches of a Milton Bradley. First move of the offseason from the Cubs that seems like a good on the field move. Robert

I'm of the general idea that CF is in total worse, Escobar is probably a push at this point, Wolf and Zaun are improvements, Hawkins will help, 2B will probably turn out worse, and the starting pitching depth is still worrisome. An awful lot is relying on Parra and Bush to have much better years. To me, we're looking at a low to mid 80 wins club. Considering the division isn't very strong, that's probably enough to keep interest up through September. I do think that Dave Cameron's article probably isn't clear. Are the Brewers "improved" and will the team win more games than 2009, don't necessarily have the same answers. If they brought back the whole team, i.e. the do nothing approach, would they get better results in 2010 is something to consider. Of course, that assumes it was even possible to bring back the whole team considering payroll contraints. I'm sure the Brewers know that Cameron is better than Gomez. Really Gomez and Gerut and other fallback options. But they probably can't sign Wolf, raise the pay for Prince and others, and do some of their other moves if they had kept Cameron. Robert

Yeah, that's true. Presumably because they can't undercut those channels who paid for the airing rights to the copyright holders. I don't think anything is available for streaming until it's run through PPV and the pay channels. OTOH, a whole bunch of Criterions were made available for streaming lately. My strategy, have them send you the discs of the latest new releases, watch the older stuff via streaming. Robert

I'm trying to fit in War and Peace in my free time. (The Pevear and Volkhonsy translation.) It's really quite easy reading with a lot of action and a minimum of navel gazing. But it is mammoth. Robert

I don't know where I'd exactly put the Brewers, but I'd call them "winners" with some caveats. In my mind, there's no question that they've come out of the meetings with a better team. A couple of places basically project them at 84 wins or so because of their moves. OTOH, there's no question that they paid a premium for those improvements. And to be true contenders they still have some work to do in the bargain shopping season. Robert

I'd really like to have someone with a background in insurance discuss risk. A weighted average is a useful thing, but it's really reducing to one point a cloud of potential outcomes. One thing I'd like to see is something like the 30th and 70th percentiles for Wolf's projections. That strikes me as about his most realistic upside and downside barring injury. Obviously there's various types of risk involved, performance and injury for instance, and I kind of think that the various models have holes in regards to injury risk. Any projection for Ben Sheets last year by stuff like CHONE or Marcel was wrong before the doctors took a look at him. I'd certainly like to have an idea of Wolf's medical evaluation in this instance. I don't know Russ, looking at what the Brewers actually have now, I don't think they have enough 5.5 ERA guys in AAA. It's not like those guys don't get hurt, have off years, etc. too. Now, I expect that they'll go out and try to get some, but I'd sure prefer to have some top prospects that could perhaps put up a high 4 ERA. As it is, they're looking at acquiring guys whose upside is probably low 5 ERA in MLB and whose downside is worse than 5.5 ERA. Robert

See, I don't buy that "replacement level" can be quite conservative. Or, at least, if it is then it's not "true replacement level". And I think "freely available" is a bit of a misnomer as well. I agree that around 5.5 ERA is about where it's likely to be though. I'd suggest that because some teams have better than "replacement level" options at AAA, it also means that other teams have worse than "replacement level" options at AAA. And, frankly, it certainly seemed like the Brewers were the latter. Although like you suggested that could just be small sample size issues. Then again, it's hard to blame a team that's allegedly in contention from wanting to explore other options when the called up pitcher doesn't appear ready to face big league talent. It's likely that the next "replacement level" guy isn't likely to be any worse. I'd suggest also that determining between a guy slightly above replacement level and a guy slightly below is still an inexact science and likely context dependent. Part of it I think is also that managers are so orthodox in how they use guys. A lot of times I think you'd be better off ditching that one inning reliever and bringing up 2 starters and piggybacking them for 3 innings apiece instead of trying to stretch a replacement level guy out for 5 or 6 innings. Of course these guys are likely to run into problems the second or third time through a lineup, they're not that good. So why aren't managers being proactive about it? And, yeah, I agree with the general idea that Melvin blew it as far as AAA depth last year. Which really is a combination of bad drafting/development of pitchers and bad free agent pickups. Robert

Looking at that chart it really convinces me that we're a little simplistic in assigning numbers based on a linear model. Heck, we're probably looking at a three dimensional shape with probability, IP, and rate performance, making the three axes. I can't think of a better method than weighted average, but I think it's likely that it's only telling part of the story and the shape matters. Robert

Is there really any helping the current Astros? Robert

I don't know, Feliz is good enough defensively to earn that $4.5 million. Granted, it doesn't help the Astros in the long run and the short run is just going through the motions, but I think it's a harmless move. Heck, flip him at the deadline for a prospect and it will likely be pretty defensible. Really, the problem is with any move that doesn't involve stripping down and retooling the Astros. They're not that good, old, expensive, and they don't have help coming in the minors any time soon. The Lyon move is just laughable. He's just not that good. And there are a lot of GM's who have caught on to the "proven closer" game. Robert

I think there are two types of risk here, performance risk and financial risk. I agree that Harden's deal is less likely to hurt you financially, especially long term. (Although I could see the scenario where he pitches well enough in 2010 to get his option picked up and then breaks down early in 2011.) OTOH, I think Harden's more likely to give you zero value this year, and subsequently, than Wolf. I kind of think that the Brewers simply aren't willing in their business model to take a whole lot of performance risk. If the Brewers are "competitive" the fans will show up as they proved this year. But, if you are bad ala the 2002 team, fans will stay away. It certainly looks to me that the market is more conducive to a team with a win range of 80 to 90 than a win range of 70 to 100. Also, fwiw, if the economy picks up next year, Wolf's deal is likely to look better as I expect free agent contracts to rebound with it. Probably with the Padres and Dodgers getting their financial situations sorted out. Given years and inflation, this is really unlikely even if things do go south to look all that bad. The only way I could really see it would be injury, and then there's the possibility of insurance. And, heck, Wolf didn't cost a draft pick which certainly adds to the value to the organization. I have to think that the compensation is something of a drag on the salaries of upper end free agents normally. Robert

I don't follow the show, although my wife does. It bears as much similarity to reality as "Invitation to Love" in Twin Peaks, for those with good memories. And that's really what I think the appeal is. It's over the top with a genuine sense of ...."glee". Robert

As far as it goes, I'm of the opinion that there really aren't any bargains to be signed at this time in the free agency period. I'm very much not a fan on the third year of Wolf and the second year of Hawkins, but there's not much incentive for most free agents to sign single year deals at this point. Heck, you can spin it and ask why Harden was so eager to settle for one year guaranteed this early in the process. The late December / January signings are where the bargains are generally found. And I hope the Brewers are active in that period, beyond the assumption of Mulder. Robert

I think variance in performance vs. consistency is the great valuation question. And where you are willing to assume risk. I think it's clear that baseball really values guys that can potentially provide 200 IP. For a variety of reasons, bullpen strain, the difficulty in identifying replacement level vs. sub-replacement level pitchers, the ability to bypass the lesser members of bullpen, etc. I'd agree that every one of these factors are marginal in and of themselves, but you combine them all and that's where the benefit lies beyond the numbers. Even if it's just a win or two. Then again, a win or two is pretty valuable. I really think that durability is a hidden value that relates to game to game consistency. Robert

I think the idea that replacement level is evenly split among all organizations at all positions is false. The Brewers failed to find a number of guys that were replacement level last year. And, perhaps more to the point, it wasn't at all obvious at first glance what they had that was the best option and they lost games while cycling through their options. Neither Villanueva nor Suppan were replacement level as starters last year and although regression to the mean is likely, it's by no means guaranteed. Especially in regards to Suppan who could be done. The weakest part of the organization is starting pitching depth at the AAA level, and it doesn't take advanced analysis to suggest that guarding against exposing that weakness makes sense. And, I think we are primarily concerned with 2010. It seems obvious to me that they're going to try to contend with Fielder this year, but he most certainly could be dealt after the season. I wouldn't say that the window would be closed, but it's hard to subtract a premium and underpaid talent and say the odds will be better, even if they do get a lot of young talent in return. But, as I said earlier, I really don't see Harden vs. Wolf being any sort of key for 2010. Heck, Looper has set the bar real low for replacement. The Brewers will be true contenders if Bush and Parra pitch well and stuggle to win consistently otherwise. Robert

How many teams are cutting payroll this year in a bad economy? I'm not super excited about the signing by any means, but there aren't a lot of bidding wars going on. How many teams are actively courting Bay and Holliday? Or Lackey and Halladay? A lot of teams have interest in Counsell, reportedly, does that make Counsell more valuable because more teams are interested in his asking price? The Brewers were aggressive and signed a guy while teams were still looking at Lackey and other options and filled a hole. Perhaps not optimally, perhaps optimally, but they're certainly a better team after the Wolf signing than before it. And I really don't see it being a payroll killer, not with Hall and Suppan coming off the books after 2010. Robert

Sure, I'd say 200 IP is under 50%. Probably no more than 30%. And I'd put Harden's chances of 200 IP at less than 1%. OTOH, I'd put Harden getting over 150 IP under 50% and Wolf's chances well over 50%. Which fits with the projected IP. There are no certainties, but there's at least a significant chance that Wolf will be very good and durable in 2010. Heck, he'll be worth it if he's at least average and durable. I firmly believe Harden is truly valuable only if you can live with the fact that he's going to miss significant time. Basically the 5th starter that becomes more valuable in the post-season. Wolf's basically an unspectacular #2 to #4. To me, the Brewers need more of that group than of Harden's. Although, I kind of think this is all moot unless Parra steps up and Bush is at least average-ish. Robert

I really think ignoring expectations of IP is doing a disservice. And 125 IP is a pretty arbitrary number. Why not 150 IP? Or 180 IP which is probably a full season? Harden seems to have a cap on him of no more than 150 IP in a season. He's exceeded that once in his 7 year career. Wolf, otoh, has exceeded Harden's IP high of 189.2, 5 times in his career and 2 times in the last 2 seasons. I agree, if I only had one, or five, innings to pitch, I'd rather take my chances with Harden. OTOH, if I have 200+ IP to pitch, I think there's plenty of evidence that Wolf > Harden + replacement. Especially since I'm not convinced that the Brewers will get replacement level out of their AAA reserves. Wolf was more valuable than Harden in 2007 and 2009. I also think that this is a little about strategy. It's been clear that the Brewers have been willing to buy at the deadline if they're in contention. So, they're playing it safe, perhaps targeting that impact arm for a short series later rather than sooner. Robert

The way I look at it, the Brewers really need to come up with 300 to 400 IP for their rotation. And I think coming up with the guy that there's some reasonable expectation of putting up 200 IP as the #1 option and bargain shopping for the extra 100+ IP makes more sense than a Harden + Looper/Garland/etc. alternative. Probably cheaper too since 200 IP is never cheap to find, while you can bargain shop for 130 IP type of guys. The less chance of the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th options having to start the better in this organization. Robert