Just trying to find the prospects dealt but 2 relief pitchers for Greene

if he signs with another team, rather than retiring, there was not a 100% chance that he accepts arbitration.

I don’t understand the declined arb and now I feel like the Cardinals flushed money down the toilet. If they sign any reliever/starter not better than Springer/Looper to a multiyear deal, I’m going to have a fit

Even though Springer was a Type A, if a team signs a higher rated type A in addition to Springer then the Cardinals would have go bumped back a round.

That beings said, if the Cardinals had offered Springer arbitration he would have accepted it right away.

Now with the trade for Khalil Green (if the gave up Franklin on Thompson) they can bring Springer back anyway.

"However, we could always trade Springer for that player or to get the salary off the books, thus freeing up the money to be used on the free agent market. Therefore, he is still worth an additional $460,000 to the team and it’s a no-lose situation. "

That’s a huge assumption upon which a lot of reasoning is based. How many teams are going to want to pay $4.5 to a 50-60 inning 40 year old AND give up a player or player for that privliege?

I would have put the odds of Springer accepting at 100%. I seriously doubt any team would have sacrificed either their 1st or 2nd rounder for 1 year of him. He knows that.

I’ve long been an advocate of risking the signing of arbitration-eligible players like Looper and Springer. As the article says, you guarantee a contract if they accept arbitration, but it’s just for one year, and you ARE FREE TO TRADE THEM. The article talked about the value of draft picks, but there is also considerable value in trade possibilities—even it we only received a couple of minor league prospects in return. They become much more known quantities than players yet to be drafted, and therefore are less of a risk.

One element that isn’t being discussed, however, is the 40-man roster. it seems that Mo may be afraid of loading it up before the Rule 5 Draft or before other trades and/or signings can be completed.

Oh, and one more issue with the sign and trade option (even though I support it) is that if the player actually goes to arbitration, the salary may not be known until February. That makes it practically impossible to trade that player until Spring Training. In that sense, it could radically limit what Mo could otherwise do in the next 2 months.

but maybe they don’t look at it this way. I understand the sentiment of getting draft picks and that they add up to money saved. I am going to use the example of Pete Kozma.(even though he is from my hometown and think he’s damn fine player) He was our #1 pick 2 years ago and most everyone here was pissed that we didn’t take Rick Porcello. Kozma doesn’t have any particular great thing. The point I’m trying to make is that the draft is a gamble in and of itself. Maybe they wanted to have flexibility to choose who they wanted on the 09 roster. Maybe if they trade Ankiel or Ludwick, they can get those picks back. (You know Ludwick for Guy + prospects.) If you don’t want these guys on your team, then don’t give them a chance to be on it.

I really think you are leaving out the human element in the case of Springer. There are a lot of other circumstances that make the decision to not offer Springer make sense.
First off, He lives in St. Louis with his family and they want to stay because his child has autism and the best school the kid could possible be in is here. Springer has also said that he wants to play in St. Louis and he would consider retiring if that option didn’t present itself. I think the probability that he accepts is 100% given his circumstances.

It also makes sense for him business wise. The guy is 40 years old. Not a lot of teams are going to sign him for more than arbitration would offer, AND accommodate his family needs, AND give up a draft pick in order to do those things. If Springer accepts, he doesn’t have to move and he gets a 100% guarantee of a raise. if he was a newly married 25yr old and was looking for a long term contract with a career on the up-tick it wound be a different situation.

One more thing. This also makes sense for the Cardinals. If they knew he would accept, that means he probably still wants to pitch and we know he wants to be in the Lou. By not offering arbitration, all the bargaining power is shifted to the Cardinals and they will probably be able to sign him for the same salary as last year, if not less.

That being said, I can’t think of any reason not to offer Looper and I agree with your assessment. I just think we should remember that percentages that we come up with and scenarios we think of often leave out the human element of the whole process when that is actually a huge part of it. Just like you don’t choose to hire someone at work if you know the location or living situation isn’t a right fit. The decision is made even though the finances look good for them and the skills look good for the employer. Family situation and attitude are all part of the equation that we often leave them out when we talk about scenarios regarding real people. Our fixation and loyalty is often placed with the TEAM and not the individuals, but being a good GM involves working with individuals and understanding their situations. Being able to juggle those things and still put together a good team is the root of being a good GM in my opinion. Time will tell, but I feel that there is much more to these decisions than percentages and dollar figures.

Of the two choices, I find not offering Springer arbitration more acceptable because:

A. I believe his unique circumstances likely put the chance of him accepting arbitration at far greater than 90%.
B. The Cards have a crush of low value right handed relievers.

As for Looper, I think one aspect that has not been covered (and likely because Larry no longer does these posts) is that perhaps the Cards are considering the cheap Ryan Franklin as the cheap 5th starter/ swingman role and therefore didn’t feel that Looper offered as much value in that role as Franklin.

I couldn’t agree more with the human element. I have a son that has autism, & being in the right school environment is HUGE! I hope both parites involved can come to some sort of reasonable agreement. Autismspeaks.org

…Renteria signed with the Giants today, and jack Wilson went to the Tigers – 2 moore short stops off the market…
:=8/

I’m not sure if it’s been linked to already, but it’s Gordo detailing an interview with Duncan and it is most definitely worth a read. Here’s a taste:

The Cards must add an established closer. If Mozeliak can’t land one, Duncan would be open to giving Jason Isringhausen another look in that role in the spring.

"If he does everything he has to do to recover from the injuries he had and he wants to give it a shot, I’d vote ‘yes’ to giving him a shot," Duncan said. "I know he’s interested in trying to continue pitching."

But Izzy would have to prove himself in that closing role -– and accept pitching in other roles if he doesn’t win the job.

is that you make it sound sort of easy to trade Springer or Looper in your argument… I don’t think it would be that easy to trade either one of them, unless we’re just unloading them and then I guess I see the point

did anybody notice Aaron Miles was non-tendered? I haven’t seen it mentioned, and there’s always a good possibility I’m mistaken.

if they are looking at izzy vs. russ as one more vet arm in the pen, but not both, since they are stuck with franklin?

A friend and I were talking baseball today, and he sent me a key link on this topic:

http://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?showtopic=1443

Last winter Nate Silver wrote an article using PECOTA to determine valuations of the 04/05 free agent contracts. He determined that an expected WARP of production was worth 2.14M. He then proceeded to use that simple 2.14M multiplier in a few articles.

In response to many e-mails mocking his initial proclamation that Christian Guzman was the bargain signing of the free agent period he wrote a follow-up with a new method to determine player values.

His new formula is: Salary = (WARP^2 * $212,730) + (WARP * $402,530)

So that’s the corrected formula, although still circa 2005.

The later, PECOTA-free method sounds a lot like http://www.tangotiger.net/marcel/

I have a problem with some of your assumptions.

1) I don’t think there was much of any chance that Springer would have failed to accept arbitration. Remember, he signed with St. Louis because his son is autistic and there are excellent medical facilities for that in the Lou. That combined with the fact that, at his age, he couldn’t expect a high-dollar contract from another team (look at some of the relief signings this year…Affeldt’s average yearly salary is below $4.5 mil) makes it a near certainty that Springer would have accepted. Heck, he’s even talked about resigning with the Cards anyway.

2) Springer’s PECOTA projections must be weighed against the fact that a) he’s old and likely to hit the performance wall soon and b) his last two seasons of effectiveness are an outlier for his career.

3) The opportunity costs are much more significant when you consider the fact that a right-handed reliever is WAY down the Card’s priority list…unless he can serve as closer (Springer’s effectiveness seems to be quite dependent on him being used fairly sparingly). They shouldn’t be committing 4.5 million to a postion where they are already stacked with younger, potentially better, and much much cheaper alternatives.

4) I don’t believe there is a 50/50 chance that Springer would lose his arbitration case. He was very underpaid relative to his production last season.

So fundamentally I think your argument might work in general but simply fails in this particular case. You haven’t factored in the significant opportunity cost that Springer’s acceptance of arbitration would have meant. And the probability of Springer accepting arbitration and winning his arbitration case approaches 1…which means the draft pick values if he signs elsewhere are simply irrelevant. D.GOOCH