jocketty's legacy: part 2 of 2

by lboros on Feb 14, 2008 9:25 AM EST in News

here's part 1 of this post, in case you missed it.

i'm gonna be looking at some of jocketty's individual transactions today. all the caveats from tuesday's post stil apply, and here's one more: the lists below are not (repeat: not) meant to identify "best" and "worst" transactions. they're identifying which ones brought the most future production (as measured by win shares) into the organization, and which ones sent the most future production away --- but that's not the same as "best" and "worst." what's the distinction? a "losing" trade --- ie, one that sends away more future win shares than it brings in --- can still be a good trade if it alleviates a positional imbalance or fills a glaring need on the roster. just to cite one example: the coco crisp / chuck finley trade carries one of the highest win-share deficits among all jocketty's transactions, but i have a hard time calling that a "bad" deal; the cards had an surplus of outfield talent at that time (both at the big-league level and in the farm system) and a desperate short-term need for starting pitching caused by the death of darryl kile. the trade was never intended to broaden the team's long-term talent base; it was meant to fill a short-term need, and it succeeded in that purpose.

the point of this exercise isn't to judge individual transactions as "good" or "bad," nor even to judge individual players as good/bad; royce clayton may have piled up a lot of win shares in his career, but few would mistake him for a particularly good player. the point of the exercise is to try to learn something about team-building --- to examine how one successful gm went about the business of broadening his team's talent base.

please keep that nuance in mind as you read.

first, here are the largest win-share parcels jocketty acquired during his tenure, and largest parcels he sent away:

player	type trans	ws to STL	player	type trans	ws from STL
jim edmonds	trade	196.4	dmitri young	trade	114.2
edgar renteria	trade	159.0	david bell	waivers	104.5
royce clayton	trade	116.1	placido polanco	trade	100.2
scott rolen	trade	113.4	adam kennedy	trade	96.8
david bell	trade	107.6	jack wilson	trade	90.0
mark mcgwire	trade	99.6	todd zeile	trade	87.0
mike matheny	free agent	77.2	brian jordan	free agent	85.8
delino deshields	free agent	75	royce clayton	trade	83.6
ron gant	free agent	67.3	jd drew	trade	80.8
fernando vina	trade	59.9	coco crisp	trade	71.2

note that many of the jocketty's most impactful acquisitions --- woody williams, chris carpenter, darryl kile, andy benes--- don't even make this list. that's because the list is entirely made up of position players, which suggests to me that the win-shares system might have a little bias built into it. here are the biggest pitching win-share parcels that jock brought in and sent away:

player	type trans	ws to STL	player	type trans	ws from STL
jason izzy	free agent	59.8	braden looper	trade	67.3
darren oliver	trade	56.3	rheal cormier	trade	58.8
woody williams	trade	55.3	dan haren	trade	48.0
mike timlin	trade	53.9	darren oliver	free agent	41.5
todd stottlemyre	trade	50.6	mike timlin	trade	40.6

if carp hadn't been hurt last year, he'd be number 1 on this list (he currently has added 49.8 win shares since his acquisition); wainwright will join it with a couple more seasons like 2007. it's easy to disparage some of the names on this list --- what do nonentities like darren oliver, mike timlin, and rheal cormier have to do with anything? --- but those shots are easy to take with hindsight. put things into context: at the time he was traded, cormier was a 27-year-old left-handed pitcher with a career ERA of 4.12 and a k/bb ratio of nearly 4 to 1 --- a valuable property who didn't live up to his promise. oliver, also a 27-year-old lefty at the time of the transaction, had even more potential; his career mark at the time was a healthy 41-27, and he had pitched effectively in a hitter-friendly environment --- a career era+ of 109. he was about as valuable then as cliff lee was heading into last season. like cormier he fell far short of his promise, but it's not ridiculous to characterize that as an important transaction. if you're building a team for the long haul, you try to add guys like darren oliver circa 1998; then you hope for the best.

i've got to wrap this post up, so without further ado here are the trades with the highest differentials (positive and negative) in terms of future win shares. (notice these are not labeled "best" and "worst" trades.)

HIGHEST NET WIN-SHARE GAIN

1. adam kennedy (96.8) and kent bottenfield (7) for jim edmonds (196.4): + 92.6 win shares, 2000. without question, the defining transaction of walt jocketty's career in st louis.

2. allen watson (17.3), doug creek (8.7), and rich delucia (5.8) for royce clayton (116.1): + 84.3 win shares, 1996. make fun if you wish, but this was an outstanding deal. in exchange for roster lint, jocketty acquired a reasonably priced, league average player --- a 25-year-old shortstop with a good glove, good speed, and decent pop. his top B-R comps at that age were bill russell and dave concepcion. . . . it was a long time ago, but the deal helped bring about a division title and very nearly a world-series appearance.

3. braden looper (67.3), antonio almanza (10.2), and pablo ozuna (10) for edgar renteria (159): + 73.5 win shares, 1999. this deal came the same year as the mike matheny free-agent signing (+77 win shares), and just a year before the deals for edmonds (+92.6) and vina (+42 win shares) --- shortstop, catcher, centerfielder, second baseman. how do you build a winner? up the middle.

4. ken hill (34.1) for david bell (107.6): +73.5 win shares, 1995. frankly, this deal wasn't such a prize. hill still had some value left --- he finished 6th in the AL cy young voting the following season --- and bell, while an intriguing prospect (he did very well at a young age at triple A), wasn't anybody's idea of a future star.

5. blake stein (14.4) and tj mathews (17.1) for mark mcgwire (99.6): 68.1 win shares, 1998.

HIGHEST NET WIN-SHARE LOSS

1. dmitri young (114.2) for jeff brantley (9.3): -104.9 win shares, 1998. ugh. young was roughly as good a prospect as daric barton; brantley was a 34-year-old closer coming off an injury. yes, young was blocked by mark mcgwire, but the cards were coming off a 73-win season and a sore-armed 34-year-old pitcher wasn't the way to move forward.

2. jack wilson (90) for jason christiansen (9.6): -80.4 win shares, 2000. excusable. jocketty was trying to put the finishing touches on a championship contender's bullpen --- he acquired this guy specifically to get out barry bonds and jt snow in a possible nlcs matchup. wilson was a nondescript A ball prospect coming up behind edgar renteria, who was still in his mid-20s.

3. todd zeile (87) for mike morgan (19.4): -67.6 win shares, 1995. zeile was headed for free agency anyway; so what.

4. coco crisp (71.2) for chuck finley (4.3): -66.9 win shares, 2002. excusable, for the reasons described above.

5. dan haren (48), kiko calero (12), and daric barton (3.5) for mark mulder (9.6): -54.7 win shares, 2005. this'll be #3 on the list by the end of this season and #1 by 2010 or so --- maybe sooner, depending on how much value (if any) mulder has got left.

a couple other trades of note, briefly: the rolen trade is currently a net deficit --- 113.4 win shares in, but 141.1 win shares out (100.5 polanco, 40.6 timlin). to reiterate, nobody's saying it was a bad trade . . . . the wainwright / drew deal currently stands at minus 26.8 win shares, but that should close up over time and will probably settle in at a rough equilibrium.

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Comments

Is this the complete picture?

I have a different philosphical take on the methedology for this analysis. I think only win shares accumulated before the players involved reach free agency either through their contract expiration or the team no longer controlling the player´s rights due to service time should be counted. On top of that, any analysis without the costs of the win shares involved seems to provide a tainted picture.

by cariocacardinal on Feb 14, 2008 9:39 AM EST 0 recs

the limitations in the methodology

are acknowledged. the most glaring omission is the cost factor, and at some future point if i can find time to do the research, perhaps i'll add salaries to my database. but even that won't clarify things all that much. cost is relative --- a $10m player means one thing to a gm working with a $95m budget, quite another to a guy working with a $55m budget; it meant one thing in 1997 and something else in 2007. to make salary numbers meaningful, i'd need to know what the market paid for an average win share in a given year; don't know, don't have time to figure it out. i'm not sure raw cost per win share would tell us a whole lot more than what the raw w.s. total tells us.

as to the first point --- that would definitely provide a better picture of the true exchange involved, but it would take more research --- year-by-year contract-status research for more than 200 players --- than i'm willing to do. if you or anyone else has the time and wants to do the research, go for it. it would improve the analysis.

by lboros on Feb 14, 2008 10:06 AM EST up 0 recs

on further reflection, carioa

i'm not so sure that limiting the analysis to pre-free-agency win shares is an improvement. the idea is to measure the talent coming in and going out, and future win shares are a proxy for that. the fact that royce clayton earned most of his win-shares after leaving the cardinals doesn't change the fact that he was a valuable talent package at the time of acquisition --- far more valuable than the talent jocketty surrendered.

forget about the cost and just focus on the amalgamation of talent. did jocketty identify valuable properties to acquire? were they more valuable than the properties he surrendered? this exercise not only answers both questions in the affirmative, but helps to quantify them --- ie, how big was the talent gain? and while the exercise doesn't quantify the dollar amounts, part I of the exercise tells us that his primary means of talent acquisition was the free agent market. this tells us that, ultimately, payroll expansion explains jocketty's success to a large degree.

by lboros on Feb 14, 2008 10:30 AM EST up 0 recs

true

"payroll expansion explains jocketty's success to a large degree"

True. But others have also been given expanded payrolls and not been as successful. I'd say a more accurate statement is that payroll expansion gave Jocketty the means to be successful, and he made the most of it.

by flynn on Feb 14, 2008 10:51 AM EST up 0 recs

And...

And I see you say just that in your 9:45 comment below!!!

by flynn on Feb 14, 2008 10:54 AM EST up 0 recs

no...

Have to disagree with this. If you trade a guy with 5 years left before arbitration for a guy who has 3 months to free agency, you can't just compare their future winshares straight up. You've traded away 5 years (at least) of the first guy in return for 3 months of the second (since you could have picked him up in free agency 3 months later without giving up the first guy).

The only exception to this should be in strange situations like McGwire when the player wouldn't have signed with your team in free agency if you hadn't traded for him a few months earlier.

by yad on Feb 14, 2008 5:16 PM EST up 0 recs

i've been doing a poor job of explaining

the system accounts for what you're describing. take this example: let's say the cards had traded adam kennedy for jim edmonds, and then edmonds had left for free agency after the 2000 season. here's how the ledger would have looked:

gained: edmonds 196.4 win shares (ie, all the win shares accumulated after the trade)
lost: kennedy 96 win shares, edmonds ~170 win shares (ie, all win shares accumulated after free agency)

in other words, this would show a huge net loss. all the win shares that edmonds accumulated after leaving the team would count in both the "gain" and "loss" columns, so they'd cancel each other out. the trade would reflect the actual exchange: kennedy's 8 years of win shares vs edmonds' 1 year. a net loss of talent.

does this make it any more clear?

by lboros on Feb 14, 2008 6:58 PM EST up 0 recs

Roster space

I think one thing over looked here is roster space along with financial considerations. What did the trade enable because of freeing up one of those things, or what did it impede in that respect? Lets take the Rolen trade as an example. By dumping Timlin and Polanco for Rolen then Jocketty had one extra roster spot open (though I think higher money committed) so who replaced Timlin in the pen? I don't remember how everything went down but did the person that took his roster spot add win shares as well? If so then you can't really count all of what Timlin had as a loss. I like the idea of this but in other then 1 for 1 trades I just don't think you can look at it this way. Though for trades where you gave up a lot of guys and gained win shares I think you can look at it as a gain.

by StLHugo on Feb 14, 2008 9:44 AM EST 0 recs

I just can't get past the $

I know you pointed to the flaw in the first post, Larry. And Zubin and others mentioned it as well.

But, to me, the glaring omission of cost in this exercise is so huge it just kills it for me. I, too, respect Levitt but I just don't see anything gained by this information.

I am not knocking your post. I actually appreciate the look into the methodology and enjoyed the read. I just don't see the value of the method or results.

What is the point of seeing what a future free agent did in his career without measuring it against what it would have cost your budget? IMO, the Mulder trade should already be number one for that very reason. How much payroll have we spent on him vs. the other players? What could you have done with that money plus Haren/Barton/Calero in the previous years if the trade hadn't been made?

I know I am stating the obvious in that illustration and the point of the analysis isn't to measure what i am illustrating. I just can't understand what/if anything Levitt's trade analysis teaches anyone?

by RedbirdRay on Feb 14, 2008 10:02 AM EST 0 recs

PS

IMO,

If WJ had not made the Mulder trade, we would not be rebuilding right now. It wouldn't be necessary.

by RedbirdRay on Feb 14, 2008 10:04 AM EST up 0 recs

for the most part, I agree.

WJ was the pre-moneyball gold standard. He found market ineffiencies in his own way. And it worked for almost 10 years. But the market changed, and WJ resisted the change. I thank him for everything he brought to Cardinal nation. But I'm glad he's out the door. The Mulder trade was the beginning of the end for him.

by silent_bob on Feb 14, 2008 10:11 AM EST up 0 recs

WJ was a great GM

Bob, I know that the Mulder trade turned out to be WJ's failing as a GM. Let's not forget, however, that we were a winning team that needed a 1-b starter behind our 1-a starter in order to win in the playoffs. Haren wasn't that piece. Yet.

As for Barton, he can hit, thats' for sure. But isn't he pegged for the DH slot in Oakland? If he is, where is his spot here? He certainly won't play 1st. He doesn't have the arm for 3rd (which a healthy Rolen was occupying at the time anyway). He had NO outfield experience.

It was a great trade for both teams that just panned out for one.

I'm not too sure if the A's weren't hiding some sort of medical info we didn't know anyway.

I'm a man, a manly, manly, man. Unknown

by Eckstreem on Feb 14, 2008 1:57 PM EST up 0 recs

I agree on WJ

I wasn't really saying I thought WJ did a poor job overall.

I do think looking at all his trades with money and number of years under team control adds quite a bit to the evaluation of his performance.

In regards to Barton, what do you think he could have gained us in trade this year? Just because we kept him then, doesn't mean we would have to hang onto him permanently. I have read indications he will be the firstbaseman for the As this year, getting the majority of ABs over Johnson. I bet him with a bullpen arm or two could have landed a top SS prospect or been a nice piece of another trade.

by RedbirdRay on Feb 14, 2008 2:08 PM EST up 0 recs

gained?

St. louis is up the butt when it came to great catcher prospects. molina, anderson, barton, and todd zeile came up as a catcher as well.

we lost barton, we might lose anderson, but we have a gold glove caliber catcher right now that's only 25.

Cardwash - Cardinal, Washington fan (Washington???? Yeah, I know)

by cardwash on Feb 14, 2008 3:41 PM EST up 0 recs

agreed re mulder

as to the factor of cost ---- i think the clue lies in the first post. jocketty's primary means of talent addition was the free agent market, and two of his most advantageous trades (for edmonds and mcgwire) were de facto free-agent additions --- guys who were acquired a few months from free agency and signed to long-term extensions. the conclusion i draw from that is that money was the key to jocketty's success. he took over a team that ranked 9th out of 14 nl teams in payroll, and it became a team that ranked in the top 3 or 4 among 16 teams. he was given the funds, so he procured the talent.

but as i said above --- if i add cost to the equation for jocketty alone and derive a raw cost per win share, it still doesn't tell us anything. it's only meaningful if i do the same exercise for every other gm, so we can compare walt's rate of return vs theirs. the main factors he had going for him were a) ownership --- when he wanted a great player --- and b) a productive farm system.

the talent pipeline and the money pipeline both went dry at the same time. walt's weaknesses got exposed at that time.

by lboros on Feb 14, 2008 10:13 AM EST up 0 recs

Understood

I see the point about the amount of research it would take for a full picture. But, just adding $ in general would be a more complete picture than it is now.

Without looking at all GM's and markets, just adding the payroll dollars over the years the trade spanned would tell you enough to evaluate the trades in terms of our team. I don't really think the players contibutions beyond the terms of the contract a the time of the trade have much meaning. For example, what Mulder does for us now is fairly irrevelant to the trade. He is out of that contract and we could have signed anyone with that $. Haren & company, however, are still on the clock.

by RedbirdRay on Feb 14, 2008 10:28 AM EST up 0 recs

but the ultimate issue still is

does the gm bring in more talent --- at whatever cost --- than he lets get away?

in the last 3 years of his reign (2005-07), jocketty let more talent leave than he brought in --- and that balance sheet's only going to look worse over time. this is a large reason why he got fired.

but if we're going to hold him responsible for those failures, then give him credit for the job of talent-amalgamation he did in 1994-2004. sure it was largely fueld by money, but a lot of other gms had big budgets too and didn't do nearly as much with them. the orioles, cubs, mets, white sox, dodgers --- the gms of all those teams had at least as much money to work with as jocketty. i would tend to doubt any of those organizations showed as high a net win-share gain as the cardinals over that span.

by lboros on Feb 14, 2008 10:45 AM EST up 0 recs

couldn't agree more

WJ was the gold standard for 90's and early 00's baseball, He simply didn't want to change with the times.

The moneyball way is now, its alot easier to compare players when you can use advanced stats to compare and predict their futures.

"Textbooks are Soviet propaganda" - Rev. Jerry Falwell

by elirock83 on Feb 14, 2008 11:30 AM EST up 0 recs

Walt's legacy speaks for itself

7 playoffs in 13 season, 1 WS, 2 pennants, 3 games away from 2 more pennants, and only 4 losing seasons. That's the bottom line.

The question of how this was accomplished is more complicated.

Yes, money plays a role, but consider two additional facts. One, when he took over (in 1995, post-strike) average attendance was 24,000. The 1996 season jumped that to 32,000--and as I remember, it's been above that level. The last three seasons have been virtually sellouts every game. So while the payroll increased (along with the rest of baseball), the revenues also increased.

Second, while a lot of the advantage was in the Edmonds and McGwire trade and signs, there were 28 other teams that could have done the same for each player, and did not. And the availablity of money didn't necessarily mean a wise decision of acquiring wins with the money.

Why did the Angels trade Edmonds? Because they believed that Erstad was ready to replace Edmonds. While they gave Erstad virtually Edmonds money (4 years, $32 MM at one point), he's had one season (2000, 137 OPS+) in his career that approaches the typical Edmonds season. From 2001 to 2006 the Angels paid Erstad $41.7MM for OPS+ seasons of 82, 86, 72, 97, 87, and 57. For the same period, the Cards paid Edmonds $53.7 MM for OPS+ seasons of 149, 158, 160, 170, 137, and 110. Walt took a risk of signing Edmonds (or McGwire) and those risks paid off.

The rosters of other teams over the period were littered with bad contracts--how about Mike Hampton as just one example--he's pitched 69 innings the last three years for $44.1 MM. A lot of teams spent a lot of money unwisely.

Also, as I wrote in the other thread, the Cards drafts were more productive in producing major league performance than their rivals--as the numbers show (and at some point I hope to run the numbers using Win Shares through the end of 2007, and I will share them when I am done).

I believe when you combine the gains that you illustrate in these posts, along with the advantage in drafted players, explains a great deal of why the Cards were successful under Jocketty.

But it was a lot more than just money, IMO.

Dave

by Sydney dave on Feb 14, 2008 5:21 PM EST up 0 recs

This should be simple to fix (at least crudely)

I don't really see why this would be hard to correct for. You simply take the $ difference between the two players traded, and add in winshares to the team that gets money in the trade at whatever the league-average $ per winshare is.

by yad on Feb 14, 2008 5:19 PM EST up 0 recs

If Bud Smith...

hadn't fallen off the baseball map would we consider the Rolen trade a bad deal?

Thanks for the highlight moments 15 and 27!!!

by cardzfanbub on Feb 14, 2008 10:04 AM EST 0 recs

the rolen trade

highlights the biggest issue with this methodology: by counting all win shares as equal, trading one "40 win share/year player" for 5 "10 win share/year players" looks like a smart thing to do, while a savvy GM could probably find 5 "10 win share/year players" in his minor league system (which this methodology ignores).

For a system to have utility it needs to properly value talent concentration, which imho is the key to building great ball clubs.

by SleepyCA on Feb 14, 2008 2:45 PM EST up 0 recs

Never as simple as it seems

It's very hard to simply quantify something that has so many exceptions and caveats, especially when breaking it down by transactions.

One of the best trades that Walt made was the Drew deal to Atlanta. Not only did we trade our All-Star-quality outfielder and a catcher/utility-player (who wasn't really interested in catching anymore) for three useful pitchers, but the money we saved in salary differences allowed us to sign Reggie and Suppan. In turn, Burger King morphed into basically Miles, Sanders converted into Instant Breakfast, Suppan's & Marquis' roster dollars went towards Wells and others, and opportunities arose for minor leaguers. All of these moves loop around and intertwine.

That said, the Cubs do deserve my pity, but never my support.

by Solanus on Feb 14, 2008 12:16 PM EST 0 recs

money is funny

true, the picture of a good shopper is told not just in money spent or not spent... but also what's in the bag when you get home.
I personally give the organization a pass on the Mulder deal... injury is injury. If Mulder was able to put up anything like career numbers, that whole picture looks very different.

My biggest teeth gnashing over Walt is in letting Grudzielanek go, when he only wanted a fair couple more million. Underneath that, roughly similar scenarios for Mike Matheny and Edgar Renteria.

Grudz was a 'fit; if I ever saw one.

You don't let the best defensive catcher in the league (MM) leave when he has at least one more good year in him... and to the scream that "he would have blocked Yadi", BULL. Matheny was already in the 90-110 games a year range; Yadi would have had plenty of playing time as a quasi platoon, to say nothing of the opportunity to learn from the best.

My weakest distemper is in regards to Edgar. Yes, maybe he wanted too much. And when he ended up with (gak) Boston, I felt like kicking him where he sits. On the other hand, with the possible exception of ace starting pitcher or bullpen closer, when you already have an SS very good or better, you do what it takes to keep him, whether it makes you want to bend over and hand him a jar of vasoline or not.

p.s. to any potential sabermetric geek who wants to trot out some incomprehensible stats at me to show just how awful Mike Mateny was... save your energy. With me, you will never argue away from my brain that I SAW HIM PLAY.

by the Tewk on Feb 14, 2008 12:23 PM EST 0 recs

Mulder

He was already injured at the end of the season before we made the trade. So we send a healthy great young pitcher, one of our good relievers, and a good prospect for a guy who had something happen in the middle of the previous season that caused him to start tanking?

I'm not ever going to be able to excuse that trade.

by dontEATnachos on Feb 14, 2008 12:58 PM EST up 0 recs

disagree

everyone knows the Mulder trade has not worked out.....what is often forgotten is that Haren was not great when traded, he was a good pitcher that no one ever expected to be a Cy Young candidate....we also forget that Mulder passed a physical and won a number of games for the Cards before going down.......at the time, we were one stud starter away so we picked up the winningest left-hander in the previous five years - made sense to me....it was a reasonable gamble that just did not work out...we've got to be careful with hindsight in crticizing a GM who rescued us from the dregs, took us to post-season 7 of 11 times, 2 World Series and 1 Championship

All hail Walt

by Hinkster on Feb 14, 2008 7:11 PM EST up 0 recs

I think it is OK for a fan

to feel good about Mulder's potential at the time of the trade, but I don't think you can excuese a whole team of alleged "baseball men" for not spotting all the warning signs on Mulder. Veteran guys with that much success don't just "lose" their mechanics.

I was against the trade from the outset because it was obvious something was wrong with Mulder. He wasn't old enough to be nearly done, he just couldn't pitch because of physical problems. When a guy with a good track record loses both velocity and control, as Mulder did in his last season with Oakland, it is extremely likely he has an injury brewing.

I'm not saying you don't make the trade anyway, but the package you are willing to offer has to reflect the reality of the situation.

Those Pilgrims ain't lookin' so proud now...

by giveml on Feb 15, 2008 8:43 AM EST up 0 recs

yeah

you make some good points.....it would be interesting to have been an insider (Oak and Stl Drs and critical observers and inside Mulder's head).........to know who believed what at the time and exactly what medical due diligence was done at the time......career stats made the trade a no-brainer but perhaps the buyers did not drill deep enough

by Hinkster on Feb 15, 2008 9:03 AM EST up 0 recs

OK, I'll spare you the stats.

I saw Matheny play too. Many hundreds of games. And I well remember that horrible sinking feeling I got every time MM came to the plate in the middle of a rally. And how it never got any better because, year after year, MM never failed to fail to hit. Don't tell me you didn't feel it either.

by MdRedbirdFreak on Feb 14, 2008 1:22 PM EST up 0 recs

it's funny how in retrospect

Renteria DIDN'T want too much money. It sure seemed like it at the time, coming off of his poor 2004, but he was getting what ended up being market value for his production at SS. I definitely agree that we should have kept him.

Also agree on grudz, again with the benefit of hindsight. However, remember how awful he was in september and october (7/35 w/no bb or xbh)? He really looked done to me by the end there, and Spivey had upside and was cheaper...

by SleepyCA on Feb 14, 2008 2:02 PM EST up 0 recs

Couldn't agree more

on Grud and Edgar. I wasn't happy about Mike leaving but we had his replacement in hand, with the other two there wasn't anyone waiting in the wings.

We did luck out getting David in the SS shake-up that happened the off season Edgar left, But Walt had no idea that would happen. I remember thinking OK we lost Edgar but we can still have an All-Star SS if we sign Orlando Cabera, then we missed out on that. Walt realy dropped the ball on that one. How do you score that E-GM.

"Do what you want to the women and children but leave me alone"- George Carlin

by That's a Winner on Feb 14, 2008 2:04 PM EST up 0 recs

Much ado about nothing

From the bbref.com splits, here are the sOPS+ (OPS versus the position in this case)

Players (Main) SS 2B
2004 Edgar/Womack 97 88
2005 Eck/Grudz 113 88
2006 Eck/Everyone 94 89
2007 Eck/Adam et al 93 78

The only real falloff was the 2007 drop for the 2B, because Kennedy couldn't hit. And at SS, there's a big difference between paying $30 MM for three years and $10 MM for three years.

As to Matheny, he wanted a long-term deal and the Cards weren't willing to pay the money with Yadi ready to play.

Dave

by Sydney dave on Feb 14, 2008 5:40 PM EST up 0 recs

I agree

I also like to ignore facts when they don't jive with my opinion.

by Ray Lankford on Feb 14, 2008 2:41 PM EST up 0 recs

Yadi has lost 15lbs

in the off-season to preserve his knees. Does that mean he might actually make it to first before the Earth makes a complete revolution?

Still looking for 1985 Regular Season games on DVD/VHS

by Hardcore Legend on Feb 14, 2008 1:29 PM EST 0 recs

the earth revolves pretty fast...

by cdb on Feb 14, 2008 1:32 PM EST up 0 recs

we call a complete one

a year.

Still looking for 1985 Regular Season games on DVD/VHS

by Hardcore Legend on Feb 14, 2008 1:56 PM EST up 0 recs

Yeah

I doubt he would lose to a revolution but maybe a rotation.

by StLHugo on Feb 14, 2008 1:58 PM EST up 0 recs

fast

67,000 miles an hour is pretty fast..... can't blame poor Yadi if he doesn't win that race.

by cdb on Feb 14, 2008 2:30 PM EST up 0 recs

heh

I saw that article too and was very excited. The idea that Yadi might be slimmer, more agile and faster actually makes me hope that he can be even better. I also wonder if dropping some dead weight will help his bat at all, obviously running faster would help on some grounders but for the most part will it all him to get better wood on balls he normally would have missed? It also seems like Molina might have worked out with Eddie Perez this offseason, didn't see it mentioned but t he fact that Juan G was working out in Eddie's gym in the DR and Molina, Pujols and Oquendo all saw Juan taking BP just leads me to wonder if they all gathered in the DR to work out together. Molina didn't have the PR winter league to play in this year so he just worked out instead and rehabbed, sounds great for us if he is in better shape.

by StLHugo on Feb 14, 2008 1:56 PM EST up 0 recs

Oxymoron.

I don't think you can include the words "slim, agile, and fast" in the same sentence with Yadi's name. There is some sort of grammatical rule against that.

That brings to mind a game a few years ago when Tino was playing for us. Does anybody remember when Tino, Matheny, and the pitcher (think it was Woody) all got triples in the same game? Fox tried to replay their running on the same screen. It hurt to watch. The pitcher was standing at 3rd before Tino got halfway around second, and MM was just making the turn for 3rd.

I'm a man, a manly, manly, man. Unknown

by Eckstreem on Feb 14, 2008 2:03 PM EST up 0 recs

Has anyone read...

"The Book on The Book" by Bill Felber?

Here's a link to the book preview:

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=-HZ3xF7DT7IC&dq=felber+the+book&printsec=frontcov er&source=web&ots=mHoUMfntXa&sig=-iPSBYTDRT_6u4hxbReHIxOMoLA#PPA8,M1

There's an enire chapter dedicated to "Rating the General Managers". He's trying to do the same thing as Levitt, basically. He does so in several different ways, none of which I can remember since I don't own it (got it from my library) and haven't read it in about a year-and-a-half. Jocketty rated among the top 3-4 NL GM's consistently, though 2003 was rated as a disaster (surprise!).

It's good reading. Im curious to know if his methodology dovetails with that of Levitt.

Anybody?

youneverknow

by meat on Feb 14, 2008 2:50 PM EST 0 recs

Larry,

How in the world did David Bell compile 107.6 win shares with a in .227 avg and four HRs in 435 ABs w/ the Cards?

Fame was like a drug, but what was even more like a drug were the drugs

by Alxfritz on Feb 14, 2008 5:09 PM EST 0 recs

He didn't

he only accumulated like 3. He's also in the "negative" column on the right. The difference between what came to STL and what left STL is what Walt gets credit for.

by azruavatar on Feb 14, 2008 6:10 PM EST up 0 recs

Hmmm...

Either I don't like the way lb is reviewing these deals, or siue should really be ashamed of my reading comprehension. Probably a mix of both.

Fame was like a drug, but what was even more like a drug were the drugs

by Alxfritz on Feb 14, 2008 6:21 PM EST up 0 recs

The Drew trade

the Cards may be -26 from the Drew trade but Drew was just 1 year from free agency. The Cards would have only gained one year's worth of win shares from him. The additional 46 win shares Drew has accumulated shouldn't count against Jocketty as Drew wouldn't have accumulated those as a Cardinal.

The fact that we traded 1 year of Drew for 6+ of Wainwright is significant and gets lost, in all due respect, in this approach.

by houstoncardinal on Feb 14, 2008 8:13 PM EST 0 recs

slightly off topic...

When do the tickets for the regular season go on sale?
live in Chicago, planning a trip down to see the team this year. NEver been to this Busch....

by joeyart on Feb 14, 2008 8:34 PM EST 0 recs

Soon

Pretty soon I believe just watch stlcardinals.com also stubhub (http://www.stubhub.com/st-louis-cardinals-tickets/?gcid=C12289x836) has some tickets for resale already, these are probably people or scalpers that bought season tickets and are reselling the ones they don't want. Stubhub is a sanctioned site this year so don't worry about using it since it has replaced the prime seat club.

by StLHugo on Feb 14, 2008 11:26 PM EST up 0 recs

I guess I am having an attack of

the brain-sucking worms, but I just can't get my mind around this analysis. To me the only number that matters is win shares that were earned as part of the Cardinals. The notion that Royce Clayton was some sort of key acquisition because of all the win shares he accumulated after he left the Cardinals is sort of senseless. Seems to me this sort of analysis would heavily skew the numbers in favor of GMs who like to rent players at the trading deadline who still have some life left (for another team).

So, if we look at win share contributions as a Cardinal only aren't we just judging the GM on the sum of the total wins the ball club accumulates? Wouldn't that strongly imply that the GMs of the large market teams are generally better than the GMs of the small market teams just because, over the intermediate to long term, those teams will win more games?

Hep me, somebody hep me!!

Those Pilgrims ain't lookin' so proud now...

by giveml on Feb 15, 2008 9:47 AM EST 0 recs

here's the justification

for counting career win shares.

first of all, the analysis is only counting the win shares clayton accumulated with the cards. walt gets credit for adding 106 win shares (or whatever the number is) in the transaction where walt acquired clayton, but he's debited 83 win shares (or whatever) in the transaction where walt traded clayton away. so the net gain on jocketty's ledger is 106 minus 83, or 23 win shares --- the number of win shares clayton earned while playing for the cardinals.

viewed in this light, a net gain of 700 win shares over 13 years is pretty spectacular, no matter how it was achieved.

but here's the second point. the intent of this analysis is to measure how well --- and by what means --- the gm amalgamates a broad foundation of talent. it's not intended to consider $$$$, contract status, or any of the other factors that affect a gm's decisions. it's just a pure bottom-line assessment ---- does he acquire good players? and does have an overall pattern of acquiring players who have more value than the ones he lets go? jock acquired royce clayton, a player with enough ability to last 15 years in the big leagues, in exchange for three guys who were on and off the stage in just a few years. looking at career win shares bears that out.

look at the differences between terry ryan and walt jocketty: ryan was +200 win shares over a 13-year period; in that same period, jocketty was +700 win shares. now, does that mean jocketty was all that much better than terry ryan? probably not; he had a higher budget and therefore was able to make trades and signings that ryan could never consider (as i pointed out in the first post on this subject). but with a higher budget come higher-risk signings and a higher degree of responsibility. as we have seen, a big budget doesn't always translate into success. you still have to make wise decisions in high you spend the money. on the whole, jocketty did that with spectacular success.

by lboros on Feb 15, 2008 12:18 PM EST up 0 recs

So if I'm following you

a win share equals one-third of a win, so WJ was responsible for 233 wins over 13 years above a "league average" GM. That computes to 18 wins per year over average. Since an average team wins 81 games per year, that means we should have averaged 99 wins per year for 13 years? WJ's actual record was 149 wins over .500 (11.5 per year) for that period while Ryan was 7 wins under .500.

LB, I am not challenging you - I just don't get it. How would the model explain the delta between projected wins and actual wins? I am probably not correctly understanding the value of Win Shares as what I have read indicates there is no such thing as a negative win share...

Is there any kind of study that correlates this type of analysis to payroll? Seems like the poorer teams would lose their best players before they hit their win share peak and the richer teams would be able to achieve larger win share numbers by paying premiums for the better players.

Those Pilgrims ain't lookin' so proud now...

by giveml on Feb 15, 2008 1:06 PM EST up 0 recs