Gritless Veterans

The projection systems only like him slightly more as a hitter and he isn’t as good as Grunz in the field. He definitely had a good season last year, but will he relapse into his horrid 2007?

it’s not like he has a big split.

His BA really tells the whole story.

heh

Houston will come to find why Philadelphians came to absolutely abhor Ed Wade.

Mr. Wade . . . Branch Rickey you are NOT, sir!

Oh, and I think Roy Oswalt’s arm would have to completely fall off for this to happen.

I don’t think the Rays D is even better than the Red Sox, Youkilis, Pedroia, Lowell, Ellsbury and Drew are all plus defenders.

a 30% rate, forget Greene. I just am not a Tyler Greene believer. I like his tools, but i’m not convinced he’ll ever learn to use them

during ST? how does it make sense to say that the only recourse the cards have is to dispose of him entirely, when the less radical step of just not playing him is available?

There are also lots of diamonds in jupiter, lots of games that are not full exhibitions at ST. You can certainly keep kennedy loose and ready to play while giving prospects a chance to show their skills.

“More playing time” only works in the major league season where there’s one diamond, one game, one team.

compared to what the others are expected to do this year.

what he was worth last year in STL (1.5 wins or whatever) is Not the same thing as what a different team would expect to get from him this year. I was responding to the complaint that the FO “got nothing” for AK, as if there was something to get.

You can’t just say that he will be -15 runs with the glove based on 46 innings. Using Sean Smith’s Total Zone Ratings, Thurston is right about average at second.

I am trying to follow this and can’t

Using the Chone projections for Ryan puts him at about 8.6 runs above replacement or about 1 win worse than Kennedy. Appreciably worse?

If I use the Chone projection of -6.7 for wRaa I get a -7.2 UZR/150 for Ryan. Wouldn’t his UZR/150 project higher based on the past history of SS and 2B?

I used “appreciably” because your stats (and the assumptions and reliability underlying them) prove the point I was making. Which is that none of the projections show with any sort of confidence that STL’s record will actually be better w/ Kennedy, as opposed to one of the others, manning the keystone. It’s not that you’re doing it “wrong” – it’s that you don’t have the clay to build the statue you’re attempting to make.

Take Barden. Extrapolating unreliable stats based on a small sample size over the course of an entire season, you determined that the difference between AK’s expected performance and Barden’s expected performance was 4 entire runs, and then converted that into about a 1/2 win. Isn’t it obvious that the error that infects each of the underlying assumptions (including and especially the general unreliability of predictive defensive metrics) completely subsumes “about .5 wins” difference such that the distinction between AK and Barden is meaningless? Even then, that determination has limited predictive power over whether STL’s record will actually be better by employing AK.
 
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t use the stats available for any purpose whatsoever or that it’s not fun making our own assumptions to fill in missing data (like saying Thurston should just equal Jeff Kent defensively as if that determination is anything more than a convenient assumption). But we should be careful about using statistics (most especially predictive ones) to “prove too much.”

In sum, I have still not seen any analysis that shows within any sort of reasonable margin for error (given the statistics available) that AK is expected to be an “appreciably” better player this year than the other options. And I doubt I will because the statistics available simply aren’t that good when making such fine distinctions, and because, on the merits, AK really isn’t appreciably better (or worse, probably) than the other guys. Given that there’s about 6 “other guys” and that STL was on the hook for AK’s $4MM no matter what, dumping AK was no loss at all.

is Wainwright, Pujols, Molina, and Carps team to lead now; with Ank (and maybe C-Dunc — we’ll see how the Spring goes) getting super nice treatment; Welle, Ludwick, Glaus, Loshe, Franklin, and K-Bot getting preferred treatment; Motte, Perez, and Miller being recognized and everyone else just battling it out.

this move is so fucking obvious.

you try to trade a guy for a while. no one wants him.

you tell everyone he’s your starter, because you want leverage in trade talks.

everyone is smart enough to know that you don’t really care about kennedy.

so no team offers you even a shitstained prospect for adam kennedy, even if you cover the contract.

you approach spring training, and you could have traded the guy and wasted 4mil to get some terrible prospect, IF ANYONE would have offered that. but no one did. why would they?

so you just cut the guy and move on.

and you don’t have to worry about the destraction an old dude who had started most of his career at that position might create for your team. instead, you’re left with a wide open competition amongst young dudes who are playing for a starting job for the first time in their careers.

If you are going to dump him, cut him midway through ST. Atleast see if we have a decent replacement in the system.

You and tom s. seem to think that we should hold on to him until April, and then cut him loose. Why? What does it accomplish? So we use him and his $4M as an insurance policy until we see what the other 4 guys can do? Pfffft. I’d rather just cut ties with him and move forward. There will be a scrap heap signing or trade out there to make if we absolutely have to.

Why does everyone assume that Kennedy won’t regress to his 2007 (injured) form? He wasn’t very good in 2006 either and he wasn’t hurt that season. Everyone who hates this move assumes that his bat will suck and his glove will be awesome and I’m just not sure that you can make a good case for that.

I wanted Kennedy gone too but not like this. If you are going to dump him, cut him midway through ST. Atleast see if we have a decent replacement in the system. Give Mozeliak more time to find a trade partner after Cabrera and Hudson sign elsewhere.

This is what some who are glad we cut bait fail to see… The lack of risk in keeping him for at least a short amount of time. What if Utley, Uggla or someone else goes down during spring and the others have signed? Would there be a market then? Wouldn’t it be better to hold on to AK during spring just to see how everything plays out. Even if he bitches, even if he mopes, even if the other players work out fine?

There was no risk in holding onto him for a little while longer.

Tony’s ego forced the team to eat $4 M and get NOTHING for it

Mo had Oct 1 – Feb 8 to get something for AK. Either there were no takers or Mo did a shitty job negotiating a trade. Either way, I think it is inaccurate to say Tony woke up on Feb 9th and demand AK’s release. This move was planned out in October and assisted by AK’s request for a trade.

who would work for less than $1m right now. Durham said he would reject such a contract.

Adam Kennedy is much better than, say, David Eckstein who took a $850,000 contract. He’s a negative offensive contributor (only a couple runs better than Kennedy) and has been worth an average of -6 runs defensively over the past four seasons.

if mo had shed kennedy for $1m or even $750K, we’d be ahead of where we are today financially. i’m surprised that no one would take him at that kind of deal. if that’s the case, grudzielanek may be seeing his family a lot this summer.

stop acting like you know everything!!!!!!!!!

You’re out here making assumptions that fit your own personal dislike of Tony LaRussa again.

We know that Tony doesn’t like Adam Kennedy. But you can’t assume that because he doesn’t like Adam Kennedy that he was a the sole reason that Adam Kennedy is no longer here. Maybe Luhnow and Mo decided that the in house options have a good chance to outperform Adam if given a shot, so they decided to cut ties with him and give the other guys a great chance to win a spot on a big league ball club.

Stop using a personal vendetta against Tony to crucify him for moves that were made by the organization.

a ball or two will slip through the infield every other game more than would get by kennedy. it doesn’t jump out at you. but if you pick up enough ground ball hits, you start losing runs. if you lose enough runs, that starts costing you a whole game’s worth of runs.

it’s sort of like having a leak in your sink. it’s very hard to eyeball the leak for thirty seconds and tell how bad it is. the best way to tell is to put a five-gallon bucket underneath, come back in an hour and judge. that way you can say — I’m losing three gallons every hour — if I don’t fix this today, it could ruin the house.

or, you’ll find out, i’m losing a pint every hour — not the biggest deal. put a pan under it and i’ll get to it next week.

that’s why it’s worth tracking these stats.

he’s gonna be better parachuted into second base?

You see his cabinet? He’s got 7 of everything.