Are ZiPS going to be on BTF this year or elsewhere?

no metaphor as accurately describes the situation the Los Angeles Dodgers find themselves in

It's definitely become a whole new ball game in the NL West. One might say that the train wreck that was the 2012 Red Sox season, combined with the expected "TV rights bubble" and the liberation from that rat Mccourt, created a perfect storm- Boston's toxic assets make great lipstick on LA's bankrupt pig of a team, and this really bails Boston out. It's a shining example of the invisible hand in action. Still, despite this tsunami of a trade, the Giants remain the class of the division; they'll weather this storm like it's 1962.

So, the Sox got Allen Webster, a so - so prospect (which is better than being a non-prospect)

Ivan De Jesus (non-prospect)

2 to be named (assume non-prospect)

and James Loney's desiccated corpse...

and oh, the Sawx also got several metric tonnes of salary relief...

I mean jeebus that's a lot of money, sure the 2012 Dodgers are in the hunt, sure even if in decline AGon is a big improvement over Loney, and they didn't give up anyone they were gonna use in 2012 or even 2013, but wow there's gonna be a lot of deadweight in 2013/2014 on that payroll

Are ZiPS going to be on BTF this year or elsewhere?

fangraphs

2 to be named (assume non-prospect)

No. One of them is Rubby de la Rosa, a prospect.

but wow there's gonna be a lot of deadweight in 2013/2014 on that payroll

I guess I typically think of deadweight as players that are of absolutely no use anymore, but are paid a lot of money (John Lackey for example). Carl Crawford is proably dead weight, although he's still young enough that he can bounce back and give you decent value. Beckett is a decent bounceback candidate. AGone will almost certainly bounce back. Yea, they're overpaid, but looking at the Dodgers 2013 payroll, it seems like deadweight would be like $7 million for Juan Uribe. The Crawford contract is really problematic in that he'll be a millstone in 2016, 2017, etc. and by then who knows what the Dodgers financial situation will be.

3) why are you assuming? - we know who they are. sands (corner of/1b, bit better prospect than dejesus) and de la rosa (not quite as good of a prospect as webster, but pretty good). sickels has them as 2 B+, a C/C+, and a C.
loney, presumably, is gone at the end of the year (non-tender).

No. One of them is Rubby de la Rosa, a prospect.

And a very, very good one, despite a lot of commentary to the contrary.

(EDIT: I was referring to media types, not 'Der_K's #7.)

One of the fun things about language is those little metaphors that spice things up, like hot peppers on a juicy sandwich.

Hey! That's a simile!

EDIT: Removed profanity lest it be construed as a sincere attempt to insult Dan

It's worth contrasting Dan's piece with Jonah Keri's on Grantland. Keri's point is basically that the Dodgers are laughing at the whole luxury-tax concept, basically exposing baseball's luxury-tax threshold as an easy excuse for rich teams to cap their spending at an arbitrary level and rake in more profits as a result. If the Dodgers continue to be the only team ignoring the tax, they'll have a huge competitive edge.

From a baseball standpoint - man, I don't know. It seems like a horrible deal from the current snapshot - Gonzalez having his worst year, Crawford hurt, Beckett mediocre, and all three wearing the stench of the clubhouse disaster at Fenway. That said, Crawford's been riddled with injuries, and he's only 2 years removed from posting 7.6 WAR in 2010. The Dodgers are obviously banking on Crawford's returning to form and figuring that they'd rather throw that kind of coin at him than, say, Josh Hamilton, who comes with his own suitcase full of baggage. If Crawford can return to the star-level performance of 2009-10 for a few years, the Dodgers won't think twice about what he's being paid. That's a hell of a risk, though.

Did anyone else notice that their entire outfield (Crawford/Kemp/Ethier) is locked up through at least 2017, by which time Yasiel Puig will be earning $8.5M in the final year of his 7-year, $42M contract?

I think Josh is going to go sub 4.00 ERA til the end of the season, and that the Dodgers are stacked for the next two years at least.

And there's a lot to be said for Mediocre. Dice-K's mediocre 2007 netted 3.8 WAR....or . 7 WAR more than anyone else on the 2012 Sox right now.

Did anyone else notice that their entire outfield (Crawford/Kemp/Ethier) is locked up through at least 2017, by which time Yasiel Puig will be earning $8.5M in the final year of his 7-year, $42M contract?

Or Ethier will be playing elsewhere.

I don't see why Crawford is so widely considered a lost cause. He's averaged 4.1 fWAR/600 PA for his career excluding his Age 20 and Age 21 seasons. Fast players and players who make the majors early are considered better bets to age, right? He was a decent hitter in limited action in 2012 with a shredded elbow. Even if he's a 3 WAR player over the rest of his contract that's Market Value as Swartz reckoned on Fangraphs. He's got upside beyond that level. Isn't he just the kind of player a big market team with a gaping hole in LF should take on? Is he worse than signing Shane Victorino to a multi-year deal? Is there a better FA option? Maybe Hamilton, but there's no guarantee they'd actually be able to sign him in a free market. The only really bad contract I see is Beckett's and it's only for 2 years. It's not that big a deal.

Did anyone else notice that their entire outfield (Crawford/Kemp/Ethier) is locked up through at least 2017, by which time Yasiel Puig will be earning $8.5M in the final year of his 7-year, $42M contract?

Maybe Kemp will need to move to a corner and Ethier to first...Oh yeah, Adrian Gonzalez. I guess we'll be seeing a trade before then, assuming Puig pans out.

It's worth contrasting Dan's piece with Jonah Keri's on Grantland. Keri's point is basically that the Dodgers are laughing at the whole luxury-tax concept, basically exposing baseball's luxury-tax threshold as an easy excuse for rich teams to cap their spending at an arbitrary level and rake in more profits as a result. If the Dodgers continue to be the only team ignoring the tax, they'll have a huge competitive edge.

They might have a competitive edge, but their finances might not look so great. I'm still trying to figure out how owning the Dodgers is going to be great for Guggenheim's investors. Even if the Dodgers clear $50 or $75 million year after year in pure profit, that seems like a lousy ROI on a $2.15 billion "all cash" investment. Oddly, T.J. Simers has been the only one even inquiring about the financial aspects of the sale, Guggenheim, etc.

that seems like a lousy ROI on a $2.15 billion "all cash" investment.

Why would you think the capital structure is going to remain 100% cash?

As soon as they get their shiny new TV deal, I'd expect them to borrow out the wazoo to pull cash out of the team.

I don't see why Crawford is so widely considered a lost cause.

I don't consider him a lost cause; I consider the contract to be a vast overpay.

The contract was silly when signed; he HAD to be as good as the extreme measures of his defense, and even then he was moving into Fenway's LF. Since then, he's two years older and has done very little in the two years except gotten hurt. And yet the Dodgers picked up the rest of his contract anyway. It was assumed that the deal would at least provide good value on the front end, and that hasn't happened. No team in their right mind would have signed him to this deal now. (Granted the Dodgers took it on in order to get Gonzalez/Beckett along with it, but that doesn't mean the deal is suddenly a good one.)

Ethier is a guy who has always, and still does, need a platoon partner. Combine that with Crawford's health history, and I don't see why they couldn't keep and utilize all four guys.

The Crawford contract is really problematic in that he'll be a millstone in 2016, 2017, etc. and by then who knows what the Dodgers financial situation will be.

He'll be a Yankee.

Seriously, I think the odds of him being a Dodger in 2017 are less than 50%.

Crawford can be the final piece of the puzzle for the Red Sox's 2015 stretch run.

Why would you think the capital structure is going to remain 100% cash?

As soon as they get their shiny new TV deal, I'd expect them to borrow out the wazoo to pull cash out of the team.

But borrowing out the wazoo would require MLB approval, and it's unclear that MLB would allow them to do so while leaving the advantageous McCourt agreement intact. As it is, MLB owners are likely to go nuts if the rumored McCourt deal is true — per Forbes, only $84M of the Dodgers TV money will need to be declared for revenue-sharing purposes — so I doubt any additional financial favors will be granted by the Commissioner's Office anytime soon. Time will tell, I guess.

modigliani-miller says valuation should be independent of financing (of course, due to tax deductibility of interest, it isn't, but anyway...).

did deadspin ever get leaked dodgers fiancials? i'd love to know what their P&L looked like. at $2.1bn, even if they're clearing $100mm of ebitda per year that's still a 21x multiple, which is super high. they must be anticipating ebitda to double (or more) under the new tv deal.

18 -- maybe they re-sign Victorino. A Victorino/Ethier platoon would be one of the better outfielders in the league (if paid as one person and taking up only one roster spot).

I haven't done a lot of analysis on the subject, but a small sample-size look at Victorino's arm leads me to believe it doesn't belong in any outfield.

If Victorino's annoying look-at-me shtick were combined with Ethier's self-entitled pouting, that player would easily be the biggest douche in the league. Or maybe second behind Nyjer Morgan.

looks like dodgers holdco ebitda was less than $20mm (see page 7) for june 2011 - sept 2011. i have no idea how the seasonality of baseball earnings is (do players get paid all year? how are broadcast and ticket revenues recognized?) but this suggests to me that Dodgers' ebitda was at most $60mm. so guggenheim paid at least 35x ebitda? wow.

I don't see why Crawford is so widely considered a lost cause.

"Lost cause" is an absolute descriptor that I don't think anyone has used. If you're wondering why people consider his contract an albatross, consider:

2011 WAR: 0.0
2012 WAR: 0.4

He's been a replacement level player for one season, and lost a second to injury. He certainly could bounce back, but I don't think anyone would bet 5/90 on it. Projection systems are going to expect him to be a below average player next year. You say, "even if he's a 3 WAR player" as if that's his worst case scenario. I don't see how that can be a worst case scenario when you have 2011 and 2012 as the most recent evidence of Crawford's baseball value.

Right before the 2013 season I'll be making some kind of Bref bet about how AGon, Beckett and Crawford will accumulate 11 WAR among them. I need to get a handle on when Crawford will be coming back first.

But borrowing out the wazoo would require MLB approval, and it's unclear that MLB would allow them to do so while leaving the advantageous McCourt agreement intact. As it is, MLB owners are likely to go nuts if the rumored McCourt deal is true — per Forbes, only $84M of the Dodgers TV money will need to be declared for revenue-sharing purposes — so I doubt any additional financial favors will be granted by the Commissioner's Office anytime soon. Time will tell, I guess.

But, they can borrow up to the MLB limit (60%??) without approval.

Scene: Dodgers win WS on Gonzalez homer. Mattingly interviewed on TV, says "I must admit, without the trade there would have been no victory."
Little green head pops in and says "Victory? Victory, you say? Master Obi-Don, not a victory. The shroud of the Evil Empire has fallen. Begun, the Bidding War has."

do players get paid all year?

The uniform player contact (at least the one used through 2011) said they were only paid during the regular season.

Scene: Dodgers win WS on Gonzalez homer. Mattingly interviewed on TV, says "I must admit, without the trade there would have been no victory."
Little green head pops in and says "Victory? Victory, you say? Master Obi-Don, not a victory. The shroud of the Evil Empire has fallen. Begun, the Bidding War has."

Except Tommy Lasorda is not green.

But, they can borrow up to the MLB limit (60%??) without approval.

I thought any loan needed MLB approval, with the debt limits simply providing a general ceiling.

guggenheim paid at least 35x ebitda? wow.

Didn't the deal also include a partnership with McCourt that owns 250 acres of prime real estate. What is the value of that? The revenue generated by the land is likely not recorded in the books of the teams operating company which would through the 35x multiplier out of whack. I also remember hearing that McCourt couldn't raise the money to develop the land. Now that he has Guggenheim as a partner raising capital should be easier.

I will say this about the trade:

The fact that the Sox held out for prospects tells me they got away from "This is how good the players are now" and correctly put more weight on "Come on. This is what's going to happen. AGon is a great upgrade, Josh will be happy to get out of town and Crawford will love playing in a bigger stadium and not under the microscope. Take it or leave it, cause if you leave it then, I'm not going to cry about having an elite 1B and a LF who looked like he was coming back before his surgery.We're rich and we'll live".

One thing that cannot be discounted is the dollar value of being in the playoffs and seriously contending for the WS ( even winning it ! ).
So the increased revenue from that is worth a marginal investment of $100 mill over the $2.1 bil.
The 2.1 bil is definitely an overpay, if the Dodgers be a boring, middle of the road team. But if they are flashy, show they are serious about winning the whole shebang, they might get the whole Dodger faithful back along with a X4 load of LA bandwagoners.

Walter O'Malley's formula in the sixties was, get the movie stars interested in the Dodgers and they'll get everyone else interested in the Dodgers. They could do worse than trying that philosophy again.

Dodgers vs Yankees.

Beckett pitchs a series-winning shut-out...Dodgers carry him around the field. Yank fans say "they don't care, as beating the Red Sox in 2003 is all that counts."

Auspicious start to Josh's LA career.

And a very, very good one, despite a lot of commentary to the contrary.

Not in my book. He's a smallish pitcher with command issues, both in and out of the zone. Sometimes these guys become Pedro Martinez, more often they don't.

-- MWE

I only remember one Pedro.

Also what is the market value of 250 acres near dodger stadium... 2mm per acre? Seems high. Back off 500mm from the purchase price and you're still talking >25x ebitda

I only remember one Pedro.

Well, actually there were two Pedro Martinezes, so Mike is covered either way :-)

Fast players and players who make the majors early are considered better bets to age, right?

Grrr....

The first is fine. The second is clearly spurious.

Being fast makes you a better player (all else equal) and being athletic (as indicated by speed) might be a good predictor of aging well.

But you're not a good player because you make the majors early, you make the majors early (in general) because you're a good player. Good players are more likely to "age well" (by which we primarily mean remain productive) and good players are more likely to make the majors early. But the Rays deciding to promote Crawford at age 20 didn't (in any obvious way) make him a better player.

Crawford's early promotion is probably more the result of the 2002 Rays sucking (55-106) and the 2002 Rays playing Jason Tyner in LF at the start of the year (was this the Bobblehead year?), then an aging unproductive Vaughn, then a couple guys sitting around on the bench. Crawford making the majors at 20 tells us the same thing about him as Kranepool making the majors at 17-18 tells us about him -- nothing really. This must be doubly true now that he's got 6000 PA. (2*0 is still 0 :-)

Sorry, that one's been bugging me for a while. But the most you can conclude from a player making the majors early is that somebody in that organization thinks that player is gonna be good. And even that is stretching things a bit when you have a context like the 2002 Rays where probably the most you can conclude is that somebody decided he was their best option at the time. Now if the guy comes up at 19-20 with huge prospect buzz that might tell you something -- mainly that a lot of people think he's gonna be pretty good which is more reliable. I'm sure there was some buzz about Crawford at the time but I don't recall anything like a Starlin Castro much less a Griffey level of buzz.

As to Dan's shocking headline! Yeah, this might be a trade that's bad for both teams. As I said in the Simmons thread, from Henry's perspective, this looks like a great deal. But that doesn't make it a good deal from the Red Sox baseball perspective. And the risk here for the Dodgers is obvious. Putting the most "rational" spin on it from the Dodgers' perspective, I assume their thinking is something like this:

a) Gonzalez is going to return to form -- big baseball value, reasonable return on contract.

b) thinking of the pitching FA market, do we really think Beckett is a worse bet than Edwin Jackson, Anibal Sanchez, Dan Haren, Kyle Lohse? Can we get those guys for less than $12 per? Doesn't Beckett have a higher upside than any of those except maybe Haren?

c) Crawford -- and this is where it just all breaks down. 5/$102 left on that contract. OK, 5/$90 with the money from the Sox. But, really, you're pushing it to think you're gonna break even on Gonzalez and Beckett. And you've given up some talent to get them. It does seem that for this trade to work well, Crawford has to be about a 3-WAR player. He might, it's maybe even a reasonable upside but why would you bet on it after his 2011-12.

Mainly I just can't believe the Dodgers couldn't get more cash out of this than they did. Or if Bud was putting pressure on not to set some sort of precedent by tossing in $50 M or something (not sure that's a precedent), keep one of DeLaRosa or Webster or ship another crappy contract along or get back a young reliever, something.

So in the end, the most rational explanation may just be that Colletti ain't the brightest bulb. And was Kasten still with the Nats when they offered Werth that contract? I forget, did they make that offer to Werth only after losing out on Crawford? Maybe Kasten does think Crawford is that good.

Right before the 2013 season I'll be making some kind of Bref bet about how AGon, Beckett and Crawford will accumulate 11 WAR among them. I need to get a handle on when Crawford will be coming back first.

Even if they do... So what? They'll cost nearly $60 million combined. Obviously any time you can get 11 WAR out of three players it's a good thing due to scarcity, but that's basically FA market rate for 11 WAR. If the Red Sox can replace 9 of that WAR at market rates and still have 3 solid prospects and a minimum salary UIF out of the deal they still come out ahead.

was Kasten still with the Nats when they offered Werth that contract? I forget, did they make that offer to Werth only after losing out on Crawford? Maybe Kasten does think Crawford is that good.

Actually I think it was the converse of this situation. The Red Sox missed out on Werth, so they decided to overpay Crawford.

Being fast makes you a better player (all else equal) and being athletic (as indicated by speed) might be a good predictor of aging well.

I think for very fast players, the general pattern has been early peak, and very slow, steady decline.

Raines, Lofton, Henderson all follow this pattern. Johnny Damon, too, to a lesser extent. I see Crawford as basically Lofton without the throwing arm, but with a bit more power. Lofton was never a great player after age 32, but hung around as a legitimate major leaguer until age 40, and was a 2.3 WAR player who could handle centerfield even then, and it was surprising that no one picked up him for another season. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Crawford turned out similarly - that he never has another all-star caliber season, but that he's also able to stay on a roster and contribute well past age 35.

This is a dumb trade, but its about goddam time the Dodgers started acting like Yankees west

If the Red Sox can replace 9 of that WAR at market rates and still have 3 solid prospects and a minimum salary UIF out of the deal they still come out ahead.

And if there's one thing the Red Sox have shown the ability to do it's get WAR at market rate. What could go wrong?

The Dodgers traded a couple of good-ish pitching prospects for Adrian Gonzalez and Josh Beckett. They won. Crawford was just the cost of doing business. It's just money folks, and we've got plenty of it out here.

The Dodgers traded a couple of good-ish pitching prospects for Adrian Gonzalez and Josh Beckett. They won.

+1. About as succinct as description of what happened as you can get.

-- MWE

Putting the most "rational" spin on it from the Dodgers' perspective, I assume their thinking is something like this:

a) Gonzalez is going to return to form -- big baseball value, reasonable return on contract.

b) thinking of the pitching FA market, do we really think Beckett is a worse bet than Edwin Jackson, Anibal Sanchez, Dan Haren, Kyle Lohse? Can we get those guys for less than $12 per? Doesn't Beckett have a higher upside than any of those except maybe Haren?

c) Crawford -- and this is where it just all breaks down. 5/$102 left on that contract. OK, 5/$90 with the money from the Sox. But, really, you're pushing it to think you're gonna break even on Gonzalez and Beckett. And you've given up some talent to get them. It does seem that for this trade to work well, Crawford has to be about a 3-WAR player. He might, it's maybe even a reasonable upside but why would you bet on it after his 2011-12.

(a) Gonzalez's trajectory looks like a pretty typical aging curve - peak around 28 and a slow decline from there. I view him a lot like Mark Teixeira - he'll fall short of the MVP-like expectations people had at the start of the contract, but he'll provide decent value for the buck for the next several years. He's a very solid pickup for a team that has been depending on James Loney at 1B for years.

(b) Fair point, and more importantly, Beckett doesn't require a long-term commitment. Of course, if they hadn't made the deal, they already had 5 starters under contract for 2013 (Kershaw, Billingsley, Lilly, Capuano, Harang). I'm not sure Beckett's all that much of an upgrade on the last two, and even if he is, they'd probably have had Rubby de la Rosa returning to take over one of the two slots at some point next year.

(c) Would you prefer Michael Bourn or Crawford at 5/$90M? If Crawford's elbow isn't a problem going forward, I'm not sure which way I'd go on that. Bourn's a safer bet for steady performance but Crawford has way more upside. Given the Dodgers' resources, I'd probably go with the upside play.

I guess my big issue with the deal, surprisingly, isn't the money itself. The Dodgers have boatloads of it, by all appearances. The bigger issue is giving up de la Rosa and Webster in a deal where they were giving a team a quarter-billion dollars of salary relief. One of the two, maybe, but I can't imagine the Sox would have walked away from this if the Dodgers said either/or on those guys. If that's the quibble on it, though - keeping in mind TINSTAAPP - the deal accomplishes what both teams set out to do.