Three for you. One, two, three for me.
Scott Boras declined to toss out a specific dollar figure in his public sales pitch for outfielder Matt Holliday on Tuesday. But he spent enough time comparing Holliday to his last big position player free agent—Mark Teixeira—to create a distinct impression what kind of money he has in mind.
Boras called Holliday one of “less than 30 franchise players’’ in the major leagues, and indicated that he considers Holliday on a similar plane with Teixeira, who signed an eight-year, $180 million contract with the New York Yankees last winter.
“I’m not here to put ceilings on players,’’ Boras said. “But certainly, I think the comparison of the type of players they are and the impact they could bring ... it’s there for the two of them.’
...In an ESPN.com general managers’ meeting poll this week, 11 of 20 GMs, scouts and other baseball officials preferred Holliday to Bay head-to-head. Holliday won points among survey respondents for being two years younger, more athletic, and a better baserunner and defensive player. Bay’s supporters cited his ability to put up numbers in a demanding market in Boston.
Boras, understandably, took issue with Urbon’s characterization of Bay as the better all-around player.
“I represent Matt Holliday and I’ll serve as an advocate,’’ Boras said. “I don’t know what criteria [Urbon] is looking at. All I can tell you is that I’ve been around baseball for a long time, and the reality is that Matt Holliday is a complete player.”
Repoz
Posted: November 11, 2009 at 04:28 AM |
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1. Jim (jimmuscomp) Posted: November 11, 2009 at 05:31 AM (#3384663)BTW, I am fine with all of that. My hope is that GM's are smart enough to realize what they are looking at and that they are getting played; history shows I am foolish for thinking that.
Exhibit A, Gary Matthews Jr.
"F" you, Bill Stoneman....
That's not much of an edge, is it? That basically makes it a tossup.
He did a good job being an "it" guy for Colorado's run in '07. Basically put the team on his back.
Probably in that whole being equally valuable way.
Sure, there's an AL/NL split, but it's not a massive chasm. Anyway, 400 PAs of 120 OPS+ is probably a stretch to call a struggle, especially if you see that he hit .240/.288/.360 in his first 80 PAs, then hit .299/.400/.480 over his next 320 before being traded.
If you believe in defense, why would you believe in 'reputation' over the metrics that show that Teixeira is probably around a +4 projected defender at 1B and Holliday is around a +4 projected defender in LF?
Pass.
Holliday's a year older than Teixeira was in his free agent year, but he looks like he's very similar in value if you use the numbers and not stuff like reputation and intangibles.
I probably wouldn't go more than 6 yrs/$100M for him though.
Because if teams are going to pay for 'defense' they're going do more based on rep and scouting then they are going to base it on the defensive metrics that is going to be pounded into them that defense measured currently can't really be relied to measure defense season to season accurately because its a small sample size issue, and also how LF's are being used recently. When you have teams putting guys like Scotty Pods, Juan Pierre, and Randy Winn in the corner spots, the expectation for offense for an outfielder is going to be lowered, while a 1st baseman's offense is supposed to be elite. Holliday's in a catch-22, defense is supposedly being taken into account, but the GMs aren't going to take his defensive metrics seriously. And yes, that damn crotch shot he took in game 2 of the NLDS is going to be on GM's minds.
But you would for Texieria?
OK, but his marginal revenue to the Yankees is probably more than it is to you
Did you just watch the World Series? Tex batted .136 with an OPS of .614. If the Yanks had lost, he would be the new A Rod. (Who am I kidding, the media would still blame A Rod)
Do you have evidence of this? Is there some reason to think that no team that is in on Holliday uses objective data as part of their defensive evaluation? Also, if you are doing a good defensive projection, you're incorporating multiple years of data, which means SSS should be less of a concern. With Holliday and Teixeira, that means you have numbers in different leagues, in different ballparks, and behind different pitching staffs which should help correct for at least some of the mitigating factors that can skew defensive performance statistically.
Again, what's your evidence on this?
Well, you're buying one less season of Holliday's peak if you sign him from 30 on compared to signing Teixeira from 29 on. I also think the market has had more options for corner OF than it has had for 1B the last two seasons, which makes Teixeira the beneficiary of positional scarcity. We saw that with Bobby Abreu in 2008.
If Teixeira were a free agent in 2010, I probably wouldn't go more than 7 years for him if I could help it, with a higher per annum I suppose. I have a tough time seeing a justification that Teixeira would be 1.5 wins better per season than Holliday, which is what he'd probably have to be to get to his $22M annual average compared to the $17M that 6yr/$100M to Holliday equals. Maybe Holliday should be closer to 6yrs/$120M?
True. Until baseball implements its hard cap, the Yankees are going to constantly use their financial advantage over me to buy the pennant and it's pretty damn annoying.
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