I'm sorry about your Dad, Shredder. Take care.

How hard would it have been to say "hey, we love you and thanks for all the fish, but you just don't fit in with our current plans"?

They may have been budgeting in Greinke at that time.

For reals Shredder. 12 years on, at least I don't feel like I am stuck in time. Best regards to you and your family.

Gavin Floyd for Trumbo. Make this happen, Rick!

(Um, if you and Robin are willing to trot Viciedo out there at third or something)

#15 I believe the confusion comes as to whether you're discussing market value or the value of the player as a revenue generating asset. As I've said often enough, somewhere around half of all free agent signings are (when judged after the fact) objectively poor deals.

That said, any signing that moves a team from just missing the playoffs to in basically pays for itself.

EDIT: I see the discussion was about something else

I'm sure he does, but going from +33% to -22% HR takes Hamilton down from the elite to the merely very good. Problem is, they paid for elite. He's not durable and they get him from ages 32-37. I don't think this is as disastrous as the Pujols contract, but this would have been a much better contract in Arlington.

No offense, but do you understand park factors?

Yes, Hamilton may lose a lot of HR -- although he's had little H/R split the last 2 years, a big one in 2010 -- but that's OK because he's going to a park where the opponents will also have a hard time hitting HRs.

The "lg" numbers for Anaheim last year were 247/310/397. For Hamilton to be as valuable in Anaheim as Texas in 2012, that translates to 262/328/529. That looks "bad" in comparison to his 285/354/577 but is exactly the same OPS+ with the same shape. Still, based on last year, that's only 25-39 fewer total bases so, at most, only 6 fewer HR ... or maybe 10 fewer HR but 8 more doubles or something.

Now, if you can show that Tex was particularly good for Hamilton _relative to other batters_ or Anaheim will be particularly bad for Hamilton _relative to other batters_ then you've got a point. For example if Anaheim is -22% for LHB HR but 0% for RHB HR while Texas was +33% for both, then we would expect Hamilton's relative value to take a bit of a hit.

Or, as I noted, maybe this will weigh on Hamilton psychologically. I don't put a lot of stock in such stuff but I can't rule it out. That 262/328/529 overall might well be something like 240/300/470 at home and he could start pressing even though that's perfectly good production for Anaheim. That is I'm perfectly willing to believe that Hamilton doesn't really understand park effects and Hamilton will want to "make good" on his big new contract and maybe Angels' fans and media don't understand park effects leading to stress for Hamilton.

But moving from Texas to Anaheim has absolutely no effect on whether Hamilton is elite or very good because those are relative not absolute comparisons. (I don't consider him "elite" anyway.)

Marcels for 2013 without an age adjustment: 5.5 bWAR, 6.0 fWAR

knock off .5 per seasion and for 2013-2017 we have

bWAR: 20
fWAR: 22.5

However you slice it, this isn't bad.

With long deals with aging stars, I think there's a hit that doesn't get calculated into the price. That's the chance that a useful chunk of a team's payroll is going to a player with no value, and the cost of that in damaging the club's chance at the postseason.

Hamilton's deal isn't that long as these things go, but say ARod's insurance doesn't kick in, and he's out of the league in two years. Over the remainder of his deal even the Yankees are under a serious handicap.

Seems to be this possibility has more than the contract's $ cost to it, but damned if I know how or even if to compute it. I guess what I'm saying badly is that there's a hidden cost to long, big contracts that don't exist for 1/6 deals. We've seen teams simply sunk and unable to compete when big contracts go south, and that's a cost beyond, say, Soriano returning 50m of value less than he's being paid.

Oh, and Hamilton's huge year was spurred by a .390 BABIP. Is that enough of an outlier to make it absurdly unlikely that he'll reach that again?

In other words, there are flukes, and then there are flukes that are so fluky we should regress them in our calculations. Should we be counting his 8 win season as a 6.5 win season (or something) for the sake of projection if his BABIP is essentially unrepeatable (and should we do the same with unusually bad seasons)?

Better men than I might have done the simplest form of that study, looking at big, outlying HR seasons. I wonder what that would tell us--do the better projection systems do a good job of dealing with outlier stats, or is that an area for improvement?

Best wishes Shredder. Its kinda like a dog learning to walk without its tail. All the necessary appendages are still there but ... something just doesn't feel right. And won't for a while. Hang in there.

Yes, Shredder, I hope you're checking this thread. My father died 11 months ago, and this is exactly the sort of news item I'd call him up about. That's the worst part, practically reaching for the phone and then remembering. It doesn't get "better" so much as become part of what life's about, I reckon. Best wishes.

Marcels for 2013 without an age adjustment: 5.5 bWAR, 6.0 fWAR

That can't be right. Over the last 3 years, Hamilton has totalled only 15.3 WAR and it only gets worse (on a per year basis) the further you go back. A quick 5/3/2 Marcel puts him at 4.5 bWAR. Or were you doing WAR/PA then projecting him to a full season?

The only way Hamilton looks like a 5-WAR player is if you go back 3 years and only 3 years. 7 WAR the last 2 years, 16 WAR the last 4, 21 WAR the last 5. Or you assume he's going to get 700 PA a year.

In other words, there are flukes, and then there are flukes that are so fluky we should regress them in our calculations. Should we be counting his 8 win season as a 6.5 win season (or something) for the sake of projection if his BABIP is essentially unrepeatable (and should we do the same with unusually bad seasons)?

All of the projection systems do this. They project based on components with some components heavily regressed and others less so. BABIP is generally heavily regressed. But then, regressed or not, that was one hell of a year ... 8.4 WAR but in only 571 PA. Still his BABIP career is similar to his WAR -- he's got a 335 BABIP despite having only one season over that and one season just below.

As to fluke years, Tango did a study ages ago. Players do retain a chunk of the "fluke" but lose a lot too -- would be helpful if I could remember how much.

Walt, I appreciate your putting in more time than my crude post could possibly have deserved. I added in my head as I was typing in my 19th hour without sleep, and simply miswrote.

Thanks for the information and the reference to Tango. I'll look for the study. I'll also be very interested to see who regresses what, and by how much. I imagine it makes sense to most heavily regress the most random stats.

Why don't you post in the political thread, if you don't mind my asking?