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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
The Red Sox made a play to re-acquire Marlins superstar Hanley Ramirez after losing out to the rival Yankees for star free agent Mark Teixeira, league sources tell SI.com. But while the Marlins listened to Boston’s overtures, Florida isn’t anxious to trade its best player, and talks apparently have been aborted after no agreement could be reached.
The Marlins were said to be most interested in a center fielder, and discussions apparently centered on Boston’s promising youngster Jacoby Ellsbury, talented pitching prospect Clay Buchholz and others in a package for Ramirez, who began in Boston’s organization.
The Red Sox first targeted Teixeira as a way to upgrade their offense, but after the rival Yankees won that bidding with their $180 million proposal over eight years (Boston was believed to be offering at least $170 million over eight guaranteed years plus two additional years that could be voided by the team based on plate appearances), Ramirez briefly became an appetizing alternative.
Tripon
Posted: December 30, 2008 at 04:46 AM | 215 comment(s)
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Oh! Well!
Incidentally, I don't necessarily agree that 1/$15 for Pettitte is fair market value. I think it's probably a bit of an overpay, how many pitchers are making $15 or more next season? But I think it is profoundly silly to keep calling it "below-market" when we're comparing to a market (Multi-year deals for Andy Pettitte) which simply doesn't exist. No team is offering one, no agent is asking for one.
For AJ, you're ignoring the fact that his deal is for 5 years. There's a significant discount there.
But if you don't like Lowe and Burnett, what, then, would you like to use as a basis for Pettitte value?
Are you arguing that Gagne would have gotten $10 mil/year or more on a multiyear deal? I doubt that very much.
The Yankees are demanding he take a contract with a $/year figure that would be below his market value even if they were offering three years. That's the side that seems silly to me, and so I expect that they'll move toward Pettitte's more reasonable position.
I'm not talking about monetary cost or worth. I'm talking about value towards winning games. A 6 WAR player is more valuable than two 3 WAR players in that regard.
I'm fine with Burnett, but you and I disagree on what AAV discount should be applicable for the length of the contract.
What is the market value for 37 year-old pitchers coming off a 98 ERA+ season during the current economic climate? Is it really that much more than what the 31 year-old Ted Lilly signed for prior to the 2007 season?
If we're going by Chone, that's fine, but let's be consistent. Lowrie's Chone projection is for 448 ABs. In a full time role, you can increase that by 1/4 or so (more if you want a truly fair comparison to Hanley, based strictly on talent and not on where they are placed in the batting order). Do that and Lowrie's now a 2.4 WAR player (with average defense). But then you have to compare it to Chone's take on Hanley, which projects him at 4.6 WAR if you assume he's a -7 fielder.
After he blew up for the Sox? No. But if he had gotten thirty-five cheap saves for the Crew (and, of course, the economy was in a better place), I could see a second-tier team giving him a "back of the baseball card" contract for double-digits per year over four.
Seriously?
Pettitte is offering to go short on years and demanding a contract that precisely compensates him for going short on years.
I don't see why the Yanks "should" give him what he thinks he's worth when they obviously think he's worth less. Even the numbers you cited say he's worth 12 mil. If he wants to sign a deal that will compensate him for doing something he wants to do, he can go else where. Oh wait, he can't. Why not play hard ball here?
He hasn't made a concession.
Exactly, he hasn't made a concession, no reason he deserves higher compensation for making no concessions.
The Yankees are demanding he take a contract with a $/year figure that would be below his market value even if they were offering three years. That's the side that seems silly to me, and so I expect that they'll move toward Pettitte's more reasonable position.
You know what sounds silly to me. Caving to a 38 year old, injury prone, barely above average pitcher who only wants to pitch in New York. The Yanks spent a ton of money this year, going over and above what others offered to get some great front line talent, might as well save every dime you can on the back end of the roster. Sure, it's only five mil. But that's half of what it costs to upgrade from Melky to Cameron. I don't doubt that in the end, they'll sign him for more than 10 mil, they might even sign him for 15, but they have plenty of time and Pettitte is kind of stuck, it would be stupid to just give him what he wants.
Just so no one thinks I pulled 3 out of thin air, I would point out that there are other projection systems out there besides Chone. I was using an average of the Marcel and Bill James numbers found on the Fangraphs site. They had him as about 2 runs above average in a full season. Add 20 for replacement level and 7.5 for position, and that's right around 30 runs [3 WAR] if he's an average defender. Fangraphs also had him as worth 1.8 WAR in half a season last year, ~.6 of which came from his defense.
However, so long as we're all in agreement that the Yankees don't actually mean "take it or leave it", and we're just quibbling over a couple million and proper negotiating strategies - seeing the Yankees ultimata as one of these strategies - then I don't think we disagree over very much at all.
How is this relevant to what we're talking about? The argument is that guys get more per year on short deals, even if that's what they want. There's no doubt in my mind that Gagne would have gotten less per year if he had signed a multiyear deal. What happens after said short deal doesn't really apply to the discussion.
That's technically true, but it doesn't really tell the whole story. The Yankees chose not to have Beltran, who would have signed with them for less money than he took from the Mets. They didn't sign A-Rod the first time around to a huge contract but they locked up Jeter for only slightly less money.
The Yankees paid top dollar for a boatload of free agents in the past decade. They are on the leaderboards in highest annual salaries in a number of positions:
SP: Sabathia (#1), Burnett (#6), Pettitte (#7)... and that's ignoring the Clemens 1-year contract
RP: Rivera (#1)
DH: Giambi (#1) or 1B #2
C: Posada (#1)
1B: Tex (#1)
2B: Cano (#3)
SS: Jeter (#1)
3B: A-Rod (#1)
OF: Damon, Matsui (tied #8), Abreu (#10)
The young 2B is the third-highest paid player at the position in the sport! Some other team might break the bank for a single player, but the Yankees will do it three times in one offseason. The Yankees are in a different class of spending than every other team in baseball. I'm not suggesting that they should be criticized for spending... good for them for trying to win. Shame on other teams for not being competitive.
Except that the team with the 6 WAR player has an extra roster spot available, and more importantly, an extra open spot in the lineup or rotation. A team can only have nine guys in the batting order. The 6 WAR guy improves practically every team. The 3 WAR guy is only a significant improvement if the guy he's replacing is worse.
It also won't even be close in cost. There are a lot more 1 WAR players than there are 4 WAR players, and they are much, much cheaper.
How is locking up your own players <strike>before Free Agency</strike> indicative of willingness to spend on a free agent?
Yankee reups from that list number are about half of them.
*EDIT*
I thought about this, and many of them were technically free agents.
Yeah, I bet they cost like 1/4 as much. :)
I think your overall point works a lot better when comparing 3 1-war guys vs. a 3-war guy. You really don't want that many 1-war guys in your lineup, so having 3 of them is not very valuable. That's quite different from the situation here. The Red Sox benefit greatly from having several 3-WAR players in their lineup.
I prefer giving Lowe a little more per year or Perez a little less per year and entertaining the 4th year of a deal.
A full season of playing time is not the most likely outcome for any projection. It is, by definition, the best possible case. A lot of times Tango does the full season projection and then multiplies by .85, which would knock your Lowrie projection down to 2.5
CHONE assigns playing time based on how much a player has proven he can play. It maxes out around 150 games for players who have played everyday for a number of years. Everyone else gets less.
For Lowrie, he's going to have to prove he can handle RHP to meet any of those projections. His splits were extreme last year, but he had 2.2 PA vs righties for every one vs lefties. Pedroia had a 3 to 1 ratio, and that's what Lowrie should expect if he's a fulltimer next year.
Back to the question - outside of contracts, do two 3 WAR players equal the value of a 6 WAR player? (regardless of whether the players discussed meet that standard)
How about 3 2-WAR players? 6 1-WAR players? 24 0.25-WAR players? At some point it breaks down - because you have a limited number of roster spots and playing time to assign. If I was a GM against a computer program that blindly looked at a WAR calculation I think I'd break the program in trades. I'd trade as many scrubs as it takes to build a team of superstars, then pick out the best remaining players from the scrap heap.
What are the odds that the Sox keep a 0 WAR player in their lineup for very long? If they trade two 3 WAR players for one 6 WAR player, they'll fill the open slot with something of value. Even if it's a no-hit, all-glove player that gives them half a win over replacement, that's half a win better off than they were with the other two players.
As far as us BTF Red Sox fans are concerned, that is how the player's name is pronounced.
The James projection has him at 148 G. Lowrie has not missed much time overall. He did miss 40 games in 06, but had 133 (out of a possible 140-ish) in 07 and was available full-time in 08, but spent time as a sub in the Majors. I think it's fair to project him as a full-time player, although it would also be fair to knock 10-15 games off. That would still place him around 2.7.
That's a good point. Lowrie hit righties better in the minors: 0.288 0.393 0.439, 151 BB, 159 K vs. 0.284 0.351 0.465 45 BB, 71 K against lefties. I think the split in the Majors is likely a fluke.
Another thing to consider is league adjustment, right? Shouldn't that also favor Lowrie?
Or how about 7 10-WAR players vs. 1 70-WAR player? When you go absurdly far in either direction, things get silly.
If we try to stay within the bounds of reason, I agree with you that there comes a point where you can't just add WAR up on each side. That's not even the argument I was making from the beginning, although it may have looked like that. Lester and Lowrie are valuable players who are on excellent contracts. Hanley is far more valuable than either of them and arguably more valuable than both of them, but he's on a more expensive contract and it would take 2 more top prospects to get him.
Good call. So true.
James projections are infamously optimistic and Marcel only considers major league stats IIRC.
I agree on James's projections. But remember, when the wRAA is calculated, it's in comparison with the rest of James' projections, so it cancels out. Even if that weren't the case, I used James for both Hanley and Lowrie, so again, it would cancel out.
As for Marcel, removing them doesn't change much in this case.
When I talk to people about the projections, I pronounce it with a hard CH and rhymes with phone. Otherwise they'd just hear "The Sean projections say.." and I don't want to do that, because I'm not RICKEY!.
The CHONE projections, including the WAR part, already include the league difference.
I don't think that's right. James' projections for major leaguers are close with other systems. But he's got minor leaguers way too high. Unless you believe Pablo Sandoval is going to hit .320 with 100 RBI next year.
For Chone, when we account for playing time, we'd have to adjust down from 2.4 to 2.2 for Lowrie. That places him solidly 2.4 wins behind Hanley (who seems like a fair bet to reach the full 150 games his projected for).
Edit: just saw 136. Has Chone been more accurate WRT to minor leaguers? If so, we could limit our discussion to that system.
***
If you don't believe that 2 3WAR players and 1 6WAR players are worth the same, then speak in terms of dollars and tell me how much a 3 WAR player should get in (free agent) salary and how much a 6 WAR player should get.
It's all well and fine to say that they are not the same, but then tell me at how many WAR the one guy needs to match the 2 3WAR guys. 6.1? 6.2? 7? What exactly.
You speak for me? I'm probably the least typical BTF Sox fan here.
Actually, I usually pronounce it that way in my head..
Miami ownership actually appears to be pretty smart in how they convert higher cost players into younger potential. But for whatever reason, Miami isn't the baseball market that NYC is, and they are not going to be able to match the revenues of the big boys.
Someone please stop the talent drain to the chosen few teams.
For my own thinking, I'd rather use WAR to establish baseline values, and then look at particular rosters and particular trade and free agent markets and adjust from there as to the value of particular roster slots on particular teams.
I don't know if it's worth going through all this, but you are saying that I'm being silly, even if hyperbolizing, so I think it mertis a response. I'm fairly sure I can blow the argument above out of the water, but I'd first like to know exactly what you're arguing. Which is it:
a) The 07 championship validates any transaction that was made to bring any of the players to that team.
b) It specifically validates the Beckett/Hanley trade, because they wouldn't have won without Beckett (and Lowell).
c) Something else.
Let me know.
What is another example of this? The Marlins having Hanley signed for the next 6 years after coming from the Boston farm system?
Ok, so give me the range based on your examples. Find me a team that has a bunch of 1-2 WAR players on the bench, and that trading away 2 3WAR guys for a 6 WAR guy is a net plus.
And then tell me at what point would it break-even.
The Dodgers OF might be a good one. But, that's not going to change the value of the OF, because they'll simply trade whatever it is they can't maximize by putting him on the field.
I have not yet been presented (ever!) with any practical example where this 2-for-1 roster-spots has more than a 0.25 win impact either way.
These theoretical objections simply have little foundation, practically speaking.
I would love to be proved wrong.
Yes, Hanley Ramirez turned into one of the best players in baseball, and has been far more consistent at a higher level of production than Josh Beckett, and he's amazingly cost-controlled. No question Florida got more value out of the trade.
But the Red Sox also got lots and lots of value out of the trade. Both sides won, but Florida won more. Both teams have received far more value than they were expected to at the time. I have a lot of trouble calling that "foolish". I don't think it needs to be zero-sum. There's so much uncertainty involved that I'd rather reserve "foolish" for trades when a team didn't get lots and lots of value from the players they traded for.
No. No he did not.
Maybe he will get back to that year, Ben McDonald did. We shall see.
If it makes tons of sense to make that trade, at what point would it be a break-even move? Trading those 2 guys for a 4.5 WAR player?
The reality is that that 1.5 WAR player who is sitting on the bench (say as an OF) can be traded for a 1.5 WAR player who can be a starter in the IF.
And each of these players, the 1.5, the 3, the 6, will all be valued as if they are 6MM, 12MM, and 24MM players respectively (more or less), and will be traded based on those asset valuations.
I don't think anybody would debate that the Red Sox could have had Mike Lowell for nothing. In fact, he was widely considered to have negative value and was part of the cost of getting Josh Beckett. No argument in favor of this trade should rely on Mike Lowell's value because you very easily could get Mike Lowell without giving up Hanley and Sanchez to get him.
I agree with this, except that Hanley didn't have much blossoming to do. From the moment that they traded him, he was an excellent Major League player, and has been more valuable than Beckett every year since the trade. He also makes nothing. The Red Sox gave up the more valuable player who makes a lot less money.
The Red Sox were not devastated by the trade, but they lost it. They came out with less value than they had before, and it's not like they dealt from a position of strength--SS has been an expensive black hole since they dealt Hanley.
BTW, I don't agree with sj on Beckett. He's been excellent each of the past 2 years after his horrific start.
Isn't a 1.5 WAR player getting serious playing time actually badly hurting a team aiming for 95-100 wins, in the sense that he contributes less than the wins expected from his roster spot? And then you would have to go get a 6 WAR player to make up for him.
well if they had gotten Lowell for nothing, that would have been an even better trade. And the other trade would look worse in retrospect. But why not just evaluate it as it actually happened (1 trade), instead of as 2 hypothetical trades?
Beckett pitched the Red Sox to a World Championship. That bumps the trade up to a tie, so far. And it seems unlikey
that Hanley wil ever be the Marlins SS who wins a World Series MVP--not for Florida anyway.
That trade would look great in retrospect. They would have gotten a good player for nothing.
I am evaluating it as one trade, but it doesn't make sense to ignore the realities of the situation. Taking Lowell was a price for getting Beckett--I don't see how that's debatable.
If that's how you see it, I can't really argue because that makes no sense to me.
The Red Sox made a trade that was considered a reasonable exchange at the time (if I recall the analysis when it happened). The Red Sox got better value from the deal than they expected, since Lowell's return to form was hardly anticipated. They also directly benefitted from the performance of those players in winning another World Series.
The Marlins got much better value than anyone expected, considering Hanley's rapid, and overwhelmingly unexpected, ascension into elite player.
That seems like the definition of a win-win.
I dont debate that, but "taking Lowell" wasn't all bad, only the contract (even at the time). Lowell the player was still an asset, and therefore I disagree with this:
Lowell's contract was considered an albatross, but not a sunk cost. From day 1 he was slated in as the Sox' 3b, so his performance in that planned role absolutely affects the retrospective evaluation of the trade.
He has had great years the past 2 years. Dont get hung up on ERA. His FIP for 2007 was 3.08 and in 2008 it was 3.24. He had a better K/BB rate in 2008 than 2007 and his babip was a bit high last year at .327
NO ONE IS SAYING THIS
right?
i'm confused
Seriously? Ben McDonald?
Shall I set your strawman ablaze, or just let the wind blow it to pieces?
well the sentence i quoted made no mention of Beckett.
I think you are trying to say that since Lowell was free (a.k.a. any team could have had him), we should evaluate the trade as if it was just Hanley-Sanchez-et al for Beckett-Mota, right?
Now suppose some other team did acquire Lowell from FLA for literally nothing, could we use Lowell's performance to evaluate that trade?
The baseline is the actual trade that was made, and Mike Lowell was part of it.
Here's what the Red Sox have gotten out of the trade, per Fangraphs:
Lowell (first 2 years): $34 mil of value for $18 mil.
Beckett (first 2 years): $26 mil of value for $10 mil.
Total: $60 mil value for $28 mil.
Hanley (first 3 years): $72 mil of value for $1.2 mil.
Anibel (first 3 years): $10 mil of value for $1.2 mil.
Total: $82 mil of value for $2.4 mil.
(Pitchers used 5.50 ERA replacement level).
I'm not sure how to handle anything past the first 2 years for Beckett and Lowell, since they were going to be FAs.
However, the Red Sox did receive lots and lots of value. I have a really hard time calling a trade "foolish" when the players received are central contributors to a world championship, or even to a pennant. The hard zero-sum logic just doesn't feel right. I'd rather call it a great trade for the Marlins and a good trade for the Red Sox.
EDIT: double negatives confuse mcoa
EDIT2: just saw 170, thanks for doing the calculations. To probably belabor the point, I cannot look at $60M production for $28M and say, "what a foolish trade", especially when the Red Sox won a World Series with those two players as key contributors and World Series MVPs and whatnot. It looks like we got very good value and leveraged it well, and the Marlins got really great value.
Do you mean "more value"? Because it's extremely easy to argue that they received less.
While those players were contributing to a world championship, the players traded away were playing better. And during 2006, which still counts as far as I know, Beckett played a big role in their lousy results.
Screw the stock market, if I had one oracular power, I would want to be able to predict if toolsy players would put it all together or remain forever promising.
Exactly, this is why this trade wasnt foolish at all. The Marlins surrendered two players that were known commodities at that point for a 2 players that had maybe a high upside but not proven until that point.
So, the trade as i see it was Beckett+Lowell for Hanley+Anibal+Risk of said players not amouting to anything.
The security of having a valuable proven player on your ML roster is worth a lot for a team, especially one with the financial resources and the state of its roster as it was back when the trade was made.
I myself pronounce "chone" as if it were "shown" and "Kltpzyxm" as if it were "Klipple-skim," for whatever that's worth.
It's spelled Chone, but it's pronounced "Throat Warbler Mangrove"
My assumption would be that Florida hoped to get a potential star at a critical position, and were pleasantly surprised when he miraculously vaulted in to the absolute elite pantheon of players in the game. I always thought Ramirez was one of those prospects whom scouts and baseball people loved moreso than the SABR-savy internet conversationalists.
Two 21 year-old AA Eastern League prospects' numbers over a full season:
Player A - 122 G, .271/.335/.385 and 26/39 in SB
Player B - 131 G, .285/.354/.419 and 19/25 in SB
A, of course, is Hanley Ramirez in 2005. B is current Yankee CF prospect Austin Jackson, another super-toolsy scout's pet whose numbers look underwhelming after reading the reviews. I don't think the Marlins were expecting anything close to the production Ramirez has delivered the last three seasons, and you can be fairly well-assured that the Red Sox hadn't either.
Good for Hanley and good for the Marlins. The Red Sox received a solid package in return. This was a great trade for both teams, although the Red Sox have to be considered the "winners" because the players they received actually helped them win something.
I myself pronounce "chone" as if it were "shown" and "Kltpzyxm" as if it were "Klipple-skim,"
I recall seeing a Justice League cartoon as a lad that actually had Mxyzptlk saying the dreaded word, which he did indeed pronounce "klippleskim". You have to feel for the poor voiceover actor who received that dialogue.
I don't know at what premium the single great player should go for. But at the logical extreme, the concept of WAR addition breaks down.
Trading your 6 win player for 24 0.25 win players is a disastrous strategy, as even if your 25th guy is Pujols then you are only going to win 64 games (assuming 50 is replacement and Pujols is an 8).
Well, if all you had was Pujols, Hanley, and replacement level then you weren't going to win more than 64 in the first place. If you had a decent roster around them, then getting 24 slightly over replacement players does you no good, as you don't have the playing time for them to actually reach 0.25 WAR apiece, or for all of them to even be on the roster.
So any acquisition has to be viewed on who is to be displaced. And I don't have a formula, but it logically follows that the single great player has the most value, as he is most likely to find a place in the lineup. The lower a player's value is, the less you can be sure of this.
Mix-yex-pit-el-ick and Kel-tip-zay-zim.
or something like that.
No, those of us who met up at Fenway for a game against the Angels in 200...5? We ended up shouting "CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNE" repeatedly at Figgins at some point.
To put it simply, if I am playing a game where I have to collect 100 red marbles and I have 99 red marbles and 20 blue marbles... even if I am getting horrible value for it, won't I trade 20 blue marbles for 1 red marble? Of course, the organizations do not have definite data at the time of making the decision, but in retrospect how can you argue anything but a very good trade from the Red Sox POV?
You certainly can argue that. Those two players did not get to or win the World Series alone.
No they didn't.
They came pretty damn close, though, especially Beckett. He was absolutely lights-out great in the 2007
playoffs, as good as you can get these days.
And my point in #155 was that unless the Marlins win a WS or manage to even get
to the palyoffs twice or do something notable with Hanley, something other than to be merely a
different type of mediocre NL ballclub, or a cheaper payroll mediocre ballclub, then one cannot
argue that they "won" the trade. They won what? Some mythical Efficiency Pennant?
Again, Beckett won 20 and pitched the Sox to a title, Lowell was WS MVP, and had 125 RBI in their championship year.
Paging Repoz, Will Mr. Repoz report to the Neyer thread? A DC Comics question needs resolving.
Three times. A-Rod a year ago.
And "only" three times in eight years? If baseball were fair, each team would do that once/30 years. You've used up 90 years of FA bankbreaking just since 2001.
And you gloss around the fact that 2001 and 2008 both had NYY grabbing the two bestest FAs at whatever cost. (Mussina/Giambi, Sabathia/Teixeira)
And you also omit Jeter's 10/189 a year before FA, the biggest contract of 2000. And A-Rod's trade after 2003, where they also acquired the biggest contract in baseball.
The reputation is well deserved.
It doesn't really change the point, but Mussina was signed in 2000. And hey, it was for quite a bit less than Hampton got. ;)
I still have a hangover from that day... (it was 2005)
I'd say that both team got what they wanted, though for Boston that the lottery ticket they send out ended up being a total jackpot is a bit painful. but in retrospect, trading a few lotto tickets for Beckett and Lowell made perfect sense. their assesmnet on both player was accurate, it's just that they probably underestimated how damn good Hanley would be (and it's hard to really fault them at that time)
If all the players are payed about the same relative to their worth, trading 2 3 WAR players for 1 6 WAR player is all in creating opportunity. If you are on a tight budget or you are far from playoffs, that trade means nothing (although, bringing superstar at the beginning of his prime may be the first move that would bring you back into playoffs in 3-4 years). If you are comfortable favourite, it's probably a bad move, because loss of one player can take you back to the pack. But if you are one of the teams in contention and have some money in reserve, like Red Sox now, or like any team in NL West that has money, or even any team in NL projected to win more than 85 games, you have to explore the trade (of course, the question is how much additional value are you giving up). In this case, let's assume that Hanley is true 6 WAR player and will be for 6+ years, and Lester and Lowrie are true 3 WAR players and will be for 6+ years. Hanley is signed to a very team-friendly contract; Lester and Lowrie are on starting salaries, but in the next 6 years the two of them together should earn at least what Hanley earns, so money should be about equal. Hanley takes Lowrie's place, so SS is upgraded from 3 to 6 WAR, while 3 WAR rotation spot is empty. Red Sox can place one of their young players there (Masterson, Buchholz,...) if they think one of them could give them at least 0 - 1 WAR. They can sign someone like Wolf getting 1 WAR or so. They can sign Lowe and get 3 or so WAR. In essence, they can either keep the same projection and stay roughly the same monetarily, or they can spend more and improve their team, perhaps significantly. If they stand pat and near deadline are in the hunt, they have a hole in the rotation that can be improved - if they land someone like Harden, they could get 2 wins just for that remainder of the season.
6+0 WAR players are more valuable than 3+3 because it's easier to improve a black hole than spot held by a good player. Yes, you spend more, but if it brings you the playoffs, it's worth it. If you want 2 win upgrade and you have 0 WAR player, you should be able to either sign 2 WAR FA player or trade for one while overpaying relatively little. But if you need 2 win upgrade over 3 WAR player, you have to find 5 WAR player, and those are not always available and if you try to trade for one when you need him, you will probably overpay a lot.
a) Playing time is not distributed evenly on teams
b) Teams typically don't have replacement players in the starting lineup
If you trade your 6 for two 3's - suppose one of the 3's replaces your 6 and the other 3 bumps someone else (say a 2 WAR player) to the bench, where he in turn bumps a replacement player off the roster. Now you seemingly have the same total WAR, but the 2 WAR guy relegated to the bench isn't contributing 2 WAR anymore because his playing time is cut. So you're worse off.
Tell me how much you pay a 3 WAR and a 6 WAR player under different scenarios.
Create various scenarios (as drdr did), any scenarios of your choosing, and then put a price tag on these guys.
But I think the Yankees got a good deal with Tex, so what do I know?
The critical difference between elite players and lesser players is not really AAV, it's contract length.
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