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1. Cris E Posted: January 08, 2010 at 04:38 PM (#3431790)Regarding the signing, I was hoping the "fast outfielder" was Willie Gault. (Hey, it worked for the Bears, so maybe the Royals get lucky.) As it turned out, however, I'm not nearly as confident this will go well.
Same here.
Podsednik was actually somewhat cromulent last year (not that I expect that to continue into 2010). If it's for multiple years or for more than $5 million, then it's worthy of mockery. But if it's, say, 1 year/$3 million, then it's pretty much "meh".
I bet most people will be surprised that such a prevalent word had such an odd beginning.
Still, what is wrong with Mitch Maier? He's young, cheap, and just as crappy offensively as Pods with better defense.
Oh, but he doesn't steal bases!
Then perhaps you need to embiggen the number of places you look for it.
If anything, Crisp to the A's is a worse deal ... the A's had no need for OF defense. Davis is a fine defender in CF, and if he turns into a pumpkin or gets hurt or needs a day off, both Sweeney and Hairston can hack it, and it's worth finding out if Patterson can. If you really need super glovey insurance for the sake of the pitching staff, go find a Gathright type (good D, AAA bat, not a prospect anymore) to stash in the minors at 1/10 the cost and not stealing PT from the youngsters.
And I'd be willing to put a lot of money on that!
I doubt it will take that long, aren't "crunk" and "jiggy" already enshrined?
Oddly Dictionary.com already has it.
I agree. I find Beane's moves puzzling. Why get Crisp when you have a hundred OFs? Why sign Cust when you already have Fox, Barton, Carter, etc.?
This. It's not like the Royals are going to give Scott Podsednik a crippling contract, that will prevent them from doing other things. Given that, it's not a stupid signing, it's just a sort of boring one.
Soupuss?
boy ah LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUVVVVVV yew!!!!!
i laughed so hard i cried
appreciate your reminding me that even though my astros are teh sukc, they are not THE mostest absolutest sukccc
what is the program that let you draw like that because fer SHER i would LUUUUVVVV to post entries like these
Great work, Dan.
Lest my handle seem incorrect, it's not at M-W.com.
Podsednik is a perfectly acceptably warm-body outfielder. The problem occurs when he plays all of the time because you don't have three guys who are better (White Sox '09) or because your manager is a bit goofy, but that's not Podsednik's fault.
I wonder if cromulent catches on and, in a few generations, loses its sense of irony or sarcasm. According to the linked article Webster's merely defines it as "fine or acceptable."
Well, they could play Mitch Maier for the minimum and thow the extra $1M at an int'l FA, or towards draft bonuses. So, to the extent they have a budget (which I assume they must as a "small market" club) then, yes, this is preventing them from doing something.
The money wasted on Jacobs/Farnsworth/Bloomquist/Ho Ram/Betancourt/Kendall (something north of $30M) could have bought them Michael Inoa and Aroldis Chapman, and not cost them a single win on the field. Or, if you think Chapman is too risky, Inoa and the best int'l FA for each of the next 5 years (at $5M a pop).
Podsednik doesn't fulfill any win-now or even sort-of-win-now needs. He doesn't fulfill any future needs. He doesn't answer any questions about the team.
At league minimum, having Podsednik is a terrible idea for the Royals We're not even talking a case like Delgado-to-Baltimore that I would be against, because Delgado might actually be a good player and the other options are at least inferior there.
Here,
Sadly, my actual drawing isn't that much better and my handwriting might be less readable (though my spelling is better than Billy's).
I've been trying to figure out "peruse" in this sense. The way most people I know use it (as in to take a casual glance over something) seems to be the opposite of its literal meaning. How did that get started?
is the program hard to learn - do you have to type it in code or do you just draw?
Make up word from the Simpsons. Means fine or acceptable.
Edna K: Embiggens? I never heard that word before I moved to Springfield
Ms.Hoover: I don't know why. It's a perfectly cromulent word.
you know i been going over all my old entries and cleaning them up (because i have had to do a LOT of cutting and pasting from the old site) and back then i was so young and happy and believing in my team and i wrote a LOT of kewl stuff (if i do say so myself)
and here i am almost 30 years old and i mean OLD and i have turned into billy
sigh
might could it be because the astros have turned into the royals?
Why? It's not like he's blocking someone who might be good. And no, I don't agree with the notion that the Royals should just throw a bunch of AAAA crap at the wall to see if anything sticks. That's a really good road to 55 wins.
At some level, the Royals have to field a team in 2010. At worst, they're no worse off than they were before they signed Podsednik.
Ummm, Podsednik is AAAA crap. He's posted a positive WAR only once since 2006. Signing him is just a waste of whatever you pay him over the minimum.
He's worse than Mitch Maier.
Scott Podsednik is AAAA crap.
Not to be outdone our friend who got married shortly thereafter actually had his minister use the phrase "in richness and in poorness - and poorness is underlined".
Nothing is sacred anymore.
Yeah, but that was last year. Pods was AAAA crap from 2006-2008, but he was pretty decent in 2009. Whether he can sustain that performance in 2010 is an open question, but spending $1-2M to find out is far from a terrible idea.
Well aren't "acceptable" and "fine" already there? They're the borderland between "good" and "unacceptable" or "poor".
To what end? Say Podsenik repeats 2009 and puts up a 1.7 WAR replacing PT in which Maier/assorted AAAA crap would have put up a 1.0-1.2 WAR.
Is that 0.5 WAR really worth $1-2M to the Royals? Isn't that money much better spent on a prospect who has some long-term upside?
Sure - but why spend millions to find out? Instead - spend the minimum to find the AAAA Pods that's been toiling in the PCL for 10 years.
In quiet solitude or blasting across the alkali flats in a jet-powered, monkey navigated... and it goes on like this.
Well, as society develops, we've developed greater and finer level of distinctions!
Yeah, but that was last year. Pods was AAAA crap from 2006-2008, but he was pretty decent in 2009.
I would argue that 2009 was Pods AAAA crap year - his offensive numbers were only decent if he can play centerfield. 2006-2008 were AA.5 crap years.
It was never intended to mean this but perhaps it is moving in that direction.
The way that Skinner and Krabappel use it does not at all suggest that it is on the lower end of acceptable. If anything, it is better than satisfactory, given that Skinner praises Homer for his "cromulent" performance as town cryer. Most uses that I've come across have preserved this definition but used it sarcastically.
Making it "barely acceptable" is sort of splitting the difference between using the word sincerely and sarcastically. Maybe it's best that way, because it does seem useful.
Your drawing would get a D I think
I once tried to intentionally sneak "pwned" into a an article for a newspaper. Sadly, it was caught and this message was sent to me:
Nice try,
Roget
He's not really a CF anymore
Hey Gathright hit .325/.381/.370 in AAA last year and he can play CF too!
Seriously, my fave team just gave a 2 year contract to Alex Cora, I will NEVER understand GM moves like that
You're completely ignoring the context. The White Sox best hitter goes down with injury, the team signs Pods to a minor league deal, they pay him the minimum, and he steps in and posts a .304/.353/.412 line (98 OPS+). That's a AAAA crap year?
Where? Who?
If Podsednik is blocking someone, then signing him is a bad idea. If Podsednik is at all expensive, then signing him is a bad idea. If not, then who cares? Precisely which opportunity are the Royals passing up on by signing him?
If you want to talk about how the Royals shouldn't be in a position where Scott Podsednik is an acceptable option, then I won't disagree. But right now, in January 2010, it's just a mediocre move.
For a left-fielder, pretty much. AAAA crap (not my term) has its uses, but he was a below-average player at his position.
A player that has to have one of the best years of his career to be below-average is hardly the guy to bring out the OMG He's Teh Proven! Trope.
Even if we accept that he was valuable last year (I don't), the fact remains is that the it was also at the top of his ability. The Royals are hardly guaranteed to even get the below-average play that Pods eked out last season.
Spending $1000 on a stock that you picked by throwing a dart isn't a great investment strategy. But spending on yesterday's losing lottery tickets is a worse one. The "payoff" of signing Podsednik is that he's a 34-year-old below-average player who nobody will trade for. The downside is that he's worse.
Mitch Maier's offensive projections are slightly worse, but he can actually play centerfield, has little service time, and is the better part of a decade longer. He's not getting any better now with yet more AAA play and unlike Pods, there's actually a chance that he can be an actual useful player.
The opportunity to play Mitch Maier, a superior player to Podsednik and years younger.
Below average play has a fair amount of value. Again, if it's only a million or so, who cares?
That's below-average play is the upside. The Royals are as likely to get ROFL play from Podsednik.
Where? Who?
Some 16 y.o. hotshot in Latin America. Or a hard-sign that falls to the 3rd round in next year's draft.
They don't have a source linked yet, but if those terms are true then this is pretty awful. Like Szym said, Maier is about an equal player that they already have on their roster, who has possibly even a little upside. Podsednik is a proven mediocrity. $1.75M doesn't seem like a lot in terms of payroll, but it certainly adds up. Take the money given to Podsednik and Kendall and you could probably have signed someone who is more than just roster filler, nevermind the additional money thrown to other flotsam and jetsam like Farnsworth, Bloomquist, and Betancort. Add it all up and you could actually sign a decent player.
Pods' signing should add just enough veteran goodness to keep Kila from getting a roster spot. Another outfielder increases Guillen's percentage of at-bats at DH. Moore has talked about Fields playing the outfield and first base in addition to third. Plus you'll have Brian Anderson and Maier battling for the 25th roster spot, as well as a returning Mike Aviles.
I realize that I overvalue Kila. But I'd really like to see the Royals give him a chance to fail, rather than let him rot in AAA, trying to see if he can make it three seasons with 100 walks.
Rosenthal is tweeting one year at $1.75 million, with incentives to $2 mil. $2 mil option for 2011, voided if he gets 525 plate appearances.
Horrendous signing. If by some miracle he's actually productive, they have to worry about PT voiding his option.
This is a small market team, right? Don't they have something useful to do with $1.35M?
Yeah, my reaction is still "who cares?".
There are bad moves and there are bad moves. The Gary Matthews deal is worthy of mockery. The Carlos Silva deal is worth of mockery. This is a blip; giving minor one-year deals to roster fodder isn't going to kill the Royals. It wouldn't even prevent the Royals from releasing Podsednik if he's "ROFL bad".
A friend getting piss drunk and crashing on your couch isn't a big deal. A friend with liver disease from alcoholism getting piss drunk and crashing on your couch isn't.
At some point, the chain of dumb has to end. At least with Matthews and Silva, those are players that had some kind of conceivable upside for teams that had conceivable upsides. Podsednik has no upside that's useful to the Royals. They could get as much of a return from paying $1.75 million for a Marty Bystrom rookie card.
With a lot of these types of signings, we're at least talking about someone who can at least hotshot the team a few wins. That's not Podsednik.
As has been coined at Royals Review, this is Daytonomics. 10 idiotic investments > 1 good one.
I actually see this signing as evidence of how far organizations have progressed in terms of evaluating talent. Ten years ago, Podsednik's most recent season would have gotten him 4 years and $30 million.
This signing recalls the Jays offseason when they signed Schoenweiss and a couple of other low end guys, and the guys and I at battersbox.ca howled. JP had read that site until he saw those comments and actually took us to task.
The disappointment then from us is relevant here: it's not that depth doesn't have its value, as Pods himself did manage to almost show last year. It's that plans b and c should be cheap, not come at the cost of a 40 man spot pre-season, and not be presented as a healthy offseason.
Roster spots & even 40 man spots should be for demonstrable talent, even something as limited as a prooven LOOGY, or for upside, even as limited as that Maier guy people mention here. If a guy doesn't have much talent or upside, what are you doing?
And so even if the A's are longshots, I think it's still different than "no shots" like the Royals.
I also think Podsednik's agent overplayed his hand. I'm guessing if this was a deal he wanted to take in the first place, he'd still be on the White Sox.
What you talkin' about - old? My daughter's your age, and I'm young enough to be Harveys' son.
-- MWE
He's 8 or 9 now, so why are his spelling and penmanship still so bad?
I talked to Billy's foster mother and Billy liked the Rays because he likes undersea adventures, but he heard that LaMar was fired, which made LaMar very sad, so Billy couldn't root for the team.
However, Billy's real mom took Billy to Burger King (this was before Billy's mom went to jail) for his birthday and because of his good memories of that day, Billy roots for the Royals. In search of a stable father figure, Billy latches onto General Managers as role models.
He's 8 or 9 now, so why are his spelling and penmanship still so bad?
He's behind developmentally, I'm sorry to say.
Kind of like the Royals....sigh....
If you instead play some AAA All-Star there's a chance he does a Garret Jones on you and has an abnormally great year. Now you have something that somebody else might actually want in a deal, and you can flip him for a prospect.
The Royals are currently paying eight figures for a guy who was given an outright release when he was 26. If they have any chance at all, the Royals need to take risks on players other teams don't have the leeway to take risks on. But lately they seem to be on the other end of the curve.
I read in a Horse Racing handicapping book once that "if you're late to the wedding, don't show up for the funeral." The Royals seem to be going to a lot of funerals...
God, I want another Billy drawing.
Running it through my old projection system it spits out .255/.318/.450 with a tame platoon split, which is pretty much a league average hitter, with average Defense in CF and plus Defense in the corners. Seems like a decent signing for $3.25 mil.
Of course now the Podsednik signing doesn't make any sense at all as he's surplus goods.
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