Organizational Philosophy Discussion Thread

[RedHeadsRule]

Ok, Alternative Offseason Number 1,523

Restriction: I have to stick with a $135 million budget, which is easily consistent with what we know about their revenues and baseball operations budget. You can still easily afford the Dominican Academy and all that other organizational infrastructure with this.

Stipulation: I'll only use players I was interested in last offseason, but I get to use hindsight in how well they performed. This is to make up for the fact that I have to deal with things we didn't know at the time, like Garza getting hurt or Soto and Byrd becoming useless or having -4 Pythagorean variance. I will assume we sign the players for roughly what they ended up getting.

Stipulation 2: I'm using bWAR as the way to compare players and the net change in expected wins. It's more descriptive than fWAR and thus better for our purposes.

Step 1, let's just get this out of the way. Sign Aramis Ramirez to the deal he got with the Brewers. He wasn't nearly my first choice going into the offseason, but that deal was an insane steal. I give up the comp pick (oh the horror, I've sacrificed our whole future!), but this is a really good MLB player on a really good contract.

Relative cost: $3.8 million over Ian Stewart this year. Net gain: 7 wins.

Sign Buehrle to the rotation for the deal he got, leave Samardzija in the pen (I know, controversial, but I believe he could be a shutdown, high-leverage reliever worth just as much as any starter). Add Dotel in addition to Camp (always been a huge Dotel fan). Leave Volstad in AAA where he belonged all year and don't jerk around Travis Wood (in general, don't be the asshat team that gives out jobs based on spring training).

Your pitching staff is now:
Garza/Buehrle/Dempster/Wood/Maholm, about 3 bWAR better than what we actually had this season. Wells and Volstad in AAA for when Garza gets hurt, but hopefully you are a buyer at the deadline and not a seller.

Samardzija/Marmol/Wood/Dotel/Camp/Iowacongaline is now your bullpen.

Bullpens are tricky because WAR doesn't do a good job of measuring leverage. According to WPA, the Cubs' bullpen was seven wins below average last year in WPA. That's *at least* an average bullpen, so I'm calling that a gain of seven wins.

Total cost to the reconstruction of the pitching staff: $10 million. Net gain: 10 wins.

Joe Mather (-2.4 bWAR) should never have been on the bench. As I said, it's total amateur hour to be giving out jobs based on spring training performance. Steve Clevenger (-1.0) should never have broken camp on the MLB roster. Everyone knew (or should have known) that Castillo was the better player. Sappelt should have been in there over Reed Johnson, who never should have been signed. You bring up Rizzo from day one, burn the service time, and put LaHair on the bench, driving out DeWitt. Building the bench properly from Day 1 would have saved us $1 million and according to bWAR conservatively given us 3 wins.

So at this point, I've spent $12.8 million and given us 20 wins. We're up to .500 and I still have about $15 million to spend. Unfortunately, I've picked the low-hanging fruit and it gets a bit trickier from here.

The obvious place to upgrade is RF. Instead of paying DeJesus $4.25 million, I can go out and get a really good corner man. I'll spend the $13 million to get Beltra, a net cost of $8.75 million and a two-win improvement, plus he can play CF in a bench and LaHair shift to the outfield when Byrd falls apart early.

I'm up to 83 wins, I've got about 7 million to spend, and I've gotten us to within five wins of a playoff spot in a season where two of our starting veteran position players inexplicably forgot how to hit and our ace pitcher lost half the season to an elbow injury. I think that proves pretty conclusively that we weren't doomed to failure no matter what we did.

You've built an old, low 80s win team. If that's what you're upset about missing out on, that seems a little silly. With the flexibility we'll have, they could build that whenever they want. They are aiming higher.

[KyleJRM]

You've built an old, low 80s win team. If that's what you're upset about missing out on, that seems a little silly. With the flexibility we'll have, they could build that whenever they want. They are aiming higher.

I built a team that had a chance to win the World Series last year. And it's not nearly as old as you think.

They aren't aiming higher. They aren't aiming for anything, atm, but prospect fapping.

[ZamboniCub]

I built a team that had a chance to win the World Series last year. And it's not nearly as old as you think.

They aren't aiming higher. They aren't aiming for anything, atm, but prospect fapping.

you have found out the plan.

1. sell everyone replace them with nice jaw faced prospects that will suck because they have never done anything in the MLB.
2. buy nothing ever!
3. LOSE FOREVER

thats exactly the plan sir.

[KyleJRM]

No. That's only the plan until Theo has had enough of a vacation from the high pressure in Boston.

[RedHeadsRule]

No. That's only the plan until Theo has had enough of a vacation from the high pressure in Boston.

When a team is rebuilding, do you think the GM just sits in his office at the stadium all day, everyday?

[KyleJRM]

When a team is rebuilding, do you think the GM just sits in his office at the stadium all day, everyday?

Nope. I just think they choose to compete in areas where progress is easy and inevitable and you have less competition from the rest of the league.

[JBears79]

You've built an old, low 80s win team. If that's what you're upset about missing out on, that seems a little silly. With the flexibility we'll have, they could build that whenever they want. They are aiming higher.

That's the thing though, it's not crippling financially, we compete on both fronts and don't mortgage our future. Sure you have guys over 30, but it still fields a competitive team that keeps the contract years low and more wins on the field.

We shouldn't have to worry about getting top picks in the draft if our scouting and development guys do their job, which I believe they will.

[davell]

Kyle, you usually make well thought out, good arguments. These last few posts are pure Cave Troll. I'm as big a supporter as there is of the FO and I've clearly mentioned things I wish WOULD have been done, tgat weren't. I don't know anyone that says there perfect. OTOH, the team you buikt, based on hindsight took complete advantage of ****** backups that are a flawed part of either f or b WAR. That team you built? No upside, typical middle of the pack team. And for someone who clearly admits drafting higher produces better players statistically, but yet hold this FO to the standard of "well, this is what they do, so it doesn't matter for them", you contradict yourself pretty well. You hurt the flexibility, hurt the system, and have nothing to show for it, other than 20ish likely regular season wins. Not worth it to me and I'm happy as hell its not worth it to the FO either.

[gaughan333]

So coming 5 outs from the World Series doesn't count, but winning 83 games calculated by WAR and the assumption that players would all have come here counts as a win?

And how is this a team competing for the world series? 83 wins puts you at the Brewers, you are 5 games back of the wild card. Congrats, you played as many play off games as the 2012 cubs team did.

[SenorGato]

[QUOTE=davell;24358208]Gato, your "inane rambling" comment from me came off a very condescending post by you, after it was proven Castillo was mentioned by Theo as a guy that could be in the core and you were proven wrong.

Lol yes, I was proven wrong by Theo's maybe. Darwin Barney, who many here are counting the days until he's gone and replaced with AS prospect, was also mentioned with Castillo. As I pointed out then, that goes to show how to value that word. One real, cheap 2 WAR talent and another that might be that. Neither lumped in with the big upside guys.

What constitutes a "core" guy? No clue. You don't know either.

I rely on core far less than you do, and a core player is anyone who is good at playing baseball at the MLB level to me.

Theo does though. And he's named 6 guys, as we know, with 2 more that are possibilities.

Half of the 6 hasn't even see AA ball yet and the other two clearly have lower ceilings than the first three. He left it nice and loose, I wonder why.

My guess at it, is he wants a group of 22-26ish types to compose of the core and in the next couple of seasons, we'll add bigtime FA to surround it.

Yeah, you've said this many times without being specific at all as to wha makes a core, what is a core player, how long that last (does saying Barney is a core player mean a 10 year starter here? 5?).

Also, everyone wants a bunch of good 22-26 year olds. How much is a bunk? How many have to be starting? How many years do we waste outing them together? What if they dont all magic together at the same time - how many years of each get wasted for the sake of The Future?

But for me, I'd rather watch young guys with talent struggle, if it helps them longterm get to their upside, than watching a team that screams out .500.

I'd rather have talent and win baseball games. I don't know how young players failing will get them to their upside, or how they lock in a better than .500 team without any kind of help until its obvious they hit your arbitrary mark of ready to get help.

But the fact is, the first time I brought up a longterm offseason plan, you actually agreed it was likely better for us and you admitted to being impatient.

Link me because I think I know what you're talking about an I did not like your offseason plan. Im pretty sure we've done this one.

Oh well, everyone can change their minds, but until someone can actually post something thats both rwalistic and doable, I'll fail to see the other side of things. And no one has yet. Therefore, I'll continue to believe in our FO, who has a much longer and better track record within the game of baseball than Gato or Kyle does. And its not an insult, its fact. They are highly respected. Wgy not trust them? Because it comes off as if you think you'd do a better job than they are.

Ugh, this card? Just say youre out for a walk with master and youre happy to be wherever he takes you. Everything I propose is realistic and doable, even if it's not to the tee as written. There's nothing unrealistic about signing Upton/Greinke, or trading for Masterson/Porcello, or being significantly better in 2013 than 2013 without hurting (but rather helping) The Future when they have your permission to be good.

[gaughan333]

I don't like Upton unless he comes at under 14 for less than 5 years, other things thumbs up. Obviously, within reason (no Baez for masterson or anything like that)

[davell]

I think it's premature to say they're dead set on tanking for prospects and prospect money until a magic core forms so that they can just touch up the roster with Awaiting Elite FA, but that stops nothing.

Houston, San Diego, Minnesota, White Sox, Colorado. I'd say Oakland and Baltimore too, but I don't want to have to have the argument that their fluky seasons (which almost any team can have) proves that they had more talent than thought.

From top to bottom of the orgs, Houston and Minnesota is it for me, with Cleveland as a possibility as well. San Diego, the White Sox, The Rox, and Baltimore/Oakland all had more, some much more, than what we did heading into last offseason.

[JBears79]

Kyle, you usually make well thought out, good arguments. These last few posts are pure Cave Troll. I'm as big a supporter as there is of the FO and I've clearly mentioned things I wish WOULD have been done, tgat weren't. I don't know anyone that says there perfect. OTOH, the team you buikt, based on hindsight took complete advantage of ****** backups that are a flawed part of either f or b WAR. That team you built? No upside, typical middle of the pack team. And for someone who clearly admits drafting higher produces better players statistically, but yet hold this FO to the standard of "well, this is what they do, so it doesn't matter for them", you contradict yourself pretty well. You hurt the flexibility, hurt the system, and have nothing to show for it, other than 20ish likely regular season wins. Not worth it to me and I'm happy as hell its not worth it to the FO either.

In that particular scenario, the upside remains in your farm. He built a team that compete's on both front. While I agree it is an older, fringe playoff team, it's still a competitor. I would have rather have kept Shark in the rotation though.

[KyleJRM]

And this is why it's pointless to put together mock offseasons. I show on paper that we could have fairly easily had a mid-80s win team *despite* the massive bad luck we had (-4 pyth, Garza injury, two of our veteran starters completely forgetting to hit).

I didn't raise payroll, I didn't give out any massive long-term deals, I didn't trade any prospects for veterans (in fact, I still had us doing the Marshall for Wood trade).

But inevitably, that's dismissed as a worthless team with no upside. Because chances to win don't matter, only prospects matter.

[KyleJRM]

So coming 5 outs from the World Series doesn't count, but winning 83 games calculated by WAR and the assumption that players would all have come here counts as a win?

Who said anything about 5 wins away not counting?

Assuming players will come here is part of that "offseasons are complicated" dea that I tried to explain to you, but you wanted to dismiss as dodging the question.

And how is this a team competing for the world series? 83 wins puts you at the Brewers, you are 5 games back of the wild card. Congrats, you played as many play off games as the 2012 cubs team did.

Maybe you make some deadline pickups to improve. Maybe you recognize Byrd's fiasco quicker and gain some extra wins there. Maybe you don't get negative pythagorean variance.

And even if you do miss the playoffs, you've put yourself in better position for 2013.