Ed Wade Is Not A Good GM
by Satchel Price on Jan 9, 2010 12:11 PM EST
48 comments
All you have to do is look at this offseason to know that.
- $15M guaranteed to Brandon Lyon
-$5M guaranteed to Brett Myers
-$4.5M guaranteed to Pedro Feliz
-$3M guaranteed to Brian Moehler
-$1M guaranteed to Geoff Blum
-$800K guaranteed to Jason Michaels
That's $29.3M guaranteed to six players, and $19.3M committed to the 2010 payroll.
CHONE projects Lyon (0.8 WAR), Myers (1.0 WAR), Moehler (0.6 WAR), Feliz (2.0 WAR), Blum (0.4 WAR), and Michaels (-0.1 WAR) to be worth about 4.7 wins above replacement in 2010.
Even if you assume that Lyon maintains 0.8 WAR performance for three years, that's 6.3 WAR for $29.3M.
In a market where 1 WAR is going for slightly less than $3.5M, Wade has paid $4.65M per win. Factoring in the fact that Houston isn't exactly on the high side of the win spectrum, and you're looking at arguably the worst offseason in baseball. Dayton and Omar, your move.
Author's Note (1:55 PM): After some quality discussions with commenter DyingQuail in the comments section of this post, I'd like to acknowledge the fact that I did in fact fail to mention the presence of owner Drayton McLane and the potential effects that his meddling ownership could have on Wade's ability to make the proper baseball decisions. It's certainly a factor worth noting, and given McLane's reputation as being very against letting the team rebuild, there's reason to believe that McLane mandated some of the moves that Wade has made.
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Houston you have a serious problem
They went from one bad GM to another one that overvalues mediocre players.
"But it doesn't matter what I do, what I choose. I'm what's wrong. This is fate" - Dexter season 4....I mean Lovie season 6.
No doubt, Slomar will trump this- Bengie Molina for any years? Elmer Dessens-wait he did that already-Amazingly LA beat him to the punch on Russ Ortiz
I'd be more worried about the fact that
Omar decided to spend big money on Bay rather than fix a rotation that includes pretty much two starters that I would feel comfortable with, and one of them belongs in the back of the rotation but happens to be the No. 2 starter.
I don’t care if they traded for Pujols, that pitching staff is a problem.
First it was Paige, now it's Price.
You can find me at http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/
by Satchel Price on Jan 9, 2010 2:10 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
What does Omar Minaya have to do with this thread?
Omar has issues, but signing Bay is not one of them. And pray tell where are the slew of pitchers that are available.
Omar MInaya may be a bad GM (he probably is), but he ain;t got nothing on Ed Wade.
I never said he did.
He’s absolutely better than Wade, but he’s also made numerous large mistakes. The Bay signing isn’t the worst, but I would simply argue that the rotation was a bigger problem than the offense.
And Dayton Moore is the worst in my opinion, although his drafts are looking awfully productive.
First it was Paige, now it's Price.
You can find me at http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/
by Satchel Price on Jan 9, 2010 4:09 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Moore hasn't built a competent big league club, but he has revamped the Royals' minor league system.
Houston hasn’t had a minor league system to speak of for about three or four years.
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Come attend Intro to Sabermetrics 101!
Check me out at Beyond the Box Score as well.
Absolutely.
But the pitching, with the exception of Aaron Crow, isn’t close to MLB ready, and the development of the hitters, primarily Hosmer, Moustakas and Robinson, hasn’t gone particularly well.
And Moore hasn’t been just bad at the ML level, he’s made some truly horrific moves. I mean, Yuniesky Betancourt? Mike Jacobs? Sidney Ponson?
Moore clearly has a great scouting eye, but he’s shown none of the other skills necessary to be good GM.
First it was Paige, now it's Price.
You can find me at http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/
by Satchel Price on Jan 9, 2010 8:03 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
As a Royals fan, I question his scouting eye.
At least until Moustakas and Hosmer show they might actually have careers in MLB.
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
In Wade’s defense, he didn’t have a minor league system when he got there to work with either. To take that further, if Moore is going to get points for the Royals minor league system, then you have to say Wade gets some points for the Phillies system he left behind.
I definitely don’t know if I’d consider someone making the case that Wade was a great GM to be working with a full tool box but I think his poor moves get over analyzed while none of his good/decent moves get talked about at all. Perhaps he deserves that but I think he is often treated unfairly on the blogosphere.
I love the criticism of Dessens.
He sucks, but he signed a minor league deal that will pay him slightly over the veteran minimum if he gets called up. Odds are that if he does get called up, he’ll be DFA’d shortly after to make room for whomever is returning from the DL. Omar’s made plenty of dumb move you can criticize, how did you settle on this one?
"We're just as bad as the old Mets, but this time nobody's laughing"
-Dallas Green
Huh?
Elmer Dessens was signed to a minor league deal. What are you even talking about? I actually think Omar has done a solid job this offseason, especially with the low-risk signings of Igarashi, Escobar, and Everts. You could probably pick with the Bay signing since UZR absolutely hates him, but I’d say Dayton Moore and Ed Wade have nothing on him, they have done FAR worse.
If Dessens was signed to a minor league deal, then that is my fault for not knowing that, I chose that in a hurry because
1-It is another old pitcher,
2- thinking it was a ML deal, the $ used there could go to sign a real pitcher
Ed Wade is to General Manager what Michael Brown is to FEMA Director
Philly fans cheered his departure and McClain inexplicably saw something in Wade that nobody else did. The 2010 Astros look like a fine PCL club right now with a few stars on rehab assignment.
Good timing...
The Crawfish Boxes, the Astros SBNation site, just ran an article comparing Ed Wade to Brian Cashman.
"Consider that all of Ed Wades moves seem to be building to a breakout campaign for the Astros in 2012. "
“I’m almost ready to purchase my 2013 playoff tickets…. Can you imagine an entire slew of FanGraphs articles praising Ed Wade?”
Wow!
Just Wow! When I first read this, I thought there would be a brilliantly sarcastic post about Wade. He seems to believe that there’s a real plan here to win and that Ed Wade has this team going in the right direction. This is, w/o question, one of the 5 worst organizations in baseball.
Wait
Did you read the article in it’s entirety, or did you just read the very poorly selected quotes from above because I wrote the article, and that’s not how I feel.
I said, I think that I can see a plan: Ed Wade dicks around for a few years and waits until the very promising crop of minor leaguers Bobby Heck has signed bear fruit and he’s out from under all of contracts that he didn’t enter into. I said at that point, there’s a chance that Ed Wade could have money to allocate to players that could make the team better. I also compared that Ed Wade actually doing that leading to the demise of the universe because it would be so unexpected.
Further, I explicitly stated that Ed Wade hasn’t made good signings, and that this kind of a plan wasn’t an excuse. This was really just a fan’s attempt to bring some semblance of hope in the midst of a soul-crushing stretch. If you actually read our comments, the full pieces we post, etc. We’re a) hard on Ed Wade b) sabr-slanted, but c) also fans trying to find a silver lining in a cloud of gray.
In honesty, I think this article is poorly contrived in an attempt to beat up on Ed Wade, which is pretty much the easiest thing to do in sabr-ciricles (and something that’s frustrating for a sabr-slanted fan of the Astros who actually things Ed Wade’s no worse than an average GM). Ed Wade has only had the worst offseason if the following hold:
1) CHONE’s projections come true and no one else’s projection system holds true. We have to assume there’s no chance that the actually future value of these player’s could be anywhere other than exactly at CHONE (which I don’t agree with).
2) It’s fair to criticize Ed Wade because WAR are now estimated at 3.5 million. What about other GM’s? Ed Wade has signed three players this offseason and committed no more than $5 million per player? What about the Angels with Rodney and Matsui? Haven’t they overspent more if assume GM’s must be evaluated along the lines of $3.5 million?
3) Ed Wade allocating $20 million assets poorly on a shoestring budget, for a team that has about 50 glaring weakness, and coming out paying $150K more for a WAR than we previously valued them is a complete and total failure.
4) We assume Ed Wade created all the contracts and lack of farm system prior to 2008.
5) We blame Ed Wade for Drayton McLane being the owner of the Astros.
Suspending previous biases to Ed Wade, and evaluating what he’s actually done this offseason: What has really done that’s so terrible? Ed Wade’s not a good GM. I haven’t been happy with him as my GM. I wish—fervently—I had another, but even when I get my snarkiest of sabr-slant’s on, I can’t find the man to be a slightly below-average GM.
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Jan 9, 2010 7:31 PM EST up reply actions
McLane definitely makes things more difficult
But Wade really hasn’t shown that he’s a good GM. I probably should’ve clarified that I don’t think that Wade is one of the very worst GMs in the game, and he’s handicapped by the worst owner in baseball. But he has had a particularly unproductive offseason, overpaying for wins with minimal upside for a team that’s unlikely to contend either way.
And I didn’t bash your article, I totally see your perspective, it’s merely an exceptionally optimistic one.
The plan is to make poor FA signings and mediocre trades for five years while waiting for a poorly regarded, shallow farm system to bear fruit and form the core of a contender? I know that the farm system is improving, but honestly, that team isn’t in a great position. You could write the same article about practically every team that isn’t currently a contender, except maybe the Cubs.
First it was Paige, now it's Price.
You can find me at http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/
by Satchel Price on Jan 9, 2010 7:57 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
The Lyons contract.
The rest of the contracts have an issue regarding the whole “Why spend the money to fill these holes at the going rate if the team isn’t close to contention?” The Astros haven’t been close for the last few years, if you judge their performance via run differential or team WAR. Why fill 3B with Feliz for a year when you can have a scrub do it and win one game less, for example?
Lyons’ contract notwithstanding (that one’s just bad), why did the Astros pay for 4 wins when it puts them from 76 to 80 wins projected (just a guess, I haven’t done the math)? That’s why the moves have been panned.
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Come attend Intro to Sabermetrics 101!
Check me out at Beyond the Box Score as well.
Houston's place on the win spectrum is a big part of this
If these moves filled glaring holes on a team that’s otherwise a contender, then it’s rather different. But for a team that’s pretty mediocre, spending $29.3M on a few wins just doesn’t really accomplish much, especially when there’s not much upside attached to the money.
First it was Paige, now it's Price.
You can find me at http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/
by Satchel Price on Jan 9, 2010 8:06 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
He didn't spend $29.3 million
Ed was given ****$20 million**** to allocate on the following: SP, the bullpen, and find a decent defensive, possibly up-sided offensively 3B. I know that you think Crhis Johnson could be a replacement level stand in, but having seen his body of work—I wouldn’t bet on it.
Ed Wade did spend $20 million to move the Astros up a fairly meaningless part of the wins spectrum. But $15 million of it was spent long before the St. Louis Cardnials looked like they had a shot at signing Matt Holliday and making the Central actually have a favorite. (Really, does spending $15 million in total to make the Astros something like a 79 win team that has a shot at pretending to compete in the Central that doesn’t get won by more than 83-84 games actually seem like that bad of an investment?) Did he exploit the market? No. Did he grossly over pay? I doesn’t appear so; unless you handicap the way we previously regarded the value of a WAR.
I get it. Ed Wade has the reputation of a bumbling idiot, but to call an offseason where he “addressed” the kinds of holes he addressed on a $20 million budget isn’t a bad offseason. The logic you’re now pulling out to say this is a miserable offseason for Ed Wade is: That unless spending doesn’t pull your team into a legitimate position to contend, you shouldn’t spend. That doesn’t feel like the greatest PR move for baseball franchises—at least not in Houston—that are competing with other sports franchises for fan interest, and well, dollar.
Drayton McLane, not Ed Wade, sees the current landscape and intuits that if he were to just batten down the hatches and let an empty minor league system (at the upper level) try and round out the overly expensive and too shallow corps of veterans on the team, it’d be a miserable failure of a team. This is a city that has the smartest franchise in the NBA, and, in the state of Texas, a NLF franchise that just had it’s first winning season. Drayton, not totally logically or justifiably, seems to believe that he must maintain an air of competitiveness, while not overspending wildly; something which is actually really hard to do when you sign guys like Lyon, Myers, and Feliz and call it a blockbuster.
Again, I’m not defending the moves, logic, or whatever of either Drayton McLane or Ed Wade. My focus, more generally, is to stop the really, really bad joke of waking up one day, realizing a saber article needs to be written and then spinning out a specious piece on Ed Wade using highly selective sources, tailored reevaluations of others, and calling it a day.
Here’s what my actual thoughts were on the offseason, from the post I ran more recently than the Brian Cashman/Ed Wade article (that was semi-serious, but clearly intended on discerning some strand of hope for those of us at the blog to maybe, just maybe cling onto):
…Sure, Ed Wade hasn’t made the Astros worse. That’s praiseworthy when you consider the plight of Royals fans with Dayton Moore. What’s alarming, is that the last few years have pretty much defined with the Astros making moves that haven’t made them significantly worse—or better. They’re in this weird limbo dance that Ed Wade has ostensibly sold Drayton McLane on going along with.
Is it a prudent one, though? Yes, it seems likely that once 2012 rolls around the Astros have money to spend and prospects coming from the system (hopefully) that it could be a relatively simple process to make the big league club a legitimate contender. But is that a good reason not to try to take advantage of near-term opportunities? And what does it say about a GM who can’t seem to either a) talk his owner into buying into the idea that there are many opportunities out there worth investing in be worthwhile filler or b) ignores the opportunities and just gets spends money to get it over with, early?
To answer my last question, it means he isn’t a great GM. It means he isn’t Jack-Z. But it doesn’t mean he’s the worst GM. It probably just means he’s a slightly below-average GM. Now, when it becomes a sabr-meme to dump on the guy while eschewing best practices of actually shedding objective light on the situation, that just means there’s some below-average writing.
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Jan 10, 2010 1:02 PM EST up reply actions
That should read, at the end
I haven’t been happy with him as my GM. I wish—fervently—I had another, but even when I get my snarkiest of sabr-slant’s on, I can’t find the man to be ANYTHING MORE THAN* a slightly below-average GM
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Jan 10, 2010 12:31 PM EST up reply actions
I did read the article
and Wade’s plan, such that it is, is to do the best to win as many games as possible right now out of the false belief that his team is competitive. There’s so much in the Houston media about “being 1 game back in June” or whatever it was. I’ll be the first to admit that the team’s biggest problem isn’t Wade, but Drayton McLane, who wants to put as many butts in the seats now and is totally opposed to rebuilding. But this is a job Ed Wade didn’t have to take. Surely McLane’s meddling ways had made enough noise around baseball to scare off other GMs and Wade could have waited out another job were he not so inclined to push for 78 wins or so.
Lyon was a horrific signing. Feliz — absurd, given the state of the team and the fact Johnson, Blum, or Keppinger could hold down the job in the interim. Michaels? Yikes! Moehler AND Myers? One would surely be plenty given the presence of your other 4 starters, 1 young one who’ll likely be pushed to AAA to make room for one of the grizzled vets. Both Wade and McLane are in denial about the state of this franchise. Wade never had to take the job. He doesn’t get bonus points for choosing to take a difficult job and then doing it poorly.
The race for 4th place is on!
Lyon was terrible, but Feliz was obsurd?
5 million for a 1.5 WAR player?!? Johnson and Keppenger are both replacement level players.
by vivaelpujols on Jan 11, 2010 9:04 PM EST up reply actions
the opportunity cost
will be pushing one of the young starters — Paulino or Norris — to AAA. That’s what’s poor about the signing of Myers.
A lot depends
on whether they’re smart enough to let Norris and Paulino take the No. 4 and No. 5 spots in the rotation, pushing Moehler into a long relief role.
It’s not so much the Myers signing that’s a problem, but rather the decision to exercise Moehler’s option.
First it was Paige, now it's Price.
You can find me at http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/
by Satchel Price on Jan 11, 2010 10:12 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
There was no decision to be made regarding Moehler’s option. It automatically vested when he pitched his 150th inning in 2009. The blueprint going into 2009 probably didn’t include Moehler making 29 starts, but both of Wade’s “rehab” projects (Hampton, Ortiz) got cut mid-season due to ineffectiveness and Cecil Cooper mis-managed both the starting rotation and the bullpen until there was really nothing left to do but hand the ball to Moehler every fifth day.
The early word from Houston beat writers who have spoken to Wade is that Moehler is likely to start the season in the bullpen…though that could change depending on how good/bad Paulino and Norris are in spring training.
I completely disagree with you. Wade came into this situation with one of the weakest farm systems in the league, and is doing what he can to build it up again. Plus the players that he “overpaid”, with the exception of Michaels and Moehler, aren’t that bad.
It's still one of the weakest
It’s very shallow beyond Lyles, Castro and Mier, and if he wanted to build up the farm system, why was he trading away young talent for Tejada and Valverde?
I don’t think that Wade is the worst, and his entire body of work is more impressive than what he’s done this offseason, but realistically, I wasn’t talking about Wade’s entire career, but rather only the past couple months, during which times he’s overpaid for mediocre pieces in order to make a non-contender into slightly less of a non-contender.
When you aren’t very good in the first place, spending over $29M for less than five marginal wins, wins that don’t get you that much closer to contention, then that spending just seems to be really unproductive.
How about taking some of that $29M and pursue Wagner Mateo?
The only possible reason that I could see for one arguing in Wade’s favor is McLane’s presence, and the argument that Wade really has never been totally in control in the first place.
First it was Paige, now it's Price.
You can find me at http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/
by Satchel Price on Jan 10, 2010 10:28 AM EST via mobile up reply actions
Lyons Contract
You make it seem as if they are paying Lyon 15 million per year but its 15 million over the next three years.
How do you figure?
I clarified the difference between the overall commitments and the 2010 ones, and when for calculating the dollars per win, at least based on CHONE projections, I applied Lyon’s projected WAR to both his 2011 and 2012 seasons as well, while optimistically assuming no regression.
First it was Paige, now it's Price.
You can find me at http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/
by Satchel Price on Jan 10, 2010 12:04 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Yet
Throughout the comments section, you continually cling to $29.3 million. Ed wade has committed in $20 million for 2010. How much has dedicated, thus far, for 2011? $4.5 million. Possibly more if he exercises some options.
Further, the CHONE WAR you’re using for Lyon doesn’t take into effect leverage, just runs.
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Jan 10, 2010 1:06 PM EST up reply actions
Yes, let's ignore
how little marginal value he’ll be getting out of that $19.3M. When it comes down to it, Wade spent all of that money without really getting all that much closer to contention, and you’d be lying to yourself if you said that Houston now has a good farm system. It’s improving, certainly, but it’s still among the bottom three in the game, with practically zero depth and only a couple of legitimate impact prospects.
And I also assumed that Lyon would maintain his performance for each of the next three seasons, something that’s fairly generous to do given the volatility of relief performance and the regression that applies to all players as time passes.
I really never argued that Wade is the worst GM in baseball, I’m just arguing that he’s had a really, really unproductive offseason, and you can’t just look towards 2013 and say that everything that he does now doesn’t matter.
And you can’t ignore the commitments that Houston has for 2011 beyond this offseason, $48M to Lee, Berkman and Oswalt in 2011 assuming that Berkman’s option is exercised. They already have nearly half of their payroll lined up for three players, a weak farm system that won’t be able to supplement the rest of the roster any time soon, and yet Wade is committing over $5M to a fungible reliever for both 2011 and 2012?
I mean, yeah, none of these moves is like trading the best pieces of your farm system for two years of a broken down Erik Bedard, but I just don’t see the positive angle to this offseason. If the plan is to contend in 2012, then why is he wasting money to pursue third place in 2010?
First it was Paige, now it's Price.
You can find me at http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/
by Satchel Price on Jan 10, 2010 1:54 PM EST up reply actions
Whooaaaaa...he overpaid $1.15 million per win!
I’m much happier being an Astros fan than a fan of smaller market clubs who do things the “saber friendly”/“right” way.
Yea, Ed Wade isn’t the best GM in baseball, but at least we’re spending money, attempting to win games. This isn’t a salary cap league. If the Astros pay $100 million for an 80 win club, who cares? The smaller market/less financially well to do organizations win 60-70 games every season, and are never, ever in the thick of a race. But hey- their farm systems are ranked higher than Houston’s, and they don’t make these outlandish signing that the Astros do. That makes them saber-blog darlings, and are praised continuously for being so.
When you look at the MLB standings, is there a column for payroll, or for Wins/Million $ spent? No. W-L is all that matters (except on BtB, where it seems like the BtB “power rankings” take precedent over the real standings at times). If the Astros can compete into July or August or whenever, it will be money well spent. This is a profitable franchise, more than most MLB teams, and the farm system is slowly recovering after years of mismanagement.
None of these are backbreaking moves that will cost the team in the long run. As I alluded to in the title of this comment, you’re telling me that Ed Wade had overpaid by just over $1 million for each additional win this group brings to the team. Picking nits is the name of the game when it comes to the over analysis that is baseball blogging, I understand that. This just seems like a waste of a post though. $1 million per win is what Wade over paid. That means very little in the grand scheme of things.
At this point, all the anti-Wade, anti-Astros posts are just comical to me. Especially considering fans of teams like the A’s, Royals, Pirates, Padres, Orioles, Blue Jays, etc have no room to talk. Is this what it’s come to? Jumping all over other teams and other GMs for amusement? Whatever it takes to get through another 74-88 season, I suppose.
The Crawfish Boxes, Astros blogging at its finest.
by Evan Hochschild on Jan 10, 2010 1:10 PM EST reply actions
So wasting money is alright
because it won’t kill the team in the long run? That’s your justification?
W-L record is absolutely NOT all that matters, because it’s so greatly affected by things that are absolutely, 100% out of the front office’s control. What matters is THE PROCESS through which the management functions, and the logic behind each move at the time of the deal.
Results are obviously important, and for many people, it’s the only thing that they look at, but to ignore the logical process and the manner in which the front office spends its money is simply not productive.
Overpaying is far, far more acceptable when you’re on the high end of the win spectrum, and each win that you add is marginally more valuable, but why overpay for marginal wins that bring you from a 73-77 win team to a 77-81 win team? Especially when you have serious issues in your farm system and a clear need to allocate more money to signing amateur talent.
As I noted before, the best defense that I have for Wade is based around Drayton McLane’s presence, and the fact that it’s likely that Wade hasn’t had the biggest say in the moves that Houston has been making.
And also, do you honestly believe that money is the reason why the Pirates, Royals and Orioles have sucked for so long? Really? Because honestly, it’s pretty clear that mismanagement is the culprit in those organizations. Teams like Minnesota, Oakland, Florida, Tampa, San Diego and Cleveland have done alright, in spite of their financial limitations.
And I find it odd that you would rather be a fan of a poorly-ran big market team than a well-ran small market team. That’s weird.
First it was Paige, now it's Price.
You can find me at http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/
by Satchel Price on Jan 10, 2010 2:07 PM EST up reply actions
You seem to be very concerned about the marginal value of a win, but you appear to only focus on on-the-field value to the team.
Those marginal wins create an intangible value that the business world often calls “goodwill”. This fan goodwill effectively creates a “cushion” that mitigates the effect of a bad season on fan attendance. A 77-win team may not make the playoffs, but you won’t lose season-ticket holders as quickly as you would if you decided to just play scrubs and end up with a sub-70 win team. Furthermore, by minimizing the number of dismal seasons (even if you end up with only mediocre ones), you improve/maintain the value of your television contracts with the regional sports networks.
Why do these things matter to the Astros? As you’ve pointed out above, the team has significant money tied up in its franchise players…Oswalt, Berkman, and Lee will together make around $48M in 2010. If you take it as a general rule-of-thumb that a franchise spends about 50% of their revenue on player costs, and you presume that those three players are unwilling to waive their no-trade clauses, then the Astros have to maintain at least a $120M/year revenue to pay player costs (and that’s with paying the other 22 guys on the team $500k/year).
That’s the kind of revenue the Astros were making before they went to the World Series in 2005. The team cannot afford to have revenue dip back to those levels, and the way they do that is by paying for those marginal wins that do not get them back to the playoffs. It’s part of brand management. There’s a lot more to being a good GM than getting a good player-cost-to-projected-WAR-ratio.
But you're ignoring the whole point
Which is that you don’t need to pay so much for this kind of talent. Guys like Moehler, Lyon, Michaels and Blum shouldn’t cost the team $9-10M. I agree that the team doesn’t need to completely rebuild because McLane puts enough money into the team that they should be okay, but they could have done better with that money, is essentially what I’m saying.
First it was Paige, now it's Price.
You can find me at http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/
by Satchel Price on Jan 10, 2010 5:43 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
*sigh*
I just managed to lose a longer actually edited comment.
HLP didn’t say he’d rather be a fan of poorly-run big market team than a well-run small market team. Rather, he stated, somewhere in the inflammatory remarks, that he appreciates the fact that his poorly-run mid-market team is spending money to make a bad situation mediocre as sunk cost sink away. In fact, HLP and I both, who speak on just about a daily basis, constantly bitch and moan about the front office while drooling over the Friedman’s and Beane’s of the world.
The farm system is receiving more investment than it had in…well, ever. That’s Ed Wade’s contribution, too. He brought in Bobby Heck to aid in finding players who can be signed on the budget Drayton is willing to extend on the farm system and I don’t think you’ll find a prospects expert out there who won’t praise the results, so far. Sure, they’ve stayed away form some true blue chippers, but again, that’s the hand that Drayton deals them.
Now, the central crux of this entire dialogue has been this offseason. You state below that the pieces acquired could have been acquired for half the cost. That’s probably true in some regards, but I’m not so sure we can really halve everything. I think there’s some hidden upside in both Lyon and Myers, so I’m more willing to fudge a little on their deals, but when you average the projections, Ed Wade ends up spending right around $4.5 million, how we’ve previously valued a WAR and I don’t think you can take that and say, with the veracity it’s been stated, Ed Wade tanked this offseason.
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Jan 10, 2010 9:23 PM EST up reply actions
I appreciate the disclaimer
It’s been a good discussion, on the whole (HLP aside…). I want to reiterate that I don’t think anyone here is rushing to Wade’s defense because we love the guy, just because we’re tired of seeing the meme.
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
Myers
Actually I like the Myers signing. He’s a jerk and not at all a likable individual, but he has talent. As a Mariners fan I wish they would have signed him, and the price looks about right. HR’s are the concern… in a park that gives up a lot of HR’s. Still, I like him. If he keeps the homers to a decent level he will be an above average starter if not better. Big if, but a worthy gamble.
How recently did you do the math to come up with 3.5 million per win share being the going rate.
I seem to remember that figure being used just prior to the Bay signing, but I would think that Bay and Holliday certainly would have caused that number to change just due to the size of their contracts.
"We're just as bad as the old Mets, but this time nobody's laughing"
-Dallas Green
We can't really tell yet.
I’d hold off personally doing any sort of $/win projection myself until the free agent period this offseason is over.
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
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