Actually, his claim of a $14M profit kinda undermines the entire point of his column.

It’s funny, btw, that Madden trots out the usual challenge to open the books, but he himself doesn’t disclose the source of his numbers. So if Manfred’s figures are worthless, so are Madden’s.

to drive to P’burgh, spend time in a hotel, and watch three games at PNC than to buy the comparable seats at the new palace they built for the Yankees.

For any who haven’t read, here’s the link: “http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&page=rumblings091119” target=“new”

Two flaws that I find in the article:

1.) Where will the talent come from that will allow teams to spend to a salary floor?

In this system, there’s no guarantee that John Lackey will come to the Pirates or Royals for $20 million a year (fulfilling the salary tax minimum) because any other (more talented) team could offer the same amount or more. Each player has a certain value attached to their performance, and an economic system would just inflate the value of middle- to low-tier free agents, which would in-turn inflate the value of upper-tier free agents. (Though if Stark did run this across player agents—and the way the article was written suggests that he did—it’s no surprise the idea “has gotten great reviews.”)

2.) How could revenue possibly be shared in a way that is fair to teams paying the luxury tax and teams paying the threshold tax?

Having a luxury tax to help low-revenue teams can’t work if you’re also going to tax those teams for not spending enough money. The money from a salary minimum tax would just go to mid- to high-income teams who would either spend it on players (defeating the purpose of the luxury tax) or pocket the money (defeating the purpose of the salary minimum). At some point, low-income teams would start to lose money, and the system has no prescribed way of stopping that.

Having either a minimum salary tax OR a maximum salary tax might work, but using both at the same time wouldn’t really work. Personally, I like the concept of a system tied to league revenue with a hard salary floor and salary cap, combined with aggressive revenue sharing. Ideally, it would decrease the amount of money that could be “pocketed” by owners and keep player salaries within a reasonable amount of the league’s revenue. It also would help to keep an equal distribution of talent throughout the system.

Ugh. Kearns is a good defensive outfielder, but UZR has Milledge as well above avg. in LF, too. Meanwhile, Kearns has zero upside as a hitter and Milledge still has a reasonable chance of breaking out. Same thing at short. Everett is declining pretty rapidly now on offense and defense, so there’s a realistic chance he’ll fail to meet his projections. Cedeno’s upside isn’t great, but at least there’s some there. If he doesn’t meet it, they can move on. Marchman’s basically following a formula designed to ensure the Pirates lose 90 games. So what if they “improve” if that’s the ceiling?

Marchman’s is probably the worst article I have ever read by someone trying to analyze how to make a team better. Nutting Hostage could do a better job.

First, he says the Pirates don’t have a 1B. Garret Jones appears to be an average fielding 1B. Second, if Andy were moved to 1B, he would no longer be a league average player because of the positional adjustment (although I expect him to hit better next year). Third, Andy was worth more as a 3B than Beltre in 2009 – with both offense and defense factored in.

Then, he goes into bizarro land by saying Milledge is being played because he “was at one time a prospect”, then he suggests replacing him with someone who had a lower UZR and WAR than Milledge did in 2009!

I mean, if the Pirates thought defense alone could win them games, wouldn’t they have just kept playing Nyjer, who was the best left fielder in MLB by many runs? Obviously they feel that Milledge is going to hit better than Nyjer in the long term and that’s why he’s playing.

If Andy’s at 1B, then Jones is in RF, correct? And Kearns hasn’t even played left field since 2002, and only has 13 games there his whole career. OK….

Anyway, its obviously ridiculous. A much better analysis of what the Pirates are really trying to do is found in a fangraphs post by Cameron.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/adding-value

The Pirates are trying to provide several decent options at each positions and play whoever is hotter or rising to the top.

If Ankiel is signed, then here’s what will happen…

Ankiel starts in RF, Jones at 1B. After several weeks, if one of Ankiel, Jones or Miledge isn’t contributing, Clement will come up and replace one of them. If Clement or another then struggles by June, Tabata will come up. If Andy or Aki isn’t doing well, then Alvarez will come up if ready.

We’ll see if the strategy pays off.

I wouldn’t mind the Pirates getting Beltre out of his suggestions, although, unlike the author, I don’t believe he’ll be cheap (he’s been connected to the Phillies and a bunch of other teams). Also, he might not be the best fit now that we have Iwamura and LaRoche, along with Alvarez soon to come. If we didn’t get AI, then Beltre at 3rd, LaRoche 2nd and Alvarez at 1st base wouldn’t have been bad.