Which is a pity, given the high quality of most of his other work.

I definitely think the trade was sound, as starting pitching had to be made a priority. For the Pirates, it’s darn near impossible to get a starter with Morton’s stuff in free agency, but replacing McLouth’s bat is much easier.

they shouldn’t be getting away with voicing bad ones, and vehemently at that.

This goes back to a thread I was reading on DRaysBay (I think) on Tracy Ringolsby. You can be a great reporter, but not a good analyst, and that’s fine, or should be. However, in that case, you shouldn’t be analyzing!

This is the thing that most people don’t understand. McClouth was entering his first season of arbitration when he signed a contract worth a possible $15.75 million over 3 years (including a $10.65 mil club option for 2012). This meant it bought out the Pirate’s years of control, and possibly one year of free agency.

That contract is neither big, nor long term. In fact, it is probably less than what he might have gotten in his three (possible) arbitration cases. It’s actually a hell of a deal considering he has been about a 3.5 win player the past two years. The Braves got a good player for a good price. Therefore, it is not big. It’s a deal.

It is also not long, as it just buys out the arbitration years, and one possible FA year.

That signing was economical and smart, as it made him affordable for the Pirates and attractable to other teams. If you really want to start talking about big and long term, let’s look at Vernon Wells, Gary Matthews Jr., and Milton Bradley. If we want to look closer to home, that big and long contract we gave to the ultimate core player, Jason Kendall, really allowed us to get a lot back for him. Needless to say, big/long term deals in the Pirates situation should only be given to absolute locks (on the current roster, only AM would deserve one, and even then, tread carefully).

I completely agree with you on DK’s perspective. It is not his place to convince the average fan that the road the current FO is traveling down is paved in gold, he can only purvey the reaction across the spectrum (which is what he did in the post).

But I will say that a “significant amount of fans” are not smart, and would rather agree with the mob than pay close attention.

Yeah, he’s claiming that I portrayed those comments as his views. He seems to have missed the part where I said he was characterizing other people’s views. He also seems to have missed my comment above.

I don’t think a front loaded contract is a good idea, but one where money is more spread out could be – if it significantly lowers the price of later years. A Longoria style contract could be done where there is a large buyout if the team doesn’t pick up option years. In Longoria’s case, it’s $3M if the team doesn’t pick up his free agency year options. That’s essentially a $3M signing bonus you get at the end.

I’m very interested to see if they can work something out. It looks like it will have to wait until next off-season though.

about the quality of discussion… although he probably knows its true

DK may not agree with the McLouth deal, but I get the sense that was used as an example specifically because the question was about whether the FO will keep players long term, and for the “outsiders”, there is a huge amount of confusion as to why you would call a player part of your “core” and then trade that player soon after.

The confusion comes in the difference of how the two groups think about the players.

For fans, the “core” means the group of players with whom you get emotionally attached to and root for. People don’t root for stats – they root for people. So for the average fan, trading a part of your core is like trading a part of your soul. They feel betrayed because they feel they were led to believe it was safe to allow the player a piece of their affection.

For management, the core means the players on the team that have high value towards winning and that you can build around. It’s perfectly acceptable in that understanding of the term to trade part of your core if you get other players back that are going to give you a better core.

The masses make sense unless

A) There is actually plenty of evidence that the Pirates spend proportional to their revenue with other teams. So, the answer to how much they will be able to spend is simply to look at what other teams spend that have a similar attendance at that time and a similar market size. For example, the Rockies spent about $75M this year in a good sports market that is only slightly larger than Pittsburgh with an attendance of 30K per game. When the Pirates were expecting $30+K per game in 2001, the Pirates had a nearly league average payroll, which in today’s terms would be about $80M. So, there is your answer. Can it be known 100% for sure that they will spend $75M-$80M? Of course not. But as I said, there is more evidence to say they will spend that much than there is evidence that they won’t spend that much. The evidence that they won’t spend that much is exactly zero evidence. Their payroll has always reflected the attendance they were able to draw, and when that attendance fell, they had to dump payroll.

B) Extending a player means the Pirates should have that player for the life of the deal – or something better. That’s all it means. People loved Tony Pena. Yet the Tony Pena trade was a great trade. The McLouth trade might turn out to be great or not and if Doumit is traded, then that might also turn out to be great or not. Who care? Extending a player simply means the team has more leverage to keep or acquire more talent, which is only good for the team. Fans should cry if it is shown they got shafted on a trade, but not complain that the GM is trying to improve the team through trades.

C) There is no other business except sports where the raw materials of your product get exponentially more expensive the more successful you are. So other business analogies don’t apply. I also can’t think of another business that is centered around watching a man try to hit a baseball.

A) Of course we don’t know whether the money will be spent when it should. So why ask the question at all, much less constantly in response to virtually everything the team does? Why is it an endless subject of debate when we can’t know the answer now? Of course, Dejan states the argument charitably. What the FO bashers actually argue quite consistently is that the fact that the team isn’t spending the money now “proves” that it won’t spend later.

B) You’re misreading the argument, which is that McLouth being traded shows that every player with an extension will be traded. Again, the real issue is, Why does this come up constantly, and why is the question always phrased as McLouth being dumped without examining the return? If everybody agrees that anybody should be traded for the right return, why is the McLouth trade an issue?

C) You’re misreading this one, also. The question flatly and incorrectly states that management expects something from the fans without upgrading. In other words, management expects the fans to turn out in droves while the team still sucks, a notion that’s based on the false assumption that it’s not possible to win with a low payroll. I’m sure the Pirates would like the fans to turn out in droves now, but nothing in their strategy relies on that happening before the team improves.

And let me add, since this has become an issue, that I’m not responding to Dejan but to arguments constantly made by various FO critics that he is summarizing, accurately if rather charitably.

Suppan is a funny example. He’s eating up a large % of their payroll and giving them a replacement level performance. Signing a guy like him would indeed hurt the Pirates’ future.

Martinez is also a bad example. At the point where the Indians signed him, they already had assembled one of the best lineups in modern baseball history.

At any rate, you’re missing the point. Whether the Pirates should spend money now is arguable. I don’t even have a problem with it up to a point, Iwamura being an example. The real point is that they have a coherent strategy in place and claiming, as their critics do, that the low payroll now “proves” it’ll never be increased is just whining for the sake of whining. We don’t know, and we won’t know, until the time comes, which will be in another year or so unless the rebuilding plan is a failure. Basically, your arguments are reasonable (although I partially disagree) but you’re giving the people whose arguments Dejan is summarizing too much credit.

is what I meant.

I guess now would be where I bring up why I personally, am confused by the “spend money NOW” approach.

Do these people mean we should pay our current players more, so our payroll is more “in line” with other teams? If so, does that mean they will perform better? Would that be because they are comfortable and financially secure, i.e. give, say, Edge $4.5MM/yr, and think he will play “up to the dollar value” of his contract? (I hardly think this is the way to go.)

 — OR —

Does it mean we should go on a spending spree, signing “big name” FA’s to come in here and right the ship altogether? You know, Lackey, Bay, Vlad, etc… Haven’t we tried this before?

You can see why I might not understand why NOW is the time to blow a buncha dough.

Also, a poster named Scranton put this response up on the PBC Blog entry in question, I am taking the chance on posting it here in it’s entirety, because most of you will probably not have read it, and I found it interesting.

“Why should attendance rise before the payroll does? What other business demands more from its customers before it upgrades the product?”
The incorrect assumption made by this statement is that higher payroll necessarily equates to a better product. Of the 4 major sports, baseball payroll is the least reflective of actual talent as players in their first 3 years make at or near league minimum, and salaries in years 4 to 6 are artificially capped through arbitration. As such, it is more than plausible that a team could shed salary and actually become more talented (i.e. a better product). The Pirates’ problem in the past hasn’t been team payroll, it’s been team stupidity in the FO.
Instead of bemoaning baseball’s economic system, appreciate the fact that it allows Andrew McCutchen to cost 400k as opposed to 7 million or something. Because of that fact, I would actually prefer no salary cap, because it would likely be accompanied by the removal of the 0-6 salary structure, which is just as beneficial, if not more, to teams with lower revenues. Except for the exceptionally-super stars (Pujols, etc.), there are always 0-6 players just as good, if not better, than the higly paid free agent signings.
A salary floor will lead to nothing but the bloating of mediocre veteran salaries, as the truly elite free agents will always go to the big-spending teams, leaving the lower-revenue teams to dig through the leftovers to meet the payroll floor.

Good points. The only argument you’ll get from me is your contention that Milwaukee only has two teams. Green Bay is for all intents and purposes a Milwaukee football team.

Vlad might want to note the part about half the teams cutting payroll from 2008.

What Maguro said.

Apart from that, like the Indians when they signed Dennis Martinez, the Rays obviously had their team in place. It was no surprise, either. A lot of people were projecting them to take a big leap forward that year, although not quite as big as they did.

You figure we’re at that stage yet? You think Cliff Floyd will put us into contention in 2010?

His ERA just hasn’t caught up to it yet. All his rates stats from 2009 were those of a guy with an ERA right around 4.

He would know more about baseball if he did.

Actually, Dejan does have a good response to the question. I jumped the gun a bit with this criticism.