2 comments Apparently Whatever Team Drafted Buster Posey Would Have Won Three World Series Titles By Now

Buster Posey is a great catcher and baseball player. All four teams that didn't draft him probably would have liked to have gotten a chance to look into the future, see what kind of baseball player Posey would become, and then draft him. When he isn't causing consternation based on when he was called up to the majors, Posey is causing (supposed) consternation from the teams that didn't draft him. Bill Shaikin has written a column about how the Royals passed over Posey in the 2008 MLB draft and then talks about the other teams that passed over Posey. There seems to be an...assumption, maybe...perhaps an insinuation...or more like a suggestion that whatever team had drafted Posey would have won one or multiple World Series at this point.

Every team in every sport passes up a great player at some point in that organization's history. It's bound to happen. I guess it's an easy comparison to see that the Royals and Giants were playing in the World Series and the Royals just happened to draft Eric Hosmer over Buster Posey. It's not really news, but it is interesting. It's just...the assumption I feel like I am reading that the Royals and the Rays would have won a World Series (and the Pirates and Orioles to a lesser extent) by now if they had drafted Posey seems speculative. I'm not sure it would have worked that way.

If the Kansas City Royals lose this World Series, none of the decisions they are about to make will be as crucial as one they made six years ago.

They could have had Buster Posey.

Yes, they could have had Buster Posey. The Royals do have Salvador Perez and he is 24 years old and signed for the next five years at $18.5 million, until he is 29 years old. He had the worst batting season of his career this year and hit .260/.289/.403, won a Gold Glove and had a WAR of 3.3. He's definitely not Buster Posey, but he's also not a shitty catcher. I'm sure the Royals regret not drafting Posey, but Posey has also signed a large contract (nine years $164 million) that would not have fit into what the Royals are trying to do. They want to build the team around defense and speed. Perez plays really good defense. Posey was a better selection, but the Royals aren't stuck with chicken shit right now.

With the third pick of the 2008 draft, the Royals picked first baseman Eric Hosmer. With the fifth pick, the Giants happily grabbed Posey, who has led them to three World Series appearances in five years.

Posey was a college player and Hosmer was a high school player. Different situations for both players. Posey is obviously the better player though. 

They won in 2010, when Posey was the National League rookie of the year. They won in 2012, when 

Posey was the NL most valuable player and batting champion.

In their 52 B.P. (Before Posey) years in San Francisco, the Giants never won.

They did make the World Series in 1989 and 2002, so it's not like they were a totally struggling franchise B.P. They weren't great, that's for sure. 

"It is not a coincidence," said Bobby Evans, the Giants' assistant general manager.

It's also not a coincidence that pitchers like Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, Jonathan Sanchez (he was good in 2010), and Ryan Vogelsong pitched for the Giants during that time and they had a really good bullpen to help close out games. Buster Posey obviously has something to do with the Giants winning three World Series, but it's not a coincidence that the Giants won a World Series with Posey on the roster like it's not a coincidence they also won three World Series when they had good young pitching. 

The standard major league team has a catcher batting low in the order, and any offense is a bonus. In Posey, the Giants have an elite batter staffing the most arduous defensive position.

It is a plus, but it also doesn't immediately lead to success. The best hitting catchers in the majors this year (300 or more at-bats) were Devin Mesoraco, Buster Posey, Jonathan Lucroy, Yan Gomes, Russell Martin, Derek Norris, Carlos Ruiz, Evan Gattis, Chris Iannetta, and Yadier Molina. Of those players four were in the playoffs and two of them lost in the Wild Card game. It's a bonus to have a great hitting catcher in the lineup. It's also a bonus to have a pitching staff that's ranked in the Top 10 in ERA and quality starts (except for 2014) every year the Giants have won the World Series. I'm not taking anything away from Posey, his good hitting is a plus, but he's not THE REASON the Giants have won three World Series.

Posey was the only major league catcher to lead his team in home runs, and he amplified the Giants' huge competitive advantage at the position by leading his team in batting average and on-base-plus-slugging percentage, too.

I think this is more of a reflection on the lack of power the Giants had, and the fact Brandon Belt only played in 61 games, than it is a reflection that this is a competitive advantage of some sort. It's good to have a catcher lead the team in home runs, but I'm not sure it's quite the competitive advantage the author thinks it is without other great players around him. I also don't understand why this is a bigger competitive advantage coming from a catcher specifically. There still has to be great players around that catcher. Todd Frazier led the the Reds in batting average, OBP, home runs, hits, and RBI's, PLUS he had the catcher who hit the most home runs in MLB on his team, and the Reds finished 76-86.

"To play the catcher position, put up a .300 average and hit 20 home runs, you should be in the MVP talk every year," Giants pitcher Tim Hudson said. "I don't care how your team finishes."

Finally, an MLB player is on record as saying winning games doesn't matter in terms of whether a player on that team should be in the MVP discussion. Perhaps Tim Hudson thinks this only applies to the position of catcher. 

The Dodgers had the 15th pick of the 2008 draft. But the Giants, who had the fifth pick, hired Barr as scouting director.

With the Giants, Barr had his chance at Posey.

"If he was there when we picked, we were going to take him," Barr said.

This turned out to be a good move and the direct cause for the Giants to win three World Series. 

The Tampa Bay Rays, run by new Dodgers baseball boss Andrew Friedman, had the first pick. In one of the all-time draft blunders, they narrowed their choice to Posey and high school infielder Tim Beckham, then chose Beckham.

I do not approve of the wording of this sentence. One of the all-time draft blunders was drafting Tim Beckham just overall, no matter who the Rays had it narrowed down to. They could have chosen pretty much anyone else drafted in the Top 10 of the 2008 draft and been in better shape than they were in drafting Beckham. So yes, it was an all-time draft blunder to draft Beckham overall, regardless of whether they selected Buster Posey.

"How many World Series would the Rays have won with him instead of Beckham?" one American League scout said. "They're always looking for a catcher."

Oh lord. I don't even know what to say to this comment. It's not like if the Rays had drafted Buster Posey this would have immediately vaulted them into winning several World Series back-to-back. If they had brought Posey up in 2010 then he would have helped that Rays team for sure. I will concede that. The Rays may have a World Series title by now, but that's pure speculation. There's no way to know for sure, but one thing I do know for sure is that if the Rays had drafted Buster Posey, he would possibly not be a member of the Rays during the 2015 season. Based on the fact he didn't sign a team-friendly contract with the Giants, he wouldn't have signed a team-friendly contract with the Rays and would be eligible for arbitration during the 2015 season. The Rays love to trade players and get a solid return in order to keep payroll at a manageable level.

It's way too much speculation to ask, "How many World Series would the Rays have won with him instead of Beckham?" It's impossible to answer and any attempt to push the argument in the direction the author wants the argument to go is arriving to a conclusion based on assumption piled on speculation. Yes, the Rays would have been a better team in 2010 and beyond if they had Posey, but to say they would have won multiple World Series is unknowable.

The Pittsburgh Pirates had the second pick, and they focused on power-hitting Vanderbilt infielder Pedro Alvarez. The Baltimore Orioles had the fourth pick, but they had selected catcher Matt Wieters the previous year, and ultimately they took University of San Diego left-hander Brian Matusz.

Again, saying that a team should NOT have selected Buster Posey is an argument I can't make. Teams in every sport pass up great players all the time. I'm not sure if you have heard, but Michael Jordan was not the #1 draft pick in the 1984 draft. But having selected Matt Wieters, who was also a college catcher, it makes sense the Orioles didn't draft Posey. That is unless they liked them both so much they wanted to see which one made it to the majors first and then trade the other. That doesn't seem like the most efficient use of resources. 

"We were taking the best player available," General Manager Dayton Moore said. "We liked Buster Posey a lot. The thing we liked about Hos, the thing that separated us, was that we felt he was going to be a plus offensive player and a plus defender. Not that we didn't think Buster Posey would. He's a great player.

And Hosmer hasn't been the great offensive player on par with what a corner infielder should be or what Buster Posey has been. He has been a very good defensive first baseman. Hosmer looked like he was going to take off during the 2014 season after hitting .302/.353/.448 with 17 home runs during 2013. This didn't happen. 

Hosmer was drafted out of high school, so his development took longer. That was of little consolation to the Royals in 2012, when Hosmer was batting .232 and Posey was the MVP, batting champion and World Series champion.

Was it consolation to the Royals in 2011 when Hosmer .293/.334/.465 with 19 home runs in 128 games while Buster Posey only played 45 games because he's a fucking catcher who got run over at the plate and injured like happens to catchers? Was it consolation to the Royals during the 2014 postseason when Hosmer hit .351/.439/.544?

I'm not arguing the Royals shouldn't want Buster Posey, it's just the whole assumption and/or gist of this article is "These teams fucked up irreparably because they didn't draft Posey and this cost them at least one World Series" when I'm not sure this is entirely true. Posey is a great player and he's a catcher, which apparently is even more impressive while ignoring he will have to change positions at some point most likely, but the Royals would not have won a World Series by now with Posey and I have no idea how many World Series the Rays would have won with Posey. Maybe one, maybe two, perhaps zero.

The Hosmer pick might yet turn out all right for the Royals. He batted .302 last year. He is batting .448 in the postseason, and he has reached base 20 times in 36 appearances.

That, and he is 25 years old. There is time. 

If Moore had a draft regret, it was not the selection of Hosmer. In 2010, the Royals liked the left-handed pitching in their system and decided to pick Cal State Fullerton infielder Christian Colon. 

They passed on the guy who has turned into the best left-hander in the American League.

"We beat ourselves up on Chris Sale a lot," Moore said.

Now not drafting Sale if the Royals liked Sale a lot, I can't get behind. I'm a fan of "You can never have too much pitching" and "Quality left-handed pitching is so hard to find so get it when you can" that I would have gone with Sale if the Royals had liked Sale the most. That's IF they liked him the most. Colon hasn't been great, but he's not been a bust on a Tim Beckham level either. He's moved slowly through the system. If the Royals had drafted Colon instead of Posey then I could see the issue, but Hosmer should not be a huge draft regret.

In 2005, the Angels selected Posey out of high school, in the 50th and final round. Posey said the Angels never made him an offer.

It was pretty clear that Posey was going to Florida State. A player with the talent that Posey showed in high school doesn't get drafted in the 50th round if MLB teams aren't very, very sure he is going to be completely unsignable and instead choose to go to college. 

Posey had told major league teams that he planned to attend college. Eddie Bane, then the Angels' scouting director, had watched Posey throw 93 mph in high school and wanted to reserve his rights if he blossomed as a pitcher that summer.

Exactly, Posey was going to college. Let's not let the "This team fucked up because they didn't draft Buster Posey" story get out of hand. If Posey was drafted in the 50th round, every MLB team passed on him 40+ times, so it would just be fair to say, "Every MLB team wishes they had drafted Buster Posey."

The Angels' first pick in 2005 was pitcher Trevor Bell, who won four major league games.

Drafting a player in the first round who was clearly going to college would have been a very dumb move for the Angels to make. I get the author wants to show the Angels drafted Posey and didn't sign him, but he wasn't going to sign and they, like every other team did that year, should not have drafted him earlier than he was drafted. The Angels did draft Peter Bourjos in the 10th round of the 2005 draft. They should get credit for that.

"I can't remember who our first pick was that year," Bane said, jokingly. "But it should have been Buster, and we should have given him whatever he wanted."

Well, unless the Angels were willing to turn their MLB team into a college where Posey could play baseball for the Florida State baseball coach with other Florida State baseball players, I don't think the Angels could have given Posey what he wanted.

And guess what else? Mike Trout should have been drafted by every MLB team prior to the point he was drafted by the Angels. Four MLB teams wish they had drafted Buster Posey, but if the Rays, Royals, Pirates, and Orioles had drafted Posey, then that doesn't mean they would have won multiple World Series by now. Posey is important to the Giants winning three World Series, but it's just not his performance that led to those three titles. Madison Bumgarner turned into Sandy Koufax during the 2014 postseason and Pablo Sandoval turned into Babe Ruth during the 2012 World Series. That helped the Giants win those World Series titles. It's pure speculation to just assume the Rays would have won multiple World Series with Posey as their catcher.

3 comments Immediately After That Annoying World Series Ends, Joel Sherman Goes Back to Churning for Pageviews Using Alex Rodriguez As Bait

When I say "immediately" in that title I am not exaggerating. If there were ink on Joel Sherman's "Madison Bumgarner is a great pitcher" column, then it would not have been dry by the time he posted an article about the 10 biggest questions of A-Rod's Yankees return. Sherman posted his World Series column on October 30 at 12:40am. At 12:42am on October 30, his article about A Rod's Yankees return was posted. Two minutes. That's how long Joel Sherman focused on the World Series before churning out an obviously already written A-Rod column. This is typical of the New York media. They tend to care less about the sport of baseball and prefer to focus on the drama around the sport of baseball. An article about 10 questions surrounding A-Rod's return can be posted at any point for the next couple of months. There is no expiration date on an article like that for the next couple of months because A-Rod isn't returning until February, but Sherman had to get that article out as soon as possible to focus on what's important. What's important is pageviews. And an article about questions surrounding A-Rod's return brings those pageviews, while an article about the Giants winning the World Series will not, unless there are thousands of New Yorkers who think it is 1946 and the Giants still play in New York.

Let's have Joel get the game summary of an actual MLB game out of the way before he gets to the real topic at hand, which is all the questions surrounding A-Rod's return.

He walked unhurried in from the right-field bullpen. Into Game 7, deeper into baseball history.

Joel Sherman was all like this after he wrote this sentence.

However, think of this like the Beatles giving us “Let It Be” at the end. They didn’t need to do it; their legacy already was their legacy.

But we are sure glad they did.

Let's scale it back a little bit with the epic-sounding sportswriting. Just a little bit.

Going .gif crazy today, sorry.

Reliever Jeremy Affeldt continued to be the most unsung October stalwart in history.

Uh-oh, it's time to hand out the superlatives! Jeremy Affeldt gets "Most unsung October stalwart in history." Joe Panik gets "Person whose last name does not describe how he behaved in key moments during the World Series" and Madison Bumgarner receives the award for "Pitcher whose name sounds like it should be a character on 'Gossip Girl.'"

Still, Bumgarner towered over this October as if he were Manute Bol and everyone else was Muggsy Bogues. He was a Giant in all forms of the word.

And the Royals weren't very Royal in all forms of the word when they had to face Bumgarner. And Buster Posey wasn't having no busters stop him from winning another World Series title. Brandon Belt took a belt to the Royals' chances of winning a World Series. Sergio Romo played like a star unlike that other Romo who wears a star on his helmet, but doesn't deserve to.

Bumgarner, as it has been throughout this stunning month, answered all questions. He came in with the Giants leading 3-2 to start the bottom of the fifth. He never left. He insisted pitch count did not enter his mind — only executing pitches, getting outs. 

Very Jack Morris of him. Now sportswriters need to create narratives around Bumgarner's performance that never actually existed and the comparison will be complete.

“He’s our guy,” Giants starter Jake Peavy said. “We live with him and die with him and he took us to the promised land.”

Kansas City. Apparently Kansas City is the promised land.

Of course the final score was 3-2. Because that was the score when Bumgarner took the ball.

Yes, of course...because Bumgarner was pitching to his Giants teammates as well and that's why they couldn't score any more runs once he entered the game?

When Affeldt was asked if he expected Bumgarner — not closer Sergio Casilla — to pitch the ninth, the lefty said, “If [manager Bruce] Bochy had told him he was done, you would have had two pitchers on the mound in the ninth.”

Which I am pretty sure would have increased ratings, so keep that in mind Rob Manfred. Baseball is dying. Would having two pitchers on the mound at the same time increase ratings?

It was about watching artistry and endurance, craft and fortitude.

“There is a lot of makeup there,” pitching coach Dave Righetti said. 

Don't give away all of Bumgarner's beauty secrets! At least he doesn't photoshop his appearance.

Bumgarner’s demeanor allows him to execute, to be a master of hitting corners with multiple pitches at various speeds, to block out even all that comes with the World Series. A young Clint Eastwood would play him in the movie.

Unfortunately, an old Jessica Lange would play Buster Posey in the movie. The character of Bruce Bochy would obviously be played by Sam Elliott with a cameo appearance by Amy Adams as a scrappy bartender who catches the eye of Madison Bumgarner and shows up just in time to see him clinch the series. He would propose to her on the pitcher's mound and everyone would live happily ever after...except for Pablo Sandoval, who is inexplicably played by Sarah Jessica Parker.

Only in the end could he admit, “I can’t lie to you anymore, I’m a little tired.”

The character of Amy Adams would then say in a coy fashion while grabbing Bumgarner's arm (Bumgarner's arm would be played by a young John Wayne), "I hope you aren't TOO tired," as they laugh at this brief allusion to sexual relations later in the evening and walk off the field together. The field at Kaufmann Stadium will be played by Tommy Lee Jones' face.

The tying run was just 90 feet away. One last chance — but not. At 2-2, Bumgarner threw a 93 mph fastball — he still had that in his arm.

So Bumgarner had a 93 mph fastball IN his arm? Maybe he's a robot if he is shooting baseballs out of his arm?

At the end, it looked as if Bumgarner could throw into a Game 8 or 9 or …

Jack Morris would throw into Game 8 or 9. He did it seven times back in the early 1980's during the World Series.

But he already had pitched the Giants to another title, himself into forever.

Enough of this flowery writing, Joel Sherman has to get to the real concern he has. He can't wait more than three minutes to talk about A-Rod's return to the Yankees in five months. Sherman couldn't even wait a day to post this column, he had to do it two minutes after his column about Game 7 of the World Series was posted.

The 2014 season has ended and so the next chapter of Alex Rodriguez’s baseball career has begun.

YOU WAITED TWO WHOLE MINUTES TO POST THIS! Thank God Joel Sherman didn't post this during the World Series and take the focus off the World Series games. That's a totally A-Rod dick move that nobody else (Joe Maddon, ahem) would do.

What does this mean? Here are 10 questions that come along with the most polarizing player in the game:

1. Will Alex talk?

Nope, he'll probably stay silent all season never to speak again.

As much as A-Rod can curry favor with the Yankees and MLB, he did so this year by mainly — as he promised he would — falling into the background and not overshadowing Derek Jeter’s farewell season, in specific, and the season, in general.

As his tour of college and pro football stadiums has shown, though, Rodriguez does not do undercover particularly well. He hates obscurity and indifference to his existence. So he is going to try to put his current status into context at some point.

Yes, how dare Alex Rodriguez appear in public during his year of exile from playing for the Yankees! Doesn't he know that his mere existence in public forces the media to cover his every move and this overshadows a sporting event because the media HAS to overly-focus on A-Rod's presence at a sporting event? They have no choice but to talk about how he is present at a sporting event.

Or does he try to go to a friendly inquisitor such as Mike Francesa? Or does he decide to seem less over-privileged and less guarded? In that case, he would probably do something in a group setting.

Great analysis on this super-important issue.

2. When will Alex talk?

February 7th at 2:00pm. Then at 2:02pm A-Rod will want to focus on the upcoming season and Joel Sherman will wonder why A-Rod wants to move on from the topic so quickly.

Is it possible A-Rod could actually act like just about every other player and be quiet all winter and make it a one-time comment when he arrives with the rest of the Yankees come February? That might be the safest route — but that is not a route that A-Rod usually takes.

The New York sports media before A-Rod talks: When will A-Rod talk? He has to talk soon so that he can answer these questions we have for him! He has to explain what he's been doing during the offseason and how he is approaching the upcoming year while discussing his suspension for PED use. If he doesn't do this, he's dodging the issue.

The New York media after A-Rod talks: We just knew that A-Rod couldn't keep his mouth shut. He just HAD to come out and talk about his PED suspension. Look at him trying to overshadow the new college football playoffs by talking about his PED suspension. He just can't keep his mouth shut and has to explain how he is approaching the upcoming year and answer the questions we have for him.

4. What kind of shape is he in?

Since A-Rod has been taking "his tour of college and pro football stadiums" then isn't it easy to see what kind of shape he is in? Take a look at him since he's always looking to get in the public's eye despite his suspension from MLB that apparently also means he isn't supposed to go out in public.

The worries are what kind of work can he do at age 39 and after two major hip surgeries. And it can’t be ignored — what kind of work can he do clean? PEDs allow for more frequent workouts done at high intensity with less need for long recovery times. 

I'm sure it's the lack of PED's and not the two major hip surgeries that will determine whether A-Rod is still able to play at a high level or not during the 2015 season.

Of course, that is assuming that he is going to try to play clean.

Ah yes, in October 2014 two minutes after the 2014 World Series has ended Joel Sherman starts the speculation on whether A-Rod is going to be using PED's during the 2015 season. Never change, Joel. Never change. Keep the wild speculation going as long and often as possible.

5. Can A-Rod still hit?

Even if he is crappy (relative to his previous performance) he can still contribute compared to the guys the Yankees put on the field during the 2014 season, especially compared to the shortstop that the Yankees put on the field for the 2014 season.

The Yankees would like to re-sign Headley — clearly the better defender at the position — to play third base next year with A-Rod morphing into a third baseman/first baseman/DH.

If A-Rod were Michael Young then he would demand a trade at the prospect of Chase Headley taking over third base duties during the 2015 season and I am sure the New York media would totally support him the way the Texas Rangers media supported Michael Young's trade demands.

Of course, again, the question is whether Rodriguez was even playing clean in 2013.

Of course, that should be a question, but keep bringing up whether A-Rod was playing clean in 2013 or will play clean in 2015. Gotta keep those pageviews churning. Was A-Rod playing clean at the age of 9 when he played coach-pitch? The question still remains.

6. What do injury/age mean?

Here is the definition of "injury."  

Here is the definition of "age."

Geez Joel, why are you too lazy to look up your own definitions?

He was troubled in 2013 by high-octane fastballs, and velocity is better now in the sport than ever.

Baseball has changed so much in the year that A-Rod has been gone? WILL HE EVEN UNDERSTAND HOW TO PLAY THE GAME WHEN HE RETURNS? OR WILL HE USED PED'S TO HELP HIM UNDERSTAND HOW TO PLAY THE GAME OF BASEBALL?

7. Does Alex believe in Alex?

Namely does Rodriguez think he can succeed as a clean player? Did the drugs give A-Rod the psychological edge a player with his level of self-doubt needs to thrive? 

Considering that Joel Sherman is apparently a part-time psychologist/full-time sportswriter, he is clearly one of the few capable of accurately diagnosing A-Rod's level of self-doubt and whether it will allow him to thrive. It's amazing that some psychologists march around the world showing off their fancy degrees, while Joel Sherman doesn't need no degree to be a psychologist.

What happens if he does not believe in himself now? Actually that is a good question

Joel Sherman thinks he asks good questions. Joel Sherman approves of the questions that Joel Sherman thinks of.

8. What if he does not believe in himself now?

Does anything that happens in offseason workouts convince Rodriguez he cannot come back? For example, if he is working out with the University of Miami and the ball is not coming off the bat or he cannot move particularly well would that move him to avoid the embarrassment of showing that to the world come February/March?

I wonder how many times Joel Sherman can re-phrase the question, "Can A-Rod still play at a high level coming off his injuries and without PED's?" So far we are at six questions that are some derivative of this main question. Can Joel Sherman get two more questions to finish this column off? What if Sherman gets writer's block or can't figure out a way to re-phrase the same question for the seventh time? Would he avoid the embarrassment of showing that he can't come up with 10 questions and only have 8 questions in this column?

Could he think that if he shows he cannot play now, it removes all doubt that the only way he succeeded in his career was with the aid of drugs?

It is probably much more likely he has an athletic arrogance that he can succeed even with all in his recent past. Plus, he actually loves to play and will not give that up without one more full shot at doing so —

See this is where the psychology degree (that Joel Sherman doesn't have and he doesn't need because he can obviously tell what goes on in Alex Rodriguez's head) comes in handy. Of course A-Rod will come back no matter what. He's arrogant, he wants to prove he can play without the use of PED's, he wants to control the narrative...oh, and he actually enjoys playing baseball, but that's just a small part of it all. Mostly it's about proving he can play without using PED's.

10. Can A-Rod be a Yankee ass

Yes, he can be.

et?

Oh, an "asset." Based on last year's Yankees team and how much trouble that team had hitting the baseball, I would say that A-Rod can still be an asset to the Yankees team. Granted, that's a low bar to clear, but if the Yankees can handle an entire season of Derek Jeter's bat in the lineup, I think they could handle A-Rod hitting .260/.324/.410 with 18 home runs and 78 RBI's (I'm making up numbers that are below his career averages, make no mistake about whether I am just naming random numbers that I think could reflect A Rod's 2015 line) in the lineup with improvements made at other parts of the lineup. The question is whether the Yankees are relying on A-Rod to be his old self, in which case they are probably going to be disappointed. He's old, he's come off two hip injuries, and isn't capable of even being the A-Rod from 2010. Some semblance, or slightly less, of 2012 A-Rod is probably what the Yankees will get.

For him to be helpful as a player, he needs to be able to play some first base and be an option behind the brittle Mark Teixeira. Anyone who watched how hard Rodriguez worked in spring training 2004 to make the transition from shortstop to third knows he will put in the time. Those close to him say he will do whatever work is necessary to try not to embarrass himself on the field.

But he probably was using PED's, so he only worked hard because he was on PED's. And as Joel Sherman wildly speculates, A-Rod could use PED's during the 2015 season, so that could give him the ability to work hard that he otherwise wouldn't have.

But with Jeter gone, there are less eggshells to walk on gingerly. He can actually draw attention away from others who do not like the spotlight.

If you play for the New York Yankees then you probably want to make sure you like the spotlight. That's just a pro tip for future Yankee players.

Also, Rodriguez does love to talk the game with and instruct young players. He is not a leader in anywhere near the traditional sense. But he is not afraid to share a baseball-obsessed brain.

Don't say anything nice about him. Go back to passively-aggressively accusing him of possibly using PED's during the 2015 season.

Like with most issues involved with A-Rod now, it really is about whether he has the skills to be sincere and make the rest of his career — however long that lasts — about making life better for those around him rather than continue in the selfish vain that brought him great wealth and substantial ignominy.

So whether A-Rod will thrive during the 2015 season really depends on how nice he is to people. Makes sense. I can't wait for an offseason of Alex Rodriguez articles coming out of New York. I should probably be proud of Joel Sherman for waiting two minutes after the World Series was over to write this column. 

10 comments Bruce Jenkins and Terence Moore Add Two More Entries to the "Back in My Day" Catalog

You may not know this, but everything was better back then. "Back when" you may ask? Back then. You know, back before yesterday and today and WAY before tomorrow. That's when things were great. At least this is what a lot of baseball writers seem to think. The old days were so much better than today, before everything got complicated with change in sports and different opinions about sports that cause change in sports. Many older baseball sportswriters are terrified of change. They drink out of the same coffee cup they drank out of 30 years ago and watch the same television shows they watched 30 years ago and definitely talk about sports using the same statistical measures they used 30 years ago. Today, Bruce Jenkins and Terence Moore remember the good old days fondly.

I'll start first with Terence Moore. He thinks players today aren't as durable as they used to be. Terence pretty much hates how everything is in baseball today. This includes modern celebrations, expanded replay, and how durable modern players are. Yes, that's right, Terence has already written on this topic. This doesn't stop him from writing about this topic again.

Slowly, "durability" is joining "true doubleheaders" and "day games during the World Series" as entities in baseball from a bygone era.

Two words: Bryce Harper.

One word: What?

What's up with this? He's 20 years old with a slew of baseball gifts, but durability isn't one of them.

Harper played in 139 games last season, and because he is human, his body is not made of steel, and therefore when he collides with a wall, that wall wins and causes Harper to need stitches. If only Harper could find a way to make his body stronger when colliding violently with a wall.

It seems as if most players in the Major Leagues today are just one diving catch, sprint to first or sizzling fastball shy of joining the disabled list.

That's why some MLB teams are having difficulty even fielding a roster of 25 players and each team's minor league system is depleted to where they can't even start a full rotation of healthy pitchers. Wait, this isn't happening? Then what the hell is Terence talking about?

Ask the Yankees. Nearly all those in pinstripes are susceptible to having "DL" next to their names.

The Yankees are a pretty old team. You can't expect a team full of players on the wrong side of 30 years old to stay healthy on a consistent basis. Injuries will occur, especially when guys like Jeter or A-Rod are closer to 40 years old than 30 years old.

I mean, Yankees cleanup hitter Curtis Granderson has been disabled twice with forearm and finger injuries, and the season is barely two months old.

So Granderson should learn to play through a broken arm? I'm sure Joe DiMaggio would have played through a broken arm with no problems.

Remember, too, we're living in a baseball generation of strict pitch counts, starters going every fifth day instead of four, complete games as dinosaurs and advanced fitness training.

Shouldn't the arms of pitchers be stronger? Not only that, with the aforementioned training for everybody, shouldn't players in general have more durability?

Not unless science has found a way over the last 50 years to make the human body stronger and more durable. There have been advances in improving rehab time, but a broken bone is still a broken bone. It's not like Curtis Granderson's bones should be stronger than George Brett's bones because Granderson plays baseball 20-30 years after Brett played baseball.

Earlier this month, Harper slammed into a wall at Dodger Stadium, where he first damaged his left knee while suffering a gash to his chin that required 11 stitches.

They don't make chins like they used to. Little known fact: Willie Mays actually had skin made out of metal, so when he hit a wall, the wall was hurt and Mays' chin was fine. 

He reinjured the knee three times on Sunday in a home game against the Phillies. There was his fouling a pitch off the thing, and there also were his two head-first slides.

Head-first slides are gritty! Shouldn't Terence Moore like a gritty player?

Is that really Harper's problem, though? What comes to mind is a discussion I had not long ago with the guy who virtually invented and perfected the head-first slide -- Pete Rose.

And guess what? Rose never was hurt.

It seems Terence is having causation issues. Pete Rose also bet on baseball while he was a player and manager. And guess what? Rose never was hurt. So if a player bets on baseball then this should decrease his odds of getting injured, right?

Rose also has more hits than anybody in baseball history, but here's what makes his accomplishments even more impressive: 10. That's how many games he missed during the entire 1970s. During 10 seasons, he played in 160 games or more, and that includes the 162 he played for the 1982 Phillies at 41 years old.

Terence Moore's point seems to be that one player over the last 30 years was very durable, so every player in 2013 should be as durable as that one player from 30 years ago was. I'm not sure how this is even supposed to make sense. It's like saying a guy at your work only missed 10 days due to sickness during his 30 years with the company, so every employee at the company should only miss 10 days due to sickness over 30 years. It makes not of sense.

No, the head-first slide has to be in you. It was part of Rose's competitive spirit, and that spirit dominated his era -- along with the ones before that.

Today's players aren't durable and they don't have the competitive spirit of Pete Rose. I'm not even sure why Major League Baseball bothers to play baseball games every summer. They may as well just fold the league up and move on. Baseball is ruined because nothing is the same as it used to be.

Even so, despite such a relentless approach to playing, you still didn't have many guys missing games as you do now.

A normal sportswriter would provide some sort of evidence to support this statement. Terence Moore is making shit up as he goes along and doesn't feel the need to support his supposedly fact-based statements with actual facts. He's old school in that way. Facts are for new-age statistics types who only care about computers and numbers. Terence doesn't need facts to support his statements because he was THERE. He knows because he was THERE. Players today are less competitive and less durable than they used to be. It's a fact because Terence wants it to be a fact.

Ty Cobb was Rose of the early 20th century, but despite his reckless abandon style, he played and played and played. Walter Johnson's arm was so famously dependable that he spent nine straight years throwing more than 300 innings during a season.

Stan Musial. Hank Aaron. Bob Gibson.

They all played and played, too.

So six players over the last 100 years have been very durable, so EVERY current MLB player should be as durable as these six players from the last 100 years. How the hell does this even begin to make sense? This is the kind of sportswriting we are up against. Logic has no place in much of today's sportswriting.  

The same went for Dale Murphy, who had the same Iron Man reputation as Rose and Garvey while starring on Braves teams that often were as lackluster as Rose's Big Red Machine and Garvey's Dodgers were potent.

The point is, Murphy played anyway.

Right, Murphy played anyway because he didn't have a broken arm. A broken arm makes it hard to swing a baseball bat.

You already know Cal Ripken Jr. (2,632) and Lou Gehrig (2,130) are at the top of the list, and they will be forever.

Then again, Prince Fielder is looking old school. He's the slugging first baseman of the Tigers who is more than that. He'll dive in a flash for grounders. He'll finish his mad dashes for second in search of stretching a single into a double with (dare I say) a head-first slide.

Plus, Fielder is fat. Being fat must be the key to staying healthy!...if we used Terence Moore logic this would of course be true.

He hasn't missed a game since Sept. 14, 2010, when he was with the Brewers. Entering Tuesday's action, his consecutive game playing streak was at 393 and counting.

Let's see how old school Fielder can be when he breaks his fucking arm.

So Fielder is 2,240 more consecutive games from Ripken.

That's all.

Every current player isn't threatening Cal Ripken's consecutive game streak so that must mean today's players aren't as durable as they used to be. It's so ridiculous. It took 56 years for Lou Gehrig's consecutive game streak to be broken, so doesn't this mean players from "the good old days," including the Big Red Machine, weren't as durable as Terence remembers? Terence worships the Big Red Machine and the only player on the 1975 and 1976 teams that played all 162 games was Pete Rose. Another fun fact: the 10th longest games played streak in MLB history is 822 games. That's a lot of games in a row, but it also shows players throughout MLB history haven't been as durable as Terence wants to believe they have been.

Now for Bruce Jenkins. Bruce Jenkins hates the use of advanced statistics and today he (I swear) warns about the dangers of a batter getting ahead in the count. 

We like to think of the Bay Area as an enlightened corner of the world. We're big on tolerance, understanding, to each his own.

Except when it comes to acceptance of advanced statistics or any other method of evaluating baseball players that Bruce Jenkins doesn't like. He's tolerant of anything that he understands. If he doesn't understand something then he doesn't have to be tolerant of it.

There's an alarming trend in play, eating away at the game's fabric, and we have mercifully been spared its distasteful residue.

Old sportswriters who refuse to embrace new ideas?

Several years ago, when on-base percentage became baseball's most popular statistic, it got into people's heads that hitters should force the issue: be patient, run up the count, work a walk, generally spend as much time in there as possible.

Whoever thought that being patient, waiting for a pitch to hit, and then trying to get on-base was a bad thing? Apparently Bruce Jenkins thinks this.

If the opposition's pitch count begins to skyrocket, all the better.

In an age where starting pitchers are on pitch counts, then it might make sense to try to work the count. Working the count sounds like a bad idea until a player starts going up to the plate hacking at everything he sees and pitchers know this so they don't give him anything to hit.

This isn't necessarily a terrible idea -

Except in this situation Bruce Jenkins does think it is a bad thing.

Something happened, though. In the words of my friend Pedro Gomez, of ESPN, this approach to hitting forged "a generation of lookers." An aggressive approach became secondary, even discouraged.

I hear there is "a generation of lookers" as I watch B.J. Upton, Dan Uggla and many other Braves slump and swing and miss at (it feels like) every pitch they see.

That's where it all went wrong. Baseball isn't the Army; it thrives on individuality and creative expression. All hitters are not the same.

Of course all hitters aren't the same. No one is saying all hitters are the same.

Don't you love how Sabermetrics gets blamed for hitters striking out too much and also gets blamed for hitters being too patient? It can't always be both. Sabermetrics can't always make hitters more patient, while also not discouraging strikeouts. I feel like the complaints about Sabermetrics aren't entirely consistent.

The Giants might be the most tolerant organization in the game - winning world titles as they go. They didn't try to standardize the eccentric Tim Lincecum or free-thinking Barry Zito.

Bruce Jenkins does realize Barry Zito and Tim Lincecum are pitchers and the supposed standardization of hitters doesn't apply to how the Giants have treated these two pitchers? So how the Giants treated Zito and Lincecum has very little to do with how they teach their hitters to be patient (or not patient) at the plate.

Sandoval, a .300-caliber hitter by anyone's measurement, leads the major leagues in swing percentage. Whatever the count, he swings at more pitches than anyone, and he's got some fairly elite company in that statistic's top 20: Miguel Cabrera, Jay Bruce, Yadier Molina, Freddie Freeman, Bryce Harper.

Here is the issue where Bruce Jenkins seems to be having causation issues. Are Cabrera, Bruce, Freeman, Harper, etc great hitters because they have a high swing percentage or do these players have a high swing percentage because they are great hitters and know they can swing and hit most pitches that a pitcher will throw? Cabrera could swing at a lot of pitches because he knows he is talented enough to hit most pitches a pitcher will throw.

Hunter Pence has a style all his own, and it can be comical in futility, but the man is a player, and the Giants don't mess with him.

Again, causation problems are seen here. Do the Giants leave Pence alone because he is a great hitter or is he a great hitter because the Giants leave him alone? Why would you change success?

Also, what the fuck does "the man is a player" mean? It's useless hyperbole.

The reasons run off the page, but it's partially traceable to hitting coach Chili Davis and his willingness to let men be themselves. "That on-base philosophy's still there," he said in the A's dugout before Tuesday's game. "But when I interviewed for this job, I knew Billy was going to allow me to do it my way. I'm not an advocate of either extreme. I don't want a guy going up there swinging at the first pitch just to be swinging. But if you've been studying the pitcher two, three hitters before you, and you see him starting guys with fastballs down the middle, go jump on that thing.

So what we have learned is if a pitcher throws the ball down the middle of the plate then a hitter should swing at it? Wow, you learn so much listening to Chili Davis.

And how about the pitchers? Guys like Yu Darvish and Justin Verlander laugh at hitters trying to wear them out.

They are exceptions to the rule, not the rule. Darvish and Verlander can throw a ton of pitches during a game with success, while an average starting pitcher can't do this. So using outliers as an example of how batters aren't wearing out pitchers doesn't mean very much.

A lesser guy might be laboring, badly, and can be driven straight to the showers by patience.

Which might be a good reason to be patient at the plate, no?

Fans, managers and teammates love a really aggressive hitter who takes charge of the box and is up there to crush the ball - and someone's spirit - not fiddle around with the bat on his shoulder.

They love it until the player starts to swing and miss at pitches. Once a really aggressive hitter can't hit the baseball, fans, managers and teammates all want the hitter to be patient and try to find a pitch to hit. Bruce Jenkins says there is no one set way to hit, yet he seems to think being very aggressive is the best way to hit.

Strikeouts have been on the rise in the major leagues since 2006, with no end in sight, and think of the risk in trying to work a count in your favor: "You go 1-0, 2-0, that's not necessarily a fastball count any more," Davis said.

So it's a BAD THING when a hitter gets ahead in the count? It's not good to get ahead in the count because then you run the risk of not getting a fastball to hit and apparently professional hitters can only hit fastballs and in no way are able to hit offspeed pitches.

"The way guys throw changeups, splits, cutters, they can throw you totally off-balance.

I'm in disbelief. So it is bad to get ahead in the count? Shouldn't this beat the alternative of getting behind in the count? How is getting ahead in the count a bad thing? It forces the pitcher to throw a pitch closer to the strike zone or risk walking the batter. If changeups, splits, cutters are so hard to hit then why don't pitchers just throw those pitches all the time and never throw a fastball? It sounds ridiculous to ask that, but Chili Davis seems to overly-afraid of his hitters getting ahead in the count and having to face pitches that aren't fastballs. It's just dumb to state getting ahead in the count is in any way a bad thing.

Like Romo: tight spot, second and third, he ain't gonna throw a 2-0 heater down the middle. Here's the slider. Try to hit it."

And if the pitch is over the plate then the batter will try to hit. If the slider is off the plate then the batter will ignore it. That's the advantage of being up 2-0 in the count. A hitter doesn't have to swing at the next pitch. Romo isn't trying to throw a heater down the middle of the plate at any point, so why should a 2-0 count be a bad thing?

My point is that when a hitter is up 2-0 in the count, he doesn't have to try to hit a slider. That's the luxury of being up 2-0 in the count.

There's a bit of a firestorm burning in Seattle over Dustin Ackley, a tremendous hitting prospect out of North Carolina and the second overall draft pick in 2009. Minor-league coaching took the aggressiveness out of his approach, to the point where he floundered in the Seattle lineup and was sent back to the minors this week with the third-lowest swing percentage in either league.

Of course this hitting approach didn't prevent Ackley from succeeding in the minors and getting called-up to the majors, but I guess that's beside the point.

Manager Eric Wedge went crazy, railing about sabermetrics and how new-age thinking "ruined" Ackley. Wedge said the game was being taken over by "people who haven't played the game since they were 9 years old, and they've got it all figured out."

Obviously whenever a manager starts going crazy he is thinking very clearly and should immediately be listened to. The fact his rant makes complete sense to some people doesn't say much for those people.

The analytical types are firing back, portraying Wedge as a hopeless old fool, and it all gets to be rather pathetic.

Only in sports is being analytical portrayed as a bad thing. At a job interview no one tries to avoid being seen as too analytical. Being analytical is usually seen as a good thing, unless you are evaluating athletes apparently.

How nice to witness the Bay Area's theater of the forgiving, with a cast of characters well above the fray.

Just wait until Pablo Sandoval goes into a slump and his swinging at everything becomes a bad thing. It's nice to have a high swing percentage if you can hit the ball when you swing. Not every MLB player has the talent to have a high swing percentage and be successful at the plate and getting ahead in the count is definitely not a bad thing. I would say statistics back this statement up, but everyone knows Bruce Jenkins doesn't give a shit what the statistics say. 

5 comments I Guess the San Francisco Giants World Series Win Ends The Statistical Revolution in Baseball

Bruce Jenkins is not a fan of using statistics to judge players. He prefers to use dust, sweat, tears and hustle to judge a baseball player. Bruce has a history of needlessly bashing Sabermetricians and telling statistics-loving baseball fans to, 

"Strip down to those fourth-day undies...,"  

and

head downstairs (to "your mother's basement and your mother's computer,"

These insults are both not only creative, but also incredibly accurate. Those people who love using statistics to evaluate baseball players rarely take showers and don't even have enough money to purchase their own computer. Though I have always wondered why an insult like this always refers to a person going to "his mother's basement" or some variation of this insult. Are we to assume this person's blind devotion to statistics not only caused his parents to split (I don't read as many references to "your parent's basement"), but also forced his/her mother to move the computer away from a general area of convenience in the house into the basement? More importantly, why would a person take their clothes off to head to their mother's basement? I'm not sure that makes sense due to some basements not being heated. You know what, better not to answer that question.

So Bruce sees the San Francisco Giants' second World Series title in three years as a major victory for scouting players based on the eye test, rather than by using statistics. This is because Brian Sabean and the Giants don't employ those stupid stat-collectors who live in their mom's basement and don't rely on those assholes for what "the stats say." Bruce Jenkins says the Giants are a purely eyeball-based team when it comes to scouting, thank you.

This is a nice narrative for Bruce Jenkins to spin if it were true. One look at the Giants front office reveals a guy named "Yeshayah Goldfarb" his job description is defined as (according to his bio on the Giants team site),

He helps run the minor league operations on a day-to-day basis and provides analytical and statistical analysis for, but not limited to, player acquisition and development. 

His job title is "Director, Minor League Operations/Quantitative Analysis," which in the opinion of Bruce Jenkins is just a fancy way of saying he lives with his mother, has never kissed a girl, and wears "Star Trek" shirts everyday of the week (or whenever his mom does his laundry). In fact, the Giants credited Goldfarb with helping them to win the 2010 World Series, which is a little fact that Bruce Jenkins either intentionally or conveniently forgot. Either way, this championship is a huge victory for the anti-stats crowd because Bruce Jenkins chooses to view it that way, even if the Giants do employ a person whose job is to look at those dreaded statistics and provide input into acquisitions or roster moves. Let's read about Bruce Jenkins wallowing in this incredibly (not) important (non-)victory.

In a scene from the film "Moneyball," a half-dozen A's scouts sit around a table, tossing out opinions. With their haggard faces and old-school lingo, they are made to look like fools, a bunch of washed-up alcoholics whose time has passed.

Having seen the movie, I don't recall the whole "alcoholic" part represented in this movies as it relates to these scouts. Knowing Bruce Jenkins is writing this article based on an alternate reality where the Giants don't employ a numbers-cruncher, so maybe he has an alternate reality "Moneyball" where the grizzled scouts miss on seeing a prospect because they were all too drunk at a bar. This is as opposed to the stats geek who did not miss on the prospect because this stats geek (like all stats geeks) lives in his mom's basement and can't drink alcohol like a real man does due to his overly-sensitive stomach which can only handle milk and that really diluted tea his mom has ready for him every morning as he wakes at 9:30am. Perhaps that is the world in which Bruce Jenkins lives and viewed this alternate-reality "Moneyball" film.

The Giants' world championship is a victory for John Barr, Dick Tidrow, Bobby Evans, a cadre of sharp-eyed scouts and especially general manager Brian Sabean, who learned his trade in the Yankees' system and surrounds himself with people who don't merely know baseball, but feel it, deep inside.

These people feel baseball, deep inside, much like how someone feels indigestion in their stomach or vomit rising deep inside their throat.

They all played the game, somewhere along the line, and if you throw a binder full of numbers on their desk, they don't quite get the point.

Since it is physically impossible to throw a binder full of numbers on a desk, seeing as how numbers aren't tangible objects, many people wouldn't quite get the point. Now if there were binder that had paper in it with numbers written on them, that would make more sense, as well as be more understandable.

All stupid joking aside, every scout has his way of evaluating a player, but if a GM throws a book of numbers on a table and the scout says, "I don't get the point of looking at these numbers" then that scout needs to be fired. At some point, the scout needs to realize he doesn't have to love the numbers or use them, but understand their point.

The beauty of baseball is that it can be dissected in a thousand ways, each an engaging enterprise in its own way.

Baseball can be dissected in a thousand ways, but Bruce Jenkins knows there is only one certain way it can be dissected and scouted correctly. He's open-minded about how to dissect the game as long as you do it his way.

The stat-crazed sabermetricians, as they are called, invent specific methods of evaluation without needing to witness the action in person. Numbers, they believe, tell the entire story -

This is repeated constantly by the anti-stats crowd, yet I would like to see them present one quote from a Sabermetrician where he/she says any variation of, "I don't need to see the game, I only need my statistics." I have a feeling such a quote doesn't exist but it doesn't stop guys like Bruce Jenkins who choose to invent this position of the stats crowd in order to help prove their point.

The modern-day general manager bears no significant resemblance to Sabean, rather an especially sharp accountant who can draw up contracts, analyze a salary structure and study esoteric numbers with the best of them. 

And this approach by modern-day general managers never works, which is why the San Francisco Giants have won the last 10 World Series titles. 

It's a new breed of geeks, in essence.

Versus the old brand of closed-minded geezers who always oppose change, new knowledge or doing anything that is slightly uncomfortable for them. It's always a fun battle. 

Privately, they scoff at the likes of Sabean - although, as far as we can tell, the Giants take home the rings.

So not only does Bruce Jenkins create fictional points of view that stat geeks have, but he also knows the internal thought process of stat geeks. He certainly doesn't sound like he is straight making shit up, does he?

I'm not sure a lot of people are scoffing at Brian Sabean at this point. Since Sabean bears no significant resemblance to the modern-day general manager that other MLB clubs employ, those 10 straight World Series titles by the Giants certainly speak well for Sabean.

The San Francisco model is based on visual evidence, not statistics, and it clearly works 

The model isn't based on statistics, as long as you don't want to include the guy in the Giants front office whose very job with the team is to sort through statistics and give his opinion based on that. The same guy who is credited with helping the Giants win the 2010 World Series. Maybe part of the visual evidence model that Jenkins supports is to look at pertinent facts when making an argument and ignore those facts which don't support your argument.

Those people wouldn't understand what the Giants saw in Gregor Blanco, a longtime disappointment, as he tore up the Venezuelan winter league.

Perhaps they saw, and I am just taking a guess here, that Blanco was tearing up the Venezuelan winter league? Blanco also hit .244/.333/.344 with 103 strikeouts in 453 plate appearances in the majors, so he was a good acquisition who actually played below his career averages for the Giants, except in the "home runs" category.

They wouldn't necessarily spot the massive heart inside Sergio Romo, 

I don't know. A massive heart inside Sergio Romo sounds like a concerning health problem. 

The Giants drafted Romo in the 28th round in 2005 and he is one of those late round selections who have worked out really well. I'm sure he was drafted solely based on a grizzled scout seeing his massive heart and not based on his collegiate performance.

or what Hunter Pence's relentless energy brings to a contending team.

Those people who love statistics wouldn't know about Hunter Pence's relentless energy and what it brings to a contender, but would know about he has a career line of .285/.339/.475 and is a two-time All-Star. It is interesting to see Bruce Jenkins acting as if the Giants traded for Pence this year based on his relentless energy and this was an attribute only the most grizzled scout could have noticed and Pence's statistics don't reflect he is a quality baseball player. It doesn't take just eyes and ears to see Hunter Pence is a good baseball player. A binder full of statistics could tell a scout that as well. Good try to make it seem like Pence is a diamond in the rough though.

The Giants look at the face, the demeanor, the background, the ability to play one's best under suffocating pressure -

And given Pence's career line of .210/.244/.272 in the playoffs I can see why they immediately acquired him. This line doesn't tell what Pence's energy and heart have done in the playoffs under suffocating pressure though, it only tells a statistics-based story that he hasn't been very good in the playoffs. Pence's performance in the playoffs means nothing, it is his heart and relentless energy while not getting on-base in the playoffs is what brings him value.

all the components "Moneyball" lamely holds up to ridicule.

Again, if you don't understand an opposing point of view then it is best not to ridicule this point of view. "Moneyball" doesn't hold these components up to ridicule. They hold the insistence you can quantify these components in any meaningful way to determine how a player will perform as ridiculous...because it is ridiculous. I've been through this quite a few times, but much of the anti-statistics crowd doesn't even completely understand what they are arguing against. They fail to understand "Moneyball" (which is a generic term really) doesn't hold evaluating a player's background or demeanor as lame, but when evaluating a player (as PART, not ALL) to discuss a player's background and quantify it into any meaningful metric to evaluate that player is very difficult to do.

If you try calling Sabean a genius, he'll laugh in your face. Baseball is an enterprise of failure, both on and off the field, and it's a game of humility. He doesn't pretend to know everything, he'll gladly recount his misfired decisions over the years,

How humble...unlike those completely unhumble drooling cellar-dwelling numbers freaks. You know, those generic works of fiction that anti-statistics writers create in their mind to not only show they don't understand this Sabermetrics point of view, but are willing to act like bullies to discredit this point of view.

But he won't stop trusting his eyes.

Or the guy he pays to be on his staff who is responsible for quantitative analysis. Ignore this man's existence though when it disproves your main point. "Ignore all evidence that may lead someone to a different conclusion than you have reached." Is that a pillar of journalism I just haven't heard about because I have been too busy sitting in my mom's attic in my underwear looking at binders full of numbers?

He'll finance the plane flights, rental cars, motel rooms and other staples of a scout's lonely existence.

Mostly because that is his job as the General Manager to finance the scout's lonely existence.

Also, this "lonely existence" crap...this is 2012 where you can talk to nearly anyone at any time or even see someone face-to-face at any time. There aren't many lonely existences left unless a person chooses this path. So I don't see scouts sitting sadly in hotel rooms unable to talk or hear from their loved ones.

The Giants trade the numbers for humanity, as the howls of skepticism tone down to a whisper.

It's the end of the statistical revolution as we know it. The rebellion has been squashed. Let them eat their favorite kind of cyber-cake!

Before I stop writing, Murray Chass has chimed in on the MVP race in the American League. Not shockingly, he wouldn't vote for Mike Trout.

Proponents of WAR, which means “wins above replacement,” insist that the Angels’ terrific rookie Mike Trout should obviously win the award. Those of us who use common sense, not common statistics, say the winner should be the Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera.

As usual, smart people agree with Murray Chass and if you have a differing opinion from Murray then that means you simply don't use common sense. It's clear Murray is an old-media type and never had to deal with people telling him his point of view was wrong in the past. He's used to writing a column and then sitting back smiling happily at what an intelligent and well-thought out point of view he has. He's like a child who has never been told "no," so it isn't his fault he believes his point of view is the only smart point of view.

The Trout supporters would vote for him because he had the top WAR rating among all players. That thinking only reinforces my view that to satisfy stats zealots a list of statistics should be used to determine award winners and Hall of Famers.

Framing those who use Sabermetrics as zealots...nice. Has anyone else noticed the amount of bullying that old-media columnists use to oppose the Sabermetric crowd? It's very unbecoming. They often use junior high-type insults in criticizing statheads for living in their mom's basement and not having a life outside of their interaction with a computer. Here Murray calls statheads "zealots" and other old-media types will use similar words to describe the opposing point of view. It's essentially journalistic bullying, which apparently these writers find acceptable.

The reason the stats zealots would like this system is it would eliminate members of the Baseball Writers Association as voters.

IT'S ALL A CONSPIRACY! STOCK UP ON CANNED GOODS AND GET THE BOMB SHELTER READY!

Not that Murray's opposition to the use of Sabermetrics is based on fear of losing his place in baseball's writing hierarchy or anything like that. His distaste for Sabermetrics doesn't result from fear. Not at all.

That’s right, the stats zealots are envious of the baseball writers because they get to vote for these things and the zealots don’t.

Yes, it is envy that causes a person to have an opposing point of view from Murray. Pure envy. We all want to be Murray Chass. The delusions never end, do they?

That is not to say that new-age statistics haven’t started creeping into the award decisions of some of the BBWAA voters, presumably the younger, less experienced ones.

This is only the natural reason that new-age statistics have crept into award decisions. It couldn't be because there are open-minded voters who don't mind using new techniques to evaluate players.

This is part of what I find absolutely astonishing about old school writers who refuse to adopt any statistical methods, or even accept these alternative methods of evaluating players exist, is that in any other profession this could be a cause for being fired or forced to adopt the new methods. If I refused to adopt new methods in my job then I would be forced to adopt these new methods whether I liked it or not. I realize Murray isn't currently employed by a newspaper, but somehow in sports journalism the inability to accept change is not seen as a negative.

Arguments can be made about the relative value of players to their teams, but if one candidate leads his team to the playoffs and another candidate doesn’t, the latter player’s value comes into question.

The Angels won more games in the regular season than the Tigers did. This argument that Cabrera's team made the playoffs is probably the worst way of arguing on his behalf. Again, it's clear Murray rarely has had to defend his point of view, because he is very bad at it.

As good as Trout was this year, what did he do for the Angels? They were only on the fringe of the American League West race, and they began dropping back in the A.L. wild-card race in mid-August and getting back in it when it was too late.

Well, they certainly had a much better record when Trout was playing for them from late April until the end of the season. I ain't no expert, but I would say that means something.

To me, the beauty of the BBWAA’s m.v.p. voting is it challenges voters to study and think about the contributions players made to the success of their teams.

But ignore any statistics-based argument. The beauty of the BBWAA's MVP voting is the ability to stay willfully ignorant to any information they don't believe supports their chosen player's candidacy for the award and only study and think about the information they choose to focus on.

Should Trout, for example, be penalized in m.v.p. consideration because the Angels weren’t good enough to take advantage of what he did for them?

No, he should not. Should Trout be penalized that his team won more games than the Tigers, yet didn't make the playoffs because the Angels play in a division with the Rangers and A's?

What fans and new-age nerds should understand, if they don’t already, is most valuable players is not the same as player of the year. 

"Nerds." Another attempt at journalistic bullying.

Also, what the fuck is "player of the year," other than an award Murray Chass simply just made up? Is Murray trying to make a point by comparing the MVP to a fictional award that Murray simply made up?

But he is not the most valuable player, no matter what WAR says. WAR, you see, does not have a vote in this election.

And WAR is very jealous of this fact. Guard tight to your old ways, Murray. Ignore any new information. That and your attempts to bully those who you disagree with says enough about you that I'm not sure I would want you to agree with me.

5 comments Gregg Doyel Has a Great Idea for Retroactive Punishments

The gnashing of teeth among sportswriters rarely gets as violent and frequent as when a MLB player is busted for using PEDs. Lifetime suspension, beheading, the immediate kidnapping of the player's wife and family, and the contraction of that player's team are all suggested punishments for daring to use PEDs to gain an advantage. All of these punishments would be suggested retroactively of course. So Melky Cabrera just got busted for using PEDs and received a 50 game suspension. Gregg Doyel thinks the San Francisco Giants should pay harshly for reaping the rewards of Melky's season. What should be done to the Giants? Doyel uses an arbitrary system of reducing the team's spot in the standings by 10% of the penalty the PED-user is serving. So the Giants would lose 5 games in the standings for Melky's 50 game suspension. I'm not sure how the 10% number could be more arbitrary, especially considering this number will have a larger or smaller impact on the team depending on what part of the season the player gets busted. Losing 5 games in the standings in May isn't as big of a deal as losing 5 games in the standings in September.

Melky Cabrera tested positive for testosterone, which means this is a tainted season. His season? Well, sure. Cabrera's season is tainted.

But I was talking about the Giants' season.

Games illicitly won. Postseason opportunity unfairly attained.

And there is nothing we can do about this because there is no rule in place stating teams who have players found to use PEDs will suffer some form of punishment. We dust ourselves off and re-recall the old rule that if a player looks like he is playing better than he should be, then there is probably a reason for that. So we all should have known Melky was cheating because he's been average his entire career and now was playing like an MVP candidate. We have egg on our face and move on.

Nothing can be done about it now, of course. Bud Selig isn't about to change the rules on the fly -- dock the 2012 Giants a handful of games, declare them ineligible for the postseason --

Selig won't do this because he's never done this before to a team who had a player found to use PEDs. He can't just make up rules like this on the fly.

Even if the Giants don't deserve to play in October. Not after getting 113 dishonest games out of a player who ranks second in the league in batting, first in runs, hits and triples, and in the top 10 in on-base percentage, OPS and sacrifice flies.

I like that Gregg Doyel included sacrifice flies in these statistics. That's not a statistic you see used a whole lot.

Cabrera is having a career year, and the Giants have unjustly reaped those rewards.

So I guess are going to take away the 2004 World Series from the Red Sox? Probably best to take away the 2002 World Series away from the Anaheim Angels. Now that I think about it, it is probably best if we just take away every World Series won by every team over the past 20 years just to be safe. Then we can go back and decide which teams deserved to win the World Series.

Have the Giants known all season that Cabrera was juicing?

For the sake of making this article more dramatic, let's say they absolutely new and turned a blind eye to it.

I can't say that. But I can say this: They didn't want to know.

Gregg Doyel doesn't know if the Giants knew Cabrera was juicing or not, but he does know they didn't want to know. He's not a mind-reader people, so he doesn't know what the Giants did or did not know, but Doyel is enough of a mind-reader to know what the Giants did or did not want to know.

Seriously, what good would it do the Giants in May, as Melky Cabrera was embarking on the hottest month of his mediocre career, to wonder aloud how in the world he was doing it?

So what was the appropriate thing for the Giants to do? Call a press conference in early June and announce they didn't know for sure whether Melky Cabrera was using PEDs or not, but they just wanted to let everyone know they think he might be using, but have no proof. I'd like to see how this press conference would work. I can't say how the player's union would have an issue with an MLB team accusing a player of using steroids based on speculation. This would have been the best move for Giants management, to publicly throw one of their players under the bus? Does this get them off the hook if they suspected Cabrera and publicly stated so?

Not to mention, if Gregg Doyel is so sure the Giants knew Melky was on steroids, then why wasn't Gregg Doyel telling everyone that Melky was juicing? He had access to the same statistics the Giants had. Granted, he wasn't in the locker room, but he just recited Melky's statistics, shouldn't Gregg Doyel have alerted everyone to Cabrera's cheating? Why is it the job of the Giants to bust their own players when Gregg clearly wants to be the Steroid Police and has such brilliant ideas to reduce the number of teams with PED users?

This is typical sportswriter revisionist history. Gregg Doyel sees the numbers Melky Cabrera was putting up and thinks it is so obvious that Cabrera was juicing and so he thinks the Giants should have accused Cabrera of cheating. Of course, Gregg Doyel never accused Cabrera of juicing prior to writing this column, but I guess that doesn't matter in his mind. Cabrera was obviously cheating at the time and the Giants should have known, even if Doyel didn't know him either.

That month Cabrera hit .429 with an OPS of 1.104. Hone in a bit more, and from May 4 to June 1 he hit .445 with a 1.175 OPS. For a month, middling Melky Cabrera was Mickey Freaking Mantle. When the month was over, Cabrera's batting average -- for the season -- sat at .376.

Looking back it all sounds pretty easy to figure out, doesn't it? Yet, we always read about sportswriters looking back at all these "obvious" signs a player was juicing, but the signs are never obvious enough to where the sportswriter does the one thing he wanted everyone else to do at the time, which is accuse the player of juicing without having any proof.

You say the Giants didn't know he was dirty? I repeat: They didn't want to know.

Maybe the Giants didn't want to know, maybe they really didn't know. Either way, I don't understand what solution the Giants should have done at the time. Should the team accuse of Melky Cabrera of juicing without any proof? This is a good way to make sure no players want to sign with the Giants for the next ten seasons. In fact, a San Francisco sportswriter did accuse Melky of using steroids and that didn't go over very well.

We never actually hear a non-arbitrary punishment Doyel suggests the Giants should receive. The only solution Doyel offers consists of him throwing out a random percentage of games the Giants should lose in the standings. Let's think of something more concrete. Caning, a naked dip in boiling water, free tickets to a Maroon 5 concert...what's the correct punishment?

The Giants looked the other way when Barry Bonds was doing the (legally) impossible. They looked the other way when employing 12 other players who would make their way onto the Mitchell Report.

Naturally, the Giants should be punished for continuously looking the other way when players on their team use PEDs. The Giants are the only team who ever did this during the Steroid Era, as long as you don't count every other MLB team.

After all that, the Giants looked right at three known cheaters -- Jose Guillen and Guillermo Mota in 2010, Miguel Tejada in 2011 -- and added them despite their history with performance-enhancing substances.

Guillen was dumped after being connected to a shipment of 50 pre-loaded HGH syringes late in the 2010 season.

If the Giants dumped Guillen after he was connected to HGH, then didn't they do this the right way? They placed Guillen on the restricted list for the rest of the season. I know, I know, I'm missing the big point. The big point being that somebody needs to do something to the Giants for employing a baseball player caught using PEDs.

Mota, who had been suspended 50 games in 2007 with the Mets, had a second failed test in May and was suspended 100 games. He's eligible to return Aug. 28.

Presumably the Giants will let Mota pitch again this season. It's the Giants, after all. Steroid Central.

Actually, if you pay attention to the Giants history when it comes to Jose Guillen they may not let Mota pitch the rest of the season.

No team should be able to reap the rewards of a cheating player. Not anymore. Not in today's baseball, which claims to be trying so hard, and caring so much, about the integrity of its game.

To punish MLB teams for having PED-users on the team would essentially turn each MLB team into a private detective firm constantly searching for proof of cheating by their employees. I can't think of a better way to create an antagonistic relationship between the players and MLB teams. Punishing teams for PED-users on that team would also create an antagonistic relationship between players on the same team. Every teammate is a potential snitch to management about the suspected PED-use of a teammate.

You want to show integrity, baseball? Don't just punish the player when he gets caught cheating. Punish the team that won all those games unfairly.

Baseball is a team game you know. Melky didn't win all of those games himself. Punishing the majority for the wrongs committed by one person just doesn't seem fair to me.

Every team in baseball has cheaters.

Well then every team in baseball should be punished. If every team has cheaters then how will baseball ever be pure? Fuck it, let's just cancel the rest of the season.

I love Doyel's position that the Giants should be punished for having a cheater on their team, then he acknowledges every team in baseball has cheaters. So if every team has cheaters how in the hell can we punish every team in baseball?

I suspect it. So do you.

In two months when another is outed Gregg Doyel will claim that player's numbers were outrageously out of the ordinary for that player and it was obvious he was using PEDs. Of course, right now Gregg Doyel can't seem to make a list of players who he suspects are juicing even though he expects MLB teams to suspect and accuse their own players. In hindsight, who exactly was cheating will be very clear to him though.

But only those who are caught can be dealt with, whether it's a player like Cabrera or a team like the Giants.

I agree only those who are caught can be dealt with, but Gregg is saying the Giants should be punished because they knew Cabrera was using before he got busted. He thinks every team should know which players are or are not cheating, which means every MLB team should be punished for having a PED-user on the roster because they should have known the player was cheating. So every team who has a PED-user (which Gregg Doyel says every team has cheaters) on the roster should be punished because they HAD to know didn't they? That's the incorrect assumption Gregg is making which leads to his suggested punishment.

So should the Giants, and while there is no precedent for that in baseball, there is precedent in other sports.

In hockey, if two players start fighting they are put in the penalty box for a few minutes. In baseball if two players start fighting they are thrown out of the game and suspended a few games. In the NFL if two players fight the officials throw a flag. In basketball if two players fight they could be suspended for 10+ games, depending on how severe the fight was.

It's hard to use one sport as precedent for exactly what should happen in other sport because they are all so different. What is a big deal in baseball, isn't such a big deal in football. Let's set some precedents then. Should NFL teams be punished for a player who uses PEDs? How about a minor league team? Should a AA team be punished because one of the players was found to have used a PED? If you want to set a nice precedent and start punishing MLB teams for players on the roster who are found to use PEDs, then it can be a pretty slippery slope.

something can be done. Something like this: Dropping a team in the standings if one of its players fails a drug test. Let's say, 10 percent of the player's suspension. Since Cabrera was suspended 50 games, the Giants would be docked five games in the standings.

Nothing like picking an arbitrary number out of thin air to serve as the punishment. Why not punish a team for 20% of a player's suspension? Maybe 15.456% of a player's suspension? If we are going to arbitrarily pick a percentage to drop an MLB team in the standings let's at least have fun with it.

Under the "Doyel Theory of Retroactive Punishment for What an MLB Team Should Have Know and Publicly Acknowledged Based on Pure Speculation" the best time for a team to have a player get suspended is early in the year. After all, if a team is 3 games ahead in their division on May 15, and one of their players gets suspended for 50 games, then that team is only dropped two games behind in their division early in the year. If a team is 3 games ahead in their division on August 31st, and one of their players gets suspended for 50 games, it seems like a more severe penalty. There is nothing like an arbitrary system for punishment where the punishment is severe or light depending on what part of the season the punishment is handed down.

Oh, and since Mota was suspended 100 games, there goes another 10 games. Harsh? Sure. But something has to be done, though Lord knows it won't be happening this season.

Because baseball is run by rational human beings who understand you can't blame and punish an entire team for 1-2 player's actions. Baseball is a team sport after all.

It sure would be nauseating for the Giants to eke into the postseason -- they'd have to eke past someone else, you see -- thanks to a good start featuring the illegally fueled Melky Cabrera.

If the Giants are able to hold on and make the playoffs over the last 30% of the season they probably deserve to make the playoffs, no? I don't like the idea of punishing a team for a rule that isn't on the books nor do I even like the idea of placing a rule on the books that punishes a team for having a player who uses PEDs.

Two, the National League has home-field advantage for the World Series by virtue of its victory in the All-Star Game. The MVP of the All-Star Game? Cheatin' Melky Cabrera.

If I remember correctly the American League didn't score any runs and the National League scored eight runs. Cabrera only drove in two of those runs. So the National League would have had homefield advantage even if Cabrera never made the All-Star game. Pablo Sandoval, one of Cabrera's Giants teammates, drove in three runs.

So I'm not entirely worried about the National League having homefield advantage. It would have happened if Cabrera participated in the game or not.

The Giants might well have known for weeks that it was using a dirty player. Why did San Francisco, set as it seemed to be in the outfield -- Cabrera and Angel Pagan in starting roles, Nate Schierholtz and Gregor Blanco in a platoon -- trade for starting outfielder Hunter Pence of the Phillies on July 31?

Because Hunter Pence is a much better baseball player than Gregor Blanco and Nate Schierholtz. If the Giants knew Cabrera was going to be suspended then why did they trade Schierholtz in the Pence trade? Wouldn't it make sense that the Giants would hoard outfielders and try to get Pence without giving up an outfielder, which is the very position they "know" they are about to need more depth due to the loss of Cabrera?

Perhaps because it knew Melky Cabrera was in the process of appealing a 50-game suspension.

Or perhaps Hunter Pence is a better player than Gregor Blanco and Nate Schierholtz. Perhaps the Giants wanted to upgrade the right field spot and gain a roster spot in the process by putting a superior player in right field as opposed to using a two-man platoon of less productive players? Nah, that's just crazy talk to believe the Giants made a trade in order to (gasp) improve their roster.

Maybe it's unfair to voice it, though I don't think so. This is the Giants, after all. This is a historically tainted franchise, and it just might host Game 1 of the World Series.

Thanks to Melky Cabrera.

Get off your high horse. If the Giants host Game 1 of the World Series it won't be thanks to Melky Cabrera. It will be because six other runs were scored in the All-Star Game and the San Francisco Giants team (without Cabrera) were able to win enough playoff games to earn a spot in the World Series. They will have earned the right to be in the World Series and the National League would have won the All-Star Game regardless of whether Melky Cabrera played in that game or not.

If MLB is going to punish teams for having players who test positive for PEDs then they need to find a better way to punish the team than to knock them down in the standings based on an arbitrary percentage of the time the PED-user will be suspended. Why even punish MLB teams in the first place for a player on that roster testing positive for PEDs? It seems a little silly to me. If MLB did this, then they would have to enforce this rule in the minor league system as well. A team's true record at the end of the year wouldn't be represented by their record in the standings if every MLB team has cheaters (as Gregg Doyel insists) and would lead to confusion about a team's true win-loss record.

0 comments No, Do Not Trade Tim Lincecum

Jon Paul Morosi is thinking outside-the-box on how to improve the San Francisco Giants. I normally like out-of-the-box thinking, but I'm not sure about this one. See, they didn't win the World Series this year so it is time to break them up. His solution? Trade Tim Lincecum. I really do appreciate out-of-the-box thinking, but trading an ace and then spending the money on high priced hitters just doesn't seem like best move to me.

At this time last year, the baseball industry was raving about the San Francisco rotation. After going more than a half-century between titles, the Giants had the pitching to win multiple championships.

And the Giants didn't win the championship this year. Time to tear them down and rebuild!

But young starters are rarely as perfect as they seem. They get older. They get more expensive.

Very, very good young starters turn into very, very good older starters who still have value though. Granted, they get more expensive. That's just part of having a good starter on the roster, the idea you will have to pay that starter more money on an annual basis in the future. Lincecum doesn't appear to be declining, and while I do understand the idea that he will get more and more expensive to keep around, I just don't know if trading Lincecum for prospects helps the Giants win more championships now while the other Giants starters are still young as well.

Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez and Ryan Vogelsong are on pace to become free agents after the 2012 season; Lincecum is up the year after that. Meanwhile, an offense that scored the fewest runs in the National League is in need of major upgrades.

I absolutely agree with this. Why not trade Ryan Vogelsong or Matt Cain? I just think Tim Lincecum is an elite pitcher, not that Cain isn't close to this level, but improvements can be made to the offense by acquiring a hitter in return for Vogelsong or Cain and the Giants can keep Lincecum.

So if the Giants wish to maximize their odds of returning to the World Series, they have two choices.

These are two, and only two, choices.

1. Spend big for Prince Fielder, Albert Pujols, Jose Reyes or at the very least Carlos Beltran.

Here is my biggest problem with this plan. Much of the money that would normally go to Tim Lincecum are going to one of four free agents who have real question marks about them and are also going to require large contracts.

Prince Fielder: He is a great hitter now, but if you give him a 6 year contract how will he look in years 5 and 6 of the deal? He isn't going to get skinnier and more agile as he grows older.

Albert Pujols: Would be a great signing for the Giants, other than they have Brandon Belt to play first base, and the Giants appear to have other positions of greater need. So while Pujols would be a great signing, he would eat up a lot of the money saved by trading Linecum as well.

Jose Reyes: Injury issues. Why trade an elite starter for a shortstop who gets injured every single year? I realize Reyes is an elite leadoff hitter, but I don't see using Lincecum as a way to free up any money for Reyes as a good solution. I can get behind the Giants signing Reyes, just not at the expense of Lincecum being traded.

Carlos Beltran: Injury issues and how much money will he want? Beltran isn't getting any younger. Plus, if the Giants want an impact bat, I am not sure Beltran is exactly in the class of Fielder or Pujols.

So I don't think it is a bad idea for the Giants to spend money on a big name free agent. I just wouldn't trade Tim Lincecum to facilitate this.

2. Trade one of those prized starters for impact bats, because the day is fast approaching when the Giants won’t be able to afford them all.

This just seems like a short-term solution to me. I know this postseason taught us all that teams don't need good pitching to win the World Series (which isn't really true if you ask me), but what impact bat is available? I don't know specifically what impact bat Morosi wants the Giants to go after. Another item to consider is at some point this impact bat will have to be paid a lot of money, just like Lincecum will get paid. This is unless the impact bat under a long-term contract right now, which makes me wonder why a team would trade that player.

(I could get behind a Lincecum-Teixeira trade and then the Yankees sign Fielder...though this trade would never happen)

And if the Giants blanch at the going rates in free agency, the most practical move might be to trade Mr. Two-Time Cy Young Award Winner himself.

But why?

Sanchez has minimal value, coming off an erratic, injury-plagued season in which he barely threw 100 innings and set a new career high with nearly six walks per nine innings.

So this is definitely the guy to keep and move up in the rotation. He'll look a hell of a lot better as a third starter than a fourth starter. We all know how easy it is to find good pitching, so it shouldn't be a problem to move an erratic starter up in the rotation and replace Lincecum.

Vogelsong is a strong candidate to sign an extension with the Giants this winter. He earned less than $500,000 this year. Because of his nomadic career — he spent three seasons in Japan — Vogelsong likely would be compelled by the security of a long-term contract.

So Vogelsong will be affordable. That's why the Giants should keep him. Wouldn't this make him more attractive on the trade market though? If a team acquiring Vogelsong knew they could get a decent starter who was likely to sign with them?

Cain is highly regarded because of his reliability. He has led the staff in innings during each of the past two seasons and is coming off his best year in the majors, judging by ERA (2.88) and WHIP (1.08). Cain previously signed a three-year contract with the team and will earn $15 million in 2012 — a sturdy platform from which to begin discussions about a Jered Weaver-style extension.

I see Cain and Lincecum as being somewhat in the same position. Both are young and are going to want more money soon. At this point, based on what Morosi said, Cain looks like he would have a lot of trade value. The difference is Cain sounds like he would sign a long-term deal, which I think would give him more trade value.

Lincecum (13-14, 2.74, 220 Ks) is coming off a two-year, $23 million deal that was signed amid expectations he would set a new record in salary arbitration. He’s probably going to earn $17 million next year and upwards of $20 million in ’13, assuming his performance remains constant. At those numbers, Lincecum will achieve great wealth before reaching free agency. So he has little incentive to sign a long-term extension.

And again, as compared to Matt Cain, wouldn't this cause a team trading for Lincecum to worry a little bit? If Lincecum has little incentive to sign a long-term extension, why would a team want to trade for him as somewhat of a rental? It seems Lincecum would have more value to the Giants in this case than on the trade market.

“It’s just easier for me mentally not to have to put that kind of pressure on yourself,” Lincecum said in September. “Not that you don’t want to succeed, but when you’re signed to a long-term deal, it’s like saying, ‘I’m going to live up to every expectation.’ That’s why I like going year to year, so I can improve on it and not sit on what I’ve done.”

Lincecum will be with the Giants for two more seasons. I don't think this offseason is the time to trade Lincecum, especially if they want to win now. Lincecum doesn't seem inclined to sign a long-term deal, which I think could impact his trade value.

There is no evidence that Lincecum is available on the trade market. And he shouldn’t be — yet. General manager Brian Sabean must see where the market goes for Fielder, Reyes, et al. If he can afford them, there’s no reason to shop Lincecum.

Ever. Ok, maybe not ever, but not this offseason.

But if Sabean can’t squeeze either into a payroll of roughly $120 million, he could move Lincecum for multiple players and the flexibility that would allow him to afford Fielder or Reyes.

I'm interested at how much Morosi thinks this impact bat is going to cost the Giants. Reyes/Fielder/Pujols/Beltran will cost a lot of money as well. If the Giants are going to trade Lincecum for multiple players, the odds of them getting an impact bat aren't quite as high in this trade, so that seems like much of the reason to trade Lincecum would disappear.

In that sense, the trade would be Lincecum for prospects and Fielder — which should sound a little better to Giants fans.

So now we are talking prospects for Lincecum, not an impact bat. This brings up a whole other issue. If the Giants trade Lincecum for prospects aren't they essentially taking a step back by reducing the strength of their rotation and not necessarily improving the offense immediately? So if the Giants traded Lincecum for prospects I don't see it as a forward-thinking move. I like the idea of an impact bat better for Lincecum, though I still question whether this trade would still save an extraordinary amount of money over the next few seasons.

And for those who doubt whether a championship-caliber team would trade an ace pitcher … I suggest you ask Cliff Lee.

Yes, but the Phillies traded Cliff Lee so they could get Roy Halladay. There is a difference in trading Cliff Lee to get Roy Halladay as compared to trading Tim Lincecum to get a free agent like Fielder/Reyes it seems the Giants can afford anyway. If the Giants were getting a quality pitcher in return for Lincecum, I could understand the move a little better, but the Phillies improved their rotation by trading an ace pitcher.

I'm not sure the Giants could improve their team by trading Lincecum. If they traded him for an impact bat, this would essentially be reallocating resources from the pitching staff to the offense, and if they traded him for prospects this wouldn't help the Giants win while the other young pitchers are still affordable.