I swear I’m not turning Ducksnorts into a photo blog, but I’m pretty psyched about this because it means I can almost see light at the end of the tunnel.
When will the book be done? Well, when it’s done. I’m shooting for the first or second week of February. I think this is realistic and not just me being blindly optimistic the way I was that, say, Sean Burroughs could learn to hit a baseball with authority.
On a related note, I’m planning to run an excerpt tomorrow and I’d love your input. Our choices are “2007 in Review” and “Driving to Cooperstown.” Both are very much in progress, but some parts are fit for human consumption. Please let me know which you prefer, and then continue talking about Jim Edmonds or whatever…
44: I really dont think Jones is worth 18+ per year which is why they didnt take that “gamble”
#36: I thought the image would be funnier. Apparently I was wrong.
#38: No argument there. I just don’t see how we’re going to change something that already happened. The Padres didn’t choose the best player available. No amount of discussion will ever change that fact. It’s done.
Past draft talk is boring.
This is not:
http://www.black20.com/virals/?s=348
changing the subject a bit – how about doing the one thing that could potentially propel this offense to another level, make us a favorite in the NL West and is actually doable:
how about signing Bonds?
sure, his D isnt optimal in Petco, but his offense more then compensates for it. We’d get a true 3-4 combo with Bonds and Adrian, and our lineup would go from being on the weak side, to outstanding. He clearly isnt juicing anymore, but gets on and hits homers at an amazing pace. If his contract is heavily incentive based by plate appearances, we wont be penalized by injuries, court appearances etc. and i bet he comes cheap anyway
The only objection i had before was that he was such a villain in people’s minds that it would have been tough for some to root for the pads if he was on the team. But with the Mitchell report putting things into better context, Bond’s problem doesnt seem exceptional at all.
The Cardinals payroll in 2006 was $90m, I doubt that it was middle of the road for that season (it was probably top 3 or 4 in the NL that season).
I’m not sure what the difference between Jones and Edmonds is — I’d guess it’s probably at least 5 wins (factoring in Jones’ better defense, better durability, and better offense). Now the question is whether if it’s worth it to gamble $11m or so for the chance of 5+ wins. We also have to figure out what the Padres expectations are for next season. I would figure that they are aiming for about 90 wins or so. That would probably give them about a 33% chance of making the playoffs. Now with Jones, that would make the projection about 95 wins which would probably give them about a 75% chance of making the playoffs. You would think that $11m would be a good gamble for those odds.
Granted all that above is hypothetical but I don’t think that any of that is unrealistic. 90 wins was what they were at last year and I don’t think they will be any worse next season. And I’d guess that those percentages are probably about right.
54:
That’s already been discussed on this blog, plus Alderson has said it will not happen. No offense, but I don’t think there’s much to say after that.
I stand corrected, the Cardinals payroll was pretty close to the median. The Mets, Astros, Braves, Cubs, Dodgers and Giants all had higher payrolls while the Phillies had nearly the same. However, they were well above the mean of $69.2m. The salary numbers are staggering, the National League’s total payroll was $1.108b! That certainly is a lot of money.
55: Even given their difference in playing time in 2007, Edmonds had 1 Win Share Above Bench, compared to 4 Win Shares Above Bench for Jones. According to THT, WSAB is a refined approach to Win Shares, in which each player’s total Win Shares are compared to the Win Shares an average bench player would have received, given that player’s time at bat, on the mound or in the field.
Jones had 16 total win shares for 2007, while Edmonds had 9. This is a difference of 7 win shares, which equates to approximately 2 1/3 more wins from Jones. The important thing to remember is that Win Shares is essentially a counting stat, so in 248 more plate appearances, Jones was only worth 7 more win shares. If we extrapolate Edmonds’ PAs to match Jones’, he would have accumulated 14.4 win shares. This equates to less than a full Win of difference between Jones and Edmonds. Obviously this extrapolation is imprecise and assumes that Edmonds would have posted similar production had he accumulated as many PAs as Jones, but I think it clearly shows that the difference between the two of them is not as great as you would think.
For reference purposes, in 2007, Cameron had 22 total win shares in 651 PAs. Cameron posted a Win Share Above Bench of 9.
58:
I am more interested in the Cameron/ Edmonds comparison, and I find that less than comforting. If Edmunds fails to reverse the effects of time, the Padres will have to find that missing production elsewhere.
re:56
my b, i must have missed that day.
Edmonds’ numbers have declined every year since 2004 but I don’t think that people realize how good he was during his peak run with the Cardinals from 2000 to 2004. There probably aren’t too many CF’ers in history who could match up with him over those 5 years. If he could just rebound a little from the past few years he would be a great addition. The problem is that it seems unlikely that he will considering his age, past three year performance and injury history. If his numbers decline like they the past few years, we are looking at a 245/310/370 season (and that’s not even taking into account the Petco effect). That won’t be good.
60: No problem. Alderson’s comments made it closed for me more than what was said here.
Bill James projections for Edmonds:
19 homers, 62 RBIs, 268/372/496 in 351 at-bats, 110 games.
245/310/370 is a HUGE exaggeration.
52: Oh, the image was funnier. Christopher Lloyd standing in front of a white background in regular clothes is funny, at least to those of us of a certain age. I was more talking about the time expenditure.
As for 53 in particular, and the general “Let it be” draft talk in general, it was only a few months ago that some people (not necessarily anyone in these set of comments) were still defending the Bush pick and even Bush himself as a prospect. Some folks are operating under the misapprehension that the Padres have radically changed the way they run the draft, which is largely not true. Under those conditions it’s totally sensible to continue discussing what’s gone wrong in the immediate and not-so-distant past.