What if Bloggers Became General Managers?

by Royal Kingdom on Jun 1, 2009 4:18 PM EDT Comment 19 comments

I recall much discussion on this site last year and in the off season regarding players the Royals were rumored to be chasing, were chasing, were on the trading block and whom other teams coveted. As well as the players many on this site advocated pursuing. I’ve been thinking that it would be interesting to see how some of the players involved in the discussion were performing this year.

Much of the talk revolved around Zack Greinke and we know that many of the Rangers’ fans if not their front office lusted after our boy. A quick search revealed this trade proposal that most RRers were quick to dismiss, but some were at least warm to.

Greinke for Eric Hurley, Chris Davis and Jarrod Saltalamacchia

With the additions of these three, the Royals would have to clear some room, so lets make the following assumptions:

Hurley would still have been injured in a Royals uniform, he would be replaced by a *ahem* replacement level starter.

Davis would replace Mike Jacobs and Leo Nunez would still be on the roster, the professor or Cruz would be not be here. (for this study it makes no difference as they both rest on the same WAR value, so lets just say no more Farnsworth)

Salty would replace Miguel Olivo. I believe this was Miggy’s option year, so the Royals would likely have not gotten anything in return from him.

The numbers (Thanks as always to FanGraphs for the free info.):

Additions:

Replacement starter for injured Hurley: 0.0 WAR

Davis: -0.2 WAR

Salty: 0.5 WAR

Nunez: -0.2 WAR

TOTAL: 0.1 WAR

Subtractions:

Greinke: 4.4 WAR

Jacobs: 0.3 WAR

Farnsworth: 0.2 WAR

Olivo: 0.2 WAR

TOTAL: 5.1 WAR

Net Change: -5.0 Wins…Gulp!! How would 18-32 look right now, besides “familiar”

I did not go through the financials, but it is obvious that the Royals could have saved a lot of money if the above assumption held true. Also, the injury to Hurley is just dumb luck, who knows how he would have done in KC if healthy

Its difficult to evaluate a trade 2 months in, so the usual caveats apply, but I think its safe to say that this one would have been a disaster for the Royals.

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BRAD WILKERSON NOW!!!!

He’s the guy I wanted over Jose Guillen. Oops.

Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com

by RoyalsRetro on Jun 1, 2009 4:25 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Actually

while the Mariners and Blue Jays together too a $7.4M bath on Wilkerson last season becauseof his #3Msalary and -1 WAR performance, Despite Guillen’s awesome 0.2 WAR performance, because of his salary the Royals were “out” $11.1M in performance dollars. Moreoever, the Royals would have been done with Wilkerson and would have had more money to spend in the offseason, rather than being stuck with Guillen for the next two addition years. (By the way, Guillen is on the way to being as bad oir worse than Wilkerson this season because of his defense).

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

by devil_fingers on Jun 1, 2009 4:36 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

haha.....he retired, i think

by Fernando Vina School of Linguistics on Jun 1, 2009 10:38 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Brad Wilkerson

True story, the Indians actually wanted Brad Wilkerson, Cliff Lee and Brandon Phillips for Bartolo Colon. Instead of Wilkerson they settled on Lee Stevens and Grady Sizemore.

by Toxicadam on Jun 3, 2009 2:43 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

The Royals should get

Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco, and Mark McGwire… NO there is no recurring theme here about a banned substance.. not at all

Bloomquist. God? Or just an illusion? You be the judge.

by focs on Jun 1, 2009 4:34 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

mabye Clemens too?

by MarioVanPeebles Republic of China on Jun 1, 2009 5:06 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

If we are trading with Texas then I want Smoak

and four other prospects for Grienke.

by grudz96 on Jun 1, 2009 5:07 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

That wasn't a serious offer was it?

Zack wasn’t about to be traded unless he was completely unwilling to sign here long term, and as wanna be GMs we can really only speculate on trades. How about we look at a 2nd baseman a lot of us thought we should have signed: Orlando Hudson

Hudson: 1.9 WAR Salary: 3,364,877 + incentives (if I remember correctly)
Callaspo: .6 WAR Salary: 415,000

So the difference is 1.3 WAR so far. Using $4.5M as the value of 1 WAR, that means Hudson has been worth $5.85M more than Callaspo. Not only that, but Hudson has already lived up to his contract and then some (assuming no backsliding). Callaspo is still pretty good value as his worth is 2.7M which means 2.3M of extra value for the Royals. So that one works out for both sides of the argument.

The flip side of that would be how everyone argued against signing a guy like Ibanez and Philly has turned him into 2.8 WAR player worth more than the 7.166M he signed for.

by AxDxMx on Jun 1, 2009 5:16 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

With Hudson, the Royals would have signed him if the could.

If I remember right, the negotiations ended up something like this:
“The Royals are now offering $3.2 million, what can you do?” Hudson.
“How about $3.3 million, oh, and remember, we are in LA.” Dodgers.
“Works for me.” Hudson
(You can play that exchange back a couple times with slightly smaller numbers. Same dialogue applied to Furcal.)
Yes, Hudson and Furcal are better. We couldn’t get them.

by Chyladin on Jun 2, 2009 5:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Furcal stinks this year and had we signed him that would have been pretty bad.

However, Furcal has .3 WAR worth 1.3M, and Aviles has -.9 WAR which means he owes us $4M. So the difference in performance is 5.3M.

But I would like to argue that we could have signed them (well at least one), if we hadn’t wasted money on Farnsworth and HoRam. GMDM tied his own hands with those moves. Tack HoRam’s contract onto either of those offers and we likely win with the extra million dollars offered. I will never understand what GMDM was thinking about HoRam. Farnsy is just as bad, but at least he could be flipped like Dotel was with a decent performance, but the contract is so bad, no one would want him even with a good performance.

by AxDxMx on Jun 2, 2009 6:41 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

For the record, I did think Furcal would be a nice addition

and I was pretty excited when I heard that Hudson was actually a possibility.

by AxDxMx on Jun 2, 2009 6:43 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I don't remember anyone being warm to that offer

I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal.

by kcscoliny on Jun 1, 2009 10:10 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I don't want to call anyone out by name

but click the link and read the comments…a few were more than warm.

We always did feel the same, We just saw it from a different point of view, Tangled up in blue.
-Bob Dylan

by Royal Kingdom on Jun 1, 2009 11:48 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

i thought it seemed like a fair trade

but i also overvalued davis’ bat, apparently

by marbotty on Jun 2, 2009 12:38 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

It was this article article that gave me the idea. He makes contact on 60% of pitches in the strike zone!! Lasik?

We always did feel the same, We just saw it from a different point of view, Tangled up in blue.
-Bob Dylan

by Royal Kingdom on Jun 2, 2009 1:31 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Always worried when one of these posts comes up

You hope that you weren’t one of the ones endorsing it — and then you look back through the comments and see that you weren’t……it’s a good feeling

by Top Ramen on Jun 2, 2009 10:03 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I'm still ashamed I had the audacity to question the Bloomquist signing

Sam Mellinger really showed me!

Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com

by RoyalsRetro on Jun 2, 2009 10:56 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

You heard it here first

I advocated for the signing of Carlos Silva prior to the ‘08 season. I thought he would be a valuable innings muncher…..4-4.5 FIP/ERA, 200 IP, 30:80 BB:K…basically Brian Bannister’s upside/#3 starter.

Of course, I was then in I Wanna Win And I’m Not Gonna Take It Anymore!!!!!!111 mode. Oh, I guess I’m still in that mode.

Get treated. Royally.

by Royals Nation on Jun 2, 2009 5:50 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Thank god you are not the GM!

For the money that Silva got, that’s pretty much worse to me than signing Guillen for what we did (Gary Matthews Jr is the other genius move that ranks higher). Those contracts boggle my mind. 8.25M last year, 12.25M this year, plus god know’s what. Salaries can be found in USA Today’s salary database: http://content.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/salaries/default.aspx

Fangraphs actually had Silva at 1.5 WAR last year even though he was 4-15, I guess the 4.63 FIP factors into that. His ERA was over 6. His FIP this year is 5.98.

by AxDxMx on Jun 2, 2009 6:51 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs