Are Veteran Free Agents the New Moneyball Players?

A team has such a good evaluative process (including scouts and statistical analysis) that they can identify those players who haven’t been performing well in recent seasons, but are actually significantly better than that and therefore should improve. I don’t think the Royals are such a team. Francoeur and Melky are two data points. There are many other data points that don’t look so good.

I thought Melky was a bit undervalued. I didn’t think he was THAT terrible, and he had shown glimpses of being a solid COF defender who could draw some walks. And he was still quite young. I didn’t expect this kind of season, but I expected a bounceback.

Frenchy is a bit inexplicable to me, but he was young, and I guess he has the talent.

I think teams like the Royals have long had a market advantage over good teams in that they can employ the “let’s throw lots of crap at the wall and see what sticks.” Trying as many under-30 trash heap players to see if you can find a few gems is a wise strategy at this point in the success cycle. See Paulino, Felipe. Heck, even the Rays still employ this strategy, at least in assembling a bench and bullpen.

But I do agree with Will’s point above, that the key is to not get attached and mistake a blip in performance for a new level of performance. Heed the Tale of Horacio Ramirez.

Veteran FAs were part of the original Moneyball strategy. IIRC, David Justice was one old vet Billy Beane went after because he drew walks. Scott Hatteberg was a non-tender veteran. Chad Bradford was a bit of a veteran. They had all sorts of older players – Tony Phillips, Tim Raines, Olmedo Saenz, John Jaha – with the common thread being they all drew walks.

Earlier this week, I read a piece taking the Giants to task for the Beltran-Wheeler trade, in part, because Wheeler had good numbers in Single Effing A.

Myself, I thought the Giants paid too much because they could have gotten someone for far cheaper, and really, in the end, they might not have needed to make any move at all. Instead, they’ll pay the remainder of Beltran’s deal, giving the Mets some salary relief and fork over a prized commodity.

I think that one inefficiency may be veteran soft-tossing SPs. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of demand for them, and they have a better chance of staying healthy and eating up 180-200 innings over the course of the year. I think GMs are enamored by the possibilities of a struggling 30 year old (or 27yo) hard throwing SP, and believe that he can refind his form and becoming a $5MM/year ace, but it rarely works out that way. I have no stats or careful analysis to back this up, but it’s a thought.

Basically, I’m saying that whenver we have enough data to prove my theory , I’d like for Bruce Chen to be on the cover of Moneyball 2: Electric Bugalloo

Many of us would rather see the Royals go with Lorenzo Cain, but why? Is Cain a good bet to be much better? Is it the mere small chance that Cain blossoms? Does Cain’s $400,000 salary make a difference? Actually, on the money part, probably.

If maximizing wins in 2012 were all that was important, then Melky or Francoeur over Cain makes more sense. Cain will just be a rookie, and he’s not a top prospect. Despite good AAA numbers, we really don’t know how good he’ll be. He could be an abject failure. But it isn’t just about 2012. I think the Royals should be building towards a contending future. And, god willing, that contending future will be 2013 and beyond. Melky will only be under team control through 2012. Francoeur only through 2013. I think Cain should have played in the majors for much of 2011 and be a regular for 2012. That way the Royals get to develop and evaluate him at the major league level. That could significantly help the Royals future. Melky and Francoeur mostly provide some but not a lot of help to a non-contending present and near future.

Sticking with guys like Francoeur while you let a younger player with upside at a premium position go underutilized in the minors or on the major league bench is not the new Moneyball.

Lie. I did and a few others did too. I argued about these with you guys forever and you refused to say Melky and Frenchy COULD have good years especially for that money they were paid this year. I will accept your apology and hopefully you reserve your jumping all over someone and telling them to go to other royals sites if they want optimism…from now on right when a deal is made and wait to see how it pans out before jumping all over someone again.

…this didn’t really seem like trolling until the cavalcade of you-guys-always-pick-on-me quotes started rolling in.

I don’t know why I didn’t see it quicker. Sorry.

someone said we are friendly… pointing out there is a difference in debating and being a dick like some including RR NY Royal was