I agree. Having watched the Nationals give up Harper (who was a pill anyway), Scherzer (which worked out for me, a Mets’ fan), Trea Turner, Anthony Rendon, and now Soto, I feel for Nats’ fans. It’s criminal. It may be the business of baseball but I think the business of baseball is to the fans who pay the damn bills. There is no one left on the Nats who has the skill, style, and baseball cache worth watching. Glad I’m a Mets’ fan in these troubled times.
I have NO IDEA if this is the proper way to write you, but I had to tell you the best nickname for the Oakland A's is the Elephants (or Pachyderms, if you prefer. They could be called the "Pach").
I'm sure you have seen the Elephant patch they wear, but it seems very few people know the story behind it.
I'm doing this from memory, but here goes:
In ancient India, when the "king" wanted to ruin someone on the sly, he would give them a gift of a White Elephant.
It would cost so much to feed and house and care for the Elephant that it would bankrupt most people. But it was such an "honor" to receive the gift, that you couldn't refuse it.
Hence "white Elephant" came to mean a gift you did NOT want to receive. You MAY have heard of the Christmas time gift swap referred to as White Elephant for just this reason.
Anyway, AROUND 1912, the then-Philadelphia A's were set to face the... Giants, I think.... in the World Series. These were the A's of Eddie Collins, Stuffy McInnis, and Homerun Baker, collectively known as the $100,000 infield.
A member of the press asked the opposing manager (McGraw?) how he felt about having to go up against the formidable $100,000 Infield. McGraw said, "Oh those guys are nothing but a bunch of White Elephants. I wouldn't take em if you gave em to me. "
The A's were miffed and adopted a White Elephant of their own as a mascot, which they apparently paraded around the field before each game and they won the series.
They have worn the Elephant patch ever since and almost nobody knows why.
Ok I have a question about WAR. I know it is wins above replacement. So a team of all replacements would win what, 50-60 games? Less? It there a rule of thumb?
I understand there are various ways to calculate WAR. But has anybody added up and compared one or more teams’ total individual WAR totals to a team’s ACTUAL win total? Just to get an idea of accuracy? Same for win shares, win probability added, etc.
From what I understand, a team made up entirely of hypothetical replacement players is expected to go about 42-120. As a comparison, the 2021 Nationals were worth a combined 25.6 bWAR, so you'd expect them to win about 67 games and they actually won 65.
Bert Blyleven ... if I hear this one more time! ... Why do you think that baseball fans from the dim dark ages before statistical analytic overkill had no idea that won-loss records had to be considered in context?
Do you really think baseball fans had no idea that the statistics for best pitcher on the Washington Senators or Kansas City A's or Houston Astros were affected by the team they played for? Or the stadiums they pitched in?
Oh, people definitely knew about these problems. I just finished reading "Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball," and this comes up (about W&L, ERA, and hits vs errors, too).
Hell, here's Toad Ramsey in 1912: “If I yield up a groover and the fellow at bat gives it a slap and it goes to short, who fields it to first in time, why is that an out for the baseman and an assist for shortstop, and all right for me, in a manner of speaking. But look at you -- if that shortstop had been playing a slightly different position, and the ball had got by him, it would have counted as a hit off me. That’s funny as after the ball left my hands I had no further control over it.”
But all anyone ever did was bellyache about it. The "statistical analytic overkill" that you seem to be deriding at least attempts to quantify what the pitcher can control and what he has no part in.
“To the sportswriters, this was a Larry Bowa-for-Ivan DeJesus deal.”
Most think so, but this is actually not true. Dallas Green had just joined the Cubs as GM, coming over from the Phillies, and he was keenly aware of Sandberg’s talent. (At that point, Sandberg had just broken into the big leagues and hadn’t yet established himself.)
Indeed, the Chicago papers at the time went out of their way to emphasize how instrumental Sandberg was in the deal. He was actually key to the deal.
They didn’t really know where he’d play, though - Bowa wasn’t going to move and were trying Bump Wills at 2B. They even tried Sandberg in CF in Spring Training before putting him at 3B. Toward the end of that first season, they eventually moved him to 2B, then got Ron Cey to play 3B. The rest is history.
I don’t see how a $440m offer is not termed a serious offer. It might not max out how much he will potentially get on the open market in 2.5 years but it’s certainly a serious offer. Did Soto’s camp ever make a counter? If he wasn’t showing an inclination to sign an extension then I’m not sure what the Nats could do given how bad their team is likely to be over the next 2-3 years even with him. Now was the time to maximize the value if he wasn’t showing a lot of interest in signing an extension.
Joe, I am going to quibble with your take on the $440 Million offer. This is baseball, not the NFL. All money is guaranteed. If he gets seriously hurt tomorrow (sorry Padres fans for the image of that), he will make nowhere near $440 Million in the future. It really doesn't matter if it was over 15 years or 10 years in baseball. The total amount matters.
The number of years absolutely matter because if it's a 10-year deal, he hits free agency again at 33 and will likely get another monster contract. If it's 15 years, this is probably the only deal he signs.
you are missing the point. He is betting on his health by not taking the $440 Million now. That is fine, as long as he fully understands that. I am sure his agent does (Boras?), but it is unclear to me whether agents have an ethical obligation to fully explain the pros and cons of taking a contract vs. not taking one to their client. Other professionals, like attorneys and doctors, must, by the canon of ethics that applies to their professions, explain fully that going to trial might mean you get the death penalty or the surgery I am prescribing might kill you, but I am unsure how much the agent has to explain that not taking the money now is a risk, since if you get hurt, you won't get a 1/10th of that money.
Given his age, skill level, and fact that he's going to make $20+million next season through arbitration no matter what, there is almost no situation whatsoever where he doesn't make at least $100 million in his career from 2023-forward, unless his legs literally fall off his body.
Additionally, when is the last time that a player at his age suffered a legit career ending injury where he went from superstar to teams not even taking a flyer and hoping for the best?
This. 1000% this. If he janks his knee up running over a sprinkler head and "aw jeez, he was never quite the same. I mean, still really good, but...." Welp, you're paying 30+M *for 12 more years* of good-not-great because 15/440 was an insult.
My thought is that this is no longer a one time event.
This heralds the beginning of the new Premier League ERA in baseball, where the young superstar player and his agent, assumed to be Scott Boras until someone throws a bucket of water on him, will set the bar so high for AAV and Duration only a few wealthy and gullible owners will pay. This will require ever deeper pocketed owners (hello Qatar! Let us teach you baseball! It’s like Cricket only slightly less time consuming!) and separate the game further into a Top 6-10 and the rest just muddling along, hoping to ride a hot streak to the Divisional Championship and hosting a couple of playoff games in their fair city.
To the detriment of a balanced game, to the detriment of fielding a competitive 26 man roster, to the detriment of the player himself who will only be measured by their AAV and not their MVPs or Rings, or career totals.
There will not be many that combine the age and talent of Soto. But those that come along, maybe Rodriguez in Seattle, they will be guided in the same way by the same forces to make the same decisions.
I see your point but I also think that people who want to criticize Boras and the players should go back and read some of Joe’s columns regarding the recent lockout. I am sorry, but neither the owners nor the players nor the agents care about the fans. They all want to maximize their own profits and value. There may be exceptions, but they are very rare
Double post foul... Boras has one goal for himself and his clientele. Set the market by negotiating with the entire 30 teams. Never let one team determine how much you are worth.
I like to think a 23 kid like Soto cares about the fans in DC but Colonel Tom has bigger things in store....
What never made sense about the proverbial $440M offer to me as an observer is why it had to be 15 years which drove down the AAV to the ‘insulting’ 29M. Make this a 12 year deal at 440 now you are at 37M - you are still getting his best years, he would have been 35-6, a 15-16 year career all with one team when it’s over and likely ready to call it anyway.
I will actually be shocked if the Padres end up paying more than $440M in today’s dollars over the his career starting today.
You need to be the right amount of Foxy Loxy for that - exactly right. I have a good friend who was born a Leicester fan and he’ll celebrate 2016 and beating 5000-1 odds annually with toasts to Vardy & co.
Is this what we want for Baseball? 5000-1 odds for KC year in year out?
Great point about wanting to see Soto grow old with the Nats. Mookie Betts was 27 when he was traded, but the same principle applies. I REALLY wanted to watch that guy every day for the next 10-12 years. Same for Bogaerts and Devers. As a fan, I want to win, but I want to win with our guys, not some random assemblage of guys who were elsewhere a few years ago and will be somewhere else in the next couple years.
That's not quite accurate - there were a lot of long-termers on that team. Varitek was a lifelong Red Sox, Ortiz and Wakefield may as well have been, Lowe had come up with them, and Manny and Pedro spent the greatest part of their careers there. Every champion is going to have hired guns like Schilling and Foulke, but that team had a few people (particularly Ortiz and Tek) that represent exactly what we're looking for here.
Can't really argue with that. But by that time I had been rooting for the Red Sox for 36 years and I would've taken a championship from anybody. But that doesn't change the fact that it would have been more enjoyable if Garciaparra was on that team.
Right. And I was really happy for the Sox - they'd waited long enough.
However, it does kinda drive home the point that, when it comes down to it, we're all just rooting for the laundry. And it does seem clear that as soon as Soto hired Boras, he was never going to do anything except take the very highest contract he could find. Players have been underpaid forever, so fine. But it also means that "trying to be sensible" is just not an option if you're a team owner, and you're going to get excoriated for it. Oh well.
The big difference between the trade you mentioned, including the big Cabrera trade is that almost all of them occurred in the off season. This is a trade deadline deal. Also, as you mentioned, many of those who became hall of famers but weren't talked about that way before the trade.
To paraphrase Bill James when the A's traded Rickey to the Yankees in 1984, baseball is about accumulating players like Juan Soto; it's a shame when a team feels it has to part with him.
As I understand it, the NBA at least made an attempt at pleasing the fans and also letting the players get rich. "Get more money to stay with your original team". And then came the sign-and-trade. And teams are now "forced" to give a maximum contract to their best player if he is even sort-of great. I like the attempt, in any case. Neither the owners nor the players in MLB seemed interested in making that kind of attempt during the latest contract negotiations.
I agree. Having watched the Nationals give up Harper (who was a pill anyway), Scherzer (which worked out for me, a Mets’ fan), Trea Turner, Anthony Rendon, and now Soto, I feel for Nats’ fans. It’s criminal. It may be the business of baseball but I think the business of baseball is to the fans who pay the damn bills. There is no one left on the Nats who has the skill, style, and baseball cache worth watching. Glad I’m a Mets’ fan in these troubled times.
See, to me, if I were a Nationals fan, I’d want to watch Juan Soto grow old in this game. That would matter to me.
YES
Hey Joe....
I have NO IDEA if this is the proper way to write you, but I had to tell you the best nickname for the Oakland A's is the Elephants (or Pachyderms, if you prefer. They could be called the "Pach").
I'm sure you have seen the Elephant patch they wear, but it seems very few people know the story behind it.
I'm doing this from memory, but here goes:
In ancient India, when the "king" wanted to ruin someone on the sly, he would give them a gift of a White Elephant.
It would cost so much to feed and house and care for the Elephant that it would bankrupt most people. But it was such an "honor" to receive the gift, that you couldn't refuse it.
Hence "white Elephant" came to mean a gift you did NOT want to receive. You MAY have heard of the Christmas time gift swap referred to as White Elephant for just this reason.
Anyway, AROUND 1912, the then-Philadelphia A's were set to face the... Giants, I think.... in the World Series. These were the A's of Eddie Collins, Stuffy McInnis, and Homerun Baker, collectively known as the $100,000 infield.
A member of the press asked the opposing manager (McGraw?) how he felt about having to go up against the formidable $100,000 Infield. McGraw said, "Oh those guys are nothing but a bunch of White Elephants. I wouldn't take em if you gave em to me. "
The A's were miffed and adopted a White Elephant of their own as a mascot, which they apparently paraded around the field before each game and they won the series.
They have worn the Elephant patch ever since and almost nobody knows why.
The Pach! You gotta love it.
Ok I have a question about WAR. I know it is wins above replacement. So a team of all replacements would win what, 50-60 games? Less? It there a rule of thumb?
I understand there are various ways to calculate WAR. But has anybody added up and compared one or more teams’ total individual WAR totals to a team’s ACTUAL win total? Just to get an idea of accuracy? Same for win shares, win probability added, etc.
From what I understand, a team made up entirely of hypothetical replacement players is expected to go about 42-120. As a comparison, the 2021 Nationals were worth a combined 25.6 bWAR, so you'd expect them to win about 67 games and they actually won 65.
Ok that’s pretty close. So is there always a correlation that close?
There are always outliers in statistics, but the more vintages (seasons) that you get (compile), the closer to the mean you get.
Good thought exercise though, that’s how you keep the stats sites honest.
Bert Blyleven ... if I hear this one more time! ... Why do you think that baseball fans from the dim dark ages before statistical analytic overkill had no idea that won-loss records had to be considered in context?
Do you really think baseball fans had no idea that the statistics for best pitcher on the Washington Senators or Kansas City A's or Houston Astros were affected by the team they played for? Or the stadiums they pitched in?
Oh, people definitely knew about these problems. I just finished reading "Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball," and this comes up (about W&L, ERA, and hits vs errors, too).
Hell, here's Toad Ramsey in 1912: “If I yield up a groover and the fellow at bat gives it a slap and it goes to short, who fields it to first in time, why is that an out for the baseman and an assist for shortstop, and all right for me, in a manner of speaking. But look at you -- if that shortstop had been playing a slightly different position, and the ball had got by him, it would have counted as a hit off me. That’s funny as after the ball left my hands I had no further control over it.”
But all anyone ever did was bellyache about it. The "statistical analytic overkill" that you seem to be deriding at least attempts to quantify what the pitcher can control and what he has no part in.
I remember Blyleven as a stud. You are 100% correct.
Given the Cy Young winners over the years, it seems pretty obvious that ONLY wins mattered.
Do not confuse baseball fans with writers.
How do you think most fans got their information on players that played on other teams?
From the back of baseball cards. Or old issues of Sporting News at the library.
Those are written by sports writers
“To the sportswriters, this was a Larry Bowa-for-Ivan DeJesus deal.”
Most think so, but this is actually not true. Dallas Green had just joined the Cubs as GM, coming over from the Phillies, and he was keenly aware of Sandberg’s talent. (At that point, Sandberg had just broken into the big leagues and hadn’t yet established himself.)
Indeed, the Chicago papers at the time went out of their way to emphasize how instrumental Sandberg was in the deal. He was actually key to the deal.
They didn’t really know where he’d play, though - Bowa wasn’t going to move and were trying Bump Wills at 2B. They even tried Sandberg in CF in Spring Training before putting him at 3B. Toward the end of that first season, they eventually moved him to 2B, then got Ron Cey to play 3B. The rest is history.
Bump Wills... hehehehe
I don’t see how a $440m offer is not termed a serious offer. It might not max out how much he will potentially get on the open market in 2.5 years but it’s certainly a serious offer. Did Soto’s camp ever make a counter? If he wasn’t showing an inclination to sign an extension then I’m not sure what the Nats could do given how bad their team is likely to be over the next 2-3 years even with him. Now was the time to maximize the value if he wasn’t showing a lot of interest in signing an extension.
Joe, I am going to quibble with your take on the $440 Million offer. This is baseball, not the NFL. All money is guaranteed. If he gets seriously hurt tomorrow (sorry Padres fans for the image of that), he will make nowhere near $440 Million in the future. It really doesn't matter if it was over 15 years or 10 years in baseball. The total amount matters.
The number of years absolutely matter because if it's a 10-year deal, he hits free agency again at 33 and will likely get another monster contract. If it's 15 years, this is probably the only deal he signs.
you are missing the point. He is betting on his health by not taking the $440 Million now. That is fine, as long as he fully understands that. I am sure his agent does (Boras?), but it is unclear to me whether agents have an ethical obligation to fully explain the pros and cons of taking a contract vs. not taking one to their client. Other professionals, like attorneys and doctors, must, by the canon of ethics that applies to their professions, explain fully that going to trial might mean you get the death penalty or the surgery I am prescribing might kill you, but I am unsure how much the agent has to explain that not taking the money now is a risk, since if you get hurt, you won't get a 1/10th of that money.
Given his age, skill level, and fact that he's going to make $20+million next season through arbitration no matter what, there is almost no situation whatsoever where he doesn't make at least $100 million in his career from 2023-forward, unless his legs literally fall off his body.
Additionally, when is the last time that a player at his age suffered a legit career ending injury where he went from superstar to teams not even taking a flyer and hoping for the best?
This. 1000% this. If he janks his knee up running over a sprinkler head and "aw jeez, he was never quite the same. I mean, still really good, but...." Welp, you're paying 30+M *for 12 more years* of good-not-great because 15/440 was an insult.
My thought is that this is no longer a one time event.
This heralds the beginning of the new Premier League ERA in baseball, where the young superstar player and his agent, assumed to be Scott Boras until someone throws a bucket of water on him, will set the bar so high for AAV and Duration only a few wealthy and gullible owners will pay. This will require ever deeper pocketed owners (hello Qatar! Let us teach you baseball! It’s like Cricket only slightly less time consuming!) and separate the game further into a Top 6-10 and the rest just muddling along, hoping to ride a hot streak to the Divisional Championship and hosting a couple of playoff games in their fair city.
To the detriment of a balanced game, to the detriment of fielding a competitive 26 man roster, to the detriment of the player himself who will only be measured by their AAV and not their MVPs or Rings, or career totals.
There will not be many that combine the age and talent of Soto. But those that come along, maybe Rodriguez in Seattle, they will be guided in the same way by the same forces to make the same decisions.
I see your point but I also think that people who want to criticize Boras and the players should go back and read some of Joe’s columns regarding the recent lockout. I am sorry, but neither the owners nor the players nor the agents care about the fans. They all want to maximize their own profits and value. There may be exceptions, but they are very rare
Double post foul... Boras has one goal for himself and his clientele. Set the market by negotiating with the entire 30 teams. Never let one team determine how much you are worth.
I like to think a 23 kid like Soto cares about the fans in DC but Colonel Tom has bigger things in store....
What never made sense about the proverbial $440M offer to me as an observer is why it had to be 15 years which drove down the AAV to the ‘insulting’ 29M. Make this a 12 year deal at 440 now you are at 37M - you are still getting his best years, he would have been 35-6, a 15-16 year career all with one team when it’s over and likely ready to call it anyway.
I will actually be shocked if the Padres end up paying more than $440M in today’s dollars over the his career starting today.
But we can always hope for Leicester City to steal a championship under the perfect circumstances, right?
You need to be the right amount of Foxy Loxy for that - exactly right. I have a good friend who was born a Leicester fan and he’ll celebrate 2016 and beating 5000-1 odds annually with toasts to Vardy & co.
Is this what we want for Baseball? 5000-1 odds for KC year in year out?
Reason to watch a Nats game? It’s baseball!
Great point about wanting to see Soto grow old with the Nats. Mookie Betts was 27 when he was traded, but the same principle applies. I REALLY wanted to watch that guy every day for the next 10-12 years. Same for Bogaerts and Devers. As a fan, I want to win, but I want to win with our guys, not some random assemblage of guys who were elsewhere a few years ago and will be somewhere else in the next couple years.
I understand your sentiments, I really do. But the 2004 Sox were pretty much a random assemblage of guys.
That's not quite accurate - there were a lot of long-termers on that team. Varitek was a lifelong Red Sox, Ortiz and Wakefield may as well have been, Lowe had come up with them, and Manny and Pedro spent the greatest part of their careers there. Every champion is going to have hired guns like Schilling and Foulke, but that team had a few people (particularly Ortiz and Tek) that represent exactly what we're looking for here.
Can't really argue with that. But by that time I had been rooting for the Red Sox for 36 years and I would've taken a championship from anybody. But that doesn't change the fact that it would have been more enjoyable if Garciaparra was on that team.
Right. And I was really happy for the Sox - they'd waited long enough.
However, it does kinda drive home the point that, when it comes down to it, we're all just rooting for the laundry. And it does seem clear that as soon as Soto hired Boras, he was never going to do anything except take the very highest contract he could find. Players have been underpaid forever, so fine. But it also means that "trying to be sensible" is just not an option if you're a team owner, and you're going to get excoriated for it. Oh well.
Don’t forget. The Marlins traded Miguel Cabrera when he was 24 (with Dontelle Willis) for a bunch of not much with the jewel being Cameron Maybin.
The big difference between the trade you mentioned, including the big Cabrera trade is that almost all of them occurred in the off season. This is a trade deadline deal. Also, as you mentioned, many of those who became hall of famers but weren't talked about that way before the trade.
Yesterday I embraced my inner childhood Cleveland Indians fan and went to the Nats game to watch the other teams players.
I got to see Frankie Lindor hit a homer.
All around, it felt like 1989 all over again.
To paraphrase Bill James when the A's traded Rickey to the Yankees in 1984, baseball is about accumulating players like Juan Soto; it's a shame when a team feels it has to part with him.
I’m old, I lived through the Tigers of the late 60s and early 70s, moved to Cincinnati in time to enjoy the BRM and their demise.
The old way was economic slavery and at the same time a way to extend your brand.
I’m happy for the players, sad for the fans
The game has always been about economics.
Que sera
As I understand it, the NBA at least made an attempt at pleasing the fans and also letting the players get rich. "Get more money to stay with your original team". And then came the sign-and-trade. And teams are now "forced" to give a maximum contract to their best player if he is even sort-of great. I like the attempt, in any case. Neither the owners nor the players in MLB seemed interested in making that kind of attempt during the latest contract negotiations.