MattS wrote:

FTN wrote:i find your logic faulty, based on the information we have from the team.

i'd like to know what information you're referring to and why you disagree.

Because they determined that they couldnt give up 3 prospects while getting none in return. Hence, they had to trade someone. And Blanton wasn't bringing back anything in terms of legit prospects. You can imply that the team isnt telling the truth. And that they could have saved money elsewhere. But according to the team, it was about recovering prospects, hence Lee had to go. And it makes sense to believe them, because surely Amaro knows he could have non-tendered Blanton and saved the 7M.

FTN wrote:

MattS wrote:

FTN wrote:i find your logic faulty, based on the information we have from the team.

i'd like to know what information you're referring to and why you disagree.

Because they determined that they couldnt give up 3 prospects while getting none in return. Hence, they had to trade someone. And Blanton wasn't bringing back anything in terms of legit prospects. You can imply that the team isnt telling the truth. And that they could have saved money elsewhere. But according to the team, it was about recovering prospects, hence Lee had to go. And it makes sense to believe them, because surely Amaro knows he could have non-tendered Blanton and saved the 7M.

i said in the article that they either did it to restock or to get money saved. the money savings were clearly from another source, and the prospects as ranked represent maybe seventy cents on the dollar in terms of how these trades normally go down. i know you like j.c. ramirez, but the fact is that most other people think he's too raw to put any real value in and even if you have a good feeling about him (which i'm sure looper does too, and he's a good scout), he wasn't ranked high enough to be worth enough in value to represent what the phillies could have gotten. the phillies need to be so right about these guys that they are worth 50% more than other teams who trade for prospects value their targets, presumably because they also overvalue them.

the point is that no one in the top 100 was traded for a 5.25-win pitcher getting paid like a 1.7-win pitcher with a year left on his contract and worth two free picks at the end of the year. they should have waited to get more. they should have gotten what other teams get in situations like these. they could have even been creative like the blue jays were and gotten more.

they jays also gave us 6 million and a window to work out a long term deal with roy. we did nothing of the sort for seattle. oh and halladay is better.

but this is where i deviate from you, and the likes of dave cameron. its impossible to put a dollar value on a player who has no big league track record at all. you can say "historically a player ranked x out of the top 100 is worth y", but I dont buy into that stuff at all. where a player is ranked in any given year is based largely on what people think that player will become. kyle drabek could become a front line starter in the big leagues. or he could blow out his arm again and be worth zero. ramirez doesn't look like an elite prospect now, so you can assign him a very low future value. and in 1 year, he could look like a #1 starter, and then you'd ascribe a value that is 100x higher. prospect value is much more fluid than the value of an established big leaguer.

obviously not all prospects are the same. and its reasonable to assume that the phillies didnt get back anyone as valuable as drabek. but i think gillies is more valuable than taylor, and i think there are still enough question marks about both drabek and aumont, and really everyone in the deal, to assign any kind of future value to them

ek wrote:I think they may have had a PR nightmare if they waited because the fans would have thought they would have had both pitchers for a period of time and then Lee would have been traded and the fans would have probably been more pissed off than they are now

i think they'd still sell tickets. they might even trick some more people into buying tix. the PR thing is only so valuable. missing the playoffs one year down the line as a result is probably too high a risk to offset the PR issue.

FTN wrote:but this is where i deviate from you, and the likes of dave cameron. its impossible to put a dollar value on a player who has no big league track record at all. you can say "historically a player ranked x out of the top 100 is worth y", but I dont buy into that stuff at all. where a player is ranked in any given year is based largely on what people think that player will become. kyle drabek could become a front line starter in the big leagues. or he could blow out his arm again and be worth zero. ramirez doesn't look like an elite prospect now, so you can assign him a very low future value. and in 1 year, he could look like a #1 starter, and then you'd ascribe a value that is 100x higher. prospect value is much more fluid than the value of an established big leaguer.

obviously not all prospects are the same. and its reasonable to assume that the phillies didnt get back anyone as valuable as drabek. but i think gillies is more valuable than taylor, and i think there are still enough question marks about both drabek and aumont, and really everyone in the deal, to assign any kind of future value to them

it's true that prospects valuations are noisy and moving targets at the same time. but teams put value on them all the time. and it would have to be very, very bad rankings to make that trade look good. the fact is that the phillies and mariners both put values on these guys-- they are just expected values. they are noisy but the overall value can still be approximated from any distribution.

FTN wrote:but this is where i deviate from you, and the likes of dave cameron. its impossible to put a dollar value on a player who has no big league track record at all. you can say "historically a player ranked x out of the top 100 is worth y", but I dont buy into that stuff at all. where a player is ranked in any given year is based largely on what people think that player will become. kyle drabek could become a front line starter in the big leagues. or he could blow out his arm again and be worth zero. ramirez doesn't look like an elite prospect now, so you can assign him a very low future value. and in 1 year, he could look like a #1 starter, and then you'd ascribe a value that is 100x higher. prospect value is much more fluid than the value of an established big leaguer.

obviously not all prospects are the same. and its reasonable to assume that the phillies didnt get back anyone as valuable as drabek. but i think gillies is more valuable than taylor, and i think there are still enough question marks about both drabek and aumont, and really everyone in the deal, to assign any kind of future value to them

oh, and i do things differently that dave cameron. i used to do it that way, but i actually read through the articles that it's based on and the different articles come from different assumptions and conflict with each other. that's why i adjusted it based on wins so that you can discount the way you want, and only let the pricing issue affect long-term deals as far as inflation. it's a more transparent process.

I think the missing analytical tool in prospect evaluation here is beta, or variance. It is an input into the capital asset pricing model which is the standard way of evaluating securities. One could imagine adding a beta element to standard prospect valuation models to further refine the dollar amount (or win total) associated with their acquisition.

If prospects are converted into a dollar value using regressions of historical data, it should be relatively straight forward to figure out the beta around guys a certain distance from the big league level and of certain prospect ranking. For established guys like Halladay, their beta is likely very low as there is a substantial track record of accomplishment and health.

So, I think flop's point is right, insofar that the standard value association for prospects who have not logged significant time above A+ ball is overstated. But i imagine that there is a more sophisticated analytical way of introducing risk into the model i the form of beta. If someone with far deeper knowledge into those models knows that this is already accounted for appropriately please point it out. Some of my assumptions are based on ignorance and inference, not careful consideration of the current models being used

FTN wrote: i think there are still enough question marks about both drabek and aumont, and really everyone in the deal, to assign any kind of future value to them

Best fourth post in the history of BSG

jerseyhoya wrote:Best fourth post in the history of BSG

Meh. i think I just don't understand the level of complexity which current valuation models use risk. I hope flop or Matt S can elegantly correct my misunderstanding.

jerseyhoya wrote:Best fourth post in the history of BSG

It has to be. Most people have a fourth post slump but not this guy.

I thought CAPTAIN CAPS really busted on the scene

is he VFB and CFP's cousin from Mexico with the mustache

oh dude, i found you an avatar already

bfc wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Best fourth post in the history of BSG

Meh. i think I just don't understand the level of complexity which current valuation models use risk. I hope flop or Matt S can elegantly correct my misunderstanding.

I liked it.

Let's make him our new god!

MattS wrote:my take on the trade(s)

i haven't really posted anything the past few days because i've been busy, largely researching everything i needed to write this.

in summary, the whole thing was a teeny-tiny negative for the phillies and an awesome trade for the mariners and blue jays. the halladay trade was a good deal because of the extension being so ridiculously below market that it isn't even funny, and the lee trade was a pointless loss for less talent than lee is worth. they could have lowered payroll any number of ways, as you guys know, and this was just a terribly unproductive way to do it. the halladay deal also was curious because even though most teams made out very well, the jays couldn't have gotten an offer that good elsewhere unless someone overpaid, so it seems weird that the phillies needed to offer as much as they did.

The part I most agree with is the Phils Toronto part.

The Phils did fine because Halladay gave such a good deal to them, so there was a lot of extra value to split with Toronto, I'm just surprised they gave so much of that value to Toronto.

I guess it makes sense is if Halladay was willing to extend those same terms to every other team that traded for him (which probably is a reasonable assumption, but he sure made it seem like Philly was the place he wanted to be).

And another thing, why do teams who don't need catchers keep asking for our catchers... take Cleveland for instance. It's like the teams went out of their way to destroy value with Marson.

bfc wrote:I think the missing analytical tool in prospect evaluation here is beta, or variance. It is an input into the capital asset pricing model which is the standard way of evaluating securities. One could imagine adding a beta element to standard prospect valuation models to further refine the dollar amount (or win total) associated with their acquisition.

If prospects are converted into a dollar value using regressions of historical data, it should be relatively straight forward to figure out the beta around guys a certain distance from the big league level and of certain prospect ranking. For established guys like Halladay, their beta is likely very low as there is a substantial track record of accomplishment and health.

So, I think flop's point is right, insofar that the standard value association for prospects who have not logged significant time above A+ ball is overstated. But i imagine that there is a more sophisticated analytical way of introducing risk into the model i the form of beta. If someone with far deeper knowledge into those models knows that this is already accounted for appropriately please point it out. Some of my assumptions are based on ignorance and inference, not careful consideration of the current models being used

FTN wrote: i think there are still enough question marks about both drabek and aumont, and really everyone in the deal, to assign any kind of future value to them

this is certainly a point worth addressing. it is valuable insofar as wang accounts for it but giving busts "0 wins." like, aumont's arm could fall off and he could end up with the skills to put up an ERA of 15.00 but that's not relevant. it accounts for upside by basically giving those guys win values.

now, the capital pricing stuff is relevant because you want to avoid risk with your money. a stock that could be worth $200 or $0 tomorrow is not worth as much as one that is worth $100 tomorrow for sure. it's just a risky place to put your money. but for teams that aren't the yankees, variance helps if anything. i'd rather have a team that had a 50/50 shot of winning 95 or 75 games than a for sure shot at 85 games. the former would do better. so i'm not sure that it ends up mattering beyond the censoring at 0 wins adjustment. the dollar values are shady and don't account for a lot of variance which is why i transfer everything back to wins.

it could help, but keep in mind that there's risk on the major league talent end of the deal too due to draft pick compensation-- those have even higher standard deviations than prospects who have some big league team, and the draft pick compensation is part of the value to the win-now team trading prospects away.

jerseyhoya wrote:Best fourth post in the history of BSG

Sure as hell beat mine.

jeff2sf wrote:
And another thing, why do teams who don't need catchers keep asking for our catchers... take Cleveland for instance. It's like the teams went out of their way to destroy value with Marson.

They DFA'd Shoppach and traded Martinez. Marson is likely their low cost + replacement level dood for the next 3-4 years. Seems valuable.

ek wrote:I think they may have had a PR nightmare if they waited because the fans would have thought they would have had both pitchers for a period of time and then Lee would have been traded and the fans would have probably been more pissed off than they are now

I think that was a big contributing factor. Also, I'm not sure how much of the pre-trade rumors we can believe, but if an early form of the trade was actually to have Seattle send prospects to Toronto, thus making the deal for Halladay absolutely reliant on sending Lee to Seattle, there may have been great reluctance to step away from from a deal that had been nearly completed with Seattle even though in the end there was a clear division between the two trades.

I don't think the the market for lee was endless- he was still a pitcher only available for one year, earning almost $10 million who had to bring decent prospects in return, so he'd really only appeal to to a team that thought it was on the brink of contending for a championship. But I would have like to see if there was anything more out there.

But I'm not that upset partly because I'm just happy we weren't Abreued.