It's not quite that simple and you know it's not. If I had offered you action on us being a 80 win team this year, you'd have taken any and all action and it looks like you would have been really wrong (I would have too).

We're probably not a 67 win team. But we're not an 83 win team either. And when you make decisions assuming you're an 83 win team going into next year, you can f up the process even more such that we're not an 83 win team for the next several years. The team is broken. It's not going to get back into contention without a dramatic course correction. That doesn't mean that we are doomed to be the Astros, we can absolutely get better in a hurry due to our financial. But it does mean that if you play this out with the actors we have on hand, you will not get the result you want. That's why you can't fool yourself into thinking we're a lot better than 67 wins. We're almost certainly better than it, I give you that, but we're not THAT much better than it.

Do you really disagree with that?

I understand that view but disagree, yes

Part of the team being "broken" means a new 3B, a new corner outfielder, a new or revitalized C, a new #2/3 starter (Halladay, Gonzalez, or someone similar), most likely a new 1B situation with Ruf mixed in, etc. The Adams situation does look dire, but I'm guessing they won't come into a third camp crossing their fingers on DeFratus and Diekman

And those aren't things that are easy to get 3-4 win players for. You basically need 3 4-win players at a minimum. Guys that produce 20-24 million dollars worth of value.

It's absolutely conceivable that you can hold everything steady and add 3 guys who are worth 20 million bucks next year. It's possible. It's just not nearly as likely as you think. And I'm sorry, but if you don't think you need to do any new thinking with how you evaluate baseball after how poorly you've done the last two years, I don't know what to tell you. We've all had to re-evaluate and we were less optimistic (which in this case translates to less wrong even though I don't mean it in the pejorative sense) than you. Your model is broken. You kept being fed empirical data that shows that it's broken and you choose to ignore it. That's a little frustrating.

If I've missed some things that you've re-evaluated, I'm open to taking in that evidence and re-evaluating my model. I'm sorry, I've been reading Nate's Signal and the Noise book and he talks like this over and over.

I don't really care to make heads or tails of that. Here's my plan.

Lee
Hamels
Halladay/Gonzalez/FA
Kendrick
Pettibone

(May have the money for Halladay and Gonzalez, or one of them and a lower-priced free agent to push Boner to the pen)

Revere
Utley
Brown
Howard/Ruf
Willingham/Hart
Rollins
Asche/Frandsen
Ruiz/new C

Bench: Frandsen, Ruf, Galvis, Hernandez/Mayberry, Kratz

Papelbon
Adams (hopefully)
Free agent
Free agent
De Fratus
Diekman
Pettibone/Aumont

I like that team to exceed 83 wins, yeah. We'll see.

We've been cluster-unlucky, which explains both our 8-23 and our lousy run differential. Looking at run differential in a vacuum doesn't always give you a perfect picture of how good or bad a particular team is.

Grotewold wrote:I don't really care to make heads or tails of that. Here's my plan.
.

Yes, you don't, which is why you've been missing up so much lately (not unlike Kendrick). Go ahead and read it again. It's important.

sydnor wrote:which is why you've been missing up so much lately

Not sure Willingham is a 10 win player.

The back end of the bullpen being so bad inflates the run differential a lot. Guys like Durbin and Valdes gave up a ton or runs in game the team probably would have lost anyway. Look at Valdes' game log:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/playe ... &year=2013

The bullpen might be the most vexing problem. I think Rube needs to sign a couple of incentive-laden contracts and invite about half a dozen vets to ST in the hope that 2 or 3 of them contribute. Plus one or more of the kids has to finally step up.

bleh wrote:The back end of the bullpen being so bad inflates the run differential a lot. Guys like Durbin and Valdes gave up a ton or runs in game the team probably would have lost anyway. Look at Valdes' game log:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/playe ... &year=2013

As opposed to other crappy teams that have deep, effective bullpens, and only give up important runs, rather than the meaningless ones we're serving up.

Really, though... the team is weak for 2014 at C, 1B, SS, 3B, CF (honestly), RF. We could use 4 new relievers (great if Adams is one of them).

Looks like a still from Richard Kelly's The Box

Shore wrote:

bleh wrote:The back end of the bullpen being so bad inflates the run differential a lot. Guys like Durbin and Valdes gave up a ton or runs in game the team probably would have lost anyway. Look at Valdes' game log:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/playe ... &year=2013

As opposed to other crappy teams that have deep, effective bullpens, and only give up important runs, rather than the meaningless ones we're serving up.

Really, though... the team is weak for 2014 at C, 1B, SS, 3B, CF (honestly), RF. We could use 4 new relievers (great if Adams is one of them).

You play your worse relievers in games where you're losing or winning a lot and so the runs are less meaningful. So I don't see anything wrong with saying a team with worse 4th - 7th relievers than another team will have more meaningless runs given up. Maybe the effect isn't that big or the Phillies aren't as bad compared to other teams as I think but I'm sure it's there to some degree.

Woody wrote:

I prefer to imagine he's removing some horrible parasite trying to usurp his tongue.

sydnor wrote:No, you don't get off this easy, and I'm not sure I understand the antagonism coming towards me from you.

Umm...that might be the reason why.

kruker wrote:To McNeal's point above, and it's been said on here hundreds of times, but all those years when we were giving up high draft picks we should have been flexing our financial muscle in the international market.

I keep reading this here and no one ever explains it to any extent at all. It's almost like saying we'll never win with the current ownership or the Phillies don't get it with regards to busting slot in the draft or the Verducci effect or all the other stuff folks say.

Should the Phillies have wasted a few million on that guy who is in jail for killing someone?

The Phillies minor league system is lousy with international players. Some of our top prospects are international guys. We included some international guys in trades for big time major league players.

Anyone have any specifics regarding how we should have flexed our financial muscle internationally and what the results would have been?

I would buy this line of thinking in a second if someone could do more than just write it down every once in a while. Who should the Phillies have signed? Where do the Phillies rank with regards international talent with regards to who they have signed? What teams have flexed their financial muscle in the international market? How successful has this strategy been.

Some teams have spent a lot of money on 16 year old kids. How has this worked out? Anyone know?

All I know is those two Korean dudes are taking their sweet time making it to the majors.

Plus we just blew 50 million or something on a Cuban middle reliefer with a bad elbow so I hope that makes everyone happy.