Soren wrote:are honestly saying you'd be fine with the team saying meh we can't afford Howard, here's a LaRoche brother and a pitcher instead?

For some reason - this post really, really made me laugh.

soren does bring the lulz from his jail cell from time to time

I really like floppy's post because instead of just doing the knee-jerk bad body; 1Bman replacement is easy; bad comp Sabermetric blah, blah blah, he displays an understanding that baseball is really more complicated than that.

The comps for Howard might not even exist. He's better than all of those guys on his B-R or BP comp list. And many of the reasons those guys broke down early don't have much to tell us about Howard's future. He's pretty unique.

The money aspect? Well the Phillies aren't like most teams. They are selling out and making the playoffs and getting to the world series and have Phans (bandwagon jumpers -- who cares?) buying Phillie gear all over the country. They are reaching a point where they can just buy out their mistakes. (a la Eaton and Jenkins). Not every team has that luxury. They can take some chances and that's what they did here.

Here's another thought regarding Howard's defense. The Phillies infielders don't make many errors. I think some of the credit has to go to Howard. A 1Bman can save a team a bunch of throwing errors if he's really good at catching bad throws. Is Howard really good at that? I don't know for a fact -- but since the Phillies infielders don't have many errors and the Phillies gave up the fewest unearned runs in baseball last year that's a pretty good indicator.

All the bad body; early decline; bad defense; RBIs don't mean anything conventional wisdom is good as far as that goes. But it isn't the whole story and it's more complicated than that. Floppy's post was really good in that he didn't just have a knee-jerk conventional answer to the issue.

Sure. You can let Howard go and replace him with an inferior product and spend the dough somewhere else (and maybe get it right and maybe not).

The Phillies certainly overpaid for Howard. But that's what they do. they overpay for Ibanez and Polanco and their bench and their bullpen. And then they go out and win the damn pennant and leave all the experts wondering what the hell happened.

In fact, much of the time I wonder what the hell happened, too. I'm not normally in favor of long term big $$ contracts to guys in their 30s. I wasn't a big huge fan of the Ibanez signing. I mean there was Burrell and Dunn and Milton freakin' Bradley and guys like that available who were at least as good as Ibanez. Well, last year, they weren't as good as Ibanez and he played a pretty big part in their success, That alone might very well may have made him worth the seemingly dumasss contract they signed him to.

In some ways the Phillies under Gillick and Amaro have been crazy like a fox. They do things that defy conventional wisdom. And a lot of times what they do works out. That's why it's always good to question conventional wisdom in my view.

I'm just kinda rambling on here but that's what I do.

td11 wrote:smooth, you'd rather pay big money for a pitcher?

I'd rather pay smart money for value.

And, right now I'd like some better pitching.

and what if we win one or more WFC in the next 3-4 years? will it still come back to bite us?

This is a more complex question, of course. The scenarios you develop depend on your sense of probable future outcomes.

Howard is not the Phils' first large, charismatic, power-hitting lefthanded 1st baseman who strikes out a lot; in fact he followed fast on the heels of a previous notable, still-honored, but essentially benignly forgotten one. And to the joy of all of us - & Ryan's - his health, and the players he got to play with, have turned out better than his predecessor's; just hitting their collective stride, those players, as it turns out.

That brisk stride, that entertaining pace, could falter if there isn't the flexibility, there aren't the resource reserves, to draw on to shore up capabilities that for one reason or another are depleted, or broken, or suddenly less capable than they ought to be.

And so, in the hours before the Phils 1st 2010 game against the team from the city of Harry Callahan, you've got to ask yourself one question: do I feel lucky?

Because, if you're Rubes, you can't congratulate yourself for being smart.

EDIT: oh, and, I agree with everything Smitty said, too

smitty wrote:They are reaching a point where they can just buy out their mistakes. (a la Eaton and Jenkins). Not every team has that luxury. They can take some chances and that's what they did here.

To what extent? Thome's salary was involved in a trade where they got decent prospects as well as a ML ready OFer. Jenkins/Eaton just plain sucked and were mistakes to begin with. Can you see them re-signing Werth and eating Ibanez' salary just for 2011?

Howard's contract is a big risk, but a necessary one. As Soren said, I don't want Jacob LaRoche playing here in 3 years and Oliver Perez to be the 3rd starter.

Remember when the Phillies offered Rolen like 10 million a year for ten years or something and he told them to fuck themselves? This is better than that.

Some good stuff here guys.

One more thing, that can't be measured empirically -- but there's a possibility that Ryan has a view of history. He feels he got cheated out of possibly 2 good stat seasons waiting behind Thome. And part of his motivation is to be a HOFer. And so with that motivation, he's going to take care of himself and continue to try to improve. We have 4 more years Utley Howard in the 3-4 slot. It's reliable to some extent. Many power hitters keep their power in to their 30's even without PEDs.

If he's looking at things and thinking, I gotta play til 41-42 to have HOF #'s -- or I gotta sustain this level another 5-6 years -- that's not a bad thing from a motivation standpoint.

Something happens when guys win a WS in their 20's. This team has 3 straight playoffs w two straight WS -- they have a swagger, a confidence and they like their careers. I think those things all bode well toward maintaining production levels. Doing a bit more, expecting a lot from themselves and the team around them. I think they like being in the WS and intend to be there more and win again.

That, I can get behind! And if wrapping up some guys - overpaying... it's been clear for a long time that the Phils do not employ extensive SABR to make decisions. As I said upthread already -- this is partly a marketing PR move -- and an investment in keeping a home-grown guy. They see what happened for Phila. with Schmidt and Bows and Luzinski and Maddox and Lefty -- these guys are still revered in the region. Bring your own guys up or secure a key player early in his career. No one remembers that Maddox played for the Giants ... he's a "Phillie"! You say Bowa, Bull, Schmidty to anyone in the Phila area over the age of 30 and they know who you are talking about.

Ryan and Chase and maybe Cole, JRoll and maybe Wertz will have that too someday.

There's more here than just the pure stats and the intricate cost benefit analysis on batting stats alone.

Obviously, if he becomes Dave Kingman in a couple years -- it will look bad I don't see that happening.

Did MattS give his breakdown yet?

Laroche just hit a bomb, it's been what, 46 ABs now Ryan?

Woody wrote:

Jim Salisbury
@JSalisburyCSN

Ryan Howard about to sign five year extension, person close to him says

(baha Trent Steele)

Expensive, but I like it. Howard is one of us.

2011: Rollins, Polanco, Utley, Howard, Werth, Ibanez, Victorino

2012, 2013, 2014: Polanco, Utley, Howard, Werth

Why couldn't this work financially, mixing in Brown and Gillies or Gose?

Rollins is the other wild card, but I don't think that would make or break it.

Wheels Tupay wrote:Did MattS give his breakdown yet?

Should be up tomorrow, I hope! I submitted it already, but it needs to be edited and everything.

Here's the gist:

EVERYBODY CALM THE FUCK DOWN!! Teams have an overwhelming tendency to only re-sign players who age well, salaries are going to be a lot higher by 2016, and this doesn't prevent them from signing Werth at all. It actually encourages them to.

MattS wrote:

Wheels Tupay wrote:Did MattS give his breakdown yet?

Should be up tomorrow, I hope! I submitted it already, but it needs to be edited and everything.

Here's the gist:

EVERYBODY CALM THE $#@! DOWN!! Teams have an overwhelming tendency to only re-sign players who age well, salaries are going to be a lot higher by 2016, and this doesn't prevent them from signing Werth at all. It actually encourages them to.

Yay Matt S!!! Best BP guy!!!

MattS wrote:

Wheels Tupay wrote:Did MattS give his breakdown yet?

Should be up tomorrow, I hope! I submitted it already, but it needs to be edited and everything.

Here's the gist:

EVERYBODY CALM THE $#@! DOWN!! Teams have an overwhelming tendency to only re-sign players who age well, salaries are going to be a lot higher by 2016, and this doesn't prevent them from signing Werth at all. It actually encourages them to.

I'm sure you'll get to this in the article, and I can't necessarily disagree with the empirical evidence you've stated in other articles, but it's awfully frustrating to have an analysis come down to:

if we re-sign our free agents, it's good because we know stuff you don't and if we don't re-sign our free agents it's good because, again, we know stuff you don't. I'm not saying you can do anything about that if that's the way the data shows, but it's not very satisfying.

At this point, I'm not sure what's more predictable - Sheehan crapping on the Phillies, or MattS giving Amaro a blumpkin.
\

jeff2sf wrote:

MattS wrote:

Wheels Tupay wrote:Did MattS give his breakdown yet?

Should be up tomorrow, I hope! I submitted it already, but it needs to be edited and everything.

Here's the gist:

EVERYBODY CALM THE $#@! DOWN!! Teams have an overwhelming tendency to only re-sign players who age well, salaries are going to be a lot higher by 2016, and this doesn't prevent them from signing Werth at all. It actually encourages them to.

I'm sure you'll get to this in the article, and I can't necessarily disagree with the empirical evidence you've stated in other articles, but it's awfully frustrating to have an analysis come down to:

if we re-sign our free agents, it's good because we know stuff you don't and if we don't re-sign our free agents it's good because, again, we know stuff you don't. I'm not saying you can do anything about that if that's the way the data shows, but it's not very satisfying.

I'm more detailed than that. I talk about aging curves of re-signed players versus guys who sign with new teams, and discuss Howard's list of comparables. A lot of it is stuff you could piece together from my old Howard articles and the MORP article series from last Thursday/Friday, but I breakdown what Howard would need to produce to make it worthwhile and I discuss salary inflation in general too. It's a long article, very thorough.

On "the money thing:" having money through selling out the stadium, selling jerseys, getting revenue from October is COMPLETELY separate from how to spend said money. Having more money does not mean that spending decisions are less important and we should gamble on bad contracts. There is still a budget, and money spent for X position still means less gets spent on Y position.

People aren't criticizing the deal because we're spending too much on a first baseman. This would be the proper response if people were saying $125M is too much to spend on a player given our salary level. People (on BSG and ESPN) don't like the deal because it's too much to spend on a player of Howard's caliber, and how many wins he will bring to the club over the life of the deal. When you have to point to off-the-field "value" and PR to justify it, your organization becomes the NY Mets.

Howard will make more money per year than Mauer, who was 1 year closer to free agency, is younger, has the DH to fall back on in case his health does not allow him to continue catching, and is simply a superior player.

MattS wrote:

Wheels Tupay wrote:Did MattS give his breakdown yet?

Should be up tomorrow, I hope! I submitted it already, but it needs to be edited and everything.

Here's the gist:

EVERYBODY CALM THE $#@! DOWN!! Teams have an overwhelming tendency to only re-sign players who age well, salaries are going to be a lot higher by 2016, and this doesn't prevent them from signing Werth at all. It actually encourages them to.

I'll have whatever you're smoking.

Actually, I understated my excitement about this deal before. I LOVE it. One of my great hopes was that Ryan howard was going to be a Phillie Phor LiPhe. Now he will be, probably. I LOVE it. He is my hero.

Also, figure a Howard Jersey is not going to obsolete anytime soon, so you might as well lay out $250 for the authentic one.