So it seems that his sole objection was that Matt was too optimistic about a possible rebound from a worst-since-the-Depression economic downturn, wherein salaries still grew?

that and Jesus Montero

Also as Allentown has pointed out in here, inflation in the real world might become more of a problem than it has been in the recent past.

I believe he is talking strictly about inflation of baseball salaries (whether 10% annual inflation of player contracts is sustainable)

I can't wait to push a wheel barrow full of 20's through the concourse to get some Crab Fries

I believe the most compelling argument for the impact of inflation on Howard's contract is put forth here:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MinWw9QJmhU[/youtube]

MattS and Eric Seidman vs. Keith Law and Joe Sheehan in a steel cage fightin' match. It would sell out CBP and the proceeds could go to paying Howard's outrageous-amount-to pay-a-fat-guy salary.

Basically, since 1980 average salaries have more or less doubled every five years. Does that have anything to do with the top?

From new Ken Rosenthal article. Amaro:

“The sabermetricians are welcome to have their opinions about our business; however, I choose to ignore their opinions."

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/Ryan ... -GM-043010

Oh sit

Woody wrote:

He would be a bad GM if he listened to what Saberdudes had to say about everything.

We just try and assemble a team that is good at getting on base and hitting for power and solid defensively and does everything sabermatricians want us to do. In fact, we love many sabermetric tools, but think most sabermatricians are such insufferable douchetards that we go out of our way to tweak them and then piss them off even further by continually dominating. Here's looking at you, Joe Sheehan, you pompous prick.

The preeminent pompous prick of our generation

HOW MUCH IS A PREEMINENT POMPOUS PRICK WORTH?!

For those of you who haven't checked out old friend Jonk's take on this, here it is on The Good Phight:

http://www.thegoodphight.com/2010/4/30/ ... law-um#top

Good stuff.

smitty wrote:For those of you who haven't checked out old friend Jonk's take on this, here it is on The Good Phight:

http://www.thegoodphight.com/2010/4/30/ ... law-um#top

Good stuff.

Great article.

Who is jonk?

Grotewold wrote:From new Ken Rosenthal article. Amaro:

“The sabermetricians are welcome to have their opinions about our business; however, I choose to ignore their opinions."

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/Ryan ... -GM-043010

Oh sit

Good god, he's amazing.

Regarding Amaro's comments regarding the Saber types. I think I understand where he's coming from. Should he listen to a guy who will insist that Mo Vaughn got fat and started to stink in his early 30s, or should he trust in the knowledge that Howard has gotten into much better physical condition as he has gotten older.

Should he listen when a guy says Howard is a bad risk because poor defenders lose value as they age quicker than more athletic good defensive players? Or should he trust some in the knowledge that Howard has worked very hard to improve his defense and indeed has done so.

What about RBI? Our friend Crash, who does a lot of great work and writes some great stuff here and in his blog, has written: "I have seen the “Ryan Howard drives in a lot of runners” argument used as a justification for his contract extension quite frequently on the Internets lately. I would like to once again demonstrate that the RBI statistic is just about meaningless.."

Amaro would read this and dismiss it as silly I'd guess. And he wouldn't be totally wrong to do so in my view. I understand that RBI isn't the greatest stat and there is plenty of team dependency and stuff but not enough to completely explain the huge number of RBIs Howard has each year.

Bill James does a compilation of hitters' performance in what he defines as "clutch" situations. I know that any stat associated with the word clutch is suspect to a certain extent but I kinda trust that James knows what he's doing here. It's not anything perfect, but it can be a pretty good indicator of an ability.

Anyways, Howard is at .289/.404/.625 in 443 ABs with 49 HRs. Last season he was the best in MLB and it wasn't close. .357/.407/.816 with 12 home runs (more than some teams).

Those numbers are pretty durn good. There are probably a few reasons for this. Teams can't employ the radical shift when there are guys on base. Pitchers almost certainly pitch differently in these situations. That kinda stuff.

Howard's biggest weakness is that he swings at too many slop out of the strike zone pitches. Perhaps he does so less in clutch situations or perhaps pitchers throw the slop pitches less or something. One thing for sure, he has been very good in these situations every year. And 443 ABs (530 PA or so) isn't too small a sample I don't believe.

If the radio guy had hit Law up with this stuff it would have been pretty cool yesterday.

Anyways, I think that's the kinda stuff Amaro is talking about. Plus, he's really smug.

CrashburnAlley wrote:He would be a bad GM if he listened to what Saberdudes had to say about everything.

Good setup for a joke about wimmins and division by zero. Just sayin'...