Mallex/inciarte

Longoria is 30 having a resurgent year after two years of obvious decline... Obviously trading Mallex for him would be attractive, but really? That ain't happening. I do enjoy the usual suspects who harp on bringing in 30 year old + players really advocate strongly for the 30+ plus players that they actually like.
 
Horsehide Harry said:
Man, if Mallex is considered as a $50M in excess value by WAR then there is something wrong with that metric. From what I've seen is he's a 4th OF on a good team.
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Mallex's defense in center should push him as a starting option on several teams. If he's a 2 WAR player then he produces 10 WAR in the next 5 seasons before FA. At the going rate of 7-8 million per WAR then he would be worth 70-80 million in those 5 years. Considering him likely getting paid around 20 million or so in total during those 5 years with those numbers then that would be a 50 million or so surplus.
 
Horsehide Harry said:
Man, if Mallex is considered as a $50M in excess value by WAR then there is something wrong with that metric. From what I've seen is he's a 4th OF on a good team.

If The Rays would take Mallex for Longoria straight up, or even adding a little, then the John's pen should catch fire they sign off on the deal so fast.

The same goes for Inciarte.

Neither have shown the skills that they can lead off consistently. That means any (good) team that plays them is likely slotting them 8th and having to make up for their lack of production with the bat somewhere else.

I just don't see their value being anywhere close to being as high as you have it no matter what WAR says.
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Average MLB players making the league minimum are extremely valuable. Why do you think it's so hard to trade for young MLB-ready players? Why do you think every single trade made lately has been for guys 2+ years away from the MLB level?

Mallex is easily an average MLB CFer (2 WAR), and will be paid $500k for 2 more years. That right there is more than $30M in surplus value in those 2 seasons alone. The math is what it is, no matter how much you disagree with it or "think" it's not right.
 
Chico said:
I can appreciate that and it's not wrong in an ideal situaiton. I'm just looking at the money aspect of it to figure out what they're more likely to do. Always follow the money! They want everyone and their mom to come to the complex to catch a game, and then keep coming back for the restaurants. That complex is going to be a cash cow for them. It almost reminds me of how you used to get free stuff for going to see a timeshare tour, only this is people are paying for a ticket to see a complex tour. There's no way we can continue to punt with that much revenue on the line.
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I hear what you are saying. BUT, the difference in intentionally punting and just having it happen by the natural course of events is about a month meaning that if the Braves finish next April 2-3 games below .500 and generally playing mediocre baseball, it won't matter to the fans whether the results experienced are part of a deliberate plan or just part of the fact that the team sucks anyway.

Many here seem to have faith that the team will somehow improve it's record by 20+ games next year. I don't think there is enough appreciation for how hard that is. It can be done, but you need a lot of internal improvement and external help. As far as internal improvement, Freeman and Teheran are both having career years. I think it highly unlikely they will significantly improve on current performance. Markakis and Kemp will both be a year older at a time in their careers when that isn't a good thing. Flowers was having a career year before he got hurt. And the big thing is that the young pitching (Folty, Blair, Wisler, ManBan, Perez, Whalen, Gant even Newcomb to an extent) haven't really shown huge steps forward in their development and have actually gone backwards in many cases. There isn't a lot of internal help to be had in 2017.

As far as external help, you get it through FA signing or trade. The FA class is horrible and very unlikely to provide much, if any help, especially without the Braves having to massively overpay in terms of dollars and years. And any trades significant enough to actually move the needle enough to move to the possibility of a 20+ win season gain is unlikely in the extreme unless the Braves are willing to give up a significant part of what they just spent a couple of years collecting which is controllable young talent.
 
Enscheff said:
Average MLB players making the league minimum are extremely valuable. Why do you think it's so hard to trade for young MLB-ready players? Why do you think every single trade made lately has been for guys 2+ years away from the MLB level?

Mallex is easily an average MLB CFer (2 WAR), and will be paid $500k for 2 more years. That right there is more than $30M in surplus value in those 2 seasons alone. The math is what it is, no matter how much you disagree with it or "think" it's not right.
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Given this the Braves should really leverage one of Mallex/Ender this offseason.
 
Chico said:
Well yeah, nobody does. That's with any contract though. You're always going to regret that last year and more than likely eat part of it or attach a prospect to trade said player. Most teams factor that in to the equation. I'm more open to taking on contracts or trading for players and extending them before the offseason of 2018-2019 when everyone overspends and average annual salaries jump up.
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Well, that was part of one thought in response to Harry. I do not think it would take that much to get Longoria, FWIW, he's not good enough to justify that cost. But I definitely don't want to give up good talent if the reward is that we get to pay Longoria a bunch of money for his worst years.
 
thewupk said:
Given this the Braves should really leverage one of Mallex/Ender this offseason.
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The problem is obviously that some teams may not view Ender as a 3 WAR guy, or Mallex as a 2 WAR guy. Some teams, like the Braves, don't value defense as highly as teams like the Cubs (as evidenced by the Heyward contract).

The trick will be finding a team that views Mallex or Ender as controllable everyday CFers rather than the platoon guys they actually are.

Bottom line is both should be getting 500 PAs (mostly vs RHers) in CF to maximize their value to a MLB club, and only one of them can do that for the Braves.
 
smootness said:
Well, that was part of one thought in response to Harry. I do not think it would take that much to get Longoria, FWIW, he's not good enough to justify that cost. But I definitely don't want to give up good talent if the reward is that we get to pay Longoria a bunch of money for his worst years.
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Lonogoria isn't going to be paid a bunch of money compared to what the market is. If the Braves really are going to be upping the payroll then Longo should be an obvious target depending on the price it would take.
 
thewupk said:
Longoria's contract is still a good value. Including the buyout you would be paying him 16.5 million per year for the next 6 seasons. That's basically market value for a 2.5 WAR player. So if you feel Longoria can produce 15 WAR from 2017 on wards then he will produce to his contract. But you do have to factor in what it would cost to get him. He won't come cheap in the prospects dept.
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Think I was the idiot that started the trade for Longoria bandwagon even before I liked the idea of Desmond, and I'm still all over trading for Longoria. IF the brass is going to burn through a few prospects in an effort to be competitive starting next season, he'd be the ONE guy I'd be in favor of doing so for. I really don't think he'll cost guys at the TOP of our list, but I definitely agree he won't come "cheap". What's fair? I'd start with a package of Mallex, Ruiz, and their choice of Jenkins/Gant/Ellis/Sims and see where that goes. I'd bump as high as Fried if it took that to get it done.

Extend Inciarte and move Riley to LF over the winter so he could focus mainly on hitting and be ready to step in when Kemp's contract is up. Go ahead and shift Maitan to 3B when he starts working out so he'll have plenty of time to be ready before Longoria's deal is up.
 
Enscheff said:
Average MLB players making the league minimum are extremely valuable. Why do you think it's so hard to trade for young MLB-ready players? Why do you think every single trade made lately has been for guys 2+ years away from the MLB level?

Mallex is easily an average MLB CFer (2 WAR), and will be paid $500k for 2 more years. That right there is more than $30M in surplus value in those 2 seasons alone. The math is what it is, no matter how much you disagree with it or "think" it's not right.
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Mallex hasn't shown to be any better than Chris Hiesey was at the same time in their careers. IF he could show that he was a .290/.360 guy who was going to steal you 50 bases and score you 100 runs all while playing an above average CF defensively, then yeah he would have some value. But he hasn't shown that he can do that. If he can't then it's hard to carry his bat every day for the sake of his speed and defense (such as it is).

I accept WAR as a metric but, IMO, it is way flawed where it comes to how it values speed, base running and defense. If Mallex is a 2 WAR player then something is wrong with WAR.
 
Enscheff said:
The problem is obviously that some teams may not view Ender as a 3 WAR guy, or Mallex as a 2 WAR guy. Some teams, like the Braves, don't value defense as highly as teams like the Cubs (as evidenced by the Heyward contract).

The trick will be finding a team that views Mallex or Ender as controllable everyday CFers rather than the platoon guys they actually are.

Bottom line is both should be getting 500 PAs (mostly vs RHers) in CF to maximize their value to a MLB club, and only one of them can do that for the Braves.
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They play center so it should be easier to leverage the defensive part of it. I don't think we've seen enough of Mallex to say for sure he's a platoon guy.
 
smootness said:
I think Longoria is worth something like Allard and Fried.

And I would probably balk at that.
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Allard should be about as close to untouchable as a young pitching prospect can reasonably be. I would value him in the $25M range despite his position on the prospect lists.
 
Horsehide Harry said:
Mallex hasn't shown to be any better than Chris Hiesey was at the same time in their careers. IF he could show that he was a .290/.360 guy who was going to steal you 50 bases and score you 100 runs all while playing an above average CF defensively, then yeah he would have some value. But he hasn't shown that he can do that. If he can't then it's hard to carry his bat every day for the sake of his speed and defense (such as it is).

I accept WAR as a metric but, IMO, it is way lawed where it comes to how it values speed, base running and defense. If Mallex is a 2 WAR player then something is wrong with WAR.
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Some value?

Do you have any idea how valuable an above average defensive CFer with a .290/.360 BA/OBP and 50 SBs would be worth? you just described Kenny Lofton's age 25 year when he was worth 6.6 WAR. If Mallex put up that line at a cost of $500K he would have a surplus value of over $50 in that single season.

I think your expectations for player value are seriously warped.
 
Enscheff said:
Some value?

Do you have any idea how valuable an above average defensive CFer with a .290/.360 BA/OBP and 50 SBs would be worth? you just described Kenny Lofton's age 25 year when he was worth 6.6 WAR. If Mallex put up that line at a cost of $500K he would have a surplus value of over $50 in that single season.

I think your expectations for player value are seriously warped.
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It's hard to argue with some people. These are the same people that look at FA contracts every offseason and say they are overpaid. Yet they are getting paid market value. Salaries keep getting higher and higher. Neck at his salary is around market value and he's a below average player.
 
Horsehide Harry said:
I accept WAR as a metric but, IMO, it is way flawed where it comes to how it values speed, base running and defense.
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It's expected that people are most skeptical of WAR where it values areas of the game without many traditional statistics involved. We know how good a hitter a guy who bats .300 with a .900 OPS and 30 HR is. It's harder to determine how good a defender is when all we have are errors and assists or how good a base runner is when all we have are SB/CS.

But that doesn't mean WAR is super flawed because of that. We're trained to think that a guy with big-time offensive numbers is great, period, and that a guy without big-time offensive numbers is not, no matter what else he does. That doesn't mean we're right. Defense and base running are very important parts of the game, I think anyone would agree. And they've attempted to better capture the value of those things. WAR is not some definitive guide, but I think it does a pretty good job overall.
 
thewupk said:
It's hard to argue with some people. These are the same people that look at FA contracts every offseason and say they are overpaid. Yet they are getting paid market value. Salaries keep getting higher and higher. Neck at his salary is around market value and he's a below average player.
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Exactly, Markakis is about a 1.5 WAR player (the definition of below average), and is being paid $11M per season...or almost exactly what a 1.5 WAR player is "worth".

That's precisely why Mallex Smith is so valuable despite being only an average (2 WAR player). Rather than going out and spending $16M on an average 2 WAR player (the current FA rates), some team gets to pay Mallex $500k, and then spend the other money upgrading another position.

That's the entire point behind calculating "surplus value"...that's where the "surplus" comes from. Young MLB players are the most valuable asset in the game for exactly that reason.
 
Horsehide Harry said:
Mallex hasn't shown to be any better than Chris Hiesey was at the same time in their careers. IF he could show that he was a .290/.360 guy who was going to steal you 50 bases and score you 100 runs all while playing an above average CF defensively, then yeah he would have some value. But he hasn't shown that he can do that. If he can't then it's hard to carry his bat every day for the sake of his speed and defense (such as it is).

I accept WAR as a metric but, IMO, it is way flawed where it comes to how it values speed, base running and defense. If Mallex is a 2 WAR player then something is wrong with WAR.
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I mean, do you even realize the average MLB CFer in 2015-2016 batted about .265/.330/.410, for an OPS of around .740?

And you think Mallex needs to post a .290 BA and .360 OBP with above average defense to be considered average?

Are you aware of just how out of touch you are with actual baseball statistics?
 
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