Interesting Tidbits From Jim Callis' Chat

Here are just a few interesting comments in Jim Callis' last chat:

When I did my personal list, I rated the Orioles as the eighth-best farm system, which is quite impressive considering that Wieters, Tillman and Reimold graduated to the majors in 2009.

Tillman, easily [has the better career]. And I like Arrieta.

I ranked [the Nationals] 20th, in large part because of Strasburg. If you took him out of the mix, I would have rated their system 27th.

I'd give Pie another shot [at being a starter and have Reimold DH] but I don't have much faith that [Pie starting] will work out.

[Orioles drafted Matt Hobgood because he would sign for slot].

What I found most interesting was that he rated the Rays (2nd) and the BoSox (7th) above the Orioles (8th). That means the AL East has a very talented minor league system. Life will not be easy for the O's.

Happy New Years Eve

Does Holliday Make Sense for the Orioles?

Tracy Ringolsgy wears a cowbot hat. Rongolsby also writes for Fox Sports. He wrote today that the Baltimore Orioles had extended an 8 year offer to Matt Holliday to the tune of 130MM. That is an annual average of 16.25MM. An eight year deal will also take Holliday through his age 37 season. Andy MacPhail has offered to get together with him and Peter Angelos in Austin where Holliday lives. Roch says MacPhail denied the offer was ever presented.

The alleged offer consists of a rather lengthy contract. Based on his age and position, he projects to roughly 26 wins above replacement over that eight year period. Assuming an increase of 10% increase in the cost per win and that this year's value is 4MM/win, Holliday is worth 137MM over those eight years. More pessimistic projections see his value as closer to 124MM over eight years with those last two seasons rating him as severely below average. In truth, it is difficult to find any projection that is optimistic over years 7 and 8.

Although I am not a great fan of this supposed proposed offer, I can understand why it would make sense. More after the jump.

Some points:

1. We have excess outfielders, why do we need to purchase a left fielder?
By signing Holliday, it leaves a glut of outfielders with Felix Pie, Nolan Reimold, and Luke Scott. Such as situation would enable the team to engage in a trade to move talent around. Players like Pie and Reimold (to a lesser extent Scott) present plus value for other teams with payroll restrictions due to their status under the CBA as renewal year players. Signing Holliday could mean a redistribution of talent from Reimold to Blanks at first.

2. Holliday is on the wrong side of 30, how does that fit?
Players with a high contact rate, decent walk rate, some speed, and power age better than others. What is more worrisome is the athlete who relies many on one or two skills. His bat should age rather well and his defense should remain passable in left field for several seasons. He figures to age much better than Jason Bay.

3. What about the Coors split?
Much concern over Holliday is his home/road splits attributed largely to the Coors effect. While this was a concern last off season, it may not be as much of one this off season. He exhibited another extreme home/road split this year with Oakland and St. Louis (OPS; 982 vs 830). This may just be his performance characterization. He hits well at home. With Camden Yards as one of the top three homerun hitting environments in the Majors, he stands to do well with his high contact rate and power. He should hit well as an Oriole.

4. So what do I have against this trade?
This sort of contract ensures a nearly worthless player on the team for two seasons down the road. That restricts a team's roster in sunk cost and potentially a sunk 25 man roster slot. Such a signing also means that about 15% of the team's possible budget will be tied to a left fielder who skills are decreasing each year instead of getting better while all the players around him are excelling. Such a signing means that we are ignoring the plus value available from the left field slot that we currently have and hoping to find that elsewhere in the lineup or needing to overpay more to fill positions. It also means we are paying a premium on a position that is of little consequence this season.

I can understand why a Holliday signing makes sense, but I would not suggest it. I think it would do more to limit roster and payroll flexibility down the line in a way that is not essential for the future success of the team.

Collection of John Sickels' 2010 AL Prospect Grades

In this posting I will link to all of John Sickels' 2010 AL Prospect Grades for every AL team. NL links can be found here.

AL East
Baltimore Orioles
Boston Red Sox
New York Yankees
Tampa Bay Rays
Toronto Blue Jays

AL Central
Detroit Tigers
Chicago White Sox
Cleveland Indians
Kansas City Royals
Minnesota Twins

AL West
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Oakland Athletics
Seattle Mariners
Texas Rangers

Orioles 40 man roster with options

A short announcement today . . . we have been running the 40 man roster with options denoted by a color code in a running column to the left side of this page. This column runs on every page within this blog. We figured that since we often consult this list we figured out on our own . . . you may wish to do the same. Anyway, feel free to consult it and let me know if there is ever anything I miss.

Fixing Amateur Talent Acquisition

It seems a major issue Bud Selig wants to address before he retires as the commissioner is to equalize the playing field with respect to amateur acquisitions. Apparently, his concept of fixing disparity between franchises is to fix perhaps the one area where small market teams actually can compete. So lets just go for the ride and find a system that can actually work.

Based on current work of Stark, the New York Times, and the Biz of Baseball . . . I think it is safe to assume revenue sharing in general comes to at least 500MM. With that in mind, I think it would be easy to isolate about 300MM of that to amateur talent acquisition. The main step is to abolish the draft and set up annual salary shares.

I'll explain after the jump.


The draft is largely a tool to force talent to sign with certain teams and restrict their earning potential. These two issues would be a stopping point for many Japanese players looking to play state-side. To resolve this, I propose that the draft be abolished and instead teams are allotted fixed salary points based on the reverse order of their records for the previous season.

For instance (CLICK PICTURE TO MAKE LARGER):



You can see for this plan each team will be able to sign 100 players each season. This is enough to fill two Rookie league teams, a Dominican Summer league team, and provide a few guys for short season ball. It also provides several high paying positions and there are at least two teams who have contract shares of the same amount. Some may argue that the bonuses in question here are on average much greater than what is doled out in the draft and international free agent market. That is true. A rough estimate on what is currently spent on bonuses is around 240MM. This throws in another 55MM, which will help raise domestic player bonuses, which have been unfairly discounted in the current restrictive market. Another plus for players is that this system gives them choices. Even single shares, even the 10MM one, has at least two teams capable of offering it. This enables choices to be made and a better idea of what is available. It should also result in players quickly signing on as neither side has much room to haggle. The prices are effectively set.

How does this benefit the owners? It establishes a system that is ultimately fare for revenue sharing and should not greatly impede the local markets in Latin America. One issue of concern is that an international draft would collapse the baseball talent streams in areas like the Dominican Republic. In these areas, part of the local economy are buscons who develop children at a very young age and move them into position to sign with big league clubs. Finding fees are associated with these dealings. A run of the mill draft with no leveraging between teams would nip that in the bud as there would be less incentive for an MLB team to invest in these regions. Keeping them free agents with set contracts enables this to continue and MLB continues to get their talent pool stream.

But does this system benefit a player like Dice-K or Hideki Matsui? No, not in this form. Under such a plan, these players would wind up receiving a 10MM bonus and then be forced under the renewal/arbitration system. This would need to be adjusted and a potentially easy solution would be to set aside an additional 20MM in revenue sharing. This money would be used for a pay for play system similar to what is instituted in the NFL. Basically, during the renewal years players will receive a certain point total for plate appearances or innings pitches. The quality of those innings or plate appearances are not considered, just how often a person actually player. This results in a final point total. Add up all of the players that fall under this classification of renewal year talent. Divide 20MM, but that number to determine a price per point value. Players then are paid on how many points they have accumulated.