Most decisions in life are based on analyzing the results from past decisions. If you get burned while touching a hot pan on the stove, your brain will learn not to do that. This becomes a problem when an anomalous result crops up, giving your brain the wrong idea - if you buy a lottery ticket for $1 and win $10, you might start to believe that winning the lottery is both easy and profitable.
The smartest decisions are process oriented, not results oriented. They analyze whether or not the correct move was made given all the information available at the time. The results are secondary, and are only worth considering in relation to improving your process. Was there something you neglected to analyze beforehand that ended up biting you in the end? Is there a way to factor that into your decision making next time?
I worry that Boston's total aversion to long term free agent contracts in the post Punto trade era is total results oriented thinking. Because the Crawford deal was a bust and Adrian Gonzalez was heading that way at the time, the front office has since decided that the risk is too great for all long term contracts unless they are ludicrously below market - IE the Pedroia extension. This philosophy can be seen in Boston's unwillingness to make a realistic offer to Jon Lester and the fact that they ignored all the major free agents over the past couple of years, including their own man in Ellsbury.
There is something to be said for this approach. Crawford was looking like a total albatross a couple of summers ago, and it seemed as though Boston was looking at their next window showing up closer to 2020 than 2010. That trade with LA gave them new life, and it lead directly to the 2013 series win. As did their new approach to free agency - signing under-appreciated mid-level players to reasonably short contracts.
Here's my problem: I think they got super unlucky with Crawford and super lucky with Victorino, and I think that is leading them down the wrong path.
A large part of building a successful baseball club is about maximizing value. The best place to get value by far is through the draft and player development - that's how teams get to run out superstars making close to the league minimum. Boston has drafted well in recent years, but the window to take advantage of that to the degree that they have been is closing fast thanks to the new CBA. The group of prospects hitting the high minors now are left over from the last major surge before the slot bonuses were capped much harder. Boston still might be able to get an edge based on having better, smarter scouts, but it is going to be a much smaller edge than they've enjoyed in the past.
The second best way to gain value is by signing players to below market deals. Obviously, the gold standard here is something like the Longoria deal - nabbing a superstar for the better part of a decade before he's proven himself. Sometimes this can backfire (Matt Moore isn't looking great at the moment) but for the most part, these are the deals that lead to the best, most envious contracts. That's why I'd like the Sox to sign Bogaerts to a deal, like, yesterday.
Now let's look at the FA market. It's true that finding value is hard when you're competing with all the other teams, but it's even harder if you limit yourself to short term deals. If you're not willing to go 5 seasons on a guy, you're not even going to be in the discussion on players like Tanaka, who is going to be a massive value for New York. It's true that in many cases you're paying for the decline years on a guy, but in many cases, that is mitigated by the rising cost of baseball salaries. If you're always going 2-3 years on a player, you're always being priced in to FAs at the current market value, which is always increasing. It also gives you more chances of totally busting on a player, albeit on a smaller and easier to manage scale.
Some of this is probably reactionary. Ellsbury isn't exactly lightning the world on fire on top of New York's lineup, but i can't help but think that his speed and bat might have been the difference in some of the closer games this year. That sort of thinking is unproductive, too. I just can't help but wonder if a couple of well-placed long term contracts over the next couple of offseasons might not be what we need to provide an infusion of elite talent alongside the best class of prospects that we're probably going to see for quite a while.
The smartest decisions are process oriented, not results oriented. They analyze whether or not the correct move was made given all the information available at the time. The results are secondary, and are only worth considering in relation to improving your process. Was there something you neglected to analyze beforehand that ended up biting you in the end? Is there a way to factor that into your decision making next time?
I worry that Boston's total aversion to long term free agent contracts in the post Punto trade era is total results oriented thinking. Because the Crawford deal was a bust and Adrian Gonzalez was heading that way at the time, the front office has since decided that the risk is too great for all long term contracts unless they are ludicrously below market - IE the Pedroia extension. This philosophy can be seen in Boston's unwillingness to make a realistic offer to Jon Lester and the fact that they ignored all the major free agents over the past couple of years, including their own man in Ellsbury.
There is something to be said for this approach. Crawford was looking like a total albatross a couple of summers ago, and it seemed as though Boston was looking at their next window showing up closer to 2020 than 2010. That trade with LA gave them new life, and it lead directly to the 2013 series win. As did their new approach to free agency - signing under-appreciated mid-level players to reasonably short contracts.
Here's my problem: I think they got super unlucky with Crawford and super lucky with Victorino, and I think that is leading them down the wrong path.
A large part of building a successful baseball club is about maximizing value. The best place to get value by far is through the draft and player development - that's how teams get to run out superstars making close to the league minimum. Boston has drafted well in recent years, but the window to take advantage of that to the degree that they have been is closing fast thanks to the new CBA. The group of prospects hitting the high minors now are left over from the last major surge before the slot bonuses were capped much harder. Boston still might be able to get an edge based on having better, smarter scouts, but it is going to be a much smaller edge than they've enjoyed in the past.
The second best way to gain value is by signing players to below market deals. Obviously, the gold standard here is something like the Longoria deal - nabbing a superstar for the better part of a decade before he's proven himself. Sometimes this can backfire (Matt Moore isn't looking great at the moment) but for the most part, these are the deals that lead to the best, most envious contracts. That's why I'd like the Sox to sign Bogaerts to a deal, like, yesterday.
Now let's look at the FA market. It's true that finding value is hard when you're competing with all the other teams, but it's even harder if you limit yourself to short term deals. If you're not willing to go 5 seasons on a guy, you're not even going to be in the discussion on players like Tanaka, who is going to be a massive value for New York. It's true that in many cases you're paying for the decline years on a guy, but in many cases, that is mitigated by the rising cost of baseball salaries. If you're always going 2-3 years on a player, you're always being priced in to FAs at the current market value, which is always increasing. It also gives you more chances of totally busting on a player, albeit on a smaller and easier to manage scale.
Some of this is probably reactionary. Ellsbury isn't exactly lightning the world on fire on top of New York's lineup, but i can't help but think that his speed and bat might have been the difference in some of the closer games this year. That sort of thinking is unproductive, too. I just can't help but wonder if a couple of well-placed long term contracts over the next couple of offseasons might not be what we need to provide an infusion of elite talent alongside the best class of prospects that we're probably going to see for quite a while.
