Archive for stephen drew

Of course it would take a sample size of so many decades of FanGraphs Contract Crowdsourcing before The Crowd could be properly evaluated for their salary-creating acumen. I will not hesitate, however, to deliver swift and mighty judgement upon The Crowd based on just their (your) inaugural year of estimations.

A few weeks ago, one Carson Cistulli shared an exhaustive chart showing how The Crowd’s aggregate contracts compared against the actual salaries that 2013’s free agents actually received. This is only one dimension with which The Crowd’s collective wisdom can be judged. Now that the free agents of 2013 have played the 2014 season, we can also begin to make strong guesses (and/or swift and mighty judgements) as to whether The Crowd or The Real-Live GM proposed a contract that more accurately reflects a given player’s competitive value.

Tomorrow, a look at The Crowd’s successes: five contracts that are perhaps even more discerning than the contracts proffered by The Real-Live GMs. But today, a look at The Crowd’s collective failures — five contracts that, were they executed by The Real-Live GMs, would be cause for those Real-Live GMs to question (and/or have already lost) their job security.

These five contracts have been selected not out of a set of rigorous objective criteria. However, their short length (all five players were signed by Real-Live GMs to one-year contracts) invites the arrival at conclusions. None of these five players had what one would call a “good” or even a “mediocre” season in 2014. While The Real-Live GMs who designed these contracts no doubt regret their decisions, in each case The Crowd proposed a much larger commitment, in terms of both years and dollars, for these players. In the financial tables below, one can see The Crowd’s aggregate proposals for the number of years (cYRS), average annual value (cAAV), and cumulative contract totals (cTOT) offered to these players, compared to the contracts that they would agree to with The Real-Live GMs (aYRS/aAAV/aTOT).

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As we sit here in mid-January, there seems to be no more obvious free agent fit than the idea that Stephen Drew should sign with the Mets. It’s such an obvious pairing that the internet has been talking about it with such regularity that it almost seems like he already was a Met, and is now looking for his next new home.

It’s obvious because the Mets made some moves to improve this winter, importing Bartolo Colon, Curtis Granderson, and Chris Young, and still have a hole at shortstop. It’s obvious because their first-round pick is protected and they already gave up their second to add Granderson, so giving up a third-rounder seems to be a minor annoyance. It’s obvious because these are the guys who have started at least one game at short since Jose Reyes left following 2011 — Justin Turner, Omar Quintanilla, Ruben Tejada, Jordany Valdespin, Wilfredo Tovar, and Ronny Cedeno — and because that group has combined to contribute all of 2.8 WAR over two seasons. It’s obvious because a below-market return to Boston seems to be Drew’s only viable alternative at this point, his free agency waylaid by the qualifying offer.

Drew’s not a great player, but he is a good one, and almost certainly better than what the team currently has. So obvious! And yet just last week, GM Sandy Alderson reiterated his feeling that the team isn’t likely to sign Drew, instead intending to go into the season with Tejada and the .236 wOBA he put up last season. Merely media posturing, hoping to drag things out and get Scott Boras to lower his demands? Sure, possibly. Maybe even probably. Yet there’s also the not-small possibility that Alderson is just a bit smarter than the rest of us, and he really doesn’t have any intention of adding Drew. Read the rest of this entry »

Consider for a moment that the top three teams in the American League wild card standings right now are the Rays, Orioles, and Athletics. Now consider in the following moment that the three teams right behind them are the Tigers, Angels, and Red Sox. This is not new information, for any of us, but it seems like the kind of thing we might not be appreciating for everything it’s worth. Regardless of how things turn out, this is the way things are toward the end of August. Baseball is amazing.

Now then, because it’s August, trades can still be made that affect regular-season and postseason rosters, and because the wild card race is so tight, teams are looking to make even slight improvements. On Monday night, as announced during their own game, the A’s made what they feel like is an improvement, acquiring Stephen Drew from the Diamondbacks in exchange for minor leaguer Sean Jamieson. Nothing against Sean Jamieson, but this is the last time he’ll be mentioned in this article. For the Diamondbacks, this was not about the talent return; it was about saving money. For the A’s, it was about getting a little better where getting a little better might make all the difference.

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