Attention Bargain Shoppers
Those wacky stat illusionists at Elias released their Free Agency rankings today. Short version: They group players by general position, rank them by a bunch of pointless stats, and spit out an ordered list. Guys at the very top are Type A FAs. Guys just below that are Bs.
When you lose a Type A you gain the other team's first round pick and get a sandwich pick between the first and second rounds. If you lose a Type B, you get just the ham on rye pick.
Although... in the Nats case, they fall under the protected pick category. The teams with the 15 worst records (that's us!) can't lose their first rounder, so they burp up a second rounder instead.
Don't put any stock into the actual rankings of the players. Elias is a stupid, stupid company and the ratings have little basis in actual win/loss production. Just look for the category. Here's the NL. Here's the AL.
Of note... since the Nats seem to lust for a CFer:
Hunter and Rowand are type As. Andruw Jones and Speedo Cameron are Bs.
The other interesting thing is that Dmitri Young didn't end up being a B, as I thought he might've been. When I wrote that, there was a decent possibility, but his late-season slide and inability to stay on the field pushed him down -- coincidentally, below Ryan Church.
I'm not sure if this changes our perspective on whether they should've traded him or not. On one hand, trading him would've been the only way they could've gotten compensation (although they couldn't have really predicted his concussion). On the other hand, if they had kept him without signing him, they wouldn't have gotten anything had he walked anyway. Eh... whatever.
Just get healthy, NJ!
NFA points out one somewhat grating fact: Belliard would've been a B. Although the risk of offering him arbitration and him getting $5 million or so given how well and much he's played over the last few years, probably would've negated the Nats offering him arbitration -- at least without one of those wink wink gentleman's agreements teams sometimes have with players who conveniently decline the arbitration offer.
When you lose a Type A you gain the other team's first round pick and get a sandwich pick between the first and second rounds. If you lose a Type B, you get just the ham on rye pick.
Although... in the Nats case, they fall under the protected pick category. The teams with the 15 worst records (that's us!) can't lose their first rounder, so they burp up a second rounder instead.
Don't put any stock into the actual rankings of the players. Elias is a stupid, stupid company and the ratings have little basis in actual win/loss production. Just look for the category. Here's the NL. Here's the AL.
Of note... since the Nats seem to lust for a CFer:
Hunter and Rowand are type As. Andruw Jones and Speedo Cameron are Bs.
The other interesting thing is that Dmitri Young didn't end up being a B, as I thought he might've been. When I wrote that, there was a decent possibility, but his late-season slide and inability to stay on the field pushed him down -- coincidentally, below Ryan Church.
I'm not sure if this changes our perspective on whether they should've traded him or not. On one hand, trading him would've been the only way they could've gotten compensation (although they couldn't have really predicted his concussion). On the other hand, if they had kept him without signing him, they wouldn't have gotten anything had he walked anyway. Eh... whatever.
Just get healthy, NJ!
posted by Chris Needham at
10:10 PM
10 Comments:
Don't forget the other advantage of signing Dmitri to a multi-year contract;
When NJ gets healthy, and we make the World Series next year, we will have the unprecedented advantage of being an NL team with a true DH, unlike those poor Colorado bastards playing in Fenway.
By
Rob B, at 11/01/2007 12:09 AM
Stupid question o' the day - why do they rank the whole league, including players under long-term contract? Why not just the FA's to be? Does achieving a certain rank one year make you more likely to achieve that rank again the year following?
By
Anonymous, at 11/01/2007 8:24 AM
They rank the whole league because that's how they define the bands of free agents. Type As, for example, have to be in the top 20 (i think it's 20, they just tinkered with it) percent of all players. Type Bs are up to 40%.
You can ignore the non-FA rankings. Their rating and their rank don't matter one bit. (and they're generally a poor way of rating players anyway)
By
Chris Needham, at 11/01/2007 8:34 AM
I'd just like to point out that according to Elias a one-legged Nick Johnson is better than 60% of fully healthy National League 1B's and OFs.
By
Anonymous, at 11/01/2007 9:27 AM
Nick is rated as the very last B player. Interesting because he didn't even play last season and may never be the same again. Makes me think this ranking stuff is voodoo.
By
Anonymous, at 11/01/2007 9:50 AM
Random thought. Would the Sox do form of Rauch for Coco? Coco seems to be out of their plans, but a perfect fit for us. A young CF who gets on base consistently and has a good glove. This makes sense to me, but I may be missing something.
By
Anonymous, at 11/01/2007 11:26 AM
Coco Crisp only posted a .268 average last year (granted in Fenway park which is tiny and hurts therefore hurts batting averages). He also has an arm like a wet noodle. He couldn't a Long John Silver impersonator!
By
Unknown, at 11/01/2007 12:16 PM
Before we really start changing things up in the outfield, I feel like we really need to see what long-term impact WMP has on our batting stats, particularly with Nick Johnson potentially coming back. A lot of Church's perceived lack of value could have to do with level of protection in the lineup, something which Zimmerman certainly had to deal with with year. I'm all for big free agents signings, but dropping loads of cash on the outfield might be wasteful in comparison to dropping load of cash on pitching or shortstop, for instance.
By
Michael Taylor, at 11/01/2007 6:57 PM
micheal-
thats a good point about Guillermo. If he keeps drilling the ball, Zimmerman will see more hitter's pitches, and I think we'll see an offensive improvement across the board.
I was 100% in favor or picking up Hunter or Jones before the trade, but I'm starting to back off from that after seeing Pena's power. And Church has earned at least the chance to keep the starting CF job; he was one of our few players who actually took a step forward this year.
They need to sign Livan and one other starter.
By
Rob B, at 11/01/2007 7:36 PM
I also was just checking NFA, and it turns out we have a few pretty decent OF prospects in Smolinski and Burgess. You have to figure that between Kearns, Church, Pena, Smolinski and Burgess, we should be able to cobble together something out there that's halfway decent without diving into free agency.
The problem is that the areas where we need help are exactly those where we've either got tons of money sunk into injured or under-performing players (i.e. SS) or where the free agent list is not real deep.
The one surprising place where we might actually improve would be catcher, were there are some decent free agents to be found. We could go for Barrett (inconsistent--when he's good, he's very good, otherwise, worse than Schneider), Paul Lo Duca (big improvement over Schneider/Flores, but seems to have declined somewhat, also had to have benefited from Mets lineup), Jason Kendall (had a rough time in Oakland but has been a career .297 hitter but trending a bit lower these days), Mike Lieberthal (been around .270 when he's healthy), Mike Piazza (still an upgrade on Schneider), or, if we really want to be provocative, why not everyone's favorite Yankee, Jorge Posada. Any of those choices (assuming health) would give us a serious offensive upgrade at catcher (Posada could easily be our #3 or 4 hitter), while we could trade Schneider and his supposed pitcher "development" skills, while letting Flores become our catcher of the future. Considering how many catchers are available, it would be a crime for us not to upgrade during the off-season.
By
Michael Taylor, at 11/01/2007 8:31 PM
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