→ January 30, 2008
→ By

Santana.

Feel free to post your comments/questions below regarding the Santana deal, since my ESPN column’s Conversation has been, um, overrun.

Meanwhile, my ESPN mailbag has been filling up. Three people wrote to say that Walter Johnson is the best pitcher in franchise history – technically true, but I don’t see that as a practical way of looking at the question, and I wasn’t using “franchise” in a business sense, but in a city/nickname sense. Several others wrote to say that Roberto Clemente was the best Rule 5 pick ever; he has Santana on career value, but Santana was the best pitcher in the American League for about a four-year stretch, and that peak crushes Clemente. One guy wrote in to argue both points and screwed up his own email address.

EDIT: One other point worth mentioning on the Rule 5 draft. In Clemente’s day, acquiring a player via the Rule 5 draft meant acquiring him for life, since there was no free agency and the reserve clause was treated as a perpetually renewing form of indentured servitude. Now, of course, if you acquire a player via the Rule 5, you only get his rights until he earns enough service time to become a free agent. So the return Clemente gave the Pirates will never be matched because the system doesn’t allow it. Adjusting for that context, the Santana pick is clearly the better return.

And then there’s this from a Twins fan:

(217) Paddy Boston 2008-01-30 07:43:00.0
Jack Morris, Jack Morris, Jack Morris. Johan Santana is not the best pitcher in Twins history.

Oooh-kay.

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: ,
→ January 25, 2008
→ By

Vicente Padilla.

OK, looks like I need to clarify something. Andrew Johnson at his Defensive Indifference blog accused me of dropping an unsubstantiated allegation that Vicente Padilla has a drinking problem in my chat yesterday. I just want to point out that Padilla’s addiction to alcohol is no secret; he was driving drunk in Nicaragua two years ago with a friend in the passenger’s seat, got in an accident, and caused his friend’s death. Here’s an article from a Nicaraguan newspaper that says that he was drunk at the time of the accident and driving over 150 km/hour, and implies that the whole incident was smoothed over by local police. He was also arrested in Dallas in 2006 on suspicion of DUI. Now, on top of that, I’ve talked to plenty of people in baseball who’ve confirmed that Padilla has a problem, but that seems like icing on this cake. If you drive drunk and kill your friend, and yet get behind the wheel drunk again a few months later, isn’t that the very definition of a drinking problem?

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With:
→ January 22, 2008
→ By

Ryan Howard, again.

Bill Conlin, fun and fact-free!, weighs in on Ryan Howard:

There is one set of numbers, however, that fails to match the monetary implications raised by his stature as a power hitter – the numbers on his paycheck.

Conlin appears willfully ignorant of how baseball salaries work. Ryan Howard is eligible for arbitration this year as a Super-Two player, and he will and should be paid like a first-time eligible player. Conlin is making the argument that the Phillies should give Howard a long-term deal that pays him closer to his market value – in other words, he’s saying that the Phillies will be better off if they voluntarily pay Howard more than baseball’s economic system says he should get. Conlin points

You don’t need an economics degree and an MBA to realize that voluntarily overpaying for your inputs is a rather simple recipe for failure. For all the complaining you hear about baseball’s economic system, it is heavily stacked in the teams’ favor: Player salaries are below market value for the first six years of major league service, and for most players, that six-year period will include some or most of their peak years. In Howard’s case, because he reached the majors so late, the six-year period will include ALL of his peak years. By the time baseball’s economic structure allows Howard to be a free agent, he’ll be 32 years old, and given his profile as a hitter and body type, he’ll be paid a salary commensurate with his peak-years production during his decline phase, assuming that he becomes a free agent.

But hey, should we be surprised? Conlin’s own employer pays him the top salary at the paper plus his pension, and his peak years are behind him, too.

Filed Under: Media, Sports Tagged With: , ,