The returns are in. Many a pundit has sounded off. One of the most mind-blowing free agent signings in recent memory has folks talking. Here's what some of them have to say:
"The Meche deal probably will not be remembered as the worst of this off-season, but at the moment it's the No. 1 candidate." --Rob Neyer, ESPN.com
"I think if you wait to get good before you add pieces like Gil Meche, you never get good." --Dayton Moore, Kansas City Royals General Manager
"But they can't win if they don't try, and mostly over the last two decades, they haven't tried, haven't spent the kind of money they needed to spend to give themselves a chance. They've got the money now, in this lucrative era for baseball, and the Royals' options are to spend it or keep it. Kansas City has chosen to spend its money. The Royals have chosen to try." --Buster Olney, ESPN.com
"Look, we could have gone out and spent 4 to 6 million dollars on a fourth or fifth starter. That's how much those guys cost now. But we didn't want to do that. We look at Gil Meche, and we think he's a guy who could be ready to take off and become an upper-echelon pitcher. He has dominant stuff. He has tremendous makeup. And he wants to be here. To me, it was a no-brainer." --Moore
"To give a very average pitcher who has never thrown 200 innings a season $11 million a year is pure madness." --Joe Posnanski, Kansas City Star
"5.40" --Projected ERA for Gil Meche in 2007 courtesy of Nate Silver, Baseball Prospectus
"I don’t think there’s a whole lot of evidence that 'statement' signings eventually lead to enhanced credibility in dealing with future free agents." --Joe Sheehan, Baseball Prospectus
"They've committed $55 million—a magic number in the history of Stupid Free Agent Tricks—to a pitcher with no track record of being anything better than a #4 starter, who’s never been healthy for three straight years, who has been incredibly protected pitching in Safeco Field in front of good defenses." --Sheehan
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So, that's what the experts say. But what you really want to know is what some anonymous fan in Kansas City has to say. Personally, I think this is one of the worst pick-ups since Datsun was making trucks. I think this could end up as bad as the Mark Davis acquisition in 1990. Of course, Davis was the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner; Gil Meche finished with the third most walks allowed in the American League despite pitching only 186 innings.
What I can't seem to wrap my mind around is the contention that just because David Glass has loosened the purse-strings, they should start spending money like there's a tree full of it just beyond the left-field fence. There are plenty of opportunities to spend money and spend it wisely and, in fact, Dayton Moore has taken advantage of a number of those opportunities. He's added another minor league team in order to increase the odds of developing cheap, in-house talent. Only one other team in the major leagues has as many minor league affiliates. The Royals are opening an academy in the Dominican Republic in 2007 and making international scouting a larger priority. And Moore has been constantly finding ways to add young pitching prospects in hopes of bolstering a system that has produced nearly zero bonafide major league pitchers in over a decade.
I had been heartened by those moves, moves that looked to strengthen the long-term success of the franchise. But this signing does nothing but evoke the old idiom "penny wise and pound foolish". I understand the fact that Moore doesn't expect the fans to have to endure any more 100-loss seasons. I respect the fact that he wants to create a culture where top-notch free agents want to play. But I really believe that money would have been better spent on long-term contract extensions for young players in the future. Or more talented free agents who will be available in the next couple of years. Nobody expects this team to win 90 games next year or even the year after that. Why not stock-pile money and cheap young talent until the time comes when it makes sense to overspend for top-notch talent instead of mediocre, high-risk talent?
All of the folks who keep whining about how the system is unfair and that we can never compete if we don't spend money should take this as the first example in what I've been preaching for years now:
IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW MUCH MONEY YOU SPEND IF YOU SPEND IT UNWISELY.
And signing an injury-prone, middle-of-the-road pitcher to a 5-year, $55 million contract does not bring to mind the wisdom of Solomon.
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14 comments:
Nice rant. So what are the Royals actually losing in terms of opportunity costs by signing Meche?
If your critique of Meche holds, and the owner spends his money and helps the team in a relatively inefficient manner, why should a fan be upset when there is a marginal increase in the quality of product on the field?
First of all, the risk/reward ratio is terrible. To spend that much money over that many years on any pitcher is a risk generally only the Yankees and Red Sox can afford. The chances of him becoming more that an average pitcher are low. The chances of him becoming an "ace" are even lower. The chances of him blowing out his elbow and sinking us with his titanic contract are relatively high.
The opportunity costs are those lost by not reinvesting that money into player development or spending that money on quality free agents. We've certainly seen our share of "non-quality" free agents. (See: Sanders, Reggie; Redman, Mark; Knoblauch, Chuck; etc.)
If the owner/GM is spending money in an inefficient manner to only marginally increase the quality of play, those costs are going to be passed on to the fan monetarily in the form of ticket/concession/parking increases to offset the increased/innefficient spending, not to mention the mental anguish of Joe Spectator sitting in his armchair railing about how poorly the team is run.
Eventually, Joe Spectator stops going to games and the owner/GM then has to decide if more money will be spent or if the "We're small market, we can't compete" tack will be used.
how do you define "quality free agents"? you haven't yet offered one alternative use in the free agent market.
how would you invest an additional $11 million per yr in player development?
A quality free agent, in my mind, would be someone who consistently performs above the league average, has no history of injury and is young enough to justify the large number of dollars invested. If you ask me, free agents, in general, are like new cars: they look shiny and impressive but don't hold their value over time. You can supplement your team with free agents when you have a young, talented and cheap core, but few teams can afford to fill their rosters with free agents and their accompanying salary demands.
The thing is, there are no quality free agents available this year that the Royals are willing to spend money on. Barry Zito is a quality free agent, but the Royals don't want to spend (and rightfully so) $15-$17 million per year on one pitcher.
I think the Royals would be much better off spending those dollars on international scouting (Latin America, Japan, Australia), in-depth statistical research and the inevitable contract demands of Alex Gordon, Billy Butler, and Luke Hochevar so that we don't have to go through what we went through with Damon/Dye/Beltran.
thus far you make interesting qualititative comments but no sound alternative. in fact, you have implicitly stated that there is no better alternative, as Barry Zito was not an option. the $ spent on the young core aren't relevant until about 5-6 more years when they are eligible for free agency...at which time the meche contract will be burning off. glad we can agree it was a step in the right direction, soundnfury feels better now.
Just to be clear
WE DO NOT AGREE
The sound alternative is to not spend the money on mediocre, high-risk players. Do anything else. Hold a public forum and burn the pile of money, at least it would make more sense. A baseball team shouldn't be like a kid with a dollar burning a hole in his pocket. They ought to be able to hold on to it long enough to spend it on something that will actually help their team win games.
you have not yet caught on to the idea of a rational argument providing backbone for its thesis.
as soon as you provide a better alternative use for $11 million than Gil Meche than you have won me over. absent that, the willingness to spend $ where there was no $ being spent before gives the team a better chance of winning AT THE EXPENSE OF NOTHING. thus, good move by the royales.
Maybe my wordy explanations were confusing you. Here it is in a different format:
ALTERNATIVES TO SPENDING $11 MILLION PER YEAR ON GIL MECHE
Spend some or all of $11 million per year on:
*Scouting
*Statistical analysis
*Savings account to be spent on future free agents
*Savings account to be spent on future contract extensions for current players
*Lobotomy for soundnfury
scouting and statistical analysis: soundnfury and nick could do that for about $1 million
savings account: doesn't help the team irrelevant
lobotomy for soundnfury: insert witty comeback (if i knew what lobotomy was)
1. True
2. Most definitely false
3. Of course
Your negativity is at odds with your inner royals fan. Crush the cynic inside you and as Tony Pena would say BELIEVE. Remember that this life is one of Blind Faith. Religious zealotry and asceticism ain't got nothing on us.
"Meche will win the Cy Young" I say as I drink the Kool-aid.
My sense of reality is the only way I can keep following the Royals. If it comes off as negative, so be it. But I'm willing to bet dimes to donuts that Gil Meche is another in the long line of free agent flops the Royals have signed. I'm certainly hoping that's not the case and that he finally harnesses all his potential and becomes a top-of-the-order kind of pitcher. But I prefer to keep my expectations grounded and then be pleasantly surprised if they're surpassed.
can't help with the royals issue, but here's something for your buddy soundfury...
ADVENTURES WITH AN ICE PICK: a short history of lobotomy
AMERICA, 1847: a highly competent and, by all accounts, pleasant manual laborer of Irish extraction named Phineas Gage is involved in rock blasting operations in mountainous terrain. In the course of one sadly uncontrolled explosion, an iron bar is picked up by the force of the blast and driven clean through the front part of his head. Phineas is sent flying, but, to everybody's surprise, he survives the removal of the protruding bar. As he recovers, however, it is observed that his personality has dramatically changed, though his memory and intelligence remain apparently unaffected. In 1868, a physician named Harlow from Boston writes about him: "His equilibrium, or balance, so to speak, between his intellectual faculties and animal propensities seems to have been destroyed. He is fitful, irreverent, indulging in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his desires." The now extremely rude Phineas Gage is an object of immense medical interest, for it seems clear, from his somewhat crude experience of psychosurgery, that one can alter the social behavior of the human animal by physically interfering with the frontal lobes of the brain.
http://www.lobotomy.info/adventures.html
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