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Saturday, October 18, 2008
How much is chemistry worth?
Joe Sheehan is allowing the possibility that chemistry exists (it does, so no reason to pretend it doesn’t) and that he may have found it. Did he? Chemistry and momentum is one of those things that people will point to after something good has happened, and will forget about if something bad has happened. This is like you go to Vegas, tell your friends you won 10K, conveniently forgetting about the previous time you went when you lost 20K. There are other examples in sports. Like the Pujols/Lidge/Oswalt contrarian situation. Or the more famous Don Cherry too-many-men situation, or Ronaldo’s injury making everyone on the team bleak before the final game, or the stolen World Series in 1985. We tell the 10K wins stories alot more than the 20K losses.
Now, let’s say that you somehow are god-like, and know momentum when you see it. How much is it worth? As we know, a superstar like Albert Pujols is worth some 7 wins, per 162 games, above replacement. That means that if you have a .500 chance of winning with an average team and bad 1B, adding Pujols will make it a .550 team. Something like that. If you have a great pitcher, CC or Doc, you turn a .500 team into a .625 team. How much can momentum be worth? Can it possibly cancel out the Rays bringing in CC Sabathia or Roy Halladay? Can it even cancel out bringing in Grady Sizemore or Albert Pujols or Joe Mauer? Is momentum even worth Willie Bloomquist?
Here’s what you do. Find 10 games from now for the next 12 months that you think has momentum or chemistry written all over it. Bet on the game. Then, come back here, on Oct 18, 2009, and tell me how much money you made. And I don’t want to hear only from the winners.