THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Editor’s note: If you want to see this post, highlight it from colon to colon. Otherwise, this post, until corroborated, is nothing more than an unsubstantiated rumor and has no place in this thread, or blog.

:Surprises me they’re still advertising Carroll as coming since BPro fired him. Without Silver, Sheehan, Kahrl, and Carroll, I have no idea what that place will be like but I like the idea that Hoffman, Schwartz, and Funk will get more attention.:

When did Will leave?

TD, can you corroborate your story?  Will had a post yesterday:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=9441

This is Kahrl’s article:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=9429

And Sheehan:
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=9436

Are you suggesting you have some information that says these people will no longer part of BPro in the near future? Otherwise, this place is not for rumors.

I have to vehemently second Tango’s statement on rumors:  Unless TD can provide some credible evidence for that statement about Will and the others, I would strongly suggest that that post be deleted, as much as we dislike deleting posts (maybe a half dozen have been deleted in however many years this blog has been around).

What I’m going to do is edit his post by whiting it out, and putting in an “editor’s note”.  That should keep the continuity of this thread, while making sure the reader has to go out of his way to read it.

Just to be clear, it TD knows that to be true or he read it some place, AND he is not releasing something that BP or those writers don’t want to be released, I have no problem with him mentioning it.  Also, if he read it in some reasonably credible place and wants to tell us that, I have no problem with that either.  Even then, I would expect him (or anyone) to say, “I don’t know if this is true, but I read that....”

Rumors and gossip are horrible, IMO…

Tango, I think you love that “white out” thing!

Umm, that’s totally ridiculous.

Well, half-totally.  Presumably, his other half is not ridiculous:

“but I like the idea that Hoffman, Schwartz, and Funk will get more attention.”

Touche.

Besides Huntington and Fox, as advertised the BP folks Shawn Hoffman, Will Carroll, John Perrotto and local sport talk host Rocco DeMaro will be attending. In addition, myself, Tim Kniker and Eric Seidman have confirmed plans to attend as well. Matt Schwartz will not be able to make it.

That whiteout thing is pretty cool.

add Jonathan Mayo of mlb.com, Pizza Cutter and Jinaz to the list...see everyone tomorrow

recap:

http://www.basement-dwellers.com/2009/09/my-conversation-with-neal-huntington.html

The regulars who were there are encouraged to provide their own recaps.

I don’t think we really do ever assign a “number” to a player. We have a lot of internal discussions about how we value a player, but it doesn’t come down to a number to the point that there’s a dollar figure put on a guy. At least not yet.

He must be wrong.  There may not be an explicit number, but they have an implicit number.

If, for example, they wanted to trade Jack Wilson for a low-level non-prospect, and the other team wants the Pirates to pay a certain amount of Wilson’s salary, then guess what?  They put a dollar figure on a guy.

Indeed, every single person in the workforce has a dollar figure on him (his salary, and how much management is willing to pay him before he quits).  Maybe they don’t have a methodogical process (the “not yet” part), but they have some process for sure.  All teams must.

Tango,

Agreed.  I’m sure they have mechanisms to put together a “number” or a few “numbers” for a given player.  In fact, I’d be surprised if Dan Fox does not generate estimates of overall player value in wins, surplus dollars, etc. 

Maybe what Huntington ultimately works with at the end of the day isn’t one specific number.  But in order to perform well in a trade market--and the Pirates generally seem to--they must have a pretty well developed mechanism of assessing player value...even if it’s not as sterile in the end as “surplus $.”
-j