.

The White House has a website up.  (Not that website!)  It allows citizens to file petitions, and if one gathers 25,000 signatures, the White House issues a formal response.

There's a petition for Texas to secede from the union.  That petition has, I think, 102,000 signatures.  (There's another petition to deport anybody who signs a petition to secede from the union.)

I wish I wuz from Texas.

......

No sooner did we opine that Detroit was "desperate" to offload Fielder -- due to Cabrera's legs -- than they completed a deal that must have been weeks in the making.  We had speculated further that if you sent Detroit good stuff -- notably cost-effective infield quality -- you might "chip away" at Fielder's $24M annual salary.

Texas sent Detroit really, really good stuff -- that being cost-effective infield quality -- and so the Tigers sent them back $4.3M per year in coupons toward paying Prince.  SSI has a bear of a time predicting GM's, but it feels like it read the tea leaves okay on this one.

Talking points being these:

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Kinsler vs Seager and Miller

If you want to use a WAR/$ paradigm -- and with $24M and $16M contracts at play, MLB teams certainly factor it in -- here is where these three players lined up:

	WAR/162	$/year	Net value thru 2018	Remark
Kinsler	3.0	$13M (x5)	ca. $10M	Declining
Seager	3.5	$5M ? (x4)	ca. $60M	Improving
Miller	3.5 prorated	$4M ? (x4)	ca. $60M	Moving target

The Tigers succeeded in trading Kinsler out of the logjam they had between him, Profar, and Andrus.  If Jack Zduriencik elects to do the same with his brewing logjam among Seager, Franklin, Ackley, Miller, and D.J. Peterson (if not also Stefen Romero), he's got some MASSIVE chips with which to play poker.

May Dr. D ask, very benignly, why Kyle Seager is not on Fangraphs' top-50 list for trade value?!

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"Albatross" Contracts

In July, Prince Fielder made Fangraphs' list of the five worst contracts in MLB.  They figured that in a vacuum, Detroit would need to pay somebody $48M to take Fielder off their hands.  

Of course, math calculations like these are important to be aware of.   ::golfclap::  

Just be aware of the key assumption there, an assumption that SSI believes is neither true nor accurate:   Superstars making nice money are not worthless, and that is the entire basis of the algebra there.  Abraham Almonte has lots of net value, but you can't trade him for a healthy Cy Young winner making $24M per year.

SSI has stated, many times, its reasoning here.  A 5-WAR player making $25M does not have zero value; he has tremendous value.  

As one example of our argument ... in roto, you save money on your lower roster slots SO THAT you are able to pay fair value to superstars.  The second part of that is more important than the first.  You work the count to 3-and-1 SO THAT you can line the ball off the fence.  The 3-1 count is not more important than the double.

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Or Just Look At It This Way

Suppose you paid Robinson Cano exactly what Fangraphs thought he was worth.  Zero net value gained, or lost.  Total wash!

Do you think, gentlemen, that multi-national corporations take on that kind of exponential financial risk --- > in order to gain zero?  Do you think they would allocate $200M to one player, with all the downside involved, if they thought they could diversify their risk, and accomplish the same thing with 2.5-WAR players?  Many of whom are always available at bargains?

That paradigm cannot be the right one.  No company buys an oil tanker, if it can accomplish exactly the same thing with four smaller cargo ships -- but in sports, all companies buy oil tankers rather than cargo ships.  There has to be something we are missing here.

(Actually, there are many things we are missing, such as the fact that a $260 roto team gains nothing from leaving cash on the table at the end of the auction.)

.....

In order to make the [5 WAR Player at $25M = 0 Net Value] paradigm work, you would need some way to capture the (huge) value of a superstar making the "correct" wages.  You would need to re-calibrate ground zero for the Stars, and you need to re-calibrate the back end for "club controls" players -- who compete with other "club controls" players who replace them.  

But yeah.  Fielder had a nervous year in 2013.  That's the fact.  Texas' nerves are just fine, thanks for stoppin' by, pardner.

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For Seattle

It's 100% fair to assume that Detroit called us about Fielder, and that Jack passed.  Hold that thought:  it's 99% fair to assume that Detroit called us FIRST about Prince Fielder.  We were the #2 bidder, right?  On eBay they refer to this as a "Second Chance Offer."  Don't feel bad, guys:  my second chance offers never get a response, either.

Zduriencik's (presumed) decision was reasonable.  Fielder's 2013 season was important information.  From where we sit in section 341, we can parlay this data-bit into --- > hope that Zduriencik is hunting bigger game...

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For Detroit

Fielder had an off year, but .... his career OBP is .390 and he averages 35 homers per year.  He has been a left-handed Edgar Martinez.  

Snip a 300/400/500 engine out of the middle of a lineup and --- > there's no telling what will happen to your offensive game.  Oh, wait, there is telling what will happen:  we Mariners fans remember very well what happened.

If I were the Tigers, I'd also have bitten the bullet and made a deal like this too.  But don't minimize the threat to their offense.   Whether Fielder disappeared through trade, aging, or whatever, their lineup just became a whale of a lot easier to deal with.

.....

Kinsler is a cool player who hits very well from second base.  The Tigers' 2013 (departing) second baseman, Omar Infante, also hit very well:  .318/.345/.450.   Again a bit of perspective:

	AVG	OBP	SLG	WAR	Remark
Kinsler	277	344	413	2.4	In Texas
Infante	318	345	450	3.1 (in 118g)
Kyle Seager	260	338	426	3.4

The Tigers had a Kyle Seager contribution already at 2B last year, and they're going to be lucky to break even at that position in 2014.  (Actually they almost certainly will NOT break even.)

They did what they had to do, but don't kid yourselves.  They've got a lot of work to do with their cost savings, and most of that cost savings doesn't kick in for several years.

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For Texas

If you're using a static WAR-per-dollar-in-a-vacuum paradigm, you're not necessarily all that thrilled.

If you value RBI and MVP candidates, as major league GM's in fact do, you're necessarily all that thrilled.  The 2013 Rangers had only a 99 OPS+ to back up that 114 pitching staff, and now they think they've just turbocharged it again.

That Duck Dynasty dude is pretty cool.

For Texas, it was (vaguely) the equivalent of dealing Ackley/Franklin/whoever for Giancarlo Stanton.  The Rangers did not appreciate the fact that they missed the playoffs, and in Texas they don't believe in warning shots.  Shoot the first bank robber running away?  That's the warning shot for the next guy.

In all the articles I read on the Fielder grab, I don't think I read a single word about the 2014 playoffs.  Different people feel differently about championships.

I wish I wuz from Texas,

Dr D