.

Would Dr. D trade Nick Franklin "in the division"?  The A's seem :- ) to realize something nobody else does:

• You can't teach EYE.  You acquire EYE.
• Also, they need a middle infielder now.
• Also, 2-3 WAR players at $450K are solid gold.
• Also, 4-5 WAR players at club-controls are fairly nice.

So Nick "is a top target" for the A's.  Um, yeah.  Why wouldn't he be?  He's the quintessential Oakland A, right down to the beat-writer-irritating arrogance.

"In the division," you say?  Get the best player in the deal.  End of story.

Oakland has nobody like that they'll trade?  Hokay.  There's your answer.

......

Is Taijuan Walker "devalued," as Churchill's scout-friend opined?  Sure, he is, as long as you know the degree to which to take that assessement.  Personally, everything the scout said about Taijuan in this article had been my own feeling as well .... the part about stride length, I hadn't thought about, but it's a whale of an observation.

• His motion is shoulder-impinging and moderately worrisome
• His secondary stuff is alarmingly undeveloped
• Meaning, he's like the #11 prospect in baseball rather than the #3

At this point, SSI has swung quite a ways back to its usual K-Pax position, and would be happy to trade Taijuan for David Price.  I think you're looking at 4 years of club-controls stardom now, not 6, and that's the difference.

Don't panic about Taijuan's overhand motion; he's young.  Roger Clemens had exactly the same motion, and some early shoulder issues, and he wound up throwing a few innings.  Taijuan could very feasibly be Roger Clemens.

.......

The worst flame war in Seattle blog-o-sphere history erupted over the idea that any decent rookie is worth far more than the best fairly-paid superstar -- even if the rookie gets only 2 WAR and even if the superstar wins the Cy Young.  Sorry, but this article resonated, and is part of the fabric of the discussion.

Just two years ago, the same theme was stamped into our foreheads with cleats again, as Dayton Moore traded a top-10 prospect for James Shields and Wade Davis.  SSI, of course, resisted this dogma.  As do all 30 current GM's in baseball.

Just a week ago, Billy Beane did exactly this, and in this case he was given a pass by exactly the same authors, on the basis that "the win-curve is different for Oakland."  Um, yeah, in the sense that Oakland is IN the playoffs and gets LESS return for incoming stars.  (Don't forget the Baseball Prospectus Corollary:  you can't affect your chances of winning the playoffs.  Those are random.)

Well, it's progress.  Anything that helps us see the world as complex, rather than simplistic, will help us bring our hypotheses into closer alignment with the real world.

Now we just have to wait for Fangraphs' sign-off that the Seattle Mariners have clearance to attempt to win the pennant.

....

Kidding aside, you will very rarely hear criticism from other MLB orgs, when a Kansas City Royals franchise tries to make itself better, or legitimize itself, or make a run in September, or whatever.  You might occasionally hear "I don't know if this was the right time for them," but it will be stated with respect, not a sneer.  

And the Royals have definitely given themselves a lift over the past year-plus.  The object of the game isn't to underpay club-controls players.  Sometimes you gotta use lighter fluid to get a smoke going, kiddies.

.........

Could you get Price-plus for Taijuan?  Is that the way to get your batting slots shored up, to go blockbuster all over the A's and Angels?  Seems to be trending that way.  Give me the real jewel I want out of your system and .... well, one hand washes the other.

.........

Said all that to say this:  other sites will weigh a David Price trade in one of two ways:

• 6.2 WAR vs 4.9 WAR, team X "wins"
• Seattle had / didn't have the right to play for the World Series

What is SSI's way of looking at it?  The payroll is $90M, compared to $154M for the Angels.  You buy $2 Scrubs so that you can buy $22 Stars.  You don't buy $2 Scrubs so that you can chortle you spent only $91 of your $260 roto budget.

With the new TV deal, the M's payroll obviously should be much higher.

If David Price is the next $22 Star incoming, if David Price is the chosen method of raising payroll and therefore exploiting more of the available player performance, then ---- > great.  He's a Star among Stars, a Robinson Cano as opposed to a Prince Fielder or Josh Hamilton.

This dynamic variation on the process would also be great:

We traded for David Price once before; his name was Cliff Lee.  (No two more-similar pitchers exist).  We let Cliff Lee go after one partial season, doing nothing to replace him.  That, I wouldn't give you Taijuan to get.

However, a move strongly into Stars & Scrubs, acquiring a player you're going to be very happy with, that I would give you Taijuan to get.  Simply trying to add up "who wins the deal?," that got boring 15 years ago.  It's about strategic direction, about macro concerns you pay CEO's to attend.

So all we need is for the Committee to sit down and talk about tacking on a $7M salary and a $20M salary at the same time.  Tough on the PowerPoint fiscals, but that 116-win banner has been hanging there quite a while.

Context,

Dr D