Winston Churchill fought tooth and nail for the Allies to avoid a cross-channel invasion of French beaches, fearing a massacre on the beaches that would result in both failure and the death-knell of the British Empire through the loss of an entire generation so soon after the debacle of World War I.
The Americans argued that such an invasion was the shortest and most direct way to defeat the Axis and end the war. In typical American fashion, they felt that if they had to directly face the Germans at some point, they might as well get after it right now.
Churchill preferred a right hook to the soft underbelly of Germany through North Africa, Sicily, Italy and the Balkans. It would take longer, but it would be much less costly, he believed.
But by late 1943 the Americans had gone from being a sort of less-experienced junior partner to a dominant influence with far more troops and the successes of North Africa, Sicily and Italy for experience. So ultimately they prevailed in the argument about what became Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy.
Churchill had lost the battle of wills, and so in the days leading up to the invasion he suppressed his fears and reconciled to the invasion, even going to far as to say, "I am hardening on this enterprise," meaning that as long as it was going to happen, it was going to happen with the full support and determination of the British Empire.
I really do hear the objections of Sandy (an others like him) to signing Fielder. And I still am skeptical that Fielder would seriously entertain coming to Seattle. But if by some chance Zduriencik decides to lure him here and gets approval from the Two Amigos to expand payroll a bit in order to do it, I think all Seattle fans, even those fearful of the consequences, would "harden" on the enterprise.
Excuse my French, but "Damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead!"
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Interesting saber discussion, here, as to whether ML teams actually play Stars & Scrubs -- that is, do they sacrifice more to acquire one 50-run player than they do to acquire two 25-run players.
At first, the group uses a misleading little metric to investigate, that being simple $-per-WAR-per-year. Using this metric, they logically conclude that --- > actually, CC Sabathia is making the same $ per run as are, say, Jeremy Affeldt and Javier Lopez.
About the 100th comment, Josh (Nov. 4, 5:00 pm) realizes that if you use total guaranteed dollars then you see reflected the teams' huge preference for the higher end Stars.
All teams, all 30 of them, validate Stars & Scrubs --- > as seen in their willingness to commit 5- and 7-year contracts to the marquee players of the game.
Those 4th, 5th, and 6th years often backfire, and the teams know it, but .... a 5.0 WAR player is simply worth much more than two 2.5 WAR players.
All teams know that, in the aggregate, they will "overpay" in the last few years of their FA contract. But they also know that they will "underpay" in the first years -- because they only had to pay the same $450,000 for run with CC Sabathia as they did with Jeremy Affeldt.
Capiche?
Sign Prince Fielder to a 6 x $22M deal and, yes, year 6 might be an overpay. But in his first three-four years he'll be worth $25M in absolute terms -- and $30, $35, $40M in relative terms.
Sign two Civics at $6M each to play LF and DH, and you'll get no overperformance.
But sign Prince Fielder to play DH, and between Carp / Wells / Trayvon / Catricala you might very easily get a $10-15M year for the minimum wage. In that sense, Prince Fielder can net you an additional $10-15M per year above his own performance.
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Dr. D has been Stars & Scrubs since his second week of playing roto in 1997. He always argues that the M's should consolidate their runs in the first 6 spots of the roster, and then use agility to max out the production from the bottom 10 spots.
But this time it's far more important than usual. This time, he would argue that the 2012 Mariners are more in need of Stars & Scrubs than any Mariner team he has ever seen. Ever.
The Mariners have the resources, have the options, have the variations, to make a Beane-style carousel work in the bottom 15 slots of the roster. What they need is a Straw that Stirs the Drink.
A bat who will both (1) allow the Scrubs fungibility in the 9-man lineup, and (2) legitimize the M's lineup on a sports-psychology level.
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Zduriencik has been going after the Adrian Gonzalezes and Cliff Lees for a while already. This winter, he needs to get 'er done.
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BABVA,
Dr D