... in most of these scenarios is ... how much value does the spec you are surrendering have to YOU (at this time)?
If you already have a quintet of starters running sub-4 ERAs ... who are under contract or club control for multiple years, and you have two or three young arms on the farm ... then you NEED to find a way to get value for *EITHER* the young arms in the majors or the young arms on the farm.
One subtlety is ... you don't deal from surplus ... you deal from "perceived" surplus.
One other variable for the "rental" deal is how many draft picks can/will the rental add to your plate next year. Tampa drafted what? a third of the first 50 picks? They did it in large part by doing 1-year rentals. The 1/2 year rental can be even smarter, in that you already know the production level for 1/2 (or 2/3) of the year, and can better judge the final draft pick tally you may or may not receive.
So ... trading away the 'juicy' prospect for the rental isn't always that simple. It's trading away the juicy prospect for the rental AND the additional draft pick(s) ... (to in theory replace the juicy prospect).
=== OUTPUT ===
Had the Mariners been in the battle, would you have swapped Taijuan Walker for two months' worth of a 300/400/500 batter?
For those fans who enjoy learning about baseball, this is a show-stopping cognitive dissonance. It's the Monolith appearing amongst the monkeys, an event far beyond our comprehension. And it is exactly those occasions that give us the opportunity to learn.
***
At Fangraphs, what they do there is --- > figure out ways for teams to pile up club control of resources.
This talent pyramid, at Fangraphs, is calculated irrespective of individual seasons. That is, Doug Fister's value is calculated by adding his WAR and subtracting his salaries across the next five seasons, totaled. The I/O outcomes of individual seasons -- and the outcomes of pennant races -- are completely irrelevant in this process.
Sabermetricians assume -- on their weblogs, not from their seats in the ballparks -- that individual pennants are decided mainly by luck, and are therefore mainly irrelevant. (Early on, somebody shrugged and figured, the most talent wins pennants. But that orientation is long lost in the shadowy tunnels of history.)
No, this premise is not the right one. Pennants are not worth nothing.
***
Major league GM's -- armed with much more inside info, including business considerations! -- weight this year's pennant farrrrrrrrr more heavily than sabes do.
That is your light bulb, gentlemen. Pull the dangle chain on it if you care to. Leave it dark if you care to. It's up to us, what we know and of what we wish to remain ignorant.
GM's don't believe that postseasons are irrelevant rolls of dice. They believe that winning in the postseason is hugely important, and that winning in the postseason is (somewhat) within their control.
***
Beltran's trade was not isolated.
(1) Giving up Justin Smoak plus, for Cliff Lee, was far more egregious. (2) Giving up Adam Jones plus, for two+ years (not two months) of Erik Bedard was far less egregious. (3) The Cards just gave up a whale of a lot of cheap value in Colby Rasmus, for what? For two months of a #2-3 starter, and a couple of fungible relief pitchers.
If you're going to keep comparing Net Values on young players, as in this calculation, you're going to need a "Cosmological Constant" that adjusts WAR for [Stars & Scrubs Impact on Playoffs]. There isn't any question about that.
GM's place high values on veteran impact stars. Super high!
How high? Carlos Beltran's +1.5 WAR, plus October, is deemed more important than Zach Wheeler's potential +20 cheap WAR. You're talking a "field premium" on a scale of 10:1 here.
***
It doesn't do any good to just say "the GM's are wrong." What is WAR, anyway? It's based on the free agent contracts paid by --- > GM's.
If the GM's are wrong, WAR is wrong to start with, because WAR itself is merely a description of what GM's decide to do in the free agent market. WAR captures December GM decisions, but not July GM decisions....
Hey, *I* wouldn't have traded Taijuan Walker for two months of Carlos Beltran, and I'm Mr. Now. I wouldn't have dreamed of approving that trade, no way no how. And yet the light bulb suddenly comes on. GM's all over the country make those trades. Routinely.
The monolith, Taijan Walker for a decent rental bat, stands there in its 1x4x9 glory. It's not going anywhere. We figure it out or we don't.
***
30 General Managers value this year's pennant more than sabermetricians do. And by a factor of 5x or 10x, gentlemen.
General Managers value pennants two or three times more than I do. That's an exciting revelation.
And oh by the way. Therefore, Erik Bedard, and Doug Fister, and Jason Vargas, and Brandon League, are worth a lot more than fans think they are.
.
Cheerio,
Dr D
Comments
...so that is out of the equation (the draft picks)
But, the initial premise ... how valuable is this prospect "to me" is still valid.
Also, how many GMs will be in the same jobs 4-5 years down the road when a Taijuan pays off? And then you have to discount injury risk in a young pitcher (what is the percentage chance of that 20 WAR from a young pitcher vs a half year of 1.5 WAR and the possibility of some timely hits in the playoffs?). Or how about the extra value of a documented ability to hit GOOD pitching (eg the kind you see in the playoffs) over and above the value of a regular/mistake hitter?
As G pointed out re: Colby Rasmus... in a vacuum maybe he's no longer shiny, in his words...
But we 'net rats always forget to DELTA the #25 player against the #26 player... only 25 players at a time count...
[Rasmus - X] is the question, and if you have a deadball-era offense, no internal help, and the external possibilities are dubious, then X becomes a small number... ergo, Rasmus - X becomes a large number...
***
The Giants aren't exactly hurting in the rotation, that's for sure...
Preach it San-Man :- )
I'd be interested in researching, if there were any way to do so, whether the deals for class-A superstars were generally made by GM's with Gillick-type job security.
If it were me, it would be a huge effort to force myself into layering the low minors instead of acquiring players who could help me this year and next.
I'm not even sure that Jack Zduriencik should be neglecting 2012. Take care of today and that tends to help you tomorrow.