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It's kind of tough to pull rank in a blog-o-sphere that probably contains 50, 100 people who would be employable as baseball consultant.  People keep trying to bluff the pot, and keep forgetting that the audience out there can analyze as well as the lead authors can.

It's tough to intone an Appeal To Authority to yourself as one of "the (few) people who know how to value player contributions on the field and figure out how to build a roster full of players who can produce beyond what they cost," at least until you reply to this table and to this one.

SSI just don't grant anybody that shortcut in baseball any more, a wide-sweeping appeal to authority, especially when it's to yourself.  

..........

Absolutely!  Big Blog knows how to calculate WAR - for last year.  Where Fangraphs is great -- not infallible, but great -- is in calculating the on-field value of a player's past performances.

Do you really believe that they have a patent on projecting Franklin Gutierrez' WAR for future years, that their projections are one hair's width more reliable than, say, their best 50 commenters' are?

Is there really a Secret Room where they (but no ML GM's) understand how to build a roster full of players?  Even though they appear completely opaque to the concept of Stars & Scrubs -- followed by all 30 ML teams -- and maximizing opportunities for arb and pre-arb spending.

.......

Let's not cast ourselves as having solved roster construction, if you haven't yet noticed many of the benefits of Stars & Scrubs, as demonstrated by this article.  (See Josh's comment at 5:00 pm Nov. 4.)

Dr. D doesn't mind an Offseason Plan that emphasizes Chris Capuano, Ryan Doumit and Chris Snyder ... until this Plan is cast as correct, scientific roster-building, and alternative paradigms are scoffed at.   

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=== Event Horizon Dept. ===

Roster-building is incredibly complex.  WAR doesn't begin to capture it.  Poker play is incredibly complex; simple probability theory doesn't capture that, either.  Chess play is incredibly complex; "Put your rooks behind pass pawns" doesn't capture that.

If the Mariners trade for David Wright, great.  How does that impact the Mariners' 20% (or 10%, or 30%) chance of falling into a star player in Kyle Seager?  How does Wright's glove impact your decision to keep a left-handed Jason Vargas, who nets you $5M profit on a $5M contract?  Since you're going Stars & Scrubs with Wright, how much is it worth to be able take the Casper, Trayvon and the Jabari Blash draws at the deck?

Will Wells fail, in how many AB's, and then will Trayvon succeed, and starting when, and do you trade Jabari Blash for a Reds catcher, and if so does a rookie catcher ruin James Paxton...

What is the seventh chess move in this concrete variation going forward?  As any chess player is painfully aware, the variations quickly proliferate out beyond your horizon.  You never know for sure what the best move is!

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One time we asked James a question much simpler.  When he advises the Red Sox about whether to bring up a James Paxton, how does he weight the different plusses and minuses?

He said simply, I don't give them a comment.  There are definite advantages, and definite disadvantages, to calling him up.  They cannot be calculated.  So I don't try.  (He also said, I just tell them that the best place, and the only place, to learn to play major league baseball is in the major leagues.)

That, gentlemen, is the answer I respect.  :- )