Ones without a track record come with a heaping help of uncertainty. Reliever performance is one of the most erratic things in American sports and there's not really much you can do about it.
Yes exactly. It's the fact that they're so erratic that makes me not want to pay over the odds for someone because who might after all turn out not to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. What with relievers being erratic and all. I'm happy to be convinced that Kimbrel is special in some way that makes him immune from this but I don't see that evidence right now. And even if he does continue to put up elite performance, the Sox gave up a tremendous amount of upside to get him.
Steamer projects him for a 2.62 ERA and 1.2 WAR (yes reliever WAR nonsense blah blah). He'll be making $11m. For me, there's a decent possibility we could end up in 3 years time not liking this trade even ignoring the prospects given up. After all, it's not like we've not seen highly priced closers flop before...
There is one thing you can do about it. Not pay huge prices. Carson Smith projects for a 3.01 ERA and 0.8 WAR (ditto). Can we agree we gave up a lot less for him? This is what I'm talking about - trying to get a player who looks very good and doesn't cost much rather than a player who looks really good and costs a ton, given that there is so much uncertainty about whether they're both going to be very good, good, great, terrible, injured or what.
There's nothing wrong with your math but expecting 91 wins every year isn't reasonable.
But hold on, if the math is right then why isn't 91 reasonable? That just doesn't make any sense to me at all. Either the math isn't right (or more reasonably, is ignoring critical factors) or 91 should be reasonable.
If you'd said "because winning 91 games means you're drafting lower, which means you get a pick worth x rather than a pick worth y, and the higher pick is worth say $15m more, which means you're losing out on an expectation of 2 wins, which brings you down to 89" I'd have said that's a reasonable counter to my argument and maybe 89 is a more realistic base.
If you'd said "because the evidence of past free agent signings suggest that while teams appear to be paying $8m per win based on projections, free agents who change teams tend to underperform those projections on average, which means that maybe for your $80m you think you're getting 10 wins but you only get 8 in reality" I'd have said that's reasonable too.
If you'd said that you'll end up with too much value in the minors and not enough in the majors because you can never translate future wins into current wins efficiently I'd have said that you might be right on that, but I'd like to see some evidence rather than just conjecture.
If you'd said the Sox aren't paying $80m a year more than the average team I'd even agree (looks like they were about $56m above average in 2015, based on a $178m payroll, though that excludes things like the Moncada bonus/tax which ought to be included in this calculation), though I'd suggest that's kind of missing the point.
But there are other factors that work in favour of winning more games. Assuming you can systematically gain "value" by trading fewer wins today for more wins tomorrow, that pulls you back upwards. And it seems that you'd agree with me that it should be possible to do that (or not? Feel free to clarify if you don't agree on that point).
And I haven't mentioned anything about being smarter than your opponents here. One would hope that a team with the resources of the Sox could a least aim to be a little better than average on that front.
Basically I'd be interested to hear why you think 91 is unreasonable. It's not obvious to me that a smart team with high payroll shouldn't be trying to achieve that. Since 2000 the Cardinals have averaged 91.5 without spending anything like that amount of money.
But the goal is not to develop prospects. The goal is not to win trades. The goal is not to get the most value for the least money. The goal is to win the World Series as many times as possible before we die.
Here we just flat out disagree. My goal for the Red Sox is for them to provide me with as much pleasure, in whatever form that comes, before I die. Yes I get a lot of pleasure from winning the WS, but I'll also get a lot of pleasure from other things. I'll get pleasure from winning the division. I'll get pleasure from watching Pedroia laser-show the monster. I'll get pleasure from Mookie, and JBJ and hopefully when he arrives from Espinoza and all the others. I got huge pleasure from 2013 because it was a wonderful season all round, and I don't expect to see a better one, but the my champagne moment highlight that year wasn't winning the series. The highlight was sticking a dagger in the Yankees heart on three successive nights at a crucial point in their season. That was just exquisite.
I'm not saying I'm right and you're wrong. I'm saying we see things differently.
This trade gave me negative pleasure.