The Cost of Acting First

by David S. Cohen on Feb 13, 2009 1:07 PM EST Comment 19 comments

I like charts. Sometimes they need a good amount of description to explain. Other times, they speak for themselves. (All stats are averages for the past three years.)

Player	OBP	SLG	OPS	FRAA	WARP3	Age	Years	Dollars
Bobby Abreu	0.388	0.459	0.847	-6	7.4	34	1	$5M
Pat Burrell	0.385	0.504	0.889	-12	5.6	32	2	$16M
Adam Dunn	0.379	0.518	0.897	-14	5.7	29	2	$20M
Raul Ibanez	0.354	0.492	0.846	-7	7.2	36	3	$31.5M

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The Phillies apparently tried to bring Burrell back, according to Scott Lauber’s blog. Says they approached him during the season but his demands were so high, they never made an offer. Obviously, they weren’t going to bring back Abreu and Dunn is fairly comprable to Burrell, I think. They wanted Ibanez and they definitely overpaid, but they were worried the Mets or Angels would swoop in and get him if they didn’t. Could be the Mets got involved just to drive up his price for the Phils; I don’t know.

by doubleh on Feb 13, 2009 1:36 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Why is it obvious they weren’t going to bring back Abreu? The GM who traded him away isn’t in charge any more, and anyway the circumstances now are very different than they were three years ago.

by phatj on Feb 13, 2009 10:37 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Because a lot of fans have an irrational hatred for the man.

Huge Tiny Mistake

by pacino on Feb 14, 2009 1:56 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

I dunno

Does anyone still hate Abreu? I’d think that a WFC would go a long way towards dispelling those ill feelings.

As an aside, despite the WFC, I still wish that the Phillies would operate more like the Eagles and make personnel decisions with an apparent disregard for public opinion.

by phatj on Feb 15, 2009 6:51 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I think the Phillies also make decisions based on their personal feelings rather than smart business decisions—hence, why Burrell was not brought back. There had to be something personal involved there for them not to try harder to bring him back, don’t you think?

by doubleh on Feb 15, 2009 10:17 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I wouldn’t attribute any of this to the organization’s “personal feelings,” nor would I say that the organization makes bad business decisions. What I would say is that the organization sometimes places a higher priority on making its fans happy, than on making the team better. This is a defensible business decision because fan happiness is ultimately what brings in business. Winning is, of course, the largest component of fan happiness, but they aren’t one and the same thing.

In the case of Abreu, the front office may or may not have known* that the team was better with Bobby than without him. But the fans had already made up their mind about Abreu, and the organization had to have known that they would never be able to prove the fans wrong. Getting rid of Abreu probably lowered their odds of ever winning a World Series by a few percentage points. But there was still a very good chance that the team wouldn’t win a World Series even with Abreu, as well as a decent chance that it would be able to win a World Series without Abreu (which is, of course, what happened).

Meanwhile, these things were certainties:
(1) that the team would be booed every home game for as long as Abreu was still around
(2) that if Abreu were kept and the team continued to fail to make the playoffs or win a title, the organization would be blamed for it
(3) that if Abreu were traded and the team continued to fail to make the playoffs or win a title, the organization would not be blamed
(4) that if Abreu were traded and the team did win a title, the organization would be given credit.

Considering all this, it was arguably a good business decision to trade Abreu because it was good for public relations. It was a bad decision on its merits but that only goes so far.

*I actually have my doubts about whether Gillick, in fact, knew this. I got bad vibes from Gillick all through 2006 on how he felt about Abreu. Gillick was occasionally prone to these kinds of irrational biases for or against certain players. Vicente Padilla was another example of this. Ruben Amaro, however, strikes me as being a much more cold-blooded character. If Ruben makes a decision to get rid of a player, whether good or bad, it won’t be for personal reasons, it’ll just be business.

by taco pal on Feb 16, 2009 1:50 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

“Vicente Padilla was another example of this”

Umm…..who’s the last awesome pitcher the phillies jetisoned?
I’ve seen this argument come up for lots of guys that we’re pretty much league average at best. Padilla, Silva, Millwood, Gio Gonzalez, Gavin Floyd*….
Everybody moans and groans when one of these guys throws a shutout and Adam Eaton goes 4 innings and gets knocked around. Nobody says a word when Carlos Silva sucks it up and gobbles up salary for another team.
Schilling was the last decent pitcher the Phillies let go, and that was more for political reasons than financial. He didn’t want to be here anymore, the Phils essentially had to honor that. Prior to him..maybe Andy Ashby? Dave Stewart?

*(I’ll concede that the book is still out on Gavin Floyd and he may end up being a good pitcher…it’s still to early to make a call on him and possibly Gio)

by Bilzo on Feb 16, 2009 3:16 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Ok, well, (1) way to miss my point, and (2) if we stipulate that Padilla was a league-average starter, then it was pretty stupid to give up a league-average starter for nothing, wasn’t it? League-average starters have more than zero value I think. Joe Blanton is a league-average starter and he cost us Adrian Cardenas.

As for Carlos Silva etc etc, none of that has anything to do with what I said, so I’m not even going to bother responding to it.

by taco pal on Feb 16, 2009 3:32 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Abreu

I have no desires to see him return to the organization. This team quit underperforming once Abreu, Bell, and Lidle were all traded away for nothing. Abreu is a heck of a hitter. He’s also a hideous fielder, which in a small park like CBP is in excusable.

by Bilzo on Feb 15, 2009 8:33 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Post hoc ergo propter hoc is the name of a logical error, not a reason to infer causation.

by taco pal on Feb 16, 2009 1:30 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

You are right, when Abreu, Bell and Lidle left the Mets got so scared that we didn’t have those players that they went into tailspins the last two years. Yeah, makes a lot of sense.

For Who? My teammates.

For What? To Win.

How Much? Where do I sign?

by jonk on Feb 17, 2009 9:14 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

err make that

“inexcusable”

by Bilzo on Feb 15, 2009 8:34 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Yup. Uh, Ibanez is a clubhouse guy? Yeah, that's the ticket.

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on Feb 16, 2009 11:28 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

I don’t know if Ibañez is or isn’t a clubhouse guy. I’d have preferred to have Burrell back. The Phillies have had Bobby Abreu once before. I know how that went.

I’ll take the unknown over the known in this case. With Abreu they got an aloof player who walked a lot, hit for good average, had high OBP, BUT he fielded poorly, and lost his speed and power. I’d prefer to not have Abreu round II.

by Bilzo on Feb 16, 2009 3:10 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Please explain why you think Ibanez is so similar to Abreu, but Burrell isn’t. “Walks a lot, high OBP, fields poorly, and lost his speed” sounds a heckuva lot like Burrell to me. Ibanez does not have an unusually high OBP and does not walk a ton.

I have a theory on why someone would think Ibanez and Abreu are so similar while Burrell isn’t, but I hope you can prove that that theory doesn’t apply to you.

Now, I’m coming at this from the perspective of someone who also thinks they should have kept Burrell rather than signing Ibanez. But your reasoning for that just makes no sense at all.

by taco pal on Feb 16, 2009 3:37 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

If Abreu’s name ended in a “z” it would be more obvious.

For Who? My teammates.

For What? To Win.

How Much? Where do I sign?

by jonk on Feb 17, 2009 9:15 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

heh…
Nice points.
Since I don’t have a lot of ammo to fire back with I’ll revert to…
“Pat Burrell has been a contributing member of division winning teams. Bobby Abreu has not.”

Intangibles. Disconnectedness. That’s about all I got.

by Bilzo on Feb 18, 2009 1:33 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Well that’s no fun. :-P

by taco pal on Feb 18, 2009 4:58 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

yankees?

Abreu showed up on the Yankees on 7/31/06 while they were 1/2 a game out. They won the division by 10 games. Does the AL East not count as a division?

by Matt Swartz on Feb 19, 2009 9:15 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs