With the SB Nation trade deadline looming, TheGoodPhight pulled the trigger on what could go down to be the worst Blog Lorderial move in blog history, trading taco pal for Amazin' Avenue's Eric Simon and cash. At first, I dismissed this as nothing more than a joke. After all, the blogger breaking the trade, RememberthePhitans had previously been benched for messing up several game wrap scores. Alas, several other, highly reliable sources confirmed the trade. Shocked and devastated, I prepared to share my misery and anger at the blog lords with my fellow readers when I was hit by another shocking blow to the gut: they were rejoicing.

We didn't go around celebrating such trades, that was WIP crap! Yet as I scrolled, words claiming "championship", post after post belittling, ridiculing and disregarding everything taco pal had done for this blog flashed across my screen. If these sorts of things happen mere minutes after taco pal leaves, I shudder to think what the future of this blog holds. In a hope to restore normalcy, in a plea to your love of stats and sense of logic, after the jump, I give you statistical proof why trading taco pal was awful.

UZR

* UZR only applicable to bloggers with a minimum of 150 comments.

For those of you unfamiliar with UZR, it is a measure of how well a blogger can defend a stance on a particular topic. The formula takes into account the number of comments it takes a reader to agree with your point, L.O.G.I.C avg, how many recs a particular post or comment receives and the statistics to word ratio. UZR solves the problem of DEF avg, which doesn't take into account how long it takes for a blogger to defend a stance. DEF avg would have you think highly of FuquaManuel who is ranked #2 but this is only due to his high L.O.G.I.C; his snarky post often causes commenters to fight back and extend the legnth of arguments, which UZR takes into account. With the loss of taco pal, we'll have to hope he develops a new delivery or two this offseason to eliminate the snarkiness.

taco pal's great defense and UZR of 42.0 has earned garnered the respect of statheads and non-statheads, fans and rivals alike, drooling over  his consistency year in and year out and has earned him his special corner in the blogosphere, Logic dome. Losing him will be very difficult if not impossible to replace.

REC vs wREC

2008-2011 REC values

Eric Simon's REC may be attractive, but the problem with REC is it fails to take into account blog differences.
Amazin' Avenue is a known "Wrecker's Paradise" with only 2 stars needed to make an impact comment, while The Good Phight needs 3. Furthermore, REC fails to account for newer users trying to suck up to veterans or trolls implying the SHIFT key who throw off the numbers by lowering the stars required. Instead, we should use wREC, which uses a formula of weighted comments, the join date of commenters and average Recs per comment.
Behold the difference below:

2008-2011 wREC values

WAR

A lot of people fail to recognize and give proper credit to how valuable taco pal's contributions are to this blog.
Yes hyperlink'd poems or tons of graphs are the sexier posts, but at the end of the day, it's not about being number one on the Top 10 plays or being voted for a SBNY, it's about winning the game. Post after post, taco pal has delivered consistent, well-thought posts that in the long haul, pull in more readers, more comments and more logical conversation. Don't take my word for it, the stats speak for themselves:

2011 WAR values

Conclusion

This is the worst trade in the history of trades. I would say Ed Wade is off the hook but I refuse to insult the memory of taco pal by blatantly disregarding all the good work he has done here with such a statement. While Eric Simon is a veteran and a great blogger, and while I will always root for TheGoodPhight, when taco pal returns to face our blog and pens a four-post sweep, I won't hesitate to say "I told you so".