Having nothing to do with the extensive work here which I greatly admire, I still do not get the trade deadline mentality. Do-not-get-it.
This year is no different. I see transaction after transaction where the sellers don't get enough, while the buyers gets marginal players for two months who won't materially impact their postseason chances in exchange for a piece of their dwindling future assets. If the Padres didn't win anything after obtaining Juan Soto in 2022, are they really going to make noise with Jason Adam?
Lose, lose. Rinse, repeat. All as the media wildly applauds the "excitement."
Look, if you are the Dodgers or Phillies or Yankees or Orioles and have a very high likelihood now of reaching the World Series and have a hole to fill and there is talent available at a reasonable price to fill it - have at it. On the other hand, if you are the Guardians, the Cardinals, the Padres, the Rangers, the Red Sox, the Cubs, the Diamondbacks, the Twins etc...what the hell are you doing? Put the phone down and build for 2025.
Your article notes: "...they have to make decisions about whether to strategically add or subtract talent, all while having incomplete information...make the wrong decision to buy or sell...and it can have far reaching negative consequences." Doesn't that sound sub-optimal, not analytical and just plain reckless given the time limitations? What's the upside for all those potential negative consequences?
My impressions are of course mine alone. But let's apply some history and data to this issue to learn more. A few days ago Mark Feinsand at MLB.com looked at around 60 years of trade deadline deals and identified 16 that were material to a postseason run. Let me repeat - 16. Now, some of those 16 reflected teams with high probabilities of making the World Series before the trade (who should have rightly been looking to deal), but let's be conservative and take all 16. When you consider the average number of deals done each year over that 60-year span, that approximates to a less than 2% success rate.
There is nothing that matters in your life where if you knew going in your likely success rate was less than 2% where you would do that transaction. You just wouldn't no matter how exciting it might be. Yet, each year supposedly smart baseball front offices continue to wheel and deal with a level of wild irrational exuberance and hysteria and incomplete information into oblivion because the artificial trade deadline is approaching. I know one thing for certain, whether it's Girl Scout cookies or the MLB trade deadline, artificial scarcity is an amazing drug.
I think this Substack can play a very important role in moving the discourse toward more rational and thoughtful behavior. What I would love to see is a piece after the World Series each year evaluating these deadline deals retrospectively. I would assign each one to four "Halos" in honor of the Angels wrecking their franchise for a decade or more by "going all in" at the deadline as championed by the pundits. Four Halos would reflect the highest level of front office delusion - one Halo, a shrewd front office move.
Once the results are more publicized and internalized and people become more aware of what a waste the deadline is for most teams, we should be able to better articulate the attributes that define who should be a buyer, who should be a seller, and the great masses that should do nothing at all.
For example, what should be the minimum predicted percentage of getting to the World Series be in late July before ever thinking about trading for a player - 30%, 40%? Then use your Doyle Number, then look at farm system/pipeline value, then examine contract control years as added value and finally, look at maximum price to be paid...some sort of scorecard evaluation system like that.
I suspect that such a thoughtful analysis will go a long way towards ending our national baseball obsession of confusing movement with progress every July. Thanks again.
Having nothing to do with the extensive work here which I greatly admire, I still do not get the trade deadline mentality. Do-not-get-it.
This year is no different. I see transaction after transaction where the sellers don't get enough, while the buyers gets marginal players for two months who won't materially impact their postseason chances in exchange for a piece of their dwindling future assets. If the Padres didn't win anything after obtaining Juan Soto in 2022, are they really going to make noise with Jason Adam?
Lose, lose. Rinse, repeat. All as the media wildly applauds the "excitement."
Look, if you are the Dodgers or Phillies or Yankees or Orioles and have a very high likelihood now of reaching the World Series and have a hole to fill and there is talent available at a reasonable price to fill it - have at it. On the other hand, if you are the Guardians, the Cardinals, the Padres, the Rangers, the Red Sox, the Cubs, the Diamondbacks, the Twins etc...what the hell are you doing? Put the phone down and build for 2025.
Your article notes: "...they have to make decisions about whether to strategically add or subtract talent, all while having incomplete information...make the wrong decision to buy or sell...and it can have far reaching negative consequences." Doesn't that sound sub-optimal, not analytical and just plain reckless given the time limitations? What's the upside for all those potential negative consequences?
My impressions are of course mine alone. But let's apply some history and data to this issue to learn more. A few days ago Mark Feinsand at MLB.com looked at around 60 years of trade deadline deals and identified 16 that were material to a postseason run. Let me repeat - 16. Now, some of those 16 reflected teams with high probabilities of making the World Series before the trade (who should have rightly been looking to deal), but let's be conservative and take all 16. When you consider the average number of deals done each year over that 60-year span, that approximates to a less than 2% success rate.
There is nothing that matters in your life where if you knew going in your likely success rate was less than 2% where you would do that transaction. You just wouldn't no matter how exciting it might be. Yet, each year supposedly smart baseball front offices continue to wheel and deal with a level of wild irrational exuberance and hysteria and incomplete information into oblivion because the artificial trade deadline is approaching. I know one thing for certain, whether it's Girl Scout cookies or the MLB trade deadline, artificial scarcity is an amazing drug.
I think this Substack can play a very important role in moving the discourse toward more rational and thoughtful behavior. What I would love to see is a piece after the World Series each year evaluating these deadline deals retrospectively. I would assign each one to four "Halos" in honor of the Angels wrecking their franchise for a decade or more by "going all in" at the deadline as championed by the pundits. Four Halos would reflect the highest level of front office delusion - one Halo, a shrewd front office move.
Once the results are more publicized and internalized and people become more aware of what a waste the deadline is for most teams, we should be able to better articulate the attributes that define who should be a buyer, who should be a seller, and the great masses that should do nothing at all.
For example, what should be the minimum predicted percentage of getting to the World Series be in late July before ever thinking about trading for a player - 30%, 40%? Then use your Doyle Number, then look at farm system/pipeline value, then examine contract control years as added value and finally, look at maximum price to be paid...some sort of scorecard evaluation system like that.
I suspect that such a thoughtful analysis will go a long way towards ending our national baseball obsession of confusing movement with progress every July. Thanks again.