These “you’ll have to take my word for it” posts always draw the same questioning comments. I find myself thinking “Hmmmm, I wonder how many scouts Dave talked to? I wonder how high up in the system they go? I wonder how many of them were scouting Morrow vs. Miller (since it isn’t a given, with the exception perhaps of higher-level scouts and cross-checkers, that a given scout would have seen both other than perhaps on film)? How close to Fontaine do his sources go?” All of this will help fill in the cracks in my opinion/reaction to how close I think Dave is to “fact” or “speculation” on what is really a continuum. But in the end, Dave has more sources than just about any of us, he’s a smart guy, and if you want him to keep sharing stuff he can’t say much about you have to have a certain level of trust and respect.

Re 118, JAS — that nailed it for me about as much as anything I can say in putting myself squarely in the “I’ll trust Fontaine’s judgment for now” camp. There are just so many variables in this decision that it is unfair and simplistic to ever say “this is about a roughly equivalent talent evaluation” or “this is about money, period.” It is a very nuanced decision about both of these factors and many others, and it’s impossible to ever know precisely what the group-decision-making process was.

In the end, we got a premium arm. He may or may not end up being better than Andrew Miller, but he definitely will be cheaper and less trouble for the organization (great point about the slots, Dave; hadn’t really thought about that angle). We may not like it, but this is a defensible decision on a lot of fronts.

Or is Miller going to get his number regardless, and Detroit is just willing to ignore the collective will of the owners (as expressed through Selig) whereas Seattle is not?

Thanks. Makes sense.

For a college player, 6 seasons takes you through his peak. That’s hugely valuable, because his salary will be depressed throughout that period.

Personally I think A-Rod is an ass just because – to me – he seems to have a smarmy, phony public persona that just rubs me the wrong way. It’s just me personally.

But to say he’s an ass because he took a ridiculous amount of money that nobody on earth would turn down is a little silly. I don’t care what he said previous to that contract offer.

BP does something like this on their PECOTA cards, with their Stars/Scrubs percentages. Of course, they’re relying mostly on data from professional (Major and Minor league) ball performance, which doesn’t yet exist for Miller or Morrow (maybe not even for Mollar, depending on who he is). For comparison, I think King Felix projects as something like 50% chace of being a superstar over the next 5 years, while Liriano is closer to 10%. When you’re talking about first round draftees (especially top-5), I think the superstar quesition is the right one. Maximizing your odds of getting a supertar is a better bet than maximizing your odds of adding role players.

Put it this way – if the M’s had not signed C. Everett in the offseason, and somehow woke up this morning leading the AL West by 6 games, what are the odds they could add a little “left-handed sock” for the remainder of the year to help them contend? Pretty good, I think.

If I’m correct your reason for making the prediction was that he fitted the ‘type’ of player normally taken by Mattox at that time. Maybe things haven’t changed that much!