EXCUSE ME?

Ramona Shelburne of the LA Daily News writes an astoundingly absurd paean to financial genius Ned Colletti.

Last year the Dodgers took a $119million payroll into the season. This season, it will be approximately $90 million.

If you're doing the math, that's about a 24 percent reduction in labor costs to produce a product that looks - at least on paper - as good or better than the team that ended the season in the NLCS last October.

Shelburne suggests that Colletti should be running the show in Congress for his magnificent foresight. I don't see how it's even appropriate to joke about that. It seems unreasonable to give Colletti credit for reading the tea leaves when much of the dead money off the books comes from his own poor moves. The difference between the 2008 payroll and the 2009 payroll is essentially the same as how much the Dodgers are saving from not having Nomar, Esteban Loaiza, Jeff Kent, and Andruw Jones on the team.

The article doesn't even clarify what Colletti's "reading the market" accomplishment was. Not grossly overpaying for Orlando Hudson or Manny Ramirez in November? All credit to Colletti for not bidding against the Phillies on Raul Ibanez, I guess. It's not like Colletti has a string of bargain basement acquisitions this year. The deals for Hudson and Ramirez are short, but not inexpensive in terms of pay per 2009 value. Orlando Hudson came cheaper than perhaps would be expected, but the Dodgers weren't about to run out a replacement-level player at 2B - they paid Hudson to bolster their depth and improve their lineup by not more than a win. Is there supposed to be any value in Randy Wolf's contract, or Will Ohman's contract, or Ramirez's? I see a bunch of players who got contracts they would have gotten most years. Just because you wait them out - knowing you have pretty similar caliber players already in the organization - does not mean you're a predictive financial genius, certainly not with the Schmidt or Pierre contracts still in full force.

I agree that Colletti has done a good job this offseason. He basically did exactly what I thought he should do - leverage the Dodgers financial advantage into free agent signings and ignore the trade market. But it is also the first stretch of his career as GM where he has been successful, in my studied opinion. He didn't make any earth-shattering moves, and he did nothing even remotely brilliant. He just calmly paid reasonable amounts for reasonable players in an offseason where even some pretty well-run teams simply abstained from doing so.

Wait a minute - years of less-than-competent management for questionable bosses followed by a few months of prudence when the competition was going through too much turmoil to compete? Wow, Colletti sounds exactly like a newly-elected Congressperson!

Samson sucks

I've long had disdain for the Yankees' absurd grooming policies and other ones like them. But at least the Yankees generally have rosters full of the well-paid. Now the Marlins, with a roster full of players years of toil away from that magical sixth year of service time, get into the act, at the same time that they are stealing from their fan base to build a new stadium (in their defense, the stadium will make additional profits for other rich people, some small fraction of which will surely trickle slowly down)? As long as there is any one owner like this EVERY major league owner is a crook and a scumbag.

We miss you John.

More random WAR tidbits

Picking cherries:

Julio Lugo's stint with Tampa Bay: 2114 PA, 14.1 WAR. Elsewhere: 2527 PA, -0.2 WAR. Travis Lee's first stint with Tampa Bay: 606 PA, 3.9 WAR. Rest of career: 3600 PA, 1.7 WAR.

2001 Paul Lo Duca: 502 PA, 5.2 WAR. 2002-7/31/04 Lo Duca: 1623 PA, 6.2 WAR. Post-LA Lo Duca: 1896 PA, 4.5 WAR

1983-4 Jeffrey Leonard: 1113 PA, 7.0 WAR. Rest of career: 4297 PA, 2.0 WAR.

Mike Lansing in Montreal: 2788 PA, 9.5 WAR. After the Expos: 1698 PA, -1.9 WAR.

Jason Lane's one season (2005) with regular playing time: 556 PA, 2.1 WAR. Rest of major league career: 788 PA, 1.1 WAR.

Eric Karros's ROY season: 584 PA, 0.0 WAR. Eric Karros' 2 above average seasons, 1995 & 1999: 1249 PA, 7.7 WAR. Rest of career: 5191 PA, 2.1 WAR.

Yankee Roberto Kelly: 2464 PA, 11.3 WAR. Rest of career: 2699 PA, 4.4 WAR.

Jason Kendall should be elected on the first ballot to the mythical "Hall of Very Good." Chuck Knoblauch too.

Since, among other things, the 2004 Dodgers are always sort of on my mind

Using Rally's WAR numbers, in 2004 Alex Cora and Cesar Izturis, the Dodgers' double play combo, propelled them to the division title by contributing 4.7 wins above replacement. Exclude 2004 from their career totals, and between the two of them you get 0.4 wins above replacement.

Of course, Adrian Beltre had 10.1 WAR that season; his next highest seasonal total, accomplished in 2006, was 4.4 WAR. And LHP-destroying Jose Hernandez contributed 2.0 WAR despite only getting 238 PA; in the rest of his career, he logged 11.7 WAR in 4788 PA. (Counterposed to these outstanding seasons in the infield were the play at 1B where Shawn Green's last season in blue demonstrated that he was not going to return to his pre-shoulder-injury peak and where Hee Seop Choi dug a whole so deep that Jim Tracy wouldn't give him much of a shot to dig his way out, leading to his surprise US career flameout). While then-GM Paul DePodesta deserves credit for solid moves to acquire oft-injured stars Milton Bradley and Jayson Werth, and his predecessor Dan Evans deserves credit for, uh, not trading Beltre or Gagne (or trading high-salaried stars for middle of the pack starters Odalis Perez and Jeff Weaver, who of course benefited greatly from the stellar infield defense), it was the outstanding and anomalous performance of its infielders that should go down in history as the essence of the 2004 Dodgers' playoff run.

Best Regards, John

Rest in peace.

Frivolous Question

All things considered, what was more impressive: Babe Ruth leading the AL in walks 11 times in 14 years or Barry Bonds leading the NL in walks 12 times in 16 years?

Bowden's Resignation

I've long thought of Jim Bowden as a below average GM with above average entertainment value. His statement about his resignation does nothing to alter that assessment. Bowden sets himself up to take credit for his successor's success and sells himself as a steward of the game who's stepping down for all the right reasons. And heck, he may very well be. (Or he might be in A-Rod with Katie Couric mode.) Bowden is an unimpressive GM who has done many impressive things as a GM, and his final statement impresses in many moments at the same time that I am, on the whole, unimpressed.

For personal reasons, my mental image of Bowden comes from seeing him as ESPNews' studio analyst in July 2004, saying that Milton Bradley better accept a move to RF because Steve Finley is a better center fielder. I turn to baseball again and again because of its rich ironies, and on that level Bowden rarely failed to deliver; thank goodness there's a former ESPNews talking head who will say this:

I will also carry with me the cold hard realization that my life has been turned upside down by a news media that prints entire stories attributed solely to anonymous sources who refuse to be identified and who are free to allege anything they choose for any purpose without fear of retribution.