The 2010 MLB Season Thread

[molson]

Originally Posted by cartman

Could be worse. The Mets didn't want to pay Bobby Bonilla a $5.9 mil bonus he was supposed to get in 2000. So instead, they agreed to defer the payments to the tune of $1.2 mil per year from 2011 to 2035!

Noble Thoughts: The Mets are adding payroll (sort of)

I'm so confused.

[Travis]

What's the name of his agent? He actually got the team to agree to pay out nearly $1.2 million per year for 24 years rather than paying out the $5.9 million they still owed him?

What sort of blackmail material do you need on hand to get a deal like that to fly?

[Logan]

I remember hearing about that when it happened back then. It's actually a pretty decent deal, when taking into account the PV of that discounted money, the fact that he didn't get anything for 11 years, and what that principal could have been invested in pretty safely.

[miked]

Unless he invested it with Madoff...

[Ksyrup]

Or invested it in internet stocks and Enron, had the bubble burst, took the remainder, put it into bank stocks, had the market crash, then finally pulled out the $.03 remaining in 2009.

[molson]

How did they get away with just not paying him his bonus for 10 years?

[Logan]

That was the way the deal was set up. If you start paying out the money right away, that significantly eats into the savings which is the whole purpose for it to be structured that way in the first place. If he started receiving the deferred payments right away, the amount he would receive in total would probably be closer to $15 million.

[Ksyrup]

So it sounds like Howard is getting $23M a year for 5 years and a $23M club option for 2017 or $10M buyout, so that brings it to $125M. Not a fan of that deal. It'll be interesting to see what Prince Fielder gets, since he's 4 years younger. I'd be scare to pay those kinds of guys beyond like 32-33 years old. At least at that kind of money per year.

[Logan]

I can't believe the Mets are on national TV again tonight.

[lungs]

I think Ryan Howard just priced Prince Fielder out of the Brewers' price range.

[Crapshoot]

That Howard contract is ridiculous for a guy who's not one of the top 5 1b(Pujols, Fielder, Teixera, Gonzales, Votto) in baseball, and can't hit lefties. Howard is a good player getting paid like a great one (as opposed to Utely)/

[stevew]

Originally Posted by lungs

I think Ryan Howard just priced Prince Fielder out of the Brewers' price range.

I dunno, do you really think that's a big deal though? They still control Braun for a few more years. And surely someone would pay well for Fielder in a trade. Throwing 25% or more of the Brewers into Fielder is just not a good investment IMO.

[lungs]

Originally Posted by stevew

I dunno, do you really think that's a big deal though? They still control Braun for a few more years. And surely someone would pay well for Fielder in a trade. Throwing 25% or more of the Brewers into Fielder is just not a good investment IMO.

It probably will be more wise to trade Fielder. I'd rather lock Rickie Weeks up if he can stay healthy finally. The guy is playing like vintage Rickey Henderson right now.

[DaddyTorgo]

Votto is a top 5 1b??

Where have I been??

[MizzouRah]

None of those guys could hold Pujols's jock!

[JS19]

Originally Posted by Logan

I can't believe the Mets are on national TV again tonight.

Same here. Hopefully they get it in. Could be mistaken, but I think they have another one coming shortly, too.... unless I'm thinking of last night's game. I'm just anxious to see how Ollie will perform with the Mets' newfound winning ways.

[Crapshoot]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

Votto is a top 5 1b??

Where have I been??

Not paying attention to baseball? I'd take Votto's next 5 years over Howard - he has better range, and less of a hole against lefties. Howard had an OPS+ of 140 last year, and is a career .226.309/.443 hitter against lefties. Votto had an OPS+ of 155 and is a career 300/372/486 vs lefties - can't be neutralized by a generic left-handed reliever in the late innings.

There's enough debate here around the top 5 (ie, the not Pujols category) between Cabrera, Teixera, Votto, Cabrera, Morneau, Fielder, Morales, Gonzales etc etc - but Howard is hard to justify as a top 5 guy. Again, he's a very good player, but not elite, and he's being paid like it.

[Crapshoot]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

None of those guys could hold Pujols's jock!

Agreed. There's Pujols and everyone else at 1b - I'd say Fielder's probably 2nd. But if Ryan frigging Howard is worth $25M, Pujols is worth 25% of the the Cardinals.

[Lathum]

Dudes that hit 50 homeruns and drive in 140 every year don't grow on trees.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Dudes that hit 50 homeruns and drive in 140 every year don't grow on trees.

That may be true, but there's still at least 7-8 first baseman I'd take over him right now.

If Ryan Howard is getting $25 mil per year then Chase Utley should be getting a deal worth at least $35 per.

[Crapshoot]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Dudes that hit 50 homeruns and drive in 140 every year don't grow on trees.

Look, if there's one baseball fact I could share with everyone it would be this - RBI's are a fairly useless statistic. Howard is a very good player, but he is not great - his OPS+ was 8th or 9th amongst 1b, and he brings little to no defensive value. The fact that he does it through HR's alone (while others do it through getting on-base more, such as Votto) doesn't change his underlying value.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Crapshoot

RBI's are a fairly useless statistic.

Right up until you have a lineup with no one that produces with men on base.

[samifan24]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Right up until you have a lineup with no one that produces with men on base.

There's a Dusty Baker joke in there somewhere.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Right up until you have a lineup with no one that produces with men on base.

And when those men aren't getting on base...?

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

Mo Vaughn.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Ronnie Dobbs2

Damn Howard got PAID. 5/125 extension.

Phillies Sign Howard to $125 Million Extension

Translation - the Phillies extend a giant middle finger to the Cardinals

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by Crapshoot

Look, if there's one baseball fact I could share with everyone it would be this - RBI's are a fairly useless statistic. .

Statements like this are why I lose interest in this thread about 3 weeks into the season.

This isn't a personal attack, I just hate baseball stat geeks. Runs batted in as a useless stat seems like a silly statement, isn't the point of the game to score runs? Seems to me a guy who has boatloads of RBI's is pretty valuable.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

You know what a boatload of RBI's tells me about a guy?

The players in front of him were good at getting on base.

[DaddyTorgo]

you could probably do something stat-geeky with RBI's though...something like "league adjusted RBI's per plate appearance" or something

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

you could probably do something stat-geeky with RBI's though...something like "league adjusted RBI's per plate appearance" or something

It's called OBP or OPS. I mean, you're just saying develop a rate stat that is independent of how many runners are on base.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Ronnie Dobbs2

It's called OBP or OPS. I mean, you're just saying develop a rate stat that is independent of how many runners are on base.

not exactly...i dunno how best to explain what i mean...ah well

[Ksyrup]

THE TRUTH

Posted: March 13th, 2010 | Filed under: Baseball | 71 Comments »


Before we get into Pedro Feliz — and I will admit you have to work through a few things before we get to him — I have a question for you: Let’s say you’re a manager of a Major League baseball team in 2009. And before the game, a genie says to you that you can have one of two things happen. (1) Your team could have more hits than the opponent or (2) Your team could hit three or more home runs.

Which of those two options would give you a better chance of winning?

* * *

There are many things I love about reading the words of my friend Bill James. But I think the thing I love most is that whenever I read anything by him — an essay, a blurb, an email, whatever — I find that it sparks me to write something. I’ve never really talked with Bill about this, but to me that is a unique quality of his writing: A reader feeds off it. To read Bill is to have a conversation with him. He writes interactively.

I thought about this again the other day when I was reading an essay in The Bill James Gold Mine 2010, and I came across the most perfect sentence I’ve read about the problem with RBIs.

As you probably know, the problem with RBIs and the similar problem with pitcher wins have been two of the hotter topics on this blog for a long time. Bill actually begins the essay — which is called “The Attribution Problem (in Baseball and in Life) — by talking about pitcher wins. He writes:

We attribute the victory won by the team to the individual pitcher — and then conclude, based essentially on that attribution, that the pitcher is the key to victory.

That sums it up pretty well, doesn’t it? The win is all about sleight of hand. Pitchers don’t win games, and pitchers don’t lose games — that should be obvious to everyone. But people decided a long time ago just the opposite: That pitchers do win and lose games. We actually credit them with wins and losses. And based on that decision we have made many suspect judgments through the years based on little evidence — such as the dubious idea that pitchers can “pitch to the score,” or the concept that some pitchers are “Just winners,” or the various calculations that estimate pitching is 60% of baseball or 75% of baseball or 90% of baseball.

Similar thing with RBIs — though I think the attribution problem is even more stark with RBIs. At least with wins and losses, hey, a pitcher does have quite a lot of control over the run prevention half of baseball. He doesn’t do it alone, not even close to alone. He will rely on his defense, and he will rely on his ballpark, and he will rely on his catcher, and he will rely on whoever is calling pitches, and he will rely on luck and countless other things, but few would argue with the premise that when it comes to stopping the other team’s offense, you begin with the pitcher.

The RBI guy, though, is not necessarily the most important guy when it comes to scoring runs. It SEEMS that he is because that’s what we are conditioned to believe. We are taught, throughout our baseball fan lives, to lionize the big-time RBI players. We have been conditioned — by MVP votes, by fantasy baseball, by all the stories in newspapers about “productive” hitters, by announcer voices that celebrate the clutch hits — to believe that runs, for the most part, come about because of the hitter who drives them in.

But it really isn’t so. Take this situation: One out, Rick Manning cracks a line drive single. Duane Kuiper hits a high chopper in front of the plate, he’s out, but Manning takes second. Jim Norris, with first base open and two outs, works for a walk. Manning and Norris move up on a wild pitch. Pitcher works around Andre Thornton, and he walks. Then, with a 3-1 count and the bases loaded, the pitcher has to throw a fastball that catches too much of the plate, and Rico Carty rolls a single between short and third, scoring two runs.

That’s a fairly typical sequence, I would guess. In our mind and in our statbook, Carty is the hero — two RBIs. He is, in fan and media shorthand, RESPONSIBLE for those runs. But he isn’t. Carty’s single didn’t make those two runs happen. Those two runs scored because of a series of events, and Carty’s single was just the last of those events.

And this is the point: Teams don’t score runs because they have uniquely talented RBI men. Teams score runs because more often than their opponents, they put together a string of useful offensive plays — walks, hits, stolen bases, hit-by-pitch, beating out double play grounders, taking extra bases, advancing on throws , on and on and on. That, most of the time, is what lead to runs.* The RBI guy cannot do it himself except with solo home runs. And teams don’t win games by hitting solo home runs. No, really, they don’t. I looked it up. In 2009, offenses that scored all their runs on solo home runs were 24-193. Houston lost a game to Cincinnati 6-5 while hitting five solo home runs. For the decade, teams relying entirely on solo home runs went 267-1837.**

*You can reduce the confusion and make it pretty simple, really. Here’s a Bill James stat to think about, and it focuses only on hits: How often does a team win when they get more hits than their opponents? Well, in 2009 the answer: 80.3% of the time. Teams won four out of five games when they got more hits than their opponents. How remarkable is this? Well, I’m glad you asked — we go back to the trivia question at the top. You’re a manager of a baseball team, and before the game the genie gives you the choice: You can either outhit your opponent tonight or you can hit three or more homers tonight … which one would be more likely to bring you the victory.

And since I gave you the lead, you already know the answer:

Teams that outhit their opponents won 80.3% of the time.

Teams that hit three-or-more homers won 78.4% of the time.

**And for the record: Only one team in baseball since 1954 scored exclusively on six solo home runs in a game — the 1991 Oakland A’s. They lost 8-6 to Minnesota.

So, my point is, that people have through the years counted RBIs and celebrated RBIs and given too much credit to to the men who knock them in. And, as a result, many people have come to determine that RBI men are the most valuable part of an offense. That’s the circular thinking we have here.

Well, I have been bouncing around this topic for a long time, never quite getting to the heart of things. And it wasn’t until I read the following sentence from Bill that it all snapped into place for me:

If you add a low-average power hitter to a bad team, the low average power hitter will lead the team in RBI — and the team will score fewer runs, not more.

Bingo. There it is. All this time, I’ve been wondering, for instance, why Jose Guillen’s 97 RBIs for Kansas City in 2008 bothered me so much. I mean, sure, I knew Guillen was mostly crummy that year (a 95 OPS+ despite two extremely hot months). And I knew that those 97 RBIs just felt pointless. But, hey, I’m not immune to the seductive powers of RBIs. I will see 97 RBIs, especially for a Royals player, and think “Well, hey, that’s a lot.” The Royals had not had anyone with more than 86 RBIs since Carlos Beltran and Raul Ibanez left town. So, hey, at least Guillen did that, right?

But it bugged me. And as soon as I read that Bill statement, I instinctively knew why. I went to Baseball Reference, and confirmed what I was thinking.

The Royals without Guillen scored 706 runs in 2007.

The Royals with Guillen’s RBIs scored 691 runs in 2008.

That was it all right. Guillen’s RBIs were an illusion. He did not make the team’s offense any better at all. He may have contributed RBIs — giving the Royals someone to credit for their lousy offense — but he did not contribute any actual improvement to the offense. Frankly, he made the Royals offense worse. Several players — Alex Gordon, David DeJesus, Mike Aviles — had markedly better years than in 2007. But the Royals had Jose Guillen and his dreadful .300 on-base percentage hitting in the middle of the lineup. He drove in runs. But he did not help.

This is not an uncommon theme in baseball history. Bad teams (and, to be fair, mediocre and good teams too) often will fall for the allure of the RBI guy. A middle of the order bat. A producer. And, hey, it can help you if you get an RBI guy who is also, you know, a GOOD HITTER, you know, someone who hits for an average and gets on base and slugs and all that. But the teams aren’t necessarily looking for good. No. They are looking for “productive.” They are looking for RBI men.

After winning 89 games during the 1989 season, San Diego felt like it needed a middle-of-the-order bat, so the Padres traded for RBI guru Joe Carter. And Carter did exactly what they hoped he would do — he drove in 115 RBIs. Unfortunately, he also punched up an 85 OPS+ … and the Padres dropped from fifth to eighth in runs scored and and finished 75-87.

Just before the 1992 season started — I mean just before, on March 30 — the Chicago White Sox determined they needed a middle of the order bat to make a run. So they traded for George Bell, a guy who had driven in more than 85 RBIs for eight straight seasons. And it worked: Bell drove in 112 RBIs for the White Sox. Trouble is, he had a 99 OPS+. He was a below average hitter. The White Sox scored 20 fewer runs and won one less game.

And, of course, one of the players they included in that deal: Sammy Sosa.
In 2004, the Montreal Expos signed Tony Batista to a contract, and then batted him third or fourth, and why not? He bashed 32 home runs! He drove in 110 RBIs! Great year! Unfortunately, his on-base percentage was .272, and the Expos scored 76 fewer runs than they had the year before.

I’m not doing a full study on this … I’m sure there are some counter-examples of low-on base percentage guys with a lot of RBIs who helped a team. Maybe. But there are probably not many. It’s pretty well documented that scoring runs is a process of getting on base and advancing on the bases. There are more accurate ways to figure it, like Base Runs, but if you simply multiply on-base percentage by total bases — that basic version of runs created — you will come pretty close to the number of runs a team scores. This really isn’t a mystery.

So, no, low average, low-on-base guys simply do not help the offense very much, even if they have a lot of RBIs. They just don’t. In their case, the RBI numbers is a deception. Now, it should be pointed out that the most big RBI men are also good or great hitters. But I would argue that RBIs are a by-product of their greatness, not the root. Willie Mays wasn’t great because he drove in 100 runs 10 times. He drove in 100 runs 10 times because he was great.

All of which (finally) brings us to Houston’s new third baseman Pedro Feliz. You know the Astros signed Feliz during the off-season for $4.5 million — he was the big offensive acquisition for a team that finished 14th in the league last year in runs scored. Now, I should start by saying the Feliz is not without value. He is an excellent defensive third baseman. He has never won a Gold Glove, but I think he should have won in 2007 for sure, and he had a strong case the previous two years. He does not seem quite as mobile now — he used to be the best in baseball at charging the bunt; now, not so much — but he’s still awfully good defensively. And he has a great arm. And, by all accounts, he seems a very good guy.

Also, every now and then, his bat will run into a fastball.

OK, those are the positives. Now, the downside: Feliz is a terrible hitter. No, really, dreadful … historically dreadful. The last five years, Feliz has not had an OPS+ of better than 85 in any season. The last four years, his combined OPS+ is 80. His batting Runs Above Replacement? Minus-70.9 for his career. He isn’t just worse offensively than a replacement level player, he’s A LOT worse. His .293 on-base percentage … worst in baseball for the decade (4,000 or more PAs).

Feliz isn’t a bad big league hitter … he’s an atrocious hitter.

BUT … yep, he has some decent-looking RBI numbers. Feliz is the only player in baseball history to have three 80 RBI seasons with sub-85 OPS+. So he’s got that going for him. Among all players with career OPS+ of less than 85 (min. 2,000 plate appearances), only Craig Paquette has more RBIs per plate appearance. Bob Boone used to say that the ball “exploded” off of Craig Paquette’s bat. He said that a lot.

So Feliz is a poor hitter who got enough at-bats on good teams to drive in runs. Pretty obvious, right? Nobody inside baseball would fall for that illusion. Right?

Here’s what it says about Feliz in The Sporting News:

“The Astros moved quickly to sign free-agent third baseman Pedro Feliz who has four 80-RBI seasons on his resume …”

Um. Oh oh. And in The Houston Chronicle:

“Astros general manager Ed Wade is direct with his expectations of Feliz, saying the team projects third base to produce 85 to 90 runs.” This is followed by the writer adding: “A career .254 hitter with a below average on-base percentage of .293, Feliz nonetheless has forged a reputation as a consistent run producer.”

Oh no. And in USA Today, quote after quote about how Feliz’s championship experience in Philadelphia will bring happy intangibles to Houston. And then there’s something in there about how Feliz’s .301 batting average in Houston is the highest he has in any park with at-least 25 at-bats. Not to even get into the silliness of small sample size … do you know what Feliz’s numbers are at Minute Maid Park the last three years? Yep, he’s hitting .250/.298/.295. That’s about what you can expect.

Of course, people have to say nice things … but I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. I think the Astros realistically expect Feliz to help them offensively this year. And I think that is as good sign a sign as any that the Astros are going to have a rough year. It never fails to amaze me how baseball people trying to turn around bad teams have this amazing knack for seeing what they want to see and drawing unlikely conclusions and creating unrealistic happily ever afters. Pedro Feliz cannot hit. At all. He hasn’t been able to hit the last five years, and now he’s getting old which could mean he will hit even less.

But if the Astros hit him 5th or 6th all year, which seems to be the plan, he might drive in 80-plus RBIs. Some people will point to the RBI number and maybe feel good about things. Maybe there will be pressure to bring Feliz back — you can’t let go of a third baseman with 80-plus RBIs! And it will remain a mystery why the Astros don’t actually get any better.

Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » Pedro Feliz, Houston

[DaddyTorgo]

cool article

[Ksyrup]

Joe Poz is the best writer in sports today, and it's not even close. his blog is everyday reading for me. I wish he hadn't gone to SI, because now he writes a bunch of crap about Tiger and stuff I don't care about, just because he has to. But man, he's great.

[Logan]

That article fuckin owns.

[Scoobz0202]

Yea, I've said it before, Poz is a fucking God.

[Dr. Sak]

Feliz is a good fielding 3B...but he came up big when he had to with the World Series winning hit in 2008.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by Ronnie Dobbs2

It's called OBP or OPS. I mean, you're just saying develop a rate stat that is independent of how many runners are on base.

Actually, I think what he's getting at is something that does a better job than RBI of quantifying how well a batter does with runners on base. I think we can all agree that RBI is (mostly*) a function of hitting with runners on base (*the exception obviously being solo home runs). The more runners on base, the more opportunities for RBI. And the further along the base-paths those runners are, the easier it is to drive them in.

I don't follow every sabermetric measure out there, but I'm pretty sure there's a metric out there that does what I described above, and for those that are hung up on RBI, that would be the best metric to replace RBI with.

[DaddyTorgo]

yeah...i guess it'd be a "park neutralized" RISP AVG or something

[stevew]

I'm about to tap out on this season. If the Pirates win more than 52 games I will be shocked.

[stevew]

dola

it was merely 8 to 2 when I wrote that. The brewers managed to get 3 more field goals.

[DaddyTorgo]

17-2??

[stevew]

we've now lost 52-4 to the Brewers the last 4 games.

[DaddyTorgo]

damn

[Shkspr]

It is, actually, pretty simple. There's a very high correlation between RBI opportunities and the average of the OBPs of the two hitters in front of a player, and a pretty high correlation between conversion of RBI opportunities and slugging percentage. Paradoxically, the two combine as moving parts to correlate even higher when you take RBIs as a counting stat against the product of a hitter's total bases times the weighted average of the OBP of the lineup slots in front.

When you control for the quality of a player's teammates and convert to a rate stat, this all simplifies to SLG. And that's pretty much it. RISP performance, BLAC performance, pinch hitting...none of it appears to be any more indicative of a player's skill level than the basics. Your best RBI producer is a guy who is durable, hits for lots of bases per at bat, and has runners on base in front of him. And I don't think anyone else has ever found any evidence of an RBI skill that factors more than 5% or so into that formula.

[Ksyrup]

The end of Keith Law's blog about the Howard signing. It pains me to know I root for a team that is this stupid. They've done well in the draft and have money to spend - that seems to be about all that separates them from the Royals.

This signing says to me that the Phillies are still stuck in the old model of player compensation, in which counting stats, especially home runs and RBIs, earn players the biggest paychecks, and knowledge of player aging patterns was largely absent from the industry. It's one thing to say, as the Phillies do with pride, that they don't have a soul in their front office who so much as dabbles in statistical analysis. It's another to thumb one's nose at the sort of actuarial tables that drive business decisions in almost every other industry, data that say here that Howard is part of a class of players that, as a group, ages poorly past 30, and is not worth long-term commitments at increased salaries. And here, the Phillies are paying Howard to be better for the next five years than he's been for at least the last two, when we know that such a turnaround is extremely unlikely, given his skill set and body type.

I wonder what they'll do when they get to Clearwater in March 2013 and realize they've committed $25 million to a DH in a league where that position doesn't exist.

[JPhillips]

Dear Dusty,

Please see the above Poz article and reconsider having Phillips as the cleanup hitter.

Thanks.

[Ksyrup]

So those of you who follow ESPN chats might know this...

Back when Joe Morgan (and others, but it's mainly him) started chatting and giving his inane commentary about why some players are great, etc., a few people would immediately go to the next Neyer/Law, etc., chat and post that "Morgan said Sabathia deserves the CY because he won 20 games and 20 wins is all that matters," expecting/hoping the chatter would come out and say that Morgan's an idiot. But of course, they wouldn't.

So after a while, they started couching those questions as "a friend of mine says..." and essentially parroting a Joe Morgan comment. And I think it got a bit of a better reaction out of the chatters, because they weren't in on the game. Well, they have definitely caught on recently:

Henry (Columbus)


Rob, please settle an argument. A friend of mine thinks that Howard's contract is justifiable, because Mauer gets $23 million and he can't even hit 40 homers or drive in 140 runs. I try to tell him that he is wrong and that Mauer is much more valuable and that Howard is grossly overpaid... but we just go in circles. Can you settle this one?


Rob Neyer (12:38 PM)



Henry, I think your friend belongs in the Hall of Fame.

HA!

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Crapshoot

Agreed. There's Pujols and everyone else at 1b - I'd say Fielder's probably 2nd. But if Ryan frigging Howard is worth $25M, Pujols is worth 25% of the the Cardinals.

I can only image what Pujols's agent is going to ask.

[Ksyrup]

Ryan Howard is not worth $25M, that's just what the Phillies paid him. On that scale, Pujols is worth about $40M. But who's going to pay that? He'll be lucky to get $30M a year, because really, who else can pony up even $25M a year? The Yankees won't have room for him, the Red Sox would likely go after a younger guy like Gonzalez, the Giants already tried winning while paying one guy too much money, the Cubs still have Soriano, the Dodgers have an ownership mess, the Angels don't spend money on FAs...maybe the Mariners (though doubtful with Felix and possibly Lee getting big contracts)?

The point is, there is no market for these guys. That's what makes the Howard deal absurd, even apart from the fact that they've just guaranteed this money about 18 months before they really needed to. If you're going to lock someone in 2 years ahead of time, you're supposed to get a discount to offset the risk that his career could end tomorrow. They not only didn't get a discount, they paid a premium. It's insane. I get more and more pissed as I think about it.

I've had a bad week - first the Broncos draft Tebow, now this!