If the salary would be a wash in the supposed Dodgers deal, why take on Sherrill? Just go somewhere else and get 2 or 3 prospects.

Which sounds better than shoulder or elbow problems.

He was just used in the worst way by his manager. Maybe that should’ve been taken into account by the GM, or maybe the GM should’ve intervened at some point in the season. But the signing itself wasn’t a colossal mistake. Taveras started out decently and was looking like a savior after that five-hit game in Arizona. Dusty should’ve benched him once he tweaked his hamstring in June. The injuries and possibly the negativity doomed his season after that.

More to your general point, there are definitely bad signings that anyone can spot at the get-go, like Matthews or Eric Milton. Some GMs are just not that good. But there are also moves that are perhaps prematurely panned on the internet, like Raul Ibanez. A three-year deal for a 37 y.o. LF didn’t sound smart, but the Phillies obviously believed that he would age more gracefully than the typical corner outfielder (or Pat Burrell), which he has so far.

You do what you have to do.

Obviously, no one in the organization thinks CDick is an everyday CF (why, I don’t know). Given that, and given that Stubbs had exactly 19 games above AA (and 45 above A) and hadn’t exactly hit the cover off the ball, maybe the thinking was “We really need Taveras in ‘09; if the cost is paying him in ’10 to sit on the bench (if Stubbs is ready, which we aren’t certain of), then that’s a cost we’re willing to absorb.”

I didn’t like the Taveras signing at the time, but no one expected things to turn out the way they did – Taveras falling off a cliff, Dusty insisting on playing him everyday and hitting leadoff anyway, Stubbs maturing quickly; even if only 2 of those three things happened (again, knowing the organization had no confidence in CDick), then the signing isn’t the disaster we now think it is.

This is where the decision-making process needs reviewed, I think. If those making the decisions had realized what they had in Dickerson, the Taveras wouldn’t have happened (at least in terms of those dollars/a second year).

I think most of the angst over the Taveras deal was precisely the 2nd year.

Word was no one else was offering a second year, and this was a guy who had just been non-tendered, so why commit so much? (especially with Dickerson and Stubbs in the org.)

On the other hand, a quick glance at his Fangraphs page shows that Taveras was worth at least $4 million each of his first three big league seasons. 2008 sucked, but it looks like Walt was banking on him bouncing back…….just didn’t happen, and Walt can’t be blamed for that, indeed.

To use another example, throwing Zach Stewart in the Rolen trade seemed too much based on his stellar minor league track record. But there may have been several things which prompted the Reds to shop Stewart, like a stubborn personality or a hitch in his mechanics (all hypothetical). Those kinds of factors are much harder for us to gauge at the time of the deal. The only way they may ever come to light is through his post-trade performance. I see what you’re saying about the inherent unfairness with after-the-fact analysis, but practically we may never find out why certain deals are done unless we’re willing to re-examine how things played out.

My feeling at the time was that 2.5 was fairly reasonable, but 4 mil was way too much. I was willing to give him a chance, but I had confidence in stubbs and even c-dick at the time that made me think it was a stupid move to overpay for a low-OBP player when we had a young guy in the minors that even if he struggled would still provide good D.

Maybe the assumptions of how the date is translates into runs.

But anyway, if you accept that UZR gives an accurate measure of defensive skill, you can’t argue with Matthews’ WAR.

I thought your point was that Matthews couldn’t be that good defensively, and that small sample sizes were skewing his WAR. My point was that in those small samples, he really was that good defensively (and WAR uses UZR (the real results), not UZR/150 (the extrapolated results)).

something about getting cash to cover that bad Rheal deal?