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Bio:
My name is Tyler Hissey, a 22-year-old baseball fanatic from Connecticut. My love for the game started young, as I was born into a big baseball family. Unfortunately for me, most of the athleticism and talent went to my cousins, David and Peter, a fourth-round selection of the Boston Red Sox in the 2008 draft. I played my first two years at Eckerd College down in the Sunshine State Conference, but I fell on the wrong side of Value Over Division II Replacement Player. After an arm injury and the lack of secondary skills ended my collegiate career, though, I began reading and writing about baseball in order to help me cure my baseball fix. Luckily, the Internet has given me the opportunity to voice my opinion on the sport to the world. After reading Moneyball for a business course, I begin to get into sabermetrics. I pretty much learned more reading Baseball Between the Numbers than I did in my 12-plus years as a serious amateur player. My experiences in baseball journalism coincided with my improvement as a student there, and I finished my career reaching the Dean’s List in my final four semesters while graduating with honors. I was also nominated for the school’s Writing Excellence Award during my junior year, an honor that would have never been bestowed upon me if not for my interest in baseball blogging and desire to improve as a writer as a result.

When I saw this post on BP, I really thought it was such a great idea. In the country club baseball world in which outsiders are generally ignored (though this is changing), I really appreciate that you are offering such an amazing opportunity. I feel that I would be a good Idol candidate due to my writing ability, passion for the game and willingness to learn as much about baseball as I can. Most important, I have garnered some solid baseball writing experience the past few years, working for several different websites. I started out my own baseball-themed blog (click here) back in 2006; not having to go to the field for 40 hours per week left me with a lot of free time. I was then recruited to write for MVN.com, which eventually led to an opportunity with Scout.com/FoxSports. I covered the Rays for Scout from April 2007 through January 2009 (click here for archive). Several of my articles on Scout were even featured directly on the Fox site, and I hosted the trade deadline live blog on the MSN MLB page as well. Since I stopped writing at Scout earlier this winter, I have contributed at Dugout Central (click here for archive) and have become editor of Around the Majors (click here), a national baseball blog on MVN.com. I have gone back to my blogging roots at MVN, but I am doing it right this time. I have assembled a pretty talented staff of writers, and our traffic is increasing each and every day. Through Dugout Central, more of my work has been syndicated on FoxSports.com. I also am the co-host of Minor League Notebook Weekly (click here to listen to previous shows) and my own podcast (click here) on BlogTalk Radio. I have interviewed some noteworthy guests on both shows, including Jonah Keri, Tommy Rancel, Dave Cameron, Kevin Goldstein, Toby Hyde, Tim Dierkes, Michael Andrews of SoxProspects.com, Benjamin Kabak and several other prominent MLB bloggers.

Thanks for coming up with this outside-the-box idea, providing a great opportunity for many baseball bloggers in my shoes. It was a difficult decision to choose which article to attach, but I decided to go with my piece from this winter criticizing the Raul Ibanez contract.


Entry:
Raul Ibanez Contract Analysis

Here is a tale of four players and their quest for a big pay day on the free agent market this winter.

Player A entered the offseason expecting to cash in after coming off a season in which he hit .296/.371/.471 with 20 home runs and a 120 OPS+. Although he is about to turn 35, he has been a durable player throughout his career, reaching the 150-game plateau every year since 1998. His lowest OPS+ total during that time span came in 2007, when he put up a 114 mark, but he has been a consistent offensive performer and a tough out since he emerged as a full-time regular. The major drawback with him, though, is his below-average outfield defense; he produced a -22.9 UZR rating in 2008 and has been in the red in this category since 2004, giving back a lot of the runs that he helps create with his bat.

Since his team declined to offer him arbitration, though, Player A was not attached to a draft pick. He has posted the following value win totals (all data courtesy of FanGraphs) since 2005: 4.2, 3.4, 2.8, 1.5.

Originally looking for a multi-year contract entering free agency, Player A, with less than a week before the start of spring training, agreed to an incentive-laden one-year deal that guarantees $5-M.

Player B was productive offensively in ’08, batting .250/.367/.507 with 33 home runs to help his team to a World Series championship. Since ’05, he has put up OPS+ totals of 128, 122, 127 and 125, respectively, belting 124 home runs. A former number one overall pick, he has been a consistent right-handed hitter while playing in the same city for his entire career. He is about to turn 33, and, while he has old-player skills, it is unlikely that is headed for a major decline in the short term. Similar to Player A, though, he is a liability in the outfield, which negates some of his offensive contributions and negatively impacts his overall value. His UZR marks range from -1.1 to -19.2 during the time span mentioned earlier in the paragraph.

Player B was also not offered arbitration, meaning that he would not cost a draft pick if a new team were to sign him on the free agent market. He has put up the following value win totals since 2005: 4.4, 2.4, 2.1, 3.2.

Player B signed a two-year, $16-M contract in early January.

Player C is a polarizing figure within the industry, but it is hard to argue with his plus power. He has hit more than 40 home runs five consecutive times, including 46 in 2004. Since then, he has blasted exactly 40 homers each year. Player B also has excellent on-base skills, with the ability to post consistently above-average OBP figures despite a perennial low batting average. A Three True Outcome hitter, a large portion of his plate appearances end with a long ball, strike out or walk.

Like his counterparts available on the free agent market, Player C is also a poor defender. As a left fielder, he has ranked near the bottom of the pack in the National League in UZR, with totals ranging from -4.0 to -20.0 since 2003.

About to turn 29, Player C was also looking for a big payday in his first dive into the free agent waters. According to teammates, he had his hopes set on $100-M-plus early in the ’08 season. Since he was also not offered arbitration, he did not come with any draft pick baggage, either. His value win totals since 2005: 3.0, 1.8, 2.8, 1.3.

Player C agreed to terms with a perennial loser at two-years, $20-M on the same day as Player A. He will likely play first base for his new team.

Player D has been able to consistently hit for a high batting average, having topped the .280 mark every campaign since 2001. His on-base skills have not been nearly as impressive as the other players in this story, though; he has never topped the .360 mark in on-base percentage. He also has hit the fewest amount of homers out of the group since ’05, with his career-high, 33, coming in ’06. Regardless, he is still a nice hitter (his ballpark suppressed his output) who has posted an OPS+ total above 120 for three straight seasons.

Player D is a mediocre defensive outfielder as well, however, costing his team several runs on the other side of the ball. Like the aforementioned players, he has been in the red in UZR, including a terrible -21.2 number in 2007. Player B is the oldest of the group, born in 1972, and the most likely candidate for a decline. In addition, as a Type A free agent who was offered arbitration, suitors were aware that he would cost the team an early draft pick. His value win totals since ’05: 2.2, 2.9, 0.8, 2.3.

Player D was given $31.5-M over three years-he will be close to 40 at the duration-in the second week of December. Essentially, his new team, perhaps unaware of the full extent of his poor defense, set the market for similar players while incurring the cost of a draft pick. Also, he is a left-hander hitter headed to a team featuring a lefty-heavy lineup.

This offseason there was a surplus of players who provide offensive pop on the market. The majority of these free agents, though, are terrible defenders. While advanced defensive data has its flaws, the majority of scouts agree with the data when it comes to the players included in this exercise. Front offices across the league are finally valuing defense appropriately, it seems, and this contributed to the plummeting prices. Combined with the poor economic climate and the perfect example of demand exceeding supply, there was no reason for the Philadelphia Phillies to sign Player D, Raul Ibanez, at that price so early into the game.

The Ibanez signing was criticized at the time-rightfully so. However, after seeing what Player A (Bobby Abreu, Los Angeles Angels), Player B (Pat Burrell, Tampa Bay Rays) and Player C (Adam Dunn, Washington Nationals) received in a depressed market, the decision seems even more foolish in hindsight. Ibanez is arguably the least productive player out of the four. He is a poor defender who is not an upgrade defensively over Burrell, who is also younger and less likely to fall off the map offensively. Plus, he cost a draft pick, is a major decline candidate and was overpaid (he was given the longest and most lucrative deal on an annual basis) relative to the market; the law of supply and demand is not all that difficult of a concept. Another big slugger who costs his team runs in the outfield, Manny Ramirez, is still available as well. There were (and still are) also a number of lesser-type corner outfield/DH bats who were (and will be in the coming weeks) forced to take pay cuts on the free agent market.

Ruben Amaro has made up for this clear-cut blunder in the arbitration process, but he used the wrong processes in his first major move as general manager of the Phillies. Even if Amaro truly felt that Ibanez was the best available option, Philadelphia likely could have had its man for cheaper, preserving precious financial resources.

Setting the market with so many players with similar skill sets, of course, is usually not the most effective strategy for general managers, especially so during an economic recession. Hopefully Amaro has learned his lesson and will not fall into the same trap in the future.

Thank you for reading

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choopes
5/18
Went to high school with Pete. Article looks great goodluck in the contest.
LindInMoskva
5/18
As of 5/18 Burrell has a .664 OPS and is hurt. Abreu has a .748 OPS and no home runs. Dunn is killing the ball but Ibanez has a 1.168 OPS with 13 homeruns. Is it possible the scouts knew something that didn't show up in sabremetrics?
KBarth
5/18
Ibanez is hitting in Philadelphia, in a fine lineup and a hitter's park.

It's definitely possible that Ibanez is a scouting signing.

It's also only 6 weeks into the season, so maybe it's a small sample size, too. Still, no one will take away those 13 HR.

I still think it's weird that the Phils went for a left-handed hitter to replace Burrell. So far, they look like geniuses. We'll see if the production continues for three years. So far, so good, though.
vegasman
5/18
Tyler, in his modesty, forgot to mention that he is part of the second highest rated Baseball Show on all of Blog Talk Radio also, in addition to his podcast. Great job with the article Tyler and good luck in the competition!
Oleoay
5/18
It's a well-written and comprehensive article, but is it necessarily new? Many sites besides Dugout Central, including BP, have compared these four players and their contract signings. The Player A/B/C/D thing does not really add to the suspense.
hotstatrat
5/18
My sentiments exactly.
nickgieschen
5/18
Can we stop with the player A, B, C thing already?
wcarroll
5/18
I'm adding my judging comment to each article:

Hissey, Tyler -- 8. He's likeable. I feel like more than anyone thus far, he showed personality. As for the piece, I *hate* "mystery player" format pieces like this. Hate them. This one though, I liked the writing if not the format. I get the feeling that he "gets it" and could do things outside this trite format. He feels a little bit buzzword happy, throwing in a UZR or BABIP kind of willy-nilly, but as far as raw material, this is one of my favorites.
Oleoay
5/18
As an early submission for the contest, I think my personality just got a kick in the ego-pants... ouch :(

Wait till next year ;)
bmmcmahon
5/21
FWIW, I like "Player A, B, C"-format pieces. It allows me to test my biases by trying to figure out which player is which. Joe does these very well.

However, I think the description of each went on a bit long. You need to get to the punchline faster, then get on with the analysis.
bflaff
5/18
Congrats to Tyler for making the finals.

The sturm und drang about the Ibanez contract has been a pet peeve for a while now, especially because -- now that Ibanez has started out fantastically well -- the people who built the consensus that the Phillies were dopes to sign him for this much are all doubling down on their initial positions.

I know this entry was written sometime before the season started, but w/r/t BP Idol, it would have been a lot more interesting if the entry had joined the 2 percenters who disagree with the consensus on the Ibanez deal, instead of simply going with the flow and bolstering (with numbers) the argument made by many other people. The fact that this was written before the season started doesn't really mitigate that criticism. BP performs a valuable service when it can illuminate something new, or pop the CW balloon with some fact-based analysis, but it is less interesting when it simply reiterates the CW. I don't remember Steve Phillips and Joe Morgan (or some other saber punching bag) waxing ecstatic about the Ibanez deal, so it's not like the 'bad contract' side is/was engaged in some great debate with another established viewpoint.

As far as the actual argument against the Ibanez deal goes, I will c'n'p a comment I made on another site (rhymes with 'manstaffs'):

I don't agree with the CW that Ibanez was just some fungible guy, and that the Phils should have sorted through the remainder pile in February to get the same production at half the price. Would the Phillies have liked to get Ibanez for 10 cents on the dollar? Of course. The big question is: Was that going to happen? I’m not sure that anyone can sit there and say that the Phils were way over the market for him, because we have no way of knowing what other teams were willing to pay for him. Maybe that was his market, and if you wanted him, that was the price.

Yes, the Phillies went over the broader market for available left fielders, but they didn’t want any of those other guys. Better players still take a premium, even in this economy. I don’t get the logic that says that if a handful of suboptimal players at a particular position had to sign below market deals, then the good players at the position should be expected to sign the same kind of deal. It’s an interesting negotiating tactic, but if the other owners aren't as cheap as you, you’re going to be rummaging through the remainder bin in January, hoping to get lucky. You know who overpaid even more extravagently for their left fielder, considering the bear market? The Dodgers. If Manny hadn't gotten pregnant, they'd be pretty satisfied with the price they paid.

In Ibanez the Phillies got a player who fit their needs much better than Burrell or any of the other LFs available in the FA pool, despite the fact that Ibanez was left-handed, played suspect D, and was not a perfect, computer generated baseball player with no flaws, and it cost them at least $5 million a year less than Burrell would have cost. So they got the FA they wanted, a player that they could reasonably expect to outperform his predecessor, and they banked a couple million to spend on other needs. This gets framed as some sort of blunder on their part? Tough crowd. In most jobs, if people make a deal like that, they get a pat on the back.
daiheide
5/19
The article is interesting, but I think it reiterates a point that has already been made ad nauseum. BP generally provides insights that are unavailable at other sites (at least, unavailable at the level of clarity and depth you find here). I don't feel that way about this piece.

That's not to say this isn't a worthy topic. But had the piece included analysis at a level not so easily found everywhere else, it might have been a bit more interesting. For example, the author might have focused less on the rather mundane statistical comparison of the players and more on the mechanics of the market or more on the particular decision process of the Phillies during what was, by all counts, a strange market.
rogerb
5/26
yeah. i mean really, ibanez contract analysis? i would have suspected it'd take something more original than this to make the finalists.
MHaywood1025
5/19
While the Player A/B/C comparison's have been used countless times, I still believe they serve a useful purpose. After all, how better to compare players empirically than to remove as many subjective factors as possible? (i.e. - what you may think based on a player's name only)

Also, there are a few submissions that cover "old" topics, so I don't believe that should be seen as a detraction for the purposes of the competition. I wouldn't expect this to be an article the winner might write, but Will made it clear that literally anything could be submitted.
Oleoay
5/19
"Here is a tale of four players and their quest for a big pay day on the free agent market this winter."

That line, along with the title of the article "Ibanez Contract Analysis" pretty much kills most of the mystery about players A/B/C/D. What other four free agents from "this winter" are even remotely comparable? Texiera? Sabathia?

I don't mind ABC mysteries if the end of the book isn't given away in the first sentence.
vandorn
5/20
I agree. I think the "Player A/B/C" type analyses are overdone too, but when they're done properly the point is to filter out external information that you also know that may cloud your judgement on the player. But that purpose gets defeated when such player specific information is included that you can figure out each example by the end of the second sentence.

By the end of the paragraph you're trying to figure out whether you should be pretending that you don't know who the player really is.
hotstatrat
5/20
Sure "anything" could be submitted, but that doesn't beg for tired old news. It's not my game, but if it were, I would have dinged it for lack of originality.
deepblue64
5/19
I echo the point about originality. Ruben Amaao has defended the signing saying he felt that Ibanez was a more consistent hitter, a better base runner and a slightly better fielder. Would love to see some analysis of that position.
hessshaun
5/20
Yeah, I skipped through this article very quickly, simply because it was something I read about 20 times before the start of the season. I am a Phils fan, so I naturally gravitate to all news good or bad. I am interested in reading his piece next round.

The funniest part of the entire article..... RBIbanez was just named player of the week. Made me chuckle because Player C's, I mean Dunn's, spectacular defensive capabilities attributed to at least two additional RBI's over the weekend.
kcwilson
5/20
How is this anything more than a retelling of facts that every baseball rag came out with immediate post? Now I'm mad at myself for not entering.