The right decision often isn't the popular choice
It’s often said in free agency that the winner isn’t the team that lands the star player, rather the 29 teams that didn’t. It’s the nature of the system, since the top bid is typically the one that goes beyond what every other GM thinks is prudent. It’s often difficult to see this in real time amidst the hype and speculation of the free agent chase while he’s on the market, and the national media attention and celebratory press conference by the team with the winning bid. Yet we all know how few of these mega-deals work out. Once you get into 9 figures almost all of the risk falls on the team, who later often find themselves hamstrung with a player who’s no longer productive and a roster spot they can’t open up, because cutting the player loose would be too expensive. But at least MLB free agency deals in known players and agents will tell you what other teams are bidding. The NPB posting process is the exact opposite, where teams are bidding blindly on players they are projecting. It’s hard enough to make good decisions when all of the facts are at hand, doing so while working in the dark is a recipe for kicking yourself down the road.
My position on Darvish was consistent from day one. He’s clearly the best pitcher to come out of Japan in recent memory and was worth pursuing. Previous failures with Igawa and Irabu should have next to nothing to do with their level of interest in Darvish, all players should be examined on a case by case basis. The Yanks have a need and have the cash to make it happen, but I have too many doubts attached to Darvish to justify the estimated price tag. If I put myself in Brian’s shoes, I have a hard time picturing myself looking Hal Stienbrenner in the eye and justifying a 100M outlay for a pitcher with so many question marks attached. Also, that need in the rotation is somewhat mitigated by the pitching depth at the upper levels of the Yankee farm system, as I discussed on Sunday.
As of the writing of this piece the amount of the Yankee bid is still unknown, but by all accounts it was modest. Considering the risk attached to a player who’s never thrown a single pitch in the major leagues, I think they got it right. I would have loved Darvish at a 50M total outlay (posting fee+contract). At 75M I would have swallowed hard and kept my fingers crossed. At north of 100M, I’m out. That’s the kind of money you spend on top tier, proven MLB commodities. Sure, those deals can go bad as well, but your odds of success are much greater. Paul DePodesta once compared being a GM to playing Blackjack. If you told the dealer to hit on 18 and he pulls out a 3, that doesn’t make it a smart move. If you make a habit of doing that, you’re going to lose more hands than you win. The Texas Rangers just won the right to hand over nine figures for a Japanese pitcher. This, from a team that just emerged from bankruptcy a few short years ago. Jon Daniels is a good, smart GM, but that sounds an awful lot like ‘hitting on 18′ to me.
Those who supported a mega bid for Darvish generally brushed aside concerns that I think are very real. Cultural issues, pitching every 5 days instead of once a week, the size of the ball, the best hitter he ever faced in Japan will be a routine assignment here. When he threw his best fastball in a good spot in Japan, he could be confident in getting an out. When he throws the same pitch here, that ball can end up in the seats. How will that affect him? Will he start nibbling, lose his aggressiveness and start getting bat-shy as so many Japanese imports (Dice K) and top domestic pitching prospects do? Will he start overthrowing, lose his mechanics and his command along with it? Only time will tell. Every year we see top prospects who don’t have all of these exogenous issues to contend with struggle to find success at the MLB level. Phil Hughes is still struggling to find his way after 5 seasons in the big leagues. Would anyone be surprised if Darvish takes time to adjust, and posts a 2012 campaign of an ERA in the low 4s and 13-15 wins? Now ask yourself this, would you be at all surprised to see Hector Noesi or Hiroki Kuroda give you the exact same numbers? The only difference, of course, is about 100 million dollars.
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20 Responses to Yanks play it smart on Darvish
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TIQ IQ
I agree in principle with your concerns. I still think the Yankees could swallow $100m (where only half counted against luxury tax) without many problems, but I can understand the reticence.
One small update: the “ball size” issue isn’t completely accurate. According to Baseball America, the ball in Japan was standardized in 2011 to better match the balls in the US:
http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/majors/international-affairs/2011/2612633.html
Thus, although the other issues (pitching once a week, quality of hitters, cultural adjustment, etc) are still meaningful issues, the ball itself isn’t much of an issue.
Thanks for the update, and as always thanks for reading.
Purely as a fan, I would have loved to have the Yanks win the bidding war for Darvish and sign him. However, you are correct that from a business side, $100M on an unproven player is an incredible risk to take.
Good, they didn’t eat their words.
Hey Steve,
While I wouldn’t have had a problem had the Yanks wound up being the high bidder for Darvish, I completely agree with everything you state here. This might be my favorite thing you’ve ever written; if anyone is wondering why the Yanks didn’t go bigger on Darvish your post should be required reading.
Thanks Larry, that’s high praise and very good to hear. I wouldn’t have had a huge issue if the Yanks went big on him either, but that would tell me they were getting Strasberg-like reports from their scouts, where he had so much margin for error that he was virtually foolproof. I don’t think that was the case here.
Good stuff, Steve. I felt the exact same way about the $100+ million. That’s about where I got off the Darvish train.
With the benefit of Monday morning quarterbacking, if bidding high on Darvish was a hypothetical “hit on 18,” what would the A.J. contract be as a blackjack play?
Double-down and hit on 19?
sounds more like dice-k to me.
Ditto on all the positive feedback; very well-deserved. Excellent post.
I agree with the rationale as I just can’t sign up for spending $90M or more on a guy if he’s not a near-lock to be a #1 or #2 starter.
Yu may very well pan out for the Rangers and, if so, that’s their gain and our loss. But with the degree of uncertainty attached to any pitcher with no MLB experience, it’s not a particularly intelligent gamble in my opinion. As you said, I’d rather spend 1/9th on Kuroda for one year…
I don’t really care which guy he picked or how they may have been acquired, I just want a rotation befitting a team with our resources.
In the second paragraph, you warn about letting the Irabu and Igawa experiences factor into the evaluation. In the last paragraph, you seem to do exactly that with Dice K.
To clarify, I don’t think folks should paint all Japanese pitchers with a broad brush. Each pitcher’s abilities should be looked at on a case by case basis. Japanese players like Igawa and Irabu failed because they simply weren’t good enough, and that’s a failure on the part of the Yankee scouts in not recognizing that.
But one thing Japanese imports do share are the transition issues I mentioned. Darvish may be the most talented pitcher ever to come out of Japan, but he still could under perform due to issues that have reportedly plagued Dice-K and others. So I think those those are two separate and distinct points. One on talent level, the other on risk factors.
I agree – with the possibility that the Yanks are trying to scale back the payroll by 2014, I could see this playing out as a move to conserve $$$ for next year’s pitching class from the aspect of a) a gross pool of money (ie we have 400mm to spend spread out over the next 3 off seasons if we want), but also in the sense of b) the cost of opportunity in regard to the payroll (ie (HYPO!) they may be able to afford Greinke, Hamels, and Yu while breaching 189mm, but only two of those if they want to keep the payroll under 189mm, which may still be nigh impossible).
Everyone who is despondent about not getting Darvish should read the article on “Winner’s Curse” in Wikipedia. On an unrelated point, the question is not whether Darvish will be a decent pitcher, but whether the investment required to win the auction and sign him would be better deployed in other ways. Looks like Cashman decided the money could be better spent elsewhere.
I didn’t think the Yankees were over the top in love with Darvish, but according to Andrew Marchand they bid “less than 20 million”. Which means they had no real interest at all. I figured they would stay under the 35 million mark, but this is less than the 33 million dollar bid they put in on Daisuke.
To me ‘no interest’ goes a bit too far. I think they were interested in him on their terms, and bid accordingly. I will agree that a bid like that doesn’t seem to take the marketplace into account, if they were really hot for him they had to figure someone would approach Dice-Ks posting fee. So they liked him, but didn’t love him enough to go above and beyond to get him. In practical terms that bid almost guaranteed they wouldn’t get him, but you never know.
If they truly bid less than 20 million they had no interest at all unless he fell onto their laps. A bid in the 30-35 million range, to me, would suggest they liked him but wouldn’t go overboard. A bid under 20 million means they would take him if no one else wanted him. I think the Yankees look at Darvish similar to how they looked at Nakajima. If no one else wanted him he could be useful on a next to nothing bid, but they had no real interest outisde of everyone else passing him up.
I understand your point and agree to a certain extent but I’d quarrel with the notion that a bid of $20M (or thereabouts) would represent “a next to nothing bid.”
$20M is just a little less than the Yankees have spent in the amateur draft from 2008-present so, when combined with the $50M+ contract they’d be asked to pay, we’d be talking about CJ Wilson type money. That’s not a “next to nothing bid”, that’s a substantial investment without the same guarantees that a MLB-experienced pitcher would provide.
I agree the Yankees didn’t show a great deal of interest, I just dispute the idea that the bid was negligible. $20M is an assload of money (to use the proper accounting term :-) ).
I think Texas was thinking, CJ wants $100 mm, and we have three lefties with him. We love Darvish, he’s younger, let’s spend our money that way.
If he can hold up to the 5 man rotation over time, they probably have a winner; if not, oh well.
Glad the Yanks are being more careful. This hard budget cap is going to take some getting used to, especially till some big, loong contracts finish. Not the time to take a big splashy risk.