Not Every Camaro Is a Bargain
Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2015 9:55 am
My friend, Roger Martin, was asked by a couple of other NFBC'ers, how he puts up with me.
'How do you not say 'value'?', he was asked.
The truth is , I am very used to hearing the word. Heck, we can't listen to Sirius for five minutes without hearing 'value' 10 times.
Over the course of the off season, I'd be willing to bet tht every player, except MAYBE Mike Trout has been labeled as a 'value pick'.
It's because we all like different players at different times. A drafter coveting Stanton, McCutchen, Kershaw, Goldschmidt, or Cabrera, the standard 2-6 picks, will all claim 'value' if there fella drops to that sixth spot.
I get it.
I don't like it.
But, I get it.
Bryan Vogel says it is part of America. That everything is a 'value' according to those selling. And, he's right.
Except for Ruben Amaro, we all try to put a bright spin on the things we are selling.
We never see an ad like this-
Piece of shit Chevy Camaro for sale
Be surprised if it can even be towed from my driveway, let alone driven.
Everything is wrong with it. It sucks.
$10,000 Firm
Ruben Amaro insinuated during the off seson that Ryan Howard had nothing left in the tank and even if staying with Philly, he would not be their first baseman.
Two things happened after this.
1. Other General Managers stayed away from Howard due to Amaro's assessment.
2. Howard's adp increased, drafters thinking that any Amaro logic must be followed, only in reverse.
So, if every player, save Mike Trout has value, then it stands to reason that every player is also a mispick.
Going back to the 2-6 players, if drafter six does not like Goldschmidt at all and that is the player who drops to him, and he still takes him, what is that called?
I call it a mispick or being a guppie. Either one is bad.
It is a mispick because the drafter boxed himself in. Instead of thinking outside the box and letting the other 744 or so players be a thought of his thought process, he narrowed his line of vision to just six players.
Even one that he did not care for.
He is a guppie because he is following the crowd or adp.
This wasn't a self-made choice. The choice was made for him by the first five drafters.
He has doubts about Goldschmidt's wrist. He doesn't like that Goldy is not having a powerful Spring.
Yet, he picks Goldschmidt.
And if Goldschmidt fails this year, be it under performance or injury, he will think back and wonder why he took a guy that he KNEW would under perform or get hurt.
Roger likes to tell friends that he uses the 'Bargain' word to escape the 'value' word, when talking with me.
Two totally different things in my universe. (But I never let Roger know till I just talked on the phone with him a little while ago.)
The value word is tossed around any time somebody beats ADP. Pure and simple, at least that is how it is used by NFBC standards.
On Sirius, EVERYBODY is a value at one time or another.
I even heard Clayton Kershaw called a value pick with the second pick of the draft!
Holy Shit!
What if he had gotten Trout?
Supervalue pick?
How can anybody declare a player he's 99.999999999 per cent was sure of getting, a value pick?
The answer?
Because he can.
And because it sounds good.
Kershaw at 2 is no more a value pick than Trout at 1.
Sirius just blows.
A bargain is different from value. And I just talked with Roger about how I see the differences.
A bargain is this scenario....
You are drafting in the 12th round. You really like two players and are drafting from the eighth position. You know that these two players, Daniel Murphy and Matt Carpenter have both already fallen from their ADP. This drafter knows that players falling past their ADP happens all the time and doesn't necessarily mean he's getting value. But both Murphy and Carpenter were coveted by him and are part of his plan.
What he also knows is that since Murphy and Carpenter have already fallen below their ADP, there is little chance of either making it back to him.
To throw a monkey into the wrench, Manny Machado has not been selected. He doesn't like Machado, but knows that he has fallen WAY past his ADP. Farter than Murphy and Carpenter.
Undeterred, he quickly dismisses Machado. Machado was never a part of his plan. Let somebody else claim value.
Now, he wants to take the player that will most help his team, while also giving thought to 'finessing' a player in faint hopes he makes it back to him in the 13th round.
He chooses Murphy. Now, Murphy is not a bargain here.
Sure, he wanted him and he did beat ADP, but alot of players qualify for both of those scenarios.
This, is just a good, solid pick.
The draft winds back from 7-1 and again from 1-7 and Matt Carpenter is still on the Board.
THIS, this is a bargain.
A player coveted that in no way in the world SHOULD be there in this drafter's mind, THAT is a bargain.
He can pat himself on the back for two reasons.
1. He wasn't derailed by Machado who will be called the 'value' of the draft.
2. He finessed the right player.
These scenarios are only based on the drafts themselves. We don't know Murphy, Carpenter, or Machado's real value.
We only know what we think will be on draft day.
So if a fella like Roger or anybody else uses the value or bargain word in a way that is displeasing to me, I never let them know it. Hell, if I did that, nobody would want to talk to me!
It is just the way I interpret those words.
By the way, one of my favorite moments of this past weekend was the first night at the All Star Auction.
So many good and savvy people around that table.
Anyway, Roger and I bid on a player and when Brady told us he was ours, KJ said, "You really got good VALUE there, eh Dan!"
There was a pause, a silence, and then smiling as if in a home league, I said, "F*** you, KJ!"
The laughter was enormous. Everybody knowing that it was just trash talk like we had been friends for years.
And in a way, we have.
'How do you not say 'value'?', he was asked.
The truth is , I am very used to hearing the word. Heck, we can't listen to Sirius for five minutes without hearing 'value' 10 times.
Over the course of the off season, I'd be willing to bet tht every player, except MAYBE Mike Trout has been labeled as a 'value pick'.
It's because we all like different players at different times. A drafter coveting Stanton, McCutchen, Kershaw, Goldschmidt, or Cabrera, the standard 2-6 picks, will all claim 'value' if there fella drops to that sixth spot.
I get it.
I don't like it.
But, I get it.
Bryan Vogel says it is part of America. That everything is a 'value' according to those selling. And, he's right.
Except for Ruben Amaro, we all try to put a bright spin on the things we are selling.
We never see an ad like this-
Piece of shit Chevy Camaro for sale
Be surprised if it can even be towed from my driveway, let alone driven.
Everything is wrong with it. It sucks.
$10,000 Firm
Ruben Amaro insinuated during the off seson that Ryan Howard had nothing left in the tank and even if staying with Philly, he would not be their first baseman.
Two things happened after this.
1. Other General Managers stayed away from Howard due to Amaro's assessment.
2. Howard's adp increased, drafters thinking that any Amaro logic must be followed, only in reverse.
So, if every player, save Mike Trout has value, then it stands to reason that every player is also a mispick.
Going back to the 2-6 players, if drafter six does not like Goldschmidt at all and that is the player who drops to him, and he still takes him, what is that called?
I call it a mispick or being a guppie. Either one is bad.
It is a mispick because the drafter boxed himself in. Instead of thinking outside the box and letting the other 744 or so players be a thought of his thought process, he narrowed his line of vision to just six players.
Even one that he did not care for.
He is a guppie because he is following the crowd or adp.
This wasn't a self-made choice. The choice was made for him by the first five drafters.
He has doubts about Goldschmidt's wrist. He doesn't like that Goldy is not having a powerful Spring.
Yet, he picks Goldschmidt.
And if Goldschmidt fails this year, be it under performance or injury, he will think back and wonder why he took a guy that he KNEW would under perform or get hurt.
Roger likes to tell friends that he uses the 'Bargain' word to escape the 'value' word, when talking with me.
Two totally different things in my universe. (But I never let Roger know till I just talked on the phone with him a little while ago.)
The value word is tossed around any time somebody beats ADP. Pure and simple, at least that is how it is used by NFBC standards.
On Sirius, EVERYBODY is a value at one time or another.
I even heard Clayton Kershaw called a value pick with the second pick of the draft!
Holy Shit!
What if he had gotten Trout?
Supervalue pick?
How can anybody declare a player he's 99.999999999 per cent was sure of getting, a value pick?
The answer?
Because he can.
And because it sounds good.
Kershaw at 2 is no more a value pick than Trout at 1.
Sirius just blows.
A bargain is different from value. And I just talked with Roger about how I see the differences.
A bargain is this scenario....
You are drafting in the 12th round. You really like two players and are drafting from the eighth position. You know that these two players, Daniel Murphy and Matt Carpenter have both already fallen from their ADP. This drafter knows that players falling past their ADP happens all the time and doesn't necessarily mean he's getting value. But both Murphy and Carpenter were coveted by him and are part of his plan.
What he also knows is that since Murphy and Carpenter have already fallen below their ADP, there is little chance of either making it back to him.
To throw a monkey into the wrench, Manny Machado has not been selected. He doesn't like Machado, but knows that he has fallen WAY past his ADP. Farter than Murphy and Carpenter.
Undeterred, he quickly dismisses Machado. Machado was never a part of his plan. Let somebody else claim value.
Now, he wants to take the player that will most help his team, while also giving thought to 'finessing' a player in faint hopes he makes it back to him in the 13th round.
He chooses Murphy. Now, Murphy is not a bargain here.
Sure, he wanted him and he did beat ADP, but alot of players qualify for both of those scenarios.
This, is just a good, solid pick.
The draft winds back from 7-1 and again from 1-7 and Matt Carpenter is still on the Board.
THIS, this is a bargain.
A player coveted that in no way in the world SHOULD be there in this drafter's mind, THAT is a bargain.
He can pat himself on the back for two reasons.
1. He wasn't derailed by Machado who will be called the 'value' of the draft.
2. He finessed the right player.
These scenarios are only based on the drafts themselves. We don't know Murphy, Carpenter, or Machado's real value.
We only know what we think will be on draft day.
So if a fella like Roger or anybody else uses the value or bargain word in a way that is displeasing to me, I never let them know it. Hell, if I did that, nobody would want to talk to me!
It is just the way I interpret those words.
By the way, one of my favorite moments of this past weekend was the first night at the All Star Auction.
So many good and savvy people around that table.
Anyway, Roger and I bid on a player and when Brady told us he was ours, KJ said, "You really got good VALUE there, eh Dan!"
There was a pause, a silence, and then smiling as if in a home league, I said, "F*** you, KJ!"
The laughter was enormous. Everybody knowing that it was just trash talk like we had been friends for years.
And in a way, we have.