I don’t think there are hardly any exceptions to TINSTAAPP but I’m still not all that happy.

I can’t select either option. I’d have been cool with the trade if I didn’t feel we overpaid. Thus, I’m disappointed in the move.

If there was a 1-5 scale, strongly agree through strongly oppose. I would be opposing, but nearer to the middle.

I voted for generally favor but I don’t know how special Alderson is.

I figure that he was most likely offered to Washington for Willingham and they said no. I think Freddy Sanchez was the best we could get for Alderson. Seems that most of us thought Alderson was better than people in the industry did.

My breakdown of what Sanchez means to the G’s and what Sabes could be thinking

(F Sanchez + Garko) – (1B Before + 2B Before) = 3 Games ~ 91 Wins

looking at value based upon BA prospect ranking

interesting article from hardball times"

I found a prospect’s value by finding his average production in his first six years and also the monetary savings that he gave his team. To find a prospect’s production, I used Win Shares Above Bench (WSAB) and divided by three to come up with Wins Above Bench (WAB). However, all things being equal, you’d rather have an all-star season now instead of an all-star season four years in the future. To account for this, I used an 8% discount rate and converted a prospect’s average WAB into a discounted WAB (DWAB). (discount rate is applied as sort of “interest” on future talent)

So basically, Alderson basically has an estimate value of 3.42 Win Shares Above Bench

Eight million dollars aint exactly cheap.

Good poll. The results are surprising to me at this point. Though it is possible that a vitriolic sect of McCovenites has yet to cast their votes. The comments (at least yesterday) seemed overwhelmingly negative.

Two separate studies by well respected analysts – Baseball Prospectus and The Hardball Times – studied success in the playoffs and both found that offense did not have any differentiating factor. Best run scoring. Best HR hitting. Didn’t matter. Offense had no factor in success, as defined by both studies.

What mattered in the playoffs was pitching and defense.

Obviously, you still need enough offense to make the playoffs. But as I showed in my “Hey Neukom” series earlier this year on my blog, even an offense that was at the bottom of the rankings could have a record capable of 90 wins if the pitching/defense was elite (using pthagorean rule). Thus far this season, it has been pretty close to that and thus we have been winning.

That is why I think people have been worried too much about the cleanup position, as long as we have been having enough good enough hitters up and down the lineup, we can win with our pitching and defense. I would love to get someone who could take that position, and perhaps Garko can, but that hasn’t prevented the team from staying in the wild card race.

Glad everyone’s calmed down a bit about this since yesterday. We gave up a prospect for a former batting champion who’s going to more than adequately fill our most glaring whole in the entire organization for the next year and a half. That’s a good thing!

Still pissed we didn’t sign Abreau, or Hudson, or Felipe Lopez - these guys were out there in the offseason and would have been such smarter moves. The fact that management was so far off in evaluating the talent they had on their “starting roster” for 2009, and being happy with the product they were going to put on the field is what astounds me most. The Fred Lewis/Ishikawa/Burriss experiment is what’s really disappointing – and being in management it’s easy to see their mistake. They didn’t want to spend the extra money for more training for these guys, and instead put them out there to sink or swim. Lewis was exposed last year as a middling player who probably wasn’t going to blow anyone away. But – if he’s your starting LF and you know you need to score X amount of runs from that position, and he’s only going to produce Y amount of runs - where are the extra runs coming from? The 2B was going to be a hole, the SS position was going to be a hole - Renteria’s resume is pretty straight forward, and they should have realized he was going to decline with age… so again, where were the runs going to come from? They were essentially relying on Sandoval, Molina, Winn, and Rowand for the entire offense. It just made no sense. These shortcomings are only being addressed because we are in the middle of a pennant race that they didn’t expect to be in - and as a fan - that sucks. We should be trying to WIN every year. The Giants just weren’t planning on winning this year, and their offseason moves, or lack thereof – prove this.

I agree with about 50% of each statement (the bold sections):

“I understand that Alderson is special, but TINSTAAPP, and we needed a decent-hitting 2b NOW; postseason in 2009 is realistic & worthwhile. .

I get that postseason chances aren’t to be taken lightly, but Alderson is an exception to the TINSTAAPP rule and FSanchy can’t cure our ills."

My main issue is that both answers posit that Alderson great — either “special” or “an exception to the TINSTAAPP rule”. There’s no option for people who weren’t big Alderson fans, but valued his value. I guess the “Generally Oppose” has to carry he day for me, but the wording of the questions splits me right down the creamy middle.