ChiefsCountry's advice on buying jerseys - retired or dead.

I don't disagree - it's why nobody really tries to do it.

What I'm saying is that using a bad approach to set your bar probably isn't the way to go about doing it.

Would you really be happy getting a slightly below average regular for 4 years at $18 million/season? Because that's what the $8.4/share model says is a solid return.

Another way to look at it - I'll truncate it a bit because I did this a couple seasons ago and truly don't remember exactly what the math was. I went through and looked at a fair number of baseball's above average or better teams over about a 5 year span. I took out pitcher WAR and just looked at what the position players on those teams were doing. For average to good teams, a solid threshhold for 'successful' ballclubs was that their position players were giving them about 1 WAR per 275 PAs (PAs also giving a fair proxy for defensive innings).

If you figure 4 healthy seasons yields about 2600 total plate appearances then you need about 9.5 wins over that time period for him to be considered an above average regular for a good team.

Are you content with $18 million for an above average regular on a good team? I'm not so sure I would be.

Like I said, I really think $6 million/share is what teams should be striving for. That gets you 12 WAR over his 3 years which is a pretty reasonable expectation. It also gets you a genuinely good regular over the life of the deal.

It's a far more nuanced approach to it, IMO. It tells you how a team should function if it wants to be a good team, rather than simply a team that wants to be smarter than dipshits like Arte Moreno.

All that said, I think Gordon beats $6 million/share, to be honest. He's a damn good player and as a lifelong Royal (and the devil you know), Royals fans should be excited as hell to have him back at that figure. Again, congrats to you guys; it's always nice when you see a player play out his career with the same squad, especially when he's a local kid who's gone from the bottom of the heap to the top of the mountain with you.

Really neat story.

It's dependent on the situation. Do I want to pay 8.4/WAR to go from 60 wins to 62 wins? No. I'd pay that and more to go from 87 to 89, though.

Hmm....

**** YES!

Personalized.

Awesome!

He's just trolling. Asshat also thinks the Royals should trade Colon to the White Sox.

Congrats to Alex and to the Royals...and to us!

Shouldn't this piece of news be worthy of it's own thread?

Possibly - but were the Royals at risk of falling below 88 wins?

I guess the marginal win shares argument doesn't really apply unless you think that Starling would've been ready this year or next. You kinda need Dyson to start in RF already, don't you? You'd have been left with some pretty iffy options in the other corner had Gordon not returned.

It's just a long way of saying that the $8.4/share 'blanket' analysis is largely worthless. There's pretty much one situation where I think it makes sense - where a team is sitting right below the fringe of playoff caliber and have an organizational gap in the hole they're filling. At that point you could consider 'market' price a fair barometer. Otherwise there is just way too much stuff to consider.

That is good advice. I'm forever a Gordon fan and with his Homerun in game 1 (amongst a host of other reasons) he will go down as a Royals hero unless something Bill Cosbyesque comes out about him.

Internet. You always manage to surprise me.

Oh god yes, given this window we are in.