I agree with everyone on what they SHOULD do, but as usual we are stuck between should and likely .


Option A ) competent front office picks the appropriate time to trade him for the appropriate return

Option B) not so competent front office lets him simply play out his deal and the team gets lucky and he gets to play in the playoffs one more time while he's here

These two are interchangeable, your mileage may vary

Option C) if you MUST extend him , or choose that path, dont go beyond what I outlined above

Option J) do the d back for life deal and make the last several Helton years in Colorado look like good value

_________________
trading young number one over all talent for back end of the rotation talent was fundamentally irresponsible. BFDD

They have painted themselves into a corner and have no choice.

Maybe the new agent can force a trade? Goldy looks good because he says all he wants is to play for a winner but maybe he gets a new contract with the new team.

Dbacks get out of the hole they have dug for themselves and go for a complete rebuild with new competent management.

Who am I kidding. Lifetime deal announced before the end of this shitty season to make fans feel good. Three Stooges DH, TLR and Stu now have to figure out how to field a team with the lowest payroll in the NL West with both Goldy and Greinke contracts.

Just last week DHall said this is what they want to do just last week. So it's what they'll do.

Which I'm fine with, but if the way they've handled salary is any indication, they'll hamstring the payroll of the rest of the roster sticking to an arbitrary self-imposed low cap while carrying his inflated salary along with it (AKA what you've just said).

_________________
So-cratz - "The only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing".

Good interview with Goldy HERE

A little softbally. But some interesting points about approach and preparation.

_________________
trading young number one over all talent for back end of the rotation talent was fundamentally irresponsible. BFDD

As the team considers whether or not to extend Goldy, here is something for them to chew on that should make them wait it out a bit more, i.e. perhaps well beyond start of 2017 season:

From beginning of 2013 through June 30 2015

1514 PA .313/.414/.567 75 HR, 17.1 HR/AB ratio, .254 ISO

From July 1 2015 through July 22, 2016

762 PA, .291/.406/.502, 29 HR, 21.8 HR/AB ratio, .211 ISO

Now keep in mind, since the middle of last year, major league baseball has seen a sharp spike in HR, and overall offense. The HR/G and the Runs/G have jumped.

That means in context, this power dropoff is even MORE of an issue than the raw numbers indicate.

This can be seen in wRC+ which is park and league adjusted wOBA , and set to scale of 100, so similar to OPS+ over 100 is better than average.

Over the 4/1/13 through 6/30/15 period he had a 163 wRC+

Since 7/1/15 he has a 139 wRC+

It's very possible that Goldy already peaked, and while remaining a VERY VERY VERY good ballplayer on a great contract, they need to be extremely careful what they do here.

_________________
trading young number one over all talent for back end of the rotation talent was fundamentally irresponsible. BFDD

Sound advice and analysis from you as always, shoe.

Unfortunately we can always count on the Dbacks front office to do the MOST WRONG thing possible in just about any given situation.

I wish I could get you TLR's, Stewart's, and Watson's email addresses so you could forward this (and so many other great insights from you) their way.

_________________
Greinke good, uniforms bad.

Trade him to Astros before deadline for Bregman, Kyle Tucker, and Garrett Stubs. Move Lamb to 1B and Drury to 3B. His trade value may never be any higher and the Astros surely see the possibility of a strong push for/in the playoffs.

Yikes that is about what we gave up for Miller maybe a bit less.

I think you can say Bregman and Swanson(at time of the trade) are very close to equal maybe an edge to Bergman. But Blair and Inciarte (at the time of the trade) have a ton more value than Tucker and Stubbs right now.

Trade "Americas First Baseman" you bunch of commies.

Update

Goldy since June 19th

177 PA, 3 HR, .297/.379/.439 .818 OPS, 11 doubles, 1 triple, 3 Homers, 20 walks, (4 Int. Walk 16 unintentional) 28 K's.

Still good BA and OBP, but thats not very much power at all.

He's had these power outages before, and then come back to hit a slew. It wouldn't surprise me to see him go on a tear and hit 10 more or so this season and still end up in the high 20's.

HOWEVER since July 1 of last year he only has 30 HR in his last 191 games, 841 PA. .291/.406/.494 137 wRC+

He is becoming a late career Todd Helton earlier in his career than Helton did, where the homers dwindle and the value is in BA, OBP,, and Defense.

_________________
trading young number one over all talent for back end of the rotation talent was fundamentally irresponsible. BFDD

Historically Goldschmidt has mashed with runners on. Not so much this year. I have been trained over last ten year to not consider stats like these, but I highly suspect the dbacks front office does put a ton of stock into situational hitting performance.

But either way, why is Bourn still hitting 2nd in the lineup. Its not for Bourn's sake, he has no future with the team. Either bat Goldy 2nd to setup Lamb, or Lamb 2nd to set up Goldy. Segura is fine as leadoff with his turnaround this season. Lamb and Goldy are the only others with decent OBP. Maybe once healthy Pollock or Peralta could be a decent 2nd hitters, but right now we don't have anybody other than Segura that would be better in front of Lamb+goldy than behind.

Pollock hit 2nd all last year and was highly successful as a guy who gets on base a lot and is very active on the base pads. Why would that change going forward assuming AJ returns? I don't think anybody is suggesting Bourn as a long term 2 hole hitter. He is a short term fill in due to horrible circumstances this year.

I was messing around with PI to find comps for Goldschmidt based on his hitting skillset, rather than age + position. Here are the other guys in their combined 25-27 seasons with >.545 SLG, >250 BB, and <105 HR since 1961 (note: every one of these players had a >.300 BA):

Bonds
Votto
Berkman
Chipper
Abreu

Even though all of these players are reasonably different from each other, they were all productive well into their 30s. Jury's still out on Votto, obviously.

If you lower the SLG to .500, you only bring in two more players and the BA for each falls under .300:

Staub - .501
Santo - .520

If you change HR to a floor of 102 from the original set of parameters, you get this group and a couple of hitters fall under .300 BA:

Thomas
Pujols
Thome
P. Fielder
Manny
Helton

There's not really a direct comp for Goldschmidt. He doesn't quite have the power of the slugger 1B/DH-types, but he's also much more athletic than them. Between PEDs, expansion-diluted talent, the lockout, and Coors Field, there are still a lot of factors impacting the years in question for a sizable number of these comps that are difficult to account for here.

At a minimum, players who've had skillsets most similar to Goldschmidt at 25-27 over the last 50+ years have aged pretty well. When you're basically looking at HOF-type hitting ability, I suppose that's not a huge surprise.

again...the "into his 30's" is a little vague. They HAVE him tied up for ages 30-31, and barring injury, nobody expects him to go cliff diving before 2019, his age 31 season. Also he is almost done with his age 28 season, and turns 29 in one month, so not quite sure why you cut off comps at age 27.

Anyway, lets look at this from 3 angles, extending him, trading him, or doing neither (i.e. play out current deal)

Angle 1: Extension

I've been playing with WAR calculators, and I'll just give the summaries here based on either a 5/125 or 5/150 deal

If it has to be 6/160 to 6/180 thats a complete non starter for me. No way. No way in hell. But if 5/125 to 5/150, see below:

IF based on 5 yrs, 125 M extension (2022-2026, ages 32-36) and he produces:

10 WAR, then team ends up -25 M
15 WAR, then team ends up +27M
20 WAR, then team ends up +80M

IF based on 5 yrs, 150 M deal and he produces

10 WAR, then team ends up -50M
15 WAR, then team end up +3M
20 WAR, then team ends up +55M

SO in either case, 15 WAR from ages 32-36 is the minimum you need to break even on an extension. Less than that you are losing money and it's just a matter of how much.

Now, lets look at my PI list

This is RIGHT HANDED first basemen AND DH's, since 61, ages 32-36. (Minimum 1500 PA, if he doesn't reach that they're totally screwed no matter what) I added DH because the NL will probably have the DH by 2020 anyway.

I think the handedness is an important filter. It's easier to stay on the field in a part time role as a left handed batter even when you have lost some bat speed as you still have the platoon advantage the vast majority of the time.

report link

the fact that the list lengthens so much when you add LH and switch hitters tends to support that idea.

Bottom line is you hope you come out ahead by getting Bagwell's decline, or at least come close to breaking even if you get Berkman or Olerud level production, but end up losing money if you get Konerko/Helton type declines


Angle 2 Trading Him:

I think Goldy is a good bet to continue to annually provide at least 4 WAR, and possibly 5 or 6, for the next 2-3 seasons. Thats not really the issue. The issue is whether or not that production will be wasted on more seasons where they miss the playoffs.

If you think the D Backs stand better than a 50% chance of at least making the Wild Card in 2017 or 2018, then it's reasonable not to trade him. But if the team's playoff odds are below 50% heading into 2017 or 2018, then it's a poor gamble to keep him. His trade value is still sky high and they can get A LOT to fuel a rebuild if they move him now. Even if the he produces really well the next couple of seasons, what does it matter if the team can't make the post season ?


Angle 3 Let him play it out

They can always just let the contract play out. But you miss the advantages of either extending him or trading him.

It only has upside if he plays really well the next 3 seasons, the team makes the playoffs once or twice, and then he falls off a cliff at age 32 after you let him walk and got nothing in return.


Summary:

I'd trade him if I thought the team had the ability to maximize the return and navigate a rebuild successfully. But I don't.

If the team can extend him for 5/125, take it. There is a far less than zero chance they lose money on that, but the odds are that it won't be a disaster and they could still come out ahead too. At 5/150 pretty much the best they are likely to do is break even. So I would negotiate pretty hard for 5/125, (starting lower of course) and my bottom line would be 5/137

If Goldy's camp won't take that deal, then you trade him. You just do it.

_________________
trading young number one over all talent for back end of the rotation talent was fundamentally irresponsible. BFDD

FWIW, those comps for Goldschmidt weren't meant to be an argument for extending him - I still think that would be a huge mistake.

One other thing I noticed was that, with the exception of Bonds, there really wasn't upside in those bats after 27. It's pretty hard to do a lot better than .300/.400/.550, so that's no huge surprise.

[Also, Chipper Jones was just stupidly good. Looking at his minor league numbers, he was probably robbed of at least two seasons by Pendleton and the lockout. Imagine if the Braves had sold high on him after '92? Chipper slashed .346/.367/.594 in 285 PA in the Southern League as a 20-year-old that year. Instead, Pendleton comes back to earth as 32-year-old in '93, leaves as a free agent in '94, and the Braves get nothing for him. No way that happens nowadays, unless you're the D-backs.]

This is still all true three months later. He has a lower ISO than Ian Kinsler right now. Even with his power outage starting last summer, he's still ranked 11th in baseball from 2013-2015. He's ranked 63rd in 2016.

http://insidethezona.com/2016/08/paul-g ... reer-bamf/

Lifetime deal is on the way.

Goldschmidt's power decline in 2015:

- .363/.481/.679 through 6/17/15
- .302/.404/.419 the rest of June
- .269/.382/.434 from 7/1 - 9/9
- .352/.466/.718 in final 88 PA of the year

I wonder how much of the power surge to end last season was attributable to the annual September talent dilution? I also wonder if he hurt himself somewhere between 6/15 and 6/18?

Goldschmidt was at .243/.405/.426 through 5/27 of this year. He's gone .338/.429/.545 in 353 PA since then. However, he only has 12 HR in that stretch and is sporting a .392 BABIP for that run.

FLY BALL/LINE DRIVE EXIT VELOCITY

2015 96.9, Ranked 13th

2016 94.6, Ranked 89th

_________________
trading young number one over all talent for back end of the rotation talent was fundamentally irresponsible. BFDD

I'd love to see splits for the exit velocity data.