I am grading — no, no, you have to believe me! Yes, I am grading and it’s not even finals week. I don’t know what’s going on, either, but there may have been some kind of New Year’s resolution involved.
Anyway — I am grading, and to stay alert I am listening to an old Effectively Wild baseball podcast. By “old” I mean “from the last week of December when Sam Miller was still on the podcast.” Sam Miller is probably my favorite baseball writer… except you can’t tell that to Rob Neyer when he comes to Fox Feb 13. I am supposed to have lunch with Rob Wednesday. So I probably should erase that comment about Miller lest it leak out.
Anyway, anyway — Sam Miller said something I find compelling:
“I have the philosophy that the nicest thing that you can do in this world is accept somebody else’s fantasy league trade proposal.”
Of course I sort of knew this all along. No, really — what is this? Why isn’t anyone believing me today? Why else would I make so many trade proposals, if it wasn’t to help all of you develop as nice people?
Unfortunately, all too often my efforts have failed. Instead of eliciting exercises in kindness, many of my attempts have gone tragically astray and you only practiced hardening your hearts even harder.
Anyway, anyway, anyway: Sam Miller is no longer doing Effectively Wild, and I don’t know where to find him… Ok, I just found him on ESPN, and, yes, it’s hard to still say with a straight face that I’m grading. Thing is, what I found was an article he just wrote featuring Rich Hill, redoubtable Wolverine. When I say “redoubtable” I mean “very likely to be doubted again, given his established record of fragility.”
Anyhoo — to get back to my topic: isn’t it time someone gave me a chance to be nice? I think I need some practice.
We all need some practice. If you haven’t given someone else a chance to work on their moral development, what kind of monster are you?
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Speaking of monsters: Miller and his now-former blog partner Ben Lindberg are right now (on the old podcast) are talking about Mike Trout’s future, and whether he can set the all-time record for WAR. He has 47.7 fwar after his first 5 years, taking him through his age-24 season. Babe Ruth holds the record: 168.4 fWAR. They have also discussed how much Trout’s next contract will be, with speculation settling on something like 10 years at $40,000,000 year.
So I wonder: will an EFL team go 5 years and about $25,000,000 per year — the longest we can bid under our rules? And if they do, will it be worth it? If you assume Trout can keep up his 9.5 WAR pace, its only $2.7 million a win… I think I’d do it if I had $70,000,000 to spend. And we’ll have at least one team with $70,000,000 as soon as the remaining free agents sign…
I am going on record to say Mike Trout, the greatest non-juiced player in 50 years (and maybe 100), will be drafted by an EFL team this year, shattering all EFL records for annual salary. And it will not be a disaster for that team, and might be a great thing.