The Curious Case of Khalil Greene

In 2003, Moneyball hit the shelves and caused a revolution in baseball thinking.  Not necessarily in what it said, because there wasn't much very new there.  Baseball Prospectus had been around seven years by that time and Bill James was writing his abstracts over 20 years prior.  What did seem to change, though, was the discussion of baseball.  Sabermetrics made it into the mainstream, not just the corner of the party where the slightly obsessed hung out.  OBP and WHIP are now mainstay acronyms, even showing up on ballpark scoreboards.  Inroads continue to be made.

(At least that was my perspective of it.  Of course, in early 2003 I was on only two message boards, one mid-size, one small.  I didn't have the web presence of this blog and the vast line of UCB products such as the UCB blogs, UCB radio and, coming soon to a store near you, UCB the video game!)

Since the saber age, if you can call it that, really kicked into gear, many of the arguments of player acquisitions have come down on the traditional vs. statistical fault line.  Usually, moves are made where a fan with one mindset says, "Wow, a .280 hitter with 20 HR!" and a fan with the other says, "Ugh, his OBP is .295 and his fielding rating is sub-par."  It's somewhat the difference between the old and the new.

In the case of Khalil Greene, it's the first time with a Cardinal acquisition when I've seen the sabermetric crowd not able to come to a consensus.  On the one hand, Pip at Fungoes, a blogger whom I've made clear I respect immensely, is not a fan of the move.  Yet the guys at Beyond the Boxscore, another very reputable blog, make the case that acquiring Greene is a good thing.  Perhaps nowhere is this tension more notable than the fanpost over at Viva El Birdos discussing the deal.

Really not sure what to make of this intrasquad tension.  Seems to me both sides have some good stats to back up their contentions, so it really boils down to which ones you like better.  Or it means we have to wait until the season starts to really judge how everything works out.

Looking at the bigger picture, it seems to me that it's a good move.  On a day when Edgar Renteria signs for $18.5 million over two years, this deal gives the Cards a younger player for less with the flexibility that, if it doesn't work out after a year, the two can go their separate ways.  There are conflicting reports on whether the Padres are sending money to St. Louis (Bernie says up to $2 million, but Towers says none so I'd lean toward none), but any money that does come in is just bonus.

(And I see where Derrick Goold in his Facebook group notes that it could be both are right--that it depends on the PTBNL.  The better the player, the more the Padres have to give up financially.)

I hope, like Pip says, that this move is just one of the dominos in bringing in more help for next year's squad.  It still looks like Mozeliak will be busy next week in Vegas. 


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