On May 3, 5:45 pm, Kevin McClave <kmcclaveSPAM D...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
>
> Assuming for the sake of argument that Hamilton and Volquez are equally
> talented, of course you would want the pitcher. Pitching is much harder
> to find.
Coming late to this part of the party.
Don't this this follows. Based on his original research on aging, Bill
James
found that if you have a player and pitcher of the same age and
established
level of talent, the pitcher has only about 75% of the expected value
remaining.
Or to put it another way, really long-term contracts to pitchers are
a terrible risk. (There's an interesting illustration of this
point in an essay James wrote on Teddy Higuera. Saying basically
that it looked like Higuera was one of the survivors. Higuera
was never healthy again)
There's another issue. Youth isn't anything like the positive for
a pitcher that it is for a position player. Indeed relatively few
great pitchers did anything substantial before they turned 25, while
almost all great players start to make their mark in their early
to mid 20s.
Mind you. Volquez isn't having an ordinary great year (though I'd
be shocked if he doesn't come back substantially to the league).
Further, he's older than (say) Dwight Gooden and is being handled
a lot more gently.
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