How Jon Matlack Became David Wright

[G-Fafif]

Through trades and compensation draft picks, that's how, according to the Platoon Advantage. Was keenly aware of the trade trees within this, but never connected them all the way back to Matlack. (Found via ESPN's SweetSpot.)

Article links to something else that claims the Wednesday Night Massacre was just fine -- the kind of skewed/shallow conclusion one could derive by staring at WAR too long. (It would also help if the author didn't refer to GM "Paul" McDonald and pitcher Pat "Zachary".)

[Guest Edgy DC]

Huge fallacy of folks playing around with WAR: believing trading one guy worth 7.0 for four guys worth 8.0 is a net win.

[metsmarathon]

that raises a good point. what return for a 7.0 WAR player would be considered equitable?

[Guest Edgy DC]

Dunno, but I assume each roster spot on average produces a typical amount of WAR, enough to elevate a .250 team to a .500 team.

I graphed out a very similar trade tree descending from Ed Harn and Rick Anderson once. At the time, we thought that was the longest living such tree. This is a great discovery (even from a guy who makes strange assertions about which trades worked out and which didn't for the Mets). I wonder how much Matlack DNA Wright has.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

metsmarathon wrote: that raises a good point. what return for a 7.0 WAR player would be considered equitable?

Presumably, one which improves the slots into which the returned players will step by at least 7.0 WAR (a 4.0 SS stepping in for your current replacement-level guy, plus a serviceable starting pitcher and several relievers, say).