Gammons Is Definitely "Trending Down"

Not much in this post from our friend Gammons, as it's filled mostly with charts. A couple of brief things, though.

If you are the Phillies or the Dodgers and thinking about going to four years on Mike Lowell, you look at the trend line and see that his OPS has risen each of the last three years. That's what the Yankees faced in the real world of the Mets going hard after Jorge Posada, and what the Diamondbacks realized when they went to $10M a year for Eric Byrnes.

Please focus on the part that reads, "That's what the Yankees faced in the real world of the Mets going hard after Jorge Posada." Is he saying that the Yankees paid a lot for Posada because the Mets were chasing him, or because he had this retarded "upward trend line"? Did the Mets only chase him because of this upward trend, which in turn caused the Yankees to pay more? I'm so confused. And what the hell does he mean by "real world"? If anything, the one team that appears to operating outside this metaphorical "real world" would be the Yankees, since their concept of spending money differs from that of literally every other team.

So Monday morning it appeared Lowell might leave Boston, because the Red Sox would not budge from their three-year offer, and take with him the World Series MVP award, a rising trend line, and mountains of goodwill from the way he plays and treats people.

I understand Gammons is speaking metaphorically here, but even then I can't understand what the hell he means when he says that Lowell is taking "a rising trend line and mountains of goodwill". He sounds like a senile sportswriter desperate for a new angle. "You have to sign Lowell! He has a rising trend line! And goodwill! Nay, mountains of goodwill! He wipes his ass with goodwill toilet paper!"

More importantly, there are different conclusions one can draw from this data, which he proceeds to present. Here are two:

1. A rising trend line indicates that a player is improving, and should be paid accordingly. (Obviously, a falling trend line would have the opposite effect.)
2. Teams should be extremely wary of players with rising trend lines, since these trend lines may reverse course due to the law of averages or the phenomenon of aging players. On the other hand, players with a falling trend line may rebound, and may be available at a discount, so it's a good idea for teams to pursue these players.

The real conclusion probably lies somewhere in the middle: with younger players, rising trends will tend to indicate actual improvement, while older players are more likely to have reaped the benefits of a fluke season, and will probably decline in future years. Gammons, of course, offers no such analysis, and instead lumps young guys and old guys together. Just look at the first two people in his first chart: Curtis Granderson and Barry Bonds. We should be drawing the same conclusions from their respective rising trend lines? Really?

Gammons, however, has no time for silly things like "analysis". He's busy copying charts from the Bill James Handbook and throwing mountains of goodwill at Mike Lowell.

Tune in tomorrow as I dissect a real doozy. Try to see how many indefensibly stupid and/or incoherent things he says, and then we'll see how well we match up.