Just Had to share with you the best Christmas Present My wife Has ever gotten me. She got me tickets to the Bengals Chiefs game this Sunday. We're Getting on a plane early Sat. Morning. 

The Reason That this game is special to me is that I have a buddy who has started most of the year on The Bengals Offensive Line. It's his first year getting any real playing time. He's a few years younger than me but we were in High School together and His Dad was the Coach at the local university. We became friends because his dad was recruiting me and because we played football together. I haven't seen him in about 3 years so I'm pretty excited. 

I'm a little torn Though, I'd like to see him do well on a personal level, but it'd give me a ton more pleasure to see Tamba Beat him for about 8 sacks. I hope Tamba gives me a reason to give him shit for the rest of the year. 

Warning: This post is another Matt Holliday opinion.

I'm convinced, and so are many people that boras will have Holliday as the last big name on the market. He'll be able to use Bay's contract as a springboard, and he'll be able to convince teams not currently in the bidding that Holliday is the last chance you have to drastically impact your lineup. 

Where is the point that Moz says we're done? We can't play the waiting game and watch all the plan b's get signed. I just have so little faith that this deal will get done that I've decided to piece together some alternatives. I think it's fairly safe to assume that if we don't land Holliday we won't go into the season with Freese and Craig. I think it's also pretty safe to assume we'll go after 2 tier 2 players. My favorite option in Chone figgins, is unfortunately gone, but there are still lots of other options. 

Adrian Beltre and Vladimir Guerrero 

Beltre WAR last year was 2.4 WAR, the majority of it was with his glove but his bat is still an improvement over the crap we trotted out to Third Base last year. I think it'd be reasonable for him to match his 2008 OPS + of 108. I expect him to sign for 9 to 10 mil.  Many of you would like Beltre but not Guerrero. I presume he's looking for more than the six mil  the Angels gave Matsui. Otherwise the Angels would have retained his services.  We're all aware that he can't play the field, but could he be any worse than Chris Duncan?  We know he can still crush the ball, and the best part of it, is that he'd probably come on a 1 year contract. With so much money invested in the rotation we might be looking at more 1 year contracts for aging vets than we may like. They would cost somewhere in the 18-20 mil range, about what we're looking at paying Holliday. 

Mark Derosa and Xavier Nady. 

Assuming we add two players, this is actually the most likely route. and Fits the Cardinals M.O. of  Paying hurt vets in hopes they have a bounce back season. Derosa Was just under league average with his glove at Third last year and profiles offensively similar to Beltre (unless you count his one ridiculous year.) We are familiar with him, and you can never discount Tony's love for a guy that plays all over the field. He'll likely sign for 5-7 mil. Nady had a pretty good offensive season and will likely sign cheaply due to his inury. He'd still be an upgrade over the first 3 months of LF.  Total cost about 12-16 mil.

David Freese And Rick Ankiel/Allen Craig Platoon. John Smoltz.

This would probably be the least pleasing scenario as it's obviously the cheap way out. But still a possibility. I don't even want to comment about the offensive "potential" of this group and will instead focus on Smoltz. Smoltz is valuable for a few reasons. I think he  wants to start. So, we tell him we'll give you an opportunity to do so because we have a hole to fill, but  we need you at the back end of the bullpen, if you don't pitch well out of the rotation you're moving to the bullpen to take Russ Springer's role. If he pitches well, great, we'll probably have a fantastic rotation. Even as it stands I'm not too comfortable with our internal options. Garcia is coming off surgery and Boggs hasn't shown the ability to get outs on a consistent basis. We're going to have injuries to this rotation. We need depth. Cost: Fan hatred

Adrian Beltre and Coco Crisp

I wanted to add a more defensive minded duo. Beltre led the league with an UZR/150 of 21 and Coco Crisp has a career UZR/150 of 23.5 in LF while still posting an UZR/150 of nearly 20 last year. Beltre Becomes Troy Glaus, a number 5 hitter hitting cleanup. Crisp slots as our leadoff guy and gives us two guys hitting in front of Pujols that are likely to have an OBP of .340~.350. Not to mention he fits the mold of the injured vet coming to us on the cheap. Total cost: 14~18 mil. 

Obviously nothing is set in stone, and this is only meant to be a few ideas on other options in case Holliday signs elswhere. So Don't get too Wrapped up in the whole "you're an idiot, that would never happen because blah blah blah....  You don't even have to discuss my options, I'm just curious What our trigger will be to get out of the Holliday dealings, and look at other options, and what those options might be. 

I've Wanted to write a post similar to this for awhile now. At first, it was because I wanted to prove the value of Matt Cassell, Then I wanted to Prove the monetary value of our key players, then I wanted to prove Why money is the most important factor to a football team. Frankly, I'm just going to present some stats and some very sabermetricy ideas.

I think part of the reason That this type of analysis of player valuation hasn't caught on in football, is that. there are alot of small sample sizes. In Baseball we look at 500 plate appearances and 162 games. In football it's different. We may look at 100 catches and 16 games. We all know from basic statistics that small sample sizes can greatly skew numbers like these.

We're going to jump right into it anyway.

I had a short debate earlier that centered around my thesis that Money drives the game far more than an altruistic desire to win championships. In baseball, There are a few metrics that have been used to put a monetary value on a playoff appearance and on a player's worth in reference to wins. I'm going to do my best to apply that to football. I'm taking general principles from the book "Baseball, between the numbers: why everything you know about the game is wrong".

I'm going to adapt the formula by basically multiplying the value of an individual game or win by 10 162/16 is about 10. I realize that the numbers won't fall in line perfectly. It assumes that the NFL and MLB have similar gross revenue. And it doesn't have an adjustment for park factors or local socio economic factors, it's just a rought draft. If you have a better way to do it, please share.

The book asses that in baseball an extra win, is approximately worth $1,196,000 so in Theory if a football player somehow can be worth an extra win by himself he's essentially worth $11,960,000. The hard part comes from the fact that we Have a stat Like wins above replacement for baseball, and really no stat that can value a win in terms of football. 

In all honesty we're basically going to have to make up a number based on DYAR on football outsiders. As a point of reference. DYAR means Defense adjusted Yards above replacement. In baseball the stat is already nice and tidy and estimates wins above replacement. We need to Figure out how many Yards equals a win.  Also, replacement level means any of the 22 guys off the street that Haley can pick up. As a side note. LJ has been -103 DYAR. That's pretty bad.

The best way I found to do this was to take the top QB, RB, WR, and  TE.  from each  team and add up their DVR and divide by the number of wins. I had to leave out the win less teams because a bunch of zero's would have screwed up the calculations. I know this isn't perfect, but it's just an estimation. If you've got a better idea of how to calculate this please let me know.

The numbers come out to be about 50 yards above replacement level equals 1 win, DYAR is heavily slanted toward QB, as it should be, in reality a QB is much more valuable than any other position, but in terms of DYAR it says Drew Brees is worth about 8 times what Adrian Peterson is worth. So it all should be taken with a grain of salt. Maybe I should be dividing the DYAR of a QB by three in order to get a more level playing field. Seeing how roughly a 300 yard passing game and 100 yard running game are equivalent. Maybe I'll try that later. Let's stick with the status quo.

Assuming all of these things I expected Matt Cassel to be more valuable than he has. Obviously it's easier for these metrics to work in baseball because one player is independent of another on most plays, in football, there are alot more variables.

There are a few things that really stick out. The value of a True Franchise QB, is basically off the charts and becomes a statistical anomaly All of these mythical wins are also based on offense alone, Meaning they might have to be halved in terms of total cash value considering you'd spend roughly half your cap on offense and defense...

Lots to think about here This is just a jumping off point... points of discussion...

Let's think about LJ for a second. He is -103 DYAR meaning a replacement level player would be about 2 wins more valuable than he is.... Negative numbers really throw the stats off, but in general you get the idea he's been pretty bad.

As for Cassell. He's been about -49 DYAR meaning he's roughly a game worse than a replacement level player. Certainly not playing up to that 60 mil contract (to be honest when I started this I didn't expect him to have a negative number.)

Bowe had a positive 71, so he's been worth about 1.5 wins Thus far. By far our most productive player. worth about 18 million to the front office in terms of gross revenue.

Like I said earlier, I know some of it is flawed due to the nature of football.

Here are the issues I can identify.

I need to adjust for roster size

The Salary Cap.

Find a way to quantify blocking skills.

And positional weights need to be adjusted.

I also divided by 4 (the number of player's DYAR I added together) If I multiply that back out. It takes about 200 yards to equal a win on your own. It balances out the skewed QB numbers but I think really devalues running backs. In that equation it values the best running backs at a bout .75 worth of a win. And it only put's LJ at about .5 of a loss.... Which might be accurate... Hmmm Not sure.

I think we can look back and say that if we based cassel's value at the end of they year on this rough valuation equation, he wouldn't get anywhere near 60 million. We can also look back and Say LJ is one of the worst 3 backs in the league. And we can also say that Bowe has been a lone bright spot.

The other thing that this shows, is that Management can put a number on a player's worth from a strictly business point of view. If we were to perfect the calculations we could say, this player was worth this amount of gross revenue to the team, and deserves this raise. We can also see who is under performing or outperforming their contract. I haven't figured out a way to turn gross revenue into player salary, but that's next.

I think we're all able to see that this year is about purging the team of unwanted or unneeded guys. I really don't know that there's much more to the season for our front office at this point. We have as many expendable pieces as possible, and we accumulate as many draft picks as possible. This is really nothing new for teams with new regimes bringing in two completely new defensive and offensive schemes.

It's possible that we could have a spectacular draft, and we'd still be way under the cap next year. If we have enough of "our" guys and the front office sees a team only 2 or three players away from contention, it may also mean we sign some of the free agents we all coveted this year.

The problem for me lies in one question What if Next year is Uncapped?

Most of us can agree that outside of a few aging veterans, the biggest factor in where a guy signs is money. This year we had it, and didn't spend it. In theory, next year we'll still have it. If we have more money to throw at Wilfork, or some OL talent, I'm pretty sure it gives us a puncher's chance at signing them. If the year is uncapped. We may be screwed. I can't think of too many reasons a solid vet would want to play in KC outside of money.

This team, completely purged of veteran talent is going to look a lot  like the 2008 super young chiefs. We'll have the current guys, and we'll have a crop of fresh faced draft picks.  If we don't have some veteran talent to supplement those young guys, where does that leave us?  

Pioli demonstrated an unwillingness to draft guys many of us thought were the true impact players in the draft, instead he drafted the way NE should have, solid guys that should produce as backups with a couple of projects sprinkled in. Maybe the strategy changes next year? but if we have another "supplement" draft, we might be in some real trouble next year and for the foreseeable future.

I know the uncapped year has just been a rumour does anyone think it'll actually happen? Do you think Pioli and Haley have the clout to convince a guy to come to KC, even though we don't have more money to spend? Can they convince the Veterans we'll need that we can win? Man I sure hope so.... but please, remember to take your vitamins and while you're saying your prayers, pray for a capped season next year.

I notice on the gameday threads that people are constantly asking for a stream or a link to watch the game live, sometimes these are a little choppy/unreliable. Just wanted to pose a question for people who might know a little more than me. Most people realize that on instant messengers you can set up a webcam view, or even on skype.... Would the delay be too long, or the picture too choppy to set up an AP skype account and various people could volunteer to point their computer/webcam at the TV for everyone? Would this work? Is it legalish? It doesn't have to be 100 percent legal so long as it's not blatently illegal. We may even have to do this for KC fans if they want to black out games if we get really bad and don't sell out games.

I think we all need a distraction from what is turning out to be a pretty terrible year. I was thinking about The possibility of a merger in the NFL, as far as I understand during the early days of football, travelling teams would merge pretty frequently to remain economically viable. So your assignment is going to be What current team with one win or less could the chiefs merge with and become a contender. 

I think the easy answer would be the titans, since I don't think they're nearly as bad as their record indicates, lets throw them out. After looking through the lineups of all of the poor teams in the NFL, the team I came up with is the Raiders... I know, I know... most people would rather get effed with a sandpaper condom than consider a raiders merger.

but quickly here's how I see the starters lining up if we did merge. Remember this is just for fun, a distraction.... oh btw... we don't have the worst +\- in the league. That honor belongs to the Cleveland Browns.

Offense:

QB Cassel

RB Mcfadden/LJ

WR Bowe, Murphy, Bradley,

TE Miller/pope

LT Albert

LG Waters

C.... blah

RG Gallery

RT blah....

Defense... Assuming a 3-4

RE Seymour/ Kelly

NT Warren/Tank

LE Tyson Jackson/mcgee

LOLB Ellis/Tamba/Howard

MLB Morrison

MLB DJ

ROLB Vrable

CB Asomugha

CB Flowers

SS Brown

FS Huff

Sorry for the horrible layout... I need to learn how to make charts..... but what really scares me, is how many places, I think a raider would be an upgrade... I didn't expect it to be that way when I first started this... But the final talley is

9 chiefs 13 raiders... (that stings....) Alright... your turn.

Unfortunately, The only thing people know me on AP for, is my dislike of Haley's attitude, and my assertions that we will fail this year because of it, So everyone assumes I'm a negative nancy. Just wanted to write up, the reasons we may have a chance to win The game vs. the Eagles.

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I saw earlier that a gentleman in NY Had posted about meeting time chiefs fans at a local bar.

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A rant about Todd Haley to follow.

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There has been some discussion that Juan Pierre might be moved over on foxsports.com. I think the ideal situation would land us either be  powerhitting outfielder or an upgrade at either middle infield positions. In the case those don't happen ( frankly, I don't believe they will.) Pierre might be a good Plan B.

I think we can all agree with the fact that our offense is predicated on getting as many men on in front of albert as possible. By slotting pierre in the leadoff spot and moving skip to the two hole we get two players with OBP's of about .350 in front of albert while allowing Rasmus to move down to the five hole to help produce more runs.

Unlike Skip pierre shows no signs of a platoon split vs LHP's. He could be an everyday leftfielder for us. He also has a career uzr/150 of 5.6 which is cosiderably better than our current situation.

He also adds the obvious speed element at the top of the lineup  we haven't had in many years. I'm not sure if Tony doesn't run because he doesn't want to run into outs in front of Albert, or if he just hasn't had a real option. Either way, it's generally accepted that you have to be successful 2/3rds of the time to break even. Pierre has a career stolen base percentage of nearly 75%. Playing a little small ball could be helpful considering we only have two real power threats and one guy (Rasmus) with developing power.

I realize he has an bad contract. All that means to me is that we'd have to give up less to get him, and as it was stated in a previous post concerning the signability of Halladay, the cardinals have alot of financial flexibility next year.


The projected lineups would be something like this

RHP                                       LHP

Pierre LF                              Pierre LF

Skip 2b                                 Derosa 2b

AP 1b                                    AP 1b

ludwick RF                           Ludwick RF

Rasmus CF                        Glaus3b

Derosa/glaus3b                 molina c

molina c                               Rasmus CF

pitcher                                   Pitcher

Ryan ss                                Ryan SS

Obviously this assumes that glaus can comback sans shoulder issues and be somewhat effective at the plate. If not, agains lhp's move derosa to 3b and insert a random middle infielder at 2nd base. Hoffpauir,greene,greene, whomever.

Any thoughts? I say a middle of the lineup bat would cost too much in terms of prospects, we may spend money this way but I bet we only have to give up a fringe prospect. Would he help? what do you think we'd have to give up in return? 

 Thanks for any input and be nice. This is my first fanpost. Nothing is set in stone Just an idea.