There's also the notion of making the Orioles a more attractive destination for prospective future Free Agents. We know that money rules all, but when the money is at least close players will (in theory) go to teams that have a chance of contending. Each piece begets the next piece, in a sense.

The Orioles are compensating for losing George Sherrill. He netted them a prospective third baseman but his lost resulted in a lot of frustration in August and September. The Orioles have to look like they are trying to win more often (if only to keep their fans and the money they pay to see the team) and having a stronger bullpen should help them climb towards a .500 season, which would delight Oriole fans. Or, come late July, if need be, they could flip Gonzalez for more prospects.

I enjoyed the article. What do you think about chronic losing depressing a team's win/revenue curve? After a decade of losing I'd wager their are significantly fewer Orioles fans. Does a step into respectability "prime the pump" for increased revenues if they can turn their core into a playoff team? The Devil Rays are a recent example of a team that skipped respectability and I'd be curious to see how their revenues increased compared to the increased revenue the Brew crew got after making the playoffs.

Thank you for replying to my earlier complaint. This is a new one (because the last was more overarching):

What makes you think that money saved from payroll in 2010 can be used in 2012? That may be how home finance works, but it's not generally how business works, and it's especially not how baseball works.

Once again I think your lack of the big picture hurts your overall argument. If you were analyzing the Giants, a team that claims it's too poor to pursue Matt Holliday, then it's fair to say they shouldn't spend money on Mark DeRosa.

But the Orioles just offered $140 million to Mark Teixeira last year and were rebuffed. If you don't believe Scott Boras (and I don't), they haven't made any large offers at all this offseason. So they still have that Teixeira money sitting around -- the warchest is already full.

I repeat one thing I said earlier: $12 million over 2 years isn't much to this Baltimore team.

I also want to point out that picking on the Orioles, in your first column no less, is so 2003. This isn't the management team that signed Marty Cordova.

They wanted a closer. They had the money. They could've signed Fernando Rodney or Brandon Lyon; instead they got somebody who looks like a pretty good pitcher at least. The only real issue is that 2nd round draft pick.

lets face it, its easy to 'pick on the Orioles' when (as the author pointed out) they've finished with a losing record for the past 12 years and the last three AL winners are different teams from their own division....

Russell,

I get the point of your article, and I agree that the idea of a "culture of winning" seems like a silly argument without support. However, I think Hookieball's comment is on the mark. The idea of signing Gonzalez was not because the Orioles intend to complete in 2010 or to create a culture of winning. I think reason that the signing is good is that it helps improve the Orioles's record over the next two years. If the record improves, when the Orioles young core is good enough to contend with some free agent signees, those free agent signees will be more likely to sign with the Orioles than they would be if the Orioles lose 90+ games the next two seasons. IIRC, the Orioles made a competitive offer for Teixeira last off-season, and Teixeira didn't seriously consider it because the Orioles were such a bad team. They don't want that scenario to repeat itself.

Money is fungible. Perfectly so, almost. The money given to Gonzalez could've been banked and used 2 years hence. Now it can't be. This should be startlingly obvious.

Personally, I think the Marlins experience provides the possible counterargument. No, spending money on Gonzalezes won't bring many extra fans to the ballpark. But does doing nothing of the sort destroy the fan base? Ballclubs themselves seem to act that way.

How extensively this could be researched, I don't know. But I think the possibility has to be acknowledged, so long as actual ballclub managements believe it.

I think there's something else there, too. There's a value to signing a guy and saying "Hey, we're in the game again," sort of like the Tigers did a few years back when they signed Ivan Rodriguez to an above market contract. It told people around the league that Detroit was not interested in being a laughing stock any more, and led to more free agents being willing to sign on. Fast forward a few years, and they're in the World Series.

Of course, I thought that was what they Royals were trying to do when they signed Gil Meche, so it all depends on execution of all aspects of a plan. And the Orioles were never as bad as those Tigers teams.

I think there's another obvious psychological flaw in the 'culture of losing' learned helplessness theory: In traditional learned helplessness, the victim learns to not give out a complete effort because the a loss will result no matter how much effort the victim gives, and all other things being equal, there is no reason to give extra effort when the outcome is certain. But all other things aren't equal. Baseball TEAMS care only about wins and losses, but the actual statistics matter a whole lot more to the players because their salaries are directly related to performance. How could a player ever learn to not give his full effort in a loss when he can also see that giving his full effort will result in a 100-500% pay raise?

As far as signing gonzalez in the hopes of trading him for prospects either this season or next season, I'm not sure that's a terrible idea. You get some performance now, which may not improve your team's chance to win a world series, but might provide a few more wins now (and thus provide a bit more short term revenue since I think we can assume that more fans come to see teams that win more games, even if they are winning 78 instead of 72) while also being able to turn some of that money into, effectively, an amateur signing. The Orioles turned Sherrill's salary into Josh Bell. How much would it have cost to sign an international free agent who was the same age as bell and had the same upside? The fact that sherrill was still arbitration eligible changes the math a bit, but I think that the general idea of signing a free agent, extracting some short term value from him in propping up fan interest in a losing team, and then turning him into good prospects is fairly sound assuming you are confident that the player can be turned into a decent prospect (package). Of course, that's a fairly big assumption.

It's also possible that winning a few extra ballgames and "making a go of it" the next few years gives you a better chance to sign your young talent to long-term deals.

I was surprised there was no significant correlation between team performance early in one's career and individual performance later, not because of any culture-related or psychological hypothesis, but because I would have thought the lousy teams would be more prone to botching player development. The findings would appear to rule out that relationship as well, at least at the ML level.

I may be off the geeky deep end, but I'd be interested in seeing the actual numbers you came up with, in support of your conclusion. A regression diagnostic or two.

Regarding the "fungibility" of payroll money: I have never worked for a sports franchise, but the companies I have worked for have certainly not set operating budgets based on carrying over all unspent funds from the year before. If a given year's budget was not fully spent, management did not automatically add the surplus to what they made available for operation in the coming year, at least in the industries I've been exposed to. It went to profit, debt paydown, other business activities, lots of other things.

Russell,

Nice article.

I read the comments above and am a bit confused why we're discussing was it a good signing or a bad? I thought the point of the article was to examine a commonly held point of view (losing hampers player development) and go at it with some sort of expertise instead of armchair psychologist. I'm trusting Russell that he has some sort of experience to bring to the discussion when he says "Well, I’m not an amateur." If he doesn't, well, then shame on him and boot him out of here for implying such. I'll allow that the main thrust isn't quite clear though.

In the State of Prospectus thread, pizzacutter (aka, Russell) asked what we're asking for iin the comments. Well, for me, this is actually kind of it. Ahh, irony. Statistically informed? Yep. Attacks an issue from a new angle? Yep. Some humor? Yep (if a bit light on it).

I'm working my ass off to give the new folk a chance. Frankly, a (not so) little piece of BP has died as each of the old vanguard have left. This article at least gives me some hope. It isn't the best piece of BP writing I've ever read (that's not an indictment of Russell, it's mad props to some of the brilliant writing we've been lucky to experience here), but it's the kind of writing/analysis I come here for.

Your analysis leaves one question open that you could probably figure out how to answer with your data set: Does "winning" help teams retain the better young players (and thereby reap the rewards of their investment during peak production years)?

MIGHT the Orioles be making a legitimate bid to hold on to Wieters et alia circa 2012 by adding a few wins via Gonzalez?

My guess is that the O's were buying a "proven closer" in order to not put a young prospect into a role in which he might experience failure. The idea being that a young player who is not ready might have his development impaired by being pushed into a role for which he might not be ready.

Having said that, I don't like the Gonzalez signing because it costs them a draft pick. Find some other former Pittsburg reliever who won't cost as much and let him fail at less cost. I'm betting that Stan Belinda is probably still available.

I think the last paragraph addresses an important issue--finding ways to get a hometown discount when the kids reach their free agency years. One way to do this is to have a manager players' enjoy playing for. He might or might not be the greatest tactician. But if he gets a couple big-time players to sign for a 10% discount that is worth something.

Another way to try to get the hometown discount is to literally draft and sign hometown kids. Kids who grew up as fans. I think they are more likely to sign at a discount than kids who grew up thousands of miles away and as fans of another team.

Yet another way is the "culture of winning" issue addressed in the article. When deciding where to play next, I'm sure probability of making the playoffs is a fairly important consideration for most players.

Another argument against applying the learned helplessness model to young MLB ballplayers is this: far from experiencing anything close to being shocked while being held in captivity, young ballplayers are being paid hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to play a game. Indeed, their "chance of escape" is always within sight in the form of impending free agency. Helpless indeed!