Quote:
Originally Posted by Syd Thrift
Sorry, I was thinking about how Bret Boone suddenly fell off a cliff the one offseason. This happens *all the time* in real life.
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I don't disagree with that you say (except I can't imagine not using scouting and just playing blind, but it's a YMMV issue...); but it should be pointed out that Boone's sudden "fall" can be traced to testing for (and thus stopping the use of) steroids and other PED's. Not that a scout or a GM should have foreseen that. I recall at the time being suspicious of the sudden bulge in power stats for Boone. (Some would call this the "Brady Anderson Effect".)
But it's a side issue. Ordinarily, I agree, predicting or anticipating a sudden collapse is too much to ask of a scout or GM. They are not astrologers. The best one can do is to be aware of age-related risks for those on the wrong side of thirty - particularly those with a lot of miles on the odometer and/or an injury history. It is "caveat emptor" with those kinds of guys. If you overpay free agents past 30 with long-term contracts, you had better get maximum value in the first few years, because you are not going to get it in the last few years. If you pay a guy $210 Million for seven years at age 32, you are more likely to get three years of $70M value than seven years of $30M value.