For example, owning Brian McCann when everyone else in the majors has say, Kurt Suzuki is more valuable than owning Pujols when everyone else has Carlos Pena.

I’ll go with Pujols.

You’d know better than I whether he’ll be back soon, I sort of doubt it… the thought was that he has value even as a guy at team could offer arbitration to. Though with the widespread “panic”, I guess it’s not a sure thing that any team would want to offer him arbitration.

I disagree there’s been little faith expressed in the bullpen.

Then perhaps I am misinterpreting from “Bullpen Options” July 9th: this collection of bullpen arms has been overachieving all season or they don’t throw enough strikes

I would hope the starters can go deeper into games, and putting inning-eating faith into Morrow and RRS is a tougher pill to swallow than Wash and EB.
Perhaps the upgrade in defense from a Hardy at short would help the AAA starters go longer.

It’s really a seller’s argument trying to make us better for 2010.

Further, you’re arguing that we should use the average Washburn/Bedard IP, which assumes that they make all their starts at their current rate. But there’s the next problem: how likely is it that those two are going to take every one of their turns anyway? And for every start they don’t make, you’re spotting one of those guys anyway. Beyond which, there are some issues with using IP/start here but I’m not going to press the point since it’s been conceded.

The thing is, assume it is two IP/rotation turn. If you’re carrying a 12-man staff 5/7, that means you’re increasing the average reliever’s workload by a third of an inning every time through the rotation. If you’re carrying 13 it’s even more trivial. One more out per guy per rotation turn isn’t a massive increase that is going to affect their workload.

(which excludes a bullpen effect of fewer starter innings, so I don’t entirely buy it)

There’s not a lot of reason to think that Bedard/Washburn replacements will throw less than those two, and there’s certainly no reason to think that it’ll be a large gap, or that it would cause the bullpen to perform worse.

Morrow averages 4 2/3 inning a start this year, and even throw out the first two where he was being stretched out, he still has yet to go beyond the 6th.

RRS averages about 5.5 in Tacoma right now.

(Olson averages about 5.5, same for Vargas.)

Wash avgs about 6 2/3
EB avgs about 5 2/3

About an inning a start difference. There has been little faith (expressed on this site) in the bullpen beyond Aardsma and maybe Kelley, why should they perform better given more innings? If they were capable of being overworked before or were lucky despite their wild ways before, why not with lesser starters eating fewer innings?

But really splitting hairs here – let’s just call it a miniscule effect and throw it out of the equation. I’m fine with ignoring this detail if you want. The original argument still stands that time value is discounted and this proposed Hardy trade is essentially taking a seller’s stance.

This has been a fun comment thread.