It's a slow news week on the Padres front so here's a thought exercise for anybody who might be around. What is the value of a run?
To be more specific, if you were the San Diego Padres, how much would you pay a guy who was adequate on defense, but would guarantee you one run per game that he plays all nine innings of.
Jbox and I try to work that out sometimes with minimal thought behind it. But it's something that I wonder about.
Let's break it down for our ORPG (one run per game) player. How valuable would he be if he could play 150 games and hit exactly one home run every game he played, but never with a man on base? Is he more valuable if his ORPG came via a walk and an RBI by another player every game? Is his value greater if he's the one hitting an RBI each game, but never more than that?
The idea being, if you had 9 of these guys, you're obviously going to win more games than you lose. If you only have one of these guys, how valuable is that? Also, isn't it strange to think how it would be if everybody knew that he was only capable of exactly one run per game? Like, what if he gets that one run very early in the game. Every other at bat for the rest of the game would be unproductive for him, but you have to leave him in for the full 9.
Anyways. Something to think about.
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