.

Five years ago, the 26-year-old Matt Kemp hit .324/.399/.586 for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and also swiped 40 bases.  So, you had a very fast 172 OPS+ outfielder who hit 39 homers, had 126 RBI, and 115 runs scored.  Nelson Cruz crossed with ... I dunno, Ichiro Suzuki?

Something seemed fishy about Matt Kemp at that time, the something fishy perhaps being that he'd never previously had a 130 OPS+ season.  But the Dodgers signed him to an 8 X $20MM deal, these being $20M in five-years-ago terms.  Kemp was the #2 MVP that year, and got All-Star votes again at age 27.

Bill James was asked to evaluate the chances that Kemp would be an All-Star caliber player in year eight.  (As we know, teams do not care, at all, whether such players are all-stars in the last years of their contracts.  If they did, they would never win the bidding on such a player.)

.....

James used an interesting method to come up with 43 peer-group players for Matt Kemp, and asked "how many of these players had All-Star seasons the next seasons?"  These were his criteria:

• Age 25-27
• Season "score" 250 ("impact" season)
• Must have HRs and SB's (10+)
• 100 runs created
• 6-11 runs created per 27 outs

This list seemed objective in James' historical judgment; as you know, SSI feels free to hand-pick very specific attributes in finding comps for modern players.  For example, SSI ain't signing off on a James Paxton comp unless the historical player was left-handed and could throw very hard, very late in the game.  That limits us to what, three guys since 1862?

.....

Anyway, James found that 63% of such players were All-Stars in year 5, about 90 of which were Carlos Beltran.  As it turned out, Kemp just wound up his 5th year under the contract, batting .268/.304/.499 between the Padres and Braves, albeit with 35 homers and 108 RBI.  Contract doesn't seem to have worked out this time, not a huge bust, but you didn't get the 172 OPS+ you were trying not to miss out on.

Dr. D is probably wrong, but he feels like the "almanac-type" similarity score attributes, while admirably objective, need a little human-cook basil and oregano thrown in.

.....

Kyle Seager's baseball-reference comps include David Freese, Trevor Plouffe, Wilson Betemit and Sean Berry.  I think somewhere we gotta get in there "loves 96 MPH fastballs."

Lot of sentiment among the denizens for a 1-year "placeholder" contract at SS, giving the Mike Zunino and James Paxton treatement to our 22-year-old shortstop.  /cosign.  Ian Desmond, though... sez here you'll drop a pretty penny for that MLB(TM) shortstop label.  Take that money, and Aoki's, and Smith's, and ... pretty soon you're talking about real money.

Enjoy,

Dr D