tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post5282158887265898289..comments2009-04-08T20:35:42.754-04:00Travis M. Nelsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04509345527927276194noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3689353.post-43541661218559233052009-04-08T18:31:00.000-04:002009-04-08T18:31:00.000-04:00I think you have the direction of causation wrong for Boras's effect on bonuses. Instead of granting Boras some superb skill in fleecing owners out of a couple extra million for draftees, Boras may get higher bonuses for draft picks because the most talented players sign with Boras. I mean he's not getting a gigantic bonus for the Bill Pecotas in the draft. His clients are mostly the studs, and that makes a big difference.<BR/><BR/>Also, while you certainly can find exceptions to the rule that higher bonuses correlate with higher projections or better performance, picking a handful of cases doesn't disprove Silver's contention that bonuses have predictive value. That's like looking at a handful of games where Albert Pujols goes 0 for 4 and concluding he's no good: Invariably those games are going to happen, but we know not to judge based on a few games. What we need to look at is the larger trend based on a much larger sample of picks. That type of investigation is much more solid than looking at a couple of data points. I'd be interested to see what you conclude after looking at more data!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com