Brewer got the cheap win.
We all scoff at the win and save stats, and you can get cheap meaningless tallies in both categories, but you have to be pretty good to put up 200 wins or 300 saves, even if you discount the category.
Just because Phillips thought the RBI entitles him to more money doesn’t indicate how the team viewed the stat. He was an older middle infielder who was losing range. Your conclusion is just not supported by anything other than Kapler s and your opinion. 100 RBI guys always make good money, if they can do it consistently. Pardon the pun, but you can take it to the bank.
I didn’t think Kapler had been in the Reds organization. Also, Phillips made pretty good money in his career. I think Kapler’s story is not only anecdotal, but it may not even be accurate as to the role of any particular metric in that negotiation.
I’ll go with the age difference as the key and that Kapler is a dope, and he possibly pulled this out of his ass as he was not in the Reds front office and has no more inside knowledge as to the reasons than we do.
And the Votto contract was a big mistake. Plus, Kapler is a dope. The biggest metric that was the difference between the 2 cases was probably that Phillips was 32 years old and Votto was 29.