Tony LaRussa still has a fetish for lefty relievers.

Yesterday the Cardinals signed Dennys Reyes for two years and three million. The long-time Twins LOOGY joins quite a collection of lefties already in camp for the Cardinals, which raises the question: why did the Cardinals see it necessary to add another?

The only St Louis lefty entrenched in a gig is Trever Miller, with a battle occurring between Ian Ostlund, Charlie Manning, Royce Ring, and Katsuhiko Maekawa. That seems like a decent collection of potentially useful lefty relievers and at cheap prices. Unfortunately, the Cardinals have yet to see something in spring training from the grouping, or at least something that would inspire confidence.

Rather than waiting it out the Cardinals went out and added another free agent. As Viva El Birdos covered yesterday, Reyes was one of three talented lefties available on the market, alongside Will Ohman and Joe Beimel. The difference between the trio likely came down to asking price, to which Reyes apparently fit the bill.

Over the last three years Reyes has posted win values of: 0.6, 0.1, and 1.1. That’s not too shabby, considering 2007’s low total came alongside Reyes worst FIP and subsequently the lowest workload (29 innings, 17 less than 2008 and 21 less than 2006). Reyes’ raw numbers should improve in St. Louis as long as LaRussa avoids the pitfalls of Ron Gardenhire’s usage: right-handers. Reyes was used nearly 50% of the time against righties in 2006, 41% in 2007, and 46% in 2008.

Reyes’ strong point is success against lefties, and while he’s not a complete liability versus righties, there’s just nothing to be gained from letting him face more than the occasional weak hitter in any kind of meaningful situation.

Frankly, I’m not sure if they didn’t give up on the ragtag combination a little too hastily, but at the price, and for the quality Reyes brings, it’s probably not worth the fuss.

Stephen Strasburg entered the Spring baseball season as the consensus number one selection for the upcoming MLB draft in June. Many people were quick, and correct, to point out however that there was still a lot of baseball to be played until June 9th arrives and that there was still a couple roads that would lead to a different name being called first by the Nationals.

One of those roads is an injury. That hasn’t happened yet and despite what some people will try to sell you, injury prediction based on pitching mechanics is a science in its infancy and if anything, that’s granting it more credibility than it warrants. While it is certainly possible to grade mechanics for things like deception, repeatability and the like, predicting injuries is unreliable. It hinges so much on the physiology of the individual and has yet to be subjected to enough scientific testing that any attempts at it should be at best taken with enough grains of salt to fill the Grand Canyon and probably is best just ignored.

Signability might play a factor, but that’s incredibly difficult to predict all the factors involved. Therefore I feel it best to box it up with injury concerns, something we can only react to in retrospect.

The other main divergent to Strasburg being named first overall would be some other player emerging on the scene. That would require someone to either eclipse Strasburg, Strasburg to struggle, or some combination of the two. Well, three starts into his season and Strasburg’s star certainly isn’t dimming and in fact is only getting brighter (supernova jokes here not applicable). Here’s the pertinent stats in chronological order of starts:

23 BF, 11 K, 2 BB
26 BF, 16 K, 1 BB
29 BF, 18 K, 1 BB (against top 20 team)

I don’t have good batted ball breakdowns so I cannot report on his groundball percentage and other assorted numbers of note. Frankly though, the above is enough. 78 batters faced and 45 have been struck out. 45 of 78. Stephen Strasburg has struck out 58% of all batters that he has faced so far. Oh, and he’s done that while walking just 5%. Oh, and he’s been better with each start. Oh, and he was reportedly clocked at 102mph in in second start.

Good gracious.

Apparently, the Yankees didn’t like the idea of Mark Grudzielanek at third any more than the rest of you – Brian Cashman now says they’ll have Alex Rodriguez try rest and rehab in lieu of surgery. In other words, he’s going to attempt to play through a torn labrum in his hip.

This is the same injury that Mike Lowell played through last season. That’s a mix of good news and bad news for Yankee fans. The injury clearly effected Lowell, as he was limited to just 113 games played and was removed from the playoff roster in October. Lowell had been a durable guy up to that point, but the injury was just too much to play through on an everyday basis. So, even if Rodriguez can avoid surgery, it’s quite likely that he’ll spend quite a bit of time on the bench this summer.

However, Lowell also offers some reason for hope – he actually played pretty well when he was on the field. He posted a .344 wOBA and a +13.6 UZR/150, making himself a +3.1 win player while missing 1/3 of the season. While I’m sure it was painful to play through, he still was able to perform at something approximating his normal abilities. It didn’t take away his skills, just his frequency of deploying them.

Of course, Lowell is a sample of one, but Chase Utley played through a less serious but similar condition and performed so well that no one knew he was hurt until he had surgery in the off-season. Considering how well those two were able to perform with versions of this problem, it’s easy to see why the Yankees have decided to skip the surgery for now.

However, as we talked about this afternoon, they have no real third base depth to speak of, and they simply can’t count on Rodriguez being able to play everyday. They’re going to have to bring in a better option to spell Rodriguez on a semi-regular basis.

Some big news coming out this morning about the severity of Alex Rodriguez’s hip injury – according to MLB.com, Rodriguez is going to have surgery that will keep him out of the line-up until at least May. Regardless of how you may feel about Rodriguez, this is clearly a blow to the Yankees.

CHONE has Rodriguez projected for a .417 wOBA, and if he misses the entire month of April, that’s approximately 100 plate appearances that they’ll have to replace with… no one really knows. Cody Ransom is listed as the backup third baseman on the Yankees depth chart, but but the odds of Ransom starting on opening day for the Yankees have to be pretty slim. He’s just not a major league quality player, and especially not good enough to start for a team with playoff aspirations.

So, I think we have to assume the Yankees are going to make a move to bring in a temporary replacement at third base. Mark Grudzielanek is the only free agent with any real experience at third base, and that’s even being generous – he played 236 innings at the position in 1995. But, as a quality defensive second baseman, he could be expected to handle the hot corner fairly well.

However, CHONE has Grudz projected for a .299 wOBA, predicting a fairly massive fall for the 38-year-old. Even over just 100 plate appearances, the difference between Rodriguez’s projected offense and Grudzielanek’s projected offense is 10 runs. Ten runs in a month. And that’s assuming that Grudzielanek would want to play third base for a month before moving into a bench job.

In reality, even if Rodriguez isn’t affected by his hip injury at all past April, and plays a full season from May-September, this injury is going to cost the Yankees around one win off their projected total unless they can trade for a quality third baseman. In the AL East, losing a win is a pretty big deal.

This is bad news for the Yankees. Cashman is going to have to pull a rabbit out of his hat in the next few weeks.

Finally! Manny Ramirez (or should I say Scott Boras?) and the Dodgers finally agreed to contract that the Dodgers have been offering and the Ramirez camp have been rejecting for going on three months now. Apparently the Dodgers subscribe to the “if at first you don’t succeed, try the exact same thing again and again” philosophy. Anyways, it worked, at least to their values and Manny is now on his way to the Dodgers Spring Training facility.

The biggest part of this whole mess that gets me is that we heard early on in the off season that many teams were scared off of bidding for Manny Ramirez because they were afraid of his antics. They were afraid that unless Manny got what he thought he was worth, that he wouldn’t focus on his play. That seemed like a reasonable fear. So what does Boras/Manny do to ally those fears? They embark on one of the most dragged out, public, nutty negotiations of recent history. Way to go there fellas.

The deal is for two years and $45 million, the second year and $20 million being a player option. Given the mercurial nature of Manny, it is hard to assume that he will either exercise or deny that option so we’ll look at both results.

Offensive projections for Manny next year range on the lower side of the average of his 2007 and 2008 seasons, which is reasonable given his age. Though, there is the move to the National League to consider. Moving on for the moment, that appears to be about 35 runs, give or take five or so, above average with the bat. Manny will be full time in a corner outfield spot in the NL, so he gets -7.5 runs for that and +20 runs for replacement level.

What’s left is how much to dock Manny for his defense. He was pretty consistently -15 to -20 runs from 2005-7, but climbed all the way up to -2.3 last year. That looks like a fluke to me, but I will regress his projection back to -15 runs. Adding that all together, and we arrive at 3-3.5 wins. Again, that’s about smack in the middle of his 2007 (1.0 win) and 2008 (6.5 wins), and on a reasonable path from his 2004-6 path.

That would make Manny worth a little under $15 million for 2009 so right away we can see that this is a sizable overpay by LA. A second year of Manny would only up the expected value to LA to slightly over $25 million. It appears to be in the best interest of the Dodgers if Manny declines his option after this season, allowing them an out from the deal and from hopefully the brunt of the PR mandate that called for them to make sure they kept Manny.

Last night began our journey into the land of trade valuations, looking at how the Eaton-Otsuka for Gonzalez-Young-Sledge deal compared to the Colon for Sizemore-Lee-Phillips deal. If you recall, it was not even a contest, as the Colon deal vastly favored the Indians. I didn’t expect the post to take off the way that it did but a personal thanks to all of the commenters is in order for not only bringing about different trades to look at but also discussing the process itself. Tonight we will talk a bit more about the valuation process itself, based on a few comments in the thread.

The process used to determine lopsidedness involved looking at the win values for the players, on their new teams only, avoiding the usage of career win values as well as wins added to teams other than those who acquired the players in question. So, when the Expos acquired Bartolo Colon in the aforementioned deal, they received +2.3 wins only, since he left for the White Sox the following season. Likewise, the Indians do not get credit for Brandon Phillips‘ play on the Reds, just his -1.1 wins with the Indians. Put together, the value of this trade is the contributions of Lee and Sizemore compared to the +2.3 wins from Colon.

But how do we take into account the ideas of club control and and free agency. A comment was brought up with which I wholeheartedly agree in that the Doyle Alexander for John Smoltz deal cannot be evaluated, straight up, as twenty years of Smoltz vs. a couple seasons of Alexander. The underlying reason being that Smoltz re-upped himself with the Braves a few times, choosing to re-sign with the team as opposed to traveling to greener pastures, pun completely intended. Similarly, the Jeff Bagwell for Larry Andersen trade is not properly valued by stacking up Bagwell’s entire potentially Hall of Fame career with the one season Andersen spent with the Red Sox.

The solution to this problem would be to include only club controlled years in the valuations. Reverting to the Bagwell example, the deal would be limited to Andersen’s lone season with the Red Sox vs. Bagwell’s club controlled tenure with the Astros. Things get a bit trickier, though, when it is remembered that teams tend to lock up talent early, occasionally buying out a year or two of free agency. Grady Sizemore is a prime example of this, as his current contract lasts through his first year of free agency eligibility. Do we count the entire duration of this contract? Or do we steadfastly stick to the club controlled solution, discounting his final season with the Indians while valuing the Colon deal?

The former makes a bit more sense and I’m very comfortable using that as the criteria from here on out. This way, certain trades don’t look as ridiculous and are more accurately measured. After all, as a free agent, signing with the team that most recently employed you should not be treated any differently than joining another squadron. And when players joined new teams, like Colon with the White Sox, we stopped adding their production into the mix.

I’m extremely interested in finetuning this system even further, so please do not hold back any and all ideas. Hopefully, we can continue our intellectual discourse.

Originally, this post was going to be about the San Francisco Giants starting rotation – with Tim Lincecum, Randy Johnson, Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez, and Barry Zito, the Giants are going to rack up a ton of strikeouts. I wondered how they would compare to other recent pitching staffs in K/9, and started to look at the leading teams in strikeout rate over the years. I quickly noticed a trend.

Year, #1 Team In K/9, K/9 Rate

2001 – Chicago Cubs, 8.42 K/9
2002 – Chicago Cubs, 8.32 K/9
2003 – Chicago Cubs, 8.68 K/9
2004 – Chicago Cubs, 8.27 K/9
2005 – Chicago Cubs, 7.85 K/9
2006 – Chicago Cubs, 7.82 K/9
2007 – Chicago Cubs, 7.53 K/9
2008 – Chicago Cubs, 7.84 K/9

The last time the Cubs didn’t lead the majors in strikeout rate was 2000 – they finished 5th.

Granted, strikeout rate is one of the pitching statistics that correlates best from year to year, but it’s not like the Cubs haven’t had significant roster turnover on their staff during this decade. In 2001, it was Kerry Wood, Jason Bere, and Kyle Farnsworth racking up the strikeouts. 2002 saw Matt Clement, Carlos Zambrano, and Mark Prior join the squad. 2003 was similar to ’02, but added Joe Borowski and Mike Remlinger as high strikeout relievers. As Wood and Clement faded away, Ryan Dempster and Mike Wuertz joined the scene. Then came Prior’s demise, but the rise of Rich Hill, Scott Eyre, Will Ohman, and Bob Howry. 2007 brought Ted Lilly and Carlos Marmol. 2008 was all about Rich Harden.

That’s eight years of league leading strikeout rate, with nearly wholesale turnover of the pitching staff during that time. That’s pretty remarkable. It is clear that the Cubs value pitchers who can generate swinging strikes and eschew a pitch to contact philosophy, but valuing something and maintaining a stranglehold on the league lead are two different things.

Eventually, the Cubs will fall from their perch. They’re not going to lead the majors in strikeout rate forever. However, with a projected rotation of Zambrano, Harden, Dempster, Lilly, and Marshall/Heilman, they are geared up for another run at it. Can they hold off the Giants addition of the The Big Unit? It will be fun to find out.

The Giants organization does not have a particularly deep minor league system, but it has some of the best pitching prospects in the game, as well as some intriguing players signed out of Latin America. The club also has had some very solid drafts in the past two seasons, which has really aided the system. Most of higher-ceiling players are below Double-A, though.

AAA/AA
Travis Ishikawa has the opportunity to win the club’s starting first base gig this spring, despite an inconsistent track record in the minors. Ishikawa, 25, hit 27 home runs while playing at three levels in 2008, including 33 games in the Majors. In 95 at-bats, Ishikawa hit .274/.337/.432 with an ISO of .158. He also struck out 27 times (28.4 K%) and walked nine times (8.7 BB%). His big season came after two straight years of disappointment, so it’s hard to know exactly what to expect from him in 2009. Ishikawa cannot hit left-handers, so he’s a platoon player at best and a late-game replacement in the field thanks to his stellar defensive skills.

A+/A
The crown jewel of the system, and one of the best pitching prospects in baseball, Madison Bumgarner had a dominating first full year in the minors after being a first round draft pick out of high school in 2007. The left-hander probably could/should have been promoted to High-A ball in the second half of the year, but the Giants played it cautious with him and he could move quicker this season and see Double-A by the end of the year. Last season in A-ball, Bumgarner posted a 1.46 ERA (1.71 FIP) with 111 hits allowed in 141.2 innings. He also posted rates of 1.33 BB/9 and 10.42 K/9. Bumgarner was especially good in the final month of the season when he allowed a batting average against of .186 and posted a strikeout rate of 13.36 K/9. He has a plus fastball that can touch 97 mph, and he’s still working on his average-at-best secondary pitches: a breaking ball that is morphing into more of a slider, and a change-up.

Tim Alderson is another impressive pitching prospect, who was also drafted out of high school in 2007. Alderson was so advanced for a prep player, in fact, that the Giants jumped him all the way to High-A ball for his first full pro season (which is almost unheard of these days). Despite the challenge, the right-hander did not skip a beat and he allowed 125 hits in 145.1 innings, with a 2.79 ERA (2.64 FIP). Alderson showed his plus command and control by posting a walk rate of 2.11 BB/9 and also had a strikeout rate of 7.68 K/9. He has an 88-92 mph fastball, a plus curveball and a developing change-up.

Scott Barnes was a 2008 draft pick out of college who has shown an advanced feel for pitching and he played at three levels in 2008, including A-ball. The left-hander posted a 1.38 ERA in six starts at that level and allowed just 15 hits in 32.2 innings of work. He posted rates of 1.93 BB/9 and 11.30 K/9. Barnes is not as dominating as his numbers would suggest and he pitches in the upper 80s, but can touch 92 mph. He has a plus change-up and a developing curveball.

Angel Villalona has been the club’s best hitting prospect since signing for a huge bonus out of the Dominican Republic. The 18-year-old is at 230 pounds and has already played himself off of third base (to first base) so conditioning is his biggest concern. However, his bat has massive potential and he hit 17 home runs as a 19 year old in A-ball last season. Overall, he posted a line of .263/.312/.435 in 464 at-bats. Villalona’s offensive undoing could be his lack of patience, as he took only 18 free passes (3.7 BB%) in 2008.

SS/R
Buster Posey was the club’s top draft pick in 2008 and the athletic catcher could reach the Majors within two years despite playing in only 10 regular season games after signing. He also played in the Hawaii Winter Baseball league and hit .338/.405/.392. The biggest offensive question about Posey is his power, and he has hit just one home run in 111 pro at-bats. He should hit for a high average. Defensively, Posey is still learning the position and needs to work on all facets of catching but his plus arm strength (He’s been a pitcher and shortstop) will help.

Nick Noonan was another top pick out of high school from the 2007 draft. The second baseman had a solid first full season in A-ball and hit .279/.315/.415 with 29 stolen bases in 499 at-bats. Noonan has been very successful on the base paths in his young career, having successfully stolen 47 bases in 54 attempts. He does need some polish at the plate after posting rates of 4.4 BB% and 19.6 K%.

Conor Gillaspie was the first 2008 draft pick to reach the Majors for the Giants, but he should open 2009 in High-A ball – or possibly Double-A. He draws comparisons to former Giants third baseman Bill Mueller, as someone who can hit for a solid average but may top out around 15 home runs. Gillaspie appeared in just 32 games (at three levels) after signing but also showed a good eye at the plate. Defensively, he will need to work to stay at third base.

Rafael Rodriguez was signed recently out of Latin America for more than $2 million and should make his pro debut in the Dominican Summer League before coming stateside in 2010. The 16-year-old outfielder is already 6’5” and has massive power, plus speed, and a powerful arm.

Ehire Adrianza, 19, was signed out of Venezuela in 2007 and impressed just about everyone who saw him play the field in 2008. The switch hitter was slowed by injuries in 2008 and appeared in just 18 games, but he could open 2009 in A-ball. He’s a long-term project who has Gold Glove potential at shortstop.

Up Next: The San Diego Padres

One of the shows the MLB Network has in abundance is a series called “Prime 9”. It’s your garden variety “lists” show, only devoted to baseball-centric topics. One of them that I caught recently was on players who “coulda been great”. J.R. Richard was one of those featured, and his numbers warrant a mention.

Beginning in 1975 and running through 1980, Richard had a streak of throwing least 110 innings annually. During that time, Richard failed to post a FIP over 3.5, and actually had a few sub-2.5 seasons and one sub-2 season. Nolan Ryan signed with the Astros as a free agent for the 1980 season, giving the Astros a heck of a one-two punch, but Richard would miss half the season. Richard noted discomfort in his throwing arm and shoulder, yet was criticized as a whiner. In July, Richard would suffer a stroke and would later need to undergo surgery to unclog a blockage.

Richard would never pitch in a major league game again.

Often, fans and media members praise players for playing through pain and injury. Players who choose to sit out are labeled as fragile, soft, or simply as guys who don’t care about the game or winning. In reality, the “warriors” are actually hurting their team if they play with a performance-affecting injury, yet you would never know it by the praise thrown his way.

Obviously not all injuries are actually the signs of strokes or something worse, but the players know their bodies better than most. If such player says he can’t go today because of a sore wrist then it’s probably for the best if he doesn’t play that day. Some players in the past may have embellished injuries, but trying to judge motives is a slippery slope.

In the future, be careful of who you label as “guys with big hearts”, one might actually have one.

Last week, in discussing the minor league signings of both Adam Eaton and Bruce Chen, I mentioned that the trade sending Eaton to the Rangers in exchange for Adrian Gonzalez and Chris Young was arguably the most lopsided of the decade. Perhaps I was a bit too hasty in my assessment, or too eager to remind fans of the trade, because several commenters pointed out that the extremely lopsided Bartolo Colon deal in 2002 would wipe the floor with the Eaton trade. Evaluating trades is tough because it is human nature to utilize hindsight as opposed to foresight, when the rationale at the time of the trade is of equal importance. Still, when I made my comment, I was clearly evaluating the trade retrospectively. Let’s look at both of these deals.

Before getting into the details, the criteria for these evaluations needs to be crystal clear. I am only going to use Win Values for players on the teams they were traded to. So, if Eaton was traded to the Rangers and then joined the Phillies, the actual transaction analysis will see Eaton’s shorter tenure with the Rangers stacked up against Gonzalez and Young with the Padres… not the aggregate win value for each player regardless of team.

Eaton spent the 2006 season with the Rangers and the disabled list, pitching in just 65 IP with a +0.6 WAR. From 2006-2008, Chris Young sandwiched a very solid season with two slightly below average ones, amassing a total of +5.4 WAR over the three-year span. In the same window, Gonzalez proved to be very durable and productive, producing win values of +3.8, +3.2, and +3.5, for a total of +10.5 and an average of +3.5 wins/season. Put together, the valuation of this trade looks like +15.9 wins for the Padres and +0.6 for the Rangers, a difference of +15.3 wins in total and +5.1 wins/season. Does the Colon deal surpass this mark?

Update: I realize I neglected to include both Akinori Otsuka and Termel Sledge as part of the trade. With Otsuka’s +3 wins for the Rangers and Sledge’s -0.7 wins for the Padres factored in, the results shrink to +15.2 wins for the Padres and +3.6 for the Rangers, a difference of +11.6 wins.

The Colon deal in question took place halfway through the 2002 season, when the Indians sent their ace right-hander to the Expos in exchange for prospects Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore, and Brandon Phillips. At the time of the trade, Colon was still at his peak, pitching a boatload of innings and producing effectively in them. In that 2002 season, he was worth a total of +4.7 wins, +2.3 of which were earned in Montreal. He pitched to the same tune of +4.7 wins in 2003, although that season was spent with the White Sox, not the Expos. The Expos portion of this deal is the +2.3 wins provided by Colon following the trade.

How about the others? Well, Brandon Phillips has a solid reputation now, but he didn’t really fit into the Indians grand scheme and actually cost them -1.1 wins in his four years with the team. Cliff Lee had a tremendous 2008 season but was by no means an all-star up to that point, yet he has still managed to give the Indians +16.4 wins over his seven-year career following the trade. And Grady Sizemore… well, he’s just an amazing talent, worth +26.1 wins since his 2004 debut. Put together, Phillips, Lee, and Sizemore added +41.4 wins to the Indians. Colon added +2.3 to the Expos, resulting in a difference of +39.1 wins favoring the Indians, over two and a half times the difference in the Eaton trade.

This isn’t a perfect method by any means but it gets the job done for our own intents and purposes. So, yes, the Colon deal was vastly more lopsided. Anyone else have any trades of potentially large lopsided magnitudes to evaluate?