This weekend the Mets and Dodgers played a series of three games. As far as managerial matchups are concerned, few produce as much entertainment as a proposed duel of wits between Jerry Manuel and Joe Torre. There were about a dozen different moves and tweaks to analyze from this series but one in particular stood out as worthy of examination: intentionally walking Garret Anderson.

Let me set the scene. It’s Saturday and a gorgeous day in Los Angeles, California, with the sun hanging out overhead like a halo. It’s also the bottom of the fourth. Blake Dewitt tripled to begin the inning and Casey Blake struck out. Mike Pelfrey is pitching with Garret Anderson due up, Brad Ausmus on deck, and the pitcher – Carlos Montasterios – in the hole. The Mets are down by one and Manuel is determined to keep it that way so he issues an intentional walk.

What inspired Manuel to walk Anderson? Well the catcher was on deck. Not just any catcher, a 41 year old catcher known for his game-calling skills rather than any offensive ability. Behind him stood the pitcher with fewer than 10 career plate appearances. Manuel could not handpick a better trio to potentially bat with a runner on third. It’s obvious the intentional walk only became a thought once Pelfrey retired Blake. ZiPS pegs Blake as a .345 wOBA hitter the rest of the way; it also has Anderson and Ausmus at .298 apiece. A double play was the goal, but only with one out. Manuel never thought about placing a runner on first without having at least one out because a double play from that situation plates a run.

Therefore, he walks Anderson; the same Anderson who has a .211 wOBA in 152 plate appearances this season and has a .205 on-base percentage. In effect, he’s banking on Ausmus to either ground into a double play, strike out, or hit an infield fly. Just about anything else results in that run that Manuel so desperately wants to keep off the board. Ausmus has barely played this season. Between 2007 and 2009, though, he racked up 754 plate appearances. During that time, he came up to bat in situations that could heed a double play 141 times and hit into a twin-killing 16 times – or 11%. Also during that time Ausmus struck out 18% of the time (of all plate appearances, not at-bats) and hit infield flies about 2% of the time.

Without regression, adjustment, or anything, we know that 167 of Ausmus’ 754 (22%) plate appearances ended like Manuel needed his fourth inning plate appearance to end yesterday. The likelihood increases when accounting for Pelfrey’s presence – a groundball pitcher who gets double plays in 15% of his opportunities with a fair amount of infield flies and strikeouts of his own. In the end, though, the probability of a double play is seemingly nowhere near 50%; whereas, if you assume Anderson and Ausmus are essentially true talent .300 OBP players, there is a near 50% chance that both make outs in consecutive at-bats.

The numbers might change based on Pelfrey as well as the situation at hand. The result is that walking Anderson is unwarranted when you go off probability. Pelfrey did get Ausmus to hit a grounder, by the way, but it went through the infield into center. The single plated one, eventually giving the Dodgers runners on third and second with two outs before Rafael Furcal grounded out.

Oh, and the Dodgers won by one run. A 13th inning homer by James Loney off Oliver Perez with Francisco Rodriguez still available.

It is easy for the initial reaction to the prospect haul the Diamondbacks received from the Angels – Pat Corbin, Rafael Rodriguez, and a PTBNL – to be underwhelming. As my colleagues Matthew Carruth and Zach Sanders already detailed, it’s impossible to fully review this trade until the Player to be Named Later is, um, named. The assumption is that it’s likely to be a talented player – though not at the level of Mike Trout – and someone that was signed within the last 364 days. I’ll let others speculate who that might be (we’ll review him in this space when the trade is completed), and instead focus on the two newest Diamondbacks prospects.

Corbin was the Angels second-round pick in their loaded 2009 draft, signed and delivered via superscout Tom Kotchman. He struggled a bit in his year at Chipola Junior College, but at 6-foot-3 with a good blend of command and projection, he was worth the risk as the Angels sixth pick. Corbin spent short-season ball last year playing for Kotchman in the Pioneer League, putting up a 5.05 ERA boosted by an unsustainably high BABIP. Both in college and in the Pioneer League, Corbin was homer-happy, but he made up for it with good strikeout-to-walk rates.

This offseason, in ranking him the 22nd-best prospect in their system, Angels blog Halos Heavan likened Corbin to Joe Saunders, who is also headed to Arizona in the Haren deal. The comparison is not misguided, as they are the same build and throw their fastballs at similar velocities (Corbin’s fastball is inconsistent, but their average velocity would be near equal). The hope is that Corbin can duplicate Saunders’ command and groundball tendencies (1.51 GO/AO in High-A), but also develop his offspeed stuff enough to become a better pitcher.

There is reason to believe an improvement is a possibility. Corbin has made significant headway with the development of his change-up, and as such, has had a lot of success in the California League against right-handed hitters (.241/.301/.386 against). His strikeout rate has jumped from 6.5 in nine Midwest League starts to 9.5 in High-A. Arizona fans must hope the surge in strikeouts is the result of an improvement in his breaking ball, which was pretty rudimentary when he was drafted. The possibility of three plus pitches from the left side is a really nice starter kit, especially for an organization that needs young pitching badly.

The other addition, Rafael Rodriguez, isn’t nearly as exciting. Two months away from his 26th birthday, Rodriguez is a fungible bullpen arm with little potential to improve. Rodriguez is at his best when he’s generating a lot of groundballs and pounding the lower half of the strike zone. He did so successfully in the Major Leagues last year — though his results weren’t good — but has a more pedestrian 1.46 GO/AO ratio this year in the Pacific Coast League.His stuff isn’t swing-and-miss in the slightest, managing a 3.03 K/9 in his limited 33 innings of big league work.

While I’ll make good on my promise not to judge Arizona’s haul in full until after the trade is completed, there’s no question the final prospect in this deal will need to be a good one. Corbin is a B prospect, Rodriguez is a D, and Dan Haren is worth more than that.

UPDATE: The Arizona Republic has reported the Player To Be Named Later in this deal is Tyler Skaggs, the 40th overall pick from the 2009 draft, currently posting a 3.61 ERA through 19 Midwest League appearances.

It’s certainly interesting, and most likely not coincidental, that the Diamondbacks acquired three left-handed pitchers in the same deal. Skaggs is the southpaw with the most potential. Like Corbin, he’s lanky and projectable, but the opinions of most is that Skaggs will be the one with the most velocity in the end. Similar to Corbin, Skaggs is running a reverse platoon split (.828 vs LHH, .631 vs. RHH) this season. Skaggs is a specific player Arizona has targeted: a lefty with room to grow, with command of his moving fastball, and the seeds of three pitches already planted. There aren’t a whole lot of guys in the minors with Skaggs’ skillset, and Arizona added two in one night. There is something to be said for Arizona’s intentions.

There is also something interesting happening at the scouting level of the Diamondbacks organization: after spending their first eight picks on pitchers in last June’s draft, Arizona converted its biggest trade chip into four more pitchers. Clearly, this is a team that believes in the long-term health of their offense — because of the youth of their offensive core, presumably, but also because their stadium is always going to support the hitters. Developing some good, cheap pitching is an onus that this scouting department has certainly placed on themselves.

The idea of this is to present Arizona’s side of the trade but frankly I have been sitting here for an hour and still cannot even come close to justifying this. The argument that I have heard is that the Diamondbacks needed to shed payroll. I do not have any special insight into their balance sheets so I won’t bother refuting that. I will point out that they were already losing some $30 million in contracts this winter so I’m unsure how low they feel their payroll needs to get. However, even granting that premise, this trade is horrendous.

Make no mistake, Dan Haren is still a very good pitcher and he wasn’t a drain on their payroll. Haren was more than worth his contract. That value obviously makes him an easier commodity to move, but the point then would be to get good assets back. We do not yet know the identity of the player to be named later but have heard that it is not Mike Trout, the Angels only really exciting prospect. The known portions of the trade return range from intriguing but far away (Corbin) to generic (Rodriguez) to downright horrendous (Saunders). Joe Saunders probably doesn’t even make sense to retain given that he’s making almost $4 million this year and would expect to see a raise to the $6 or $7 million mark if he went through arbitration.

That is not a good haul; it’s not even a decent haul. It’s downright bad. It’s the sort of return you’d more expect if the person getting traded was a liability due to his contract, not an asset. The Diamondbacks just acted as if they have no understanding of Haren’s .350 BABIP or that their home park is prone to serving up home runs. The Diamondbacks just acted like Dan Haren was Scott Kazmir. He’s not and whoever eventually takes over as the full time GM in Arizona will rue this day as one that set back the organization significantly.

In a deal that comes as a major shock to the system, the Angels have acquired Dan Haren from the Diamondbacks. The Angels were never mentioned during the discussion of potential destinations for Haren, so this deal flew under the radar until it’s completion and subsequent announcement.

Even though his ERA isn’t pretty this year, Haren is still a pitcher on the top of his game. Haren currently ranks 4th in the Majors in strikeouts, and was tied for the NL lead before he was traded. Guys of Haren’s caliber aren’t usually available for acquisition, and the Angels pounced when the opportunity presented itself to them.

While there are always worries about players moving from the NL to the AL, Haren should be an exception. Haren has had past success in the AL, contributing 13 wins to the Athletics from 2005-2007. Plus, the AL West isn’t exactly an offensive division, so Haren should have no problems sustaining his production going forward.

The Angels are currently 6 games back of the Rangers in the AL West, and 8.5 games behind the Rays for the AL wild card, making them unlikely to make the playoffs. However, they still have a small chance of rallying in the final two months and sneaking their way into the postseason. If they can, pairing Haren with Jered Weaver would make the Halos a scary team to face in October.

But, because Haren’s contract runs through 2012, with a club option for 2013, this move isn’t an all-or-nothing push for the 2010 postseason. With Kendry Morales returning next year, and the monetary woes possibly continuing in Texas, the Angels will enter 2011 as a favorite to reach the postseason. Weaver, Ervin Santana and Joel Pineiro will all still be under contract for next season, leaving the Angels with one of the top rotations in all of baseball.

While we still await word on who the PTBNL will be, it appears the Angels didn’t mortgage the future to win now. Instead, they figured out a way to give themselves a chance to make a run in 2010 while vastly improving their odds in 2011. Let the celebrating begin.

Episode Forty-One
In which the panel has some unfinished business.

Headlines
Live from New York: It’s Baseball Nerds
Trade Value, Schmade Value: Some Qs and As
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Joe Pawl, Real-Live New Yorker
Bryan Smith, Prospect Maven Deluxe

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Last week, we announced our first ever Live Discussion, which will take place in Manhattan on Saturday, August 7th. Today, I wanted to expand on the announcement, and explain why we’re pretty excited for this event.

Over the years, I’ve hosted quite a few events similar to this, and they’ve always been tremendously well received. There are few places in our everyday lives where we can get together with other people who share a similar interest level in baseball and talk about the game in depth for several hours at a time, and that is what this will offer. The variety of topics we’ll be able to cover with our assortment of guests is just tremendous.

The discussion about the changing face of baseball media should be fascinating. Jonah Keri will moderate a panel that will include Will Leitch, Michael Silverman, Alex Speier, and David Biderman, all of whom have different perspectives and roles in reporting on the sport. The way the game has been covered has changed dramatically over the last ten years, and it will continue to evolve as the world moves away from printed products. Perhaps no one personifies “New Media” more than Leitch, and it will be fun to listen to those guys talk about how they view coverage of the sport.

We won’t just talk about how the game is perceived through the lens of those who cover it, however. With Mitchel Lichtman (or MGL as he’s generally known) joining us, we’ll have one of the more interesting statistical analysts in the country available to share his thoughts on where the sabermetric community is at and where its going. FanGraphs will also be represented by myself, David Appelman, Carson Cistulli, Bryan Smith, and Joe Pawlikowski, so along with MGL, we’ll be able to have some interesting discussions about what’s next in nerd stats.

Speaking of Joe P, he’s bringing the whole crew from River Ave Blues, so if you’re a Yankee fan, this will be your chance to hear the crew of the best Yankees blog chat about your team in person. If you’re a Mets fan… we’ll hopefully have an announcement about one of yours attending the event as well – that should be coming soon. As we’re holding the event in NYC, we’ll definitely spend some time talking about the local teams, and it’s been an interesting season for both.

We’re not holding this in a bingo hall, either. If you haven’t checked out The Florence Gould Hall, you’re missing out. We’re really excited to have such a tremendous venue for this event – the kind of place that will offer a relaxed, comfortable environment that still will allow everyone who attends to be able to see and hear what is going on, no matter where they’re sitting.

If you haven’t yet purchased your tickets, do so now. We’ve made every effort to keep costs down, so for $15, you’re getting tremendous value. Whether you’ve been reading the site for years or you just stumbled across it, you’ll have a good time.

I look forward to meeting you all there.

SUMMARY

At 56-40, the Texas Rangers start today six games clear of the Anaheim Angels and 7.5 games ahead of Oakland for the AL West crown. CoolStandings.com gives the Rangers an 86% chance of winning the division and to boot they are just two behind the Rays for the Wild Card if they were to lose the West due to some insane hot streak reminiscent of Oakland’s 2003 run of 20 games in a row or Colorado’s September of 2007.

BUY OR SELL

Obviously the answer is buy, but I cannot pretend to make this retroactive and the Rangers have already bought. A more pressing question then is whether the Rangers have bought enough. Personally, I think so. Even without much help yet from Cliff Lee or Bengie Molina the Rangers performed as one of baseball’s best teams. Cliff Lee is a huge addition and Bengie Molina a decent addition of depth at catcher. I am still of the mind that the Angels are over performing in 2010 and the Athletics pose little realistic threat down the stretch especially is Ben Sheets ends up being dealt. Assuming the Rangers do not collapse in the Texas summer heat, they should waltz to their first postseason berth since 1999.

ON THE FARM

Neftali Feliz and Derek Holland are up with the team and Justin Smoak is now with Seattle so the biggest name left near the Majors is Tanner Scheppers. Scheppers has moved back into the rotation after beginning this Minor League season in the Double-A and eventually Triple-A bullpen. It is far too early to pass any sort of statistical judgment on his performance, but his ability to miss bats and get strikeouts is certainly holding over from his amateur days. The questions on Scheppers for the near future are going to be jointly related issues with injuries and control. So far they are being held at bay, but anyone with his history should be treated with caution.

BUDGET

Put bluntly, the Rangers budget is $0. Currently mired in an ownership and financial quagmire, the Rangers are not in a good position to be adding salary. They had to construct their trades for Bengie Molina and Cliff Lee around the sending teams eating large percentages of those contracts in return for better prospects heading back from Texas. Luckily, Texas is not in an immediate need to add payroll. Where it could get very sticky is if this drags out and runs into the offseason or who knows, even next year’s draft.

It is a weird time of the year to be working on contracts but the Athletics have rarely been a team to do things normally. Details emerged today that Oakland has signed Kurt Suzuki to a four-year contract worth at least $16 million. Even more curious is that this latest deal is not an extension but rather also tears up a contract already in place for 2010. Let us step through the deal as presented by Susan Slusser.

Suzuki had been making $420,000 this season. That figure is now $600,000 with an additional $150,000 signing bonus. Suzuki’s salaries then increase to $3.4 million next year, $5 million in 2012 and finally $6.45 million in 2013, what was to be Suzuki’s final year of arbitration. There is a club option for $8.5 million in 2014 that costs Oakland $650K to buy out and is Suzuki plays in at least 118 games in 2013, he is rewarded with a vested option for 2014 at $9.25 million.

With all the nitty gritty out of the way, how does this look on paper? For starters, Suzuki has been extraordinarily consistent of an offensive force while in the Majors. His wRC+s since 2007 have been 96, 97, 97 and stands at 99 this year. I am tempted to give Suzuki credit for the improving trend and make the math easier by calling him exactly league average offense going forward, but his position behind the plate gives me pause. Attrition is high for catchers and 3.5 guaranteed years is a long time. I will proceed with league average offense for the sake of a WAR projection for now however.

I do not feel confident in assigning value on projecting catcher’s defense yet so I will also leave that as average and so the question comes down to playing time. How often Suzuki plays is indirectly tied with my concern on his hitting ability mentioned above, the fear of injuries and general depreciation that comes from the physical strain of catching. For now, Suzuki looks rather robust, averaging 600 trips to the plate the past two seasons and on his way to around 520 this year. Totaled up and Suzuki looks like he might fall a bit short of his 2.6 WAR last year; more in the 2.3 to 2.4 WAR range in 2010.

Based on the payouts above and the rough 40/60/80 scale for arbitration payouts, it is clear that the Athletics are valuing and paying Suzuki at a rate equal to a player producing right around $9.5 million per season in value after factoring in the expected discount for long term security. That is within a fudge factor of where I would peg Suzuki’s performance projections going forward so at least on the guaranteed parts of this deal, it’s a perfectly fair contract. The club and vesting option are both slightly lower than that $9.5 million arbitration valuation, but Suzuki would also be 30 that season and so a discount is warranted. I cannot find fault with this from either side.

A few days ago I wondered whether the snark level surrounding Dayton Moore and the Kansas City Royals had grown out of hand. They are what they are: an extremely easy target given their record and history of transgressions. At the same time, the farm system is having a nice year. Even if part of that is because the Royals stubbornly refused to promote Alex Gordon amongst others. The Royals’ front office has smart people within. They have a bunch of nice people too. There is no reason to wish ill will or outcomes upon them. None. In fact, you hope they get everything in order so one of the more loyal fan bases in the game can experience playoff baseball again.

But then rumors like this happen and all the warm fuzzy thoughts quickly vanish to where they came. The Royals like Jeff Francoeur? Well of course they like Jeff Francoeur. They seemingly like every former product of the Braves’ farm system that eventually washed out of the organization for one reason or another. Just last night, Thursday night, they had Bruce Chen and Kyle Davies pitching for them. Francoeur isn’t quite the hitting version of that pair because he actually had two very good seasons with Atlanta in 2005 and 2007, but … well, put it this way: 7.1 of Francoeur’s 7.3 career WAR came in those two seasons.

He’s never walked much. He probably never will. He may never replicate the power surge from 2005; at least not over a period longer than 300 plate appearances. His BABIP is .271, which is well below his career norm, but not absurdly so. Look, he’s probably better than his .292 wOBA suggests, but what is his upside? Is it .320? Is it .330? Is it .340? Probably not. He’s just not a good player even when you ignore the fielding, which is about average — give or take a run here or there — despite a strong arm and so-so baserunning despite a supposedly high baseball IQ.

Here is the thing: the Royals could actually acquire Francoeur and have it turn out to be a useful move. For all the jokes and all the ridiculous bravado around Francoeur’s clubhouse demeanor – supposedly, he is the one who dictates when the rest of the team shaves … and this is highlighted as an endearing quality to have in the clubhouse; only in baseball would being the guy in charge of everyone else’s facial hair be such an important position – Francoeur could actually be a decent platoon mate. For his career, he’s hit lefties at a .345 wOBA clip. Take away the .249 figure in 2008 and he’s always maintained a wOBA above .350 versus southpaws until this season. That is absolutely useful.

There are three issues with this idea: 1) The Mets will almost certainly want more than a player of that ilk is worth; 2) Kansas City will almost certainly not value Francoeur as a platoon player either, and by extension, won’t use him as one; 3) Francoeur is being paid $5 million this season; right-handed hitting corner outfielders with average defense who hit lefties aren’t exactly a rare flock of bird. Put that all in a bowl and mix it and you’ll produce some quality snark cakes. Hopefully the Royals ditch the recipe. For everyone’s sake.

Dave Duncan is a tremendous pitching coach. He’s taken on countless reclamation projects and has somehow turned the scrap heap of the major leagues into legitimate, MLB quality pitchers. This season, Duncan received the ultimate test of his resurrection abilities when the Cardinals brought back Jeff Suppan, a member of the 2006 World Series team who won the NLCS MVP that season and has done nothing else of note whatsoever over the course of his entire career. Suppan was finally released of the worst contract in Milwaukee Brewers history in early July after posting a 4.89 FIP and 5.06 xFIP – numbers that are bad, but not jettison worthy, until you consider that they came in 13 relief appearances against only two starts. Basically, Suppan was the definition of replacement level in Milwaukee.

The Cardinals rotation has suffered injuries and had to deal with incompetence from the back-end all season, despite the stupendous trio of Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, and Jaime Garcia at the front. I was sure that Jeff Suppan’s career was over after the Brewers mercifully released him, but the Cardinals decided to bring their former player back into the organization and give him a shot as the #5 starter.

If Dave Duncan had some sort of voodoo magic surrounding him, Jeff Suppan might be pitching well, or at least above replacement level. Instead, it appears that 35 year old, no stuff, no control pitchers are Duncan’s limit. Suppan made his 7th start of the season against the Cubs this afternoon. He entered the start with 13 strikeouts, 12 walks, and four home runs allowed in 30 innings – yet again, essentially defining replacement level. Against the Cubs, Suppan threw six innings, allowing 10 hits, three home runs, three walks, and striking out nobody. Somehow, the Cubs only scored five runs off of this barrage, but that was more than enough, as Randy Wells shut down the Cardinals lineup.

This isn’t meant as a slam against Dave Duncan at all – nobody with any sort of rational expectations for Suppan would’ve expected anything significantly above replacement level, and this terrible performance today should push Suppan’s WAR with St. Louis well into the red. If anything, seeing Suppan continue to perform terribly is a relief. As a fan of an NL Central team, it’s painful for me to see a pitcher sign with St. Louis, knowing that Duncan could turn them into this year’s version of 2009 Joel Piniero. At least this gives me the comfort of mind to know that Dave Duncan can’t fix everybody.