Ben and Sam preview the Athletics’ season with Doug Thorburn, and Pete talks to Bay Area News Group A’s beat writer John Hickey (at 19:07).
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Episode 304
Prospect analyst Marc Hulet discusses some recent organizational top-15 prospect lists for the 2012-13 offseason, with particular attention to left-hander Martin Perez (Texas), right-hander Julio Teheran (Atlanta), right-hander Luis Heredia (Pittsburgh), left-hander Enny Romero (Tampa Bay), outfielder Mikie Mahtook (Tampa Bay), third baseman Jedd Gyorko, and left-hander Robbie Erlin (both from San Diego) — as well as the assorted issues raised by each.
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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 39 min play time.)
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I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the Marlins, but of the time I do spend thinking about the Marlins, the bulk of it is spent thinking about that one home run Giancarlo Stanton blasted off Jamie Moyer. You know the one — the one that broke the scoreboard, the one that set an ESPN Home Run Tracker speed-off-bat record. The home run, just fair, was also a grand slam, and it was the hardest-hit home run baseball’s seen in at least seven years. Stanton didn’t catch up to a blazing heater. This was Jamie Moyer, after all. Stanton ripped a full-count changeup at 72 miles per hour.
There exists some sentiment that harder throwers will give up harder contact than softer throwers. Less contact, of course, but also harder contact. The idea is that Aroldis Chapman‘s balls in play will be struck harder than Livan Hernandez’s balls in play. It’s based in very simple physics: we care about the velocity of the ball, the mass of the ball, the velocity of the bat, and the mass of the bat. Hold everything else constant and, as you increase the ball’s velocity, you end up with a greater speed off the bat. The reality is more complicated than this, but this gets to the core.
On Monday, we looked at three vetoed trades, and I thought today we’d look at three more.
In 2008, Mike Aviles was a 27-year-old minor league infielder in the Royals’ system who had to get a lucky break for the club to play him over this historically terrible Tony Pena, Jr. Yesterday, the soon-to-be 32-year-old Aviles got his first multi-year, guaranteed deal with Cleveland, which bought out his last two years of arbitration for $6 million and a club option for 2015. It has been quite the odyssey for Aviles, who was drafted by the Royals seventh round in 2003, in large part because he would sign for a $1,000 signing bonus (David Glass is great, isn’t he? Let’s give a hand to David Glass, folks!), has seen himself passed over for the likes of the aforementioned Pena, Yuniesky Betancourt and Chris Getz, and was traded twice this winter, including once for a manager.
Despite all that, Aviles has shown himself to be a useful player — and while this contract is hardly huge in itself — it might have interesting implications for how Cleveland’s roster might shake out in the near future.
I was going to do my list of the 10 worst off-season transactions today, but I’m going to push it back to next week, since I have some things to say about yesterday’s news.
The Mariners are apparently set to sign Felix Hernandez to the largest contract ever given to a Major League pitcher. The total commitment is $175 million over seven years. It’s a staggering amount for a guy who wasn’t eligible for free agency until after the 2014 season, and in many ways, this contract is the continuation of the trend that we saw begin last year with Joey Votto’s deal with the Reds. Here’s what I wrote a year ago when that deal was announced:
So, at this point, we have a couple of options – we can continue to be shocked and amazed at the growing rate of contracts that guarantee big money to players from 2018 and beyond, or we can adjust our expectations for what premium players are going to be able to command going forward. With the promise of new money flowing into many organizations over the next three to five years, I’d imagine we’ll see more and more teams being aggressive in trying to lock up their young stars before they get to free agency and have to bid against whichever franchise just happened to renegotiate their television contract a few months prior.
For the Reds, the equation was pretty simple – keep Votto and contend during the run-up to the expiration of their television deal, or trade him away, rebuild, and come to the table asking for more money after a couple of years of going young and probably taking their lumps. Given those options, giving Votto a couple of extra years at the back end to increase their bargaining position doesn’t look quite so crazy.
…
This deal is going to have lasting repercussions on the sport. Not only does it suggest that the Reds are going to remain competitive in the NL Central going forward, but it also resets the price expectations for every pre-free agent player in the sport. Congratulations, players, all of your expected prices just went up. Way up.
Felix’s deal with the Mariners is the pitcher’s version of Votto’s deal with the Reds. It’s a free agent price for a pitcher who wasn’t a free agent, and in that sense, there’s a pretty good argument to be made that it’s too much money. The Mariners are taking on significant additional risk by guaranteeing him his 2015-2019 salaries now, and like with Votto, that risk wasn’t offset by getting a below market price on the deal. Given the history of pitcher attrition, there’s a significant chance that this deal will go south for the Mariners, and they’ll end up with an expensive and overpaid former ace. Most good young pitchers don’t turn into good old pitchers, and the Mariners have just made a huge bet on Felix being the exception rather than the rule.
FanGraphs+ is here! And all week, we’ve been giving away free subscriptions to the service just for skips and skittles. And since it’s one o’clock Eastern — yes, my colleague Carson Cistulli has had considerable difficulty making the time, but that’s fine — that means it’s time for another edition of the vaunted FanGraphs+ Player-Profile Game!
I: post a profile — one of the 1100+ player profiles that FanGraphs+ offers — with important information redacted. You: guess what player the profile belongs to. Current subscribers are disqualified, and winning without leaderboard work is encouraged.
Today’s profile sprung forth from the magnificent mind of Mike Newman one day:
Sure, the tools are impressive, but [Player]’s baseball skills also need to develop. And with [Player] making his full-season debut in 2013, the center fielder is behind the learning curve with respect to refining those skills: [Player] struck out 30-plus percent of the time in the [minor leagues]. This, after undergoing an overhaul of his hitting mechanics. In dynasty formats, I’d be looking to sell [Player] immediately. Let another owner gamble on his upside. In moderately deep leagues, a shrewd owner might even cash out of [Player} and buy White Sox Trayce Thompson as a penny stock. In terms of talent, they are similar players. (Mike Newman)
Table of Contents
Today’s edition of the Daily Notes has no table of contents, it appears.
Three Pleasures of the Caribbean Series Title Game
The Caribbean Series title game took place on Thursday night between the champions of the Dominican and Mexican winter leagues — Leones de Escogido and Yaquis de Obregon, respectively. To say, however, that it took place “Thursday night” isn’t entirely accurate: while the contest began at 9pm ET, it did not end until 18 innings and seven-plus hours later. In between, there were over 500 pitches thrown, three dramatic game-tying hits, and a game-winning cuadrangular by a native of Springfield, Massachusetts. In the end, the representatives of host country Mexico won 4-3 (box).
If the point of baseball as spectator sport is for it to be enjoyed — in all the ways, I mean, that humans are capable of enjoying things (a definition broad enough to include even the peculiar and flagellant experience that is Mariners fandom) — then this game succeeded in that regard.
In fact, the game succeeded in no fewer than three ways, I’d suggest — upon which ways I will now wax authoritative.
The name Doug Clark shouldn’t mean much to fans of Major League Baseball. His name is in the record book — he appeared in eight games for San Francisco in 2005 and six for Oakland the next year. He went 1-for-11 with a walk and five strikeouts in his 12 plate appearances. On June 29th, 2006, Clark pinch hit for Dan Haren in the top of the seventh inning. Brian Sikorski struck him out, and his MLB career was over.
Most Americans never knew Doug Clark as a baseball player, and those who did likely forgot him quickly. But Clark’s baseball life was far from over.