At any given time during a baseball off-season, there are essentially two different ways to acquire talent – sign players via free agency or trade for another’s team’s player who is already under contract. We often refer to the combination of both as the market of total available players, but given the pricing differences we’ve seen in each, perhaps we should reexamine whether these are really just two very different markets altogether.
Alcides Escobar didn’t hit at all in 2010. Lorenzo Cain hit better than expected once he reached the big leagues. In both instances, I think we can say that their 2010 performances were among the chief reasons they were traded to Kansas City over the weekend. If Escobar had hit like he was expected to, Milwaukee would have been loath to give him up. If Cain hadn’t hit .300 upon reaching the majors, his stock probably wouldn’t have been high enough to make him a main piece in a trade for Zack Greinke.
However, a look beyond their slash lines shows that Escobar and Cain weren’t all that different offensively last year. Escobar’s walk rate was marginally better, but that difference is just the intentional walks he was issued as an occasional benefactor of the eighth spot in an NL line-up. Escobar struck out a little less, but their contact rates were basically the same. Neither showed much power, as they combined for a whopping five home runs.
The difference in their batting lines is almost entirely due to their rate of hitting singles. In some cases, this is a skill, as some players are simply better singles hitters than others. In this case, however, it looks a lot more like luck.
With today’s signing of Orlando Hudson by the Padres, we can say that the Adrian Gonzalez trade is finally complete. While Boston didn’t ship Hudson to San Diego directly, it is hard to miss the symmetry between the salary that the Padres shed when Gonzalez was traded and the amount of money that they gave Hudson to take over at second base. For all intents and purposes, Hudson is what the Padres were able to buy with the money they saved by moving their star first baseman.
While that swap doesn’t make the Padres a better team overall, adding Hudson does offset the loss of Gonzalez to a degree. A chronically underrated player, Hudson has been worth an average of +2.5 WAR per 600 PA over his career, and has rarely strayed far from that number, never going lower than +1.2 or higher than +3.7. While he’s showing signs of aging as a hitter, Hudson is still a quality starting second baseman, and at $11 million over two years, he’s a rare bargain in this inflationary market.
Since this was apparently Sign-A-Reliever week in MLB, it’s only fitting to wrap it up by asking you guys to project how four of the notable relievers to sign this week are going to do with their new clubs.
Click here to project how Jesse Crain, Matt Guerrier, Bobby Jenks, and Joel Peralta will do in 2011.
While we’ve seen prices going up for free agents across the board, nowhere has the inflationary market been more clear than in the bullpen. After Joaquin Benoit set the market by landing a three year contrat with Detroit, teams have felt obligated to match the length of that deal in order to get the guys perceived to be the best bullpen arms on the market. Scott Downs, Matt Guerrier, and now Jesse Crain have all landed three year deals since Benoit signed, and Rafael Soriano is widely expected to get a deal of at least three years as well. After several years of restraint, teams have found themselves spending on the bullpen like its 2006.
Unfortunately for the teams with the open wallets, recent history suggests that giving contracts of 3+ years to a relief pitcher is generally a terrible idea. Here’s a list of free agent relievers who have received deals for three or more years since over the last four off-seasons.
I am constantly amazed by the power of most recent season ERA. It seems to drive the perception of a pitcher’s worth more than any other statistic, to the point where it often appears to be the only thing under consideration. In the last few days, we’ve seen yet another example, as two very similar pitchers have had their market value talked about in two very different ways.
Let’s start with their career numbers.
Pitcher A: 2.51 BB/9, 5.82 K/9, 1.02 HR/9, 43.7% GB%, 4.21 FIP, 4.30 ERA
Pitcher B: 2.26 BB/9, 5.72 K/9, 1.01 HR/9, 46.0% GB%, 4.15 FIP, 4.34 ERA
Pretty similar, yes? They’re basically the same type of pitcher with similar stuff and approaches to pitching. Pitcher A is five years younger and has been healthy almost his entire career. Pitcher B has a long injury history and has spent a good chunk of his career on the disabled list. Which one would you prefer?
With the signing of Cliff Lee, sports gambling websites have vaulted the Phillies into World Series favorites, as they have passed both Boston and New York by assembling a fearsome rotation. Halladay, Lee, Hamels, and Oswalt is a pretty easy sell, after all. But, if we want to find out whether the Phillies really are the team most likely to win it all next year, we need to look at their overall roster.
Let’s start with their strength. Even if they trade Joe Blanton, as is assumed, their rotation should be the best in baseball. Dan Szymborski revealed that ZIPS projects the Phillies Phour to be worth +19.8 WAR in 2011. If we add another +1 WAR for Kyle Kendrick and the various collection of extra starters that Philadelphia will use to fill out their rotation, we get something like +21 WAR from the Phillies starting pitchers. That’s a pretty good start.
Now that we know the basic structure of Cliff Lee’s contract with the Phillies – 5 years, $120 million, plus a vesting option for a sixth year that could take it to $135 million in overall value – we could break down the contract in terms of what the Phillies are expecting in terms of wins and future inflation. But, in this case, I’m not sure it is all that necessary, because the Phillies don’t need a certain level of performance needed to justify their high bid since they got Cliff Lee with a bid that was slightly lower than what New York and Texas offered.
In many cases, free agents become almost instantly untradeable due to the Winner’s Curse, as the signing team only gets to become the signing team by paying an amount that no other team in baseball is willing to match. But that’s not what happened here. Both Texas and New York were willing to commit similar dollars and years to Lee, but he simply chose to go to Philadelphia instead.
After a six week dance with New York and Texas, Cliff Lee has apparently decided to spurn them both and sign with the Mystery Team Philadelphia Phillies. If the Jayson Werth deal was a shocker, this one breaks the Richter Scale. It is perhaps the most surprising, and one of the most interesting, free agent signings in baseball history.
Once we get financial terms, we’ll be able to break down the costs and benefits of the signing. Until then, though, there’s one question staring us in the face – is the best rotation we’ve ever seen?
