My favorite part of this weekend’s Red Sox-Dodgers blockbuster isn’t the absolutely insane nature of the trade, it’s the “… and Nick Punto” that will forever be attached to it until the end of time. Los Angeles surrendered two high-end pitching prospects and absorbed more than a quarter-billion dollars in salary obligation to acquire a star-caliber first baseman, a potential star-caliber outfielder, and a serviceable (with a chance for lots more) starting pitcher. Oh yeah, and a utility infielder.

Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 232
FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron, as per usual, makes his weekly appearance on FanGraphs Audio and analyzes all baseball.

Discussed:
• The recent Mega Deal™ between Boston and Los Angeles.
• More about that same Mega Deal™.
• Max Scherzer, his performance from Max Scherzer Schunday.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 26 min. play time.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Having seen the Greenville Drive on multiple occasions in each of the past four seasons, I’ve grown familiar with much of the Red Sox organization at the minor league level. A current weakness is pitching, and this was addressed over the weekend when the Red Sox added two promising young hurlers I’ve scouted on multiple occasions in Rubby de la Rosa and Allen Webster. And while I haven’t seen Matt Barnes or Henry Owens in person yet, I’ve registered 98 MPH readings on my radar gun for both of the two new guys, which undoubtedly makes them among the hardest throwers in the system.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Friday night, the Dodgers made their latest calculated gamble, taking on $260 million in future salaries from the Red Sox in order to acquire Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett, and Nick Punto. In the write-up I did on Friday, I noted that the best way to explain this trade from the Dodgers perspective is that they are attempting to capitalize on their current contender status under the hope that they can achieve a significant revenue bounce from a playoff run that could offset a large part of the costs of these acquisitions.

There’s another theory floating around, however, that has to do with the upcoming free agent class. If we accept that the Dodgers were going to spend this much money at some point in the near future, the argument is that the relatively unimpressive group of free agents set to hit the market this winter made this a better choice than spending the same money on free agents in three months and getting inferior players without the added bonus of their production down the stretch in 2012.

So, let’s go through the options, and see what else the Dodgers could have potentially done with their giant wad of cash.

Read the rest of this entry »

While nothing has been made official yet, it appears that the Red Sox and Dodgers are going to soon finalize one of the largest (and most interesting) deals in baseball history. The deal is believed to inclue Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett, and Nick Punto heading to Los Angeles, with a group of five players (including James Loney, Rubby de la Rosa, Jerry Sands, Ivan DeJesus and “a prospect”) headed back to Boston.

We knew a shake-up was coming in Boston. We’re a year into the team badly underperforming their talent level, and the general circus atmosphere around the organization couldn’t be sustained much longer. A shake-up was inevitable. Beginning the demolition in one fell swoop was less predictable, however.

Read the rest of this entry »

Andruw Jones was having a brilliant career, that is, until he turned 31 years old. Since that point, he’s barely been a league-average player. He went from an all-time great player, to an iffy hall-of-fame candidate.

Read the rest of this entry »

While this kind of thing is expected, there’s still some news today from Jeff Passan of of Yahoo Sports.

Source: Phillies have placed Cliff Lee on waivers. Executives expect him to clear Friday afternoon, be eligible for trade.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) August 2, 2012

Most teams run nearly their entire rosters through waivers in August, just on the off chance that someone gets through and they can end up making a deal with a contender in a seller’s market. Probably every big name player in baseball is going to be put on waivers at some point in the next few weeks, and so Lee is no different in that regard.

He is somewhat different, though, in that his contract makes it likely that he’ll actually clear waivers, and a team putting in a claim would force the Phillies to make a pretty interesting decision.

Read the rest of this entry »

With the trade deadline behind us, it’s worth looking back at which teams improved themselves the most with mid-season acquisitions, which clubs found value without surrendering much of their future, and which organizations may regret missing an opportunity to upgrade their talent base. Each club had different goals and different needs, so any review of this sort is going to be subjective in nature, but there are some clubs that made moves that certainly have the appearance of improving their overall organization either in the short term or in the long term.

The Winners

Los Angeles Dodgers — added Hanley Ramirez, Shane Victorino, Brandon League, and Randy Choate

Read the rest of this entry »

I had the opportunity to watch the Los Angeles Dodgers game on Saturday, which saw Chad Billingsley face off with Barry Zito. While I knew Billingsley was having a resurgence of sorts, his stellar outing versus the San Francisco Giants on this day sent me to the Fangraphs leader board where you can see him currently at 2.3 wins above replacement — hanging out with the likes of Cole Hamels, Cliff Lee, and Madison Bumgarner. Despite posting just six wins thus far, it turns out that Chad Billingsley is having a rather superb season, and I’m not too sure that many saw it coming after a disappointing 2011.

Read the rest of this entry »

As both managing editor Dave Cameron and large swaths of the internet have noted, outfielder Shane Victorino has been traded by the Phillies to the Dodgers. Despite the fact that he’s probably a superior defender to Matt Kemp, it’s unlikely that Victorino will push the incumbent Kemp to left field. (This is what’s known in legal terms as the Derek Jeter Precedent.)

It stands to reason that, owing to how Bobby Abreu has played a considerable amount of left field for the Dodgers this season, that installing Victorino as the club’s full-time left fielder will make a not-insignificant contribution merely in terms of runs saved over the Dodgers’ final 58 games of the regular season.

“How much of a difference, though?” the curious reader might be wondering. “This much of one,” the irresponsible author is now answering, in the form of the following, mostly haphazard calculations.

Read the rest of this entry »