Archive for Teams

Later tonight, the National League Cy Young Award winner will be announced. My own fake awards picks have already been made public, and I am sure everyone was thrilled to read them. The NL Cy Young gave me the most trouble. I ended up voting for the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw, but I really wanted to cast my non-ballot for the Mets’ R.A. Dickey.

What’s not to like about R.A. Dickey? He names his bats after fictional swords (only the master smiths of Gondolin could forge a weapon that enables a pitcher to rake to the tune of a career 6 wRC+). He climbed Mount Kilimanjaro during the off-season to raise money to combat human trafficking. He is trying to help others by sharing about being abused as as child. He writes children’s books. He makes an awesome face while pitching. Best of all (strictly from a purely baseball perspective), he is a knuckleballer. Oh, yeah, he also had an awesome season in 2012.

However, when I tried to justify voting for Dickey over Kershaw, I just could not do it. It was not for lack of trying, though.

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The Toronto Blue Jays are going for it. They’ve hit the jackpot on Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, and it’s time to cash in. They’ll try to do it with Josh Johnson, Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle, Emilio Bonifacio, John Buck joining from Miami.

As lopsided as the blockbuster trade seems in their favor, make no mistake, the Blue Jays did pay a price in acquiring most of the Marlins’ payroll. Between the $165 million in contract obligations and the prospects sent out, the Blue Jays hampered their ability to improve their roster beyond this trade.

So the new roster better be worth it. How does it stack up?

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The mega-deal between the Toronto Blue Jays and Miami Marlins saw a number of prospects change hands Tuesday night. While Toronto loaded up on veteran talent in an effort to challenge for the American League East title in 2013, Miami looked to get younger — yet again — and acquired four interesting prospects. You’ll read more about each of them below, and three of them appeared on the recent Blue Jays Top 15 prospects list here at FanGraphs.

The potential key to this deal for Miami is Justin Nicolino. He was part of the “Lansing trio,” a name given to a group of three high-ceiling pitchers in the Jays system that also included Aaron Sanchez (the club’s second-overall prospect) and Noah Syndergaard (who is ranked third). I ranked Nicolino as the fifth-best prospect in the system prior to the trade.

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Based on reports from the last few days, the Giants have reportedly agreed to re-sign Jeremy Affeldt to a three year, $18 million contract. Predictably, the internet has responded with scorn.

Three years for a reliever. Might as well give the money to Jean-Ralphio “@marcoacosta28: @keithlaw you like the Affeldt signing ?”

— keithlaw (@keithlaw) November 13, 2012

Multi-year deals for relief pitchers are generally not a great way to spend money. Relievers are fickle, they can be replaced fairly easily, and it doesn’t take much money to cobble together a bullpen full of failed starters who can excel in a more limited role. Keith’s overarching point about long term deals for relief pitchers is correct.

But, at some point, it probably behooves us all to move beyond generalities and talk about the specifics of contracts for free agent relievers, because despite the rhetoric, not every multi-year deal for every relief pitcher is a giant waste of cash.

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Stop the presses! Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer have signed a good player with durability questions to a one year contract. This time, their reclamation project is Scott Baker, who underwent Tommy John surgery last April and missed the entire 2012 season. To secure his services, the Cubs gave him $5.5 million guaranteed, with an additional $1.5 million in performance bonuses based on how many innings he throws.

When healthy enough to pitch, Baker has been an above average starter for the Twins, posting a career ERA-/FIP-/xFIP- of 97/93/94 in just under 1,000 innings. He’s an extreme fly ball pitcher, but he limits walks and racks up strikeouts by pitching up in the zone, so the trade-off works pretty well in preventing runs.

The question, of course, is how much quantity he’ll be able to provide. He’ll be less than a year out from surgery on Opening Day, and if he has any setbacks in his rehab, there’s a pretty decent chance he’ll have to start the season on the DL. If the Cubs want to play it safe and give him some time to build up his endurance in the minors, he might not pitch for Chicago until May or June. Projecting more than 100 to 150 innings from Baker in 2013 is probably too optimistic, so this deal likely buys the Cubs a pitcher for about half of next season.

But, just like with Paul Maholm last winter, this is exactly the kind of guy that the Cubs should be filling out their rotation with. Decent, young-ish starter with upside and no long term commitment who can provide solid results and potentially serve as a nice trade chip at the deadline. Or, if things go really well, they get a leg up on re-signing him before he hits the market again next winter.

For a rebuilding team, this is how Major League payroll should be used. Use available jobs and cash to sign guys who can offer some upside without locking yourself into any long term risk, and position the roster to offer the fans a decent product without giving up any of the long term assets that the team is building around. The cost isn’t so low that it would have made sense for every team to do this deal, but for a club like the Cubs, this is exactly the kind of move that makes sense.

After some covering the WWBA tournament for ESPN, I fell behind on some instructional league reports, so I’ll roll out the remainder lightning round style over the next few days. Normally, I need a few days to be able to see all the prospects in a camp and have an opinion, but fortunately the one game I saw of the Astros featured all of their notable prospects in camp. I have some history with most of the prospect hitters and while it was only one game, I got a good, updated feel for the players, so I’ll run through the roster in two parts.

I covered Lance McCullers a lot as an amateur for ESPN as the supplemental first rounder played his prep ball just down the street from my house. He started the instructs game I saw and continued to show progress in what ended up being a huge developmental season for him. I’ve seen McCullers hit 98 and despite the longest season of his career, he still worked 91-93, hitting 94 with some life and mixing in a two-seamer at 88-89. His curveball was it’s usual self, showing plus potential at 79-82, though he would get around the pitch and give it ¾ tilt at times rather than the preferred 11-to-5 tilt.

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The infield fly ball is the second worst outcome for a hitter besides a strikeout. With almost 100% of all popups turning into outs, a hitter, who is prone to skying the ball into the infield, will generate more outs and therefor a lower batting average. Several factors make a pitch more likely to be hit as an infield fly ball, but the key factor is the batter’s mechanics.

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A couple of years ago, I wondered why David Ross was taking such small contracts to back up Brian McCann in Atlanta when he seemed to be good enough to start elsewhere. Whether it was a lack of interest from other teams or Ross’ desire to stay in Atlanta, it puzzled me. When he was eligible for free agency again this season, I figured he would probably just stay in in Atlanta as he had before, since he appeared disinclined to play hardball with his employers at contract time.

However things turned out behind closed doors in the meetings that did or did not happen, Ross surprised many people by reportedly signing a two-year, $6.2 million contract with the Red Sox this weekend. Why the Braves let him go and the Red Sox are both a bit puzzling, but, as we will see, Ross, the seemingly eternal backup, compares favorably to a good number of starting catchers in the league.

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We already know that the three finalists for the 2012 American League Rookie of the Year Award are Mike Trout, Yoenis Cespedes, and Yu Darvish. We basically already know that Mike Trout will be named the unanimous winner later on Monday by the BBWAA. There is no particularly convincing argument for any of the other guys over Trout, unless you pretend like pitcher wins are the only statistic that exists. You’ll know if Trout does not win unanimously because in that event Twitter would go down on account of all the Internet rage. It doesn’t take a lot to make the Internet rage.

The award itself is something that matters only sort of. It would probably matter a great deal to Trout and to Trout’s family. It’s something that would immediately go on Trout’s resume, and it’s something that would be brought up in any Mike Trout Hall-of-Fame discussions. The recognition would boost Trout’s self-esteem but it would not give him a new house, and it would not give the Angels more wins. It certainly means little to the fans. I don’t think fans care about the awards because of the winners; I think they care about the awards because of the arguments for which they allow. On the surface, there’s not much room for argument in the 2012 AL RoY. But what follows is an argument in favor of Oakland’s Jarrod Parker.

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The Red Sox made a historic trade in terms of dollars moved a few months ago, a trade that simultaneously improved their long-term outlook while burning their short-term chances to the ground. Boston lost 26 of 34 games after the deal with the Dodgers and will spend the winter picking up the pieces, trying to find smart ways to invest the $260+ million in savings while getting the team back into contention as soon as possible.

One of GM Ben Cherington’s biggest short-term questions is Jacoby Ellsbury, who followed up his 9.4 WAR season of 2011 with a 1.5 WAR effort in 2012. He missed most of the summer due to injury and when he was on the field, he stunk. Just a .300 wOBA and 83 wRC+ in 323 plate appearances. Without looking it up, I’m guessing the 7.9 WAR drop from one year to the next is one of the largest by a position player in history. But I digress.

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