Well, that didn’t take long. A few hours after the reports came out on the trade sending Dee Gordon to the Marlins for Andrew Heaney and stuff, Heaney was redirected to the Angels in exchange for Howie Kendrick. So, really, instead of trading a second baseman and a pitcher they didn’t want for a bundle of prospects, the Dodgers traded their second baseman for the Angels second baseman and a slightly smaller bundle of prospects.

So, with the smoke (maybe) settled, the two trades essentially turn out to be one three trade. In the end, if we’re at the end, it looks something like this.

Marlins trade Heaney, Enrique Gonzalez, Austin Barnes, and Chris Hatcher for Dee Gordon
Dodgers trade Gordon for Kendrick, Gonzalez, Barnes, and Hatcher
Angels trade Kendrick for Heaney

Jeff already covered the first half of the deal in some depth, so if you’re interested in Gordon or the prospects, read that. The new guy here is Kendrick, so this quick post will focus on him.

In exchange for the six years of Heaney they could have held on to, the Dodgers are getting just one year of Kendrick’s services, but Kendrick is legitimately one of the best second baseman in baseball. At +10 WAR over the last three years, Kendrick isn’t quite in the Cano/Pedroia/Zobrist class, but he’s right there with the next tier of guys, and at 31, shouldn’t be expected to decline from that level in 2015.

Steamer projects Kendrick as a +3.3 WAR player for 2015, and given that he’ll make just $9.5 million next year, he’s a significant bargain for the money. The Dodgers can either approach Kendrick about an extension now, or keep him for the final year of his contract and hit him with a qualifying offer next winter. Given the market value of a win this winter, one season of Kendrick plus the potential draft pick is probably worth something like $25 or $30 million. Don’t sleep on Kendrick’s value as a big time asset.

Whether that’s worth six years of Andrew Heaney depends on what you think of him as a prospect, essentially. If you still see him as a solid mid-rotation starter — and Steamer’s projecting him at +1.4 WAR per 200 innings in 2015, so even incremental improvement over the next few years would get him there — then this might be too steep a price to pay. The Dodgers are definitely better with Kendrick than with Heaney, but a cheap solid starting pitcher has significant value as well.

The Angels essentially took a page out of the A’s playbook with this one, getting worse in the short-term to pick up a potentially solid long-term role player. Kendrick won’t be easy to replace, though, and the Angels don’t have an obvious candidate ready to step in.

All told: the Dodgers got better and added some prospects. The Angels got worse, but also younger and added more team control. And the Marlins got a guy who is fast.

The author — who’s already been alive for 35 years and will probably die pretty soon, relatively speaking — the author, despite his age, has never had occasion to describe one thing as the “jewel” of another thing. Like, even though I visited Croatia this past spring, for example, I was never once compelled to suggest that Diocletian’s Palace is the “jewel” of Split. And even though I live in New Hampshire, for other example, I’ve never felt so overcome by Winnipesaukee to pronounce it the “jewel” of that state’s Lakes Region.

Standing on what are probably the broad, masculine shoulders of Jared Cross and his Steamer projection system, however, it seems totally reasonable — so far as projected WAR for 2015 is concerned, at least — it seems reasonable to describe half-catcher, half-second-baseman Austin Barnes as the “jewel” of today’s Dodgers-Marlins trade.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well, this has been an interesting afternoon of Wade Miley rumors. First, the D’Backs were reportedly close to a deal with Boston, then Boston wasn’t involved at all, then it was the Marlins who were close to a deal, then no one was close, and now apparently the Red Sox have struck a deal to land Miley after all.

#RedSox have agreement in principle for #DBacks’ Miley, sources tell me and @jonmorosi. AZ will get Webster, De La Rosa and a minor leaguer.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 11, 2014

The quick facts, and then we’ll have a full post up when all the details are known.

Wade Miley is 28, under team control for three more seasons, and is projected to make $4.3 million in arbitration this winter. His ERA went the wrong way last season, but since you’re on FanGraphs, I’m going to assume you know not to evaulate a pitcher by single season ERA. In over 600 big league innings, he has an ERA-/FIP-/xFIP- line of 97/97/98, which is solidly above average for a starter. Especially a durable starter with no health issues.

Rubby de la Rosa is probably the main piece coming back to Arizona. He’ll be 26 in a few months and is under team control for four more seasons, and he’ll make the league minimum this year. His stuff is good, but he doesn’t miss as many bats as you’d expect for a guy with his velocity and the command isn’t great. He’s also a Tommy John recovery guy, and the combination of some medical red flags and bad command have some projecting him as a reliever.

Allen Webster (turns 26 in February) is a simliar good stuff/bad command guy who doesn’t get enough strikeouts to justify the walks. His velocity also tumbled last year, as his fastball fell from 94.0 in 2013 to 92.0 in 2014. He comes with two extra years of team control, but he also seems likely to end up as a reliever. Probably more so than de la Rosa, in fact.

The third prospect is unknown as of this moment.

2015 Steamer projections

Wade Miley: 192 IP, +2.3 WAR
Rubby de la Rosa: 189 IP, +1.4 WAR
Allen Webster: 182 IP, +0.6 WAR

The Red Sox trade 10 years of team control for three years, but get a much more reliable mid-rotation starter in exchange. And if de la Rosa and Webster end up as relievers, then the extra years won’t matter much at all. While I recognize that I probably like pitchers in the mold of Wade Miley more than most, my early take — without knowing who the third prospect is, which could change things — is that this is a pretty nifty upgrade for the Red Sox.

The Astros have made it clear that they intend to upgrade their bullpen this winter, chasing Andrew Miller and David Robertson with significant four year offers before watching both sign with other teams. So this morning, they turned to Plan C, reportedly signing Luke Gregerson to a three year, $18.5 million contract, according to Bob Nightengale.

The big question hanging over this move, and the pursuits of Miller and Robertson, is why the Astros are spending money to sign free agent relievers. Expensive bullpen arms have historically proven to provide the lowest return on investment in baseball, and the Astros are not in a position to sacrifice significant future value for a modest short-term boost. Why would a team that has been so set on building for the future suddenly shift gears and sign an aging reliever who probably won’t still be an effective arm by the time the Astros are ready to contend?

Well, I’m just speculating here, but perhaps the Astros signed Gregerson with the clear intention of trading him this summer for something that could be a part of their future. As we see every July, the markup on useful bullpen arms is ridiculously high in-season, and with so many teams currently in go-for-it mode, the Astros are positioned to be one of the few teams able to take advantage of what should be a very strong seller’s market.

When everyone is buying, being the only team with stuff to sell is a great position to be in, but first, you have to have things that the buyers want. As long as he continues to pitch relatively well, contending teams will want Gregerson in July, especially if the Astros agree to pick up a bit of his future salary. And in effect, the Astros could essentially be buying themselves a pretty decent prospect.

Let’s say they hold him until mid-July, so they’d have paid him $3 million of his $6 million 2015 salary, then agreed to pick up $5 million of the remaining $15 million he was still owed. An acquiring team would only have to absorb $10 million in salaries for 2.5 years of relief work, which would look like a bargain at a time when there are going to be few other options to upgrade in-season. And so, the Astros could likely extract a solid young player in return, essentially buying that prospect for $8 million in salary.

The Astros have money, so they can afford to gamble the $18.5 million in guaranteed money that Gregerson can still be effective for a few months. If it doesn’t work out, well, they’re out $6 million per year in a few years where they probably weren’t going to win anyway, and premium free agents aren’t taking their money until they get a little more respectable anyway. Yeah, Gregerson could suck, and then they’d have “wasted” that money, but it’s only wasted cash if you could have spent it on something better. If no one wants to sign with the Astros, and the alternative was to not spend it, then it’s not a waste even if he’s lousy and nukes his own trade value.

If he’s not lousy, and his trade value is buoyed by the Astros willingness to pay down part of this contract in July, then the Astros might have just found a way to make themselves an even more attractive seller in a market where there is going to be very little competition.

After a very long courtship, Jon Lester has decided to pitch for the Chicago Cubs.

Jon Lester, Cubs agree on six-year, $155M deal, sources tell Yahoo Sports. Red Sox are runners-up. Their final bid: six for $135M.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 10, 2014

Passan also adds that the Giants were willing to stretch to $168 million over seven years, so Lester took a slightly smaller total guarantee from Chicago. Lester immediately becomes the Cubs ace, and along with the addition of Miguel Montero earlier today, signals to the rest of the National League Central that the Cubs are moving up their window to win.

We’ll have a full-write up on this deal in a bit, but for now, let me encourage you to read the things that we’ve already published on Lester this week.

How Much to Believe in Jon Lester’s 2014, by Jeff Sullivan.
How Will Jon Lester Age?, by Tony Blengino.

Lester’s one of the best pitchers in the game, and he’s now getting paid like it. Whether the Cubs can improve the rest of their roster enough to make this deal pay off remains to be seen, but a team with a strong future suddenly has a much stronger present.

At the end of November, the author wrote a post concerning Atlanta’s acquisition of Corban Joseph entitled — for purposes simultaneously of information and also very mild amusement — entitled “Atlanta Signs Basically Tommy La Stella“. The main point of that brief dispatch: that Corban Joseph, a below-average defender with compelling and probably overlooked offensive skills, was a sensible and economical replacement for the recently traded La Stella.

What I didn’t know at the time — indeed, couldn’t have known — is that the Atlantans would less than two weeks later acquire a player arguably more similar to La Stella than even Joseph himself. Today, the Braves signed former Oakland infielder Alberto Callaspo to a one-year, $3 million deal.

Here are the Steamer projections for the triumvirate, prorated in each case to 550 plate appearances:

Callaspo is older than La Stella by some margin, but possesses similar defensive value, nearly identical plate-discipline projections, and also probably a power profile that more nearly resembles La Stella’s. Of some interest with regard to Callaspo is his batted-ball skill. Over that past three years, Callaspo has produced just a .259 BABIP — one of the lowest figures, that, among qualified batters during that same interval. The Atlanta front office probably has some feelings about how much that says about Callaspo’s hit tool. In any case, it would appear as though Callaspo is the favorite to start at second base for Atlanta presently.

In a winter of runaway inflation, the Pirates have reportedly re-signed Francisco Liriano to a deal that looks downright reasonable.

Liriano in agreement with #Pirates on three-year, $39M deal. Pending physical. First reported: @RobertMurrayMLB

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 9, 2014

3/$39M is exactly the contract I guessed a month ago, and just $1 million more per year than our crowdsourcing project came up with. Given that almost every deal signed so far has added an extra year or several million onto the AAV, signing a player for the expected price looks like a relative bargain.

The issue with Liriano is always going to be health. Even the last two years — two of his best seasons — he’s only thrown 160 innings, and he’s only managed to throw 3,000+ pitches in a season once in his career. You don’t sign Francisco Liriano for durability or innings. You sign him because when he’s on the mound, he’s really quite good.

Over the last two seasons, his ERA-/FIP-/xFIP- line is 89/90/87, putting him well above the league average in all three marks. For comparison, other starters with an 87 xFIP- over the last two seasons: Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardzija, Garrett Richards, Tyson Ross, and Hyun-Jin Ryu. Jordan Zimmermann is at 88. Cole Hamels is at 89. Jon Lester is at 90.

Now, Liriano has historicaly underperformed his peripherals, but his runner stranding problems haven’t followed him to Pittsburgh, and he’s pitched at essentially a +3 WAR level when he’s been on the mound with the Pirates. Even if you discount that performance for the lower total of innings pitched, Liriano looks like a +2 WAR pitcher for 2015, with some upside beyond that. In this market, $39 million for that kind of value looks like a pretty nice steal for the Pirates.

Of course, he could also break down at any point, and Pittsburgh could end up getting nothing out of their investment. Liriano offsets a lot of his value with about as low a floor as you can find. He’s super high risk/high reward, but for this price, this seems like the right kind of risk/reward balance for the Pirates.

A fiery topic of contention this offseason has been how much trade value Cole Hamels actually has. The Phillies reportedly think he’s worth a bundle of a team’s best young talents, while many of us around here happen to think he’s worth quite a bit less than that, due to the fact that his contract absorbs a good amount of his value. Once Jon Lester signs, we’ll probably find out just exactly what Hamels trade value really is, though my guess is that the Phillies will pay down enough of his salary to get several significant pieces back in return.

But as we wait for Lester and Hamels, the Jeff Samardzija trade has happened. The A’s swapped their ace for four players, with Marcus Semien as the headline piece coming back to Oakland in the deal. I think Semien’s probably good enough to justify the swap, but it’s based on the same kind of logic that thinks Hamels isn’t really a top-tier trade chip, and I’m well aware of the fact that many people disagree with that sentiment.

So, I figured I’ll put this to a poll. We’ve seen what Samardzija went for, with one year of control at $10 million in salary. Hamels has either four years at $96 million or five years at $109 million left on his contract, depending on whether he can use his no-trade to force the fifth year option to be picked up as part of the terms of the deal. In other words, a team is either acquiring an additional three years at $86 million, or an additional four years at $100 million, by trading for Hamels instead of Samardzija.

Given that fact, and Hamels longer track record of success, do you think Hamels is worth more or less than what Samardzija just went for?

If you hadn’t noticed, the White Sox are going for it. No, they haven’t officially landed Jeff Samardzija yet, but they have just completed a pretty dramatic upgrade of their bullpen.

Source confirms: #WhiteSox signing David Robertson to four-year deal for at least $40M. First reported: @bobnightengale.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 9, 2014

The White Sox bullpen was a huge problem. Overall, our forecast had the entire group being worth +0.3 WAR, the second worst collection of relievers in baseball. David Robertson immediately changes that calculation, given that he’s forecast for +1.8 WAR in 65 innings pitched. Adding Robertson to the White Sox group pushes them from something like worst in the league to middle of the pack. He’s that good.

Over the last three years, among relievers who have averaged 60 IP per season, Robertson ranks 10th in ERA-, 6th in FIP-, and 5th in xFIP-. He’s not quite Craig Kimbrel or Aroldis Chapman, but he’s comfortably in the next tier of dominant relievers. You don’t want to overpay a free agent closer just because a good reliever happened to be given the 9th inning and accrued a bunch of cheap saves, but that’s not Robertson’s resume. He’s a true relief ace.

Now, relievers are still highly volatile, and nearly every big money contract for an ace reliever has gone south in recent years. $40 million — or maybe more, given the “at least” in Rosenthal’s tweet — plus the surrendering of a second round draft choice means that Robertson isn’t coming cheap, and it’s unlikely that he’ll still be one of the game’s best relievers by the time this contract ends.

But for the next couple of years, Robertson should make the White Sox quite a bit better. And given that they’ve clearly decided to push their chips in on 2015, making short-term upgrades is probably a good plan. You don’t trade for Jeff Samardzija and surround him with the 2014 White Sox roster. If you’re going to make that kind of move, you’re also going to try and put a supporting cast in place to try and make that move worthwhile.

David Robertson is the kind of player who can help do just that. The White Sox bullpen was terrible. David Robertson makes it kind of okay. If they add Samardzija tomorrow and find a couple more position players, the White Sox could be pretty interesting next year.

The last time I put up an InstaGraphs post about a potential Jeff Samardzija trade, it turned out to actually be the Josh Donaldson trade. This time, though, it appears that the A’s really are dealing their ace, with multiple reporters confirming that a deal is close between the A’s and White Sox.

Sources: #WhiteSox close to acquiring Samardzija from #Athletics. @JonHeymanCBS and @JeffPassan were on it.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 9, 2014

The White Sox would be acquiring one year of Samardzija’s rights, plus an exclusive window to negotiate an extension. Failing that, they’d have the ability to make him a qualifying offer at the end of the year, or if they aren’t in the race in July, flip him for talent mid-season.

Samardzija would join Chris Sale and Jose Quintana, giving Chicago one of the better top-three rotations in the American League. More importantly, he would represent a significant upgrade over whichever #5 starter candidate would get pushed out of the picture; both both Chris Bassit and Erik Johnson project as essentially replacement level arms for 2015, and #4 starter Hector Noesi isn’t too far above that. This is a team that needed pitching depth, and Samardzija likely represents a larger upgrade for Chicago than nearly any other team in the league.

No word on the specific return that might go back to Oakland, but Susan Slusser has suggested that the team is interested in both major league infielder Marcus Semien and minor league infielder Tim Anderson. Kiley McDaniel just rated Anderson as the White Sox #2 prospect, concluding with these guesstimates of future value:

Upside: .280/.330/.450, 15-18 homers, solid average defense, plus baserunning value
FV/Risk: 60, High (4 on a 1-5 scale)
Projected Path: 2015: AA, 2016: AAA/MLB, 2017: MLB

Semien was rated as their #1 “big league growth asset” on the same list, and as Carson Cistulli has repeatedly noted, the statistical projections for him are often quite optimistic. In fact, Steamer sees Semien as an average big leaguer in 2015, as his minor league numbers suggest he’s a better player than he’s been in parts of 2013 and 2014 in the Majors.

We’ll have a full write up on the deal once it’s official and all the parts are known. For now, it looks like the A’s might be continuing to weaken their 2015 team to strengthen their future, while the White Sox are joining the very long list of AL teams going for the ring next year.