Troy Tulowitzki, the Blue Jays, and Upgrading Strengths
Here is the story of the 2015 Toronto Blue Jays, presented in two easy graphs.
Blue Jays Add Offense, Trade Reyes For Tulowitzki
by Eno Sarris
July 28, 2015
The team that’s scored the most runs in baseball this year just made their offense better by trading Jose Reyes and minor leaguers to the Rockies for Troy Tulowitzki. Ken Rosenthal broke the news, but the full details are not yet available.
Because of the fit, there will be the inevitable questions about further moves — Toronto had been rumored in on most pitchers, and scores more than a half run more than the second-best offense in baseball, and Reyes now seems a poor fit on a rebuilding squad in Colorado — but a second move isn’t required to like this for the Blue Jays.
The game is about getting better, on the run scoring or run prevention side. And if the Jays score six runs a game, they should win more than if they score five and a half. Given that the difference between the yearly outlay for Reyes actually trumps Tulowitzki’s, this deal is even budget neutral. Maybe that’s why Dave Cameron thought it up a while back when he dreamt up some Tulowitzki trades:
Mets Buy Low and High on Tyler Clippard
I don’t remember where I saw it, but I read the other day about some baseball executive who doesn’t like the idea of paying July prices for relievers. If it isn’t actually true, it at least seems true that relievers get the biggest mark-up come deadline time. Which might seem silly, given how few innings relievers throw. But then, teams keep paying. Maybe they’re on to something, or maybe it’s an inefficiency, but in our reality, we see relievers get prospects. The Mets just traded prospect Casey Meisner for reliever and free-agent-to-be Tyler Clippard.
Something you note about the Mets: they’re in second place in their own division, trailing the Nationals by two games. Something else you note about the Mets: they’re 3.5 back of the second wild-card slot, and the Cubs are also a game in front of them. Because the Mets aren’t even in playoff position, it’s easy to see things staying this way, the Mets ultimately giving up a prospect for practically nothing. But the Mets have been working to make the team better now, and, there’s something about relievers and important games.
Angels Pick Up Used But Functional Shane Victorino
The Angels find themselves in what you might term a familiar situation. They’re right in the thick of the race, like they’ve often been, and they’re run by the guys that used to run them, by which I mean Bill Stoneman and Mike Scioscia. Stoneman and Scioscia see eye-to-eye on a number of things, and there’s a certain type of player Scioscia used to love. Prime Shane Victorino would’ve been a phenomenal Angel. Alas, there is no more prime Shane Victorino; alas, even if there were, the Angels wouldn’t have had the players to trade for him. So what we have instead is a match, exchanging little for a post-prime Victorino who might have just enough left in the tank. The Red Sox save a little money, and they can dream on a utility player. The Angels get to see how much turbo remains in Victorino’s well-worn legs.
I was reading an article the other week, when I stumbled upon the following excerpt:
Stoneman was nowhere near as active on the trade front as Dipoto. His most significant July acquisition was reserve outfielder Alex Ochoa in 2002.
Stoneman says it only makes sense to swing a midseason trade if it’s worth it, which is one of those statements you don’t realize is empty until you think about it for a few seconds and the speaker walks away. The general point is that Stoneman isn’t one to panic in the face of midseason trends. Yet in the case of this Angels team, the need for outfield help has been such that no one could dismiss it. Something almost had to be done. Stoneman did it, at the cost of Josh Rutledge.
Scouting Casey Meisner, Oakland’s Return for Tyler Clippard
July 27, 2015
Casey Meisner, RHP, Oakland A’s
Meisner is listed at 6-foot-7 and 190 pounds, and that’s usually the first thing mentioned in any report about him. His long limbs make him projectable so you can dream on the average stuff improving and it gives him good plane to the plate but it also makes it more difficult for him to repeat his delivery and hit his spots.
I saw Meisner pitch yesterday and these same positives were still there, similar to two summers ago when the Mets took him in the third round out of a Texas high school. He had trouble keeping the ball down, particularly his changeup, which flashed average but was below average and down the middle many times in the outing. He sat 90-93 mph and hit 94 with occasional two-seam life and also flashed a hard overhand curve that was average to slightly above at its best, with good 11-to-5 shape, but often soft spin.
You can easily imagine the fastball and curveball becoming above average if there’s a velo bump (Pirates’ top prospect RHP Tyler Glasnow looked kinda like this when he was 18-19, so that’s a best case scenario) and then you’re looking at a league average (#4) starter or better. With just incremental adjustments the next few years, Meisner is an inventory arm that could be a back-end starter, but he’s only 20, so the chance for Oakland winning a projection gamble and getting a mid-rotation guy is still alive.
I had Meisner in the middle of the 40 FV group for the Mets list last year, ranking 22nd, and he’ll be there, if not near the top of the 40 FV group, at least somewhere on the A’s list this offseason.
Mets Use Depth To Get Tyler Clippard
by Eno Sarris
July 27, 2015
Though the Mets need a bat most of all, their acquisition of Tyler Clippard makes good sense. By fielding-independent numbers, their bullpen has been middle-of-the-road so far this year, and the returns of Jenrry Mejia and Bobby Parnell might not be enough to push this bullpen into a strength as the end of the season approaches. Mejia’s post-season ban also creates a need, should they win the wild card and play extra baseball.
The prospect going back to the Athletics may not move the national needle much. 20-year-old Casey Meisner has spent the last 100+ innings striking out fewer than a batter per inning, and our own Kiley McDaniel wasn’t effusive in praise when he ranked Meisner the 22nd-best prospect in the Mets organization:
Read the rest of this entry »
Hamels Goes Out on Top?
July 27, 2015
Even if it were not the most important game of his life, Cole Hamels’ might have just pitched the very best game of his life on Saturday, a potentially fitting end to a fantastic Philadelphia Phillies career. Hamels has started 13 playoff games, including three in the World Series. He put together a 3.20 ERA and 3.51 FIP in over 80 innings of postseason work. Five times Hamels has pitched the opening game in a playoff series and his team has won the last four. He won the World Series MVP for the champion Phillies in 2008 after starting two of the games and pitching 35 innings during that postseason. In 2010, he clinched a series against Johnny Cueto and the Reds with a shutout. So no, Cole Hamels’ start on Saturday was nowhere near the most important start of his career, but it might have been the best and it might have been the last. If Hamels is traded, he left the team nearly a decade after he started, and he provided one final memory in a career that already had plenty to begin with.
The Phillies called Hamels up early on in 2006, and by 2007 he was the ace of a staff that would help the Phillies to five straight division titles. In 2010, the team added Roy Halladay, and in 2011 it was Cliff Lee, although those additions could not top the World Series win in 2008, nor the appearance in 2009. After the run of division titles ended following 2012, injuries and age caught up to Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee, with stars Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, and Jimmy Rollins also in decline, but Hamels kept pitching well as the losses piled up in Philadelphia.
JABO: Searching for Pedro’s Arsenal in 2015
Three historically great pitchers were inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame this past weekend, with John Smoltz and Randy Johnson representing two-thirds of the former titans to be inducted into Cooperstown. There was always something special about the final member of the trio, however. He had a season in 1999 that ranked among the greatest pitching seasons of all time, and he put together a string of seasons between 1997 – 2003 that are collectively among the most dominant ever when compared to league average. That pitcher, of course, was Pedro Martinez.
Though there might never be another pitcher with the unbelievable combination of fastball, curveball, and changeup that Pedro had, it is possible there are current pitchers with arsenals that are similar to him. Today, in honor of Martinez’ induction, let’s try to answer a possibly unanswerable question: who’s the closest current pitcher to vintage Pedro?
We’re going to focus only on Pedro’s 1999 season — when he was at the height of his powers — in comparison to 2015 starters. As a preface, here is the incredible stat line from that season:
| Season | W | L | IP | K% | BB% | ERA | FIP | WAR | ERA+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | 23 | 4 | 213.1 | 35.7% | 5.5% | 2.07 | 1.39 | 11.7 | 243 |
Martinez had the 10th-best ERA+ of all time in 1999, setting career-highs in strikeouts, wins, and Fielding Independent Pitching. He also famously struck out five of six hitters in the first two innings of the 1999 All-Star Game, proving his complete dominance on the mound at the height of the PED era by fanning Barry Larkin, Larry Walker, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Jeff Bagwell. Some would argue 2000 was as great a season for Pedro as 1999, but we’d be splitting hairs by trying to decide between them: they both represent two of the greatest pitching seasons in history.
The Power of Alex Rodriguez
Yesterday, David Ortiz hit two homers. That’s a good day for anyone, and especially for someone 39 years old. I’m 39, too, and I’m writing this article and also my hip hurts, so advantage Ortiz! But! Two days ago Ortiz was preemptively one-upped by Alex Rodriguez. Saturday, Rodriguez hit three homers while he continued his 39-year-plus-long streak of being almost four months older than Ortiz. Rodriguez’s three homers were more impressive than Ortiz’s two in both the binary way that three is better than two, and in the way that, to date, this is just more of the same from a guy who spent the better part of last season at the beach because baseball didn’t allow him to play. Then there was the whole thing about whether or not the Yankees would even let him play for them again. As it turns out they’re quite the magnanimous bunch, and Rodriguez got to attend spring training and everything. Had George Steinbrenner been alive, Rodriguez would have been traded to the Marlins for Mat Latos’s cat, Cat Latos, and yes, this whole article is an excuse to mention Cat Latos.
But Steinbrenner is as dead as Napoleon so Rodriguez returned to the Yankees unmolested and has somewhat bizarrely arrested his career slide and reverted to his late-aughts MVP-candidate self. As I write this, Rodriguez has an wRC+ of 151, a mark he last bested in 2008, when he finished with a 152 wRC+. This is late peak-era A-Rod so far this season minus the defense of course. At this rate, it won’t be too difficult for him to finish with a higher wOBA than he’s reached in any season since 2009, more homers than he’s hit since 2008, and a higher wRC+ than any season since 2007.
Rodriguez has missed considerable time over the last few seasons, so nothing over the remaining 65 games is assured, especially so when you consider he hasn’t played 150 games in a season since 2007. So extrapolating his season numbers is perhaps a foolish (though fun) exercise. The prudent thing to do is to not look a gift centaur in the mouth (or in any other orifice) and take what he’s given us so far this season. In that sense, I want to look back at his three-homer day on Saturday to see what it can tell us about the hitter Alex Rodriguez is right now.
Some Possible Futures for Michael Conforto
After weeks of speculation, the New York Mets finally pulled the trigger Friday and summoned top prospect Michael Conforto from Double-A. With an injured and struggling Michael Cuddyer in left field, and few alternatives on their roster, the Mets needed some help. So although Conforto has just 197 plate appearances above A-Ball, the Mets are throwing him into the fire. Conforto hit .297/.372/.482 in just over 400 plate appearances between High-A and Double-A this year. Things have gone extremely well so far, as Conforto’s posted a 253 (!) wRC+ in his first three games.
Last week, shortly before Conforto’s call-up, Jeff Sullivan looked into just how much the outfielder might be able to help the 2015 Mets. Looking at the performances of similarly ranked prospects in their rookie seasons, he concluded Conforto might be a slightly below-average hitter right now. For a corner outfielder that’s not great. Better than an ailing Michael Cuddyer? Probably, but not by much.
The projections agree. Steamer calls for an 91 wRC+ from here on out. Conforto could easily surpass this forecast, but a 91 wRC+ feels like a reasonable expectation for the 22-year-old. Hitting major-league pitching is hard, and domination in High-A and Double-A isn’t a sufficient condition for success at the highest level.
So that’s the skinny on Conforto for the next three months. But what about after that? In theory, at least, Conforto’s best years are ahead of him. Let’s see what the data say.