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Screw it, I can’t even keep up anymore. While I was writing my opus on the Matt Kemp trade, about 55 more things have happened, and we’re all sleep deprived and running on fumes, so I’m throwing in the white flag on trying to write these all up separately. Consider this the December 11th transaction hub. I’ll update this as things come in, and you can use this as a place to tell me about the 15 deals I missed while I tried to breathe.

The Tigers made their trade with the Reds to get a starting pitcher, but it was Alfredo Simon going to Detroit to replace Rick Porcello. Simon has outperformed his peripherals for 500 big league innings, but he doesn’t look like a great bet to be more than a serviceable back-end starter. To acquire one year of his rights, the Tigers gave up infielder Eugenio Suarez and pitching prospect Jonathan Crawford. Nice little move by the Reds.

Cincinnati wasn’t done, though, trading Mat Latos to the Marlins in exchange for Anthony DeSclafani and Chad Wallach. Kiley McDaniel, on those two.

Just saw RHP Anthony DeSclafani (near MLB ready back end piece, 90-93) and C Chad Wallach (big guy, light bat, may be MLB backup) in AFL.

— Kiley McDaniel (@kileymcd) December 11, 2014

Latos’ velocity and strikeout rate both took big wrong turns in 2014 after he began the year on the disabled list, so there’s all kinds of red flags here. If he’s healthy and gets his velocity back, he could be a good pitcher again, but it’s one year of a health gamble for the Marlins. I can’t say I’m a fan of what they’ve done the last 24 hours.

And finally, according to Buster Olney, the Red Sox have rounded out their rotation by signing Justin Masterson to a one year contract. Like Latos, Masterson is a pitcher with a good track record who had a lousy 2014 season, so this is an upside play, only Masterson didn’t cost the Red Sox any talent to acquire. He’ll join Rick Porcello and Wade Miley in providing depth that the Red Sox didn’t have previously, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they still pursued a front-end guy to upgrade over Clay Buchholz or Joe Kelly.

Oh, and the Royals apparently got close to signing Kendrys Morales while I wrote the last paragraph. $17 million for two years, so basically, the everyone-gets-an-extra-year inflation continues. You apparently have to be near death to settle for a one year deal anymore.

And now there’s this.

Source: Ervin Santana finalizing a four-year deal for around $54 million with Minnesota.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 11, 2014

Hey, I got one, kinda. I had Santana landing a 4/$52M contract from an AL Central team, though it was KC, not Minneosta. In this market, for what Santana is, this feels about right. Average is expensive now.

This isn’t one of those deals that came out of nowhere. The Padres have been rumored to be the most aggressive Matt Kemp suitor for a couple of weeks now, and all other interested parties seemingly dropped out as the asking price kept getting higher and higher. Over the last few days, this deal felt somewhat inevitable, so we’ve had plenty of time to process the trade and figure out what to say about it. And yet, I’m still kind of stumped.

The 2015 Padres are going to be bad. We currently project them at around a 75 win level, putting them in the same group as the Astros, Twins, Diamondbacks, and Braves. The only team demonstrably worse is the Phillies; you could reasonably argue that the Padres are something like the second worst team in baseball. And they could very well make themselves worse on purpose before the offseason ends, as they’ve reportedly been shopping their veteran starting pitchers, including walk-year guy Ian Kennedy.

It makes plenty of sense for the Padres to trade Kennedy, and if they’re worried that Tyson Ross‘ elbow will blow up from all the sliders he throws, there’s a good case to be made for trading him too. Non-contenders should generally be incentivized to move their short-term assets, especially ones with a significant chance of losing value, in exchange for players who will stick around longer and might increase in value in the future. Given the state of the Padres talent base, they should probably be focusing more on the future than the present.

Which is why I have a hard time understanding why they prioritized adding Matt Kemp. Yes, it’s clear that the team wanted to add a “big bat” to their line-up this winter, and Kemp is legitimately one of the best right-handed hitters in baseball. He gives them something they didn’t have before. I just don’t see how adding Kemp makes them a significantly better baseball team.

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David Forst was appointed to his current position in February of 2004 after serving as an assistant to the general manager and coordinator of professional scouting for the Oakland Athletics. His primary duties include assisting Billy Beane in all player acquisitions, contract negotiations and player evaluations. He agreed to sit down and talk at baseball’s Winter Meetings in San Diego, California.

Eno Sarris: A lot of people are asking: What are the Athletics doing? Here’s a different version: Was there a plan for the offseason, was there an overarching idea, or is it always just “Get better, piece by piece”?

David Forst: There’s definitely a plan. We certainly spend the first couple of weeks after the year, when the season ends, talking on a macro level about what direction we should go. The specifics of who to trade and who to target don’t necessarily come into focus until a little bit later in the offseason, but certainly the plan is talked about immediately. And frankly, it was probably something we talked about in September, before the season was over.

I think Billy [Beane, General Manager] has articulated in a couple of places that we knew that just bringing back the current team, assuming the losses of [Jon] Lester, and [Luke] Gregerson, and [Jed] Lowrie and some of those guys that we didn’t have an opportunity to sign — bringing back that team wasn’t going to work. The Angels were obviously 11 games better than us and the Mariners were right on our tail, and poised to get better. Just bringing back our group and just supplementing it with little pieces, wasn’t going to give us a chance to compete, and was also going to leave us further down the path of having an older, more injury-prone club, frankly.

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The Tigers needed another outfielder. The Red Sox needed starting pitching, and needed to trade an outfielder or three. The fit seems reasonable, and so now it appears that Detroit and Boston have exchanged Yoenis Cespedes for Rick Porcello, with the Tigers getting two additional players as well. And to add to the intrigue, the Tigers are reportedly simultaneously shipping several prospects to Cincinnati in exchange for a starting pitcher. While we don’t know all the names involved, it seems like the final details might be something like this.

The Red Sox get Rick Porcello
The Tigers get Yoenis Cespdes and maybe Mike Leake or Mat Latos
The Reds get prospects.

The facts, as we kind of know them now.

Porcello turns 26 in a few weeks and is headed into his final year before he becomes a free agent; he’s projected to earn $12 million in his final trip through arbitration. He’s developed nicely into roughly a +3 WAR starter by avoiding walks and getting groundballs, while also flashing some strikeout ability in 2013, but that didn’t carry over to last year. He’s a durable and effective innings eater, with perhaps a little bit of upside remaining beyond that.

Cespedes is 29 and is also going to be a free agent at years end, though unlike Porcello, the Tigers won’t be able to make him a qualifying offer as part of the terms of his contract. Cespedes will earn $10.5 million in 2015, so he’s slightly cheaper than Porcello, but the difference is minimal. Like Porcello, he’s settled in as a +3 WAR player, and he projects to perform at about that level next year.

So, really, this is a swap of two similarly valuable pieces, both in their walk years, both making about the same money. The qualifying offer potential makes Porcello a little more valuable, which is why Boston is kicking in a pair of prospects, but we shouldn’t expect them to be deal changing talents. The Red Sox turn a +3 WAR player they didn’t need into one they do, while the Tigers found it easier to replace Porcello with whichever Reds starter they’re acquiring than find another outfielder besisdes Cespedes.

Obviously, the names in the Cincinnati trade could change things, but on first glance, this looks like a reasonable deal for everyone. The Tigers turn more future value into a short-term upgrade, the Red Sox realgin their roster towards more pitching, and the Reds perhaps admit that it’s time to rebuild.

After a couple of weeks of rumors, the Padres have reportedly come to terms with the Dodgers on a deal that will bring Matt Kemp to San Diego.

San Diego Union-Tribune reporting agreement on Kemp to #Padres – Kemp and Federowicz plus about $30M for Grandal, Wieland and third player.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 11, 2014

Matt Kemp is due $107 million over the next five years, so if the Dodgers are kicking in $30 million, the Padres are essentially picking up Kemp at 5/$77M. The crowd estimated that the Dodgers would have to pick up $47 million in order to move Kemp, so the Dodgers have not only saved more money than expected, but also acquired several pieces of real talent in return.

The quick facts, then I’ll get started on a longer post analyzing the deal.

Kemp is 30 years old, so the Padres are picking up his age-30 to age-34 seasons. He has a career 128 wRC+, but a strong performance last year pushed that mark to 140, the 15th best total in MLB last year. Unfortunately, he also plays defense, and not particularly well, as Mike Petriello covered earlier this week. Kemp’s value as a corner outfielder will depend on whether he can be at least reasonable with the glove; if he can, the offensive production makes him an above average player. If he’s as bad defensively as the metrics have suggested, then Kemp is essentially an average player overall.

For the right to pay an aging, average — or maybe a bit better than average — big leaguer $77 million over the next five years, the Padres gave up Yasmani Grandal, Joe Wieland, and a third player.

Grandal is 26 and a switch-hitting catcher with a career 119 wRC+ in 777 plate appearances, though he’s been closer to above average than excellent at the plate the last two years. He controls the strike zone and has decent power, so he’s managed to be an above average hitter the last two years even as he’s run fairly low BABIPs. The big jump in his strikeout rate last year is a bit of a concern, as his contact rate fell to 75%, but at a .175 ISO, the power was strong enough to offset the rise in strikeouts.

Grandal also rates exceptionally well by catcher framing metrics, so while he’s not very good at controlling the running game, he may be a better defensive catcher than his reputation. Grandal is under team control for four more years, and will be eligible for arbitration next winter.

Joe Wieland is an interesting arm who hasn’t been able to stay healthy. He had Tommy John surgery in 2012, and then had surgery for a stress reaction in his elbow after a setback in his rehab. He’s missed most of the last two years, during which he’s been accruing Major League service time while on the DL, so he’s now a Super-Two arbitration player and will be eligible for free agency in four years.

The third player is unknown, but should probably be assumed to be a lesser piece.

2015 Steamer Projections

Matt Kemp: 555 PA, 128 wRC+, +2.1 WAR
Yasmani Grandal: 393 PA, 111 wRC+, +1.5 WAR
Joe Wieland: ? IP, 3.96 ERA, 0.0 WAR

I’ll have a full write-up on this soon, but suffice it to say that I love this trade for the Dodgers and don’t really get it at all for the Padres. They get a big right-handed slugger, but I’m not sure they got any better, and they spent $75 million for the right to be differently bad.

Durability can be a difficult thing to prove, but it can be an easier thing to demonstrate. And teams are fond of players they can count on, which is one of the reasons why Nick Markakis got four guaranteed years while the Mariners sold a relatively cheap Michael Saunders. Francisco Liriano has a history of some issues, but he got himself three years after completing a stretch without pitching-related arm injuries. Brandon McCarthy, historically, hasn’t been so dependable. There was a basically annual shoulder problem, and because of that, it’s long been hard to see McCarthy getting himself an extended guarantee. But McCarthy didn’t just match Liriano — McCarthy got himself four years from the Dodgers, and $48 million, after a completely healthy season. The Dodgers, it would seem, believe enough in McCarthy’s health, and because of some of his 2014 indicators, this is a deal that even includes substantial upside.

You’ve read about McCarthy enough, and we’ve written about McCarthy enough, that we probably don’t need to go into great detail again. He’s always been an interesting pitcher, but 2014 saw him reach a new level of intrigue. The Dodgers, it must always be understood, can afford to take some of these risks, on account of the money that funds them, yet this is a deal that would look pretty good on a number of payrolls. If you believe even a little bit in the power of xFIP, there’s more to McCarthy than meets the eye.

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If you’re a baseball fan and you spent any amount of time on Twitter on Wednesday night, then you probably spent as much time hyperventilating as the rest of us. A new Dodger front office that had spent its first few weeks stealthily upgrading around the fringes of the 40-man — guys like Joel Peralta, Chris Heisey and Juan Nicasio — turned the entire sport upside down with trade after trade after trade, followed by more trades.

Three of those moved served to massively shake up the middle infield. Jeff has you covered on the Dee Gordon–Dan Haren–Andrew Heaney deal, which removed a second baseman from Los Angeles. Dave did a quick InstaGraph on the ensuing Howie Kendrick-Heaney trade with the Angels, which brought one right back. Right here, we’ll talk about how after 15 years and 2,090 games in Philadelphia, Jimmy Rollins is reportedly heading west, joining with Kendrick to make for a fascinating new infield duo. A 36-year-old shortstop well past his prime isn’t exactly the type of player you’d expect this front office to go for, but it makes all the sense in the world for both the player and the team.

For the Dodgers, the appeal is clear. To say shortstop was a need is a massive understatement. With Ramirez gone and top prospect Corey Seager probably another year away, the current situation was so dire that it ranked No. 31 — that’s last, because “free agents” count as a team right now — in our depth charts. Gaze upon the horror: Read the rest of this entry »

The Dodgers have had one insanely busy day. They have a new middle infield, for one, but along the way to acquiring Howie Kendrick, the team shipped off Dan Haren, opening up a spot in their rotation. That spot was open for about five hours before Ken Rosenthal reported this.

Sources: #Dodgers close to four-year deal with free-agent RHP Brandon McCarthy.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 11, 2014

The deal will reportedly pay McCarthy $48 million over those four seasons, which gives him a slight premium over what Francisco Liriano got from the Pirates earlier this week. As a fellow talented-but-regularly-injured starter, Liriano and McCarthy seemed destined to sign similar-ish contracts — I guessed 3/$42M for McCarthy and 3/$39M for Liriano — and ended up fairly close in AAV, with McCarthy leveraging his strong finish to the year into a fourth year with the Dodgers.

Not surprisingly, the four teams rumored to have pursued McCarthy the hardest were the Red Sox, Yankees, Pirates, and Dodgers; all four organizations put significant value on statistical analysis, and the nerdy stats make him look far more attractive than his traditional numbers. Specifically, that glowing 2.87 xFIP that ranked 9th best in baseball last year. If you can get past ERA as an evaluator of pitching talent, McCarthy’s 2014 performance is extremely encouraging.

Especially because it’s supported by an increase in velocity. McCarthy’s average fastball jumped to 93 mph last year, far beyond anything he’d ever done before. The improvement in stuff helps explain the significant rise in strikeouts, and if McCarthy can continue to post a league average strikeout rate while never walking anyone and getting his fair share of groundballs, he’ll likely perform at a level well beyond his $12 million per year salary.

Health is going to be the primary factor in whether this contract works out for the Dodgers, though. McCarthy threw 200 innings last year, making 32 starts and avoiding the disabled list entirely, but he’d made only 40 starts in the two years prior, and his career high was 25. The Dodgers probably shouldn’t assume McCarthy will ever throw 200 innings in a season again, and they’ll have to assume that they’ll need a fill-in at some point if his shoulder acts up again.

So, the question is can McCarthy perform well enough when he is on the mound to justify the stretches of time when he is not, especially under a contract that covers his age-31 to age-34 seasons? Jeff Sullivan will have the full write up on that in a bit.

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.