Archive for Troy Glaus

Frank Wren’s modus operandi to the 2010 offseason: Replace younger, healthier players with older, more injury prone players. He’s not a doctor, but he plays one in real life. Actually, I’m not here to pick on Wren. You can make arguments for all of his acquisitions this offseason. But seriously, this is getting weird.

Last week Wren traded Javier Vazquez and essentially replaced him with Tim Hudson. Hudson threw a grand total of 42 innings last season for the Braves, and it was enough to convince him to re-sign him to a 3-year/$28 million deal. That pretty much sealed Vazquez’s fate as a Brave, as no one was interested in picking up Derek Lowe’s ugly contract. Vazquez has thrown over 200 innings the past four seasons, averaging 5.3 WAR per season during that span. Hudson has been a 5+ WAR pitcher four different times over his career, and the success rate of Tommy John surgery is pretty good. This might work out just fine, and at least the Braves got a decent return for Vazquez.

The Braves also replaced 30-year-old Rafael Soriano with 38-year-old Billy Wagner, who is also is coming off of Tommy John surgery. Soriano was a 2 WAR reliever in 2009 but has a checkered injury history of his own. Still, he showed us last season what he is capable of. Soriano surprisingly accepted arbitration, but the Braves had no trouble finding a taker for his services, swapping him to Tampa Bay for Jesse Chavez.

Now the Braves are replacing Adam LaRoche with Troy Glaus. Glaus is reported to have signed for a $2 million deal, with incentives. The deal is pending a physical, but the well-respected Dr. Lewis Yocum has already given the thumbs up on Glaus’ surgically repaired shoulder to interested parties. It’s worth noting that it was more than just Troy’s shoulder that limited him to just 14 games last season; he also experienced troubles with his back.

Glaus will play first base with the Braves, which should help health-wise. When he’s right, he is plenty productive. Over his career, his wRC+ is 123, and in his last healthy season Glaus posted a 131 wRC+ with the Cardinals in 2008. For the money, this is a nice upside play in an iffy 1B market for Wren and Co. On the flip-side, they’re obviously showing that they are not counting on a whole lot from Glaus.

I’m seeing a lot of roster-churning going on, but I’m not sure I’m seeing a lot of progress. If anything, it looks like they’ve taken a step back. Jason Heyward could go Cameron Maybin on the Braves, Matt Diaz may not be able to handle regular duty, and Glaus, Wagner and Hudson are all too familiar with the disabled list.

The Braves were in shouting distance of the wild card last year. If they want to send Bobby Cox out a winner, filling their needs with a bunch of injury-risks in hopes of improving seems like an “interesting” way to go about accomplishing that task. Considering some of the alternatives, it might have been the best, but definitely not the safest approach. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

The Cardinals have a question to answer. What in the world are they going to do with Troy Glaus? The big slugger is a week into a twenty day rehab assignment in the minors and should be cleared to play by August. With Cardinal third-sackers combining for a pathetic .275 wOBA, you would expect that getting back a hitter like Glaus would be welcome news.

Unfortunately for St. Louis fans, Glaus can’t throw across the diamond without experiencing pain in his right shoulder. Swinging the bat is another thing, but that doesn’t seem to help the Cardinals. Well, that is unless they would consider some outside-the-box thinking, like say switching Pujols and Glaus to opposite sides of the diamond. Otherwise, Glaus will be limited to being one expensive pinch-hitter.

Let’s consider the crazy, um, I mean creative side for minute. Early in his career, Pujols played 96 games at the hot corner. According to UZR, he was worth -4 runs per 150 games; not great but by no means damaging given his numinous bat. While that was years ago, checking the results of Tango’s Scouting Report by the Fans, Pujols’ instincts and hands are nigh impeccable, both desirable traits in a third baseman. On the other hand, his arm strength rates as below-average, which is of course is less than what you would like. For what little it might be worth, based on his different grades for the various fielding skills, both Eric Chavez and Mike Lowell pop up in Albert’s similarity scores. So we know that Pujols is an elite defender at first, and chances are he could hold down the fort at third base just fine for the next few months.

Aside from limiting Glaus to pinch-hit duty, the other option would be trading him to an American League team looking for a DH, such as Detroit. This would most likely mean the Cardinals would have to eat most of the remaining $6 million left on his contract and getting little in return.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Pujols unselfishly asked to play third, but his manager dismissed the idea. Tony LaRussa is built his reputation as someone who will toy with lineups in order to gain even the slightest advantage, but doesn’t want to tinker with Albert. I definitely can understand the reticence when it comes to dealing with his superstar, but it seems to me that moving him to third for two months is hardly as big of deal as it initially appears to be. Considering the Cardinals have long been trolling the trade market looking to add a bat, giving away a Glaus for nothing would be a waste.

In order to quell the somewhat heated Tony La Russa and Scott Rolen situation in St. Louis, the Cardinals shipped the disgruntled third baseman to the Blue Jays in exchange for Troy Glaus. The move catalyzed a frenzy of “this should benefit both teams” reactions, primarily due to both players experiencing recent downward trends in success. Rolen has been very injury prone in recent years while some speculate Glaus’s struggles are a direct result of no longer “allegedly” taking steroids. Approximately one-fourth of the way through the season, how is this exchange looking?

Glaus Facts
.230/.357/.357 Slash Line
1 HR, 21 RBI
16.6 BB%, 22.2 K%
.289 BABIP, .284 Career BABIP
18.0/36.0/46.0 LD/GB/FB, 19.2/35.6/45.2 Career LD/GB/FB
-3.21 BRAA, -0.32 REW
-0.50 WPA, 5.12 Games Advanced

Glaus’s SLG has struggled in the early going primarily due to hitting just one home run. His BABIP and BIP rates are all very similar to his career rates. Despite this, he clearly is not producing at his standard level. His struggles have cost the Cardinals about 1/3 of a game via Run Expectancy and 1/2 of a game via Win Probability. Games Advanced can be found by +WPA minus -WPA, and shows how many games a players efforts have effected; whether positive or negative, Glaus has had an effect on five of the Cardinals games.

His swing data shows an increase above his career rates in swings both inside and outside of the strike zone. His contact rate in the zone is four percent higher than his career averages while his contact rate outside of the zone is about five percent less. Overall, though, he is making more contact in the early going… he just must not be doing much with that contact.

Rolen Facts
In just 65 PA through 16 GP
.316/.385/.561 Slash Line
9.5 BB%, 12.3 K%
.333 BABIP, .314 Career BABIP
27.5/29.4/43.1 LD/GB/FB, 21.8/33.7/44.6 Career LD/GB/FB
1.45 BRAA, 0.14 REW
0.17 WPA, 2.81 Games Advanced

The first area that jumps out is his high line drive rate. Rolen may end up in future conversations about very high LD% but it is more likely he will regress closer to the 21-23% range. He seems to be swinging less at pitches in the zone while making more contact with those pitches, relative to his career totals. He has also maintained his career swing rate at pitches out of the zone while increasing his contact by seven percent.

Overall
It’s too early to discuss anything significant with regards to Rolen’s numbers but Glaus simply has not done too well in the first quarter of the season. Rolen, as Dave mentioned earlier tonight, has been one of just two players with positive BRAAs on the anemic Blue Jays offense, and he has only played in 16 games. If the season were to end today, for whatever reason, this trade would appear to be in the Blue Jays favor. In another month, who knows?

If Rolen continues to get hurt, and Glaus doesn’t improve, this won’t be a trade that benefits both teams but rather one that provides equal and mediocre production to the Cardinals and Blue Jays.