The A’s and Brewers Define Replacement Level
Occasionally, writers or commentators who are not fans of WAR will talk about how the concept of a replacement level player is a fabrication, a subjective threshold determined in some arbitrary reality. It’s not a real baseline, they argue, and thus corrupts the entire model.
Well, helpfully, the A’s and Brewers have just completed a transaction that defines replacement level spectacularly well.
#Athletics acquired Mills from #Brewers for $1. Expected to move into rotation shortly.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) June 17, 2014
A dollar. The A’s cost to acquire Mills from the Brewers was the same as a gas station cup of coffee. While Mills wasn’t in their organization, he still served as a source of organizational depth because there was basically no frictional costs in obtaining his rights. This is the thing about replacement level players; they are so plentiful that you don’t even have to have one in order to have access to its utility. When you need one, you can go get them, and for little or no cost.
By the way, in his Major League career, Brad Mills has thrown 53 innings. His career WAR? 0.0. I guess the definition of replacement level isn’t so theoretical after all.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Those AAA numbers look quite nifty for $1.
You talking about his career 4.19 ERA / 4.47 FIP in 635.2 innings over 6 seasons in AAA?
probably the strikeouts compared to walks.
This may be a coincidence, but I picked him up in my fantasy league for just $1. Feeling prettttttay good about myself right now.
You coulda had the real thing!
Did they have to disclose the amount? Seems like they could have saved this guy’s pride a bit by just announcing “cash considerations.” I wonder how often “cash considerations” is some paltry amount.
I believe that the Brewers did actually announce as cash considerations. Mills is fine, he knows that he has an opt-out clause and that is why it went down for a $1.
There is also the minor issue of Miller’s reported right to opt out at any time in favor of Major League opportunity.
My guess with Mills if he is added to the MLB roster, is that he will take Francis’s spot as the long man. Since he is not better then any of the current starters, unless there is a undisclosed injury. Sure Pom got lit up last night, but he has been good in the rest of his starts, and Milone has been sharp, so I don’t see him starting, unless they just needed one spot start.
Well there goes that idea. Welcome to the rotation, Mr. Mills. You can thank the locker room chair for this opportunity.
Not really a normal situation. Mills had an opt out. Normally the Brewers would have been happy to leave him in the minors for depth, but with his AAA numbers someone was bound to give him a shot.
But one would assume the $1 offered by Oakland was the best offer they received. In which case, it would seem very few teams were willing to provide the opportunity created by the A’s with Pomeranz’ injury.
Don’t assume that. Assume at least a few teams inquired about him, knowing that they didn’t really need to give anything in return, and Milwaukee picked the destination that was least likely to backfire if Mills ends up being decent in the majors.
That seems… off to me. I have to imagine teams are waaaay more concerned with immediate return that the potential for a replacement level starter/swing-man to become excellent and stab them. The whole point is that this is a level of player that can be found almost anywhere, so yeah, all things being equal they’d probably rather he goes to the AL, but if an NL team offered something a little more significant he’d be there.
No one team wants to look desperate enough to part with anything meaningful for Mills given his contract situation. Even if a team offered, say, a few thousand dollars, Milwaukee would probably just prefer to send him to the opposite league.
Think of transactions as an iterated game.
There might have been other non-monetary considerations than where he’d be least likely to backfire, but do we really think a team could have swayed Milwaukee by offering $10? That’s 10x what they got, but completely meaningless. It’s likely some combination of who wouldn’t hurt Milwaukee, where the player did (or didn’t) want to go, what kind of opportunity was waiting for him, repaying a past, tiny favor, etc. I imagine a lot of GMs (is a deal like this even initiated by the GM?) are nice enough guys to try and put the player in a good situation.
Still, that’s a replacement-level transaction.
I would have gone as high as $100.
Had Mills been DFAed before this deal? It seems like another good definition of replacement-level would be the average “value” of guys who get DFAed to make room for someone who’s more useful at that time.
Why would the Brewers do this? What exactly is in it for them?
Mills is a 29 year old soft-tossing lefty who had a very good year in the low minors in 2008 and has been excellent in triple A this year (and was mediocre or worse in the interval). The twist with him is his intelligence- he has a degree in civil engineering from University of Arizona (having returned to school after being drafted as a college junior in the 4th round).
Given the A’s record of finding gems in their late 20s over the last few years, I would be very hesitant to use the words “replacement level” to describe him. The A’s may very well believe that he is a keeper.
“Given the A’s [and Cardinals] record of finding gems in their late 20s over the last few years…”
Okay, but who gives a fuck about the Cardinals, who aren’t in any way involved with this transaction?
As BLTW wrote below…
“As others have pointed out, Mills had a clause in his contract allowing him to opt-out if another team offered him a spot on their 25-man roster. So presumably they sold him to the A’s to make sure he didn’t go to a division rival.”
So the Cardinals are very much an indirect component of this transaction.
@Kumar Plocher
Completely agree. And that point seemed so obvious to me that I am shocked that eskpert has negative votes and Anon21 has positive votes.
Did the majority of readers miss this point somehow? MIL sold Mills for virtually nothing to OAK to make sure he did not have his choice of where to go, as he could have chosen a team that competes directly with MIL for a playoff spot.
an egotistical fan that is emblematic of the irony present in: “the best fans in baseball.”
Let’s calm down just a bit before anointing him the next Jamie Moyer.
Barry Zito*
As others have pointed out, Mills had a clause in his contract allowing him to opt-out if another team offered him a spot on their 25-man roster. So presumably they sold him to the A’s to make sure he didn’t go to a division rival.
29 year olds can tear up the minors all they want and it’s not going to get a lot of attention. If he’s putting up those numbers at 22-24, sure, maybe there’d be more interest, but at 29 you’re on the wrong side of an aging curve already.
Ageing curves are rather meaningless for pitchers. So, if he’s K-ing 9/9IP and walking 2/9IP, that’s pretty damn good, and while it will certainly get worse moving to the big league level and with regression, its also enough to see if he sicks long enough for the A’s to find a real replacement.
And obviously the A’s philosophy is to value numbers over any sort of “29 year old soft tosing lefty” narrative, and even in his bad years, he was still putting up decent K/9 and BB/9 numbers, plus he’s a FB pitcher going to Oakland’s big outfield filled with Cespedes, Crisp, Gentry and soon to be back Reddick.
Don’t be surprised if this guy puts up some nice numbers for a few months….
Why would the Brewers do this? What exactly is in it for them?
They get a pretty nifty picture of George Washington. Also a rather creepy eagle and an eye hovering over a truncated pyramid. That’s value you don’t see every day.
Well, actually, you probably do.
I don’t let my owner see paper money for weeks at a time.
How long til Bob Ryan submits his apology in these comments?
I’m from New England; Bob Ryan does not apologize. He just keeps dreaming up taking points and running with them.
Drew Pomeranz has a fractured hand. So we might just see how replacement this Mills guy is.
Approves
http://youtu.be/u5HOt0ZOcYk
Mills may indeed be a “replacement-level” player but the situation here is significantly complicated by his opt-out clause as reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Mills was only available for 1 dollar because of this, it’d normally actually cost SOMETHING to get a player with that kind of production at AAA.
Proof? How do we know that all those “cash considerations” deals aren’t like this as well? MLB will veto any trade where one side is only providing cash in excess of a specific amount (I recall hearing one million, but the actual number isn’t important) – what is clear though, is that any time a deal is for cash considerations, it’s for a tiny amount.
The link is in the comment…
No, I was asking for proof that negligible compensation (to an MLB team at least, not the marlins) isn’t common for replacement level players, regardless of opt out clauses. Not that this specific case actually reduced compensation to zero. Negligible is probably in the rule 5 draft pick range (50K). We know for sure this specific case had compensation of zero.
I would consider 50K “SOMETHING” for sure. The point I’m trying to make is using this transaction to “define replacement level” without even mentioning the details of the situation is really irresponsible.
Not zero. One dollar.
You could feel 50K is something, but to an MLB operation, 50K is as close to nothing as 1$ is.
“Replacement level” is considered talent that is “freely available.” You might define free in the literal, dictionary sense – but the actual, real life, practical application is talent that is “available for negligible cost.” Yes, MLB clubs operate on large enough budgets that 50K is meaningless to them. Arguing that “50K (is) ‘SOMETHING’ for sure.” is just splitting hairs. It’s not to the clubs that are involved in the transaction, the work involved in filing paperwork and scouting was more to them than the actual monetary cost.
Dave obviously was being snarky and didn’t look into the transaction beyond the tweet. It doesn’t invalidate the point that replacement players are available for negligible cost. It might illustrate the point that for language nerds, freely available is not descriptive enough, and we have to use “negligible” instead of “free.” Good job, the point remains.
“Sort AAA leaderboard by ERA; offer $1 for each guy starting at the top.”
Beane’s always coming up with crazy new shit… with his Moneyball and stuff.
So this article had no mention of Mills’ opt-out clause, no mention of Mills’ performance in the minors and no mention of Pomeranz’ fractured hand?
It did have a fine helping of snark, however….
Absolutely, the $1 price here is all about Mills’ leverage and Milwaukee’s incentives, and actually has little to do with replacement level. If he’d been tied to Milwaukee the price of the trade would have been non-negligible.
The fact that Mills has spent the last few years in AAA with occasional MLB appearances is what actually indicates that he does indeed exemplify replacement level.
They overpaid.
Mills is having an excellent campaign so far in 2014, but his numbers for the rest of his career are from mediocre to bad (as a major leaguer). I have him projected at 17% worse than league average in run prevention as a starter, which is not terrible – actually a little better than replacement level.
As someone who’s blood is roughly 85% coffee at this point, trust me on this: You cannot get a cup of gas station coffee for one dollar. With tax, anywhere from $1.73 to $2.06.
Iced coffee is more expensive – I think Dave was talking about hot coffee.
Unless you’re talking about hot coffee also, in which case your user name would be “Cold Puddle Of Caffeinated Water” instead of “Snowman” 😉
note: coffee prices have been soaring lately. If Dave had been getting his coffee at McDonalds (btw above average even before accounting for price) it was $1 until just recently. He may have made the leap to assume gas station coffee had to be cheaper.
Then you clearly need to move to the northeast. All sizes of hot coffee at Cumberland Farms just 99 cents!
I recently drove from the LA area to the Cincinnati area. All gas stations and many restaurants offered coffee to go for $1 or $1.50 all across the country.
The unique opt-out clause would be a explanation. Thank you.
When I think “replacement-level pitcher” in June, I am thinking of a 26 year old starter who is striking out 7/9IP and walking 3/9IP and has an ERA of about 3.5 to 4 in a fairly neutral AAA situation. The kind of pitcher who if you put in the rotation, you figure might give you some starts with an ERA of around 5 if you have a couple of openings due to injury. Mills might do that, but given what he has done in triple A this year, he has more value than the typical “replacement-level” pitcher.
Toronto Blue Jays: Top 10 Prospects by Marc Hulet – January 29, 2010
Just point me this way the next time I get excited about prospects.
Something else this deal reinforces is how much (misguided?) faith the Brewers have in Wei-Chung Wang, who probably should’ve just been cut in favor of promoting Mills. Instead they give Mills away for nothing so they can keep sending Wang out there once a week to get shelled.
See, fWAR “needs” to be able to equate the best second baseman in AAA to the best AAA starting pitcher.
Regret, bell curves of respective athletic abilities and respective scarcity don’t line up easily or well.
==
Bad Samermetrics: Once a pitching stat bears a strong correlation to the strikeout “K” stat, it is really just another version of the K stat.