Twins Extend Blackburn
The Twins signed Nick Blackburn to a four year contract worth 14 million dollars on Sunday. The contract covers Blackburn’s final pre-arbitration season, all of his arbitration seasons, and also contains an $8 million option for 2014, Blackburn’s first free agent season.
Blackburn has been a quietly productive pitcher for the Twins over the last two seasons, compiling 5.5 WAR, a big boost to a rotation which had just seen Johan Santana leave via trade and Francisco Liriano struggle with injuries and ineffectiveness. This effectiveness has come despite poor peripheral stats – fewer than 4.5 K/9 and over 1 HR/9 are generally not signs of MLB quality pitchers. However, Blackburn has managed due to his spectacular control – a career walk rate below 2 BB/9, keeping his K/BB ratio to a respectable 2.5 level for his career.
Blackburn is a ground ball heavy pitcher, which may account for his ERA outperforming his FIP by about 0.40 runs each of the last two years. Regardless, his 4.39 career FIP makes him a roughly average starting pitcher, the kind of guy who can expect a two-year, $16MM deal, or even a three-year, nearly $30MM deal.
As this deal is covering 1.8 effective free agent seasons (based on the 40/60/80 scheme of arbitration payouts), this deal values Blackburn similarly to Joel Piniero, a very fair comparison according to CHONE projections. If Blackburn’s performance remains at its current level, this contract will likely have a very similar payout to any arbitration rewards he would have received, and avoids the hassle and emotional turmoil of hearings for three years.
Hopefully, the baseball market (and overall economy) will be on the rise by 2014, the year of Blackburn’s option. By then, the cost per marginal win will likely be closer to $5MM or more, making Blackburn’s $8MM option attractive if he can maintain his production. He will, however, be 32 by that point, meaning his peak will likely have passed. With the team option, the Twins cannot lose – either Blackburn is gone with little cost, or they pick up another cheap year of a productive pitcher.
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This deal is extra good, because as Dave Cameron (correctly) noted, the Twins infield defense, with our without Nick Punto eating alot of innings, is *vastly* superior to the Twins outfield defense, and the Twins should be quite happy to sign ground ball pitchers, especially in the short to mid term.
This also explains the ERA being more attractive than the FIP.
Part of me thinks the $ per marginal win curve isn’t going to spike to $5MM for a long time.
This is because a lot of those dollars were paid out to one dimensionals, and now the climate is as much teams valuing players better as the economic downturn.
Ex: Does anyone actually think it was a lack of funds that caused Boston to let Bay walk, or NYY likewise w/ Damon? Or two well-run teams not paying top dollar for decline years?
I’ve asked this before when Blackburn came up: has any other player in history had two seasons as nearly identical statistically as Blackburn’s seasons in 2008-2009? Basically if you tack on an extra dozen innings to his 2008 season, you get his 2009 season, using both standard and advanced metrics. This is mostly just a curiosity, though I guess you can also say it means he’s incredibly reliable.
Yeah, that’s really weird
2008: 11-11, 4.05 ERA, 193 1/3 IP, 10.4 H/9, 2.46 K/BB, 1.360 WHIP, 4.40 FIP, 4.48 xFIP
2009: 11-11, 4.03 ERA, 205 2/3 IP, 10.5 H/9, 2.39 K/BB, 1.366 WHIP, 4.37 FIP, 4.56 xFIP
Talk about your proven commodity.
Cole Hamels, ’08-’09. Seriously.
’08: 7.76 K/9, 2.10 BB/9, 1.11 HR/9, 3.72 FIP
’09: 7.81 K/9, 2.00 BB/9, 1.12 HR/9, 3.72 FIP
He threw about 25 fewer innings in ’09, and his BABIP jumped .055. That’s it. Next time someone talks about what was wrong with Hamels last year, laugh in his/her face.
I actually just wrote about this yesterday. Verducci claimed Hamels as a victim of his Year-After Effect.
Well I think the point was Blackburn’s everything was pretty much the same.
Hamels pitched just as well, but his W-L, ERA weren’t as shiny.
J.A. Happ is about to get the whine treatment, too, as a good amount of Philly fans currently seem to think a 85.8% strand rate is totally maintainable. Once again, though, lots of fanbases are that way
Joe,
The issuen isnt that we expect Happ to post a 2.something era and strand 85% of his numbers, its more that when Keith Law and others scream that he is nothing more than a #5, Phillies fans (the fangraphs reading ones anyway) counter that with a league average FIP, and otherwise slightly below average (and unremarkable profile), that an average pitcher backed by a mostly above average defense (especially in the infield, questionably so in the outfiled with Raul), that Happ is an average pitcher, which would mean a solid #3, which, in reality, is actually quite valuable, especially as a cost controlled player.
And those people aren’t in the wrong; it’s clear Happ has the stuff to be a decent pitcher.
It’s the people who are convinced all those nerds say Happ sucks, and that he’ll win 15+ games and post < 3.00 ERA's routinely.
And honestly, I argue that he's about to get railroaded, Hamels-style, and that's not fair. And who knows, he might win 15 games w/ a 3.00 ERA. He'll have to pull a Jon Lester, though.
Blackburn and Brad Bergesen are an interesting pair. Blackburn averaged 5.6 K/9 and 2.0 BB/9 in the minors, 4.4 and 1.8 in the majors. He also has a 0.8 HR/9 and 1.27 GB/FB rate in the majors.
Bergesen averaged a 5.7 K/9 and 1.6 BB/9 in the minors, 4.7 and 2.3 in the majors. He has a 0.8 HR/9 rate and 1.55 GB/FB rate.
Very few people think Bergesen will continue to be a decent ML pitcher, but Blackburn represents at least some evidence that a pitcher with that profile can succeed in the majors. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if Bergesen and Blackburn reeled off a bunch of seasons with 200 IP and a 95-105 ERA+, which would make them very valuable starters.
Sometimes people get a little carried away with saying Blackburn is a low 90s velocity “sinkerball” pitcher with good control and average at best off-speed stuff and therefore can be compared to players X, Y, and Z that never made it.
I think there are a ton of subtleties to the game, especially for guys that don’t just throw unhittable stuff but rather “pitch” mediocre stuff effectively. Adding and subtracting small amounts of velocity. Making slight adjustments to the grip. Throwing the right pitches in the right counts. Not making the really bad mistakes. Blah blah blah.
Everyone calls Blackburn a sinker ball pitcher and compares him to other guys that feature a two seam fastball in the low 90s. Personally I don’t think that is a good enough comparison. To me, Blackburn is a guy that throws a tailing two seam fastball the majority of the time. He tweaks the velocity and level of break on that pitch a lot as well so even his two seamer can hardly be called “one pitch”. Then he throws a lot of cut fastballs with occasional slow curve. His curveball usage seems to be very random. His changeup was rarely used but they claim he’s improved it this offseason and will use it more.
Who do you compare that to? I’ve heard the Silva comparison but Silva used a more top down sinker pitch than a tailing two seamer. Silva had higher ground ball rates. Blackburn doesn’t even induce that many ground balls really.
In the end Blackburn has #3 type stuff in terms of FIP and ERA. He pitches well above average in total innings which to me gives him some additional value over the average 4.5 FIP / 4 ERA type of player. He’s worth the money and he gets it done his own way but you can’t just call him a low 90s sinkerballer. Unfortunately the game is just more complex than that.
I like Blackburn well enough as an innings-eater, but I think this is pretty clearly the wrong move (though not particularly damaging). He’ll never be good enough to get a huge number in arbitration, so it would have made more sense to take things year to year rather than take on significant risk in exchange for limited upside.
Disagree somewhat on the arbitration front. Arbitration isn’t based on K/9 or FIP. It’s based on basic stats like Wins, ERA, and innings pitched.
Right or wrong, the arbitration process awards players for stats that aren’t necessarily indicative of their true ability. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say Blackburn could easily win 13 or so games this year with another 4.00-ish ERA and ~210 IP.
If he did that, though, he’d receive a healthy raise in arbitration, and likewise for every year he repeats the feat. Take Zach Duke for example. I’d say they’re comparable pitchers, especially their 2009 seasons. However, prior to 2009, coming off a much worse 2008 than Blackburn’s, Duke avoided arb by agreeing to a $2.2M salary. I think it’s fair to say that Blackburn could’ve netted more in his first arb year than that $2.2M. Likewise, Duke’s $4.3M payday this offseason would also probably be eclipsed by Blackburn, due to both a higher first-year arb salaray and a better track record.
I’m not defending the move necessarily, but I’m saying that in a perfect situation for the Twins, Blackburn would stay effective and they’d save a few million because his hypothetical pay jumps would eclipse the predetermined salaries in this extension.
That thinking though, like this extension, banks on Blackburn maintaining consistency. I don’t know that it’s an assumption I’d make on a non-K pitcher like Nick. If he continues to perform at a reasonable level, the Twins will save money, no question. I just don’t know if I’d gamble with $13MM or so to save $5MM long-term. At least not when I’m trying to sign my MVP catcher for the better part of a decade.
I agree that it’s not necessarily a move I’d have made, but disagree with the notion that it doesn’t have cost-saving potential down the road.
I pretty much agree with all you’ve said MorneauVP. My take is basically that I thought it was an unnecessary move. I don’t care for it but its not crippling or terrible. And it has upside. It just seems like making sure Blackburn was locked up shouldn’t have been on their list of priorities right now.