What’s Happened to Teams That Traded for Aces?
The All-Star Game is behind us, which means everyone now is paying attention to the coming trade deadline. The appeal, I think, is about two things: One, we’re just engineered to crave roster change. Two, we’re led to believe this is when winners are made. Or at least, this is when winners do something that puts them over the hump; and this is when losers can try to collect prospects. For the next week and a half, the trade deadline will be the most important thing. Regardless of whether it deserves that status, this is the annual routine. Right now, it’s all about possible moves.
Related to that, Bob Nightengale caused a stir with his report that the Detroit Tigers might sell — and might therefore sell David Price. It’s significant not just because the Tigers don’t usually sell, but also because Price is an ace, and available aces are diamonds every July. Consensus is that there’s no sexier addition than a No. 1 starter, which is why there’s also so much attention on Johnny Cueto and Cole Hamels. And Jeff Samardzija and James Shields, and so on. The idea is that a front-line starter becomes even more valuable in the playoffs. And people are inclined to believe that, in the playoffs, pitching is what matters most. So this time of year, the supposedly most desirable pieces are the best and most durable arms.
This calls for a simple analysis. Actually, this calls for a very deep and thorough analysis, but I’m not very good at those. A simple analysis is the fallback. Front-line starters have been traded midseason before. What’s happened with the teams that got them?
I already warned you this would be simple. I examined the 20-year window between 1995 and 2014, covering the Division Series era. I found all the starters who pitched for multiple teams, and then, as a judgment call, I decided on my front-line-starter group. For each pitcher, I multiplied his FIP- by 2, I added his ERA- and I divided by 3. I then put the cutoff at 85 — roughly 15% better than league average. I know it’s arbitrary, but a line had to go somewhere, and this method captures all the good arms.
Ideally, I would’ve separated the pitchers by how they were projected at the moment they were traded. I couldn’t do that, so this is a proxy. Once I had the pitchers, it was just a matter of looking at the teams to which they were dealt. The graph below shows how those seasons ended. These are seasons in which the team added a front-line starting pitcher in June or July. All the teams, at the time of the moves, were competitive.
Data:
Through this method, I found 22 trades that were made by 21 teams. If that’s a little confusing, it’s because last year’s Oakland Athletics added front-line starters in two separate deals — adding Jeff Samardzija and then Jon Lester. I don’t want to bias by double-counting. Of the 21 teams that added good starters, 17 advanced beyond the end of the regular season. Two were eliminated in single-game eliminations. Nine were eliminated in the division series. Four were eliminated in the championship series. Two lost the World Series. Which means that none of the teams actually won the World Series.
It’s not that World Series-winning teams haven’t added starting pitchers. Last year’s Giants swung a midseason trade for Jake Peavy. But Peavy wound up with a below-average FIP and an average ERA. When championship teams have added starters, they’ve been of the second- and third-tier varieties. The teams adding the big guys have made some noise, but of late they haven’t hoisted a trophy.
When you’re selling a front-line starter, you’re selling the idea that said starter could carry a team through October. Look at what Madison Bumgarner just did. It’s an appealing thought, and it’s founded in truth. But you can look at last season for counter-evidence. Neither Samardzija nor Lester could save the A’s, which lost a one-game playoff in which Lester got the ball. After the Tigers added David Price, they went on to get swept in the first round. Go back further: The Angels missed the playoffs entirely despite picking up Zack Greinke. Two years in a row, Cliff Lee joined a series-bound team and lost. Maybe the ultimate addition was Randy Johnson to the Houston Astros, in 1998. Houston lost the NLDS, 3-1.
The point isn’t that it’s senseless to add a good starter. That would be a stupid point. Good players are good and good players help. The point also isn’t that you can’t win a World Series if you trade for a good starter. That would be an even stupider point. Additions shift the probabilities. It’s all about the probabilities. And, hey, Curt Schilling won the World Series with Arizona, the year after getting traded there midseason. There’s no reason why a good pitcher wouldn’t be awesome to have, and there’s no reason why the good pitchers available today couldn’t help teams in the market for arms.
But it’s also important to be realistic about the significance of a midseason addition. It’s important to be realistic about a team’s chances of winning it all, even given a postseason berth. A whole lot of teams play in October, and they’re all pretty good. One player can mean only so much. So you can understand why front offices hold on tightly to their prospects, even when they have a shot at a title. After all, those prospects could be a part of several shots in the future. Exchanging them now could mean a couple percentage points. No trade is ever about locking up a World Series. Such certainty could never exist.
As a seller, you want to push the idea of the ace who puts a team on his back. More realistically, you’d want to push the idea of the ace who simply helps a team to the playoffs. But it’s not on the salespeople to be realistic, I suppose. It’s the buyers that most need to be informed.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
As you mentioned in the case of Curt Schilling, the greater benefit could actually come the following year after the acquisition (assuming it wasn’t just a free-agent-to-be rental). Could you do a follow-up analysis on the aces that remained with the team and their playoff success for the following couple years?
There’s not enough data to prove it at this point, but intuitively speaking, the one game wild card playoff increases the value of adding an Ace. I’d love to see these numbers again in 10-15 years.
Not if the ultimate goal is to win the world series or even the LDS. Before the WC game, the Ace would be used in Games 1 and 5 of the LDS. Now the Ace has to be burned in the WC game just to get into the LDS and can only pitch in game 3.
But over half the time there isn’t a Game 5 of the LDS.
And over half the time you make the playoffs (6/10), you won’t even be in the wild card game. The point is to maximize the probabilities. Last year notwithstanding, playing in the wild card game and burning your ace is a disadvantage.
You’re missing the original point that having that ace greatly helps you get past the Wild Card game in the first place, either by shutting down the other team in that game or helping the team win the division (or alternately just making the playoffs as a Wild Card). Who cares if your ace is rested for the LDS if you never get to play in it in the first place?
Yes, but if a team adds a significantly better #2 starter who would then pitch Game 1, and 5 if needed, they still increase their odds, no?
Yes of course but that doesn’t have anything to do with the WC game. The premise that adding a good pitcher is a good thing is obvious. The premise that adding a good pitcher is better in the 2 WC era is what I am discussing.
While its true you only get the upgrade for one possible game in the DS, you get ONLY that pitcher in the round before it. So this upgrade’s effect is magnified on the 1 game series. Basically, its easier for this improvement to effect the outcome of the series if he’s the only guy pitching. And in this WC era you KNOW he’s going to pitch twice (the WC game and if you advance in game 3 of the DS). However in the old set up, he still might only pitch in one game of the DS.
I stop short of doing the math, but just thinking about the set up sure makes the solution seem obvious.
So basically you are saying you would rather have to win 4 of 6 games with your ace pitching twice than 3 of 5 with your ace pitching once or twice. Scenario 2 is greatly preferred especially when scenario 1 includes an automatic disqualification if you lose the first game
Ok I couldn’t resist I did the math. Here are my assumptions about each starters win probability based on their spot in the rotation:
#1: .55
#2: .525
#3: .5
#4: .475
#5: .45
Now, I’ll take into account the #1 vs #4 effect by doing (.55/.475)*.5 = .578, etc.
So, given the match ups and a natural disadvantage in the DS due to only throwing the .55 pitcher once, a WC team has a .24 chance of advancing past the DS.
But lets say you trade for the mega-ace, who gives you a .575 chance at victory in the game he pitches and he bumps the .475 guy out of the rotation. Now you have a .27 chance of advancing past the DS. In relative terms, you just increased your odds of moving past the DS round by a factor of 1.125.
Now in the pre-WC format, you went from .5 chance of advancing to about a .5385 chance. The absolute magnitude of your change is a little greater, 3.85% vs 3%, but the relative amount is much lower, at fold increase of 1.077.
Also what’s ignored here, is that by acquiring this mega-ace, you’re probably adding ~2 wins to your regular season total (assuming the #5 starter is basically replacement level and you’re replacing him with a 4-6 WAR pitcher). Shifting your odds of even being a WC team in the first place. And that is likely the biggest benefit from acquiring the mega-ace in the 2 WC era. Under these assumptions, if your chances of staying out of the playoffs, making the WC, and winning the division go from say 33-33-33, respectively, to just 27-30-43 then your total chances of advancing past the DS (with the same rotational match up model as above) go from 24% to 30.4%, a 6.4% increase. In the pre-WC era, we’d have fudge the numbers a little, because your chances of making the WC would go down due to having just one spot, but winning the division stays the same, getting the WC is basically the same as winning the division so maybe: 50-16.5-33.5 to 42-15-43, which is really just 50-50 into the DS vs 58% to the DS. Then, you’re roughly going from 25% chance to advance (50-50 to make playoffs then 50-50 to win DS was the starting point), to a 31.2% chance to advance, a 6.2% increase.
Now assumptions matter a lot in that last part. Swing those miss-the-playoff/get-the-WC/win-the-division odds around a little different and things could change. But I do think there is a small added benefit to adding this mega-ace in the 2 WC era verses the pre-2 WC area.
The Wild card game is much higher leverage than those games in the LDS.
If you’re looking forward, you also have to take into account that using your ace in game 3 of the LDS means you can use him 3 times in the LCS.
Old system:
LDS: 2 uses
LCS: 2 uses max (if the last series went to 5)
WS: 3 uses max (if the last series went to 7)
New system:
WCG: 1 use
LDS: 1 use max
LCS: 3 uses max
WS: 2 uses max (If LCS goes to 7)
7 cracks max either way
Managers will rarely ever start their ace for three World Series games either way these days, as it usually requires he be brought back on short rest twice in a row. Bumgarner did pitch in three World Series games last year, but the last one was a relief appearance on two days rest. I believe the last pitcher to start three of them was Chris Carpenter for the 2011 Cardinals, who started Games 1, 5, & 7, thanks to an extra day of rest due to rain created between Games 5 & 6.
Look at Bumgarner last season, he pitched the WC game, but then managed to pitch 2 full games in the WS, and rather unlike most other pitchers, was able to pitch in game 7 as well, so across the whole postseason, I think it ends up working out.
Your research methodology…
Another way to look at this is that trading for an ace increases your probability of making the playoffs by 143%!
I hereby dub what will forever be known as Sullivan’s Law: You can’t win a World Series if you trade for a good starter. Like the ex-Cubs factor, forever shall Jeff Sullivan’s name be associated with this iron-law of physics. Go forth and tell everyone that Jeff Sullivan predicts that at no point ever will a team ever win a World Series if they trade for a good starter. Sullivan’s law forever.
How much of this analysis can be explained by the teams that won the world series in these seasons already had an ace so didn’t trade for them at the deadline? Teams that are in the race but don’t have an ace are really making the trade to make the playoffs. The trade doesn’t generally make them the best team but rather closes the gap between them and the solid teams that already have an ace.
Was gonna mention this- maybe we’re selecting for teams that aren’t that great in the first place, otherwise they wouldn’t need such a splashy addition.
Or maybe the playoffs really are just a crapshoot.
or in the case of the giants this season, adding Price, say, would be as a #2, not a #1 even though he’s ace quality. I dont think thats necessarily accounted for here.
Off-Topic, but an article that I would really enjoy reading would be assessing the trade value of Starlin Castro and seeing what potential deals there might be. He’s been so erratic these past few years that it would seem hard to pin down his value, but I have to think a front office that traded Nomar in the midst of an ultimately successful pennant race has to be thinking of doing something similar here. Admittedly, I have no clue and I’m sure this value is way off but here’s two deals that I’ve been wondering about:
Starlin Castro for Ben Zobrist (Cubs trade potential future surplus value to A’s for a strong improvement in ’15)
Castro & Edwin Jackson (DFA) for James Shields & Will Venable (A SS for the Padres and relief from Shields high $$ deal, Cubs get starter they want and balance it by getting out from under Jackson’s contract for ’15-’16)
Castro’ trade value has gotta be low. If he’s being traded at this point, it’s a team looking to Snag a buy low candidatE and they’re probably not willing to give up anything good with any significant years of control over half a season.
tough to say he is a buy-low as opposed to just buying what he is. He had negative WAR in 2013, followed by a good but not great 2.7 in 2014. He is on pace for negative again this year. That is dragged down by a low BABIP, but also a declining BB%. He seems to be right now a pretty average real life shortstop. He may be valued somewhat higher than that given the promise he showed in his youth, but it would be far from the first time a young, promising shortstop never lived up to the promise he showed when he first came up (two examples that pop to mind right away are Yunel Escobar and E Andrus).
Someone on that Cub team has to pay for Bryant, Soler, and Russell’s BABIPs. Poor Starlin.
He strikes me (total gut feeling here so totally scientific fact) as a guy who will be given up on before eventually figuring it out, adding a bit of power and becoming a very solid middle of the pack ss. With the occasional all star year again.
Don’t know why but he just gives the vibe of somebody id e loathe to write off completely.
Of course his value is nearing salary dump at this point. But i think he has his best years in his early thirties.
On the Cubs infield extra problem; would the they be better off keeping all of their infielders, and not trading any? If they keep them all, who plays where? Who would make the best super-utility regular player, Baez, Russell, or Castro? Could Baez or Castro be moved to CF in the offseason, and which one would make more sense there?
Castro has no trade value in my opinion, and it gets worse the more he plays it seems. I think Beaz ends up the better player in the near future. I would like to see Castro or Beaz moved to CF. Preferably Castro, with Beaz taking over at SS and Russell at 2B, but those two could flip-flop according to the teams view of them.
You are beyond delusional. Why would Billy Beane trade for Starlin? That trade makes 0 sense.
I don’t even understand where Zobrist fits? Is he playing OF?Because they already have Coghlan/Soler/Fowler. Is he playing 2B? I guess Russell would move to SS if Castro gets traded.
No way Beane takes on that contract. He trades guys before they’ve already signed.
Also, why would the Padres trade for Edwin Jackson for a “little salary relief?” Are you kidding me? After the Cubs just cut him? Why wouldn’t they just wait til he absolutely clears waivers and then claim him IF THEY EVEN REALLY WANTED HIM?
Also, the Padres don’t need a lousy defense shortstop that can’t hit. They already have two (Barmes and Amarista).
You must have missed where I said “admittedly I have no clue”
The Cubs do have money, right? Most of their position players are under friendly contracts due to being very young, correct? Would they not be better served in just eating much of Castro’s contract if it would allow them to receive something of good value in return? I would not just get rid of Castro, as he is still a pretty decent player, but I think I would be willing to eat a good portion of his contract if a team were willing to trade a good piece for a discounted Castro.
Why didn’t you count Boston getting Peavy in 2013, and then winning the World Series?
Jake Peavy was nothing resembling an ace in 2013.
He was an average starting pitcher
Was Freddy Garcia an ace? If so, Sox got him in 2004 midseason then won it all in 2005 where he was a key player, ala Schilling.
Yeah, he showed up in the research in 2004. The Sox won it all a year later, although Garcia had been headed for free agency, and Chicago signed him to an extension.
I totally agree with this article. I’m a Detroit Tigers fan and have argued this many times in the past. Here’s the one big issue though IMO:
Most fan bases eventually want more. Going to the playoffs a couple years in a row and having nothing to show for it isn’t enough (i.e- Detroit, Oakland) and so the “all in” push is what most believe a team is suppose to do next. I get the feeling that the GM senses this also and becomes desperate to do whatever it takes to get “the ring”.
It infuriates me when I read Tigers fans (and I read this daily) call these past 4 (or 9) years a failure. The Tigers owned the top record in all of MLB from 2011-2014. Is that a failure? I say not at all and despite not winning it all I couldn’t be more happy with how much fun and exciting the summers have been over the last decade. I still remember those awful years of the 90’s and early 00’s. There’s nothing worse to me than when your team is out of the playoff race on Memorial Day weekend.
The playoffs in MLB are a big crapshoot especially when compared to all other major sports Obviously every team’s goal is to win the WS but at what price (sorry David, but no pun intended) is the real question? Are you okay with your GM not doing everything it takes to win it all when he has the chance?
I’m with you here Jeff and believe the upside of trading for an ace isn’t worth the risk of giving up all that younger talent that you can use or trade in the off-season to keep building a solid playoff team.
Perhaps, but if you do manage to win it all, I think most fans would be happy with mortgaging the farm and the future to do so. After all, flags fly forever.
The real issue is that you don’t want to give up your shot at reaching the playoffs several years in a row with one huge push now, because then you have a higher chance that one of those playoff trips will win the title and possibly even more than one.
“One, we’re just engineered to crave roster change.”
I don’t know about this. I actually find roster change one of the biggest turn-offs to professional sports. The World Cup is great because of the lack of roster change – your favorite players can’t suddenly be traded. Though they can still get left off the roster, but still.
With pro sports, the team is constantly shifting and you soon realize that the only constant is the laundry which makes for a pretty hollow experience.
I guess, overall, humans love familiarity (c.f. the mere familiarity principle) and fear change so I’m really not so sure about the idea that people love roster change.
The World Cup is NOT great. Because soccer.
Clearly hundreds of millions of people around the world concur.
Soccer really is a wonderful sport requiring supreme athleticism and creativity. It is also fantastic in that it requires almost nothing to play. I have the good fortune of having to travel to many very obscure parts of the world for my work, and almost everywhere you go in the world you can find kids playing soccer. In the poorer parts of the world the ball will be made from rags, or more commonly plastic bags stuffed into a webbing of string. Whether played with plastic bags in a patch of dirt, or with a proper football on a grass pitch, the game is always great. Soccer will probably always be the world’s most beloved game.
Actually ironically baseball seems to have the most stable rosters in American major sports now.
Owners have gotten Mac length contracts out of every other union.
And i agree. I’m extremely radical politically economically and lifestyle wise yet incredibly conservative financially and assets turnover.
I’m a bird in hand guy.
As a Yankees fan I’m perfectly pickled with the constant contention. Especially as a kid born in 1974. I recall what non contention is like.
The offseason is for major acquisitions. The deadline is for tweaks.
And paying a heavy price for rentals kills me.
A acquire a better sixth and seventh starter to prevent severino being called up. Get a right handed hitter to replace Ryan. Maybe get another late inning arm. Otherwise I’m good.
Maybe Hamel’s because you get 3 years.
But even that id rather have judge severino and FA pitcher x than just Hamel’s
“The World Cup is great”
lol
What about if you extrapolate the data to offseason trades of aces? Is there any difference?
I know the Mets traded for Mike Hampton in 2000, and then promptly made the WS.
It’s outside your range, but on August 27, 1992, the Mets sent David Cone to the Blue Jays for Jeff Kent. Worked out okay, I think.
Nice. That was a massive upgrade and turned the jays from great team to, in my opinion, one of the greatest teams ever and one that is now forgotten as an all time team.
The bullpen was ludicrous on those teams and the rotations were just deflating.
And they constantly cycled veteran bats through to keep the offense powerful while playing great defense.
Devon white man. Wow did i hate Devon white. That guy drove me crazy as a yankees fan
Granted Peavy wasn’t an ace the times he was traded, but at least he was an ex-ace. That’s a whole lot more than can be said for Samardzija, who’s simply a perpetually promising run-of-the-mill starter.
I agree. Samardzija is a below .500 level pitcher for his career, has never won double-digit games in a season, and after 8 seasons has an era+ of 101. Hardly an ace, and not a #2 either.
But at the time he was traded, he was pitching like an Ace/at an elite level as his ERA- of 80 shows. That’s the point of his article and the guidelines used to determine how useful these types of moves are to winning world series.
And you’re seriously going argue ace/elite pitching status by quoting his # of wins and win percentage on a sabermetric site?
Or put another way, teams that traded for aces generally increased or solidified their chances of getting into the postseason, at which point the general principle that “the postseason is a crapshoot” correctly overrides most any other theory or trend.
Would be interesting to see what type of impact trading for mediocre players brings. It might be that going for the ace is a very solid strategy compared to trading for lesser players or standing pat.
Or maybe the opposite, that the money could be better spent elsewhere: on a non-ace but still good arm or a position player…
Kind of a survivor’s bias here, right? The teams that made the playoffs were probably going to make thee playoffs anyway, given how teams’ records by mid-July tend to pretty well reflect their end of season records.
It’d be interesting to see how the bubble teams did when they pulled a trade
Agreed. Not sure what aggregating the numbers does here without other context. I know this was an admittedly “simple” response, but Sullivan’s best pieces are when he dives into the numbers.
For example, Lee for the 2009 Phils was pretty crucial to them getting to the WS, and he was the only decent pitcher against the Yankees. I think looking at this anecdotaly (word?) is more informative than a graph (wrong site, I know!).
Sabathia in 2008 comes to mind too
I really don´t see what these numbers are supposed to say.
What were those teams´ postseason / WS chances prior to the trade ?
By how much did their end-of-season record differ from their projected record at the time of the trade ?
In what ways did these teams trade stategies differ from their competitors ?
This article is worthless without context. A lot of teams that traded for expensive pitchers made it to the postseason. But what was the effect of those pitchers ? How much WAR did they contribute ? How much did the acquiring teams enhance their chances compared to teams in similar situations that did not trade for an ace ?
I wonder what the relative value a star-caliber hitter provides compared to an ace-level pitcher. It seems like there are more stories of hitters providing a big boost in the playoffs than pitchers.
Let’s test whether aces actually matter by looking how teams in the playoffs fared if you were to rank their top, top 2, and top 3 based on their seasonal WAR. My guess is it doesn’t matter, especially not in the divisional era (Braves, Phillies, Dodgers)
Very interesting stuff. With the level of volatility in performance after you make the playoffs, i think it’s interesting to look at the finding that 17/21 teams that traded for an ace made the playoffs. I’d expect that number to be even higher with the expanded playoffs as the “first team out” in any of those years would now be in the playoffs. On the other hand, it could lead to more teams trading for aces and missing the playoffs.
The one question i’d ask is if you took the average place in the standings (games out of first, games out of the playoffs) for those 21 teams and looked at the aggregate performance of all teams in that position at the time of the trade deadline, would the 80% “success rate” (making the playoffs) be about the same? Higher? I wish I were set up to run those numbers on my own. Might be an interesting follow up.
My big question would be how many games did the teams improve/drop by? So if a 500 team added an ace did they get to 5 games over, or the reverse is Oakland last year (ugh).
So many words. Just so many…
How did well did the aces pitch after they were traded? My impression is that some pitchers have trouble adjusting to a new team and/or league, though I don’t know if the data supports that. There’s also regression to the mean.
I also wonder if teams that are willing to trade star pitchers are less confident in them than those teams that re-sign their aces. This also fits into the general theory that star players that re-sign with their current teams perform better than those who leave for free agency.
It would be interesting to see the pitchers stats before and after (adjusted) the trade. Obviously the duration of time, and number of innings would be less than the pre trade values but it may tell us something about their contribution to the team.
Still, this wouldn’t tell us very much about the team. It is possible the team most desperate for ace pitching (at least enough to mortgage the future) may be running on fumes (or short on remaining luck) after a great start. I recall Beane saying something to this effect after trading for two aces.
What about Denny Neagle? He got traded twice midseason to teams that would eventually be in the World Series. Granted, he might not have been ace material on those Braves and Yankees teams he was traded to, but he certainly was a number 1 on the Pirates and Reds teams he came from.
Damn you, Kevin Brown.