With today's signing of Orlando Hudson by the Padres, we can say that the Adrian Gonzalez trade is finally complete. While Boston didn't ship Hudson to San Diego directly, it is hard to miss the symmetry between the salary that the Padres shed when Gonzalez was traded and the amount of money that they gave Hudson to take over at second base. For all intents and purposes, Hudson is what the Padres were able to buy with the money they saved by moving their star first baseman. While that swap doesn't make the Padres a better team overall, adding Hudson does offset the loss of Gonzalez to a degree. A chronically underrated player, Hudson has been worth an average of +2.5 WAR per 600 PA over his career, and has rarely strayed far from that number, never going lower than +1.2 or higher than +3.7. While he's showing signs of aging as a hitter, Hudson is still a quality starting second baseman, and at $11 million over two years, he's a rare bargain in this inflationary market. Read the rest of this entry » So far this off-season nine relief pitchers have signed a contract of two years or longer. When the Yankees' signing of Pedro Feliciano becomes official that will make 10. We learned yesterday that the two sides were getting closer to a deal, and this morning they agreed on a two-year, $8 million contract that includes a player option for 2013. The Yankees now join the Angels as the only teams to sign more than one reliever to a multi-year deal. In the past three seasons no pitcher has made more appearances than Feliciano, and it's not particularly close. He has entered a game 266 times, and the next closest, Carlos Marmol, has 238. Unsurprisingly, in each of those three seasons he has led the league in appearances. That certainly raises a red flag. That is somewhat mitigated by his status as a lefty specialist. He enters games frequently, but he doesn't pitch for long. In that same three-year period 48 pitchers have thrown more pitches and the same number have faced more batters. He also has never been placed on the disabled list. When he does appear in games he's fairly effective. In 459 career appearances he has a 3.31 ERA, 3.75 FIP, 3.81 xFIP, and 4.06 tERA -- though his tERA has been much lower since his return from Japan in 2006. His strikeout rate is always in the 8 per nine range, though his walks have typically been over 4 per nine. It's no surprise that his finest seasons have come when his walk rate has dipped below 3 per nine. The one mitigating factor there is that a number of those walks are intentional, occurring when the opponent's lineup goes lefty-righty-lefty. That's not to say that the intentional walks don't hurt. They do. But they're a bit easier to stomach if he faces a lefty afterward. A groundball-inducing lefty who can also strike out his share of same-handed batters will fit well with the Yankees. He can handle some of the tougher lefties in the division, including new Bostonians Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford. Two years and $8 million might be a bit of an overpay -- Feliciano's WAR/Dollars figure has never hit $4 million. Then again, 1) WAR might undervalue relievers, and 2) the Yankees aren't on the same pay scale as the rest of the league. With only roughly $185 million on the books for the 2011 season, including projected arbitration raises and reserve clause obligations, they can afford to overpay a few players that can help at the margins. This is a featured article from our fantasy baseball blog: RotoGraphs. Yesterday, Dave Cameron examined the grim history of 3+ year contracts dished out to free agent relievers over the past four off-seasons. The Cliff Notes version? Those 'pen arms, save for the anomaly that is Mariano Rivera, have provided a paltry return on investment for their respective teams. After a few years of fiscal restraint, four relievers have received ample job security from clubs this winter: Joaquin Benoit (Tigers), Scott Downs (Angels), Matt Guerrier (Dodgers), and Jesse Crain (White Sox) all signed three-year contracts. If recent history is any indication, a few of these deals might elicit more forehead slaps than high-fives in front offices over the next three seasons. In contrast to the long-term commitments given by the Tigers, Angels, Dodgers and White Sox, the Cubs and Rays each added a talented reliever for peanuts on Thursday. Kerry Wood will reportedly return to Wrigley Field on a one-year, $1.5 million deal. Joel Peralta, curiously non-tendered by the Nationals after a season in which he posted a 3.02 FIP and a 3.64 xFIP, is on the verge of signing a one-year contract with Tampa Bay for $900,000. Take a look at the 2011 Bill James projections for Wood and Peralta, compared to their much pricier free agent peers: Read the rest of this entry » Episode Fifty-FiveIn which the guest is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a Canadian. HeadlinesThe Life and Times of Navin Vaswani -- Ya Heard! FeaturingNavin Vaswani, Enigmatic Canadian Finally, you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things. Audio on the flip-flop. (Approximately 30 min play time.) Read the rest of this entry » No surprise: player salaries are going up. But they're not going up by much. This week, we learned that baseball's average salary cleared $3 million for the very first time, and the minimum salary rose to $414,000. Craig Calcaterra noticed a helpful AP breakdown of the minimum and average salaries over the past 40 years. Craig's main takeaway is that salaries have risen a lot over the past four decades, and that's true. But an interesting trend emerges in the data: their climb has significantly slowed. Read the rest of this entry »This is a featured article from NotGraphs.
As Dan Shaughnessy or any self-aware electron will you, it pays to go negative. So in keeping with that wisdom, we're going negative in this space and handing out a few "Anti-Awards" for the 2010 season. First, though, something must be said. Even lousy major-league baseball players are better at baseball than I am at anything in the world. Now I feel better. Read the rest of this entry » With the Phillies signing Cliff Lee late Monday night, much of the winter intrigue now shifts to Zack Greinke, the last 'ace' seemingly available this off-season. Reports have surfaced throughout the off-season suggesting that: a) Greinke is not happy in Kansas City and b) the Royals are 'actively gauging' the level of interest in the right-hander. Add in the fact that every team in baseball could use an ace starter (ok, maybe not the Phillies) and it's hard to see Greinke wearing Royal blue come opening day. One of the more interesting things about the Greinke rumors is how the Royals are treating the issue of whether to move the starter within the AL Central. First indications were that the Royals were opposed to trading Greinke within the division, but they seemed to have softened their stance of late. The issue is relevant not only because the Twins are rumored to have interest in the right-hander, but also because it provides an opportunity to discuss why I believe teams should look to trade within their own division. Read the rest of this entry » While we've seen prices going up for free agents across the board, nowhere has the inflationary market been more clear than in the bullpen. After Joaquin Benoit set the market by landing a three year contrat with Detroit, teams have felt obligated to match the length of that deal in order to get the guys perceived to be the best bullpen arms on the market. Scott Downs, Matt Guerrier, and now Jesse Crain have all landed three year deals since Benoit signed, and Rafael Soriano is widely expected to get a deal of at least three years as well. After several years of restraint, teams have found themselves spending on the bullpen like its 2006. Unfortunately for the teams with the open wallets, recent history suggests that giving contracts of 3+ years to a relief pitcher is generally a terrible idea. Here's a list of free agent relievers who have received deals for three or more years since over the last four off-seasons. Read the rest of this entry » There is still one significant procedural hurdle between Rich Harden and his next contract - supposedly with the Athletics for a $1.5 million base salary with $1.5 million in incentives. Like all players, Harden still has to pass his physical, but unlike most, he may be on pins and needles as he waits for the results. Assuming he does pass the test, Harden is still a decent gamble at that price (especially with the option of moving to the pen already in place), but he's more of a gamble every year. He's probably only failed to be worth $3 million in two years of his career, despite never once crossing the 200-inning threshold (or, since 2005, even the 150-inning threshold). As we have touched here in many different ways, value can be informed by a mix of excellence and durability, and though Harden had bushels of one, he lacked the other. By keeping his strikeout rate in the double digits and pitching around 140 innings per season, he seemed to have settled into a strange role - an excellent sixth starter that could not be relied upon for a full season. Just for fun, here's his DL history per Corey Dawkin's injury tool. It shows nine official trips to the DL (and six day-to-day stints, one of which lasted 38 days) in his seven-year career. Read the rest of this entry » Earlier this week, the Pittsburgh Pirates signed free agent first baseman Lyle Overbay to a one-year, $5 million contract. Overbay's addition moves Garrett Jones to right field to platoon with Matt Diaz, another free agent pick-up. And, with Chris Snyder set to start behind the plate, the Overbay signing further diminishes Ryan Doumit's role with the Pirates. Considering that Doumit's $5.1 million salary makes him the second-highest paid player on the team (Snyder technically makes more at $5.75 million, but the Bucs got $3 million from Arizona last July to cover a portion of his contract), it's highly unlikely that he opens the 2011 season in Pittsburgh. But, if and when the Pirates do find a trade partner, they won't obtain much more than salary relief. Read the rest of this entry » Sad news tonight as Bob Feller has passed away at the age of 92. Others will undoubtedly share fond stories and memories of Feller the human being, but here’s the statistical spin on one of the game’s greatest pitchers. During Feller’s 18 season career – interrupted for the 1942-1944 seasons due to his military commitments – he tossed 3,827 innings while striking out 6.33 batters per nine innings. A modest rate in today’s league, but back then, Feller’s ratio led pitchers with at least 1,000 innings pitched, and finished third among pitchers with at least 500 innings pitched – with Vinegar Bend Mizell and Harvey Haddix topping him by under a batter per inning pitched. He led the American League in Wins Above Replacement two times (1939 and 1940) and finished 128th overall for his career with more than 63. He finished first or second in American League Pitcher WAR six times – every season from 1938 through 1941, and upon his return 1946 and 1947. The league’s strikeout (counting) from 1938-1941 and 1946-1948; Feller’s career 2,581 strikeouts rank 26th overall even today. Feller was the youngest player going in the American League during the 1936 and 1937 seasons (he was 17 and 18), and the ninth oldest in 1956 (he was 37). A lifelong member of the Cleveland Indians, Feller finished in the top five of MVP voting four times; he won 266 games; pitched well enough to amass a career ERA of 3.25 and a career FIP of 3.48 and entered the Hall of Fame in 1962. All of this to say that Feller knew how to throw a baseball by batters in a more powerful and cunning manner than most pitchers who have entertained this game. Losing a loved one during the holiday season is an unenviable reality of life for the folks around Feller tonight. Please keep those people in your thoughts during their time of mourning. I am constantly amazed by the power of most recent season ERA. It seems to drive the perception of a pitcher's worth more than any other statistic, to the point where it often appears to be the only thing under consideration. In the last few days, we've seen yet another example, as two very similar pitchers have had their market value talked about in two very different ways. Let's start with their career numbers. Pitcher A: 2.51 BB/9, 5.82 K/9, 1.02 HR/9, 43.7% GB%, 4.21 FIP, 4.30 ERA Pitcher B: 2.26 BB/9, 5.72 K/9, 1.01 HR/9, 46.0% GB%, 4.15 FIP, 4.34 ERA Pretty similar, yes? They're basically the same type of pitcher with similar stuff and approaches to pitching. Pitcher A is five years younger and has been healthy almost his entire career. Pitcher B has a long injury history and has spent a good chunk of his career on the disabled list. Which one would you prefer? Read the rest of this entry » The discussion from my last post about MVP and Cy Young voting, there were a few good suggestions to improve the analysis, so I decided to go back and revisit the data. I’m going to give the baseball writers the benefit of the doubt, try some different methodology, and see if I can find any evidence that they are doing a better job at filling out their awards ballots today than they were ten years ago. Read the rest of this entry »In a continuation of the free-agency bonanza for players in general and relievers in particular, Matt Guerrier is reportedly going to be signing a three-year, $12 million dollar contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Three years for a middle reliever in his thirties seems to be a bit much, but in the case of Guerrier, what is particularly interesting is the great difference between his defense-independent pitching statistics and his ERA/RA. Read the rest of this entry »While Lee’s deal is certainly large, when it was first announced, it slightly surprised me that it wasn’t a lot larger. Given the lack of other elite pitching talent this offseason, the seller’s market so far and the known interest from the Yankees and the recently flush Rangers, Cliff Lee getting a record-setting contract for a pitcher would not have surprised me. The reports of Lee leaving $50 million on the table made Philadelphia’s offer seem almost small though. Read the rest of this entry » This off-season we've seen 13 catchers sign major league deals -- 14 if we count Victor Martinez among them. For the most part these deals were modest in nature, between $3 and $5 million per season for a short span. The exception is John Buck, who signed a three-year, $18 million contract early in the free agency season. While the initial reaction pegged it as a poor deal, there was a chance that the deal could look a bit better once the rest of the off-season unfolded. A month later, it appears to be the opposite. Read the rest of this entry » |
